14 



participation in the concerns of government, monopolies are becoming obso- 

 lete, and the responsibilities of rulers are felt to be more stringent . To the 

 credit of many of these ameliorations we may fairly lay claim; while in 

 science, and its application to the arts^ we have sustained no disgraceful ri- 

 valry with our transatlantic brethren. But no generous man thinks his 

 debt of gratitude cancelled till it is thrice repaid, and we have therefore yet 

 much to do, before we can say that America is no longer the debtor of Eng- 

 land. Let us, then, seize this one opportunity which a son of her own has 

 offered us, and build with it a pharos, whose light shall serve as well to 

 guide the mariner in the distant horizon, as to illuminate him who casts 

 anchor at its foot. 



But what are we offered instead of the advantages which we might hope 

 to reap from such a library as I have described? We are promised experi- 

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

 .a-xharnel house, chemical decomposition begins with death, and experi- 

 ments are but the dry bones of science. It is the thoughtful meditation alone 

 of minds trained and disciplined 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 harlequin. This is not a question of idle speculation , it is 

 one that experience has answered. There are no foci which 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 conditions, 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? Is nothing common but these material frames 

 of ours; nothing, but the garments we wear, the habitations that shelter, 

 and the food that nourishes us; nothing, but the air we breathe, the fowls 

 of heaven, the beasts of the field, the herbs, the trees, and the rocks around 

 tis? Is nothing common but the glittering sands beneath our feet, and the 

 glittering stars on which we gaze? Sir, these are indeed common, and 

 well it is to understand their uses, and so far as our dim vision can pierce, 

 even their natures also. But are there not things even more common, 

 nearer to our inmost selves, harder indeed, but more profitable to be under- 

 stood ; objects not Hmited by the three dimensions, not ponderable, not cog- 

 nizable by any of the senses, and yet subjects of precise definition, of logi- 

 cal argument, of philosophical interest, and of overwhelming importance? 

 Sir, the soul of man is a very common thing ; his relations to his Maker 

 and to his fellows, the laws of his moral and intellectual being, his past 

 history and his probable -'future destiny, the principles of government and 

 the laws of political economy — all these are common things, the common- 

 est indeed of all things, and shall we make no provision for instruction in 

 these? 



But, sir, the knowledge of what are called the physical sciences is of far 

 less importance, even in reference to the very objects which they are sup- 

 posed especially to promote, than is generally believed. There was an 

 «ge — I should say ages — brilliant and glorious ages of philosophers, of states- 

 .ijfeen, of patriots; of heroes, and of artists, and artizans too ; when, as yet. 



