And it
will happen, generally, that the establishment of a public library will
be less expensive to the friends of the movement, and the advantages
will be greater; while there will be an additional satisfaction in the
good conferred upon others.
We shall act wisely if we apply to books a maxim of the Greeks: "All
things in common amongst friends." Under this maxim Cicero has
enumerated, as principles of humanity, not to deny one a little running
water, or the lighting his fire by ours, if he has occasion; to give the
best counsel we are able to one who is in doubt or distress; which, says
he, "are things that do good to the person that receives them, and are
no loss or trouble to him that confers them." And he quotes, with
approbation, the words of Ennius:
"He that directs the wandering traveller
Doth, as it were, light another's torch by his own;
Which gives him ne'er the less of light, for that
It gave another."
A good book is a guide to the reader, and a well-selected library will
be a guide to many. And shall we give a little running water, and turn
aside or choke up the streams of knowledge? light the evening torch, and
leave the immortal mind unillumined? give free counsel to the ignorant
or distressed, when he might easily be qualified to act as his own
counsellor? In July 1856, Mr. Everett gave five hundred dollars toward a
library for the High School in his native town of Dorchester; and in
1854 Mr.
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