8 BULLETIN OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE. 



which naturally belongs to Essex County. There is no 

 gallery in the world but would be eager to secure it. Shall 

 we allow it to pass into alien hands because we have no 

 room to grow? To say that such an enterprise as ours 

 must grow or die is something more than rhetoric. Either 

 we must provide ourselves at once with largely increased 

 facilities and means, or the character and general scope 

 of the Essex Institute must suffer a sea change. 



The Institute has passed successfully its formative stage, 

 — its period of mere accretion. What it now craves is 

 the opportunity to unfold its treasures, to utilize its wealth, 

 to make available its vast assets. I cannot bring myself 

 to believe that, at this stage of its development, the Essex 

 Institute is to experience a check. I cannot suppose that 

 here in this birthplace of Massachusetts the people of this 

 ancient county — one of three Counties first set apart in 

 1643, — a people strong, numerous, wealthy and progres- 

 sive, have carried forward such an enterprise as this to its 

 present advancement, only to let it fail, — that we are 

 ripening only to decay. The devotion and self-sacrifice of 

 which it is the fruitage forbid the thought. The prayers 

 and blessings of those who have pushed on this under- 

 taking until it stands looking wistfully over the threshold 

 of the coming century, have consecrated us to their work 

 and we must not turn back. The past at least is secure. 

 The record of our achievement best vindicates our right 

 to be. It is not enough that we have striven to give form 

 and body to the aspirations of the times. Other activities 

 might claim as much. Not what we have essayed, but 

 what we have achieved ! Could some other agency do it 

 better? In the educational enginery of Massachusetts is 

 there no room for us? Are we not effecting something 

 worth effecting, which, if we forego our efforts, will not 



