give free-hearted and open-handed assistance to an institution which appeals to their enlightened public spirit as well as to a sentiment that cannot fail to be dear to their hearts.
The Chairman: Ladies and Gentlemen, our enterprise
has had from the beginning the kind assistance of a
great many persons connected with the older established
institutions of similar character in this neighborhood. It is my
pleasant duty to express our gratitude especially to Mr. C.
Howard Walker and to Professor Herbert Langford Warren
for the assistance which they have rendered in installing the
collection in its present quarters. It is natural that on this
occasion we should turn for counsel to the oldest and most
widely known institution of this character in our neighborhood,
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and I have the pleasure
of presenting to you its Director, Mr. Edward Robinson.
ADDRESS BY MR. EDWARD ROBINSON.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a gracious and a graceful thought which has given the Museum of Fine Arts the opportunity of sharing with you in such an auspicious occasion as this, and I trust it comes as a symbol of that co-operation which should exist, and I hope always will exist, between the two institutions.
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is, in a sense, the foster-child of the University, for in the act of incorporation by which it was called into being in the year 1870, it was provided that three trustees should be appointed every year "by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, if said corporation makes such appointments," and I am pleased to say that "said corporation" has made such appointments without interruption since the foundation of the Museum. More than that, in the names of those who are known as its founders and who are included as the original body of trustees in the act of incorporation is that of the President of Harvard University—not ex officio, but as an indidivual, and it is as an individual that his counsel and his judgment have been of service to the Museum in the years of its
