DISCOURSE OF W.B.TAYLOR: — NOTES. 411 



institution with a botanical garden, natural-history cabinet, library, 

 laboratory, lecture-rooms and professorships, Mr. Choate in oppo- 

 sition to the plan, (in January 8, 18 15, contended that " we cannot 

 do a safer, surer, more unexceptionable thing with the income, or 

 with a portion of the income — (perhaps twenty thousand dollars 

 a year for a few years,) than to expend it in accumulating a grand 

 and noble public library; one which for variety, extent, and wealth, 

 shall be confessed to he equal to any now in the world. Twenty 

 thousand dollars a year for twenty-five years, are five hundred 

 thousand dollars." And he ottered as a substitute section, "that a 

 sum not less than 20,000 dollar- be annually expended of the 

 interest of the fund aforesaid, in the purchase of hooks."* This 

 proposition however was not adopted. 



In the House of Representatives, the Hon. Robert Dale Owen — 

 chairman of a special committee on the subject, presented a bill 

 February 2S, and April '2'2, 1 846, establishing a normal educational 

 institution: a feature' strongly opposed by Hon. John Q. Adams, 

 and on the 2'.>th of April, 1846, stricken out. On the same day, 

 Hon. Bradford R. Wood moved as an amendment "that the sum 

 of 20,000 dollars of the interest of said fund be and is hereby 

 appropriated annually for the purchase or publication of a library." 

 A substitute bill presented by Hon. William J. Hough on the same 

 i lav, provided among various specifications, for an appropriation from 

 the interest of tin' fund — "not exceeding an average of 25,000 

 dollars annually for the gradual formation of a library." Which 

 bill was adopted, t This aet passed the Senate, and became a law, 

 August in. 1846. 



This organic Aet of Congress provided 'in sect. 3) a directorship 

 for the Institution, to consist of fifteen Regents, — six of whom 

 should he members of Congress, selected equally from the two 

 chambers; and i in sect. 9) authorized the said managers "to make 

 such disposal as they shall deem best suited for the promotion of 

 the purposes of the testator," — of any income not appropriated or 

 required by the provisions of the act. 



Tin: Board of Regents, after considerable discussion, by resolu- 

 tion adopted January 26, 1847, apportioned one-half of the annual 

 income exclusive of building expenses) to the purpose of forming 

 a library and museum, and one-half for the publication of original 

 researches and for the support of public lecture-. This compromise 

 between contending parties, by no means satisfied the judgment of 

 tin: Secretary. In his first report to the Regent-, presented Decem- 



* The Smithsonian Institution: I uments relative t<- its Origin and History. 



Edited by William .1. Rhees Smith. Mis Coll. No. 328,) pp. 262, I12,and320. 

 t The Smithsonian Institution. By W.J. Rhees. Pp.355, 366, lii.'-'l. 169-473. 



