Ten Years in Washington / or, Inside Life and Scenes in Our National Capital as a Woman Sees Them ... to Which Is Added a Full Account of the Life and Death of President James A. Garfield

by Mary Clemmer

Details of the Plan for Diffusing Knowledge: First, by the publication of a series of reports, giving an account of the new discoveries in science, and of the changes made from year to year in all branches of knowledge, not strictly professional. These reports will diffuse a kind of knowledge generally interesting, but which, at present, is inaccessible to the public. Some reports may be published annually, others at longer intervals, as the income of the Institution or the changes in the branches of knowledge may indicate. Second, the reports are to be prepared by collaborators eminent in the different branches of knowledge. Third, each collaborator to be furnished with the journals and publications, domestic and foreign, necessary to the compilation of his report; to be paid a certain sum for his labors, and to be named on the title-page of the report. Fourth, the reports to be published in separate parts, so that persons interested in a particular branch can procure the parts relating to it without purchasing the whole. Fifth, these reports may be presented to Congress for partial distribution, the remaining copies to be given to literary and scientific institutions, and sold to individuals for a moderate price.

By the Publication of Separate Treatises on Subjects of General Interest: First, these treatises may occasionally consist of valuable memoirs translated from foreign languages, or of articles prepared under the direction of the Institution, or procured by offering premiums for the best exposition of a given subject. Second, the treatises should, in all cases, be submitted to a commission of competent judges, previous to their publication.

“The only changes made in the policy above indicated have been the passage of resolutions, by the Regents, repealing the equal division of the income between the active operations and the museum and library, and further providing that the annual appropriations are to be apportioned specifically among the different objects and operations of the Institution, in such manner as may, in the judgment of the Regents, be necessary and proper for each, according to its intrinsic importance, and a compliance in good faith with the law.”

The Act of Congress, organizing the Institution, makes the President and Vice-President of the United States, the Cabinet Ministers, the Chief-Justice of the United States, the Cabinet Ministers and the Mayor of Washington, members ex officio of the Institution. The Board of Regents charged with the control of the Institution, consists of the President of the United States, the Mayor of Washington, three Senators of the United States, three members of the House of Representatives, who are ex officio Regents, six persons, not members of Congress, two of whom must be citizens of Washington, and members of the National Institute of that city, and the other four citizens of any of the states of the Union, no two of whom are to be chosen from the same state. The Board of Regents make annual reports of their conduct of the Institution to Congress.

The real “power behind the throne” is the Secretary of the Institution, who is executive officer. He has charge of the edifice, its contents, and the grounds, and is given as many assistants, as are necessary to enable him to conduct the varied operations of the Institution. The property of the Institution is placed under the protection of the laws for the preservation and safe keeping of the public buildings and grounds of the City of Washington.

Upon the organization of the Institution, Congress set apart for its use a portion of the public ground lying westward of the Capitol, and between it and the Potomac River. Fifty-two acres comprised the grant, which was known as the “Smithsonian Reservation.” They were laid out under the supervision of Andrew Jackson Downing. He died while engaged in this work, and his memory is perpetuated by a memorial erected in the grounds in 1852, by the American Pomological Society, and consisting of a massive vase resting on a handsome pedestal, with appropriate inscriptions, the whole being of the finest Italian marble.

The building is situated near the centre of the grounds as they originally existed, the centre of the edifice being immediately opposite Tenth Street west. It is constructed of a fine quality of lilac-gray freestone, found in the new red sandstone formation, where it crosses the Potomac, near the mouth of Seneca Creek, one of the tributaries of that river, and about twenty-three miles above Washington. The stone is very soft at first, and is quarried with comparative ease. In its fresh state, it may be worked with the chisel and mallet; but it hardens rapidly upon exposure to the air and weather, and will withstand, after a time, the severest usage.

The structure is in the style of architecture belonging to the last half of the twelfth century, the latest variety of rounded style, as it is found immediately anterior to its merging into the early Gothic, and is known as the Norman, the Lombard, or Romanesque. The semi-circular arch, stilted, is employed throughout, in door, windows, and other openings.

The main building is 205 feet long by 57 feet wide, and to the top of the corbel course, 58 feet high. The east wing is 82 by 52 feet, and to the top of its battlement, 42½ feet high. The west wing, including its projecting apsis, is 84 by 40 feet, and 38 feet high. Each of the wings is connected with the main building by a range which, including its cloisters, is 60 feet long by 49 feet wide. This makes the length of the entire building, from east to west, 447 feet. Its greatest breadth is 160 feet.

The north front of the main building has two central towers, the loftiest of which is 150 feet high. It has also a broad, covered carriage-way, upon which opens the main entrance to the building. The south central tower is 37 feet square, 91 feet high, and massively constructed. A double campanile tower, 17 feet square, 117 feet high, rises from the north-east corner of the main building; and the south-west corner has an imposing octagonal tower, in which is a spiral stair-way, leading to the summit. There are four other smaller towers of lesser hights, making nine in all, the effect of which is very beautiful, and which once caused a wit to remark that it seemed to him as if a “collection of church steeples had gotten lost, and were consulting together as to the best means of getting home to their respective churches.”