I thank you, gentlemen, for the honor you have paid both to my country and myself by electing me a Vice-President of this great scientific assembly. Would that I could thank you in words in which vibrate the heart of Rome, the scientific spirit of my land, and all that it has given to the world for the progress of science, literature, and art. You know Italy, gentlemen, you admire her, and therefore it is for this also that my thanks are due to you. What ancient Rome has contributed to the common patrimony of civilization is also reflected here in a thousand ways, and a classical education, held in such honor, by a young and practical people such as yours, excites our admiration and also our astonishment. By giant strides you are reviving the activity of Italy at the epoch of the Communes, when all were animated by unwearying activity and our manufactures and arts held the first place in Europe. I have already praised here the courageous spirit which has suggested the meeting of this Congress--a Congress that will remain famous in the annals of science. Many things in your country have aroused in me growing surprise, but nothing has struck me more, I assure you, than this homage to science which is pushing all the wealthy classes to a noble rivalry for the increase of education and mental cultivation. You have already large libraries and richly endowed universities, and every kind of school, where the works of Greece and Rome are perhaps even more appreciated and adapted to modern improvements than with us old classical nations. Full of energy, activity, and wealth, you have before you perpetual progress, and what, up to this, your youth has not allowed you to give to the world, you will surely be able to give in the future. Use freely all the treasures of civilization, art, and science that centuries have accumulated in the old world, and especially in my beloved Italy; fructify them with your youthful initiation and with your powerful energy. By so doing you will contribute to peace, and then we may say with truth that we have prepared your route by the work of centuries; and like unto those who from old age are prevented from following the bold young man of Longfellow in his course, we will accompany you with our greetings and our alterable affection. By my voice, the native country of Columbus, of Galileo, of Michelangelo and Raphael, of Macchiavelli and Volta, salutes and with open arms hails as her hopeful daughter young America,--thanking and blessing her for the road she has opened to the sons of Italy, workmen and artists, to civilization, to science, and to modern research and thought.