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due to his teaching and example. The worth and dignity 

 of work he illustrated in theory and practice. The notion 

 that labor was menial, or that the tools of trade or farm were 

 badges of servility, he despised. His sons worked in the 

 shop, and thoroughly learned the trade. The brothers of the 

 Governor were in full sympathy with him, and the same 

 spirit characterizes the sons and the surviving brother who 

 now manage the concern. There is still the fullest and hap- 

 piest conciliation between labor and capital. It is not strange 

 that the workmen " hold on." Their permanency is a striking 

 fact. Many have been here from twenty to over forty years. 



Years ago the men were aided in forming and sustaining a 

 Lyceum, and liberal prizes were offered for the best essays read. 

 Recently, Horace Fairbanks has founded a library, and opened 

 a large reading-room free to all. The Athenaeum containing 

 the library, reading-room, and also a spacious lecture-hall, is an 

 elegant structure, ninety- five by forty feet, two stories high. 

 The books, now numbering nearly ten thousand volumes, are 

 choice and costly ; two hundred and thirty volumes have been 

 drawn in a single day. In the reading-room, besides a good 

 supply of American periodicals, daily, weekly and quarterly, I 

 noticed on the tables many European journals, including four 

 English quarterlies, six London weeklies, and ten monthlies. 

 The library and reading-room are open every week-day and 

 evening, except Wednesday evening, when all are invited to 

 attend the weekly "lecture," which is held at the same hour in 

 all the churches. Having visited nearly every town of Massa- 

 chusetts and Connecticut, and traveled widely in this country, 

 I have nowhere found in a village of this size an art gallery so 

 costly and so well supplied with painting and statuary, a 

 reading-room so inviting, and a library so choice and excellent 

 as this. 



Thaddeus Fairbanks, one of the three founders of the scale 

 factory, has liberally endowed a large and nourishing academy, 

 which promises to become the " Williston Seminary" for north- 

 eastern Vermont. 



These various provisions for the improvement, happiness, 

 and prosperity of this people, coupled with liberality and fair- 

 ness in daily business intercourse, explain the absence of dis- 



