LC 5219 Published by the Board of Managers of the Institution. CAMBRIDGE: Printed by Hilliard, Metcalf, & Co. Gew Lik 10-31-44 ADDRESS. WE are entering upon a new era in the history of science and the mechanic arts. We are this night assembled to open an Institution, whose object is to throw upon the business and labours of common life the light of reason and philosophy. Science and art are of a kindred nature; they have a common origin, and were destined to go on together and assist each other; but they have been separated by the ignorance and necessities of men, and have both deeply suffered from the separation. It is the object of Mechanics' Institutions to reunite them; to give to the mechanic the scientific principles which shall be most useful to him in the daily operations of his art, and to gain from the labours and multiplied experiments of the mechanic, new facts for the illustration and advancement of science. It will not be considered unappropriate to this occasion to give some account of the origin and history of Mechanics' Institutions abroad and in our own country. This sketch, however necessarily short, will serve to prove that it is not a doubtful benefit which we are endeavouring to gain; but that wherever institutions of this kind have been established, certain and permanent good has been effected. We owe their first establishment to a country, from which we received a like gift of still greater value,-our admirable system of common schools; to a country, which has long been distinguished for its anxious attention to the education of its children, and whose children have, in consequence, wherever they are |