DISCOURSE OF W. B. TAYLOR: NOTES. 417 



in which it is maintained that "any increase of knowledge that 

 might be acquired was not to be locked up in the Institution or pre- 

 served only for the citizens of Washington or persons who might visit 

 the Institution. It was by the express terms of the trust, (which 

 the United States w r as pledged to execute,) to be 'diffused among 

 men/ This could be done in no other way than by publications at 

 the expense of the Institution. Nor has Congress prescribed the 

 sums which shall be appropriated to these different objects. It is 

 left to the discretion and judgment of the Regents. - - - These 

 operations appear to have been carried out by the Regents under 

 the immediate superintendence of Professor Henry, with zeal, 

 energy, and discretion, and with the strictest regard to economy in 

 the expenditure of the funds. Nor does there seem to be any other 

 mode which Congress could prescribe or the Regents adopt, which 

 Avould better fulfill the high trust \vhich the United States have 

 undertaken to perform. - - - The committee see nothing there- 

 fore in their conduct which calls for any new legislation, or any 

 change in the powers now exercised by the Regents." And the 

 report concludes in " the language of the resolution, that ' no action 

 of the Senate is necessary and proper in regard to the Smithsonian 

 Institution :' and this is the unanimous opinion of the committee." * 



And thus ended an earnest struggle of many years between 

 Science and Literature for the possession of Smithson's endowment : 

 and though the interest in the controversy has long since passed 

 away in the permanent establishment of Henry's far-reaching 

 policy, its history is suggestive and instructive. No better conclud- 

 ing summary can be presented, than by an extract from a quite recent 

 judicious and dispassionate recapitulation of the discussion and its 

 results, written for The International Review, by Mr. A. R. Spoffbrd, 

 the scholarly librarian of the Government Library at Washington : 



" The net result of the protracted controversy was to leave the 

 Regents to put their own interpretation upon the law, and every 

 step since taken in the management of the Smithsonian bequest, 

 has been in the direction of curtailing every expenditure for other 

 objects than the procuring, publishing, and distributing of what 

 were deemed valuable original contributions to human knowledge. 

 In strict accordance with this theory, the library gathered by the 

 purchases and exchanges of twenty years, was transferred to the 

 Capitol in 1866, and became a part of the library of the Govern- 

 ment. This large addition formed a most valuable complement to 

 the collection already gathered at the Capitol. It embraced the 

 largest assemblage of transactions and other publications of learned 



* Smithsonian Report for 1855, pp. 83-86. Rhees' Smitfmmicm Institution, pp. 562-567. 

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