JOSEPH HENRY 135 



to the collection of a library, he did not consider it as increasing 

 knowledge or contributing to that wide diffusion of it which Smith- 

 son provided for. True, it might indirectly contribute to such 

 diffusion by giving authors the means of preparing books; but 

 this assistance was of too local and indirect a character to justify 

 the appropriation of a large proportion of the Smithson funds to 

 it. Nearly the same objections applied to the museum. The 

 objects therein preserved were the property of the Government, or 

 such as were necessary to supplement the governmental collections. 



Perhaps the project on which the Secretary looked with most 

 disfavor was the building. The system of operations which he 

 would have preferred required little more than a modest suite of 

 office-rooms. The expenditure of several hundred thousand dol- 

 lars on an architectural structure seemed to him an appropriation 

 of the funds to which he could give no active encouragement. In 

 later years one of the warnings he often gave to incipient institu^ 

 tions of learning was not to spend more money in bricks and 

 mortar, than was absolutely nprpss^rv for the commencement of 

 operations, and it can hardly be doubted that his sentiments in 

 this direction had their origin in his dissatisfaction with the large 

 expenditure upon the Smithsonian building. 



We must not be understood as saying that Henry antagonized 

 all these objects, considered them unworthy of any support from 

 the Smithsonian fund, or had any lack of appreciation of their 

 intellectual value. His own culture and mental activities had 

 been of too varied a character to admit of his forming any narrow 

 view of the proper administration of the establishment. The 

 general tenor of his views may be summed up in two practical 

 propositions: 



(i) The Institution should undertake nothing which could be 

 done by other agencies. A paper or report which would naturally 

 find its outlet in some other channel was never to be published by 

 the Institution. A research made for a commercial object would 

 find plenty to engage in it without his encouragement. It was the 

 duty of the Government to provide room for its own collections 

 and to make them accessible to investigators, rather than to draw 



