tgrown the other schools, will come to carry
on the education which has been there commenced; where Boston men and
women, "children of a larger growth," may come to acquire that
additional knowledge which is requisite for the most successful
discharge of the duties of the various callings of society,--which
opens, in its pursuit, the purest sources of happiness,--and which,
without reference to utility, contributes so materially to the grace and
ornament of life.

I am aware that there is still floating about in the community a vague
prejudice against what is called book-learning. One sometimes hears
doubts expressed of the utility of public libraries; opinions that
they are rather ornamental than necessary or useful; and the fact that
our time-honored city, never indifferent to the mental improvement of
her children, has existed more than two centuries without one, is a
sufficient proof, that, until within a very few years, their
importance has not been practically felt. There is perhaps even now a
disposition to claim some superiority for what is called practical
knowledge--knowledge gained by observation and experience (which most
certainly the trustees would not disparage), and a kind of
satisfaction felt in holding up the example of self-taught men, in
supposed contradistinction from those who have got their knowledge
from books. No name perhaps is so frequently mentioned for this
purpose as that of Franklin, who, because he had scarce any school
education and never went to college, has been hastily set down as a
brilliant example to show the inutility of book-learning. It has been
quoted to me in this way, and to show that libraries are of no use,
within three days.

Now, Mr. Mayor, I need not tell you that there never was a greater
mistake in point of fact. A thirst for books, which he spared no pains
to allay, is the first marked trait disclosed in the character of
Franklin; his success throughout the early period of his life can be
directly traced to the use he made of them; and his very first important
movement for the benefit of his fellow-men was to found a public
library, which still flourishes;--one of the most considerable in the
country. Franklin not a book-man! whoever labors under that delusion,
shows that somebody else is not a book-man, at least so far as concerns
the biography of our illustrious townsman. We happen to have a little
information on that subject, in a book written by Franklin himself