Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1886-01-15
4 PUBLIC LIBRARY,
Mr.. James Russell Lowell's Ideas of what
IL should be.

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of reference, in encyclopedias, where one
may learn without cost of research what
things are generally known For it is far
more useful to know these than to know
those that are not generally known. Not
to know them is the defect of those half
trained and therefore hasty men who find
mares nest on every branch of the tree
of knowledge A library should contain
ample stores of history, which, if it do not
always deserve the pompous title which
Bolingbroke gave it, of philosophy teach
ing by example, certainly teaches many
things profitable for us to know and lay to
heart teaches among other things how
much of the present is still held in mort
main by the past teaches that, if there
be no controlling purpose, there is, at least
a sternly logical sequence in human affairs
and that chance has but a trifing domin-
ion over them ; teaches why things are and
must be so and not otherwise; teaches,
perhaps, more than anything else, the val
ne of personal character as Il chief factor
in what used to be called destiny, for that
cause is strong which has not II multitude
but one strong man behind it. History is
indeed mainly the biography of a few i'm
perial men, and forces home upon us the
useful lesson how iniinitesmally import
ant our own private affairs are to the uni
perience and yet how little do men profit
by it, nay how should we expect it of those
who 50 seldom are taught anything by
their own Decisions. especially econom-
iCal delusions, seem the only things that
have any chance of an earthly immortal
ity. | would have plenty of biography.
1t is no insignificant fact that eminent
men have always loved their Plutarch,
since example, whether for emulation or
avoidance, is never so poignant as when
presented to us in striking personality.
AutobiOgraphies are also instructive read
ing to the student of human nature,
though generally written by men who
were more interesting to themselves than
to their fellowmen.
A public library should also have many
and full shelves of political economy, for
the dismal science, as Carlyle called it, if
it prove nothing else, will go far toward
proving that theory is the bird in the bush
though she sing more Sweetly than the
nightingale, and that the millennium will
not hasten its coming III Difference to the
most convincing string of resolutions that
were ever unanimously adopted in public
meeting. 1t likewise induced in us Il pro-
found distrust of social panaceas.
| would have Il public library abundant
in TRANSACTIONS of the best books in all
languages, for, though no work of genius
can be adequately translated, because
every word of it is permeated with what
Milton calls THE precious life blood of a
master spirit" which cannot be transtused
into the veins of the best translation, yet
some acquaintance with foreign and an
cidnt literatures has the liberallzing effect
of foreign travel He who travels by trans
latlon travels more hastilyand superficial
ly, but brings home something that is
worth having nevertheless TRANSACTIONS
used, by shortening the labor of
acquisition add as many years to our
~ ri
of our education.
In such Il library the sciences should be
fully represented, that men may at least
learn to know i'll what Il marvellous mus
cum they live, what wonder worker is
giving them an exhibition daily for moth
ing. Nor let art be forgotten in all its
many forms, not as the antithesis of
science, but as her elder or fairer sister,
whom we love all the more that her use
fulness cannot be demonstrated in dollars
and cents. | should be thankful if every
day labOrer among us could have his mind
MS those of Athens and of Flor
ence had, with some image of what is best
in architecture, painting and sculpture to
train its crude perceptions and perhaps
call out latent faculties. should like to
see the works of Ruskin within the reach
of every artisan among us. For | hope
some day that the deicacy of touch and
accuracy of eye that have made our
mechanics in some departments the best
in the world may give us the same supre-
macy in works of wider range and more
purely ideal scope.
Voyages and travels | woul1 also have,
goo store, especially the earlier, when the
world was fresh and unhackneyed and
men saw things invisible to the modern
eye. They are fast sailing ships to watt
away from present trouble to the Fortu-
nate Isles
TO wash down the drer norsels that
every library must necessarily offer at its
board, let there be plenty of imaginative
literature, and let its range be not too mar
row to stretch from Dante to the elder
Dumas. The world of the Imagination
is not the world of abstraction and non
entity, as some conceive, buta world form
ed out of chaos by the sense of the beauty
that is in man and the earth on which he
dwells. 1t is the realm of might-be, our
haven of refuge from the shortcomings
and disillusions of life 1t is, to quote
Spenser, who knew it we'll
The worlds sweet inn from care and
wearisome turmoil
Do we believe, then, that God gave us in
this splendid faculty of SYM
pathy with things that are a Joy forever
For my part, believe that the love and
study of works of imagination is OF prac
teal utility in country so profoundly
in its leading tendencies as ours.
The hunger after purely intellectual de-
nights, the content with ideal possessions,
cannot but be good for us in maintaining
II wholesome balance OF the character and
of the faculties. for one shall never be
persuaded that Shakespeare left II less use
1ul legacy to his cOuntrymen than Watt
We hold all the deepest, all the highest
satistactions of life AS tenants of imagina
ton. Nature will keep up the supply of
what are called hard-headed people with
out our help, and, if it come to that, there
are other as good uses for heads as at the
end of battering rams.
| know that there are many excellent
people who object to the reading of novels
as n waste of time, if not rs otherwise
harmful. But think they are trying to
outwit nature, who is sure to prove cum
Ringer than they. Look at children. one
boy shall want II chest of tools and one "A
book, and of those who want books one
shall askfOr Il botany, another for II rom
ance. They will be sure TO get what they
want, and we are doing Il grave wrong to
their morals by driving them to do things
on the sly, to steal that food which their
constitution Graves and which is whole
some for them, instead of having il freely