AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 75 



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they are supplied. Christianity was a necessary preparation for 

 the establishments of public charities, the asylums for the desti- 

 tute and the unfortunate, the halt, the maimed, aud the blind, 

 though this want existed before the Gospel was preached to the 

 poor. 



It may not employ us unprofitably during the brief time allotted 

 to this address, to consider some of the institutions connected with 

 the wants of our country and of our day; and especially at the 

 close of the Annual Fair for the exhibition of products of the arts 

 and manufactures, to examine some of those devoted to the pro- 

 gress of the arts and sciences. 



In this discussiou I must necessarily limit myself to those es- 

 tablishments which are generic. After noticing the classes of 

 institutions which are devoted to the education of youth, I shall 

 pass to those for adiilt education or improvement, and for the im- 

 provement of the arts and sciences themselves, such as the Ameri- 

 can Institute, and the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, as the 

 types of this class of mechanical institutions, and shall notice the 

 modes adopted by them for progress. The wants which they rep- 

 resent are, mutual improvement by the members, and advance- 

 ment in the arts and sciences. Next, commerce will claim our 

 attention, and the doings of the Chamber of Commerce of New- 

 York will serve us as text. The great library of the merchant 

 prince, John Jacob Astor, and the Union of that most excellent of 

 men, Peter Cooper, will also be noticed. From these efforts 

 already made, I shall pass to the examination of what I consider 

 the great want of the day, yet unsatisfied — a University of the 

 Arts and Sciences. 



You may consider this address as a nook, or a very small cor- 

 ner of the Crystal Palace Exhibition. These institutions are so 

 many frames upon which I intend to hang the objects to be 

 exhibited to you. The frames themselves, like those of the great 

 glass house, shall be put together according to general mechanical 

 principles, and the articles shall be so arranged as not to strike 

 you as "confusion worse confounded;" but the smaller ones, and 

 the pegs on which they hang, may be stuck about in some little 



