ther necessary ? The school learning is 9adly technical. It stops with the school 

 lessons, and does not take hold of life. Our religion needs the help of larger 

 knowledge and enlightenment. Suppose there were in each town a building 

 large enough for a hall for lectures and other social gatherings: for a library 

 and reading-room, a kitchen to provide for occasional entertainments, and two 

 or three rooms for a librariau with a small family. A roof, two stories high, 

 45 by 25 feet, would cover the whole ; and the building need not cost more 

 than $2,000 or $2,500. A subscription for it, in .the first place, and then the 

 product of two or three days' labor from every man in town, would furnish the 

 requisite sum. 



And then, what have we ? First, a social rallying place — it might be made 

 large enough for a town hall, and for public business as well as social uses. Next, 

 a permanent library, which by reason of its established character, would gather 

 bowks to it from our private shelves, as also by purchase. Stockbridge and 

 Lenox have set us a good example in this way — with the aid, indeed, of private 

 beneficence. I wish that some of those who are giving of their abundance for 

 the public welfare would think of this — not of asylums and hospitals alone, but 

 of the means of mental and moral help and healing. Mr. William Sturgis of 

 Boston gave the family home in Barnstable, large enough for a library room, 

 and for the librarian's family, and endowed it with sufficient means. Mr. Bry- 

 ant, who began his life as a lawyer, here in Great Barrington, has erected a fire- 

 proof building and a librarian's house adjoining, and has collected more than 

 3,000 volumes, altogether at an expense of $20,000 or $50,000, which are, or 

 are to be, presented to his native place, the town of Cummington. 



Few ©f our towns can expect such liberal benefactors ; and we naust do the 

 work for ourselves. In Sheffield, we have tried another thing. We have a 

 "Friendly Union," and have had meetings, during the winter for three years 

 past, once or twice a week, for lectures, music, games and conversation, which 

 have proved very agreeable, and which, I hope, will be continued. If we can 

 succeed in this ; if such an institution can be made permanent ; if we can es- 

 tablish a library, which we have already commenced ; and can erect a building 

 to be the gathering-place and resort and support of good thought and good 

 feeling in the town, it will be a fountain of inappreciable blessings for the year* 

 and generations to come. 



Gentlemen — farmers and friends — I have not spoken to you eloquently ; 

 you did not expect it of me ; but I believe, if I do not flatter myself too much, 

 that I have spoken some things worth thinking of. You may think now that 

 what I have been saying is not practical ; but is anything not practical which 

 is practicable for our highest good \ You may accuse me of idealizing; but I 

 have lived long enough to see that all good ideals slowly turn to realities. The 

 very progress of the world lies in that. We have improved methods of agri- 

 culture — patent mowers and reapers and rakes. Is that all you have to think 

 of — mowers, and reapers and rakes ? Is there to be no corresponding improve- 

 ment in mental culture ? Shall material things absorb us, and the mind have 

 nothing done for it? I believe the mind of New England is to advance ; but 

 it will not rise as it should, if we rest content with merely establishing common 



