Books have two advantages. Chiefly they are tools for the mind. The foot's step is short, but the engine lengthens the stride and hastens it. The smith's blow is weak, but the trip-hammer multiplies the might of man's hand. Thus books are mental machines, enabling the mind of man to reap in many harvest fields and multiply the mental treasures. It takes years for Humboldt to search out the wonders of the Andes Mountains and other years for Livingstone to thread his way through the jungles of Africa. But a book, during two or three evenings by the fireside, enables man to journey through the Dark Continent without the dangers of fever, without experiencing the pain from the lion leaping out of the thicket to mutilate the arm of Livingstone. With a book we tramp over the mountains of two continents without once suffering the heavy fall over the precipice that weakened Humboldt. Books enable us to visit climes, cities, civilizations ancient and modern, that without them could never be seen during man's years, so few, and by man's strength, so insufficient. Great men and rich increase their influence by surrounding themselves by servants who fulfill their commands. Each president and prime minister strengthens himself by a cabinet. But what if the peasant or workman could surround himself with a group of counselors and advisers that included a hundred of the greatest intellects of his generation? What if some Herschel should approach the youth to say, "You need your night's rest for sleep; but for you I will give the years for studying the stars and their movements?" What if some Dana should say, "For you I will decipher the handwriting upon the rocks, trace the movement of the ice plows, search out the influence of the flames as they turn rocks into soil for vineyards?" What if some Audubon should say, "For you I will go through all the forests to find out the life and history of the winged creatures, from the humming-bird to hawk and eagle?" What if Niebuhr should say, "For you I will decipher the monuments, all ruins and obelisks, all man's parchments and manuscripts for setting forth man's upward progress through the centuries?" But this is precisely what books do for us.