No. 244.) 257 



serenity, peace his pillow and piety his guardian angel. How many 

 an arm, Sir, have you by your efforts made strong to labor ? how 

 many a breast have you filled with manly aspirings after improve- 

 ment and excellence, and how have you sown broad-cast over the 

 land the seeds of certain progress and ultimate excellence. I wish 

 that this Institute had an energetic actuary or agent whose sole duty 

 it was to visit all portions of our country, address the farmers of every 

 school district, drop the suggestions of science and good taste at every 

 ■way-side, and especially that he should in his conversational and 

 set addresses, strive to cultivate the home feeling, and multiply the 

 points of attraction and comfort in the country residence ; for, I 

 believe, that the snug, quiet and resistless beauty of a sweet rural 

 home is most favorable to the development of the qualities of the 

 heart. A small place may be made a very paradise, and there is a 

 tranquil beauty which could be created around the cottage of every 

 man, which should endear that little spot to his children's children. 

 I cannot forbear the remark, that great men have ever been remark- 

 able for their attachment to snug dwellings, and men of the sub- 

 limest conceptions have been housed in narrow, yet tasteful habita- 

 tions. I like that letter of Napoleon Bonaparte to his brother 

 Joseph on his return from Egypt : — " Secure me a small house in 

 the country near Paris, or in Burgundy." No land on the globe 

 ought to boast of lovelier homes than those of our free citizens, who 

 own the soil, and have such heavens over them and such earth be- 

 neath their feet. Let me pass from a small house to a large one. 

 You have goodly houses in this glorious city, but you greatly need 

 another. The country's good demands an edifice in New-York 

 adapted to the proper accommodation of the American Institute. It 

 ought to rise promptly, proudly, in your city. It ought to be, what 

 it would be, the great attraction of the strangers who are perpetually 

 within your gates. The American Institute causes an immense annual 

 visitation to the city ; it crowds your unequalled hotels, throngs your 

 attractive places of public business and resorts of pleasure, and pre- 

 sents claims for extensive patronage upon every landed proprietor 

 and business man. Nor do I believe that an appeal to the enter- 

 prising and munificent citizens of this great emporium would fail to 

 secure the desired amount of means. Innumerable are the great and 

 good results which would flow to the cause of our common country 

 from a suitable building where arts and science, and invention and 

 labor, could find their home and their aliment, and where the thou- 

 sands of our youth, as they were carried to witness the ingenuity and 

 glory of their country, might joyously exclaim, " We, too, are 

 Americans.'^ 



[Assembly, No. 244.] R 



