bo TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



home the products and the knowledge of remote nations. Here 

 and there a wise ruler got the start of priests and soldiers, and 

 sent men to neighboring nations to procure commodities for civi- 

 lizing his own people ; but warfare, either with pikes or crosiers 

 was the ordinary, and was deemed the normal state of the nations. 

 No truth was more obstructed than the one now generally acknow- 

 ledged, that every section of the earth is capable of products 

 requisite to the civilization of every other section. I well remem- 

 ber the deep sensation at the old Tabernacle, when John Quincy 

 Adams took his stand on this general principle of social philoso- 

 phy, and defended the English in compelling the Chinese to open 

 their commerce to the whole world. The discourse was worthy 

 of the man and the principle, and proved to the public mind, that 

 commerce is the great civilizer, and that it is a spurious honor 

 which sinks where commerce long prevails. 



It is now conceded without argument, that the development 

 and distribution of the resources of the whole earth are essential 

 to the high civilization of any nation. To will this good work 

 is present to all enlightened men, but how to perform it, is the 

 great practical question of our age. 



The founders of the American Institute had a foresight of this 

 great work, and assumed a share of it. How earnestly and per- 

 sistently that share of the work has been performed, is known to 

 the public. It is made known by a long series of yearly fairs ; it 

 is made known by the yearly volume published by the State ; it 

 is made known by the weekly labors of the Farmers' Club and 

 the Polytechnic Association, which are published as widely as 

 the labors of any kindred societies on earth. It is made known 

 to you this evening, by your standing in the midst of this tropi- 

 cal garden : for the American Institute inspired that weather- 

 worn captain, who stole the becalmed hours of his voyage on the 

 Brazilian coast, to gather from the tallest tree-tops those splen- 

 did orchids which hang around you, and prove to you, that the 

 air as well as the earth and the water is a parent of flowers. 



But we must not deceive ourselves about the progress of the 

 great work of the development and distribution of the civilizing 

 resources of the earth. The steps have been few and flattering, 

 while the pauses have been long and disheartening. 



Going back about one hundred years, we find in the Parlia- 

 mentary Reports a petition for allowing the manufacture of iron 

 in the American colonies, for English use, not for the convenience 



