No. 108.] 15 



Indeed, our countrymen are arousing themselves on all sides to 

 the necessity of elevating American skill and invention, and true 

 merit is securing a favorable position among the advocates of inge- 

 nuity and enterprize. 



Your Committee might proceed to illustrate numerous instances of 

 the progress and success of native talent, were it not that they find 

 themselves compelled to adhere to the stricter meaning and inten- 

 tions of their report. 



The object of the American Institute, as will be more readily seen 

 by reference to their applicaiion in requesting so long a lease, is not 

 only with the view of being confident of a permanent location, with- 

 out the risk of being compelled to remove from year to year, but 

 to expend on their own account a sum suflicient to make their Repo- 

 sitory and Reading-room a more convenient place of resort for the 

 citizen and the stranger, and to improve a place, already open, for 

 the exhibition " of models, machines, specimens of art, invention and 

 discovery." 



It will thus be observed that the room now occupied by the Ame- 

 rican Institute is otherwise of comparatively doubtful utility for city 

 purposes, and yet is of infinite importance to the valuable associa- 

 tion who now request its further use from our bounty. 



Apart from these considerations, it is well enough to remember, 

 that at their anniversary exhibitions, large numbers of strangers find 

 an interest which induces them to visit our city, which must have an 

 effect in elevating its position, proportionably with, and consequent 

 to, an increase in the scale of its wealth and resources. 



As a further confirmation of these assertions, the following extract 

 from one of the members of the association is not without its inte- 

 rest; he says, " Suppose the transactions of the Institute bring to 

 the city only twenty- five thousand people, and they average in their 

 expenditures only two dollars each at the hotels, this will give to 

 fifty hotels one thousand dollars each, which would be an important 

 sum when they come to pay their rent. It is calculated that 

 over twenty-five per cent of the rents actually collected go for taxes- 

 is it not therefore important to the city that the lessees have the 

 means of paying ? — otherwise, how could our landlords pay their 



