TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS, 1843-45. 319 



or university of any description, even the highest, should be 

 at present established here. But let it be considered by the 

 enlightened friends of that object, if such there are, that 

 even if your single purpose were to create such a university, 

 you could possibly begin in no way so judiciously as by col- 

 lecting a great library. Useful in the other modes which I 

 have indicated, to a university it is everything. It is as 

 needful as the soul to the body. While you are doubting, 

 then, what to do, what you will have, you can do nothing 

 so properly as to begin to be accumulating the books which 

 you will require on whatever permanent plan of application 

 you at last determine. 



I do not expect to hear it said in this assembly that this 

 expenditure for a library will benefit a few only, not the 

 mass ; that it is exclusive and of the nature of monopoly. 

 It is to be remembered that this fund is a gift ; that we take 

 it just as it is given ; and that by its terms it must be dis- 

 bursed here. Any possible administration of it, therefore, 

 is exposed to the cavil that all cannot directly, and literally, 

 and equally partake of it. How many and of what classes 

 of youth from Louisiana, or Illinois, or New England, for 

 example, can attend the lectures of your professor of astron- 

 omy ? But I say it is a positive and important argument 

 for the mode of application which I urge, that it is so diffu- 

 sive. Think of the large absolute numbers of those who, 

 in the succession of years, will come and partake directly 

 of these stores of truth and knowledge ! Think of the 

 numbers without number who, through them, who by them 

 indirectly, will partake of the same stores ! Studious men 

 will come to learn to speak and write to and for the grow- 

 ing millions of a generally educated community. They 

 will learn that they ma}^ communicate. They cannot hoard 

 if they would, and they would not if they could. They 

 take in trust to distribute; and every motive of ambition, 

 of interest, of duty, will compel them to distribute. They 

 buy in gross, to sell by retail. The lights which they kin- 

 dle here will not be set under a bushel, but will burn on a 

 thousand hills. No, sir; a rich and public library is no 

 anti-republican monopoly. Who was the old Egyptian king 

 that inscribed on his library the words — the dispensary of 

 the soul ? You might quite as well inscribe on it — armor}^, 

 and light, and fountain of liberty ! 



It may possibly be inquired what account I make of the 

 library of Congress. I answer, that I think it already quite 

 good and improving ; but that its existence constitutes no 

 sort of argument against the formation of such a one as I 



