Thirty- EIGHTH Annual Exhibition. 121 



THIRTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL EXHIBITION. 



Historical Sketch op the Institute — Gr.vnd Opening of the Fair- 

 Addresses BY Orestes Cleveland and Horace Greeley. 



The following account of the opening is taken from the Kew York 

 Tribune: 



" No society on the continent has done more to make the products 

 of American ingenuity known and honored throughout the land than 

 the Institute which last evening for the thirty-eighth time flung open 

 its doors and invited the public to a grand industrial exhibition. 

 Commencing in small rooms, and with aims homely and practical, 

 this society has, for two-score years, constantly growm in usefulness, 

 in the scope of its activities, and in wealth. Its Trustees are among 

 the ablest business men of the metropolis. Its Board of Managers is 

 made up of successful mercliants and professional men, with enough 

 of the thrift of the counting-room, combined with the enthusiasm of 

 the inventor, to secure in its action spirit, enterprise, and devotion 

 to scientific progress. These annual exhibitions have now assumed 

 such proportions as to make a prominent feature of city life each 

 autumn. One sees here a grand bazaar where everything new, use- 

 ful, brilliant, ornamental, or curious is displayed before him. No 

 sales take place at these fairs, but they greatly promote traffic, and 

 scatter far and wide a knowledge that such combinations exist, such 

 ■wares can be commanded. The increase of the metropolis and the 

 number of interests here represented throws a yearly increasing 

 embarrassment upon the Directors of the Institute to provide a build- 

 ing capacious enough for its exhibitions. For some years the loca- 

 tion has been on Fourteenth street. But it has outgrown the spread 

 of any roof in that part of the city. The gains of each fair have 

 been wisely invested so that now the Institute can reasonably hope 

 •for the realization of a plan long labored for by the Directory, that 

 of erecting a structure not smaller than the Crystal Palace of 1852, 

 where all novelties of development, of science, of the useful and orna- 

 mental arts, may find welcome, appreciation, and notice. 



