Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-07-01
"a to Observe Fourth on Foreign Soil by Gift of Library

want of which whole nations fare the
worse. We should be wary, therefore,
what persecution we raise against the
living labors of public men. how we
spill that seasoned life of a man, pre-
served and stored up In books, since
we see a kind of homicide may be thus
committed, sometimes nartyrdom.'
When Louvain was burned, we felt,
without these great words, that the life
blood of master-spirits was spilled. and
that in the confiagration some knowl-
edge or truth. not yet sufficiently &C
quired, may have gone beyond recovery
Revolutions of ages have not suf1ced
to bring back all that persisted In the
libraries Of Alexandria; what man has
known and forgotten, what man has
almost learned and lost forever, may
bear staggering proportion to the sum
Of truth we now enjoy.
Whoever had even a modest appetite
for truth understands that fever with
which men dig in the sands, and
around the roots Of ancient cities, In
the hope that some vestige yet unde-
| stroyed may diminish a little our ig-
norance. Rich and overwhelming as
our inheritance seems as though there
were already In the world too much
to learn. yet in any field he who knows
most deplores lost material which TO a
scholar is lost opportunity.
**
| THE inquiry after truth. however, is
for most Of us privilege neglected.
/ Even the acquaintance Of good books
4 we'll within our understanding we usu-
/ ally postpone They may rest on our
1 shelves, as ornaments proper to any
/ home. and We have only to walk across
2 LN %nIS -
friends with some Of the greatest of our
/ race. yet not few of us will leave those
/ pages unlocked at till we die.
( We are content to believe that others
1 are reading them for us. Yet our con-
/ science is always little guilty. A sure
/ instinct again tells us that We like the
/ misguided Soldiery at Louvain, are de-
/ stroying something. Unless 1t Is read,
/ a book is no more than paper and ink,
/ Plato himself no more profound than
| your visiting card.
| The absorbing desire of writer Is to
speak to his fellows; poets. saints. phi
/ losophers, scholars, all who prefer the
/ way of the spirit TO the satisfactions of
sense, have cherished like Milton the
I hope of leaving something hereafter
which the world would not willingly
I let die" Most of us let them die. To
/ leave them unread is to kill them. That
/ they survive at all is the work Of the
/ few, like-minded with them, who against
( the lethargy natural to the body, are
willing to take some pains to know what
/ has been thought and felt by the best
of mankind.
When a storehouse of such neglected
+ opportunity is suddenly annihilated we
must ask other men If much, after all
I is lost. When they tell us that the ruin
{ iS iF31Y
/ spiritual conscience has the grace to
! feel sorely troubled. We are glad to
restore what We can. 1t is an expiation
/ of something intimate and private in
| ourselves.
/ To set so great a value on books will
( always seem to some men folly It
would be absurd to think that the ma
/ lority OF people in Europe or America
/ look upon the destruction of Louvain
/ as equally tragic with an earthquake or
/ a flood. or will be as interested in its
/ restoration as they are in the latest
/ transatlantic fight.
/ THE world has always been divided
between the men who must know
who through knowledge hope to achieve
and the other men, far more numerous,
/ who are content merely, as they say, to
/ live-unaware that their living is con-
ditioned by the ideas Of the first group,
whom they probably call impractical.
/ Yet the minority. who through knowl-
/ edge accomplish anything in the world.
never undervalue the scholar or the
thinker who explores the frontier Of
knowledge for us all
The aviator crossing the ocean gets
our attention. His respect probably goes
to the man who made his plane or de-
viSed his engine. a genius who to our
superficial interest is negligible We do
| not stop to ask his name He, If We
knew him. could tell us the Importance
! of Louvain.
/ Such as he. not the mass of the peo-
pie. have restored the library. For the
| rest of US. the majority of excellent
/ citizens who are not inquirers after
truth. let us hope the orator at the
dedication will bring pious blanket
| OF silence Just as well for us that
Milton will not be there. He would
| probably repeat his opinion of US. self
! destined to spring up and perish like
/ Summer flies. heads without name. no
more remembered"