Closing Address. 133 



of New York and of the country for generous contributions to the 

 work. "We hope to rear a stately edifice that will cover a block 

 and embellish our whole city, at a cost of not less than $1,000,000. 

 We mean to have therein galleries of art, lecture-rooms, conserva 

 tories, and, probably exhibitions of models, inventions and machines 

 from all parts of the world. When we shall be ready, when Ameri- 

 can art and industiy shall have received due development, we mean 

 to invite the world to a display of its choicest products, and on the 

 4th of July, 1876 — that is the one hundredth anniversary of the 

 birth of American liberty — we mean to open the most magnificent 

 exhibition that the world has ever yet seen, and to invite the world 

 to come and see what America has done and can do, and to place 

 in competition with it all that has been done or can be done by the 

 rival art and skill of the Old World. We believe we shall be 

 ready — we mean to be ready — by that time, not merely with a pal- 

 ace of industiy, but with the fit contents of that palace, wherein 

 American art and genius shall vie with all that the Old World can 

 do, and on equal terms shall challenge exhibition and competition 

 with the captains of industry all over the planet. And thus, trust- 

 ing that our peaceful triumphs in the field of useful art may rad- 

 ically dim the glories and efface the memories of desolating war, 

 the American Institute bids you welcome to this festival of labor, 

 and, ti'ustiug that your generous aid and patronage throughout the 

 fair we are now opening shall encourage and enable us to go on 

 holding better and still better fairs henceforth, and thife make New 

 York the centre, as she should be, of industrial as well as commer- 

 cial greatness in the New World, and ultimately in the whole world, 

 we bid you welcome to what we now set before you. 



CLOSING ADDRESS. 



BY KEV. H. Vr. BEECHER. 



The managers regret that they have not been able to procure a 

 full report of the brilliant address delivered by the Rev. Henry- 

 Ward Beecher, on the evening previous to the close of the exhibi- 

 tion. The orator spoke, as usual, without notes. It was expected 

 that his words would appear in print the next morning, but the 

 pressure of the crowd around the rostrum was so great that even 

 newspaper reporters were not allowed the requisite facilities for 

 symbolizing the full and sparkling flow of thought that for more 



