The democrat. [volume] (Weston, W. Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-07-14
The Value Of Books.

=, ,,, A, a-
FOLLOWING Is an extract from the very
able address delivered by Hon. William
Cullen Bryant on the occasion Of the
dedication OF the new Library Building
az Princeton College. He said;
10 form m adequate idea Of the value
of books II is only necessary TO suppose
astate Of things which should cause their
sudden destruction. / do not recollect
that any quthor into whose works Ihaye
looked has ever taken the trouble TO
imagine and describe the condition to
which the immediate annihilation OF
books and manuscripts would reduce
the human race. 1t may be said that
such IN event is altogether impossible.
Nay, not so-improbable, l grant-im.
probable, II you please, to the utmost
limit OF improbability-but still posi-
BILE. Let us suppose the white ant, the
insect pest which in South America de-
YOURS and destroys books and manu-
scripts with such fearful yoracity that,
as Humboldt ayers, they have not left
in an extensive district single manu-
script o hundred years old, TO become
unexpectedly numerous In all civilized
countries. Let us suppose 1t TO multi
ply as strangely ns the sugar-ants in the
West India island OF Grenada, when,
coming from nobody knew where, they
invaded the plantations in vast armies,
forming dams across the stream with
their drowned bodies, over which the
living ones crossed to the opposite bank,
deyouring everything before them which
had vegetable or animal life, desolating
the fields and gardens and threatening
to drive the human race from Grenada,
until in 1880 the benehcept interposlaon
OF o terrific storm OF wind and rain an
initiated the vast mass Of insect lie
and delivered the island. Imagine the
white ant, produced in Ike numbers,
by means as mysterious, invading the
haunts Of men everywhere. creeping
into our libraries and publication offices,
and consuming every printed page and
every manuscript, and everything on
which the press or pen can leave us
trace. Into what confusion and dismay
would society at once be thrown me
reader OF the daily gazette from that
moment would find himself Ignorant OF
what was going on In the world, and
would long In vain to learn what mad
happened since yesterday. In the
crowded city he would ind himself .
hermit. The reader for entertainment
would miss his accustomed retreshment;
the inquirer alter knowledge would hnd
no path open TO, his researches /; the
daily teacher OF Scripture would look
about him in vain for the sacred volume.
The tribunals would be forced 70 grope
their way to justice without statutes or
law books the advocate would have no
precedents on which to found his argui-
ments save those which he might posi-
bly, remember or invent for the occasion.
All the records Of the past all the les.
sons OF history, all the discoveries Of
science, all the conclusions OF philoso-
ply, oil that the poets have woven into
song, all that has been written down oi
moral and religious truth, would be lost
and be as II they had never been, save
such portions Of these priceless treas
ures as might be retained in that treach-
erous repository, the human memory,
and how soon by the process oil oral
transmission might that portion become
changed and corrupted and encountered
with spurious additions In the places
OF worship half-remembered Itanies
would be stammered, half-torgotten