JAMES SMITHSON AND HIS BEQUEST. 21 



€ver in men's minds in its axiomatic power. " There had been periods 

 when the country heard with dismay that the soldier was abroad. That 

 is not the case now. Let the soldier be ever so much abroad, in the 

 present ago he could do nothing. There is another person abroad— a 

 less important person, in the eyes of some an insignilicant person, whose 

 labours have tended to produce this state of things — the schoolmaster is 

 abroad!'^* 



Lord Brougham had declared that "to instruct the people in the rudi- 

 ments of philosophy would of itself be an object sufficiently brilliant 

 to allure the noblest ambition. To promote these ends and to obtain 

 for the great body of his fellow-creatures that high imijrovement which 

 both their understanding and their morals litted them to receive," he 

 urged upon the consideration of the men of wealth of Britain. •" Such 

 a one, however averse by taste or habit to the turmoil of public affairs, 

 or the more ordinary strifes of the world, may in all quiet and inno- 

 •cence enjoy the noblest gratification of which the most aspiring nature 

 is susceptible ; he may influence by his single exertions the character and 

 the fortunes of a whole generation, and thus wield a power to be envied 

 €ven by vulgar ambition, for the extent of its dominion ; to be cherished 

 by virtue itself, for the unalloyed blessings it bestows." He pressed the 

 subject on the attention "of all men of enlightened views, who value the 

 real improvement of their fellow-creatures and the best interests of their 

 country." He appealed to public-spirited individuals to promote the dif- 

 fusion of knowledge and the cultivation of intellectual pursuits by devot- 

 ing some of their means to these objects, and showed how much money 

 had been misapplied by benevolent persons in sustaining certain charita- 

 ble institutions which only tended to increase the number of the poor and 

 dependent classes. 



The " Society for the Diffusion of IJseful Knowledge" was established 

 in April, 1825, and at once entered upon a career alike brilliant and suc- 

 <jessful. " Its publications," says the Edinburgh Review, t " undoubtedly 

 form by far the most important of the contributions from men of science 

 and letters to the instruction and improvement of mankind." " Its ell'orts 

 were to be extended until knowledge had become as plentiful and as 

 universally diffused as the air we breathe." 



It cannot be doubted that Mr, Smithson became impressed with the 

 prevailing and new spirit of his age, and, recognizing as a man of science 

 the inestimable value of knowledge and the importance of its universal 

 diffusion, wrote the words of his will bequeathing his whole fortune ^''for 

 the increase and diffusion of knowledge among menJ^ 



At one period of his life, and when an active member of the Royal 

 Society, he purposed leaving his fortune to that body for the promotion 



* Clias. Knight's Passages of a WorJcing Life. London, Vol 2, p. 66. 

 \ Edinburgh Review, Vol. xlvi, 1827, p. 243. 



