lated in France, Germany, and Italy. He is entitled from these productions to high literary as well as scientific rank, from the purity of style which characterizes their composition, and the frequent passages of eloquence and of genuine humor to be found at no long intervals in their pages.

Dr. Draper has been a member of the Medical Faculty of the University since its formation, and was appointed by the unanimous voice of his associates president of that body in 1851.

Mr. Elias Loomis, the author of several important scientific text-books, was in 1844 appointed Professor of Mathematics.

Professor Loomis is a graduate of Yale College, and was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in the University in 1844, having previously filled the same professorship in Western Reserve College, Ohio. He is the author of several volumes and papers on mathematics and astronomy.*

In 1846 Mr. George J. Adler was appointed Professor of the German language. Professor Adler was born in Germany in 1821, came to the United States in 1833, and was graduated at the University in 1844. He is the author of a German Grammar published in 1846, a German Reader in 1847, and a German and English Dictionary, in a volume of large size, in 1848. He has since, in 1851, published an abridgment of this work, and in 1853, a Manual of Germın Literature, with elaborate critical prefaces on the authors from whom the specimens contained in the volume have been taken.

In 1850 Professor Adler published an able metrical translation of the Iphigenia of Goethe. He is also the author of several articles on German and classical literature in the Literary World. He resigned his professorship in 1854, and has since been occupied in private tuition and literary pursuits.

In 1852 Mr. Howard Crosby was appointed Professor of Greek. Mr. Crosby was born in the city of New York and was graduated at the University in 1844. Visiting Europe a few years after, he made an extensive tour in the Levant, the results of which were given to the public in a pleasant and scholarly volume, in 1851. In the following year he published an edition of the Edipus Tyrannus of Sophocles.

The alumni of the literary departments of the University now number over five hundred.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Owes its foundation to an act of Congress of 1826, which appro

* Elements of Algebra, 12mo., pp. 260. A Treatise on Algebra, 8vo., pp. 336. Elements of Geometry and Conte Sections, 8vo., pp. 226. Trigonometry and Tables, 8vo., pp. 314. Elements of Analytical Geometry, and of the Differential and Integral Calculus, 8vo., pp. 278. An Introduction to Practical Astronomy, with a Collection of Astronomical Tables, 8vo., pp. 497. Recent Progress of Astronomy, especially in the United States. He has contributed to the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, nine memoirs relating to Astronomy, Magnetism, and Meteorology; and to the American Journal of Science and Arts from twenty to thirty papers on various questions of science. The Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science also contain a number of his papers, and several have appeared in other periodicals.

+ Land of the Moslem, a Narrative of Oriental Travel, by El Mukattein.

priated two entire townships, including more than forty-six thousand acres of land, within what was then a territory, "for the use and support of a university, and for no other use or purpose whatever." When Michigan became a state the subject engaged the earnest attention of its legislators. An organization was recommended in 1837 in the report of the Rev. J. D. Pierce, the first superintendent of public instruction, and the first law under the state legislation establishing "The University of Michigan" was approved March 18th of that year. In this act the objects were stated to be "to provide the inhabitants of the state with the means of acquiring a thorough knowledge of the various branches of literature, science, and the arts." A body of regents was to be appointed by the governor of the state, with the advice and consent of the Senate. The governor, lieutenant-governor, judges of the Supreme Court, and chancellor of the state, were ex-officio members. Three departments were provided: of literature, science, and the arts; of law, and of medicine. Fifteen professorships were liberally mapped out in the first of these; three in the second, and six in the third. The institution was to be presided over by a chancellor. An additional act located the University in or near the village of Ann Arbor, on a site to be conveyed to the regents free of cost, and to include not less than forty acres.

An important question soon arose with the legislature in determining the policy of granting charters for private colleges in the state. Opinions on the subject were obtained from Dr. Wayland, Edward Everett, and others, who agreed in stating the advantage of forming one well endowed institution, in preference to the division of means and influence among many. The legislature did not adopt any exclusive system, though the obvious policy of concentrating the state support upon the University has been virtually embraced.

A system of branches or subsidiary schools in the state, intermediate between the primary school and the college, was early organized. They were to supply pupils to the University.

The first professor chosen, in 1838, was Dr. Asa Gray, now of Cambridge, in the department of botany and zoology. Five thousand dollars were placed at his disposal for the purchase of books in Europe as the commencement of the University library. This secured a collection of nearly four thousand volumes.

Dr. Houghton was also appointed professor of geology and mineralogy. The mineralogical collection of Baron Lederer of Austria was purchased, and added to the collections in geology, mineralogy, botany, and zoology, made within the geographical area of Michigan by the state geologist and his corps.

The income of the University, partaking of the embarrassments of the times, scanty and uncertain, and mainly absorbed in the erection of the buildings and the support of the branches, was not in 1840 sufficient for the full organization of the main institution. There were two hundred and forty-seven students in that year in the branches. In 1842 a portion of the money expended on these schools was withdrawn, and devoted to the faculty of the still unformed univer

sity. Professors of Mathematics and of Latin and Greek were appointed.

In the report of the regents of 1849 it appears that there were thirty-eight students in the department of literature and sciences, under the charge of seven professors. No chancellor had been as yet appointed. Each of the professors presided, on a system of rotation, as president of the faculty.

It was not till December, 1852, that Dr. Henry P. Tappan, eminent as a writer on metaphysical subjects, the author of two treatises on the Will and a work on the Elements of Logic, and formerly professor of intellectual and moral philo-ophy in the University of the City of New York, was inaugurated the first chancellor. The subject of university education had long employed his attention, and he studied its practical working in England and Prussia during a foreign tour, of which he gave to the public a record in his volumes entitled A Step from the New World to the Old. His inaugural address contained an able programme of the objects to be pursued in a true university course. He has since again visited Europe, further studied the workings of education in Prussia, and secured valuable acquisitions for the literary and scientific resources of the University. Among these were the instruments for a first class observatory, now established at the university by the liberality of the citizens of Detroit, over which an eminent foreign astronomer, Dr. Francis Brunnow, the associate of Encke at the Royal Observatory at Berlin, is now presiding.

The revision of the course of studies engaged Dr. Tappan's attention. It is now symmetrically arranged to include every object of a liberal education, with provision for expansion as the growing needs and resources of the institution may demand. The literally endowed primary schools of the state, a system of associated or union schools in districts, the introduction of normal schools lead to the ordinary under-graduate course of the university, which it is proposed to extend by the introduction of lectures for those students who may wish to proceed further. A scientific course may be pursued separately, and the plan embraces instruction on agricultural subjects.

The following passages from Chancellor Tappan's Report to the Board of Regents at the close of 1853 will exhibit the liberal spirit of the scholar which he brings to his work :

The ideal character of the Prussian system must belong to every genuine system of education. We must always begin with assuming that man is to be educated because he is man, and that the development of his powers is the great end of education, and one which really embraces every other end. Especially is it important to hold this forth among a people like that of the United States, where the industrial arts and commerce are such general and commanding objects. In the immense reach of our material prosperity, we are in danger of forgetting our higher spiritual nature, or, at least, of preserv ing only a dim and feeble consciousness of it. are in danger of becoming mere creatures of the earth-earthy, and of reducing all values to the standard of material utility. And yet man is good and happy only as his moral and intellectual nature is developed. He does not fill up the measure of his being by merely building houses for his comfort

We

able accommodation, and by providing for himself abundance of wholesome food. He has capacities for knowledge, truth, beauty, and virtue also: and these, too, must be satisfied.

Besides philosophy, science, poetry, and the fine arts, in general, are no less essential to national existence and character than agriculture, manufa tures, and commerce. In the first place, the latter could never exist in a perfect form without the former, since all improvement must be dependent upon principles widely diffused, and great men for the knowledge and taste: and, in the second place, great offices of the state and of society at large, and great deeds to signalize a nation's existence, and works of literature and art to convey the spirit of a people to other nations, and to the following generations, all depend upon the spiritual cultivation of the human being Nay, farther, there is no country in which national existence and character will so depend upon this higher cultivation as in ours. Here are vast multitudes collected from other nations, as well as of native growth, thrown together in a breadth of territory whose resources dazzle the imagination, and, for the present, defy calculation. And these multitudes constantly increasing, and with so wide a field to act in, are in a state of freedom such as no people has ever before possessed. We are in a state approximating to absolute self-government. not the mere force of laws, and the executive authority of the officers of government, which can control and regulate such a people. We ourselves make and alter our constitution and laws. And laws when made become, in effect, null and void unless sustained by popular opinion.

It is

It is the noblest form of government when a people are prepared for it, and a form which implies that they are prepared for it. It is a form which shows less of the outward form of government, be- . cause it supposes a people so enlightened and moral that they do not require it. Rational thought, the principles of truth and virtue, and an incorruptible patriotism, supersede a police, standing armies, and courts of justice. In such a state, it is at least de manded that the enlightened and the good shall predominate. As all this is implied in our constitution and laws, so, as wise men and true patriots, we must try to make it good. And to this end we require a higher education of the people than obtains in any other country. And on the same principle, we ought to have more philosophers, men of science, artists, and authors, and eminent statesmen-in fine, more great men than any other people. We want the highest forms of culture multiplied not merely for embellishment, but to preserve our very existence as a nation.

If we ever fall to pieces it will be through a people ignorant and besotted by material prosperity, and because cunning demagogues and boastful sciolists shall abound more than men of high intelligence and real worth.

The University is supported by the sale of the lands appropriated by the general government and by grants from the state. Students are admitted from all portions of the country on paying an initiation fee of only ten dollars for permanent membership. Room rent and the services of a janitor are secured by paying annually a sum varying from five to seven dollars and fifty cents-so that the instruction is virtually free.

A medical department is in successful operation.*

*Full information on the entire school system of the state will be found in an octavo volume, entitled System of Public

The number of under-graduate students in 1855 was two hundred and eighty-eight, including fourteen in the partial course, and one hundred and thirty-three in the medical department. Of these one hundred and forty-two were from Michigan; sixteen other states of the Union were represented; there were five students from Canada West, one from England, and one from the Sandwich Islands.

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE.

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE, at the seat of government at Washington, was organized in May, 1840, for the promotion of science and the useful art, and to establish a National Museum of Natural History. The first directors were the late Joel R. Poinsett, then Secretary of War, the Hon. James K. Paulding, Secretary of the Navy, with whom were associated, as Councillors," the Hon. John Q. Adams, Col. J. J. Abert, Col. Joseph G. Totten, Dr. Alexander McWilliams, and A. O. Dayton. Francis Markoe, Jr., was the early and efficient Corresponding Secretary. tions were planned of geology and mineralogy, of chemistry, of the application of science to the arts, of literature and the fine arts, of natural history, of agriculture, of astronomy, of American history and antiquities, of geography and natural philosophy, of natural and political sciences.

Sec

Ex-President John Quincy Adams and Peter S. Duponceau, among others, took an active interest in its proceedings. An address was delivered by Mr. Poinsett in 1841, on its object and importThe Association was incorporated in 1842 by the name of "The National Institute for the Promotion of Science."

ance.

Mr. Levi Woodbury, then a member of the Senate, was chosen to succeed Mr. Poinsett as President in 1845.

The first Vice-President of the Society was Mr. Peter Force, whose valuable services to the country, in the preparation of the Documentary History of the Origin and Progress of the United States, will secure him the gratitude of future ages. He now holds the office of President. The present Corresponding Secretary is Mr. Joseph C. G. Kennedy. Mr. William W. Turner, formerly instructor in Hebrew in the Union Theological Seminary, New York, the associate of Dr. E. A. Andrews in the American adaptation of Freund's Latin German Lexicon, and at present Librarian of the Patent Office at Washington, is the Recording Secretary of the Institute.

One of the objects of the Society, as the nucleus of a National Museum, was soon attained. The Secretary of War deposited a valuable collection of Indian portraits and curiosities. The Society fell heir to the effects, books, and papers, of a local "Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences," the charter of which had run out. The collections were placed in the Patent Office, together with the objects of science sent home by the United States Exploring Expedition under Capt. Wilkes. The Institute also

Instruction and Primary School Law of Michigan, with Explanatory Notes, Forms, Regulations, and Instructions; a Digest of Decisions; a Detailed History of Public Instruction, etc. Prepared by Francis W. Shearinan. Published by the state in 1852.

VOL. II. 47

737

received many valuable additions to its library and Museum from France, through the agency of M. Vattemare; and numerous choice contributions from various distant parts of the world. Donations from all sides were numerous.

A special meeting or congress was held in April, 1844, to which scientific men were generally invited. An address was delivered by the Hon. R. J. Walker of Mississippi. Ten daily meetings were held, at which papers were read by men distinguished in science.

In 1845, an annual address was delivered bofore the Institute by the Hon. Levi Woodbury.

The publications of the Institute have been limited, for the want of pecuniary endowment. It has depended on the precarious subscriptions of members, and has languished with funds inadequate for its ordinary business purposes. Four Bulletins have been issued in 1841, 1842, 1845, and 1846. These contain many interesting notices of the growing activity of the country in the departments of science. The meetings of the Society, however, called forth many elaborate papers, which were read in public from time to time, and printed in the National Intelligencer.

The activity of the Institute has lately revived, chiefly through the exertions of a few of its members. The publication of a new series of Proceedings was commenced in 1855, and valuable papers have been recently read at the meetings, which are held once a fortnight, from October to May, in the Agricultural Room of the Patent Office. The Library, which contains between three and four thousand volumes, with a considerable collection of maps, charts, and engravings, occupies a room in the same building. To these have been added a large and valuable collection of the crude and manufactured products of British Guiana, embracing all the woods of that country, in specimens of longitudinal and cross sections, numbering several hundred; all the fruits, seeds, medicinal roots, barks, models of houses, boats, furniture, manufactures of every kind, Indian curiosities, and implements, fibrous and textile fabrics, the birds (beautifully preserved), and a few of the quadrupeds. collection was prepared, at very great expense, by a large number of the British residents of the colony, chiefly, it is believed, through the ex、 ertions of the late Consul of the United States, Mr. W. E. Dennison, and were designed first for exhibition at the New York Crystal Palace and afterwards to be deposited in the Federal Capitol.

This

Besides this, there has been added a large and valuable collection of British crude and manufactured products made by order of Her Majesty's Government, being a full duplicate of that exhibited at the London Crystal Palace in 1851, and subsequently at the New York Crystal Palace.

THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. THE liberal founder of this institution was James Smithson, whose will making the bequest for its support, dated October 23, 1826, commences with the following paragraph :—“I, James Smithson, son of Hugh, first Duke of Northumberland, and Elizabeth, heiress of the Hungerfords of Audley, and niece of Charles the Proud, Duke of Somer

set, now residing in Bentinck street, Cavendish square, do, &c." Mr. Smithson was the illegiti mate son of a Duke of Northumberland. His mother was a Mrs. Macie, of an old family in Wiltshire, of the name of Hungerford. He was educated at Oxford, where he bore his mother's name. He distinguished himself by his proficiency in chemistry, and received an honorary degree at the university in 1786. He subsequently contributed a number of papers to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, of which he was a member, and to the Annals of Philosophy.* Provided with a liberal fortune by his father, he passed life as a bachelor, living in lodgings in London, and in the chief cities of the Continent. He was of feeble health and reserved manners.t At the time of his death in 1829 he resided at Genoa. His will provided that the bulk of his estate, in case of a failure of heirs to a nephew, should be given "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."

By the death of the nephew without heirs in 1835, the property devolved upon the United States. The testator's executors communicated the fact to the United States Chargé d'Affaires at London, by whom it was brought to the knowledge of the State Department at Washington. A message on the subject was sent to Congress by President Jackson, December 17, 1835. A Committee of the House of Representatives, of which John Quincy Adams was chairman, was appointed to examine the subject. In accordance with their report, Congress passed an act, July 1, 1836, authorizing the President to assert and prosecute with effect the right of the United States to the legacy, making provision for the reception of the fund by the Treasury, and pledging the national credit for its faithful application," in such manner as Congress may hereafter direct." Mr. Richard Rush, the American Minister to Great Britain from 1817 to 1825, of which service he published a narrative," A Residence at the Court of London," often referred to for its faithful and animated contemporary picture of the Court and Parliament, was appointed the agent to procure the fund. He discharged his duties with such ability that by the close of the year 1838, the American Secretary of the Treasury was in possession of a sum resulting from the bequest, of five hundred and fifteen thousand, one hundred and sixty-nine dollars.

For seven years the fund was suffered to accumulate without the object of the bequest having been fairly undertaken. In August, 1846, after considerable agitation of the subject in various forms, an act was passed by Congress constituting the President, Vice-President, the Secretaries of State, the Treasury, War, and the Navy; the

An anecdote of Smithson's chemical pursuits has been preserved by Mr. Davies Gilbert, President of the Royal Society, in an address to that body in 1830.- Mr. Smithson declared, that happening to observe a tear gliding down a lady's cheek he endeavored to catch it on a crystal vessel, that one-half of the drop escaped, but having preserved the other half, he submitted it to re-agents, and detected what was then called microcosmic salt, with muriate of soda, and, I think, three or four more saline substances, held in solution."

+ Letter from the Hon. Richard Rush to the Hon. John Forsyth, London, May 12, 1835. Eighth Annual Report, Smithsonian Institution, p. 103.

Postmaster-General; the Attorney-General; the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Commissioner of the Patent Office, and Mayor of Washington, and such persons as they might elect honorary members, an "establishment” under the name of "the Smithsonian Institution for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." The members and honorary members hold stated and special meetings for the supervision of the affairs of the Institution, and for advice and instruction of the actual managers, a 'Board of Regents, to whom the financial and other affairs are intrusted. The Board of Regents consists of three members ex officio of the establishment, namely, the Vice-President of the United States, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the Mayor of Washington, together with twelve other members, three of whom are appointed by the Senate from its own body, three by the House of Representatives from its members, and six citizens appointed by a joint resolution of both houses, of whom two are to be members of the National Institute, and resident in Washington; the remainder from the states, but not more than one from a single state. The terms of service of the members vary with the periods of office which give them the position. The citizens are chosen for six years. The Regents elect one of their number as Chancellor, and an Executive Committee of three.* This board elects a Secretary and other officers for conducting the active operations of the Institution.

The Act of Congress directs the formation of a library, a museum (for which it grants the collections belonging to the United States), and a gallery of art, together with provisions for physical research and popular lectures, while it leaves to the Regents the power of adopting such other parts of an organization as they may deem best suited to promote the objects of the bequest. The Regents, at a meeting in December, 1847, resolved to divide the annual income, which had become thirty thousand nine hundred and fifty dollars, into two equal parts, to be apportioned one part to the increase and diffusion of knowledge, by means of original research and publications; the other to be applied in accordance with the requirements of the Act of Congress, to the gradual formation of a Library, a Museum, and a Gallery of Art. In the details of the first, it was proposed "to stimulate research, by offering rewards, consisting of money, medals, &c., for original memoirs on all subjects of investigation;" the memoirs to be published in quarto, under the title of "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," after having been approved of by a commission of persons of reputation in the particular branch of knowledge. No memoir on a subject of physical science is to be published, "which does not furnish a positive addition to human knowledge resting on original research;" and all unverified speculations to be rejected. It was also proposed "to appropriate a portion of the income annually to special objects of research, under the direction of suitable persons." Observations and experiments in the natural sciences, investigations in statistics, history, and ethnology, were to come under this head. The results

* The body is thus arranged in 1855.

were to be published in quarto. For the diffusion of knowledge, it was proposed "to publish 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," and also to publish occasionally separate treatises on subjects of general interest.

For the library it was proposed first, to form a complete collection of the transactions and proceedings of all the learned societies of the world, the more important current periodical publications, and a stock of all important works in bibliography.

on

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The first of the series of original memoirs was the quarto volume of Messrs. Squier and Davis, The Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," published in 1848. This has since been followed by six others, composed of papers from various eminent scholars of the country, on special topics of astronomy, paleontology, physical geography, botany, philology, and other branches of science. Among the contributors are Mr. Sears C. Walker, astronomical assistant of the United States Coast Survey, of Researches relative to the Planet Neptune; Dr. Robert W. Gibbes, of South Carolina, of a paper on the Mososaurus; Dr. Robert Hare, on the Explosiveness of Nitre; several papers on Paleontology, by Dr. Joseph Leidy, Professor of Anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania; botanical articles, by Drs. Torrey and Gray; a Grammar and Dictionary of the Dakota language, collected by the members of the Dakota Mission, and edited by the Rev. S. R. Riggs of the American Board; and a paper by Mr. S. F. Haven, Librarian of the Antiquarian Society, Worcester, reviewing, for bibliographical and historical purposes, the literature and deductions respecting the subject of American antiquities. It should be mentioned, that though from their form the books are in the first in

stance expensive, yet as no copyright is taken, they may be freely reprinted, and disseminated in various ways.

Fifteen hundred copies of each of the "Memoirs" forming the Contributions are printed, which are distributed to learned societies and public libraries abroad and at home; states and territories, colleges, and other institutions of the United States. The publications of these several bodies are received in return. A system of the distribution of scientific works published by the government has become an important part of the useful agency of the institution in "diffusing knowledge among men" throughout the world.

An extensive system of meteorological observations, embracing the whole country, has been carried out by the institution. Several reports of the results have been published in a series of Temperature Tables, Tables of Precipitation, and Charts of Temperature, and a manual of directions and observations prepared by Mr. Arnold Guyot, author of a volume of lectures on comparative physical geography, entitled "Earth and Man," and Professor of Geology and Physical Geography in the College of New Jersey. The reduction of the observations collected by the Smithsonian system was performed from 1851 to 1854, by Mr. Lorin Blodget. Since his retirement from the duty, the materials have been sent for reduction to Professor James H. Coffin, of Lafayette College, Easton, Pa. Public lectures, of a popular character, are delivered in a room for the purpose in the Smithsonian building, during the winter. A small sum is paid to the lecturers, who have been among the chief professional and literary men of the country.

An extensive system of scientific correspon dence is carried on by the officers of the society, who receive and communicate much valuable in. formation in this way. The annual reports of