I have not proposed at this time, sir, on the part of the trustees, to make a formal speech; I have preferred to let Benjamin Franklin speak for us. This day belongs of right to the commissioners for building the library, ably represented as they are, by our distinguished friend their president, who has done such ample justice to the subject; and to you, Mr. Mayor, as the organ of the city government, whom I cannot but congratulate on closing your official career,—in all respects so honorable to yourself and so acceptable to your fellow-citizens,—by an act, I am sure, most grateful to your own feelings and most auspicious of the public good. It is not yet the time for the trustees to speak. A more fitting opportunity may hereafter present itself, when the books shall be placed on the shelves, the catalogue printed, and the library opened for public use. Occasion may then, perhaps, with propriety be taken, to illustrate the importance and utility of such an institution; to do justice to the liberality on the part of the city government and the individual benefactors by which it has been founded, endowed, and sustained; and especially to the generosity of our greatest benefactor and esteemed fellow-countryman, Mr. Bates, whose letters announcing his first munificent donation of fifty thousand dollars, alluding to his own early want of access to books, assign that as the moving cause which prompted his liberality. It will be the pleasing duty of those who may then be intrusted with the administration of the library, to pay a fitting tribute to so much public and private bounty.
In the mean time, sir, we must throw ourselves on the patience and considerateness of the city council and the community. Not much short of sixty thousand volumes are to be brought together from four different places of temporary deposit, and assigned to their final resting-places in this hall and the circulating library below. Here they are to be arranged on the shelves, the cards and slips which pertain to them, far more numerous than the volumes themselves, reduced to alphabetical order; a separate catalogue of each alcove prepared; and a comprehensive catalogue of the whole collection, without which it will be little better than an unmanageable mass, prepared and printed. Every thing which could be done beforehand, has been anticipated; but much of the work was of necessity reserved till the books should be placed on the shelves. In the interval, and while this labor is going on, the library in Mason street will be left in possession of the books most in request for daily circulation, and will be closed at last only when it becomes absolutely necessary that they also should be removed to the new building.
But it is time for me to conclude. The shades of evening are falling around us; those cressets which lend us their mild and tasteful illumination will soon be extinguished; and the first day of the New-Year, rich in the happy prospects we now inaugurate, will come to a close. May the blessing of Heaven give effect to its brightest anticipations. A few more days,—a few more years,—will follow their appointed round, and we, who now exchange our congratulations on this magnificent New-Year's gift of our city fathers, shall have passed from the scene; but firm in the faith that the growth of knowledge is the growth of sound principles and pure morals, let us not doubt, that, by the liberality of the city government and of our generous benefactors at home and abroad, a light will be kindled and go forth from these walls, now dedicated to the use of the Free Boston Public Library, which will guide our children and our children's children in the path of intelligence and virtue, till the sun himself shall fall from the heavens.
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THE NEW YORK FREE CIRCULATING LIBRARY
Address in its Favor at a Public Meeting
President Cleveland made this address on March 6, 1890, while a resident of New York City in the interval between his two presidential terms, at a meeting, at Chickering Hall, called for the purpose of directing attention to the work of the struggling Free Circulating Library and if possible to raise funds for its support, which was only partially insured by the City. Owing to increase in both public and private contributions this library was enabled to make rapid growth in the years immediately following until in 1901, when it was merged in the Circulation Department of the New York Public Library, it was operating eleven branches with a circulation of over 600,000. This institution was the pioneer of the popular, as distinguished from the scholarly, library idea in New York.