respective departments, and have returned to their homes in disappointment and despondency, abandoning for the present all hope of accomplishing their noble undertaking. On the other hand, those who superintend the training of the youth in our universities and colleges are aware of the fact, that the most active and highly gifted minds among the students, having easily mastered the common course of instruction, and having nothing to invite them into the vast field beyond, sink into indolence, and not unfrequently into vice. It is frequently asserted that the American people are eminently "a reading community." The truth of the remark is incontrovertible; and while we deplore the limited range of study and effort to which our literary men are necessarily confined, and acknowledge our vast inferiority to the countries of Europe on the score of public libraries and depositories of the learning of by-gone ages, we cannot but exult in the fact, that our private dwellings, whether in the crowded city, the retired village, or the solitary abode of the adventurer in "the far west," -from the splendid mansion of wealth and luxury, to the humble cot of indigence and toil-are furnished with popular literary works, and those, too, for the most part, of a decidedly moral and religious character. This circumstance, for which we are mainly indebted to the benign operation of our common school system, has already exerted a propitious influence in familiarizing our whole population with the advantages of literary culture, and in creating a thirst for more extended knowledge and higher intellectual cultivation. And what has been the result? Our whole country, with but few exceptions, presents, as it regards our literary culture, the aspect of an almost unbroken level. "So high shalt thou ascend, and no higher" must be said to every aspiring student, longing to reach the more elevated regions of comprehensive and successful research. Thus, if we mistake not, the very fact to which, as citizens of this favored land, we point with honest exultation, as the fruit of our free institutions, now calls upon us with a voice that cannot be mistaken, to complete the noble structure of which we have laid the broad foundation, by establishing a vast storehouse of learning, an ample library of reference, by means of which the level of general information may, to a certain extent, be broken up ;-not by depressing any portion below its present elevation, but by affording an opportunity for such portions as may demand it, to raise themselves above the surrounding crowd. And this, we contend, is the very essence of our liberal institutions to furnish opportunities and facilities for a generous competition, and a free development of talent, in every department of enterprise, whether physical or mental. Again, the stupendous literary collections of Europe owe their origin, or, at least, their present imposing character, to munificent royal endowments and princely patronage, or positive legislative enactments, adapted to the genius and character of European governments, but which, we fear, will be looked for in vain, under a government like that of which we boast. One fact alone will show how such enactments and patronage may gradually swell the size of a public library, and secure to it the possession of the literature of the day in every department. The fact alluded to is this, that the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in England, and that of Edinburgh in Scotland, are entitled, by the existing copy-right law of the realm, to receive a copy of every printed work of which a copy-right is secured. But how different in the aspect of our political institutions! The very feature of our political character in which, as Americans, we have occasion to exult, is at variance with public endowments, foundations, or enactments, except so far as the common weal is literally concerned, and each individual member of the community, as well as the whole mass of our population, is personally and vitally interested. This broad line of demarkation, whose existence we should certainly deplore, if we could avail ourselves of no other resources, but which, under existing circumstances, we regard as essential to our political welfare, constitutes one of our strongest arguments in favor of the private munificence to which we appeal for the accomplishment of this noble object. It furnishes even now an imposing spectacle to the European statesman, to behold the numberless enterprises in which our citizens cheerfully embark their time and wealth and labor, calculated to promote the moral and religious welfare of our community, without a helping hand or a cheering smile from "the powers that be." Will, then, our citizens shrink from an enterprise which proposes, as its aim, an elevated standard of literary character and intellectual worth throughout our country,-impressed as they must be with the conviction that, if it be not accomplished by private munificence, it will never be accomplished at all. We may still be left to indulge our despondency, and weep over the literary desolation of this fair field, where learning and religion, literature and the arts, might so easily find a common sanctuary. Again; it is obvious to the sagacious observer, that this country is to become the seat of war between Christianity and her foes, of every form and every degree of pretension. Already, in fact, it is so. And Christians must be prepared to maintain the external defence of our holy religion, by the same weapons by which she ever has been, and will be assailed by her enenies, namely, those which are furnished by profound and extensive research. We wish, however, to direct the attention of our fellowcitizens to arguments of a more specific character, and less generally appreciated, derived from the peculiar and unrivalled condition and prospects of our large commercial cities. These cities, if we mistake not, are soon to be numbered among the greatest commercial emporia in the world. And what an assemblage of ideas crowd upon the mind in conjunction with this interesting supposition! Who does not know that a great commercial city cannot, in the nature of things, be exclusively and merely a commercial city? A demand for skill in the various collateral arts, a thirst for general information, a desire to gratify the innate sense of beauty in the decorations of our public and private edifices, public spirit, and an honest pride of character,—these are but a few of the concomitant circumstances that necessarily call forth indefinitely the energies of such a city, in every department of labor and enterprise, and direct them far beyond the confines of mere trade and com merce. To the population, then, of our cities, their resources, their practical and ornamental arts, their intellectual and corporeal industry, their literary and scientific culture, who will dare to assign a limit? What mind can comprehend, at one view, the restless activity, the increasing ferment, the continual flow of wealth, into these grand reservoirs and the countless streams that shall again flow forth, in some form or other, as a blessing or a curse, to every portion of our country and of the globe? To what, now, must we look, in conjunction with religion, to preserve us from the dominion of error and infidelity, to create and sustain a sense of our public dignity, to give efficiency and a laudable direction to our untiring enterprise, to raise us above mere animal existence to the character and aspirations of an inVOL. XI. No. 29. 23 tellectual community, to keep alive a spirit of invention and discovery, and to feed the restless mind with its appropriate food? What, in a word, is to resist the inroads of ignorance, of vice, of error, of infidelity, of sensuality, of luxury—of that dark and dismal chaos of moral elements, that will bid defiance to social order, wholesome subordination, and the restraints of law? Must we not give immediate heed to the intellectual wants of our growing community? Must we not make our facilities for intellectual culture and literary excellence commensurate with our increasing mental activity and irrepressible energies? In a word, must we not, promptly and energetically, meet a want which has already, for years, been felt in our country of an adequate library of reference,—ample, easy of access, sufficiently extensive to meet the varied demands for information in every department of art, science, or literature? That we do not exaggerate our actual and pressing wants, as regards the several departments of art, science, and literature, will be manifest from the following statements, which we venture to make after careful calculation. In order to place the department of Architecture on such a footing, in a Library of reference, as to satisfy the generous aspirations of our students and professors in that department, and enable them to exert a benign influence on our cities and country, we could readily and advantageously dispose of the sum of $30,000 in the purchase of works in that department alone. $30,000 Of this any competent bibliographer or well informed architect, may satisfy himself, by enumerating the principal and costly publications which now enrich the libraries of Europe. Under present circumstances, the architectural student or professor must accumulate, at a vast individual expense, an architectural library, if he hope to meet with ordinary success; and the few whose means enable them to indulge in this luxury, must, from the nature of the case, indulge in it alone. The public cannot profit by the presence of these works, except in a very remote and scanty manner. To place the increasingly popular department of Civil En- $20,000 50,000 For Chemistry, especially in its connexion with the arts, 10,000 For Geology, Mineralogy, Metallurgy and Fossil and re cent Conchology, . 15,000 For Botany, 15,000 For Zoology, including Mammalogy, Ornithology, Icthyol ogy, Entomology, and other branches (also a very expensive department), 50,000 For History, Civil and Ecclesiastical, 40,000 For Mathematics, pure and applied, 40,000 For Natural Philosophy, including Astronomy, 30,000 For Moral Science, including Ethics, Political Science, 50,000 For Greek and Latin Classics, . 40,000 For Hebrew and other branches of the Semitic stock, 10,000 Indo-Germanic stock, 10,000 For Modern Languages, including all the necessary helps, 40,000 30,000 Amounting in all to $500,000 If we add for books strictly professional, viz. Which would be immediately required, in order to place all these departments on even a respectable footing in a library of reference such as our country now demands. If therefore we wish to see our country as eminent for its literary cultivation as it is for its enterprise in all the departments of business-if we wish to see mind exerting its influence on mind, by means of those associations for the promotion of science and literature, which are the chief ornaments of the cities of Europe, we must provide a great library for the supply of their daily intellectual food, and to nourish and invigorate their energies. It is as impossible for such associations to exist, much less to prosper and exert their enlightening and meliorating influence, without the proximity of such a library, as for a community of workmen, employed on some mechanical labor, to cheer each other in their toil, and advance their appropriate work with a miserably contracted allowance of daily food. In each case weakness, lethargy, dulness, starvation, and death must ensue. Again; if we would render our country a favorite resort for ་ |