ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 



Delivered before the American Institute, at the Broadway Tabernacle, 

 October 11, 1850, 



By Samuel Gsecne Arnold, Esq., Proridence, Rhode Island. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Institute — 



Most heartily do I wish that the remarks which I shall address 

 to you this evening were more worthy of the occasion. In appear- 

 ing before an audience which, as represen ling the great industrial 

 classes of our country, yield to none in importance and intelli- 

 gence, I am incurring a degree of responsibility which should 

 devolve on an abler mind and riper years. Justice to you and 

 to myself requires me to say how and why I come. Scarcely a 

 week has passed since you received intelligence from the Capitol 

 of the severe and sudden illness of the distinguished gentleman 

 who should have been your orator.* When it became certain 

 that all hope of securing his valuable services was vain, your 

 committee applied to me to assume the task. I come then as a 

 minute-man to fill the hour though not the place so inopportune- 

 ly presented. No time has been allowed to collect and prepare 

 statistics which might have been of use in presenting at a glance 

 the result of many observations in all those branches of our na- 

 tional industry, which it is your province to watch over and pro- 

 tect. But if all is not accomplished which I would wish, at least 

 I have done what 1 could, and premising thus much, throw my- 

 self upon your indulgence. This I feel the more emboldened to 

 do when I consider the character of those whom I am addressing, 

 for education and talent are, ever courteous, seeking rather to 

 approve that which is good than to condemn that which is faulty. 



*Hon. S. S. Phelps, U. S. Senator from Vermont. 



