been widely and fatally prevalent, that the grand inventions of human ingenuity have been the result of happy accident, rather than hard study. It is not true of the first thought, nor true of the successive steps by which the mind has been led to its proudest achievements. The boy or the dunce may apply the rules of philosophy and chemistry so as to produce a result, and that result shall be the most beautiful display of handiwork, in which the genius of the artisan shall be admired, while the higher genius that combined the principles, and discovered the mode of their application, shall be overlooked and unhonored. But in the advancement of art, however common and humble it may be, the thoughtful, observant mechanic, who has his mind intent upon the production of the best article in the best way, is the man who improves upon the work that has been hitherto done in the same establishment, and the great improvements that revolutionize a trade, and render old machinery and former tools useless, are introduced by those who think and study, while the rest of the world is asleep. I appeal to the history of the mechanic arts, and to the observation of my neighbors and fellow-citizens for the truth of what I say.

That knowledge is for the few, that we have an aristocracy and no republic of letters, is a bad but common opinion among men. This opinion is giving way before the advancing light of the age. Knowledge for the million is now as common an advertisement as dry goods and groceries. The press has made books cheap, and the cheapness has made the multitude readers. In our land, and in all lands where the Anglo Saxon tongue is spoken, the people will have knowledge. The blessedness of this diffusion is incalculable. If ignorance is not vice, it is its brother

and fast friend. Virtue and knowledge are handmaids of each other. But it has its evils-this cheap literature-and they are evils of no trivial character. The taste of the people has been corrupted by a surfeit of reading, and demands that which is frothy and frivolous, if not depraved. The activity of the age is unfavorable to solid reading, and men must have their news and their politics and their religious instructions administered in small doses, that they may take them rapidly, with their coffee in the morning, or in the railcar. Never was there a fairer illustration of the old saying, "too much of a good thing is good for nothing," than the newspapers furnish. They have wrought mischief in unfitting the mind for the calm contemplation of truth, for the sober investigation of opinions, and while they furnish the mere superficies to be skimmed in a minute the ocean is left untasted, much less explored.

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But I have not the time for reading," is the reply of those who feel the truthfulness of this, and have sense enough to admit that the pursuit of knowledge is infinitely desirable to make men rich and wise and happy. "I I have not time." Did you ever make a calculation to determine the quantity of knowledge you can compass in a given time. It is not impossible for the most active man in the city to give one hour, or even two, in each day to the improvement of his immortal mind. He ought to do it, or cease to think himself a man. Let him devote a part of this time in the early morning, or at the close of day, but in this hour or two he may read fifty pages, and in the course of a single year he will have perused 18,000 pages! In five years he has made himself the master of two hundred and fifty volumes of incalculable worth. Does it arrest the mind of any youth whom I address,

that it would be a pleasant acquisition to have perused the standard English poets? In one year, by reading two hours each day, he will have become familiar with every poet from Chaucer to Wordsworth. Would he read fiction? In one year, he will have finished nearly every novel that was ever written, worth reading.History? How soon, with industry and system, will the man of business make himself acquainted with the whole circle of history, ancient and modern? What depths of philosophy will he explore? What heights of learning will he mount? This calculation any man may make for himself, and the truth of figures will convince the incredulous.

And did it never occur to you that the most eminent scholars have pursued their studies under difficulties immeasurably superior to those which beset your path? Professor Heyne, of Gottingen, "one of the greatest classical scholars of his own or of any age," was born in the most abject poverty, the son of a poor weaver, and often saw his mother weeping and wringing her hands because she had not food for her children. He fought his way through the thickest difficulties and became an ornament to his race. Linnæus, the celebrated botanist, was apprentice to a shoemaker, and a scholar only upon charity. The world-famous Ben Jonson was a bricklayer, and it was when speaking of him, that Fuller, in his "English Worthies," says, "let not them blush that have, but those that have not a lawful calling." These, and hundreds more, have battled with poverty and triumphed. In our country, the way to knowledge is so easy that poverty scarcely imposes a barrier. There are no toll-gates on the road. Free schools are open to the young, and not a college in the land would shut its doors against a youth because he is poor. Two cents a week will give any

boy in Newark the range of this library with its thou sands of volumes. Who cannot be learned? will not read and learn?

Who

Blindness would seem to be the most insuperable bar to high attainments in knowledge, but where there is a will, there is a way. NICHOLAS SAUNDERson lost both his eyes by small pox when only a year old, yet in boyhood he beat his classmates in Latin and Greek, and in Mathematics made progress that put competition out of the question. He desired to go to Cambridge University as a student, but he was poor and could not, and he went there as a teacher. The blind scholar planted himself within the precincts of those halls of learning, and offered to give instruction in Mathematics; and more wonderful, he commenced with lectures on Optics. His success was complete. How could it be otherwise, with his perseverance? He commanded the attention and applause of the University, and was finally called to be the successor in its mathematical chair of Sir Isaac Newton. Æsop, the famous Grecian writer, was a slave, and as he rose from this obscure condition to be a most distinguished man, the Athenians erected a statue to his memory, and on its base they placed the image of a slave, this signifying that the path to glory is open to all. Dr. Johnson was a child of charity. self to learning and distinction. La Grange was grateful to no parent or patron for the success that crowned his exertions. Thomas Simpson, the celebrated mathematician, was turned out of doors by his father, a poor weaver, because he would not stick to his loom. These examples might be indefinitely extended. "The pursuit of knowledge under difficulties" is a subject full of interest, which might be profitably made the theme of an extended disquisition, but there are books devoted

Dr. Parr helped him

to the illustration, which you will readily find, that have furnished many of these incidents, and are full of others of similar pertinency and force.

Here you will resort to find those bright examples of diligence and success that will rouse the youthful mind to generous emulation of the great and good, that will point you to heights of knowledge and fields of enjoyment, which you may gain and call your own. Here you will find that even those men who have made the greatest improvements in the mechanic arts and thus conferred perennial blessings upon their race, have not been the dull, plodding wielder of the hammer and turner of the wheel, but men who thought and studied while their hands were busy with the tools. Thus is it in every walk of life. Knowledge and virtue are the arms of individual, as well as national strength, and he who will, may wield them both and conquer.

Mr. President-Those who have been familiar with the rise and progress of this Association, with the doubts and discouragements in which it was undertaken, the long and painful struggles of the infant enterprise, the immense and intense labor with which it was pushed on through the clouds with which its morning was obscured and its rising delayed, will appreciate the satisfaction with which I congratulate you and our associates, and the ladies and gentlemen, especially the youthful portion of this community upon the grand result. An edifice at once the ornament and defence of the city: an architectural ornament that has no rival among us, and a moral defence second only to the sacred temples which are dear to us as the ark of the covenant to ancient Israel-such an edifice has been reared, not by the munificence of one or two men of wealth, not by any one profession, sect or party, but by the contributions of the friends of learn