11 



use of the representatives of a democracy should be complete, it is that of 

 history. But what have we of the sources of historical investigation ? //tV 

 ^nes indeed we have, but little Awifory. True, we have Robertson, and 

 Hume, and Voltaire, and Gibbon, and, above all, Alison, a popular writer 

 in these days, and — 



" Like Sir Agrippa, for profound 

 And solid lying, much renowned;" 



but of those materials from which true history is to be drawn, we have little,, 

 very little. The works belonging to the proper histoiy of the American 

 continent alone, every one of which it would be highly desirable to possess ,- 

 number certainly more than 20,000 volumes, fully equal to one-half the 

 Congressional library, and of these we have, as yet, but a small proportion. 



If the bounty of the generous foreigner, in spite of the broad language 

 which expresses his liberal purpose, is to be confined to the narrow uses 

 which some gentlemen propose, the appropriation of $10,000 per annum is 

 unnecessarily large, at least for permanent expenditure. A moderate 

 amount would collect all that is worth buying in the experimental sciences,, 

 and a small annual appropriation would keep up with the advance of know- 

 ledge in this department. But it is due to ourselves, due to our age, due 

 to the lofty views which inspired a benefaction so splendid — a gift clogged 

 with no narrow conditions — that we act in a more generous, a wider, a more 

 catholic spirit; that we remember, that ^Mmowledge" embraces other arts 

 than those of bread; that man's economical interests are not his highest. 



The purpose of the testator, which we are to carry out, was ^^ the in- 

 crease and diffusion of knowledge among men." What, then, is the most 

 efficient means of increasing and diffusing knowledge? Increase, accumu- 

 lation, must precede diffusion. Every rill supposes a fountain; and know- 

 ledge cannot ^^ flow down our streets like a river," without there be first 

 built and filled a capacious reservoir, from which those streams shall issue » 

 It is an error to suppose that (he accumulation of the stores of existing" 

 learning, the amassing of the records of intellectual action, does not tend 

 also to increase knowledge. What is there neio in the material world, ex- 

 cept by extraction or combination? How are new substances formed, or 

 the stock of a given substance increased, by the chemistry of nature or of art? 

 By new combinations or decompositions of known and pre-existing ele- 

 ments. The products of the experimental or manufacturing laboratory are 

 no new creations ; but their elements are first extracted by the decomposi- 

 tion of old compound^, and then recombined in new forms. Thus is it 

 also, in some degree, with the immaterial products of the human mind ; but 

 there is this difference ; knowledge grows not alone by extraction and com- 

 bination, but, unlike the dead matter with which chemistry deals, it is itself 

 organic, living, productive. There is moreover, as I have already hinted,, 

 between all branches of knowledge and of liberal art, whether speculative 

 or experimental, such an indissoluble bond, such a relation of interdepen- 

 dence, that you cannot advance any one without at the same time promot- 

 ing all others. The pioneer in every walk of science strikes out sparks,, 

 that not only guide his own researches, but illuminate also the paths of 

 those around him, though they may be laboring in quite other directions.. 

 Examples of this kind might be multiplied without end, but I will content 

 myself with an illustration or two from a science which deals only in ab- 

 stract numbers and imaginary quantities, and utterly rejects experiment and 

 observation as tests of truth or a^ instruments of its discovery. Who would 



