The Three Secretaries H3 



It was from the beginning Henry's belief that expenditures 

 from the Smithson fund for objects such as those last men- 

 tioned were not justifiable, and that museums, libraries, and 

 lectures, being in one sense local objects, should be supported 

 from the revenues of the government. Still more strenuously 

 was he opposed to the erection of an expensive building, and 

 by painstaking economy during his long period of office he 

 succeeded in restoring to the fund the amount which, in his 

 opinion, had been improperly invested in stone and mortar. 

 He never ceased to urge upon the Regents and upon Con- 

 gress the impropriety of burdening the legacy of the founder 

 with expenditures which he deemed in large degree local, 

 either to the City of Washington or to the United States, and 

 to urge that "the bequest was intended for the benefit of man 

 in general." As the result of this policy he had the satis- 

 faction, before his death, of seeing the library, which soon 

 became great and cumbersome, received and cared for at 

 government expense in connection with the Library of Con- 

 gress ; the meteorological service transformed into a perma- 

 nent weather bureau and transferred to the War Department ; 

 the National Museum supported by direct appropriations, and 

 the system of international exchanges in large part main- 

 tained by government grants ; while the resources of the In- 

 stitution were left comparatively free, to be used for the 

 increase and diffusion of knowledge for the benefit of the 

 entire world. 



Concerning the details of his administrative work, more 

 cannot be said than that in the routine of each day he em- 

 ployed the same conscientious methods and the same powers 

 of mind which he had been accustomed to use in his investi- 

 gation of the laws of nature. But for the man, the devotion 

 with which he worked, and the fact that his life was spared to 

 labor for the Institution for nearly a third of a century, it is 



