JAMES SMITHSON AND HIS BEQUEST. 183 



"It substantiates not at all the propriety ofspending half a million, or 

 two or three half millions of dollars to rival the bibliomaniacs of Paris 

 and of Munich. 



'•Books are like wealth. An income we must have to live; a certain 

 amount of income to live in comfort. Beyond a certain income the 

 power of wealth to purchase comfort, or even wholesome luxury, ceases 

 altogether. How much more of true comfort is there in a fortune of a 

 million of dollars than in one of fifty, or say a hundred thousand ? If 

 more there be, the excess is hardly appreciable; the burden and cares 

 of a millionaire outweigh it tenfold. And so, also, of these vast and 

 bloated book-gatherings that sleep in dust and cobwebs on the library 

 shelves of European monarchies. Up to a judicious selection of thirty, 

 fifty, a hundred thousand volumes, if you wdl, how vast, yea, how 

 priceless, is the intellectual wealth! From one to five hundred thou- 

 sand, what do we gain? ^Nothing? That would not be true. A goblet 

 emptied into the Pacific adds to the mass of its waters. But if, within 

 these limits, we set down one book out of a hundred as worth the money 

 it costs, we are assuredly making too liberal an estimate. 



"•Our librarian informs me that the present Congressional library 

 (certainly not one of the most expensive,) has cost upwards of three dol 

 lars a volume; its binding alone has averaged over a dollar a volume. 

 The same works could be purchased now, it is true, much more cheaply; 

 but, on the other hand, the rare old books and curious manuscripts 

 necessary to complete a library of the largest class would raise the 

 average. Assuming, then, the above rate, a rival of the Munich library 

 would cost us a million and a half of dollars; Us binding alone would 

 amount to a sum equal to the entire Smithsonian fund as originally 

 remitted to us from England. 



"And thus not only the entire legacy, which we have promised to ex- 

 pend so that it shall increase and diffuse knowledge among men, is to 

 be squandered in this idle and bootless rivalry, but thousands on thou- 

 sands must be added to finish the work ; from what source to be derived, 

 let its advocates inform us. And when we have spent thrice the amount 

 of Smithson's original bequest on the project, we shall have the satisfac- 

 tion of believing that we may possibly have saved to some worthy 

 scholar a hundred, or perchance a few hundred, dollars, which otherwise 

 he must have spent to obtain from Europe half a dozen valuable works 

 of reference ! " 



The most important feature of Mr. Owen's bill was however con- 

 sidered by him to be the provision for normal- school instruction. He 

 maintained it to be the duty of Congress to elevate to the utmost the 

 character of our common schools. The normal branch was not intended 

 by him to take the place of similar institutions in the States; it would 

 be supplemental to these, but of a higher grade, and would enable young 

 persons who had passed through the former to perfect themselves in 

 "the most useful of all modern sciences — the humble yet world-subduing 



