"Parent"

In 1826 a not very happy James Smithson of England sat down to write his will. He had half a million dollars but only a nephew to enjoy them. He was 61 and infirm. His father, the Duke of Northumberland, had never married his mother, a Tudor lady. He had spent his life less among men than in the pursuit of knowledge-- mixing chemicals, examining minerals, pondering the earth's origin, improving oil lamps. He had never been in the U. S. but it occurred to him that in such a young country on such a rich continent at such an epochal moment in the history of science, invention and industry, there must be ample room for a fund to keep men's understanding abreast of men's undertakings.* James Smithson signed his whole estate over to the U. S. Government "to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."

James Smithson died. The clipper Mediator brought $104,960 in gold sovereigns to Philadelphia, where they were recoined into $508,318.46. Five U. S. Congresses tried to define "knowledge" and how best to "increase" and "diffuse" it. John Quincy Adams and Richard Rush were among those who contributed the basic ideas of a charter that was finally adopted (1846), making the Smithsonian Institution a private affair under the guardianship of the Federal Government. The President, Vice President, Chief Justice and members of the Cabinet were made the Smithsonian "establishment." Three Senators, three Representatives and six citizens at large constituted, with the Vice President and Chief Justice, a board of regents.

The first board of regents consulted leading contemporary scientists--Faraday, Bache, Silliman --;who unanimously averred that Joseph Henry, natural historian and physicist at Princeton, was "without a peer in American science." Joseph Henry relinquished his private researches and gave 32 years, as the Institution's first secretary, to making its charter into a reality.

To "increase" knowledge he offered awards and subsidies to investigators. A young man named Alexander Graham Bell was discouraged over some experiments he had tried with magnets. Joseph Henry was sympathetic. The telephone was made. Joseph Henry enlisted volunteers to record what kind of days passed in different cities. Out of that grew the U. S. Weather Bureau.

To "diffuse" knowledge, Joseph Henry published reports and memoirs for people who had investigated this and that. He exchanged these publications for similar literature published abroad. He persuaded the Library of Congress to care for all the pamphlets, manuscripts and books he thus accumulated. Similarly he persuaded Congress to build a national museum to house all the specimens of the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms that poured in upon him.

The Smithsonian thus pursued wide activities without spending more than its income. When convenient, it turned over its ever multiplying departments to 'the Government for support, continuing only to supervise. Thus arose the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, the U. S. Geological Survey, the Bureau of American Ethnology, the National Zoological Park, the National Gallery of Art.

The Institute's fourth Secretary, Dr. Charles Doolittle Walcott, started life as a farm boy in upper New York. He collected minerals, birds' eggs, insects. One day a wagon wheel unearthed a fossil deposit. He became a geologist, rose to head the U. S. Geological Survey.

Since Dr. Walcott's appointment, the Smithsonian's scope has broadened and broadened, in botany, agriculture, paleontology, entomology, mathematics and many more directions. It was under Dr. Walcott that Theodore Roosevelt planned his African trip; under him that Dr. Schumann of Germany got help in learning how to apply ultraviolet rays to cure rickets. Ethnologist Hrdlicka circled the globe studying types of man. Men measured the sun's radiance in South America and in an African crater. Diggers exhumed adobes in the Southwest. Quartz was utilized in submarine detectors. . . .

The further he pressed the Smithsonian's activities, the more clearly Secretary Walcott saw that it was impossible to perform 20th Century work on an 19th Century endowment.* Several months ago he planned to hold a meeting of the entire Smithsonian "establishment"--such a meeting as had never before been held. He planned that the "establishment" should review the Smithsonian's 81 years of scientific increase and diffusion and appeal to the U. S. people for at least ten millions to assure its continuance on a fitting scale. He fell ill. He called his assistant, Dr. Charles G. Abbott, and said the meeting must he held whether he could be there or not.

Last week Dr. Walcott died. Two mornings later. President Coolidge, Vice President Dawes, Chief Justice Taft, the Cabinet and such notables as Senator Smoot of Utah, Financier Dwight W. Morrow, President John C. Merriam of the Carnegie Institution, President George E. Vincent of the Rockefeller Foundation, President W. W. Campbell of the University of California, President Henry Fairfield Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History, reported as scheduled at the long brownstone building in Smithsonian Park. Chief Justice Taft, as chancellor of the Institution and chairman of the meeting, briefly rehearsed the history and purpose of "the parent of U. S. science." Acting-Secretary Abbott talked about the future--how fast man is obliterating other forms of life; how much is to be learned from other forms of life; how valuable knowledge is, not only for practical ends, but for itself.

*Or as some believe, Mr. Smithson had heard of a U. S. movement to found an institution in accordance with George Washington's recommendation in his Fare well Address (1796).

*Before he was appointed secretary of the Smithsonian, Dr. Walcott persuaded Andrew Carnegie to give ten millions for an institution where research could be prosecuted, not merely directed.