Exhibition A DDiiESSESi 171 



the most advanced nations of the world. In the construction 

 of machinery, moreover, and especially in the invention of new 

 and efficient machines for the saving- of labor, and for the increase 

 of productive power, it may be said, I believe, with justice, that our 

 country is unsurpassed by any other, if it does not, in fact, stand 

 superior to all rivalry. Though at the Exposition of 1867 the 

 machinery of the United States was very inadequately represented, 

 yet the ingenious novelties which it embraced attracted to it from 

 visitors, from critics and from the jury, a degree of attention, and 

 elicited an amount of admiration, far out of proportion to the limited 

 space allotted to it, and to the number of objects which it embraced. 



Dismissing then, for the present, this interesting theme, I resume 

 the line of thought from which this momentary interruption has 

 turned me aside. And 1 remark, in the first place, that your institu- 

 tion presents to my mind a striking and felicitous illustration of the 

 importance and the power of the principle of associated effort. You 

 exert, at this moment, cynstantly upon the mind of every individual 

 throughout all this great metropolis and its surrounding dependent 

 territory, who is engaged in any branch of industrial art, and who 

 has the shghtest ambition to excel in his vocation, an influence stimu- 

 lating him to exertion, which is distinctly felt apart from all the 

 ordinary motives which encourage or force men to labor. And an 

 exceedingly important fact about this influence is, that it does not 

 simply impel men to aim at accomplishing more, but urges them 

 rather to attempt performing what they do accomplish better than 

 before. The palpable evidence of this influence, as it respects both 

 its existence and its power, is displayed in the magnificent collection 

 of the triumphs of industrial art in the midst of which we are assem- 

 bled. No force of coercion has been necessary to gather these together. 

 They are the voluntary contributions of those by whom they have been 

 created. But your institution has presented the attracting nucleus, 

 around which they have clustered as naturally as the material par- 

 ticles suspended in a solution unite, under the influence of physical 

 laws, to build up the symmetrical form of the crystal. 



The power of associated eftbrt has been recognized from the earliest 

 dawn of civilization ; but it is only within a period comparatively 

 recent that, in the industrial or commercial world, it has been resorted 

 to in a spirit truly liberal. The crafts and guilds of medieval Europe 

 were organized with a view to the exclusive benefit of their members. 

 They were, in general, close corporations, fettering the freedom of 



