No. 216.] 519 



Who, then, can avoid feelings of self-gratulation, on being engaged 

 in such an enterprise? and who will not long delight to cherish the 

 warmest emotions of gratitude, for those veteran patriots who gave 

 birth to the American Institute, protected its infancy, and have guided 

 its destiny, until, yielding to the demands of age, one after another, 

 they retire from the field of service, leaving the care of its maturity 

 to other hands. 



I have said, that the leading object of the American Institute, is 

 to develop the laws of nature, and enrich the country by the pro- 

 duction of new things of practical benefit and importance. I now 

 add, that this object it accomplishes, chiefly, by stimulating, aiding 

 and encouraging inventive genius. And what is inventive genius? 

 Were I to undertake to define it, I should style it the celebrated lock 

 picker of JVature^s secret archives, the unseen but active agent of 

 reform, the moving power of improvement, which has conducted the 

 car of civilization from the first ages of the world down to the nine- 

 teenth century, and is destined to drive it onward for centuries yet 

 to come. 



And that characteristic or function of mind, called inventive ge- 

 nius, is not confined in its action to the mechanic arts; it is equally 

 the instrument of wealth, power and prosperity, in all other depart- 

 ments of industry. It has displayed its wonders alike in fields of 

 agriculture and gardens of luxuries, in the frame and organization of 

 systems of government and jurisprudence, in constitutions and civil 

 codes, in surmounting barriers to the progress of advancing civiliza- 

 tion, in commerce, literature and science. In each and all of these 

 departments, has the hand of inventive genius reared its proud mon- 

 uments, forever to stand, in bold attestation of its might and power» 

 It is the great and only instrumentality of developing the resources 

 of a country; its revolutionary power is constantly changing the as- 

 pect, not of a country only, but of the world. 



We scarcely observe the progress of this ceaseless change, because 

 so gradual, that before becoming accustomed to the use of the new, 

 the old is forgotten, and promises of still better absorb the attention 

 and lead it forward. 



Where once, and even within the experience of some of our stiji 

 surviving citizens, was seen the shivering lad on horseback, with his 

 bag of corn, trudging slowly onward to the distant mill, is now the 

 iron horse of genius, with its long trail of ladened cars, rushing 



