The Smithsonian institution : documents relative to its origin and history / edited by William J. Rhees.

Date:
[1879]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Smithsonian institution : documents relative to its origin and history / edited by William J. Rhees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    865/1042 (page 845)
    them bv the habitual observation of the stars, to trace their courses to some of the sublimest discoveries of astronomy. Nor could the application of the fund to any ec°1®8]a?h1“ cal or religious establishment be a proper fulhi ment of t ^ testator’s intention. The people of the United States ha e also religious duties to perform, for the charge and discharge of which they should not consent to be tributary, even in gratitude, to the bounty of any foreigner. The preaching ff the gospel, like the education of youth, promotes the in- crease and diffusion of knowledge; but the worship of God, and the fulfilment of moral duties to man, the special ob- ject of religious institutions, do not so much import the in- crease of knowledge as the right use of what is known. I suggested to the President that annual courses of lec- tures on the principal sciences, physical and mathematical, moral, political, and literary, to be delivered not by perma- nent professors, but by persons annually appointed, with a liberal compensation for each course, were among the means well adapted to the end of increasing and diffusing knowledge among men. . ,, , . But the great object of my solicitude would be to guard against the cancer of almost all charitable foundations jobbing for parasites, and sops for hungry incapacity, bor the economical management of the fund, and the periodical application of it to appropriate expenditures, it should be invested in a board of trustees, to consist partly of members of both Houses of Congress, with the Secretaries of the De- partments, the Attorney General, the Mayor of the city of Washington, and one or more inhabitants of the District of Columbia, to be incorporated as trustees of the Smithsonian fund, with a secretary and treasurer in one person, and to be the only salaried person of the board ; to be appointed for four years, and to be capable of reappointment, but re- moval for adequate cause by a majority of the board. Into details it is unnecessary to enter. . . The first object of appropriation, however, m my judg- ment, should be the erection of an astronomical observatory, for all the purposes of the Greenwich Observatory, in Eng- land, and the Bureau des Longitudes, in France. This alone would absorb the annual income of the fund for seven years and will form the subject of another letter. I am, with great respect, sir, your very obedient servant, John Quincy Adams. John Forsyth, Esq., Secretary of State of the United Stales.