"Smithsonian Institution " itself, and Congress, from whose legislation these two boards were born. Now that Congress is in session, the inquiry as to the Library will of course begin. This is a proper time, then, to attempt to inform the public regarding the remarkable questions as to its administration.

The author of an able paper in your August number, on the "legitimate mission of the Smithsonian Institution," offered an argument, arranged with care and study, to show that Congress, when it created the two boards I have named, and intrusted each with the powers under which it acts, did not keep within the bounds indicated by Smithson's will, as in honor and good faith" it should have done. There is no need whatever of following this argument at present. Its author could not have expected, that before it came into print, a single officer of the institution should have attempted to set aside the provisions of the very act by which he was created. Nor does the argument stray so far from the purpose of its author, as to attempt to show that the act at once gives power to carry out what he supposes Smithson's purposes, and at the same time refuses to give it. That essay is a straightforward plea for the reorganization of the Institution by Congress, on the ground that the act under which it is founded, does not "in honor and good faith " keep" within Smithson's purposes." Whatever may be the weight of this argument, and I confess that to my mind it has none, it is evidently no justification of any course which officers of the Institution may choose to take, in disobedience to the act which creates them. To them this law is law, or they would not be officers. If they consider it dishonorable, and an act of bad faith, their duty is to resign.

The specifications of that act, as your correspondent of August has already informed your readers, provide principally for the establishment of a great public library at Washington, as the means of increasing and diffusing knowledge. The wisdom of this course had been demonstrated in the previous debates, so that this appropriation commanded a very strong vote, in a Congress to which had been presented all the plans of the friends of ventilators, cooking stoves, tract distribution, and the publication of books which could find no other publisher. To a body like Congress, a plan which shows something for money spent, has strong recommendations. It is to the credit of Congress that it is so, when that something is as valuable an addition to the country's resources as a Great National Library.

The wisdom of this idea of Congress has been thoroughly vouched for by the Board of Regents of the Institution, in the disposition they have made of their own publications. With the view of "increasing and diffusing knowledge," they have distributed these costly books to the principal Public Libraries of the world; having made a selection, which, as they inform us, is of itself a valuable labor rendered in the cause of science, and instituted a system of exchange by which the largest Foreign Libraries, and all in this country larger than 10,000

volumes, receive these "Contributions to Science."* This is the way to diffuse knowledge if you have any to diffuse. Five hundred copies thus distributed meet the widest possible constituency. For a Public Library is, as Congress regarded it, the best single engine for increasing and diffusing knowledge.t

Convinced, for such reasons, and for the others which the argument of years had brought forward, that a Public Library would best answer their pur pose, which was "to increase and diffuse knowledge," Congress ordered that twenty-five thousand dollars a year ɛhould be expended for that purpose. "The said Regents shall make, from the interest of the said fund, an appropriation not exceeding an average of twenty-five thousand dollars annually, for the gradual formation of a library composed of valuable works pertaining to all departments of human knowledge." This is the language of the Statute creating the Board of Regents.

There never was an appropriation more specific, nor words more difficult to wrest from their meaning. It is often thought prudent in bills of appropriation to insert the words "not exceeding," because the full amount may not be precisely reached, and accounting officers must have warrant to pay less amounts as they are needed. But the word "average" here, is enough to show that the intention of Congress was, that the sum of $25,000 should be spent every year,-one year to make up for another in the long run,-for a library pertaining to all departments of human knowledge.

The question, however, this winter to be brought before the Government, the Institution, and the Board of Regents, is this:-For what reasons have the Regents so conducted the Institution that the average annual expenditure for a library has been, in eight years, only $1,855, instead of $25,000?

In fact, at the beginning of their operations, the Regents resolved to build from their income, and from that only. Congress had arranged that the accumulation of back interest should be devoted to the building, but the Regents chose to save this sum for principal, and for years, therefore, have had to draw on their income for building-a course for which I have never seen the reasons. It has resulted in a very slow progress of that remarkable pile known as the Smithson Institute, believed to be in the Norman-Lombard-Owen-Renwick-Gothic and Vandal, style of architecture,-quite imposing, very expensive, and singularly inconvenient. While this went on, there was an excuse for spending as little as possible upon the Library. When this was at last near completion, those persons who had been waiting for the fulfilment of the Act, had reason to expect that twenty-five thousand dollars a year should at last be expended for a Public Library.

By this time, however, the Institution had organized a staff of officers for all sorts of duties, involving a considerable expense. It had also set on foot a system of publication, proposing to publish different sets of works,-as your readers have been informed, for which the Act creating it gave no

power at all. There would have been more reason for its introducing water into the city of Galena. For, in fact, it was proposed in Congress, that it should have this power of printing books, and permission was refused, by a majority of two to one.

Its expenses for publication, however, have been les considerable than the expenses of its general management. It has, in eight years, organized a staff, consisting of a secretary, clerk to the secretary, bookkeeper to the clerk, janitor, laborer and watchman; assistant to the secretary, assistant to the assistant, and assistant to the assistant-andhis-assistant, whose annual charge is $11,455. For lighting, heating, and other "incidentals," such additional expenses are incurred as raised the annual charge last year to $17,740, for merely keeping the machine in motion. For printing contributions, paying observers, and all that, independent expenditures are necessary.

Now, the annual income is only $40,000. And with this enormous staff-expenditure-$17,740 being paid for the management of the other $22,260-the Regents found they had not, even with their building, happily done, the $25,000 required by Congress for the Public Library it tried to create in the Statute of August 10, 1846. They referred the matter to a special committee, whose majority report is the first essential paper in the discussion now before the public.

It must be recollected that Congress ordered a Library appropriation of $25,000, when it was supposed that the whole income would be but $30,000, or thereabouts. Your reader, new to the subject, would certainly say :-"If they have only $22,000 left with which to meet their $25,000 payment, they must retrench $3,000 on their staff expenses." This is precisely what any other Board of Trustees would do. Congress having prescribed an annual Library payment not exceeding an average of $25,000, and having prescribed nothing else,-simply giving permission for lectures, a laboratory, and a museum, and refusing permission for printing, it would seem, of course, that at any sacrifice in these miscellaneous expenses, the Library payment of $25,000 should be kept up from the fund.

The Regents, however, referred the question of future expenses to a committee. A majority of this committee-reporting the facts which we have stated as to the general expenses-proposes to meet the deficit in the expense, by virtually abolishing the General Library. They propose to have merely a library of "valuable" books-to be principally recruited by exchanges. For the next year, they propose that no new books shall be bought, but those needed by the officers of the institution.

This proposal, not yet acted upon, has excited the surprise of all those who had been interested in the Institution.

By its daring it has surprised even those men of physical science, who are glad to have their books printed for them, when they can find no publishers but the Institute.

By its overthrow of the original plan, it has surprised those who hoped that the Nation was to have at last a National Library, and have distrusted the printing business of the Institution.

Mr. Meacham, a minority of the committee, has presented a minority report, stating the reasons for adhering in good faith to the Library plan as laid down in the Act from which the Regents take their authority.

Pending any action on these reports, Professor

Henry, the Secretary, whose wish is to have the appropriation for the Library set aside, has complicated the question by coolly removing the Librarian, Professor Jewett.

Matters are in this position, when Congress meets, the Regents meet-and the "Smithsonian Institution" itself can be called together.

It is very evident that they have a much narrower question before them than has been discussed in public. They have not to inquire what Smithson would have liked-poor, proud, insignificant dabster that he was in the chemistry of tears, and the mathematics of rouge et-noir; but what Congress has directed.

Any Regents who find the Act of Congress a dishonor and breach of faith, will wash their hands of it, and resign.

Those who believe Congress had power to make such an institution as your correspondent describes, "a great national library at Washington, worthy an educated and enlightened nation," will simply vote to reduce all other expenses of the Institution, that an average of $25,000 may be appropriated to that purpose.

And Congress will doubtless watch their procedure. It will not leave to this board the nullification of the Act which created it. Should Lieut. Page, who is now surveying the La Plata, conclude some day, that the survey of that river is unconstitutional, and proceed to spend the government funds intrusted to him in a model farm on its shores-some one would soon call him to account. If the Board of Regents, intrusted with the establishment of a National Library, conclude that Congress there did not rightly interpret its trust-and that the money will be better spent in printing a Dictionary of the Choctaw language-I do not doubt that some power will be found to call them to account as well.

AMERICAN.-Out-Doors at Idlewild. By N. P. WILLIS-as any man could see, even if he "had a thunderbolt in his eye."

One sentence, in the preface, has a biographical interest. Mr. Willis says that in living, "to live, as variedly, as amply, and as worthily, as is possible to his human faculties, while upon this planet, has been his aim; and not to be remembered after he shall have left it."

Might it not seem intuitionally true, that he who lives most variedly, amply and worthily, will, of necessity, be best and most remembered after he is dead?

Out-Doors at Idlewild, indicates in the writer quick and keen æsthetics-i. e., beauty-seeing: at times, much kindliness for fellows and reverence for good; an individualized and apparently carefully cultivated habit in language. In briefer terms, the book is written as its indications

say, by one who lives for the perception, enjoyment and expression of Beauty. Beauty in nature; in its ever-new spontaneous freshness; beauty in thought, in the freshness of new and quaint or graceful combinations and comparisons of things and their relations; beauty in expression; in the freshness of quaint or graceful new words, or combinations and analysis of old words.

The life, so far as this book may be its exponent, has been mainly an Esthetic Life-a life of beauty-study; no more; better than a "Skimpolian "life, in that it has been purposeful, laborious, kind and sincere, and has made much happiness; but, as a fulfilment of the scheme outlined in the preface, a failure, because it fills out only a department of the original draught.

The language of the book is worth some attention. It is in the Willistic style, properly so-called. The preface, and perhaps the portions addressed to invalids, is an exception to this rule, being ordinary English. We do not draw this distinction with any sneer. We do not mean as much as is implied in the adjectives Carlylese and Bushnellitish. These have had a seasoning of sneer. We say Willistic, only because it is a convenient word for the thought we wish to convey; a word covering whatever enterprises of invention Mr. Willis may have undertaken in the Realms of Verbs and Substantives. Such enterprises, by competent men, and within reasonable limits, are to enlarge our store of English words. Mr. Willis has the might which, in this matter, makes right; but he does not always use it well. He certainly slides, sometimes, too far into quaintness, if not over it into the bordering territory of awkwardness.

Some of the following specimens may do for the nonce; but in general it is an effort to be expressive at a cheap and easy rate; viz., Pig-apostle (a sender-away of intrusive pigs); Superfinery (an ingenious parallel to finery); Whirlsated (sated with confusion); Pollyology (chamberwork); Brickifying (assimilating to brick-work or the condition of bricks). Cæsar-ornobody-dom; bigger-ness; haughty-culture (a not very perfect pun, repeated several times, and with different significations, e.g., high culture, culture by a head or high gardener, and culture by people of high feelings); un-amphibiousable (impassable to amphibia); other-people-ness (ex

istence distinct from others); nobody-bath (immersion in a crowd, so as to lose individuality of feeling; being-left-behind-the meaning is not changed by the hyphens ;) un-get-about-able (unpleasant for travel

ling).

We shall not specify the beautiful thoughts in the book. It is too full of them.

-You have Heard of Them. This ultra Willistic title names a collection of occasionally ungrammatical, and rather diluted sketches of celebrities with whom the writer has come into contact or collision.

Especially were we stumbled, in the reading, by the recurring substitution of a passive verb, with a preposition and the objective case of the actor, instead of the usual active verb with the actor in the nominative-thus: "That was repeatedly heard by me," instead of "I repeatedly heard that." The fault is so frequent as to become characteristic and awkward.

Quite a number of these sketches must have been written to make out the volume, being woven out of very unsatisfactorily thin fabric. Others are sharply and well lined; and such furnish very pleasant items of that gossipy personal information which everybody hankers after, about everybody, and particularly about anybody in particular. Especially good are the notices of Giulia Grisi, Wallace, Vidocq, and Vivier.

The book, however, is noticeable for another reason, namely, as a startling hint at the number of people who expend immeas urable power in sound, fun, emotion, and amusement; who enjoy a jolly afternoon, a good dinner, a horse-laugh, a queer story, an opera, but whose lives are truly "rounded by a sleep"-because they never look behind either of the dark veils that shut off our sight at birth and death.

-Everybody who has published in magazines, republishes in a book. Some merely transfer the matter bodily; some work it over; some string the old beads on a new thread. This last MR. SIMмs has done, and produced Southward Ho! Magazine readers of moderate diligence will recognize most or all of the tales and poems, some of which are very well done; but none of which, as here republished, need we examine. The thread of the story is merely a not very remarkable voyage from New York to Charleston.

-Parley's Household Library is stated in the title-page to be "a perpetual fund of instruction." To some extent we can endorse this claim; being able to witness that the same matter-and unless we are mistaken, in the same pages-which amused us in our childhood, is here again, apparently as good as new. Whether additional interest has accrued to the "fund," we cannot fairly judge.

-Books like W. C. RICHARDS' Harry's Vacation; or Philosophy at Home, are-or rather, may be very pleasant and very useful. They are entertaining to many children, simply as story-books. But in order to any appreciable usefulness, they should be made the basis of actual experiments like those they describe. The pleasure would be cheap, and the profit various and lasting.

-In Doors and Out; or Views from the Chimney-Corner. By OLIVER OPTIC. Mr. W. T. Adams, who seems by the dediIcation to be the Deus ex machiná, has done himself credit. We have seen no immoderate puffs-in fact, no puffs-of it; but it contains twenty or thirty very sprightly and pointed stories, each sharply hitting some social absurdity or social vice. The conversations are remarkably conversational; just such questions, answers, and remarks as real people make. This gives a pleasant freshness to the narratives and dialogues, although not calculated to render the book a model of a classical English style,

-An excellent moral is deducible from MRS. TUTHILL'S Beautiful Bertha. And it contains natural scenes, and delineations of character. Yet the young people are a little too old, and the good and bad ones a little too good and too bad.

-There is something confusing about such a title as, "Ellen Montgomery's BookShelf. By the authors of 'The Wide, Wide World.' &c. Mr. Rutherford's Children. Second Volume." One cannot tell exactly what the name of the book is; nor what the name of the set is; nor whether there is a set. Apparently there exists, or is in course of production, a series named as in the first part of the above title; within which, a sub-series, called "Mr. Rutherford's Children," has reached its second volume. The book itself is judiciously arranged, so that it may competently stand alone if required; so that it does not help us. Not to hypercriticise about a name,

however, whose worst fault would be to puzzle the buyer, let us hasten to assure the authoresses that they have the very rare talent of writing true children's conversations. Chryssa and Sybil are two delightful little chatterers; and their queer and suggestive ideas are exactly those of live children. Chrysocoma is a very pretty fancy for a name, too-the Golden-haired.

There remains, however, in order to the true appreciation of the volume, the discussion of questions which at present we shall not dare attempt.

With the preliminary confession that we have not enough, nor practically enough, studied the subject to make our investigations very importaut, we will suggest that in this direction, among the points to be examined, are these:

1. Whether "children's books" should be written for children; with a perfunctory dilution, or simplification, or pre-chewing, or whatever you please, in order to lower the tone and quality of the thoughts and words of the adult mind to a child-like capacity; or, whether the natural effusions of men and women of child-like and simple souls should not suffice. And, suppose the special "children's books" decided for, it remains to ask,

2. Should they be historiettes of childlike experiences, carefully chosen for verisimilitude; or fairy tales; or romances; or mere narrations a little idealized?

We somewhat incline towards a "yea" to all but the last of these four descriptions; it being understood that only good ones are recommended; and in the first class of the three, and high up in it, stands this story of Mr. Rutherford's Children. Observe how naturally Chryssa and Sybil talk-like real live little girls:

"Have you got everything out of your stocking?"

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Yes, I believe so," said Chryssa, shaking it out.

"Here's something in the toe of mine," said Sybil, "some queer little thing-I

wonder what it can be ?"

Chryssa knew what it was, well enough; and she sat there and laughed to herself in the dark-but she said never a word.

Sybil shook out the little package, and then took off one paper after another till she came to the little red emery-bag, with its green leaves and yellow seeds and strawberry shape.

"Why you funny child!" she said, “you must have given me this."

This is not specially notable, except for extreme naturalness-which is sufficiently remarkable.

-Of very similar excellence, in kind and degree, but for rather older readers, is The Boat Club, by OLIVER OPTIC, the author of a collection of sketches noticed in our last number. The Boat Club is a well told narrative of the experiences of certain young gentlemen who composed the club; and contains sundry directive details of boatmanship, calculated to furnish solid delight to the masculine minds of youth from twelve to fifteen or thereabouts. Oliver will do a very good work in furnishing books of precisely this character for juvenile readers.

-Martin Merrivale, by PAUL CREYTON, was first published as a serial, with not very encouraging success. People will read a serial story, if it appears in a periodical, so that there is a show of necessity for the seriality. But otherwise not. There are too many books published whole; people read too fast; nobody likes a meal taken at the rate of a mouthful an hour. Serial novels are alien to the genius of American readers.

Martin Merrivale is written with much sprightliness and truth. The adventures with our friends, the editors and publishers of Boston, read as if from the life-Mr. Creyton must have sold MSS. and higgled about "editorial" at a dollar a column, in his own person-we hope he is beyond the necessity now.

The fault of the book is its unfortunate style. The impression that it is modeled after Dickens is unavoidable. Not that it is so intended; but Mr. Creyton must have read Dickens much, admired him much, thought his own genius like Diekens', and so he has followed instead of marching abreast with him.

Martin Merrivale somehow reminds us of Martin Chuzzlewit; his uncle of old Martin; Mrs. Wormlett of Todgers; Wormlett and Simeon of Heep; Alice and Caleb of Little Nell and her Grandfather; Chaffer and Redwort of Mr. Tigg and Chevy Slyme; the style of conversation and descriptions, the epithets, the rhetoric and syntax, all savor of Boz.

The poem, page 166, seem in the same way to have arisen from much admiration and study of Poe.

For instance, Mr. Creyton's lines :

"While his icy way he wended

Through the desolated land,
Round her pallid temples dallied

With his deadly mailed hand,"

are similar in rhythm, epithet and feeling, to these from Poe's "Haunted Palace :"

"And every golden air that dallied

In that sweet day

Around the ramparts plumed and pallid

A winged odor went away."

Mr. Creyton will make a very good book, by confining himself strictly to Creytonianism.

-We are half-inclined to rank The Life of Horace Greeley, by J. PARTON, among bookmakers' books rather than among authors' books, for two reasons; First, because it is published before the biographee is dead-which sort of haste necessitates an immature book, and looks as if the writing had been a business speculation; and Secondly, because it is encumbered with much collateral matter not important to the main thread of the narrative, according to the manner of bookmakers.

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Yet these faults are not very conspicuous. They pertain more to the form than to the substance of the book; and we have perused it with very great pleasure. Mr. Parton is apparently not a very learned man; and his style is not a very learned style; but it is unambitious, clear and sprightly, and, if we except a little unsuccessful endeavor after wit and humor, very nearly the right style for a biographer. Horace Greeley is a representative man," no doubt; and a very remarkable one; nor do we very strenuously object to Mr. Parton's hero-worship of him, for Mr. Parton's purposes. A biographer should be an enthusiast for his subject. Yet we shall hardly concede what Mr. Parton claims, that Mr. Greeley is the greatest man in the United States. He is not the greatest thinker, nor the greatest writer, nor the greatest speaker, nor the greatest statesman, nor the greatest philanthropist, nor the greatest man of business, nor the greatest merchant. He is the most influential editor. And as such, and as a man of uncommon power of mind and appropriate attainment in his calling; of tremendous perseverance, of integrity and force, his life is well worth reading.

-The Know Nothing is hardly any