graceful young ladies and these joyous pupils of the Schools. It is eminently fit, that the Conscript Fathers of the City should lend the sanction of their official presence to the scene, and that some word of remembrance, of congratulation, and of hope should not be wanting on the part of those, who have been honored with a commission to conduct so interesting a work.

I think myself happy, Mr. Mayor, in being privileged, as President of the Board, to speak that word, and in being allowed to associate myself, in ever so humble a manner, with this crowning act of the maturity of my native place.

And now, fellow-citizens, it is most agreeable to reflect that the Institution which we are engaged this day in establishing, is in such precise and beautiful conformity with the policy and the principles of those noble Colonists by whom Boston was founded. Too often, alas! in the progress of great cities, the most costly and conspicuous structures serve only, as they rise, to signalize some fresh departure from the simplicity and purity of the olden time. But we are here to erect no such monument of our own degeneracy. We are here to engraft no strange or uncongenial branch upon the old Puritan vine. We have come rather, in the fulness of time, to carry out to its legitimate consummation, a system which was the peculiar pride and glory of the New England settlers, and which they cherished and cultivated as the especial strength and safeguard of the civil and religious freedom which they planted upon these shores.

With a wisdom and a forecast, which seem, as we look back upon them, little less than the immediate promptings of a Divine Power, the fathers of Massachusetts and founders of Boston allowed scarcely an hour to elapse after their arrival, before making some incipient provision for the public instruction of their children. Within five years after Trimountaine was called Boston, the small beginnings of our common-school system may be distinctly traced upon our ancient records. And from that day to this, the institutions of free popular education have gone on from strength to strength, have been extended and improved, year by year, under the liberal and fostering care of our public authorities, until, during the single year last past, nearly 25,000 children have received, within our city limits, as

good an education as the wide world can afford, without cost or charge to themselves, but at the willingly incurred expense, all told, of little less than four hundred thousand dollars to the public treasury.*

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By the munificent bequest of a native son of Boston, whose name will be remembered among us as long as the Pyramids amid which that memorable Codicil was conceived, or the palaces of the Pharaohs on one of which it was written (John Lowell, Jr.), a system of free lectures has been added, of late years, to our other means of popular instruction, and has abundantly justified the generous purposes of its lamented founder.

But education does not end with the schools; nor is all education conducted within the school-room or the lecture-room. Even a College Degree is but the significant A. B. of a whole alphabet of learning still to be acquired. The great work of self-culture remains to be carried on long after masters and tutors and professors have finished their labors and exhausted their arts. And no small part of this work, I need hardly say, is to be carried on under the influence of good reading and by the aid of good books.

Who shall undertake to measure the importance or calculate the value of good reading, as an instrument in advancing the welfare and promoting the happiness of mankind! Even one good book, read by snatches, in the intervals of labor, or in the watches of the night, what unspeakable comfort and aid has it not often imparted to the humblest, or, it may be, to the loftiest, mind and heart!

I speak not of the Bible, which is an exception to all books, and which might almost be a substitute for all;—a library in itself, able alone to carry civilization and culture into every home where it is thoroughly and thankfully and thoughtfully read; itself the Corner Stone of all Christian literature for ever!

But even among books of merely human composition and origin, and dealing with merely human and mortal relations

The precise figures in the city auditor's report, then just published, were 24,827 pupils; - Expenditures, including new school houses, $389,135.64.

and interests, how many have there not been, and are there not still, for a good book never dies, of a power not only to afford amusement or instruction for an hour or a day, but to mould a whole character, and marshal a whole life! How many of the mightiest, as well as of the humbler, intellects of the world's history have borne testimony to the influence of "the precious life-blood of some master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life."

Need I recall to you the example of our own FRANKLIN, who tells us himself, in his charming little autobiography, that, while indulging his passionate fondness for reading, as a child of twelve years old, he found among the few books which his father could afford to own, "a work of De Foe's, entitled an Essay on Projects,' from which, perhaps, (says he) I derived impressions that have since influenced some of the principal events of my life?" Or, need I remind you how much of that clear, pure, transparent style, which distinguished him above almost all other American writers or even English writers, of his own day or of any day, he attributed to the use which he had made of "an odd volume of the Spectator' which fell into his hands" by the merest accident?

Such were the instruments by which the great Bostonian pursued that system of self-culture which prepared him for his wonderful career as a philosopher and a patriot; — books, odd volumes, sometimes found by chance on the meagre shelves of the family book-case, sometimes falling into his hands by less natural and accountable accidents, sometimes borrowed from his fellow-apprentices and read by stealth while they were sleeping. "How often (says he) has it happened to me to pass the night in reading by my bedside, when the book had been lent and was to be returned the next morning, lest it might be missed or wanted!" And you all remember the practical testimony which he gave to his own sense of the value of reading, by setting on foot the very first Social Circulating Library known to the annals of the world.

But I may not take up more of the time of this occasion in rhapsodies upon reading, or in illustrating or exemplifying the value of good books. I have said more than enough already to

justify the remark, that in establishing this Free Public Library, we are but carrying forward another stage, and that a great stage, towards its ultimate consummation and perfection, that noble system of popular education which our fathers founded. It has originated in no mere design to furnish a resort for professed scholars, where they may pursue their studies, or prosecute their researches, historical or classical, scientific or literary,important as such an object might be. It is to be eminently a library for the people, — for the whole people.

Doubtless, in the gradual accumulation of such a library as we hope to see here, - or as we hope others at least will see here, when this spacious area shall be filled with books, and when, perhaps, the building now about to be erected shall have been extended to the utmost limits of this ample lot,-doubtless, in the gradual accumulation of such a library as future generations will witness and enjoy here, no books will be excluded because they may not seem to be of immediate, general, or popular use or interest. No books, certainly, will ever be rejected in this land of universal education and intelligence, as being beyond the comprehension or capacity of the people. That comprehension will be subjected to no narrow gauge, nor that capacity measured by any reduced or stinted standard. Those who shall have charge from time to time of making its collections, will not be likely to forget that we are no dwindled or degenerate offspring of a race, which John Milton so nobly and so justly characterized, when he said, "Lords and Commons of England, consider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governors; a nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious and piercing spirit; acute to invent, subtile and sinewy to discourse, not beneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar to."

Here, doubtless, in due time, will be found works of the deepest philosophy and science; and, until the name of Bowditch shall be lost to our remembrance, it will hardly be suggested that others beside professed scholars may not be able to turn those volumes to the best account, and even to add new ones of their own. Here, without question, in due time, will be found books in every language and tongue which is read or spoken beneath

the sun; and, while the living example of an Elihu Burritt is still before us, no one will doubt that others beside what are called the educated classes may be eager to decipher their mysteries, and may find no characters too difficult for their mastery. The least popular books of the collection may still find their best readers coming forth from the forge or the forecastle.

But as a general rule, and for the present at least, our professed scholars and students will look to the libraries of our Universities and Athenæums and Academies of Science, for the volumes which may aid them in their special investigations and pursuits.

The Library whose corner stone we are now about to lay, in its primary and principal design, is to furnish entertainment and instruction for the whole people. Central in its situation, the dwellers in all quarters of the city may approach it with almost equal facility. Standing on the margin of our beautiful Common, it will reflect and reproduce some of the peculiar and truly republican features of that charming play-place of our children, and pleasure-ground of us all, where we see, at this moment, the choicest seats and most inviting shade ranged along the trodden paths, and by the side of the broad and beaten tracks; and whose crystal fountains-though now and then they may leap to the skies and sparkle in the sun and waste themselves in glittering spray, to furnish a holiday spectacle-find always their better use and their daily beauty in ministering to the refreshment of the wayfaring and the weary.

And this, fellow-citizens, is to be our intellectual and literary Common, beneath whose roof and within whose alcoves fountains of living waters shall be ever open, and upon whose tables shall be always spread a banquet of wholesome and nutritious food for every mind, with a cover and a cordial welcome for every comer, and where no guest, whatever his garment, so it clothe an honest man, shall be excluded or disdained. "Free to all, with no other restrictions than are necessary for the preservation of the books" - these are the noble terms of its greatest benefactor.*

It may never vie, indeed, with the sumptuous Libraries of the

* Letter of Joshua Bates, 1 October, 1852.