Page:Address on the opening of the Free Public Library of Ballarat East, on Friday, 1st. January, 1869.djvu/28

 22 by the edifice which crowns the view. The Hall in which the people combine to lay up stores of intellectual wealth, not provided for the amusement of amateurs and dilletanti, but of which all are invited freely to partake. If it may be recorded of this generation that it provided means of education for the middle-aged and the old, as well as for the young, it will have acquitted itself of one of the most burthensome debts which it owes to posterity.

Of the arts which embellish life fostered under the sustaining influence of those who with cultivated minds and refined leisure can and will apply superfluous wealth to the development of genius, we cannot yet say much—at these our hard worked community has not yet arrived. Not of poetry alone may it with truth be said— Vacuæ carmina mentis opus.

The aphorism applies also to the kindred arts, her graceful associates. But they will come in due season to flourish with healthy natural vigor in a congenial soil, fostered by such a generous culture as that which has called into existence this building, and stimulated with such remarkable success the foundation of this Institution.

Of the future it is not given to man to speak with certainty, yet the least observant cannot fail to be struck with the necessity to prepare for changes to come. Already, not far from two millions of European descent are scattered, literally broadcast, over Australasia. When community of interest and of feeling shall have welded these separate provinces into a confederation like the "Dominion of Canada," bolder