hich both committees would concur.
It was finally agreed that the committee on the part of the House should
report their project to the House for consideration. Mr. Adams,
thereupon, as chairman, reported a series of resolutions, substantially
of the following import: That the whole Smithson fund should be vested
in a corporate body of trustees, to remain, under the pledge of the
faith of the United States, undiminished and unimpaired, at an interest
yielding annually six per cent., appropriated to the declared purpose of
the founder, exclusively from the interest, and not in any part from the
principal,--the first appropriation of interest to be applied for the
erection of an astronomical observatory, and for the various objects
incident to such an establishment;--that the education of youth had not
for its object the _increase_ and diffusion of knowledge among men,
but the endowment of individuals with knowledge already acquired; and
the Smithson fund should not be applied to the purpose of education, or
to any school, college, university, or institution of education.

The chairman of the committee of the Senate, in their behalf, presented
counter resolutions, disapproving the application of any part of the
funds to the establishment of an astronomical observatory, and urging
the appropriation of them to the establishment of a university. The
bill prepared by the House is presented at large in this report,
accompanied with the argument in its support, prepared by Mr. Adams
with a strength and fulness to which no abstract can do justice. In
this argument he illustrates the reasons for preserving the principal
of the fund unimpaired, and confining all expenditures from it to the
annual interest; also those which preclude any portion of it to be
applied to any institution for education; showing, from the peculiar
expressions of the testator, that it could not have been his intention
that the fund should be applied in this manner. He then proceeds to
set forth the reasons why the income of the fund should in the first
instance be applied to an astronomical observatory, without intending
to exclude any branch of human knowledge from its equitable share of
this benefaction. The importance of this object he thus eloquently
illustrates: "The express object of Mr. Smithson's bequest is the
_diffusion of knowledge_ among men. IT IS KNOWLEDGE, the source of
all human wisdom, and of all beneficent power; knowledge, as far
transce