Page:Address on the opening of the Free Public Library of Ballarat East, on Friday, 1st. January, 1869.djvu/20

 14 which, at the outset of their studies, their minds are nut fully prepared.

With some it is customary to speak in disparaging terms of the cheap literature of the present day. Here, again, discernment is required, for it is only to Beotian dulness or to culpable prejudice that a sweeping condemnation of books of that nature can be ascribed.

A vindication of the merits of (what are termed) "popular works" is not called for now, but the zenith and the nadir are not more far apart than the vile trash and ribald effusions given forth by those who trade upon the ignorance and licentious propensities of the vulgar—be they rich or poor—and the books carefully prepared with a sacred regard for the moral edification, as well as the material instruction of the people.

A bare allusion to the name of the fervid veteran Brougham and his zealous coadjutors, of those of Herschel, Airey, Whewell, Whately, Brewster, De Morgan, Lindley, with a galaxy of fine spirits who have rendered intelligible and familiar sciences previously sealed to the majority of the present generation; as well as of those of Constable, Lardner, Bohn, Chambers, Cassell, and a host of enterprising compilers and publishers who have devoted their lives and employed their capital in giving circulation in cheap form to the choicest standard writers of past ages, and to the productions of the pen of the historian, philosopher, traveller, economist, and moralist, should suffice to put such detractors out of court at once.

Why, then, this insatiable desire for superintending the studies of our guests? The majority of mankind