AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



33 



Music, the companion of eveiy happy family, receives more 

 and more encouragement among us — so much so, that we draw ofif 

 from old Europe her best artists. Her " Jenny Linds" must all 

 sing here, before their career ends. We have proved our love for 

 the best music, albeit Eepublics have been charged with the bar- 

 barism of " having no music in their souls," 



Now, oiu- dwellings are, many of them, more costly than the 

 palaces of old Europe, and not inferior in style or execution. It 

 seems to us demonstrated, that the grand benefit of palaces for 

 exhibition of works of tlie industrious world, is a rapid reputation 

 for an invention that deserves it. A vast assembly from every- 

 where meets in the palace. Persons knowing and inquisitive in 

 every branch of knowledge, come here to gratify themselves with 

 the success of others ; and when an invention presents itself of 

 distinguished merit, the happy inventor, who had hardly money 

 enough to get here, goes to his home with pockets full of money; 

 whereas if he had, as of old, staid in his workshop, with 

 none to praise, because they knew nothing, he would have 

 gained nothing, but who cry out to him, as I heard some of Eli 

 Whitney's friends did to him, while he was poring over his con- 

 trivances for ginning cotton, without a dollar in his pocket : 

 " Whitney, you are a clever, ingenious fellow ; what a pity you 

 should waste your precious time over these foolish gimcracks of 

 yours. Why not go and do something for a living ?". 



In truth, it is justly believed that many inventions, greater in 

 value than any we have, have been lost, for want of such an 

 opportunity for fame and for profit. It is believed that we have 

 lost malleable glass. We lost the reaper of the Gauls, used 

 before the time of Julius Cesar until now — a lapse of nearly two 

 thousand years. The Gauls used wagons of a suitable height to 

 receive the heads of wheat, having cutters moving by the power 

 of the wheels, pushed forward through the standing grain by 

 horses or cattle — more wisely than we now do, for they took only 

 the wheat, and trampled the straw into the earth, to keep up its 

 fertility. We can no longer make cutting implements out of 

 copper, as was done three thousand years ago ; nor have we now 



[Am. Inst.] 3 



