518 [ASSEMBLT 



interest. In such associations will be found a concentration of 

 appropriate talent for the work, and pride and pleasure in carrying 

 it on. 



This is the acknowledged character of the American Institute. It 

 has been tried, and not found wanting. For nearly a quarter of a 

 century, it has formed the great national vanguard of the pioneers of 

 substantial and practical improvements, in all the useful occupations 

 and employments of life. The works of its scientific, mechanical 

 and agricultural crops, have continually gone forth to enrich and 

 beautify the land, and multiply and scatter the comforts of life, until 

 its influence is now felt from the most densely populated Atlantic 

 shores to the western limit of civilization. Its multiplying lights, 

 beaming up in the western hemisphere, have caught the view of the 

 Old World, whose champions, in agriculture and mechanism, visit 

 the American Institute to learn the means of permanent advancement, 

 and the way to national wealth and power. Why, then, should it 

 not be, what it is fast becoming, the pride of the nation? 



The public, seeing the permanent and abiding character of its 

 works, its indifference to sects, creeds and partie^, the self-sacrificing 

 enthusiasm with which its pioneers press on the enterprise, and that 

 its achievements are for the common benefit of the country, have 

 gradually become impressed with a sense of its importance, and 

 yielded co-operation, until its members and coadjutors are now com- 

 posed of all parties, sects and denominations, without distinction of 

 creeds or political sentiment, and until it now stands entirely above 

 and secure from, all convulsions of political contests, not dependent 

 upon the success of one party or another, resting alike upon Demo- 

 crats and Whigs, all equally willing and anxious to form the pillars 

 of its support, while it operates in a different sphere, and extends its 

 exploring vision far beyond the arena of party measures or political 

 action, penetrates the mysterious works of God in the government of 

 the material world, and draws down permanent accessions to the 

 common stock of human enjoyment. 



Its works are the production of things by new results in the ope- 

 ration of natural laws, and being thus a part of creation, must 

 therefore remain through all future ages, each accession forming a 

 link in that grand chain of improvement, extending down from the 

 commencement of civilization, and only to terminate with the end of 

 time. 



