Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-02-19
FREE BOOKS FOR THE PEOPLE.

FREE BOOKS FOR THE PEOPLE.
The Duke who discovered books in the
running brooks, tongues in the trees, and ser
mons in the stones of the solemn forest of Ar
den, enjoys the reputation of great sagacity
and wisdom. Certainly no forester's word is
quoted so often as his. He may be worthy of
his fame. But it would be a grave mistake to
expect the rest of mankind to make similar dis
coveries in the solitudes where their fates may
drive them. Send the majority of men alone
into the woods, and in five years they would
become barbarians, however eloquenty the
trees might rustic, or however unsteady the
waves of embowered streams might follow
each other to the sea. Scour the whole field
of arboriculture the only direct agencies of
instruction which we find are the immemorial
leaves of the papyrus. And these are covered
all over with the crows tracks of the priests
and the magicians. We might have made
them more Ineligible and interesting with
our impressions of small plea. But if
they had been left entirely blank, they would
have been as fiat and improbable as the I'M
easy leaves with which the Sybil vainly at
tempted to tell her oracles. Nature is very
good as an auxiliary to mental development,
but needs great deal of cultivation to qualify
herself for the Office of principal!
The want of general information is rapidly
maturing into public necessity and the in
stitution of free public libraries has been con-
templated as the best means of gratifying it.
1t is measure of practical benefcence yet
immature and undeveloped. Yet it is as GER
tain to become, within few years, an object
OF public care as our free schools are to exist,
and our highways to remain open. The Leg
islature of 1851 first authorized towns and cities
within the Commonwealth to establish public
libraries under regulations and restraints to be
prescribed by their respective inhabitants.
And for the maintenance and increase of such
libraries they were authorized to appropriate
annually a sum not exceeding twenty-five
cents for each of its ratable polls. The Leg
stature of 1859 has, during the present week,
extended the limitation to fifty cents, which,
with the appropriation of one dollar for each
ratable poll allowed for the foundation of such
libraries, is ample for any imperative neces-
sity the public may be subject to. Very
few towns or cities have awaited themselves
OF the privileges of these acts, either be-
cause their fathers set the example of
getting along without books, or because they
have private, circulating, and incorporated Ii
braries, to which the circle of habitual readers
have abundant access. But wherever the pro-
visions of the law have been applied, in Boston,
In Newburyport recently in Milford and in
other places, the result has been gratifying and
successful. Seventy thousand volumes, at the
free service of the public, adorn the spacious
rooms of the Boylston street Library, while
in the other two places which we have named,
accounts have been opened with neary every
family, and in some instances two or three ac-
counts In the same family, within their juris-
diction. Nobody is the poorer for this benef-
cent transmutation of few thousand unem-
ployed bank notes. But how much richer are
the multitude who, from hearing the sound of
the name, FREE library, accustom themselves
to its use, and acquire that habit of resorting
to books rather than to vice or to physical SEN
sations, for an antidote to ennm and heaviness
of spirit!
We do not propose to argue the superiority
of free over other libraries The manifest adj
vantages are that they are more popular, and
open to larger class; they are not troubled
with aristocracies of membership and life mem
bership; they are sustained from common
fund, and come to be regarded with common
interest; they are pure and unsullied democ-
racies; they attract class of readers whom
admission fees would repel they are not de-
pendent from year to year, on the precarious
tenure of new memberships, or the renewal of
old ones; they commend themselves, somehow
or other, to the especial and particular favor of
that fortunate class who have books to give
away, money to invest in them, or legacies to
bestow These and many other obvious rea-
sons, will sugges. themselves to any one frank
ly and honestly meditatng upon the subject
These suggestions are equally applicable to
towns all around us, where there are no libra
ries at all. The slight tax required, which
would not be questioned if new pound was
to be built, an old highway to be restored, or
town hall to be erected, is certainly not
worthy of complaint when it will lay the
foundations of an institution worthy to stand
by the side of the church and the school. and
not less essential to human welfare and happi-
ness than either of them. Buy those standard
books in which the thoughts the wisdom, and
the genius of many generations have been ac-
cumulated; those romances which inculcate
in earnest and truthful story, the lessons and
maxims of morality and virtue, those histories
wherein instructive events are re-enacted in
vivid description, and life-like narrative
Let young and old become accustomed to re-
sort to such collections, and use them wisely,
it would give new impulse to public spirit
and infuse new life into every department of
activity.
COURT WITHOUT LAWYERS There is in
the city of New York a Court of A nnoals II,