I also enclose a letter from Mr. Daniel Brent, consul of the United States at Paris, in relation to payments made by him in endeavoring to secure property supposed by him to constitute a part of that bequeathed by Mr. Smithson, with a copy of Mr. Rush's answer to his application for reimbursement. I would suggest ten thousand dollars as the amount necessary to be appropriated for the continuation of the prosecution of the claim of the United States, and that it is of urgent necessity that it be made at this session, in order that funds may be transmitted to the bankers of the United States in London, to meet the drafts that may necessarily be made upon them for the expenses to be incurred therein. * * * * * I have to request that the papers enclosed may be shown. to the chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Senate, and that they may be returned to this Department. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, Hon. C. C. CAMBRELENG, JOHN FORSYTH. Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, OCTOBER, 1837. An additional appropriation of five thousand dollars was passed by Congress to defray expenses, as follows: AN ACT making further appropriations for the year 1837: For defraying the expenses attending the prosecution of the claim of the United States to the legacy bequeathed by the late James Smithson, of London, five thousand dollars. APPROVED, October 16, 1837. JULY, 1838. The following section providing for the investment of the Smithsonian fund was passed: AN ACT to provide for the support of the Military Academy of the United States for the year 1838 and for other purposes. SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That all the money arising from the bequest of the late James Smithson, of London, for the purpose of founding at Washington, in this District, an institution to be denominated the Smithsonian Institution, which may be paid into the Treasury, is hereby appropriated, and shall be invested by the Secretary of the Treasury, with the approbation of the President of United States, in stocks of States, bearing interest at the rate of not less than five per centum per annum, which said stocks shall be held by the said Secretary in trust for the uses specified in the last will and testament of said Smithson, until provision is made by law for carrying the purpose of said bequest into effect; and that the annual interest accruing on the stock aforesaid, shall be in like manner invested for the benefit of said institution. APPROVED, July 7, 1838. PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. SENATE, December 10, 1838. Message from the President of the United States. To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: The act of the 1st July, 1836, to enable the Executive to assert and prosecute with effect the claim of the United States to the legacy bequeathed to them by James Smithson, late of London, having received its entire execution, and the amount recovered and paid into the Treasury having, agreeably to an act of the last session, been invested in State stocks, I deem it proper to invite the attention of Congress to the obligation now devolving upon the United States to fulfill the object of the bequest. In order to obtain such information as might serve to facilitate its attainment, the Secretary of State was directed, in July last, to apply to persons versed in science, and familiar with the subject of public education, for their views as to the mode of disposing of the fund best calculated to meet the intentions. of the testator, and prove most beneficial to mankind. Copies of the circular letter written in compliance with these directions, and of the answers to it received at the Department of State, are herewith communicated, for the consideration of Congress.* M. VAN BUREN. Ordered to be printed with the accompanying documents. SENATE, January 10, 1839. Mr. ROBBINS offered the following resolution (S. 7) which was read: Resolved, By the Senate, (the House of Representatives concurring,) that a joint committee be appointed, consisting of seven members of the Senate, and such a number of said House as they shall appoint, to consider the expediency of providing an institution of learning, to be established in the city of Washington, for the application of the legacy bequeathed by Mr. James Smithson, of London, to the United States in trust for that purpose; also, to consider the expediency of a charter for such an institution; together with the powers and privileges, which, in their opinion, the said charter ought to confer; also, to consider the expediency of ways and means to be provided by Congress, other than said legacy, but in addition thereto, and in aid of said benevolent intention; and to report by bill or bills, or otherwise. Mr. ROBBINS made the following remarks: The motive to this noble legacy was, as the will expresses it, "The increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." *These communications appear elsewhere. Noble, indeed, it was in every point of view; noble as coming from a stranger, with whom this country had no personal relations; speaking at once his high sense of our merit, while it proclaimed his own; noble in amount, and may be made effective to its beneficent purpose; but, above all, noble for its destination-" the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men," leaving it to the wisdom of Congress to devise and provide the institution that should be most effective to this end. It ought to be an institution, whose effects upon the country will make it a living monument to the honor of the illustrious donor in all time to come. Such an institution, I conceive, may be devised; of which, however, at present there is no model either in this country or in Europe; giving such a course of education and discipline as would give to the faculties of the human mind, an improvement and power far beyond what they obtain by the ordinary systems of education, and far beyond what they afterwards attain in any of the professional pursuits. Such an institution, as to its principle, suggested itself to the sagacious and far-secing mind of Bacon, as one of the greatest importance. But while his other suggestions have been followed out with such wonderful success in extending the boundaries of physical science, this has been overlooked and neglected. One reason is, that the other suggestions were more elaborately explained by him; there, too, he not only pointed out the path, but he led the way in it himself. Besides, those other suggestions could be carried out by individual exertion and enterprise, independently of the existing establishments of learning; or they could be grafted on, and made a part of, those establishments. But this required an original plan of education, and a new foundation for its execution; where the young mind would be trained by a course of education and discipline that would unfold and perfect all his faculties; where genius would plume his young wings, and prepare himself to take the noblest flights. The idea, however, was not entirely original with Bacon; for it would be in effect but the revival of that system of education and discipline which produced such wonderful improvement and power of the human mind in Greece and Rome, and especially in Greece. Its effects here, I am persuaded, would be many and glorious. Of these I shall now indicate only one; but that one whose importance all must admit. In its progress and ultimately it would give to our country, I have no doubt, a national literature of a high and immortal character. However mortifying to our national pride it is to say it, it must be confessed that we have not a national literature of that character; nor is it possible we ever should have, as it appears to me, on our present systems of education. Not that our literature, such as it is, is inferior to that of other nations produced at the present day. No; mediocrity is the character of all literary works of the present day, go where you will. It is so in England, it is so in France, the two most literary nations of Europe. It is true, learned men and great scholars are every where to be found, indeed, they may be said to abound more than ever; the whole world, too, has become a reading world; the growth of the press is prodigious; but it is all ephemeral and evanescentall destined to the grave of oblivion. Nor is it that our countrymen have not the gift of genius for literary works of that high and immortal character. Probably no people were ever blessed with it in a greater degree-of which every where we see the indications and the evidence; but what signifies genius for an art without discipline, without knowledge of its principles, and skill in that art? "Vis consili expers, mole ruit sua; Vim temperatam, Dii quoque provebunt, In majus." Literature is now everywhere mediocre-because the arts of literature are nowhere cultivated, but everywhere neglected-and apparently despised. I recollect to have seen in a late and leading periodical of Great Britain, an article in which the writer congratulates the age upon having thrown off the shackles of composition; and says (in a tone of triumph) that no one now thinks of writing like Junius, (as if it was an easy matter, but beneath him, to write like Junius,) except, he adds, some junior sophister in the country, corresponding with the editor of some village newspaper. The whole tribe of present writers seem, by their silence, to receive this description as eulogy-as a tribute of praise properly paid to their merit; while in truth it is the characteristic of a barbarous age, or of one declining to barbarism; it is the very description applied to mark the decline and last glimmering of letters in Greece and Rome. The object of education is two-fold - knowledge and ability; both are important, but ability by far the most so. Knowledge is so far important as it is subsidiary to the acquiring of ability; and no further; except as a source of mental pleasure to the individual. It is ability that makes itself to be felt by society; it is ability that wields the sceptre over the human heart and the human intellect. Now it is a great mistake to suppose that knowledge imparts ability of course. It does, indeed, impart ability of a certain kind; for by exercising the attention and the memory, it improves the capacity for acquiring; but the capacity to acquire is not ability to originate and produce. No; ability can only be given by the appropriate studies, accompanied with the appropriate exercises-directed by a certain rule, and conducted infallibly to a certain result. In all the celebrated schools of Athens, this was the plan of education; and there the ingenious youth, blessed with faculties of promise, never failed to attain the eminence aspired to, unless his perseverance failed. Hence the mighty effects of those schools; hence that immense tide of great men which they poured forth in all the departments of science and letters; and especially of letters; and hence, too, the astonishing perfection of their works. A celebrated writer, filled with astonishment at the splendor as well as the number of the works produced by the scholars of these schools, ascribes the event to the hand of a wonder-working Providence, interposed in honor of human nature, to show to what perfection the species might ascend. But there was nothing of miracle in it; the means were adequate to the end. It is no wonder at all that such schools gave to Athens her Thucydides in history, her Plato in ethics; her Sophocles to her drama, and her Demosthenes to her forum and her popular assemblies; and gave to her besides that host of rivals to these and almost their equals. It was the natural and necessary effect of such a system of education; and especially with a people who held, as the Athenians did, all other human considerations as cheap in comparison with the glory of letters and the arts. It is true, this their high and brilliant career of literary glory was but of short duration; for soon as it had attained its meridian blaze it was suddenly arrested; for the tyrant came and laid the proud freedom of Athens in the dust, and the Athenians were a people with whom the love of glory could not survive the loss of freedom. For freedom was the breast at which that love was fed; freedom was the element in which it lived and had its being; freedom gave to it the fields where its most splendid triumphs were achieved. The genius of Athens now drooped; fell from its lofty flights down to tame mediocrity-to ephemeral works born but to languish and to die; and so remained during the long rule of that ruthless despotism-the Macedonian; and until the Roman came to put it down, and to merge Greece in the Roman empire. Athens now was partially restored again to freedom. Her schools which had been closed, or which had existed only in form, revived with something of their former effect. They again gave |