REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 17 



department of its activity is more capable of usefulness in this direc- 

 tion than is the National Museum. 



The benefits of the Museum are extended not only to the specialists 

 in its laboratories and to the hundreds of thousands of visitors, from 

 all parts of tl)e United States who pass its doors each year, but to local 

 institutions and their visitors throughout the country. 



In accordance with long-sanctioned usage, the duplicate specimens 

 in the Museum are made up into sets and distributed to schools and 

 museums, accurately named, and of great service, both for museum and 

 class-room use. 



The reports of the Smithsonian Institution will show iiow many hun- 

 dred thousands of objects have been thus distributed during the past 

 twenty years. Every museum in the United States has profited in 

 this way, and by its system of exchange the Museum has, while enrich- 

 ing itself, contributed largely to the stores of every important scientific 

 museum in the world. 



Kot only are specimens thus sent out, but aid is rendered in other 

 ways. Within the last year not less than forty local museums in the 

 United States were sui3plied with working plans of cases in use in the 

 Museum, and similar sets of plans have been supplied withia the past 

 few years to national museums in other countries. 



Not only do the people of the country at large profit by the work of 

 the Smithsonian, as made available to local institutions, but they profit 

 directly, and personally to a very considerable extent. 



The curator of each department in the Museum is expected to be an 

 authority In his own line of work, and the knowledge of the whole staff 

 of experts is thus placed without cost at the service of every citizen. 



B.— ORGANIZATION AND SCOPE OF THE MUSEUM. 



The National Museum is under the direction of the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution, which is governed by an establishment consisting of the 

 President of the United States and his Cabinet, the Commissioner of 

 Patents, and the Board of Regents, which latter is composed of the 

 Vice-President, Chief-Justice of the United States, three members of 

 the Senate, three members of the House of Representatives, and six 

 other citizens not members of Congress, two of whom are residents of 

 the city of Washington. 



The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, to whom is intrusted 

 the actual management of its affairs, is by law the "keeper of the col- 

 lections." The staff at the present time is composed of the Assistant 

 Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in charge of the National 

 Museum, and twenty-seven curators and acting curators, seventeen of 

 whom receive no salary from the Museum appropriation. There are 

 also twelve administrative departments. 

 H. Mis. 142, pt. 2 2 



