(by Beng Tan)

Unlike some of the other visits on the Gledden Tour, we did not go to the Smithsonian Institution as one big group. Since the Smithsonian was open to the general public daily, it was decided that we would go there at our own time and pace. This turned out to be a good decision because the Smithsonian was big enough that everyone had their own ideas on where to go first. We only spent two days in Washington, so being able to arrange our own schedule meant the best use of our time. Of course, not having to always wait for everyone else to get ready helped as well.

The first port of call was the Smithsonian Castle, a red-bricked medieval looking castle. To many, this building symbolises the entire Smithsonian. It was the Institution's building, designed by James Renwick Jr. and completed in 1855. Today, it houses the Smithsonian Information Center and many administrative offices.

Only after grabbing some information brochures from the centre did we realise how big the Smithsonian was. It is the world's largest museum complex, consisting of 16 museums and galleries, and the National Zoo. It holds over 140 million artifacts and specimens. In addition, the Smithsonian is a centre for research, dedicated to public education, national service and scholarship in the arts, sciences, and history.

Nine Smithsonian museums are located within the vicinity of the Castle between the Washington Monument and the US Capitol. It would take a good 10 minute walk to get from one end to the other. Five other museums and the Zoo are elsewhere in Washington, and there are two museums located in New York City.

The first museum that most of the Tour visited was naturally the National Air and Space Museum. This was a large building with 2 huge floors exhibiting many aircraft, spacecraft, missiles and related artifacts. We could easily have spent an entire day on this museum alone, but we did not have such a luxury. There were other museums to visit.

Two other popular stops were the American History Museum and the Natural History Museum. Both were just as large as the Air and Space Museum and had multiple floors and many exhibits.

The American History Museum was a good opportunity to learn about America’s short but eventful past. I’m not sure if I can say this of the other students, but I personally felt rather ignorant of American history and culture. The museum outlined America’s different ethnic subpopulations and their origins. For example, African-Americans came about from the large number of African people who were transported to America as slaves. When slavery was abolished, these people were freed but stayed on in America.

There were exhibits covering key periods of America’s past. The "star-spangled banner", a flag from America’s fight for independence, and later the inspiration for the American flag and national anthem, is undergoing restoration here as part of a two-year project. It is stored in a room with a glass wall for visitors to see. Other highlights of the American History Museum included the gowns of past First Ladies and Muhammad Ali's boxing gloves.

The Natural History museum had exhibitions on humankind's earliest origins and the developments of world cultures, as well as examples of ancient and modern mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, insects and sea creatures. There is a brand-new state-of-the-art IMAX theatre located within the museum itself for presenting films about science and the natural world.

The Hope diamond, arguably the world’s most beautiful and famous diamond, is on display here in a room outlining it’s history. Other notable exhibits included an insect zoo, and even a life size blue whale.

All in all, there is so much to the Smithsonian Institution it’s mind-boggling. The museums that we visited were very good in their own right, yet they were only a part of the Smithsonian. We often had to rush through them in a somewhat hurried manner due to a shortage of time, and we were unable to visit some of the other museums in Washington at all. Many of us felt that another day in Washington would have been nice, but this was not an issue because we were pretty fortunate to be there in the first place.

Little is known about James Smithson, the man the institution is named after. Born in 1765 in France as James Lewis Macie, he was the son of Hugh Smithson, who later became the first Duke of Northumberland, and Elizabeth Keate Hungerford Macie, a widow of royal blood.

Smithson was a scientist who conducted research in chemistry, mineralogy and geology. He was a diligent young student and received a Master of Arts from Pembroke College, Oxford in 1786. Smithson, along with many of his friends, was dedicated to advancing scientific research and using science to benefit society. He was a fellow of the Royal Society of London and a charter member of the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

James Smithson died in Genoa, Italy on June 27, 1829, at the age of 64, after a long illness. 75 years later, Alexander Graham Bell brought Smithson's remains to Washington where they were interred in a tomb in the Smithsonian Building.

Smithson's will had left the bulk of his estate to his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, but there was a contingency clause such that if his nephew died without children, legitimate or illegitimate, the estate would go to "the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge"

Smithson's nephew died in 1835 without any heirs, and subsequently his estate was used to found the Smithsonian Institution. Smithson's motives for leaving money to the United States remain a mystery, but from those beginnings, the Smithsonian has grown to be the world's largest museum complex.