THE bishop of Cavaillon, Petrarch's friend, in a playful experiment locked up the poet's library, intending to exclude him from it for three days, but the poet's misery caused him to restore the key on the first evening. "And I verily believe I should have become insane," says Petrarch, "if my mind had longer been deprived of its necessary nourishment." ADDRESS AT THE OPENING OF THE CONCORD FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY HE people of Massachusetts prize the simple political arrangement of towns, each independent in its local government, electing its own officers, assessing its taxes, caring for its schools, its charities, its highways. That town is attractive to its native citizens and to immigrants. which has a healthy site, good land, good roads, good sidewalks, a good hotel; still more, if it have an adequate town hall, good churches, good preachers, good schools, and if it avail itself of the Act of the Legislature authorizing towns to tax themselves for the establishment of a public library. Happier, if it contain citizens who cannot wait for the slow growth of the population to make these advantages adequate to the desires of the people, but make costly gifts to education, civility and culture, as in the act we are met to witness and acknowledge to-day. I think we cannot easily overestimate the benefit conferred. In the details of this munificence, we may all anticipate a sudden and lasting prosperity to this ancient town, in the benefit of a noble library, which adds by the beauty of the building, and its skilful arrangement, a quite new attraction, making readers of those who are not readers, — making scholars of those who only read newspapers or novels until now; and whilst it secures a new and needed culture to our citizens, offering a strong attraction to strangers who are seeking a country home to sit down here. And I am not sure that when Boston learns the good deed of Mr. Munroe, it will not be a little envious, nor rest until it has annexed Concord to the city. Our founder has found the many admirable examples which have lately honored the country, of benefactors who have not waited to bequeath colleges and hospitals, but have themselves built them, reminding us of Sir Isaac Newton's saying, "that they who give nothing before their death, never in fact give at all.” I think it is not easy to exaggerate the utility of the beneficence which takes this form. If you consider what has befallen you when reading a poem, or a history, or a tragedy, or a novel, even, that deeply interested you, — how you forgot the time of day, the persons sitting in the room, and the engagements for the evening, you - |