374 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



between the effects of the art of priutiug and those of any 

 other discovery put forth by human wit. There is nothing 

 to which to liken it. It was a general gaol-delivery of the 

 thoughts of the world. It was a sending forth of these 

 winged messengers, hitherto bound down each in his own 

 narrow sphere, emancipated, over the earth. And that was 

 the great day, not of Intellect only, but of Freedom also. 

 Then was struck the heaviest blow against law giving for 

 the mind. The Strombolean Cave was opened ; the long- 

 pent winds of opinion set free ; and no edict-framing ^olus 

 could crib and confine them to their prison-house again. 



Yes! well might Faust incur the charge of demonocracy ! 

 for, almost to the letter, has his wondrous craft realized, in 

 our day, the fables of eastern romance. Draw a chair be- 

 fore your library, and you have obtained the magical carpet 

 of the Arabian tale ; you are transported, at a wish, farther 

 than to Africa's deserts or India's groves; not to other 

 climes only, but to other times also. The speaking page 

 introduces you, not to your cotemporaries alone, but to 

 your ancestors, through centuries past. The best and the 

 wisest of former generations are summoned to your pres- 

 ence. In books exists the by-gone world. By books we come 

 into contact with the mankind of former ages. By books we 

 travel among ancient nations, visit tribes long since extinct, 

 and are made familiar with manners, that have yielded, 

 centuries ago, to the innovating influences of time. Con- 

 tracted, indeed, is his mental horizon, limited his- sphere of 

 comparison, whose fancy has never lived among the sages 

 and heroes of the olden time, to listen to their teachings, 

 and to learn from their achievements. 



As far as the farthest, then, will I go, in his estimate of 

 the blessings which the art of printing has conferred upon 

 man. But such reasoning bears not on the proposal em- 

 braced in the Senate bill. It substantiates not at all the 

 propriety of spending half a million, or two, or three half 

 millions of dollars, to rival the bibliomaniacs of Paris and 

 of Munich. 



A library of Congress we already have ; a library of forty 

 or fifty thousand volumes ; a library increasing at the rate 

 of one or two thousand volumes a year. The Smithsonian 

 bill before you permits, in addition, an expenditure not ex- 

 ceeding ten thousand dollars a year for this object. Say 

 that but half that sum is annually expended by the 

 managers ; and still, in some twelve or fifteen years, the two 

 libraries will probably number from eighty to a hundred 

 thousand volumes. Are there a hundred thousand volumes 



