PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, 291 



and elsewhere, was that of the Library faction, which prosecuted 

 with remarkable zeal and energ}', threatened l)y the acknowledged 

 ability of its leading advocates to control the action of the 

 Regents, even to the neglect and abandonment of all the other 

 interests indicated by the statute. In Henry's judgment the In- 

 stitution should possess simply a working library,* an auxiliary 

 for those engaged in scientific research, a repertory well supplied 

 with the published Proceedings and Transactions of learned 

 Societies, but which so far from aiming at an encyclopaedic or a 

 literary character, should be mainly supplementary to the large 

 National Library already established at the Capital. " The 

 idea ought never to be entertained that the portion of the limited 

 income of the Smithsonian fund which can be devoted to the 

 purchase of books will ever be sufficient to meet the wants of 

 the American scholar. On the contrary it is the duty of this 

 Institution to increase those wants by pointing out new fields for 

 exploration, and by stimulating other researches than those which 

 are now cultivated. It is a part of that duty to make the value 

 of libraries more genci^ally known, and their want in this country 

 more generally felt."f 



Processes of Divestment. — Henry's declaration that the mode- 

 rate means at command were insufficient to support worthily 

 either a Library, or a Museum, alone, was early justified. The 

 Library though slowly formed of only really valuable scientific 

 works, and this largely by exchanges with the Smithsonian publi- 

 cations,! in the course of a dozen years amounted to about 

 50,000 volumes : and the annual cost of binding, superinten- 

 dence, and the constant enlargement of room and of cases, was 

 becoming a serious tax upon the resources of the Institution. The 

 propriety of transferring the custody of this valuable and rapidly 

 increasing collection to the National Library established by 

 Congress, was repeatedly urged upon the attention of that body: 



* To carry on the operations of tlie first section a working library will 

 be required, consisting of the past volumes of tlie transactions and pro- 

 ceedings of all the learned societies in every language. These are the 

 original sources from which the most important principles of the positive 

 knowledge of our day have been drawn." {Smithsonian Report for 1847, p. 

 139, of Sen. ed.: p. 131, of H. Rep. ed.) 



t Smithsonian Report for 1858, p. 224, (of Sen. ed.) p. 216, (of H. Rep. 

 ed.) 



i " It is the intention of tlie Regents to render the Smithsonian library 

 the most extensive and perfect collection of Transactions and scientific 

 works in tliis country, and this it will be enabled to accomplish by means 

 of its exchanges, wliich will furnish it with all the current journals and 

 publications of societies, while the separate series may be completed in 

 due time as opportunity and means may olfer. The Institution has al- 

 ready more complete sets of Transactions of learned societies than are to 

 be fo"und in the oldest libraries in the United States." {Smithsonian Re 

 port for 1855, p. 29.) 



65 



