of 6,000 volumes, its classes for the study of the foreign
languages, elocution, music; its opportunities of discussion and
debate, of healthful bodily exercise, and, though last not least--
for by this I set great store, as a very novel and excellent
provision--its opportunities of blameless, rational enjoyment, here
it is, open to every youth and man in this great town, accessible
to every bee in this vast hive, who, for all these benefits, and
the inestimable ends to which they lead, can set aside one sixpence
weekly. I do look upon the reduction of the subscription, and upon
the fact that the number of members has considerably more than
doubled within the last twelve months, as strides in the path of
the very best civilization, and chapters of rich promise in the
history of mankind.

I do not know whether, at this time of day, and with such a
prospect before us, we need trouble ourselves very much to rake up
the ashes of the dead-and-gone objections that were wont to be
urged by men of all parties against institutions such as this,
whose interests we are met to promote; but their philosophy was
always to be summed up in the unmeaning application of one short
sentence. How often have we heard from a large class of men wise
in their generation, who would really seem to be born and bred for
no other purpose than to pass into currency counterfeit and
mischievous scraps of wisdom, as it is the sole pursuit of some
other criminals to utter base coin--how often have we heard from
them, as an all-convincing argument, that "a little learning is a
dangerous thing?" Why, a little hanging was considered a very
dangerous thing, according to the same authorities, with this
difference, that, because a little hanging was dangerous, we had a
great deal of it; and, because a little learning was dangerous, we