CLOSING ADDRESS, 



BV THE 



HON. JOHN C. SPENCER. 



Gentlemen : The time has arrived when the friends of science who attended in 

 this city on the invitation of the National Institute, are about to separate from 

 those whom they have so kindly visited. The delightful intercourse of mind, and 

 the exchanges of intelligence, which have been so vigorously maintained for the last 

 week, are now to be suspended — wo hope not terminated. Personal acquaintances 

 have been formed, calculated to promote mutual respect and good will, which will 

 guide its future correspondence between gentlemen engaged in kindred pursuits ; 

 and it is hoped that all will feel invigorated in their efforts for the promotion and 

 diiTusion of science. 



In behalf of the committee appointed by the National Institute to arrange the 

 literary and scientific meetings which are now to close, I tender the thanks of that 

 body, and I venture to say the thanks of the gratified audiences who have heard 

 the learned, able, interesting, and valuable papers which have been read, to the 

 gentlemen who have prepared and furnished them. The doubts which hung over 

 the inception of the plan for those meetings have been dissipated, and the ability 

 of our country to exhibit an array of learning, of scientific enterprise, and of talent, 

 in all respects creditable, has been established. 



The confidence inspired by such a result will secure for future assemblages of 

 a similar description, a great increase in the attendance of the literary and scien- 

 tific men of the United States, while those who shall invite and organize them, 

 will be enabled, by the experience they have had, to supply any omissions, and pre- 

 vent any irregularities that may have attended this first experiment. 



VVe expect not to compete with the learned men of Europe in the exhibition of 

 scientific attainment. We are too well aware of the demands of our new country 

 for what is of immediate, direct, and practical utility — of the want of that leisure 

 which wealth confers, and of those appliances, books, apparatus, museums, galle- 

 ries, which national munificence and private liberality provide in other countries 

 for the destitute sons of genius. We are too well aware of these and other causes 

 operating to our disadvantage, to challenge comparison with the literary and scien- 

 tific associations of the Old World. But we know also that to enterprise and per- 

 severance there are no barriers but those Vi-hich nature itself prescribes; that by 

 mutual conference and combined efl'ort we can strengthen each other's hands, warm 

 each other's hearts, and brighten each other's hopes ; and that by patient and mo- 

 dest investigation we may largely increase the stock of American contributions to 

 the world's treasury of useful facts, original inventions, and discoveries of new 

 applications of science to the purposes of civilized life. 



In this hope wo met; may 1 not say in this confirmed conviction we .separate 7 



In closing these delightful meetings, and in bidding our guests an affectionate 

 farewell, I would invoke upon our cause, and upon all who engage in it, the bless- 

 ing of tiiat gracious Being whoso works we study, whose goodness we adore, and 

 without whoso favor all our labors are vain. 



No. 3. 31 



