The Library and Society: Reprints of Papers and Addresses
History
The Library and Society: Reprints of Papers and Addresses
Libraries and society; Library science -- Social aspects
While the bestowal of a park upon a community as one of the best uses
for surplus wealth will be universally approved, in embracing such
additions to it as conservatories, or in advocating the building of
memorial arches and works of adornment, it is probable that many will
think we go too far, and consider these somewhat fanciful. The material
good to flow from them may not be so directly visible; but let not any
practical mind, intent only upon material good, depreciate the value of
wealth given for these or for kindred aesthetic purposes as being
useless as far as the mass of the people and their needs are concerned.
As with libraries and museums, so with these more distinctively artistic
works; these perform their great use when they reach the best of the
masses of the people. It is worth more to reach and touch the sentiment
for beauty in the naturally bright minds of this class than that those
incapable of being so touched should be pandered to. For what the
improver of the race must endeavor to do is to reach those who have the
divine spark ever so feebly developed, that it may be strengthened and
grow. For my part, I think Mr. Phipps put his money to better use in
giving the workingmen of Allegheny conservatories filled with beautiful
flowers, orchids, and aquatic plants, which they, with their wives and
children, can enjoy in their spare hours, and on which they can feed the
love for the beautiful, than if he had given his surplus money to
furnish them with bread, for those in health who cannot earn their bread
are scarcely worth considering by the individual giver; the care of such
being the duty of the state. The man who erects in a city a truly
artistic arch, statue, or fountain makes a wise use of his surplus. "Man
does not live by bread alone."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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