J 32 REVIEWS. 



The principles thus establisHed in relation to the future expendi- 

 ture of the income derived from the investment of Smithson's be- 

 quest, will, it may be hoped, continue to regulate its application 

 hereafter ; and valuable as are the ethnological and natural history 

 collections already accumulated at Washington,— in so far as they 

 have escaped the recent destructive conflagration, — we cannot evade 

 the conviction that all such purely local expenditure of the fund is 

 at variance vrith the cosmopolitan aims of the founder, and the con- 

 sequent obligations assumed by the United States in undertaking 

 the administration of the bequest " for the increase and diffusion of 

 knowledge among men," The jealousy with which the special ad- 

 ministrators of the fund are seen to guard it against all attempts to 

 divert it from its legitimate channels, is deserving of the highest 

 appreciation. In 1861, when " the threatening aspect of political 

 affairs " jeopardised so many interests, the secretary is found thus 

 addressing the Board of Eegents : " We trust that there is honesty, 

 intelligence, and liberality sufficient in this country, whatever may 

 be its political condition, to safely guard the bequest which was en- 

 trusted with unhesitating faith to the people of the United States 

 for the good of mankind." Had, indeed, the funds been left by 

 some Grerrard, Aster, Lowell, or other naturalised or native-born 

 citizen of the G-reat Eepublic, the diversion of a portion of the in- 

 come to the adornment of Washington, and the instruction and 

 gratification of the citizens who reside, or annually resort to the 

 seat of federal legislation, might have seemed less inconsistent with 

 a liberal construction of the terms of the bequest ; but when it is 

 borne in remembrance that the endowment was left by a foreigner, 

 a man of science, and an active member of the Eoyal Society of 

 London : who, after meditating the disposition of the fund by his 

 survivors in the Council of that Society, finally selected the govern- 

 ment of a remote country, to which, though a frequent traveller, he 

 was a stranger, as the trustee and administrator of his will : the 

 citizens of the Eepublic will have reason hereafter to acknowledge 

 no slight obligations due by them to the liberal minded and inde- 

 fatigable secretary of the Smithsonian Institution for the wise firm- 

 ness and sagacity with which he has maintained the honour of hia 

 country in the execution of so delicate and peculiar a trust. 



The difficulties with which the Board of Eegents has to contend 

 are of a multifarious and shifting kind. At one time they are found 

 complaining of " the cost of keeping up a reading-room in which the 



