44 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



the lecture-room exclusively to the lectures given under the immediate 

 auspices of the Institution. This rule at first gave offence to some 

 of the friends of the Institution, and was considered very unjust by 

 another association which desired to give a course of political lectures 

 in opposition to those which had been previously delivered. It 

 has since, however, been generally approved by the reflecting 

 public, and, indeed, must commend itself to all who have studied 

 the history of establishments under the direction of State or 

 national governments. Unless they are strictly guarded against the 

 intrusion of political influence, their permanency and usefulness can- 

 not long be maintained. So much were the Regents composing the 

 Board, at its first sessions, impressed with this fact, that, at»one of 

 their early meetings, they unanimously adopted the following sugges- 

 tion of one of their committees, namely: 



"The party politics of the day, on which men differ so widely and 

 so warmly, should not, your committee think, enter among the subjects 

 treated of in any lecture or publication put forth under the sanction 

 of the Institution. And they would deeply regret to see party tests 

 and party wranglings obtrude themselves on the neutral grounds of 

 science and education, endangering, as such intrusion surely would, 

 the tranquillity of the Institution, disturbing the even tenor of its ac- 

 tion, perhaps assaulting its welfare, and certainly contracting the 

 sphere of its usefulness." 



I need not say to the gentlemen now present, some of whom have 

 been Regents since the beginning, how strictly the spirit of this reso- 

 lution has been observed; notwithstanding the members of the Board 

 from the two Houses of Congress are designedly elected from those 

 holding opposite political opinions, in this hall the irritations of legis- 

 lative discussion have been allayed or forgotten, and men of the 

 most extreme political views have constantly met in this place as on a 

 common ground of friendly sympathy, actuated apparently by no 

 other feeling than the desire to guide and sustain the Institution in 

 its mission of advancing and diffusing knowledge. 



To make up for the dissatisfaction which might be felt on account 

 of the restriction which had been put upon the use of the lecture- 

 room, it was thought advisable to give in the winter of 18G2-63 a more 

 extended series of lectures than had been given in the two preceding 

 winters, but to confine them principally to courses on scientific and 

 other subjects, which might be of service to those who desired actual 



