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paratns for teaching, and the most judicious management, moral and in- 

 tellectual, of children in common schools. They might also, if suitable 

 talent can be enlisted, treat of history, natural arid civil, including the 

 physical history of the various races of men, and the gradual advance of 

 each to its present state of civilization; of political economy in its practi- 

 cal connexion with the everyday business of life, and generally touch 

 upon any department of useful knowledge not strictly professional. 



By such means, we may reasonably expect gradually to stir up a love 

 of science among those in whose minds, for lack of an awakening word, it 

 now lies dormant ; and, by directing the attention of the people gene- 

 rally to the rich sources of knowledge that everywhere exist around 

 them and beneath their feet, by degrees to substitute, for the deleterious 

 excitements sought in haunts of dissipation, the healthful and humani- 

 zing interest to be found in scientific research. The inestimable im- 

 portance of common school education, and the practical means of increas- 

 ing and improving it, might thus also be pressed home upon those whose 

 children have often no other means of instruction or improvement. 



As an additional means of diffusing knowledge, your committee sug- 

 gest the publication of a series of reports, to be published annually, or 

 oftener, containing a concise record of progress in the different branches 

 of knowledge, compiled from the journals of all languages, and the trans- 

 actions of scientific and learned societies throughout the world. The 

 matter of these reports may be furnished by collaborators eminent in their 

 respective branches ; and these should be supplied with all the works 

 necessary to a proper execution of their task, and paid in proportion to 

 their respective labors. Copies of these Smithsonian Reports may be 

 furnished to the principal libraries and scientific soci-eties of the country 

 free of expense, and sold to individuals at a small price. 



Your committee beg leave here to remark, that with the limited annual 

 in(;ome of the institution, charged as it is with extensive collections, to 

 maintain which will prove a considerable yearly drain on its funds, they 

 do not imagine or propose that all the recommendations here set down 

 should be carried out, at least simultaneously.* These are put forward 

 as objects which your committee consider desirable and strictly within 

 the purpose of the bequest. Such as may seem to the board the most im- 

 portant may be first attempted. Other portions of the plan may follow in 

 their turn. And experience will gradually sift out whatever is most ju- 

 dicious and effective. 



.Your committee are of opinion that it does not come properly within 

 the scope of our institution to impart professional education ; and there- 

 fore they recommend no school of any of the learned professions, nor any 

 professorships of ancient languages, or others of similar character. It 

 is not, however, their purpose to exclude lectures of a general character 

 on subjects connected with any of these professions, but only to shut out 

 those courses of lectures which treat of them in professional detail. The 

 studies referred to are already provided for in numerous institutions 

 throughout the United States ; and it has been the endeavor of your 

 committee not only in this instance, but throughout the entire plan here 

 submitted, to occupy, so far as may be, ground hitherto untenanted, and 

 rather to step in where it comes not within the province of other-institu- 

 tions, learned or literary, to extend their efforts, than to cornpete with 

 them in fields of labor peculiarly their own. 



