826 The Sinithsoiiian Institution 



The advantages confidently anticipated from the conjunc- 

 tion of the two libraries in the Capitol, although accompanied 

 by some serious drawbacks hereafter referred to, have been 

 in great measure realized. The Smithsonian collection, so 

 rich in the transactions and other publications of scientific 

 bodies throughout the world, formed a specially extensive 

 and invaluable complement to the already large miscellaneous 

 Library of Congress. The benefit to scientific students and 

 to the public of finding in one central repository so extensive 

 a collection of aids to research, without traveling to widely 

 separated localities to pursue their investigations, can hardly 

 be overrated. Economy of time, convenience of readers, 

 comprehensiveness of authorities, were all united in con- 

 tributing to the objects aimed at in such researches. No 

 class of men can be more impressed than scholars with the 

 supreme value of moments. The ideal university of modern 

 times is a library of universal range, in which the books shall 

 come to the reader as fast as wanted, without troubling the 

 reader to travel after the books. That concentration of mind 

 and of pursuit which is the secret of success in so many fields 

 is signally furthered by bringing all aids to research to one 

 common center. 



That an ideal so much to be desired has not yet been 

 attained in the government library in Washington is due to 

 several causes which may be briefly summarized. They all 

 concenter in one pregnant fact — utterly inadequate space 

 within the Capitol for the reception and arrangement of a 

 great comprehensive library. Within two years after the 

 completion of the two library wings referred to, they were 

 nearly filled by the accession, first, of the large historical 

 library of Peter Force, and, secondly, by the reception of the 

 Smithsonian collection. Every step in the internal economy 

 of the library in the thirty years following has been a study 



