"There are few in this room who have not attended [Gilbart's] excellent lectures on 'Ancient Commerce.' I feel what a train of agreeable and elevating associations I excite by merely mentioning their name. The judicious arrangement, the happy spirit of analysis, the discriminating selection and classification of facts, the wise deduction of principles, leading to views the noblest and loftiest, but at the same time the most practical and useful to society — all this, too, conveyed in language claiming the applause of the instructed, but not beyond the grasp of the ignorant — was not only a complete redemption of our original promises, but, I do think, the best practical illustration and most complete recommendation we could possibly offer of the pleasures and utilities of such institutions as this." -Summary by Thomas Wyse)
