NOTICE BY PROF. .1. COVERING. 4'S'-] 



and bright with the promise of more and perhaps greater discov- 

 eries. The sacrifice seemed to be too great to demand of science in 

 a country where the taste and the mental qualifications, combined 

 with the opportunity, for original research are ran/. If Professor 

 Henry had remained at Princeton, he would certainly have added 

 other jewels tn his crown: would it, however, have shone more 

 brightly than it now shines? When posterity makes up its verdict 

 mi his claim to its gratitude and remembrance, his discoveries will 

 not be cdiintcd, lmt weighed. 



( >n the other hand, no friend of science can contemplate with 

 complacency the possible alternatives if the Regents had come to a 

 different choice, or if they had been defeated in their first selection. 

 Literature or science; popular lectures or original research; the 

 diffusion of old truth or the discovery of new truth; a national 

 library, a national university, or a national museum, — each had 

 warm and influential advocates. Professor Henry's plan of organi- 

 zation hears the date of December 8, 1847, and was adopted by the 

 Regents on the 13th of December. It took its departure from the 

 words of the founder, viz: an establishment for the increase and 

 diffusion of knowledge among men ; and it emphasized every word 

 of the pregnant sentence. Xot science in its restricted sense, but 

 knowledge was to be first increased, then diffused world-wide, — by 

 the endowment of research; by the publication and liberal distri- 

 bution of contributions to knowledge, which may have little value 

 in the market, but which are of transcendent importance to man's 

 culture and civilization; by elaborate reports in special departments, 

 in which the known would be separated from the unknown for the 

 benefit of new explorers; by the translation of writings otherwise 

 inaccessible to most students; by opening a highway along which 

 the current literature and science of the day could easily pass from 

 continent to continent, and reach their remotest corners. This sober 

 and catholic scheme, in literal fulfillment of the will of Smithson, 

 was less dazzling to the popular imagination, and enlisted a smaller 

 numerical support, than rival propositions which were more on the 

 level of the average understanding. Because these antagonistic 

 plan- narrowed the enjoyment of a benefaction, (itself absolutely 

 unfettered,) to a small community, they secured a local influence 



