which you represent. The highly creditable part per- 

 formed there by the Essex Institute, exhibiting as it did 

 the most interesting collection of historical matter pre- 

 pared for that occasion, has connected it intimately with 

 this first centennial celebration of the birth of the Amer- 

 ican nationality, and renders it peculiarly appropriate that 

 the meaning of the celebration should be carefully con- 

 sidered in this place and at this time. 



The universal desire of the American people to cele- 

 brate in a suitable manner the declaration of their national 

 existence was a natural and proper impulse. However 

 interesting may be the ordinary current of life to the 

 careful observer, it is to the striking and startling events 

 that we owe the great attraction of human history, and it 

 is upon them that we depend for the inspiring force which 

 makes man's career in the past attractive, and in the pres- 

 ent and future strong and vital and effective. The his- 

 tory which we love, and from which we draw our lessons, 

 is the record of the startling and surprising events which 

 lie along man's pathway in the world. It is indeed the 

 surprises which we love, and it is by the surprises that 

 we make our great strides towards accomplishment and 

 perfection. Man prides himself on his deliberate wis- 

 dom, and on his power of accomplishing a great end by 

 calm purpose and by high design. But his great deeds 

 are too often unpremeditated, his great thoughts too often 

 unexpected, his great achievements too often unprepared, 

 for him to boast of his power, or to forget that to an un- 

 expected accident he often owes more than to carefully 

 organized intention. To the surprising and brilliant re- 

 sults of great conflicts, unforeseen and unthought of, to 

 the sharp turns in diplomacy, to the sudden establishment 

 and growth of national existence, we owe the charms of 

 national and popular record. To the unexpected burst of 



