THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 177 



FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT 



Of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, for the year 1850. 



To the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution: 



Gentlemen : During the past year the several parts of the plan of 

 organization have been prosecuted as efficiently as the portion of the 

 income which could be devoted to them would permit. The financial 

 affairs are in a prosperous condition, and though the funds are burthened 

 with the erection of a costly building, and the expenditures trammelled 

 by restrictions growing out of the requisitions of the charter of incor- 

 poration, yet the results thus far obtained are such as satisfactorily to 

 prove that the Institution is doing good service in the way of promoting 

 and diffusing knowledge. 



Though the programme of organization has been given in two of the 

 annual reports and extensively published in the newspapers, its char- 

 acter does not appear to be as widely known and as properly appre- 

 ciated as could be desired. Indeed it will be necessary at intervals to 

 republish the terms of the bequest, and also the general principles of 

 the plan which has been adopted, in order that the public may not only 

 be informed of what the Institution is accomplishing, but also reminded 

 of what, ought reasonably to be expected from its operations. More- 

 over, there is a tendency in the management of public institutions to 

 lose sight of the object for which they were established, and hence it 

 becomes important frequently to advert to the principles by which they 

 ought to be governed. 1 beg leave, therefore, as introductory to this 

 report, briefly to recapitulate some of the propositions of the programme 

 of organization, and to state some of the facts connected with its adop- 

 tion. 



Smiths'on left his property, in case of the death of his nephew, to 

 whom it was first bequeathed, " to found at Washington, under the 

 name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase 

 and diffusion of knowledge among men." These are the only words 

 of the testator to serve as a guide to the adoption of a plan for the ex- 

 ecution of his benevolent design. They are found, however, when at- 

 tentively considered, to admit of legitimate deductions sufficiently defi- 

 nite and comprehensive. 



1. The bequest is made to the United States, in trust for the good of 

 mankind. 



2. The objects of the Institution are two-fold : first, to increase; se- 

 cond, to diffuse knowledge ; objects which, though often confounded 

 with each other, are logically distinct and ought to be separately re- 

 garded. The first is the enlargement of the existing stock of know- 

 ledge by the discovery of new truths, and the second is the dissemina- 

 tion of these and other truths among men. 



3. No particular kind of knowledge is designated; hence a liberal 

 interpretation of the bequest will include no part of the great domain of 



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