312 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



classical and of South American antiquities, of interna- 

 tional law, of the grandeur and decline of States, of the 

 progress and eras of freedom, of ethics, of intellectual phi- 

 losophy, of art, taste, and literature in its most comprehen- 

 sive and noblest forms? Why should they not hear such 

 lectures as Sir James Macintosh delivered when a young 

 man to audiences among whom were Canning, and such as 

 he ? Would it not be as instructive to hear a iirst-rate 

 scholar and thinker demonstrate out of a chapter of Greek 

 or Italian history how dreadful a thing it is for a cluster of 

 young and fervid democracies to dwell side by side, inde- 

 pendent and disunited, as it would to hear a chemist maintain 

 that to raise wheat you must have some certain proportion 

 of lime in the soil ? But the subjects of lectures w^ould of 

 course be adapted to time, place, and circumstances, and 

 varied with them. Whatever they should treat of, they 

 would be useful. They would recreate, and refresh, and 

 instruct you. They would relieve the monoton}^ and soften 

 the austerity, and correct all the influences of this kind of 

 public service. 



But, Mr. President, all this is no administration of the 

 fund ; all this ought to cost less than five thousand dollars 

 a year. We could not sustain more than one lecture in a 

 week, nor that for more than three months of any session. 

 Here is an accumulated interest of two hundred thousand 

 dollars; and here is an annual interest of thirty thousand, 

 of which thus far I have provided for an expenditure of 

 some Ave thousand only. What will you do with the rest? 



It is easy to waste this money ; it is easy to squander it 

 in jobs, salaries, quackeries; it- is easy, even under the 

 forms of utility, to disperse and dissipate it in little ri'ls 

 and drops, imperceptible to all human sense, carrying it ofT 

 by an insensible and ineiFectual evaporation. But, sir, I 

 take it that we all earnestly desire — I am sure the Senator 

 from Ohio does so — so to dispense it as to make it tell. I 

 am sure we all desire to see it, instead of being carried off 

 invisibly and wastefully, embody itself in some form, some 

 exponent of civilization, permanent, palpable, conspicuous, 

 useful. And to this end it has seemed to me, upon the 

 most mature reflection, that we cannot do a safer, surer, 

 more unexceptionable thing with the income, or with a 

 portion of the income — perhaps twenty thousand dollars a 

 year for a few years — than to expend it in accumulating a 

 grand and noble public library — one which, for variety, 

 extent, and wealth, shall be, and be confessed to be, equal to 

 any now in the world. 



