'8 



new editions^ or surpassed by later treatises. That there is some foundation 

 for this opinion I shall not deny; but after every deduction is made upon 

 these accounts, there will still remain in any of these libraries a great num- 

 ber of works which, having originally had intrinsic worth , have yet their 

 permanent value. Because a newer, or better, or truer book, upon a given 

 subject, now exists, it does not necessarily follow that the older and inferior 

 is to be rejected. It may contain important truths or interesting views that 

 later, and, upon the whole, better authors have overlooked — it may embody 

 curious anecdotes of forgotten times — it may be valuable as an illustration 

 of the history of opinion, or as a model of composition; or, if of great an- 

 tiquity, it may possess much interest as a specimen of early typography. 



Again, because any one individual, even the most learned, cannot, in 

 this short life, exhaust all art, because he can thoroughly master but a few 

 i hundred volumes, read, or even have occasion to consult, but a few thou- 

 sands, we are not therefore authorized to conclude that all beyond these are 

 superfluous. Each of the hundred authors, who have produced those thou- 

 sands of volumes, had read also his thousands. The scholar is formed, not 

 by the books alone that he has read, but he receives, at second hand, the 

 essence of multitudes of others; for every good book supposes and implies 

 the previous existence of numerous other good books. 



An individual even of moderate means, and who is content to confine 

 his studies within somewhat narrow bounds, may select and acquire for 

 himself a library adequate to his own intellectual wants and tastes, though 

 entirely unsuited to the purposes of one of different or larger aims, and by 

 the diligent use of this, he may attain a high degree of mental culture; but 

 a national library can be accommodated to no narrow or arbitrary standard. 

 It must embrace all science — all history — all languages. It must be exten- 

 sive enough, and diversified enough, to furnish aliment for the cravings of 

 every appetite. We need some great establishment, that shall not hoard its 

 treasures with the jealous niggardliness which locks, up the libraries of Bri- 

 tain, but shall emulate the generous munificence which throws open to the 

 world the boundless stores of literary wealth of Germany and Prance — some 

 -exhaustless fountain, where the poorest and humblest aspirant may slake his 

 thirst for knowledge, without money and without price. 



Of all places in our territory, this central heart of the nation is the fittest 

 for such an establishment. It is situated in the middle zone of our system — 

 •easily and cheaply accessible from every quarter of the Union — blessed with 

 a mild, a salubrious, and an equable climate — abundant in the necessaries 

 and comforts of physical life — far removed from the din of commerce, and 

 free from narrow and sectional influences. 



Let us here erect such a temple of the muses, served and guarded by no 

 exclusive priesthood, but with its hundred gates thrown open, that every 

 votary may enter unquestioned, and you will find it thronged with ardent 

 worshippers, who, though poverty may compel them to subsist, like Heyne, 

 on the pods of pul^e and the parings of roots, shall yet. forget the hunger 

 of the body in the more craving wants of the soul. 



From the limited powers of our National Government, and the jealous 

 care with which their exercise is watched and resisted, in cases where the 

 interests of mere humanity — not party — are concerned, it can do little for 

 the general promotion of literature and science. The present is a rare op- 

 portunity, the only one yet oflTered, and never, perhaps, to be repeated, for 

 itaking our proper place among the nations of the earth, not merely as a 



