10 
and their libraries, museums, reading rooms, galleries and lec¬ 
ture rooms would speedily become a permanent centre of attrac¬ 
tion to intelligent people from all parts of the country. In the 
course of a few years those means of study which are now 
sought abroad would be brought together here, and Philadelphia 
as a seat of learning would rival the cities of Europe. An in¬ 
creased number of intelligent sojourners would augment the num¬ 
ber, variety and quality of our public amusements which would 
constitute, in the estimation of strangers, additional allurements 
to visit our city in pursuit of pleasure and business. 
The influence on the manners, if not on the morals of the 
community flowing from such an improvement as is here con¬ 
templated must be salutary. 
But it is not possible to realize this project of concentration 
without the aid of our liberal and intelligent municipal govern¬ 
ment. Unless the occupancy of the Penn squares be granted to the 
societies it must fail, because there is no other locality suitable 
for the purpose, and the new edifices will be erected on localities 
wide apart and the opportunity will be lost. 
All the productions or results of mental activity are affiliated 
and mutually dependent, and, therefore, the progress of any one 
of the departments of mental culture towards perfection is more 
certainly accomplished by fostering the whole of them together. 
That science, literature, and art are affairs of State which each 
nation for itself is bound to incite, encourage and reward, is an 
idea deeply rooted in the European mind, and hence it is that 
European governments have long contributed largely to the es¬ 
tablishment and maintenance of great libraries, museums and 
art galleries made freely accessible to all, though only a few 
persons, compared with the vast number of their visitors, are 
qualified educationally to study these collections and utilize the 
results of their labor. The British Museum was established at 
the cost of the government, and is maintained at an annual 
expense of about a half million of dollars. France, Italy, 
Austria and the German States sustain analogous institutions 
from their public treasuries, and deem themselves compensated 
if they thus contribute to the production, every few years, of some 
one great master in science, such as Sir Isaac Newton, Michael 
