20 BULLETIN OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE. 



to Dr. Wheatknd, the most valued patron we have had 

 in the years just closed, was Mr. Hunt. His devotion to 

 our interests, in season and out of season, his promptness 

 to respond to every call, his judgment, his good taste, 

 his interest in art, his enjoyment of the beautiful and his 

 yearning that all should share that pleasure with him, 

 have taken form in a stream of costly and laborious ben- 

 efactions only checked by death. But the hour is too 

 short. I detain you no longer from the pleasure which 

 is in store for us, except to read the letter I have prom- 

 ised. It will be perceived by every well-wisher of the 

 Institute to be a communication of capital importance ; 

 others, only less significant of what our future may bo- 

 come, might be presented if the delicacy of our intended 

 benefactors would permit. I cannot suppose that the 

 people of the county will prove indifferent to such a 

 trust. I dare not but suppose that they will rise to an 

 appreciation of the forces that have sustained the Insti- 

 tute for fifty years, — that they will rise to the opportu- 

 nity which opens before them to put upon a stable footing 

 an enterprise so unique, so hopeful, and so competent to 

 correct the tendency towards machine methods which 

 threatens the educational systems of to-day. 



Whatever the coming years may have in store for the 

 Essex Institute, it is certain that devotion and enthusiasm 

 such as have crowned the now-accomplished lustrum will 

 not be wanting, amongst our actual working force, to 

 achieve the next. Whether we shall be enabled, through 

 the generosity and high spirit of this ancient county, to 

 press on to higher aims, or whether we must be content 

 with what we have, and indulge no further outlook save 

 to hold our own, I can speak for those who have borne the 

 heat and burthen of the day for at least a generation, — 

 for at least that period I have known the Institute as a 



