His work was by no means of an epoch-making character, but seems to have been remarkable for its minute accuracy. Smithson was a much greater man than his published writings would indicate. In his eulogy the president of the Royal Society remarked: “He carried with him the esteem of various private friends, and of a still larger number of persons who admired and appreciated his acquirements.” He was evidently a man of broad, general culture, who understood thoroughly the needs of the world in the direction of scientific endowment, and whose action in bequeathing his estate to the people of America was deliberate and well considered. In his admirable little monograph entitled “Smithson and His Bequest,” Mr. W. J. Rhees has shown the tendency of the time of Smithson to have been in the direction of establishing permanent scientific institutions. Between 1782 and 1826, over twenty of the most important academies and societies now in existence were organized. This period he remarks “was not less marked by the gloom occasioned by long protracted and almost universal war, and the extent and rapidity of its social changes, than by the luster of its brilliant discoveries in science, and its useful inventions in the arts. Pure, abstract science had many illustrious votaries, and the practical applications of its truths gave to the world many of the great inventions by means of which civilization has made such immense and rapid progress.” He quotes in support of these statements the words of Lord Brougham, the representative statesman of the day. “To instruct the people in the rudiments of philosophy,” Brougham remarked, “would of itself be an object sufficiently brilliant to allure the noblest ambition.” He recommended this idea to the wealthy men of England, pointing out how, by the promotion of such ends, a man, however averse to the turmoil of public affairs, may enjoy the noblest gratification of which the most aspiring nature is susceptible, and may influence by his single exertions the character and fortunes of a whole generation. Very closely do these ideas agree with those expressed by Smithson in various passages in his note books, especially with that which is used for a motto upon the publications of the Institution: “Every man is a valuable member of society who, by his observations, researches, and experiments, procures knowledge for men.” Or this: “It is in his knowledge that man has found his greatness and his happiness, the high superiority which he holds over the other animals who inherit the earth with him, and consequently, no ignorance is probably without loss to him, no error without evil.”