The public library came to women at the precise moment when increased education disposed them to use it, and increased leisure gave them the opportunity. It fills a s.p.a.ce in their lives which would be otherwise void. But the present time is one of decreased leisure and increased intensity of work for all cla.s.ses of men. Perhaps I ought to except from this statement the wage-earner, who as eight hour laws and customs come into force will have more time for reading than the man of almost any other cla.s.s in the community. This movement toward lessened hours of labor is more effective where libraries are best organized and therefore presents an opportunity for the extension of library influence, both general and special. The opportunity must be improved, yet neither the wage-earner nor the business man will be easy to reach; neither has been among the active patrons of the library in the past. Their lives are already full, both with business and pleasure, and if the library is to reach them, it must attract them on lines which appeal to them more strongly than business or present pleasure. It must reach needs which they know and feel to be real.
I do not believe that men of the present generation will come to libraries in great numbers for the purposes that attract women. We might as well admit that they will not subst.i.tute the novel for the cigar, the printed story for the companionship of the club. They will not read good books because they ought to do so, and the number who will read them because they like to do so is unfortunately not great. Men have not thus acted since the world began, and man-like, they will not do so now, even though such conduct on their part would help our library statistics very greatly. Nor will any great number of them read in order to enlarge the basis of life, for, in spite of the greatness of the movement toward books, it affects at first hand only a few people in the community. The ma.s.s of workmen, now and always, will get their knowledge from tradition or at second hand. It will be the unusual man who will get his ideas from books at first hand and thus improve his work and that of his fellows.
The problem is then to reach these few, and through them the community; and this brings us to the second phase of the question. I do not find that the problem has been solved; perhaps it is too recent. But libraries have been attempting its solution by various methods and with varying success.
The first and most successful attempt is that of the large libraries, like that of Pittsburgh and the Pratt Inst.i.tute of Brooklyn, which maintain a technical library for the men--a library adequately housed in its own rooms and administered by a special librarian. These technical libraries for working men succeed in their aim of reaching many of the cla.s.s for which they are established. They offer not merely an opportunity for reading, but that guidance in the use of books which all cla.s.ses of the community need, if they are to use books for a serious purpose. They show us that success in this line of effort may be reached if the library has an income sufficient to enable it to undertake the task on a large scale.
This condition is, however, not that of most of the libraries which are represented here. Our incomes are none too large for the work which we must necessarily do for the general public. Such libraries must ordinarily content themselves with offering to men opportunities for reading without special guidance in the use of books. This work has been attempted in a good many of the smaller libraries. They attempt to provide masculine conditions for reading and reading material which will appeal to men. The first includes a well-furnished, comfortable room for men, where a man can come in his working clothes without feeling he is out of place; smoking may be allowed or not--both plans are tried without great difference in apparent result. The masculine reading comprises newspapers and magazines; good books of literature which can be left in the room (paper bound copies suggested); most important of all are trade journals; if possible, files of the recent volumes of these journals, selected according to the industries of each town; and the most readable and most recent reference books on similar subjects.
In a word, a room is furnished with reading which will appeal to the cla.s.ses of men who do not ordinarily use libraries and who are not greatly interested in literature.
This plan is good one and ought to be tried, but I believe the conditions are exceptional under which it will reach large numbers of men. Inertia and habit will keep most of them away from the library.
They will see the daily papers at their wonted places of resort, and the room, necessarily lacking in much of the freedom of the club, will fail to attract very many of them. They will not form the habit of visiting it, even though they might enjoy it if the habit were formed. It must also be remembered that increasing numbers of the manufacturing concerns are providing their employees with reading of this kind, and thus limiting the use of the city library.
In some libraries the attempt to reach men has gone still further and has led to an inclusion of attractions which are ordinarily regarded as outside the work of a library. They have attempted to combine to some degree the privileges of a club with that of the public library. The Stevens Point Library has a club room, equipped with billiard tables, cards, etc., as well as with technical journals and similar books. This, the librarian reports, is very successful in attracting boys, many of whom learn to use the library. Men, however, do not come in large numbers, as they do not care to use a place frequented by boys, and in which smoking is not permitted. At Wausaukee a special room with games and where lunch is served has been established at the library as a means of furnishing a sort of club room for lumber men who come to the village, especially on Sunday, and who have no other place of resort, except the saloon. How far such methods are advisable as a part of library work is a question which will often be asked during the coming years and which only experience can answer. At present such enterprises have not gone beyond the stage of early experiment.
Summing up the result, I would frankly confess that the reports which I have received are not numerous enough for a positive judgment, yet it is my impression that where there is an income large enough to provide a special librarian and a public large enough to warrant the expense, this movement for special libraries for men is likely to succeed. It seems also to be true that where the library provides the men with the opportunity for reading only, and does not furnish guidance for readers, no very large use is made of technical books and there is no greatly increased use of the library in general. How to guide the reading seems, therefore, to be the central factor in the solution of the problem.
In a small town a special librarian is impossible, for financial reasons, but there, as well as in large cities, lectures can be given which deal with practical subjects and the aid to their knowledge which the library affords. Many cities are giving such courses of lectures, notably perhaps New York, and with considerable effect on the use of the public library. I have no statistics regarding such lectures from the various cities, but undoubtedly this method offers the easiest plan for extending the use of the library in smaller cities and towns. I say the _easiest_, and it will not be difficult to secure good lectures on literature, history, or art, but lectures on the practical subjects are much more difficult to obtain, since it is hard to secure lecturers who know more about the trades than do the craftsmen who const.i.tute the audience.
If these movements are to succeed, they must not be attempted in an amateurish way. They must be well planned and well executed--planned and executed with careful reference to the wants of the men of the community. Above all, they must be persistently carried out with full vigor year after year, even though results are apparently small. Their purpose must be steadfastly maintained and the methods of execution continually readjusted, as success or failure indicates. It is no light or easy thing to change the habits of half the adult members of the community--to cultivate the reading habit in those who have reached maturity without acquiring it--and the work which the library proposes for itself involves such a task.
If men are to be reached at all it must be on a business basis, not on that of occasional effort. Nor must the missionary spirit prevail, for men, as a rule, do not wish to be reformed or to be helped. They must find in the library a place which appeals to their sense of comfort and which gives them things that they want, or, like other sensible people, they will not use it.
One word in closing this topic, and that in emphasis of what I have already said. It is easier to keep a boy reading as he grows up than to catch him again as a man after the library has lost him. Take a lesson from the church. The boy who graduates from Sunday-school rarely returns for a post-graduate course. In the wise administration of the work for children and youth lies the main hope not of reaching, but keeping men in the library.
But it should be definitely understood that this enlargement of library work which the times are forcing upon us means increasing expense, more room, more books--which must be more frequently renewed--and a larger library staff. It means the attempt to do efficiently several lines of intellectual work for the public instead of purveying literature for those who desire it. This new work the library can readily accomplish, but not with the staff which was sufficient for the old duties. Any library can provide, for example, the list of desiderata mentioned in the _Independent"s_ article, which could easily be extended. They can all be furnished by the library as the public wants them and will pay for them. They cannot be, and ought not to be, supplied by an already overworked library staff of two or three persons.
The library, therefore, should not enter upon these duties blindly or ignorantly. It is a great task which is thus undertaken--to educate the community to use books and to guide it in that use. Although small beginnings are possible, the work will inevitably grow on our hands just as that of the schools and colleges has done, and for similar reasons.
But whatever difficulties lie in the way of their performance, it is plain that the library must a.s.sume these new duties. With many experiments, with many failures, with many partial successes, the library will extend its teachings, its conscious influences, until they touch the life of the community at every point.
In this rambling talk I have discussed library work as it looks forward to new problems, and have devoted only a word, and that perhaps a rather disparaging one, to the traditional use of the library. I would not leave the subject in this way. For the traditional use of books remains and will remain the center of library work and the main source of its best influences. The problem of the library to-day, looked at from within and not from without, and in relation to other agencies, is essentially that which confronts the university. Both inst.i.tutions once stood for culture and for culture exclusively. Both are now challenged by the spirit of the newer time and are called upon to justify themselves as public utilities. This they must do, and that in full measure, but there is a real danger that both, in the multiplicity of the new duties thus forced upon them, may forget the weighty words, "these ought ye to do and not leave the other undone." For, after all, the highest public utility which the library offers, or can offer, is the opportunity to cultivate the friendship of books. This utility is none the less precious because it is intangible. Indeed, it is the unique privilege of the library among munic.i.p.al enterprises that it can provide a service which aids the higher life of the citizen so directly and so purely. In the spirituality of this function, the library stands second only to the highest inst.i.tutions of pure learning, and to the church.
No new undertaking, no extension of work, no plea of necessity can warrant or justify any loss of power on this highest level. The problem is not to discover how to sacrifice as little as possible of the old spirit to the new duties, but to learn how through the new duties we may make more wide-spread and more potent for good that oldest and best inheritance from the past--the love of books.
"The people"s university," the library has been called, but it would be as great a pity if the librarian so understood this term as to believe that people came to the library only to learn, as it would be if any went there who could not learn what they sought. That university which is a place to study rather than a place to live is missing its best possibilities, and in a similar way the library ought to be, first and always, a place to read rather than a place to study. I would not go so far as to say that I want to find it a place to "loaf," though I might be provoked into saying so; but certainly it must be a place where I can "invite my soul"--such a place as the world gives me elsewhere only in the church or in the silence of nature. Trade journals and technical works are of great use; books for women"s clubs are good things; the children"s room is a necessity; but these of themselves no more make a library than a kitchen, dining room and bedroom make a home. Out of such utilities as these you may get a boarding house, but nothing better; the family makes it a home. Those are wholly wrong who believe that standard books are so cheap that anyone can buy them, and therefore the library could conceivably get on without them. Without the best literature you might get a very useful inst.i.tution, no doubt, but not a library, for in a library the great works of the great authors are the soul and theirs is the spirit which enables the library not merely to contribute to the advance of the community toward prosperity and intelligence, but also, in some degree, to touch its higher life to finer issues.
THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
AN ADDRESS AT ITS DEDICATION
This and the four addresses that follow it have little in common except that all were delivered at the opening exercises of libraries. Everett"s address at the opening of the Boston Public Library appropriately heads the group. The reader will look in it in vain for any reflection of the conservative opinions expressed in the letter to George Ticknor printed on page 53 of this volume, unless perhaps in the total absence of anything radical. It is typical oratory of the day--ponderously graceful, if that is not a contradiction in terms.
Edward Everett was born in Dorchester, Ma.s.s., April 11, 1794. He graduated at Harvard in 1811 and served there as professor of Greek in 1819-25. He was a member of Congress in 1825-35, governor of Ma.s.sachusetts in 1836-40, minister to Great Britain in 1841-45, president of Harvard, 1846-49, U.S. secretary of state in 1852-53, and U.S. senator in 1853-54. He died in Boston, Jan. 15, 1865. His reputation as a scholarly orator was very high.
MR. MAYOR:--
In behalf of the Trustees of the City Library, I receive with extreme pleasure the keys which you have placed in my hands. The completion of the n.o.ble building, which the city government now confides to our care, is an event to which the Trustees have looked forward with the greatest interest, and which they now contemplate with the highest satisfaction.
They deem themselves especially honored in their connection with an inst.i.tution, for whose use this stately and commodious edifice has been erected, and which they doubt not is destined to be instrumental of the highest good to the community, and to reflect lasting credit upon the liberality, public and private, with which it has been founded and endowed.
The city of Boston, owing to peculiar circ.u.mstances in its growth and history, has been at all times, as I think, beyond most cities in the world, the object of an affectionate attachment on the part of its inhabitants; a feeling ent.i.tled to respect and productive of good, even if it may sometimes seem to strangers over-partial in its manifestations. It is not merely its commanding natural situation, the triple hills on which it is enthroned, its magnificent bay and harbor, and the group of islands and islets that sparkle like emeralds on their surface; not merely this most admirable common, which opens before our windows, delightful even at this season of the year, and affording us in summer, in its n.o.ble malls and shady walks, all that the country can boast of cool and beautiful and salubrious, transported to the heart of the city, "the poor man"s pleasure-ground," as it has been well called, though a king might envy it;--nor the environs of our city of surpa.s.sing loveliness, which enclose it on every side in kindly embrace; it is not solely nor princ.i.p.ally these natural attractions which endear Boston to its citizens. Nor is it exclusively the proud and grateful memories of the past,--of the high-souled fathers and mothers of the land, venerable in their self-denying virtues, majestic in the austere simplicity of their manners, conscientious in their errors, who, with amazing sacrifices and hardships never to be described, sought out new homes in the wilderness, and transmitted to us delights and blessings which it was not given to themselves to enjoy;--of those who in succeeding generations deserved well of their country,--the pioneers of the Revolution, the men of the stamp act age, whose own words and acts are stamped on the pages of history, in characters never to be effaced;--of those who, when the decisive hour came, stood forth in that immortal HALL, the champions of their country"s rights, while it scarcely yet deserved the name of a country; it is not exclusively these proud and grateful a.s.sociations, which attach the dutiful Bostonian to the city of his birth or adoption.
No, Mr. Mayor, it is not exclusively these, much as they contribute to strengthen the sentiment. It has its origin, in no small degree, in the personal relation in which Boston places herself to her children; in the parental interest which she cherishes in their welfare, which leads her to take them by the hand almost from the cradle,--to train them up in the ascending series of her excellent free schools; watching over them as a fond father watches over the objects of his love and hope; in a word, to confer upon them a first-rate school education at the public expense. Often have I attempted, but with very partial success, both in this country and in Europe, to persuade inquiring friends from the countries and places where no such well-organized system of public education prevails, that our free schools do really afford to the entire population means of elementary education, of which the wealthiest citizen is glad to avail himself.
And now, Mr. Mayor, the enlightened counsels of the city government are about to give new strength to those ties of grat.i.tude and affection, which bind the hearts of the children of Boston to their beloved city.
Hitherto the system of public education, excellent as it is and wisely supported by a princely expenditure, does but commence the work of instruction and carry it to a certain point; well advanced, indeed, but far short of the goal. It prepares our young men for college, for the counting-room, for the office of the engineer, the _studio_ of the artist, the shop of the artisan, the laboratory of the chemist, or whatever field of employment they may be destined to enter, but there it leaves them, without further provision for the culture of the mind. It disciplines the faculties and forms a taste for the acquisition of knowledge, on the part of our young men and women, but it provides no means for their exercise and gratification. It gives them the elementary education requisite for their future callings, but withholds all facilities of access to those boundless stores of recorded knowledge, in every department, by which alone that elementary education can be completed and made effectual for the active duties of life.
But to-day our honored city carries on and perfects her work. The trustees, from their first annual report to the present time, have never failed to recommend a first cla.s.s public library, such as that, sir, for whose accommodation you destine this n.o.ble building, as the completion of the great system of public education. Its object is to give to the entire population, not merely to the curious student, but to the inquisitive member of either of the professions, to the intelligent merchant, mechanic, machinist, engineer, artist or artisan, in short, to all of every age and of either s.e.x, who desire to investigate any subject, either of utility or taste, those advantages which, without such an ample public collection, must necessarily be monopolized by the proprietors of large private libraries, or those who by courtesy have the use of them; nay, to put within the reach of the entire community advantages of this kind, far beyond those which can be afforded by the largest and best provided private libraries.
The trustees are anxious that the inst.i.tution, whose prosperity they have so much at heart, should continue to be viewed in this light; as one more added to the school-houses of the city, at which Boston boys and girls, when they have outgrown the other schools, will come to carry on the education which has been there commenced; where Boston men and women, "children of a larger growth," may come to acquire that additional knowledge which is requisite for the most successful discharge of the duties of the various callings of society,--which opens, in its pursuit, the purest sources of happiness,--and which, without reference to utility, contributes so materially to the grace and ornament of life.
I am aware that there is still floating about in the community a vague prejudice against what is called book-learning. One sometimes hears doubts expressed of the utility of public libraries; opinions that they are rather ornamental than necessary or useful; and the fact that our time-honored city, never indifferent to the mental improvement of her children, has existed more than two centuries without one, is a sufficient proof, that, until within a very few years, their importance has not been practically felt. There is perhaps even now a disposition to claim some superiority for what is called practical knowledge--knowledge gained by observation and experience (which most certainly the trustees would not disparage), and a kind of satisfaction felt in holding up the example of self-taught men, in supposed contradistinction from those who have got their knowledge from books. No name perhaps is so frequently mentioned for this purpose as that of Franklin, who, because he had scarce any school education and never went to college, has been hastily set down as a brilliant example to show the inutility of book-learning. It has been quoted to me in this way, and to show that libraries are of no use, within three days.
Now, Mr. Mayor, I need not tell you that there never was a greater mistake in point of fact. A thirst for books, which he spared no pains to allay, is the first marked trait disclosed in the character of Franklin; his success throughout the early period of his life can be directly traced to the use he made of them; and his very first important movement for the benefit of his fellow-men was to found a public library, which still flourishes;--one of the most considerable in the country. Franklin not a book-man! whoever labors under that delusion, shows that somebody else is not a book-man, at least so far as concerns the biography of our ill.u.s.trious townsman. We happen to have a little information on that subject, in a book written by Franklin himself. He there gives a very different account of himself, and I would ask any one who entertains the idea to which I am alluding, at what period of Franklin"s career he supposes this taste for books began to be manifested by him; how soon he ceased to be a self-formed man? Perhaps after he had struggled through the years of his youthful poverty, escaped to Philadelphia, set up in business as a printer, and begun to have a little money in his pocket. I need not tell you, sir, that it was earlier than that. Was it, then, while he was the clever apprentice to his brother, the editor of a journal, and wrote articles for its columns in a disguised hand, and tucked them under the office door, enjoying the exquisite delight of being ordered to set up his own anonymous articles; was it then, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, that this fondness for reading, under the stimulus of boyish authorship, disclosed itself?
Earlier than that. Well, then, at the grammar-school and Master Brownwell"s writing-school, which he attended from eight to ten (for there are boys who show a fondness for reading, even at that tender age); was little Benjamin"s taste for books developed while yet at school? Earlier than that. Hear his own words, which you will permit me to read from that exquisite piece of autobiography to which I have already alluded: "From my INFANCY I was _pa.s.sionately_ fond of reading, and all the money that came into my hands was laid out in purchasing books. I was very fond of voyages. My first acquisition was Bunyan"s works, in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton"s _Historical Collections_. They were small chapman"s books and cheap, forty volumes in all. My father"s little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read. I have often regretted [and this is a sentence that might be inscribed on the lofty cornice of this n.o.ble hall] that at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way....
There was among them Plutarch"s Lives, which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of Defoe"s, called an _Essay on Projects_, and another of Dr. Mather"s, called an _Essay to do Good_, which"--did what, sir? For I am now going to give you, in Franklin"s own words (they carry with them the justification of every dollar expended in raising these walls), the original secret of his ill.u.s.trious career--what was the effect produced by reading these two little books of Defoe and Cotton Mather? "they perhaps gave me a turn of thinking, which had an influence on some of the princ.i.p.al future events of my life." Yes, sir, in the reading of those books was the acorn that sprouted into that magnificent oak; there was the fountain-drop which a fairy might have sipped from a b.u.t.tercup, from which has flowed the Missouri and the Mississippi,--the broad, deep river of Franklin"s fame, winding its way through the lapse of ages, and destined to flow on, till it shall be ingulfed in the ocean of eternity.
From his "infancy," sir, "pa.s.sionately fond of reading," nay, with the appet.i.te of a vulture, with the digestion of an ostrich, attacking the great folios of polemic divinity in his father"s library. Not a dull boy, either; not a precocious little bookworm; fond of play; doesn"t dislike a little mischief; sometimes, as he tells us, "led the other boys into sc.r.a.pes;" but in his intervals of play, in his leisure moments, up in the lonely garret when the rest of the family were asleep, holding converse in his childhood with the grave old non-conformists, Howe and Owen and Flavel and Baxter,--communing with the austerest lords of thought; the demiG.o.ds of puritanism.
Franklin not a book-man? Why, he goes on to tell us that it was "this bookish inclination which at length determined his father to make him a printer," against his own inclination, which was for the sea; and when he had thus by constraint become a printer, his great consolation was, as he says, that "I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my chamber reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and was to be returned in the morning, lest it should be found missing."
Then he made the acquaintance of Mr. Matthew Adams, an ingenious, sensible man, "who had a pretty collection of books." He frequented the printing-office, took notice of the bright little apprentice, and "very kindly proposed to lend me such books as I chose to read." Having taken to a vegetable diet at the age of sixteen, he persuaded his brother to allow him in cash half the price of his board,--lived upon potatoes and hasty pudding,--soon found that he could save half even of that little allowance (which could not have exceeded two-and-six-pence a week, lawful money), and this poor little economy "was an additional fund for buying books." What would the poor, underfed boy, who was glad to buy books on the savings of his potato diet, have said could he have had free access to a hall like this, stored as it soon will be with its priceless treasures?
Further, sir, while working as a journeyman in England, he says, "I made the acquaintance of one William Wilc.o.x, a bookseller, whose shop was next door. He had an immense collection of second-hand books."--(Somewhat, I suppose, like our friend Burnham, in Cornhill.)--"Circulating libraries were not then in use, but we agreed that on certain reasonable terms, which I have now forgotten, I might take, read, and return any of his works. This I esteemed a great advantage, and I made as much use of it as I could."
Finally, sir, as I have already said, Franklin"s first important movement for the good of his fellow-men was the foundation of the public library in Philadelphia. At his instance, the members of a little club to which he belonged, tradesmen and mechanics of narrow means, threw into common stock the few books which belonged to them. A subscription was then obtained from fifty young men, princ.i.p.ally tradesmen, of two pounds each, and ten shillings _per annum_, and with this little fund they began. "The books were imported, the library was opened one day in the week for lending them to the subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned." "This was the mother,"
says Franklin, "of all the North American subscription libraries, now so numerous. It has become a great thing itself, and continually goes on increasing. These libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and, perhaps, have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defence of their privileges."
Those are the words of Franklin, Mr. Mayor, which I read from his own book. Our excellent friend the President of the Commissioners (Hon. R.C.
Winthrop) has justly felicitated himself on having been the first person publicly to raise his voice in this n.o.ble hall. He must be a happier man than I who can speak an earlier or an abler word than his on any occasion; but I claim the credit of having read from the first book opened in this hall;--and what is more, sir, I mean to have the satisfaction of presenting the first volume given to the library, since this building came into the care of the Trustees. In your presence, Mr.
Mayor, and that of this vast a.s.sembly on this first of January, 1858, I offer this copy of Franklin"s Autobiography in Sparks"s edition, as a New Year"s gift to the Boston Public Library. Nay, sir, I am going to do more, and make the first, and perhaps the last, motion ever made in this hall; and that is, that every person present, of his own accord, if of age,--with the consent of parent or guardian, if a minor,--man, woman, boy, or girl, be requested, on going home, to select one good book, and in memory of the poor boy, who half-fed himself to gratify his taste for reading, present it as a New-Year"s gift to the Boston Public Library. I make you that motion, Mr. Mayor, and I call upon all present to give me their voices: especially I ask the cooperation of the fairer and better part of creation. If nowhere else, woman"s rights shall be respected in this hall, while I have anything to do with it. I pray you, Mr. Mayor, put the question, and then I"ll finish my speech.
His Honor the Mayor then rose and stated the question, which was seconded by Mr. Winthrop. The mayor particularly called on the ladies to vote, and a unanimous and emphatic aye resounded through the vast hall. The negative was then called and no response made. His Honor, amidst great cheering and laughter, p.r.o.nounced it a unanimous vote. Mr.
Everett resumed--
No, sir, if there is one lesson more than another directly deducible from the life of Franklin, it is the close connection of a thoroughly practical and useful life and career with books, libraries, and reading.
If there is a thing on earth which would have gladdened his heart could he have antic.i.p.ated it, it would be the knowledge that his native city, in two generations after his death, would found a library like this, to give to the rising generation and to the lovers of knowledge of every age that access to books, of which he so much felt the want. And could it be granted to him, even now, to return to his native city, which dwelt in his affections to the close of his life, his first visit would be to the centre of the ancient burial-ground, where in after-life he dutifully placed a marble slab on the graves of his parents; his second visit would be to the spot in Milk street where he was born; his third to the corner of Union street and Hanover street, where he pa.s.sed his childhood, in a house still standing; his fourth visit would be to the site of the free grammar school-house, where, as he says in his will, he received "his first instruction in literature," and which is now adorned with a statue which a grateful posterity has dedicated to his memory; and his last and longest would be to this n.o.ble hall, where you are making provision for an ample supply of that reading of which, "from his _infancy_ he was _pa.s.sionately_ fond." The trustees have done what they could to connect some reference to Franklin with an inst.i.tution which would have been the object of his warmest affections, by providing that every Franklin medal boy shall be ent.i.tled to its privileges; and inasmuch as the acc.u.mulating fund which he bequeathed to the city, and which now exceeds seventy thousand dollars, has proved almost wholly unavailing for the primary object of the bequest, it deserves consideration whether, when it has reached a sufficient magnitude, as it will before the end of this century, the interest of the fund, if it can be legally done, might not advantageously be appropriated, as a permanent endowment for the support of the library.
I have not proposed at this time, sir, on the part of the trustees, to make a formal speech; I have preferred to let Benjamin Franklin speak for us. This day belongs of right to the commissioners for building the library, ably represented as they are, by our distinguished friend their president, who has done such ample justice to the subject; and to you, Mr. Mayor, as the organ of the city government, whom I cannot but congratulate on closing your official career,--in all respects so honorable to yourself and so acceptable to your fellow-citizens,--by an act, I am sure, most grateful to your own feelings and most auspicious of the public good. It is not yet the time for the trustees to speak. A more fitting opportunity may hereafter present itself, when the books shall be placed on the shelves, the catalogue printed, and the library opened for public use. Occasion may then, perhaps, with propriety be taken, to ill.u.s.trate the importance and utility of such an inst.i.tution; to do justice to the liberality on the part of the city government and the individual benefactors by which it has been founded, endowed, and sustained; and especially to the generosity of our greatest benefactor and esteemed fellow-countryman, Mr. Bates, whose letters announcing his first munificent donation of fifty thousand dollars, alluding to his own early want of access to books, a.s.sign that as the moving cause which prompted his liberality. It will be the pleasing duty of those who may then be intrusted with the administration of the library, to pay a fitting tribute to so much public and private bounty.
In the mean time, sir, we must throw ourselves on the patience and considerateness of the city council and the community. Not much short of sixty thousand volumes are to be brought together from four different places of temporary deposit, and a.s.signed to their final resting-places in this hall and the circulating library below. Here they are to be arranged on the shelves, the cards and slips which pertain to them, far more numerous than the volumes themselves, reduced to alphabetical order; a separate catalogue of each alcove prepared; and a comprehensive catalogue of the whole collection, without which it will be little better than an unmanageable ma.s.s, prepared and printed. Every thing which could be done beforehand, has been antic.i.p.ated; but much of the work was of necessity reserved till the books should be placed on the shelves. In the interval, and while this labor is going on, the library in Mason street will be left in possession of the books most in request for daily circulation, and will be closed at last only when it becomes absolutely necessary that they also should be removed to the new building.
But it is time for me to conclude. The shades of evening are falling around us; those cressets which lend us their mild and tasteful illumination will soon be extinguished; and the first day of the New-Year, rich in the happy prospects we now inaugurate, will come to a close. May the blessing of Heaven give effect to its brightest antic.i.p.ations. A few more days,--a few more years,--will follow their appointed round, and we, who now exchange our congratulations on this magnificent New-Year"s gift of our city fathers, shall have pa.s.sed from the scene; but firm in the faith that the growth of knowledge is the growth of sound principles and pure morals, let us not doubt, that, by the liberality of the city government and of our generous benefactors at home and abroad, a light will be kindled and go forth from these walls, now dedicated to the use of the FREE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY, which will guide our children and our children"s children in the path of intelligence and virtue, till the sun himself shall fall from the heavens.