302 The Smithsonian Institution 



jects ; no one has found the means, or has had the desire, to 

 make a great collection of this nature. 1 Professor Henry fre- 

 quently said that cooperation, not monopoly, is the watch- 

 word of the Smithsonian Institution. Its policy has always 

 been to devote itself to such useful fields of labor as no other 

 institution could be found ready to take up. 



The growth of its own library has been specially favored 

 by the magnitude and value of the publications which it has 

 had to offer in exchange, both those issued by Congress and 

 those printed from its private fund. By means of its publica- 

 tions, and by means of its exchange service, the Smithsonian 

 Institution has incidentally secured a library more valuable in 

 actual amount and more unique in character than it could 

 possibly have obtained had the plan of a library, pure and 

 simple, so ardently advocated by Senator Choate, been car- 

 ried out. Doctor G. Brown Goode, the Assistant Secretary 

 of the Institution, estimated in 1895 that ''the value of the 

 books distributed since the Institution was opened has been 

 nearly $1,000,000, or nearly twice the original bequest of 

 Smithson." 2 



I have little doubt that the Institution has received in ex- 

 change more than the entire value of all the money expended 

 for publications, and that its collection of scientific transac- 

 tions and periodicals is one of the two most important, and 

 possibly the most important, in the world. 



1 In accordance with the plan adopted for 2 " An Account of the Smithsonian In- 



the federation of the libraries in Chicago, the stitution, Its Origin, History, Objects, and 



John Crerar Library will devote itself in part Achievements." City of Washington. For 



to scientific and literary periodicals. distribution at the Atlanta Exposition, 1895. 



