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it will, and it ought to, render them anxious to furnish more substantial 
helps to middle and advanced life, no less than youth, and enable the 
industrial classes more fully to master those numerous uses of science, 
which assist so directly to strengthen individuals, as well as States and 
empires. -* 
Nor does this course towards science and its votaries tend, as some, 
without due reflection, apprehend, to patronise a particular class in 
society, and therefore become objectionable under our institutions ; but, 
on the contrary, it patronises from all classes, as is just, those individuals 
who may choose to try to educate themselves, soundly, for their peculiar 
spheres. They may come from the workshop, or the vessePs deck, or 
the farm, as well as the parsonage or palace — come, as did Franklin, and 
Fulton, and Bowditch, and Rittenhouse, cradled amidst labor, with hard 
hands and sinewy arms. It is the same, if they only wish and will to 
advance ; and, if the coal from the altar of science but touches their 
lips, then they alike see with new eyes, hear with new ears, and a fresh 
spirit seems to them, (some in one thing and some in another,) poured 
over the face of nature, and breathing into it new uses and new forms 
of life, beauty, and design. They then, too, equally attain honors and 
wealth — fetes and exhibitions do homage to the plough, the anvil, the 
saw, the type, and the compass — royalty, no less than the multitude, 
seek to use, as well as admire, their best productions; and the brow of 
honest labor, lighted up by science, becomes often no less conspicuous 
in courts and cities, than in hamlets or on the lawn. 
Ought we, then, to distrust the intelligence of a people like ours, to 
appreciate properly, and promote properly, the benefits of science? 
Closing the considerations on this subject, which, I fear, have already 
been extended too far, it may be deemed proper for me, before sitting 
down, to state whether, beside the general encouragements in private 
and public life, already referred to, any further particular acts appear 
necessary to be done here, to advance the cause of science and its vari- 
ous uses, so as to be beneficial to the country at large, no less than this 
District. With much distrust of any opinion which may conflict with 
what comes from others who have devoted more attention to this subject, 
it seems to me, that we want, in this place, as likely to be thus benefi- 
cial, first, buildings of elegance, and liberal accommodation for objects 
of science and letters ; then, libraries, that furnish the best food of the 
mind — the medicine of the soul — resembling in character, if not size, 
those of Jena or Gottingen, or the choicest abroad. Next, full collections 
