i, 
13 
tend, that because such knowledge is obtained at second- 
hand, or that there may be errors, and these even copied by 
one historian from another, we are therefore not to study 
the history of our country. The same may be said of every 
branch of knowledge whatever; and I would strongly re- 
commend, especially to the younger members of the So- 
ciety, that their love of reading should every day increase, and 
‘that they should entirely discard the injurious notion, 
that reading is of little value in giving us a knowledge of 
nature. 
In the study of books, we are employed in storing our 
minds with the reasonings, the observations, the modes of 
thinking, and the discoveries of those master-spirits, who 
have led the way in science, and conferred the blessings of 
mental culture and civilization on our race. And are we 
not thus to “hold high converse with the mighty dead ?” 
Are we to give up the accumulated wisdom of ages, and 
have the arrogance to imagine, that a few little observations 
of nature, made by ourselves, are of more value than the 
contents of thousands of volumes written, and of facts re- 
corded by men, illustrious in the annals of science, whether 
living or dead ? 
Were it not for authors, what, let me ask, would be our 
present knowledge of nature? Had we existed from our 
birth in a world without books, what would be the sum of 
knowledge we could possibly possess? Would we not be 
as the inhabitants of every part of the globe where such 
sources of knowledge are unknown—a savage, uncivilized 
generation? 
The writer to whom I have already alluded says, that “ one 
fact learned from personal observation, is, to the student, 
worth a thousand mere book facts.” Now, it far surpasses 
my comprehension to know how one fact in natural history, 
