THE NATIONAL INSTITUTION. 
201 
FROM RICHARD RUSH: ON THE SMITHSON BEQUEST. 
Sydenham, near Philadelphia, March 4, 1842. 
Francis Markoe, Esq., 
Corresponding Secretary , National Institution . 
Dear Sir : I have to thank you for tho “ Bulletin of the Proceedings of the 
National Institution for the Promotion of Science,” that you were so good as to 
send me; and although I am late in doing so, my thanks are not the less sincere. 
I have read it with great interest, and think that no one could read it without per¬ 
ceiving the advantages of such an institution. During the short period that it has 
been in operation, the indications are ample, both in the diversified objects which 
it proposes to itself, and in the communications addressed to it, that it will be likely 
to prove metropolitan in character and usefulness, as it is in situation. 
But what impels me, on this occasion, to something beyond a mere formal though 
thankful acknowledgment for the Bulletin, is the desire to notice a passage in two 
communications it contains—one from Mr. Duponceau, of Philadelphia, and the 
other from Mr. Maxcy, our Charge d’Affaires at Brussels, relative to the Smithso¬ 
nian legacy. 
Both these correspondents of the Institution, the former long and favorably known 
to philosophy and science, the latter an enlightened and patriotic American, looking 
at his country from abroad, have, without concert, united in the opinion that it was 
such an institution as yours that Mr. Smithson must have meant in making the 
munificent provision in his will for establishing one at Washington, and in the wish 
that Congress might take it as a basis in fulfilment of his intention. 
I cannot restrain the impulse that would add my humble though not less earnest 
opinion and wish to theirs. 
If it be scarcely a dispute that individual zeal and exertion can do more towards 
striking out useful projects for mankind than Governments, it would not be easy 
to imagine a case in which this truth could be more applicable than to the Smith- 
son trust. 
This great and beneficent trust remains wholly unexecuted by the hands of Gov¬ 
ernment, though to those hands solemnly confided, and as solemnly accepted. 
Would this have been the case had it been confided to individual hands ? A 
negative reply may be safely given. 
A native of France, long a citizen of the United States, dies in the midst of us. 
He leaves two millions of dollars to found a college for the education of orphans, 
in a city of one of our States, confiding the management of his bounty to legisla¬ 
tive and municipal authority. Already ten years have elapsed, and the philanthropic 
intentions of the munificent donor remain a dead letter. I allude to the Girard 
trust. 
A generous and enlightened Briton dies abroad. He leaves a hundred thousand 
pounds sterling to the United States, to found, at Washington, an Institution “for 
THE INCREASE AND DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE AMONG MEN.” 
What a beautiful simplicity in his words! How comprehensive they are ! How 
boundless in their intended benefits ! Yet we are now approaching the fourth sum¬ 
mer since the money was delivered to the United States, as the high trustee of this 
great duty, and the intentions of this donor, too, are still a dead letter. 
