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their inception and first publication, to interest a comparatively , small 

 circle only. The Transactions of the Institution can be expected to obtain 

 but a limited circulation. Not that the discoveries there to be presented 

 are of little intrinsic importance, and bear no practical fruit: the reverse 

 is true. Some may be immediately productive; others will include 

 investigations unproductive in themselves for the time, yet the neces- 

 sary preliminaries to the actual discovery of modes and forms that 

 become, in every-day life, productive and profitable ; for invention is but 

 the practical application of scientific results. But the severe investiga- 

 tions in physics which ultimately resulted in the steam engine and the 

 magnetic telegraph — inventions that are now revolutionizing the world — 

 attracted in their original form the attention only of the strictly scien- 

 tific. To reach the people generally, other and further means must be 

 employed. And this brings your committee to speak of the testator's sec- 

 ond object — 



The diffasionoi knowledge among men. 



In connexion with this branch of Mr. Smithson's purpose, your com- 

 mittee are reminded of the widespread and beneficent influence, reaching 

 to the remotest hamlet and the humblest hearth, exerted not in England 

 alone, but in other and distant countries, by the British " Society for the 

 Diffusion of Knowledge," its Scientific Tracts, and its Penny Magazine. 



This example indicates the most effectual mode of reaching the popu- 

 lar mind of the world. Influenced by the results of such experience, 

 your committee recommend the issuing, to such extent as the funds of 

 the institution permit, of publications, in brief and popular form, on sub- 

 jects of general interest. They advise, also, that courses of free lectures 

 be delivered during the session of Congress, in the lecture rooms of the 

 institution, by its officers, or by able' men, in the different branches of 

 knowledge, who should be invited for the purpose, and paid out of the 

 funds of the institution. It should also, your committee think, be made 

 the duty of the Secretary and his assistants to exhibit in these lecture 

 rooms, at stated periods, experimental illustrations of new discoveries 

 in science, and interesting and important inventions in the arts. 



And if now, or hereafter, the funds of the institution permit, they think 

 it desirable that such lectures should not be restricted to Washington, 

 but should be given, by lecturers selected by the institution, through- 

 out the United States. 



The difficulty in this latter recommendation is the great expense that 

 must be incurred to procure the delivery of such lectures by men of suit- 

 able ability, throughout every section of the Union, without preference or 

 omission. 



Though neither the bequest nor the charter restrict the subjects that, 

 may be treated in publication and lecture, yet, as the funds of the insti- 

 tution are limited, and some selection from the vast range of human sub- 

 jects of inquiry must be made, your committee recommend that, in the 

 first place, the efforts of the institution be chiefly directed to the diffu- 

 sion of knowledge in the physical sciences, in tlie useful arts, and the 

 theory and practice of public education. They suggest that the lectures 

 and popular publications of the institution may usefully treat of agricul- 

 ture and its latest improvements ; of the productive arts of life ; of the 

 sciences, and the aid they bring to labor; of common school instruction, 

 including the proper construction of school-rooms, the most improved ap- 



