36 BULLETIN OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE. 



his present very able, earnest and accomplished successor, 

 Mr. Rantoul, the work still goes on with unabated vigor, 

 and can hardly fail of the largest and most beneficent 

 results. 



I have been asked to say a word for the numerous other 

 historical societies, which have been established from time 

 to time in as many of the towns of Essex Count}'. Could 

 I be permitted to speak in their behalf, it were but just 

 to say how much they feel indebted to the Institute and 

 its honored presidents for the service which they have 

 also rendered in this more extended scene by awakening 

 or intensifying in us all a love and zeal for such pursuits 

 as have engaged you here for these fifty years. Stimu- 

 lated by your noble example and realizing that they had, 

 immediately around them, promising fields which they 

 might glean for their own special advantage and for the 

 public good, your neighbors have organized these local 

 societies here and there and are glad to believe that they 

 are thus enlarging the work and widening the influence of 

 the mother of them all. 



These organizations, generally, have each their own 

 rooms or head-quarters, and have courses of interesting 

 and instructive lectures. They celebrate historic events. 

 They erect monuments in honor of departed heroes and 

 benefactors. They seek and collect, from far and near, 

 for safe keeping and profitable use, such memorials of the 

 past or objects of nature, as shall be suitable for such 

 institutions and shall best illustrate the manners and cus- 

 toms, the arts and industries, the thought and life, of 

 generations gone, and the facts and lessons of science and 

 of the world around us in our own time; books and 

 pamphlets, diaries and journals, maps and charts, manu- 

 scripts and documents, autographs and letters ; coins, 

 scrip, seals, medals, badges and banners; military 

 weapons and insignia; paintings, engravings, etchings, 



