AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 91 



In taking up tlie subject of Weights and Measures, the Franklin 

 Institute did a good service to the State. Happy if it had enforced 

 further attention on the public to the great reform needed. 



The promotion of the increase of knowledge is one of the highest 

 functions of such an Institution. To it the Franklin Institute has 

 added the publication of a Journal by which to diffuse knowledge, 

 a publication sustained now so long, that we have a right to con- 

 sider it as one of the established works of oiu* time, a permanent 

 mark of the usefulness of mechanic associations. 



How eminently these things contributed to the mutual improve- 

 ment of the members who earnestly engaged in this work — the 

 work thus twice blessing, the giver find receiver! How it served 

 to develop the power of those men of strong minds and willing 

 heads and hearts ! . 



Shadows gather around me as I speak — the mechanics of Phila- 

 delphia of thirty years ago, those then in their prime, now grey • 

 the seniors gone to their rest. Worthy successors of Evans and 

 Perkins, and Lyon and Ramage. Ronaldson and Lukens, Reeves 

 and Tyler, and Patterson, worthy to be the scientific teachers of 

 such men. Cautious but generous Ronaldson, always laboring in 

 the cause of humanity and progress; skillful and ingenious Lu- 

 kens ; acute and laborious Reeves, ecpially able in devising ex- 

 periments and mechanism, and in using them; philosophic Tyler 

 hammering out iron heated by a fire of iron fuel to prove a prin- 

 ciple, and puzzling the scholastics with the theory of the top. 



I am not aware that other institutions have followed in the 

 wake of the Franklin Institute, nor does that institution appear 

 to have found it expedient or necessary to continue in this course. 

 The men who at one period could devote much time to such 

 researches, are now so greatly in demand that they cannot give 

 their time to this good work. What if any one should have whis- 

 pered, while thus employed for the public good gratwHously— 

 they were laying up for themselves for the future a store of good 

 things. Young men be not too careful to see an immediate return 

 for your exertions. Be not too careful to pursue a selfish end by 

 selfish means. Give way to the generous impulses of your heart 

 and labor in love. 



