ADDRESS, 
BY 
HON. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
The Hon. John Quincy Adams, on taking the chair, to preside at the meeting 
on Monday morning the 8th of April, addressed the audience in the following man¬ 
ner : 
In taking the chair of this meeting in the place of others so much more worthy 
of occupying it, I feel that there is due from me to the members of the National 
Institute, to the learned and eloquent sons of science who, during the last week, have 
brought the precious fruits of their genius and their toils, and have deposited them 
as free-will offerings on the altar of their country; and to our country, an apology 
for the apparent indifference to the cause for which they have assembled here, and 
to the entertainment and instruction so liberally contributed by them to all who 
have had the happiness of hearing them, inferrible from the fact of the very small 
portion of attendance that it has been in my power to give to the highly interest¬ 
ing meetings of the last week. 
The only cause of my non-attendance at the morning meetings has been that 
they were necessarily appointed lo be held at hours when the indispensable dis¬ 
charge of the duties of a public trust required my attendance elsewhere; an obsta¬ 
cle which even now would have disabled me for attendance here, but for the 
melancholy casualty which has suspended the deliberations of the representatives of 
the people on yonder Capitol Hill. It is not that I deem those deliberations more 
honorable or more important to the welfare of the country than the occupations in 
which you have been here engaged. The cultivation of the heart and mind of a 
nation, by devotion of time and toil to the pursuits of science, contributes as much, 
aye more, to the happiness and dignity of the human being, than the most faithful 
application of the faculties of the representative to the wishes and interests of his 
constituents. But I have not deemed myself at liberty to supersede the obligations 
of positive and stipulated duty, even for the voluntary participation in labors, per¬ 
haps of a higher order and of more pleasing performance, but without the same com¬ 
parative sense of duty, and with results only of personal gratification. 
And I avail myself of this occasion to express my regret that, having taken an 
humble part in the establishment of this Institution from its first foundation, under 
the auspices of Mr. Poinsett, I have been able to contribute so little to its promo¬ 
tion and advantage, and to add my heartfelt satisfaction at the prosperity which, by 
the untiring exertions and fervid zeal of its executive officers, it has attained. I 
believe it eminently deserving of the fostering care and liberal patronage of the 
Congress of the United States, and could anticipate no happier close to my public 
life than to contribute, by my voice and by my vote, to record the sanction of the 
nation’s munificence to sustain the National Institute devoted to the cause ol 
science. 
