James Smithson 23 



placed in still further remembrance a similar tablet in the 

 English church of the city. 



Smithson's wishes have been carried out by those im- 

 mediately administering them with a constant scrupulous 

 thought of the intent of the founder, while in doing this the 

 best results have flowed from a ritrid construction of his own 

 words, so briefly expressed, and from a division of the activi- 

 ties of the Institution into two great distinct but parallel 

 paths, the "increase" and "diffusion" of knowledge. 



What has been done in these two paths the reader may 

 partly gather from this volume — in the former, from the va- 

 rious articles by contemporary men of science, describing its ac- 

 tivities in research and original contributions to the increase of 

 human knowledge; in the latter, in numerous ways, — among 

 others, from the description of the work of one of its bureaux, 

 that of the International Exchanges, where it may be more 

 immediately seen how universal is the scope of the action of 

 the Institution, which, in accordance with its motto, PER 

 ORBEM, is not limited to the country of its adoption, but 

 belongs to the world, there being outside of the United States, 

 at the time I write, more than 12,000 correspondents, scat- 

 tered through every portion of the globe ; indeed, there is 

 hardly a language or a people where the results of Smithson's 

 benefaction are not known and associated with his name. 



If we were permitted to think of him as conscious of what 

 has been, is being, and is still to be done, in pursuance of his 

 wish, we might believe that he would feel that his hope, at a 

 time when life must have seemed so hopeless, was finding full 

 fruition ; for events are justifying what may have seemed at 

 the time but a rhetorical expression, in the language of 

 a former President of the United States, who has said, 

 " Renowned as is the name of Percy in the historical annals 

 of England, ... let the trust of James Smithson to the 



