38 JAMES SMITHSON AND HIS BEQUEST. 



ceived, the property purchased on hand to show for itself and to speak 

 for itself. Supi)ose the professors provided for in the bill should gather 

 a little circle of pupils, eacli of whom should carry ott' with him some 

 small quotient of navigation, or horticulture, or rural economy, and the 

 fund should thus glide away and evaporate in such insensible, inappre- 

 ciable appropriations, how little there would be to testify of it ! Whereas 

 here all the while are the books ; here is the value ; here is the visible 

 property ; here is the oil and here is the light. There is something to 

 point to, if you should be asked to account for it unexpectedly, and 

 something to point to if a traveler should taunt you with the collections 

 which he has seen abroad, and which gild and recommend the absolut- 

 isms of Vienna or St. Petersburgh. * * * 



" But the decisive argument is, after all, that it is an application the 

 most exactly adapted to the actual literary and scientific wants of the 

 States and the country. I have said that another college is not needed 

 here because there are enough now, and another might do harm as much 

 as good. But that which is wanted for every college, for the whole 

 country, for every studious person, is a well-chosen library, somewhere 

 among us, of three or four hundred thousand books." 



Mr. Tappan, in re|)ly, urged that Smithson's own habits and pursuits 

 should bo considered; that it must be remembered that he was an emi- 

 nently practical philosopher, intimately acquainted with chemistry, min- 

 eralogy, geology, and natural history, to the minute study of which he 

 devoted his life. His favorable resort had been the Jardin des PlanteSy 

 at Paris, and there could be but little doubt that in making his bequest 

 he had in view the establishment of a similar institution. He depre- 

 cated the outlay of a large amount in the liurchase of books, and as- 

 serted that they not only did not promote knowledge, but that one-half 

 of those then in the Library of Congress were to be considered as trash. 



Mr. Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, favored the employment of 

 lecturers, and the iiurchase of a moderate-sized library, but preferred 

 that the management of the bequest should be intrusted to the National 

 Institute, a society already in active operation, created by Congress, and 

 the objects of which were appropriate to the trust. 



Mr. John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, thought the purchase of books 

 should be confined to works on science and the arts. Mr. James A. 

 Pearce, of Maryland, concurred in the views of Mr. Choate. Mr. Wm. 

 C. Rives, of Virginia, believed that by knowledge was not merely meant 

 the natural sciences, astronomy, mathematics, «&c. ; he considered the 

 most important of all the branches of hujnau knowledge that which re- 

 lated to the moral and political relations of man. The field of moral 

 science also embraced a much larger i)(»rtion of knowledge than the 

 physical sciences. He suggested the "Faculty of letters and sciences" 

 under the auspices of the University of France, as a much better model 

 for the Smithsonian than the Jardin des Pluntes. He remarked that it 

 was his "firm and solemn conviction that we now have it in our power 



