The Library and Society: Reprints of Papers and Addresses

by Unknown

[Stephen] Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, N.J., March 18, 1837, the fifth son of a Presbyterian clergyman. He received a common-school education and after his father's death went in 1855 to live with an uncle in Buffalo, N.Y. He was admitted to the bar there in 1859, was assistant district attorney in 1863-66, sheriff in 1871-74 and mayor in 1882. In the latter year he was elected Governor of New York and in 1884 President of the United States. He was an unsuccessful candidate for re-election in 1888, but was elected again in 1892. He died in Princeton, N.J., where he had resided since his last presidential term, on June 24, 1908.

The words I shall speak on this occasion I intend rather as a pledge of my adherance to the cause in which you are enlisted than an attempt to say anything new or instructive. I gladly join with the enthusiasm of a new convert in the felicitations of those who have done noble and effective work in the establishment and maintenance in our city of a free circulating library, and it seems to me they have abundant cause for congratulation in review of the good which has already been accomplished through their efforts and in the contemplation of the further usefulness which awaits their continued endeavor.

In every enlightened country the value of popular education is fully recognized, not only as a direct benefit to its recipients, but as an element of strength and safety in organized society. Considered in these aspects it should nowhere be better appreciated than in this land of free institutions consecrated to the welfare and happiness of its citizens, and deriving its sanction and its power from the people. Here the character of the people is inevitably impressed upon the government, and here our public life can no more be higher and purer than the life of the people, than a stream can rise above its fountain or be purer than the spring in which it has its source.

That we have not failed to realize these conditions is demonstrated by the establishment of free public schools on every side, where children are not only invited but often obliged to submit themselves to such instruction as will better their situation in life and fit them to take part intelligently in the conduct of the government.

Thus, in our schools the young are taught to read, and in this manner the seed is sown, from which we expect a profitable return to the state, when its beneficiaries shall repay the educational advances made to them by an intelligent and patriotic performance of their social and political duties.

And yet if we are to create good citizenship, which is the object of popular education, and if we are to insure to the country the full benefit of public instruction, we can by no means consider the work as completely done in the schoolroom. While the young gathered there are fitting themselves to assume in the future their political obligations, there are others upon whom these obligations already rest, and who now have the welfare and safety of the country in their keeping. Our work is badly done if these are neglected. They have passed the school age, and have perhaps availed themselves of free instruction; but they, as well as those still in the school, should, nevertheless, have within their reach the means of further mental improvement and the opportunity of gaining that additional knowledge and information which can only be secured by access to useful and instructive books.

The husbandman who expects to gain a profitable return from his orchards, not only carefully tends and cultivates the young trees in his nurseries as they grow to maturity but he generously enriches and cares for those in bearing and upon which he must rely for ripened fruit.

Teaching the children of our land to read is but the first step in the scheme of creating good citizens by means of free instruction. We teach the young to read so that both as children and as men and women they may read. Our teaching must lead to the habit and the desire of reading to be useful; and only as this result is reached can the work in our free schools be logically supplemented and made valuable.

Therefore, the same wise policy and intent which open the doors of our free schools to our young, also suggest the completion of the plan thus entered upon by placing books in the hands of those who in our schools have been taught to read.