JAMES SMITHSON AND HIS BEQUEST. 43 



slight advantage. It will be a great institution. It may attain a char- 

 acter as high as that of the French Academy, and its authority will then 

 be decisive in reference to numerous questions of a scientific nature con 

 tinually presented to the committees of Congress and the departments 

 of government for determination and consequent action. Such an insti- 

 tution is greatly needed in the federal city." 



Mr. William Sawyer, of Ohio, wanted students to be sent to the Institu- 

 tion selected from the various States and Territories according to the 

 ratio of representation in Congress. lie also thought the rate of inter- 

 est on the fund should be live instead of six per cent. 



Mr. D. P. King, of IMassachusetts, favored a provision by which stu- 

 dents could bo educated free of expense, and pay their board by labor on 

 a farm coimected with the establishment. 



Mr. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, advocated the bill as providing for 

 the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men. It was too late to 

 make the objection that the trust ought not to have been accepted. It 

 was our duty to carry it into execution; and as to the fund, it ought to 

 bo considered as money still in the Treasury, unconnected with any in- 

 vestment the ofiQcers of the government may have made, lie regarded 

 lectures as the greatest means of extending knowledge Avhich had been 

 adopted in modern times. It was second only to the invention of the 

 art of printing. He would admit that the government had no authority 

 to take charge of the subject of education, but he did not consider this 

 bill as liable to that objection. The normal school system he considered 

 as highly beneficial, serving to produce uniformity in the language, and 

 to lay the foundation of all sciences. The spelling-book of Noah Web- 

 ster, which had been used extensively in our primary schools, had done 

 more to produce uniformity in our language in this country than anything^ 

 else. If we sent out good school-books from this institution, it would be 

 of vast service to the country. He enlarged upon the benefits which 

 would result to science and the diffusion of every kind of useful knowl- 

 edge from an institution which would gather young men from the remotest 

 parts of the country at the common i)oint where every facility for practical 

 instruction would be afforded. The taste of the country would be re- 

 fined, and he did not consider this as anti-democratic. Knowledge was 

 the common cement that was to unite all the heterogeneous materials of 

 this Union into one mass, Uke the very pillars in the hall of the House 

 before them. 



Mr. Geo. P. Marsh, of Vermont, said that whatever plan was adopted 

 must of necessity be one of compromise, and that though he would have 

 I)referred the Senate bill for a library, yet he would cheerfully accede ta 

 the present one as proposed to be modified. He regarded it as an ex- 

 periment which admitted, and which he trusted would hereafter receive,, 

 great changes in its conditions rather than as a complete working model. 

 Two objects were aimed at by Smithsou : first, the increase of knowl- 

 edge — its enlargement, extension, progress; second, the diffusion of 



