JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS. XV 



authority of the Board to transfer to that position, if it seemed best 

 for the Museum's interests, the present Assistant Secretary in Charge 

 of Office and Exchanges, Mr. Eichard Eathbun. The Board then 

 adopted the following resolution : 



Iiesolved, That the restriction placed upon the duties of Mr. Richard Rathbun by 

 the terms of his appointment, approved by the Board on February 1, 1897, be 

 removed, to permit of his assignment by the Secretary to such duty as he may deem 

 best for the interests of the Institution; this to take effect not before July 1, 1898. 



The Secretary asked authority to use a portion of the accrued 

 interest of the Hodgkins Fund in connection with his experiments in 

 mechanical flight. After discussion the Board adopted the following 

 resolution : 



That the Board authorize any expenditures hereafter to be made from the income 

 of the Hodgkins Fund, having the approval of the Executive Committee, in regard 

 to the expenses of certain experiments being conducted by the Secretary in 

 mechanical flight; and that a report of these expenditures shall be submitted to 

 the Board at its next annual meeting. 



The question being put, the motion was carried. 

 The Secretary said : 



I explained last year to the Board the great difficulties which the Civil Service 

 rules introduced in making an appointment to the scientific bureaus of the Institu- 

 tion, and I again ask their attention to the letter of their colleague, Dr. Wilson, 

 then Postmaster-General, which I submitted to them at that time, as follows: 



'•'Office of Postmaster-General, 

 " Washington, D. C, January 25, 1897. 

 "Dear Professor Langley : I submitted to the President the letter you gave me. 

 He seemed favorably inclined to your suggestion that the Assistant Secretary and 

 the four heads of bureaus should be excepted, and retained the letter, saying that 

 he would at once send it to the Civil Service Commission for that purpose. Unless 

 the Commission, therefore, make some adverse report, substantial enough to arrest 

 his inclination, I think the exception will be made. 



"Yours, truly, W. L. Wilson. 



"Prof. S. P. Langley." 



I have twice urged upon the Commission the desirability of making this exception, 

 but they have not done so, though the head of the Commission expresses a willing- 

 ness to go with me to the President in asking him to make any specific exception to 

 some specific name, but this is not what the late President of the United States (as 

 interpreted by the late Postmaster-General) meant, for the President recognized, 

 when the subject was brought to his attention, that it was probably a very difficult 

 matter to get any man who was competent to take one of those positions, and espe- 

 cially that of the Assistant Secretary in Charge of the Museum, to stand an examina- 

 tion. Since this, an additional year's experience has led me to feel that I may yet 

 be glad to see excepted, if not all positions in the Bureaus under the Board's control, 

 then at least all scientific positions under them. I desire the instructions of the 

 Board on this point. 



After some discussion, the following resolution was adopted : 



Resolved, That the Secretary be instructed to request of the President such a modi- 

 fication of the Civil Service regulations relating to appointments as will permit an 

 exemption of such scientific positions under the Smithsonian Institution as the Sec- 

 retary may deem best for the interests of the Institution. 



