Chapter V - The Smithsonian Institution at Washington

Summary

I know no “Wisdom”, but that which reveals Man to himself, and which teaches him to regard all social institutions, and his whole life, as The means of unfolding and exalting The Spirit with him.....

I call that mind “free” which escapes The bondage of matter, which, instead of stopping at The Material Universe, and making it a prison-wall, passes beyond it to its Author, and finds, in The radiant signatures which it every where bears of The Infinite Spirit, helps to its own Spiritual Enlargement. —

CHANNING , Spiritual Freedom.

The Smithsonian Institution was founded by an Act of The Congress of The United States of America, on The 10th August, 1846, in pursuance of The bequest by James Smithson of all his property to The United States, in order to The establishment of an institution “at Washington, under The Name of The ‘Smithsonian Institution’ for The increase and diffusion of Knowledge among Men.“

James Lewis Macie (afterwards called Smithson) appears to have been a natural son of Sir Hugh Smithson, Bart., who was created Duke of Northumberland, in 1766 (and shortly afterwards “Vice-Admiral of all America”), after his marriage with The heiress of The Percies. Mrs. Elizabeth Macie, his mother, is said to have been of The Wiltshire family of Hungerford. Little is known of his life, save that he was educated at Oxford, that he cultivated a knowledge of chemistry, was well acquainted with Cavendish, and contributed to The Philosophical Transactionsseveral analytical papers on chemical subjects; that he was proud of his descent, yet keenly sensitive on The score of The “bar sinister” in his escutcheon; ambitious of leaving a name that, to use his own words, “would live in The memory of men when The titles of The Northumberlands and The Percies are extinct or forgotten,“ yet willing to make his purpose wholly contingent on The birth of no child or children to a nephew who survived him; that he passed most of his life on The Continent, and died at Genoa in 1829, unmarried, leaving a fortune of about £120,000 sterling.

Mr. Smithson is said to have been a man of reserved manners and sensitive feelings; but an anecdote (almost The only one which has survived of him) shows that he must have possessed considerable coolness and strength of nerve.