ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 55 



years has published a weekly journal, and the extent of its opera- 

 tions may be judged by the fact that 307 institutions in Great Bri- 

 tain alone, are in connection with this great parent society. 



Jacquard, who was a plaiter of straw hats in Lyons, had his at- 

 tention first drawn, in 1799, to the subject of the extraordinary loom 

 which has immortalized his name, by seeing in an English newspa- 

 per, the prize offered by this society for a machine that would make 

 nets or fabricate lace ; and other instances might be given of the 

 direct influence it has had in leading to inventions, the effect of 

 which, upon the world, it would be impossible to estimate. In 1783, 

 eighty years ago, it offered a prize for a machine that would mow 

 or reap, which led to many attempts in England, and after nearly 

 half a century had transpired, the desired invention was produced 

 in the A.merican reaper of McCormick. 



But though the society instituted the system of rewards and pre- 

 miums, and had small yearly exhibitions of new inventions, it did 

 not reach the further step of a national industrial exhibition, the 

 honor of conceiving and of successfully establishing which, belongs 

 to France ; and it may gratify those who believe in the effect which 

 republican institutions have upon individual enterprise, energy and 

 invention, to learn that the idea was first conceived and successfully 

 carried out in the days of the first French republic. The circum- 

 stances which led to the movement are interesting, and I will relate 

 them. 



In 1797 the Marquis d'Aveze, the manager of the Academy of 

 Music, then known as the Theatre of Arts, was appointed by the 

 government commissioner of the three manufacturing establish- 

 ments carried on by the old government, known as the Gobelin 

 tapestry, the Sevres China and the Savonierre carpets. Upon 

 going to look after his additional charge he found the workshops 

 vacant, and that the workmen had been for two years almost in a 

 state of starvation, whilst the warerooms were full of rich carpets, 

 exquisitely painted china, and the finest specimens of Gobelin 

 tapestry. Greatly moved at the scene of misery he beheld con- 

 trasted as it was with the beautiful productions, the result of the 

 ingenious and patient labor of the now starving operatives, " a 

 luminous idea," as he afterward said, " burst upon his mind," that 

 he would get the consent of the Minister of the Interior to make a 

 display of that rich and brilliant collection in one of the largest 

 palaces, which all the inhabitants of Paris should be invited to 

 come and inspect as specimens of the native industry of France, in 

 the expectation that sufficient of these costly articles could be sold 

 to relieve the pressing wants of those whose skillful hands had 



