A corner of the nation's attic

摘要

In the 1830s, when James Smithson bequeathed the equivalent of $550,000 to the United States to establish an institution "for the increase and diffu- sion of knowledge among men," he fostered a dilemma. What manner of institution? Because people has such different designs on this substantial sum, the "Smithsonian problem" was debated for more than a decade. Finally, in 1846, Congress passed a bill providing for a laboratory, a library, And a repository for "objects of art and of foreign and curious research," all To be housed in a building on the Mall that emulated a twelfth-century Norman castle and presided over by a "secretary," the title given to mem- Bers of the president's cabinet.