Something of Men I Have Known / With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective

by Adlai E. Stevenson

XI A PRINCELY GIFT

DESCENT OF JAMES SMITHSON, FOUNDER OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION— HIS EDUCATION AND HIS WRITINGS—HIS WILL—THE UNITED STATES HIS RESIDUARY LEGATEE—SUCCESSFUL PROSECUTION OF THE CLAIM OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE LEGACY—PLANS SUGGESTED FOR THE DISPOSAL OF THE FUND —PROF. JOSEPH HENRY APPOINTED SECRETARY—BENEFICENT WORK OF THE INSTITUTION.

Although a third of a century has passed since I met Professor Joseph Henry, I distinctly recall his kindly greeting and the courteous manner in which he gave me the information I requested for the use of one of the Committees of the House.

The frosts of many winters were then on his brow, and he was near the close of an honorable career, one of measureless benefit to mankind. He was the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and the originator of the plan by which was carried into practical effect the splendid bequest for "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."

As Vice-President of the United States, a regent ex-officio of the Smithsonian Institution, I had rare opportunity to learn much of its history and something of its marvellous accomplishment. As is well known, it bears the name of James Smithson. He was an Englishman, related to the historic family of Percy, and a lineal descendent of Henry the Seventh, his maternal ancestor being the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey, cousin to Queen Elizabeth.

Mr. Langley, the late secretary of the institution, said:

"Smithson always seems to have regarded the circumstances of his birth as doing him a peculiar injustice, and it was apparently this sense that he had been deprived of honors properly his which made him look for other sources of fame than those which birth had denied him, and constituted the motive of the most important action of his life, the creation of the Smithsonian Institution."

The deep resentment of Smithson against the great families who had virtually disowned him, finds vent in a letter yet extant, of which the following is a part: "The best blood of England flows in my veins; on my father's side I am a Northumberland, on my mother's I am related to kings; but this avails me not. My name shall live in the memory of man when the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percys are extinct and forgotten."

How truly his indignant forecast was prophetic is now a matter of history. Few men know much about the once proud families of Northumberland or Percy, but the name of the youth they scornfully disowned lives in the institution he founded, the greatest instrumentality yet devised for "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."

Smithson was born in 1765, and received the degree of Master of Arts from Pembroke College at the age of twenty-one. A year later he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society, upon the recommendation of his instructors, as being "a gentleman well versed in the various branches of Natural Philosophy, and particularly in Chemistry and Mineralogy." As a student, he was devoted to the study of the sciences, especially chemistry, and his entire life, in fact, was given to scientific research. Twenty-seven papers from his pen were published in "The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society" and in "Thompson's Annals of Philosophy," near the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, and "all give evidence that he was an assiduous and faithful experimenter."

In this connection, the statement of Professor Clarke, Chief Chemist of the United States Geographical Survey, is in point:

"The most notable feature of Smithson's writings from the standpoint of the analytical chemist, is the success obtained with the most primitive and unsatisfactory appliances. In Smithson's day, chemical apparatus was undeveloped, and instruments were improvised from such materials as lay readiest to hand. With such instruments, and with crude reagents, Smithson obtained analytical results of the most creditable character, and enlarged our knowledge of many mineral species. In his time, the native carbonate and the silicate of zinc were confounded as one species under the name calamine; but his researches distinguished between the two minerals, which are now known as Smithsonite and Calamine, respectively.

"To theory Smithson contributed little, if anything; but from a theoretical point of view, the tone of his writings is singularly modern. His work was mostly done before Dalton had announced the atomic theory; and yet Smithson saw clearly that a law of definite proportions must exist, although he did not attempt to account for it. His ability as a reasoner is best shown in his paper on the Kirkdale Bone Cave, which Penn had sought to interpret by reference to the Noachian Deluge. A clearer and more complete demolition of Penn's views could hardly be written to-day. Smithson was gentle with his adversary, but none the less thorough, for all his moderation. He is not to be classed among the leaders of scientific thought; but his ability and the usefulness of his contributions to knowledge, cannot be doubted."

The life of Smithson was uncheered by domestic affection; he was of singularly retiring disposition, had no intimacies, spent the closing years of his life in Paris, and was long the uncomplaining victim of a painful malady. Professor Langley said of him:

"One gathers from his letters, from the uniform consideration with which he speaks of others, from kind traits which he showed, and from the general tenor of what is not here particularly cited, the remembrance of an innately gentle nature, but also of a man who is gradually renouncing not without bitterness the youthful hope of fame, and as health and hope diminished together, is finally living for the day, rather than for any future."

He died in Genoa, Italy, June 27, 1829, and was buried in the little English cemetery on the heights of San Benigno. The Institution he founded has placed a tablet over his tomb and surrounded it with evidences of continued and thoughtful care.

His will—possibly of deeper concern to mankind than any yet written —bears date October 23, 1826. In its opening clause he designates himself: "Son of Hugh, First Duke of Northumberland, and Elizabeth, heiress of the Hungerfords of Studley, and niece to Charles the proud Duke of Somerset." Herein clearly appears his undying resentment toward those who had denied him the position in life to which he considered himself justly entitled.

The only persons designated in his will as legatees are a faithful servant, for whom abundant provision was made, and Henry James Hungerford, nephew of the testator. To the latter was devised the entire estate except the legacy to the servant mentioned. The clause of the will which has given the name of Smithson to the ages seems to have been almost casually inserted; it appears between the provision for his servant and the one for an investment of the funds.

The clause in his will which was to cause his name "to live in the memory of man when the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percys are extinct and forgotten," was,—

"In the case of the death of my said nephew without leaving a child or children, or the death of the child or children he may have had under the age of twenty-one years, or intestate, I then bequeath the whole of my property subject to the annuity of one hundred pounds to John Fitall (for the security and payment of which I have made provision) to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."

Why he selected the United States as his residuary legatee has long been, and will continue to be, the subject of curious inquiry. He had never been in America, had no correspondent here, and nowhere in his writings has there been found an allusion to our country. So far as we know, he could have had no possible prejudice in favor of our system of representative government.

It is a singular fact, however, in this connection, that the pivotal clause in his will bears striking resemblance to the admonition, "Promote as an object of primary importance institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge," contained in the farewell address of President Washington.

The contingency provided for happened; the death of the nephew Hungerford unmarried and without heirs occurred six years after that of the testator. The first announcement to the people of the United States of the facts stated was contained in a special message from President Jackson to Congress, December 17, 1835. Accompanying the message was a letter with a detailed statement, and copy of the will, from our Legation in London. In closing his brief message of transmission, President Jackson says: "The Executive having no authority to take any steps for accepting the trust and obtaining the funds, the papers are communicated with a view to such measures as Congress may deem necessary."

On the first day of July, 1836, a bill authorizing the President to assert and prosecute the claim of the United States to the Smithson legacy became a law. This, however, was after much opposition in Congress; a member of the House indignantly declaring that our Government should receive nothing by way of gift from England, and proposing that the bequest should be denied. The prophetic words of the venerable John Quincy Adams—then a member of the House after his retirement from the Presidency—in advocating the passage of the bill are worthy of remembrance:

"Of all the foundations of establishments for pious or charitable uses which ever signalized the spirit of the age, or the comprehensive beneficence of the founders, none can be named more deserving the approbation of mankind than this. Should it be faithfully carried into effect with an earnestness and sagacity of application and a steady perseverance of purpose proportioned to the means furnished by the will of the founder, and to the greatness and simplicity of his design as by himself declared,—'the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men,'—it is no extravagance of anticipation to declare that his name will hereafter be enrolled among the benefactors of mankind."

In the execution of this law, the President immediately upon its enactment appointed Richard Rush, a distinguished lawyer of Philadelphia, to proceed to London, and take the necessary steps to obtain the legacy. To the accomplishment of this purpose a suit was soon thereafter instituted by Mr. Rush. The hopelessness of its early termination in an English Chancery Court of that day will at once occur to the readers of Dickens's famous "Jarndyce against Jarndyce." It was truly said, that a chancery suit was a thing which might begin with a man's life, and its termination be his epitaph.

A wiser selection than Mr. Rush could not have been made. He entered upon the work to which he had been appointed, with great determination. In a letter to our Secretary of State just after he had instituted suit, he says:

"A suit of higher interest and dignity, has rarely perhaps been before the tribunals of a nation. If the trust created by the testator's will be successfully carried into effect by the enlightened legislation of Congress, benefits may flow to the United States, and to the human family, not easy to be estimated, because operating silently and gradually throughout time, yet not operating the less effectually. Not to speak of the inappreciable value of letters to individual and social man, the monuments which they raise to a nation's glory often last when others perish, and seem especially appropriate to the glory of a Republic whose foundations are laid in the assumed intelligence of its citizens, and can only be strengthened and perpetuated as that improve."

The successful termination of the suit came, however, sooner than could have been expected; and in May, 1838, the amount of the legacy, exceeding the substantial sum of five hundred thousand dollars, was received and invested as required by law.

The facts stated were communicated by special message from President Van Buren to Congress, in December, 1838. Attention was then called to the fact that he had applied to persons versed in science, for their views as to the mode of disposing of the fund which would be calculated best to meet the intent of the testator, and prove most beneficial to mankind.

During the eight years intervening between this message and the passage of the bill for the incorporation of the Smithsonian Institution, much discussion was had in and out of Congress, as to the best method of making effective the intention of the testator.

In the light of events, some of the many plans suggested are even now of curious interest. The establishment of a magnificent national library at the Capital; the founding of a great university; of a normal school; a post graduate school; and astronomical observatory "equal to any in the world," are a few of the plans from time to time proposed and earnestly advocated.

The act of incorporation in 1846, the appointment of a Board of Regents, and the selection of a Secretary, mark the beginning of the Smithsonian Institution. In the selection of a Secretary, the chief officer of the institution, the regents builded better than they knew. The choice fell upon Professor Joseph Henry of Princeton, then peerless among men of science in America. The appointment was accepted, and the essential features of the plan of organization he proposed were adopted in December, 1847. This plan recognized as

"Fundamental that the terms 'increase' and 'diffusion' should receive literal interpretation in accordance with the evident intention of the testator; that such terms being logically distinct, the two purposes mentioned in the bequest were to be kept in view in the organization of the institution; that the increase of knowledge should be effected by the encouragement of original researches of the highest character; and its diffusion by the publication of the results of original research, by means of the publication of a series of volumes of original memoirs; that the object of the institution should not be restricted in favor of any particular kind of knowledge; if to any, only to the higher and more abstract, to the discovery of new principles rather than that of isolated facts; that the institution should in no sense be national; that the bequest was intended for the benefit of mankind in general, and not for any single nation.

"The accumulation and care of collections of objects of nature and art, the development of a library, the providing of courses of lectures, and the organization of a system of meteorological observation, were to be only incidental to the fundamental design of increasing and diffusing knowledge among men."

In its inception, and in its widening influence during the passing years, those entrusted with the actual management of this institution have conscientiously kept in view the clearly expressed intention of its founder. Following the distinctive but parallel paths, "increase" and "diffusion," the Smithsonian Institution, yet in its infancy, has added largely to the sum of useful knowledge. Its accredited representatives are out upon every pathway of intelligent research and discovery. Under the wise operation of this marvellous instrumentality, long-concealed secrets of nature have been discovered, and it can hardly be doubted that all that is given to man to know will yet be revealed, and it will be permitted him

"To read what is still unread,
In the manuscripts of God."

By indefatigable investigation, and by world-wide publication of the results, mankind has indeed become, as was intended, the beneficiary of the princely bequest.

More fitting words could not be selected with which to close this sketch than those of the gifted and lamented Langley, whose best years were given to scientific research, and whose name is inseparably associated with the Smithsonian Institution:

"What has been done in these two paths the reader may partly gather from this volume—in the former from the various articles by contemporary men of science, describing its activities in research and original contributions to the increase of human knowledge; in the latter, in numerous way—among others from the description of the work of one of its bureaux, that of the International Exchanges, where it may be more immediately seen how universal is the scope of the action of the Institution, which, in accordance with its motto 'PER ORBEM,' is not limited to the country of its adoption, but belongs to the world, there being outside of the United States more than twelve thousand correspondents scattered through every portion of the globe; indeed there is hardly a language, or a people, where the results of Smithson's benefaction are not known, and associated with his name.

"If we were permitted to think of him as conscious of what has been, is being, and is still to be done, in pursuance of his wish, we might believe that he would feel that his hope at a time when life must have seemed so hopeless, was finding full fruition; for events are justifying what may have seemed, at the time, but a rhetorical expression, in the language of a former President of the United States, who has said: 'Renowned as is the name of Percy in the historical annals of England, let the trust of James Smithson to the United States of America be faithfully executed, let the result accomplish his object, the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men, and a wreath more unfading shall entwine itself in the lapse of future ages around the name of Smithson than the united hands of history and poetry have braided around the name of Percy through the long ages past.'"