426 



CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



power, would I join in any vulgar denunciations of a people 

 from whom we have borrowed so much. We owe to Eng- 

 land much of our political principles, many of the founda- 

 tions of our civil and religious liberties, many of the most 

 valuable features of our jurisprudence. Something, indeed, 

 we have repaid. England, in common Vv'ith all Europe, has 

 profited by our experience. The grasp of feudal oppression 

 has been relaxed, the atrocious severity of the criminal law 

 has been mitigated, judicial proceedings have been simpli- 

 fied, the subject has been admitted to a larger participation 

 in the concerns of government, monopolies are becoming 

 obsolete, and the responsibilities of rulers are felt to be 

 more stringent. To the credit of many of these ameliora- 

 tions we may fairly lay claim ; while in science, and its 

 application to the arts, we have sustained no disgraceful 

 rivalry with our transatlantic brethren. But no generous 

 man thinks his debt of gratitude canceled till it is thrice 

 repaid, and we have therefore yet much to do, before w^e 

 can say that America is no longer the debtor of England. 

 Let us, then, seize this one opportunity which a son of her 

 own has ofi'ered us, and build with it a pharos, whose light 

 shall serve as well to guide the mariner in the distant hori- 

 zon, as to illuminate him who casts anchor at its foot. 



But what are we oflfered instead of the advantages which 

 we might hope to reap from such a library as I have de- 

 scribed? AVe are promised experiments and lectures, a 

 laboratory and an audience hall. Sir, a laboratory is a 

 charnel house, chemical decomposition begins with death, 

 and experiments are but the dry bones of science. It is 

 the thoughtful meditation alone of minds trained and dis- 

 ciplined in far other halls, that can clothe these with flesh, 

 and blood, and sinews, and breathe into them the breath of 

 life. Without a library, which alone can give such training 

 and such discipline, both to teachers and to pupils, all these 

 are but a masqued pageant, and the demonstrator is a har- 

 lequin. This is not a question of idle speculation, it is one 

 that experience has answered. There are no foci w^hich are 

 gathering and reflecting so much light upon the arcana of 

 natural science as the schools of Paris and of Germany, 

 and all scholars are agreed that the great libraries of those 

 seminaries, and the mental discipline acquired by the use of 

 them, are, if not the sole means, at least necessary condi- 

 tions, of their surpassing excellence. 



But we are told that these experimental researches will 

 guide us to the most important of all knowledge, that, 

 namely, of common things. Sir, what are common things ? 



