Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/885

 A LIBRARY OF UNIVERSAL INFORMATION.

Entirely revised, and fully illustrated with Maps and Engravings.

The Necessity for a Cyclopædia. one that reads, every one that mingles in society, is constantly meeting with allusions to subjects on which he needs and desires further information. In conversation, in trade, in professional life, on the farm, in the family, questions are continually arising, which no man, well read or not, can always satisfactorily answer. If the facilities for reference are at hand, they are consulted, and not only is the curiosity gratified, and the stock of knowledge increased, but perhaps information is gained and ideas are suggested that will directly contribute to the business success of the party concerned.

But how are these facilities for reference to be had? How are the million to procure a library? How are they to obtain the means of informing themselves on every point in which they may be interested; of satisfying themselves with respect to persons and places, questions of art and science, religion and politics, literature and philosophy, agriculture, commerce, and manufactures? How can the working-man hope to bring within his reach the whole circle of sciences, and every point of human knowledge as developed up to the present moment? We answer, by subscribing to.

A Cyclopædia is preëminently the work for our country and generation. No one has time to grope among a hundred different works for every fact required, without the certainty of finding it at last. With a Cyclopædia, embracing every important subject, and having its topics alphabetically arranged, not a moment is lost. The matter in question is found at once, digested, condensed, stripped of all that is irrelevant and unnecessary, and verified by a comparison of the best authorities. Moreover, while only men of fortune can collect a library complete in all the departments of knowledge, a Cyclopædia, worth in itself, for purposes of reference, at least a thousand volumes, is within the reach of all—the clerk, the merchant, the professional man, the farmer, the mechanic. In a country like ours, where the humblest may be called to responsible positions requiring intelligence and general information, the value of such a work cannot be over-estimated.