15 



Rev. Mr. Bolles, being called upon, spoke as follows : 



I feel both pleasure and regret on rising to say the last 

 word to-night. The gentlemen who have already spoken 

 have had, as they deserved, our close attention ; but in 

 one way and another they have so covered the field of 

 discourse assigned to me that my own remarks seem su- 

 perfluous. I may also express the thought that the list of 

 topics should not have ended here. It would have been 

 pleasant and profitable to us to hear Prof. Hagar on the 

 educational, or Prof. Morse on the scientific, results of 

 the Centennial Exhibition. 



The addresses to which we have listened have done no 

 injustice to the part of the United States itself in the 

 honors of the Exhibition. But perhaps even the great 

 American people will be modest enough to confess that it 

 had something to learn there from less inventive and rapid 

 foreigners. It should especially have had such a feeling 

 toward the Art-displays of other nations. You have heard 

 that France and Germany were discourteous enough to 

 send us, as to an ignorant and uncritical land, only their 

 second-rate works of art. But England did not scamp 

 her work in the Art-Building ; nor did China and Japan 

 neglect to do their best. To England in particular we owe 

 a debt of gratitude. Beside our century of accomplish- 

 ment in practical science and invention, she placed her 

 last hundred years of art. She asked, "What have my 

 painters done from 1776 to 1876? Who have they been, 

 and where can I find characteristic canvases of each?" 

 And she generously placed on view at Philadelphia, what 

 was the illustrated history of this century of her growth 

 in Art. It must have been in a spirit of genuine enthu- 

 siasm and friendship that the Queen and the noble owners 

 of these paintings were .willing to expose them to the 



