Ill MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



has been cherished thai other means may ultimately !"■ provided for 

 tin support of those objects, and that the whole income of the 

 Smithsonian fund mav be devoted to the more legitimate objects "I 

 the noble bequest. 



At a meeting of the Board of Regents held March 12, 1853, 

 a committee of seven was appointed to consider and report upon 

 '• t lie subject of i In' distribution of the income <>t' the Institution, in 

 tin' manner contemplated by the original plan of organization." 

 Hon. R. Choate, a member of this committee, being unable to attend 

 its meetings, (having returned to Boston at the end of his Senatorial 

 term in 1846,) Hon. James Meacham (of the House of Representa- 

 tives) was appointed to take his place, February 1*. ls.~>4. At a 

 meeting of the Regents held May 20, 1854, Hon. James A. Pearce, 

 chairman of the committee, submitted its report, presenting a very 

 full discussion of the legal question: — as to the discretionarv power 

 of the Regents, and the true policy of the Institution. < >n the first 

 point, after showing how faithfully the specific requirements of the 

 organic Act had been executed, the committee in referring to the 

 clause that the annual expenditure for the library should not exceed 

 25,000 dollars in the average, maintained that "this is nothing but 

 a limitation upon the discretion of the Regents, and can by no rule 

 of construction be considered as intimating the desire of Congress 

 that such sum should be annually appropriated. The limitation 

 while it prevented the Regents from exceeding that sum, left them 

 full discretion as to any amount within that limit." On the second 

 point, the committee say: " What then arc the considerations which 

 should govern them in rejecting the plan which proposes a greal 

 library as the best and chief — it' not the only means of executing 

 the trust created by the Will of Smithson, and fulfilling their own 

 duty under the law'.' The 'increase ami diffusion of knowledgi 



among n/ are the great purposes of this munificent trust. To 



increase knowledge implies research, or new and active investigation 



in some or more of the departments of' learning. To diffuse 



knowledge among men, implies active measures for its distribution 

 so far as may be, among mankind. J\ either of these purposes could 

 be accomplished or materially advanced by the accumulation of a 

 great library at the city of Washington. - - - The application 

 of 25,000 dollar- annually (five-sixths of the whole income at the 



date of the Act i to the purchase of' 1 ks, would lie inconsistent 



with and subversive of the whole tenor of all that pi-' cedi - the 8th 

 section. f - - - The committee need not repeat in detail all the 



* Smithsonian Report for 1853, p;> 10, II Sen. ed 

 t The residue ol the income would indeed have been "Wholly insufficient even 

 for the necessary salaries and incidental expenses <>r the library itself,— to say 

 nothing of the other interests specifically provided for by the 5th section of the act.] 



