MEMORIAL 
OF THE 
NATIONAL INSTITUTE. 
To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United Slates 
of America. 
The memorial and petition of the “National Institute for the Promotion of 
Science and the Arts,” respectfully represent: 
That its members have been induced, by a high sense of the duty to the body 
whose interests they represent, as well as to the great objects which it was the 
design of its creation to promote, to submit to the consideration of your honorable 
bodies, a statement of the origin and progress, of the past and present condition, 
and of the wants and exigencies, of the Institute. 
The Congress of the Union, after a full investigation of the subject, after duly 
estimating the value and importance of the design of its founders, and the means 
which it contemplated to employ in the accomplishment of those ends, deemed 
them so far entitled to its countenance and favor as to grant to the Institute a 
charter of incorporation. Some pecuniary aid incidentally followed, and it was 
made the custodier of much valuable property belonging to the Government. This 
charter, whose date is recent, naturally afforded the hope of national protection, 
thus inspiring every where confidence, the moment it was seen, by the acts of Go¬ 
vernment, that confidence was felt at home. 
Under these auspices, the National Institute began its career. Many of the most 
distinguished and illustrious individuals in the nation afforded it their aid and en¬ 
couragement. 
Its active members were chiefly composed of officers of Government and citi¬ 
zens of Washington, who, occupied in their own private concerns, neither men of 
wealth nor mere scholars, proposed to give a portion of their leisure to promote 
objects in which they had no other or ulterior motives and interest than such as 
were common to the nation, and, perhaps, to the whole human family. 
These individuals have, so far, advanced with a success which they could little 
have anticipated, and they now approach the legislature of the Union, and the 
nation at large, with the fruits of their labors in their hands, spreading before those 
whose interests they have undertaken to advance, the results which in so brief a 
space of time they have accomplished, asking that their deeds should be examined 
and compared with their promises, and if they have performed their duty faithfully, 
and discharged the trusts confided to them honorably, zealously, and successfully, 
that they may be encouraged by the only reward they have ever sought, viz : the 
means of enlarging and giving additional efficiency to their patriotic efforts and 
purposes. They appear before j'Our honorable bodies to render an account of their 
stewardship, and they solicit an examination of their proceedings. 
In urging this matter upon Congress, it is not the design of your memorialists to 
present a formal argument to establish, either the constitutional authority of your 
honorable bodies to confer upon the National Institute that pecuniary aid which 
they so urgently need, or the expediency of so applying any portion of the public 
patronage. They believe that Congress is fully competent to the ascertainment 
and decision of ail questions of this character. YVhiie, therefore, your memorialists 
abstain from entering into any discussion of constitutional questions, submitting, 
with the most respectful deference, to the judgment of your honorable bodies, they 
feel that they are, in no manner, trenching upon this ground, in exhibiting fully 
and distinctly, those facts and circumstances which will furnish the general data 
upon which Congress is to decide. 
