some 250 persons, members and friends of the Institute, 

 were enabled to visit the exhibition under very favorable 

 conditions. 



The President alluded to the coincidence that this cen- 

 tennial year was also the 250th anniversary of the settle- 

 ment of Salem by Roger Conant and his companions, an 

 event well worthy of our notice, and concluded by an- 

 nouncing that he should call upon Hon. G. B. Loring, 

 the Massachusetts Commissioner, and Rev. Messrs. E. S. 

 Atwood and E. C. Bolles, to addi^ss the meeting -upon 

 topics suggested by the occasion. 



REMARKS OF THE HON. GEORGE B. LORING. 



MR. PRESIDENT: The scope of the work assigned 

 me since I reached this hall is somewhat startling. I did 

 not anticipate being called upon to open the discourse of 

 the evening, and I certainly had no expectation of being 

 asked to give an extended and elaborate account of the 

 proceedings of the Commission in whose hands the work 

 of conducting the Centennial International Exhibition at 

 Philadelphia in 1876 was placed, and in whose delibera- 

 tions I took part from 1872 to the close of the great 

 event, as the representative of the Commonwealth of 

 Massachusetts. The details of that work would be by no 

 means interesting to an audience like this, and on an oc- 

 casion when we have met for congratulation and rejoicing 

 rather than for investigation or instruction. It was as a 

 striking representation of the progress of the American 

 people during the last century that the Exhibition was 

 full of interest and importance, and not merely as an ex- 

 ample of careful and successful detail in managing such 

 an enterprise ; and it is for such significance and meaning 

 as this that it is entitled to the admiration of the world, 

 and to the special attention of an institution like that 



