brought the enei^ies of their intellects to the examination of the subject; it 

 has been largely discussed in both branches of the national legislature; nu- 

 merous studiously considered plans have been suggested, providing in dif- 

 ferent ways for every interest which can be supposed to be embraced with- 

 in the views of the testator, and the bill now before us is a compilation, an 

 anthology, so to speak, from all these, though possessing original features — 

 valuable features — the credit of which belongs to the chairman of the Special 

 Committee, (Mr. Owen,) by whom the bill was reported. 



In a case where there is room for so great diversity of opinion as in this^ 

 there can be no hope of the adoption of any plan not conceived in a spirit 

 of compromise; and on this, as on another larger question, however widely 

 apart we may be at first, we shall probably find ourselves in the end obliged 

 to settle down upon the parallel of 49^ . The bill is reported by the special 

 committee as a compromise, and probably no one of the gentlemeji con- 

 cerned in its preparation is quite satisfied with its provisions; no one believes 

 it to be the best plan that could be devised; but they felt the necessity of de- 

 ferring to each other, as well as to the probable opinion of Congress, and, 

 were nearly unanimous in thinking it more likely to harmonize discordant 

 views than any other plan suggested. It was in this belief, and in con- 

 sideration of the importance and the duty of early action, that I , as a mem- 

 ber of that committee, assented to the report, regarding the scheme, how- 

 ever, not merely as a necessary compromise, but as rather an experiment ,. 

 which admitted, and which I trusted would hereafter receive, great changes 

 in its conditions, than as a complete working model. 



It has all along been assumed as a cardinal principle, that we ought to 

 follow implicitly the will of the liberal donor, and it has been thought un- 

 fortunate that he was not more specific in the appropriation of his bounty^ 

 But he has given a proof of a generous and enlightened spirit, and at the 

 same time has paid this nation the highest possible compliment, by using 

 the largest and most comprehensive language in his bequest; thus in eflrect 

 saying, that he preferred rather to entrust the disposal of this great fund to 

 the wisdom and intelligence of a free and enlightened people, tharf*to limit, 

 its use to purposes accordant with his own peculiar tastes. Some gen- 

 tlemen have thought, that inasmuch as the testator has not specified the 

 particular mode by which he would have the great ends of his charity ac- 

 complished , we are bound to infer his wishes from the character of his favor- 

 ite pursuits, and to conform to his supposed views, by confining the fund to 

 the promotion of objects, to the cultivation of which his own time and re- 

 searches were devoted. But this would be no true conformity to the enr 

 lightened liberality which prompted so munificent a gift. It would be a 

 disparagement to so generous a spirit to imagine, that while saying so much, 

 he meant so little. It would be so wide a departure from his large and. 

 wise purposes, as fairly to defeat his noble aims. Had he been in fact a 

 person of so narrow^ views as this argument supposes, he would have guarded 

 against the possible misapplicaticin of his charity, by express words of di- 

 rection or restriction; and it is a proof of rare generosity in an enthusiastic 

 lover of an engrossing pursuit, that in a bequest appropriating his whole es- 

 tate to the high purpose of increasing and diffusing knowledge among men, 

 he made no special provision for the promotion of those sciences which 

 were to him the most attractive of studies. 



After all, however, he was not a student of so limited a range of inquiry 

 as has been sometimes assumed. He was a man of studious and scholastic 



01' 



