[The Smithsonian] is the Establishment of an individual and the more widely it is seperated [sic] from the Government the brighter will be its prospects.
            Letter to John Russell Bartlett, June 23, 1847, Ephraim George Squier Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

[Federal appropriations] would annually bring the institution before Congress as a supplicant for government patronage, and ultimately subject it to political influence and control. After an experience of three years, I am fully convinced that the true policy of the institution is to ask nothing from Congress except the safekeeping of its funds; to mingle its operations as little as possible with those of the general government. . . .
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1849, p. 21.

I do not think however that it would be well to mix up the affairs of the Institution with those of the government. They should through all time be kept separate and the former be preserved from political influence.
            Letter to Bache, October 17, 1853, in Henry Papers, vol. 8, p. 485.

It [Congress] is however a body of rather fitful volitions and the less legislation in regard to the Smithsonian the better.
            Letter to Brantz Mayer, August 5, 1857, Mayer-Roszel Collection, Maryland Historical Society.

My aim from the first has been to sustain the cosmopolitan character of the Institution while it has continued to render important service to the government, by which it is protected and sustained.
            Letter to Felix Flugel, March 23, 1865, in Henry Papers, vol. 10, p. 491.

. . .the Institution is every year exhibited as a supplicant for aid from Congress and is consequently subjected in a degree to extraneous direction and control. The time perhaps for the solution of the question [of whether or not to continue the relationship between the Smithsonian and the federal government] has not yet arrived although it is important that it should be agitated.
            Presidential address to the National Academy of Sciences, April 21, 1876, in Arthur P. Molella, et al., eds., A Scientist in American Life: Essays and Lectures of Joseph Henry (Washington, D.C., 1980), p. 136.

The most prominent idea in my mind is that of stimulating the talent of our country to original research,--in which it has been most lamentably difficient--to pour fresh material on the apex of the pyramid of science, and thus to enlarge its base.
            Letter to Joseph Bradley Varnum, Jr., June 22, 1847, in Henry Papers, vol. 7, p. 121.

. . .the principal object of the organization is the discovery of new truths, rather than the application of known principles to useful purposes.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1851, p. 10.

The worth and importance of the Institution is not to be estimated by what it accumulates within the walls of its building, but by what it sends forth to the world. Its great mission is to facilitate the use of implements of research, and to diffuse the knowledge which this use may develop.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1852, p. 20.

The Institution, to be respected, must maintain a dignified character, and seek rather to direct public opinion than to obtain popularity by an opposite course.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1852, p. 28.

Nothing apparently can be further from the truth than the idea which was first prevalent in this country that Smithson left his money merely to diffuse practical knowledge among the people of the United States. On the contrary he intended this institution as a monument to his name which should be known of all men, and prized by the student of every branch of literature and science, which should not be restricted to merely spreading abroad the knowledge which already exists, but, above all, should be the means of enlarging the bounds of human thought.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1853, pp. 7-8.

Indeed, it is an important part of the duty of this Institution to encourage special lines of research into every department of the varied domain of nature.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1855, pp. 19-20.

It is no part of the plan of the Institution to form a museum merely to attract the attention and gratify the curiosity of the casual visitor to the Smithsonian building, but it is the design to form complete collections in certain branches, which may serve to facilitate the study and increase the knowledge of natural history and geology.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1855, p. 31.

I wish to give the Institution such a start in the right direction that it cannot deviate from it without attracting the attention of the public.
            Letter to John Torrey, January 4, 1856, in Henry Papers, vol. 9, p. 303.

. . .it was not intended for educational or immediately practical purposes, but for the encouragement of the study of theoretical principles and the advancement of abstract knowledge.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1859, p. 17.

. . .the Institution is . . . primarily a foundation for enlarging the boundaries of science by stimulating and assisting the researches of original inquirers, wherever found, and for gratuitously diffusing the results of such researches wherever they may conduce to the intellectual or material interests of men.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1865, p. 13.

My intention is to push on with increased vigour the active operations of the Institution and to demonstrate conclusively that the essential character of this establishment does not involve the necessity of a large building and a show museum.
            Letter to John Peter Lesley, February 11, 1865, in Henry Papers, vol. 10, p. 472.

One prominent maxim of the Institution has been "co-operation not monopoly," and another, "in all cases, as far as possible, not to occupy ground especially cultivated by other establishments," or, in other words, not to expend the money of the bequest in doing that for which provision could be obtained through other means.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1872, p. 18.

It is chiefly by the publications of the Institution that its fame is to be spread through the world, and the monument most befitting the name of Smithson, erected to his memory.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1850, p. 10.

Should the government of the United States be dissolved, and the Smithsonian fund dissipated to the winds, the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge" will still be found in the principal libraries of the world, a perpetual monument of the wisdom and liberality of the founder of the Institution, and of the faithfulness of those who first directed its affairs.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1852, p. 12.

Hence the number of readers and purchasers of a work is generally in the inverse ratio of its intrinsic value; and consequently authors of the highest rank of merit are frequently deterred from giving their productions to the world on account of the pecuniary loss to which the publication would subject them.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1847, pp. 179-180.

If writers wish to make money by their labors, they must publish novels.
            "On the Smithsonian Institution," August 1853, Proceedings of the Third Session of the American Association for the Advancement of Education (Newark, N.J., 1854), p. 103.

It was not given in trust to our government to be disposed of for the exclusive benefit of a portion of our own people, or even for that of the whole nation, but in behalf of the general family of mankind, for the benefit of men of all countries and of all times. It was not restricted in effect to the diffusion of a knowledge of old truths, but primarily designed for the extension of the boundaries of thought by the promotion of the discovery of new powers of nature, of new principles and new laws of the universe.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1867, pp. 13-14.

Smithson devoted his life to abstract science and original research, and there cannot be a reasonable doubt that he used the terms "increase and diffusion of knowledge among men" to imply that the income of his bequest should be devoted to original research in all branches of knowledge susceptible of increase, and the diffusion of the result of this through the press for the benefit of mankind generally.
            Smithsonian Annual Report for 1872, p. 13.

It is certainly too bad that in this civilized age, literature and science should be obliged to make such a sacrifice for the reproduction of the mementos of barbarism.
            Letter to Asa Gray, April 3, 1851, in Henry Papers, vol. 8, p. 170.