434 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



which tlireatened to defeat the comprehensive views of tlie Secretary. 

 These views, recoMiineruled by tlieir reasonableness and indorsed by 

 individuals, academies, and societies of science and learning, had a 

 tower of strength in the high scientific reputation and the weight 

 of character of the Secrettay himself. Winning and persuasive in 

 his manner, lie was inflexible in his ])urpose. 



Experience ha.s proved the truth of that which was the conten- 

 tion at the time; viz: that universities, libraries, museums, lectures, 

 because they confer lo(;al benefits, will never lack endowments, 

 whereas the Christian world had waited eighteen centuries for a 

 large-minded and large-hearted benefactor, whose bequest was all 

 knowledge, existing or to be discovered, and whose recipients were 

 all nations of men. Slowly but steadily time has revealed the wis- 

 dom and foresight of the Secretary; individuals and communities, 

 in increasing numbers, have felt the benefits of his administration; 

 the Government of the United States has known where to look for 

 impartial advice on matters outside of .its, own knowledge, in times 

 of prosperity and also in its darkest days; and now all opposition 

 has died out; and, after a trial of thirty years, no one jn-obably 

 desires any thing better for the Smithsonian Institution than that 

 the ])lan, so wisely conceived and so faithfully administered by the 

 first Secretary, should continue the abiding rule for his successors. 



Moreover, the plan of Professor Henry, cosmopolitiui in its geo- 

 graphical! embrace, did not sacrifice the interests of the unborn to 

 those of the living. He would not allow the hopes of Smithsou 

 to be frustrated by lavishing uj)on a single generation what was 

 intended for all time; or, what is worse, sacrifiijing both tlie present 

 and the future upon the altar of an ambitious architecture. Ex- 

 amples abound, if experience is all which men need, of fatal ship- 

 wrecks on these alluring shores; of endowed churches, colleges, 

 observatories, laboratories, libraries, which have nothing to show 

 but a mass of masonry, lacking in the highest beauty of art, (fitness 

 for its purpose,) however nmch it may please the eye, even if the 

 merciless architect had left any thing for administration. The rigid 

 rules of science, luupialified by good common sense, may work a 

 ilisaster in matters of business. The consummate mathematician. 

 La l*laee, omnipotent in the domain of physical jistronomy, when 



