Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/333

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THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.
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and economical administration, and its superior reputation at home and abroad. Henry's Programme of Organization, presented to the Board of Regents December 8, 1847, is a model of skillful analytical statement, proposing plans for the increase of knowledge and its diffusion among men; in it he laid down broad lines of action and established the foundations on which the existing edifice stands. Henry devoted the rest of his life, thirty-three years, to the development of this programme, and the institution owes to him an everlasting debt of gratitude for his enlightened, pure, and able administration of the trust.

After the plans of Mr. James Renwick, Jr., for a Norman building, had been accepted, its erection in the Mall was conducted slowly, being completed in 1855, at an expense of about three hundred and fourteen thousand dollars. Meanwhile prudent economy in expenditures enabled Henry to add one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of accrued interest to the original fund. S. P. Langley. A library was begun by exchange and purchase, and materials for a museum collected and housed. Besides these interests, the institution adopted the plan of promoting original research by assisting men of science in their labors; at the same time series of investigation were instituted, explorations conducted, and the results of all these endeavors were published and distributed to all the learned societies and important libraries throughout the world.

Whenever a man was found capable of adding to the sum of human knowledge, the institution assisted him by supplying books not otherwise attainable, instruments of research, specimens of materials, and objects under investigation, and in some instances special grants of money were made for personal expenses. The specimens in all branches of natural history were not confined to the glass cases of the museum, but freely loaned to men engaged in special lines of research; and if the specimens required were not on hand, the institution undertook to obtain and to supply them, the only return asked for being