ADDRESS.

GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE AND

OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:

At the beginning of a year which opens full of Hope for our Country and for the cause of humanity succeeding one of great struggle but of unexampled moral and military progress, we cannot fail to remember the religious origin of our Commonwealth, nor to perceive in the workings of that experience by which we have been led through mutations of necessary trial up to the heights of many a victory, the ways of an Infinite Intelligence and Love.

The interest of a subject so fascinating to the imagination, so exciting to the intellect, and so winning to the heart, attracts us to the consideration of our political condition and National opportunities, illumined by a Celestial Light. But we can pause only for the moment, while we pay our vows at the altar of a new consecration, before we advance to the study of our more immediate tasks in the sphere of government.

I propose attempting to unfold in this Address, the external history (if I may so express it,) of the relation of our Commonwealth to the movements in which she has borne a part, and those material conditions to her future usefulness of which legislation can take cognizance.

Finances.

The vigor of our fiscal condition is due to the fearless integrity with which preceding legislatures have regarded the financial wants and resources of the State. Adapting means to ends, they have taxed these resources sufficiently to create revenues adequate to our duties and necessities. It will become your office, gentlemen, with equal confidence in the intelligent patriotism of the people, in like manner to require such material contributions to the common treasury as the public good may require, with the least possible resort to permanent loans or any of the expedients of delay.

The receipts and payments of the State Treasury during the year 1863, have been as follows, viz. :—

The net proceeds of sales of the Back Bay lands

during the past year, (419,269 sq. ft.) is $857,925.23.

The total net amount from the beginning, (1,190,440 sq. ft.) is $2,017,800.

There have been paid for educational purposes, and

funded for the public schools, out of these proceeds,

There has been paid into the treasury, for redeeming land scrip, (in full,)

220,000 00

There has been paid into the treasury, for redeeming public debt, (under chap. 235, Acts 1856,).

300,000 00

$1,029,872 13

The value of land unsold, but filled and the filling paid for, is estimated at $1,500,000.

There remains less than $13,000 to be paid the Museum of Comparative Zoology, to complete the grant of $100,000 made to that institution. I trust that having wisely devoted to it a liberal sum, helping to establish one of the most celebrated museums of natural history in the world, the Commonwealth will with similar wisdom help to render it available for

the instruction of the people. Classes from the normal schools and advanced classes from other schools might derive the highest benefits from resorting to the Museum and studying the specimens, aided by the lectures of its distinguished head and his assistants. How to see, how to study, not merely how to learn by rote and others' thoughts, but how to think, and thus to contribute of ourselves to science and learning, is the grand problem of education.

The Boston Society of Natural History, having completed its new building on the land granted by the Commonwealth on the Back Bay, is now arranging its museum. A fresh impulse has been given to the society by its new accommodations, and much benefit may be expected to public education from its large and growing collections.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, having complied with the conditions of the Act allotting to its use a portion of the Back Bay lands, has commenced an edifice designed especially for the School of Industrial Science, which will accommodate the Museum of Arts and Manufactures until a building shall be erected at the western end of the assigned space corresponding to that of the Society of Natural History. The Institute has formally accepted the Act of the Legislature assigning to its use a portion of the fund