622 [Assembly 



it has penetraterl the firmament and scrutinized its structure ; and, 

 finally, you have enslaved the lightning and dispatched it, as a ser- 

 vant, with your messages. What more, then, can you expect? Sure- 

 ly the limit must be at hand. Such doubting ones, to remove their 

 fears and see room for progress still, have only to think of the im- 

 measurable distance between God and man, and that power to create, 

 is infinite with the Creator; or to remember those mathematical lines, 

 which may forever approach each other without meeting; or the end- 

 less divisibility of a particle of matter ; or to look into the pheno- 

 mena and laws of nature, and they will be ready to exclaim : won- 

 derful indeed are the works of man, but those of God are past find- 

 ing out. 



I have said that the American Institute promotes the great and 

 primary intererests of the country, by encouraging research, and eli- 

 citing the efforts of inventive genius. The means by which it ac- 

 complishes this end are many. I will barely notice its exhibitions, 

 as one of them. 



Have you, ladies and gentlemen, or any of you, ever considered 

 the amount of mind and thought engaged in the production of ar- 

 ticles preparatory to one of these exhibitions; the deep study and 

 Aixious investigations carried on for that purpose, and the thrilling 

 emotion of delight felt in anticipation of preference? It should be 

 remembered that the articles seen at these fairs, numerous and vari- 

 ous as they are, indicate but a small part of the efforts of genius ac- 

 tually produced by their influence. Preparatory to one of these ex- 

 hibitions, are engaged thousands, nay, tens of thousands of the best 

 geniuses and most devoted students in all the various branches of tl^e 

 useful arts, and these, too, acting under the strongest incentives 

 which can be brought to bear upon them, and striving, by the use of 

 all they know, or can glean from others, and to the very extent of 

 their ability, to produce something which shall secure the award of 

 preference. 



Owners and employers, by the superiority of the products of their 

 fields, factories ^nd shops, compete for premiums, and through them, 

 for the patronage of the public, while their journeymen and appren- 

 tices are no less intent, through the exercise of their skill, to gratify 

 and aid their employers in the attainment of their object, and thereby 

 bring themselves into notice and secure, among other things, an ad- 

 vance of wages. These objects of ambition, glowing in anticipation, 

 arouse their energies, nerve their arms, and lead them on from ex- 



