In his bequest to the United States, James Smithson gave money "to found at Washington...an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men." The resulting Smithsonian Institution was founded in 1846.
This suggests to me that the phrase "the propagation of knowledge" might have been used in connection with the establishment of some British institution with which Kipling might have been familiar. Was it perhaps used by the British Museum or the Royal Society or Royal Institution, or by some magazine or newspaper of the time?
--Fred Lerner
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