Annual Address. 



27 



most half a century we have been, and we still are indebted 

 to the trustees of the Albany Academy for the use of the 

 rooms in which we meet, and in which our very valuable 

 library and collections are now deposited. These rooms 

 are, however, in the daily use of the Academy, and it is not 

 possible to have access to the books or collections without 

 interference with the primary purpose to which the rooms 

 are devoted. Besides all this, a stop has almost necessa- 

 rily been put to the increase of our collections by the want 

 of a proper place in which to deposit and arrange them. 

 If we had such a place, not only would our present collec- 

 tions become more available and useful, but would rapidly 

 increase and soon branch out in new departments of great 

 interest and value. All the great collections of the world 

 have been the work of time, and have had their origin in 

 small beginnings. Once begun, they were in a condition 

 to avail themselves of every opportunity that presented 

 itself, and thus have grown with a constantly accelerated 

 rapidity. The British Museum had its origin only a little 

 more than a century ago in the acquisition, partly by be- 

 quest and partly by purchase, of the comparatively small 

 private collection of Sir Hans Sloane ; and now, by gifts, 

 by bequests, by purchases, by loans or deposits, and by small 

 contributions pouring in from every part of the earth, it 

 has become in its library, its manuscripts, its collections in 

 natural history, in antiquities and in art, one of the largest 

 and most complete of any in the world. 



The Kensington Museum, which had its origin less 

 than twenty years ago in the enlightened judgment and 

 cultivated taste of Prince Albert, who was anxious to give 

 permanence to the benefits resulting to the manufacturing 

 interests of England from the Great Exhibition of 1851, 

 affords an admirable example of such an institution as is 

 needed for our country, of the mode in which it may be 

 formed, and of the benefits which result from it in cultivat- 



