for safe keeping and exhibition, within the limits of the Park itself. . . . 
The Trustees were met by the Commissioners with the most enlightened 
and liberal sympathy, and the proposition was accepted by them with 
the declaration on the part of the Commissioners, which the event has 
justified, that the proposed plan of codperation, which insured and com- 
bined in the enterprise the interests and means of the private citizen 
with those of the public, would probably be made an example and in- 
centive for uniting the energies of those interested in other branches of 
Science and Art in similar undertakings. .. . 
“Jt yery soon, however, became evident by the rapid growth of the 
Museum, and the constant additions which accrued to its collections, 
that the temporary accommodations which were the best that the Park 
Commissioners have thus far been able to afford, were altogether inade- 
quate for the purpose to which they were devoted, and accordingly the 
Legislature, in response to the petition of a large number of influential 
citizens interested in the cause, by an Act in 1871 relative to the Depart- 
ment of Public Parks, authorized the Commissioners to erect, upon 
Manhattan Square, a suitable fire-proof building for the purpose of 
establishing and maintaining the Museum therein, under rules and 
regulations to be prescribed from time to time by the Commissioners, 
and in the same connection and by the same act the like provision was 
made for a similar building for the use of ‘The Metropolitan Museum 
of Art, the foundations of which are already being prepared by the 
Commissioners on the opposite side of the Park. 
“By this double act of munificence on the part of the people of the 
State, the City of New York has been endowed with two institutions of 
education and ornament which, though now in their infancy, will at no 
distant day be recognized as of great and permanent public advantage, 
[22] 
