EDUCATION AND HIS WRITINGS--HIS WILL--THE UNITED STATES HIS
RESIDUARY LEGATEE--SUCCESSFUL PROSECUTION OF THE CLAIM OF THE UNITED
STATES TO THE LEGACY--PLANS SUGGESTED FOR THE DISPOSAL OF THE FUND
--PROF. JOSEPH HENRY APPOINTED SECRETARY--BENEFICENT WORK OF THE
INSTITUTION.

Although a third of a century has passed since I met Professor
Joseph Henry, I distinctly recall his kindly greeting and the
courteous manner in which he gave me the information I requested
for the use of one of the Committees of the House.

The frosts of many winters were then on his brow, and he was near the
close of an honorable career, one of measureless benefit to mankind.
He was the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and the
originator of the plan by which was carried into practical effect the
splendid bequest for "the increase and diffusion of knowledge among
men."

As Vice-President of the United States, a regent _ex-officio_ of
the Smithsonian Institution, I had rare opportunity to learn much of
its history and something of its marvellous accomplishment. As is
well known, it bears the name of James Smithson. He was an
Englishman, related to the historic family of Percy, and a
lineal descendent of Henry the Seventh, his maternal ancestor being
the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey, cousin to Queen Elizabeth.

Mr. Langley, the late secretary of the institution, said:

"Smithson always seems to have regarded the circumstances of his
birth as doing him a peculiar injustice, and it was apparently this
sense that he had been deprived of honors properly his which made him
look for other sources of fame than those which birth had denied
him, and constituted the motive of the most important action of
his life, the creation of the Smithsonian Institution."

The deep resentment of Smithson against the great families who had
virtually disowned him, finds vent in a letter yet extant, of which
the following is a part: "The best blood of England flows in my
veins; on my father's side I am a Northumberland, on my mother's
I am related to kings; but this avails me not. My name shall live
in the memory of man when the titles of the Northumberlands and
the Percys are extinct and forgotten."

How truly his indignant forecast was prophetic is now a matter
of history. Few men know much about the once proud families of
Northumberland or Percy, but the name of the youth they scornfully
disowned lives in the institution he founded, the greatest
i