Word: smithsonian
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...Smithsonian Institution, custodian of the nation's giraffes and Rembrandts, collector of historic aircraft and coffee mills, and authority on bugs, fish and Indians, last week was celebrating its centennial. It was a good occasion also for recalling its little-known founder: James Smithson, an Englishman who never...
What he meant he made clear in his will. If a nephew proved childless, then his property would go 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...
Smithson died in 1829; his nephew died childless in 1835. The U.S. got the money ($508,318.46 in gold sovereigns), and finally in 1846 set up the Institution. The bequest was large for those days, and with better luck or backing, the Smithsonian might have become the nation's scientific center. But it got no heavy support from the Government or anyone else. For the current fiscal year the Government appropriated $1,452,512 and most of this was earmarked for nonscientific custodial work...
Nation's Attic. From the moment of foundation, the Smithsonian was overwhelmed by an embarrassing flood of "national treasures": stuffed animals, historical relics, antiques, paintings, statues. Most had little to do with the "diffusion of knowledge...
Under the first chief, Physicist Joseph Henry, the Smithsonian's scientists, trying to do "pure research" amid the clutter, kept fairly close to the main stream of scientific progress. They set up an effective weather reporting system before the Weather Bureau, did important work in other fields. Later chiefs also had their triumphs; Samuel Pierpont Langley, the most famous, worked out the principles of the airplane before the Wright brothers made one that would...