Founding of the Institution 35 



"3. Resolved, That all experience having shown scientific 

 and literary institutions to be by far the most effectual means 

 to the end of increasing and diffusing knowledge among men, 

 the Smithsonian Institution should be a scientific and literary 

 institution, formed upon a model the best calculated to make 

 those means the most effectual to that end. 



"4. Resolved, That to apply said trust fund to the erection 

 and support of an observatory would not be to fulfil bona fide 

 the intention of the testator, nor would it comport with the 

 dignity of the United States to owe such an establishment to 

 foreign eleemosynary means." 



The Twenty-fifth Congress adjourned without action, and 

 Senator Robbins having retired from public life, the univer- 

 sity idea was not afterward so prominent. At this time addi- 

 tional petitions were received. One was from Professor Walter 

 R. Johnson, of Philadelphia, pleading for an institution for 

 researches in physical science, especially in connection with 

 the useful arts, which would have corresponded in a general 

 way with the scientific branches of the present Department 

 of Agriculture, though he proposed work in many other 

 directions.^ 



Another was from Charles L. Fleischmann, a graduate of 

 the Royal School of Agriculture in Bavaria, proposing the 

 establishment of an institution for the promotion of agricul- 

 ture, with experimental farms of 1360 acres, manufactories, 

 mills, and workshops, a considerable staff of teachers and in- 

 structors, and one hundred students at the commencement." 



The Agricultural Society of Kentucky was pleading for an 

 agricultural school, the Superintendent of the Coast Survey 

 for a school of astronomy, and Mr. James P. Espy for a me- 

 teorological bureau with a system of wide-spread simultaneous 

 observations. 



1 Presented to the House of Representa- 2 Reported to the House of Representa- 



tives May 21, 1838. See Rhees, op. ciL, tives January 9, 1S39. See Rhees, op. cit., 

 pages 171-186. pages 186-198. 



