deeds. We were just about ready to appreciate these progressive events.

In the summer of 1887 I urged a great World's Fair, because I thought
it was due in our country, to the inventors, the artists, the industries
of America. How to set the idea of a World's Fair agoing? It only needed
enthusiasm among the prominent merchants and the rich men. All great
things first start in one brain, in one heart. I proposed that a World's
Fair should be held in the great acreage between Prospect Park and the
sea.

In 1853 there was a World's Fair in New York. In the same year the
dismemberment of the Republic was expected, and a book of several
volumes was advertised in London, entitled "History of the Federal
Government from the Foundation to the Dissipation of the United States."
Only one volume was ever published. The other volumes were never
printed. What a difference in New York city then, when it opened its
Crystal Palace, and thirty-four years later--in 1887! That Crystal
Palace was the beginning of World's Fairs in this country.

In the presence of the epauleted representatives of foreign nations,
before a vast multitude, Franklin Pierce, President of the United
States, declared it open, and as he did so Julien, the inspired musical
leader of his day, raised his baton for an orchestra of three thousand
instruments, while thousands of trained voices sang "God Save the
Queen," "The Marseillaise," "Bonnie Doon," "The Harp that once through
Tara's Halls," and "Hail Columbia." What that Crystal Palace, opened in
New York in 1853, did for art, for science, for civilisation, is beyond
record. The generation that built it has for the most part vanished but
future generations will be inspired by them.