OPENING ADDRESS 



At the Twenty-fourth Annual Fair of the American 

 Institute, at Castle Garden, October, 1851. 



[by L1VING9T0K LITIKGSTON, ESQ., VICE PRESIDENT.] 



Ladies and Gentlemen : — On behalf of the managers of the 

 Twenty-fourth Annual Fair of the American Institute, I bid you 

 welcome — a hearty welcome — for there cannot be any one in 

 this vast assemblage who does not feel proud and rejoice at the 

 present exhibition, surrounded as he is on all sides by specimens 

 of the skill, energy, and enterprise of our citizens — tokens of our 

 country's glory and prosperity. 



The great object of the American Institute is to encourage and 

 promote the domestic industry of our country in all its branches, 

 in agriculture, commerce, manufactures, and the arts ; by hold- 

 ing fairs for the exhibition of the products of the soil, specimens 

 of manufactures and the mechanic arts, and by bestowing premi- 

 ums and rewards on those who shall have made improvements 

 or excelled in any of those branches. 



"What success the Institute has met with in its arduous under- 

 taking, after twenty-four years' labor, it is not for me to speak ; 

 that must be left for your decision. 



The first Fair of the American Institute was held in the year 

 1828, at Masonic Hall in this city, in a room of about one hun- 

 dred feet long by fifty wide, and at the time, so doubtful was the 

 experiment, and so low was the pecuniary credit of the Institute, 

 that the managers were compelled to pledge themselves to pay 

 the expenses, and it was with considerable diflSiculty that a suffi- 

 cient number of specimens of American industry and ingenuity 



