Exhibition Addresses. ] 11 



disposed to give them to capitalists, they would be abandoned, to the 

 great loss of the public. And here is the secret of our great success 

 in our exhibitions. It is the great incentive to labor, for the Board of 

 Managers labor with greater .zeal and prudence here, than even 

 in their own business. It is only practical business men that can 

 successfully organize these monster exhibitions, and conduct them 

 through to a successful end. Their recompense in money is nothing, 

 yet far more satisfactory is it to know that they have greatly bene- 

 fited thousands by giving encouragement to inventive' genius, and 

 showing how wants and comforts may be supplied, thus contributing 

 largely to the happiness of their fellow-men. By favorable awards to 

 inventors, much is being accomplished from the status of the American 

 Institute at home and abroad. Its award of the great medal of honor 

 can only be obtained by the discoverer or inventor of a machine, 

 product or- process, which shall be adjudged so important in its use 

 or application as to supplant every article previously used for accom- 

 plishing the same purpose, or at least to work a favorable revolution 

 in some branch of the arts ; this confers upon the talented producer 

 an award of the highest appreciation known of in this country, assur- 

 ing him of a just recompense for his talent and industry. This is 

 giving encouragement to the progress of science, and its applications, 

 by making slaves of the great insensible forces of nature, and 

 securing to man the prerogative of all that work which men only, by 

 their individual intelligence and skilled hands, can accomplish, thus 

 associating human labor with the highest creative genius. 



The tendency of our great National Exhibition of American 

 industries is to establish a great school for emulation in those arts of 

 production by which raw material assumes a form, a shape, a new exist- 

 ence, adapted for some necessity or some use in the many wants of life, 

 whether of wood, stone, metal, or textile matter. And it must be 

 admitted that there exists a greater necessity for encouragement, by 

 furnishing means and opportunity for instruction than has yet been 

 given in our periodical exhibitions of American industries. We now 

 ask, will they not be given us in this land of wealth and acknowledged 

 birth-place of talent and ingenuity? The American Institute will 

 not despair of this, but will labor and hope for the future, acknow- 

 ledging, with grateful consideration, the great appreciation of their 

 labors by the numerous exhibitors and visitors who are annually 

 increasing in number. The continued success of these fairs proves how 

 much more could be done, and this, we hope, will be an inducement 

 to some of our millionaires, to aid us in building, and thus rear a monu- 



