Order op Exercises 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 SPEAR . LIBRARY, 
 
 OBERLIN, OHIO, 
 
 Monday, Nov. 2, 1885. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 PRESS OF DELAND & BARTA, 
 54 Pearl Street. 
 
 1885. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Order of Exercises 
 
 AT THE 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 OBERLIN, OHIO. 
 
 Monday, Nov. 2, 1885. 
 
 BOSTON: • 
 
 PRESS OF DELAND & BARTA, 
 54 Pearl Street. 
 
 1885. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/orderofexercisesOOfros 
 
0\rvLY- 
 
 iDeflicatian oi[ ^peai| liifii|ai|y. 
 
 f HIS elegant building, erected with funds donated by Rev. Charles 
 V. Spear, of Holbrook, Mass., worthily supplying an urgent need 
 for the library and temporarily also for the Natural History collec- 
 tion of Oberlin College, was dedicated with appropriate and interesting 
 services in the presence of a large audience of students and citizens, 
 on Monday, November 2d. 
 
 The building stands in a conspicuous place in the College Park, near 
 North Main Street, facing south, and in style and ornamentation differs from 
 all other previously erected college buildings. The main library and read- 
 ing-room, in which the exercises were held, is well lighted, airy, and taste- 
 fully decorated, and had just received its chief adornment. This is the 
 beautiful life-sized statue of the “ Reading Girl,” donated to the College by 
 Mr. Aaron Healy of Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
 The addresses of the dedication exercises, which are presented some- 
 what abbreviated in .the following pages, give some account of the origin of 
 the gift, a good description of the building itself, a brief plea for the 
 general use of the library by the citizens, the presentation of the statue by 
 Prof. Currier, and an able oration by Prof. W. G. Frost. They are ad- 
 mirably fitted to call the attention of the friends of the College to what is 
 now its greatest need, the enlargement of its library. 
 
 It is a happy omen for the success of any appeal that may be made in 
 this behalf, that since the dedication of the building, its donor has pro- 
 posed to provide from the future sale of the Maplewood Institute* property, 
 a deed of which has been given to the College, a fund to be called, in honor 
 of his deceased wife, “ The Holbrook Library Fund,” the annual income 
 of which shall go to the increase of the library. The amount of this fund 
 is, however, uncertain, and it will probably not become available for several 
 years. 
 
 * Maplewood Institute of Pittsfield, Mass., was for many years one of the leading schools for young ladies 
 in New England. Its graduates and former pupils are holding posts of honor and influence in this country 
 and in various foreign mission fields. The property brings with it hallowed associations and sacred sympathies 
 which may well move every child of Oberlin to snecial effort and sacrifice in connection with Professor 
 Frost’s present labors for the increase ot the Library.- 
 
4 
 
 DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY, 
 
 Sungnamme tf^e J}xEitcises was as follows : 
 
 Music — Chorus from the Conservatory, led by Prof. F. B. Rice, Miss 
 Wattles, pianist. 
 
 Address — The Gift, Prof. A. A. Wright. 
 
 Statement of the Building Committee, by Prof. J. M. Ellis. 
 
 Response by the Donor, Rev. C. V. Spear. 
 
 Presentation of the Statue of the Reading Girl, by Prof. A. H. Currier. 
 
 Address by Prof. W. G. Frost. 
 
 Dedicatory Prayer — President J. H. Fairchild. 
 
 Music — Choir. 
 
 Benediction, by President Fairchild. 
 
 iAclflitess % Rttol. $?nigf|t. 
 
 Mr. President , Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 We are gathered to-day to open and consecrate to its future uses this 
 beautiful building. For months you have been watching its progress, as it 
 arose from the earth, unfolding one fair feature after another, until to-day it 
 stands completed. As we enter, and take possession, it is fitting that our 
 first expression should be one of appreciation of the generosity of our 
 benefactor who has furnished the means for its erection, and of the circum- 
 stances attendant upon the gift. If I were to attempt a complete history 
 of the matter, I should allude to providential circumstances, some of them 
 far back in time — to the generous Christian nurture which our friend 
 received from his parents ; to the hard-earned money with which he helped 
 himself through Amherst College ; to his excellent scholarship while there ; 
 to his faithful spirit as a minister of the gospel ; to his successful work of 
 over thirty years at Maplewood Institute, a seminary of learning for young 
 women at Pittsfield, Mass.; to the assistance, in all these labors, of his 
 beloved wife who has gone to her rest. And we may recall also the fact 
 that his sister-in-law, Miss Mary W. Holbrook, contributed the full endow- 
 ment for the chair of Homiletics in our Seminary, which was filled at that 
 time by Professor Mead. . 
 
 During the year, while the erection of the building was going forward, 
 it was my good fortune to be thrown into most intimate association with Mr. 
 Spear. We were travelling together in foreign lands, and many were the 
 times when our thoughts and our conversation turned toward the spot where 
 we are now assembled. 
 
 Our interest in this home enterprise led us to visit many of the impor- 
 tant libraries that came in our way, to study their development and 
 management, and to note their contents. We tested their value upon a 
 single point at Strasburg, where we desired to learn certain details of the 
 
DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY. 
 
 life of John Frederic Oberlin, after whom this town and College were 
 named. Accordingly we called for all the literature they had concerning 
 him in the University library; and found that there were no less than 25 
 books and pamphlets, which included nearly everything that ever had been 
 published upon the subject in German, French, or English. 
 
 By our continued interchange of thought upon these subjects, I came to 
 know, perhaps as well as anyone here present, the earnestness of my 
 companion’s desire that his gift should tell upon the scholarship and equip- 
 ment of all who come here to study. It does not stop with any satisfaction, 
 however great, at the furnishing of an excellent house. It comes from a 
 deep purpose born of a truly benevolent and self-denying spirit, to assist in 
 the work of Christian education to which the whole efforts of the College 
 are directed ; and this friendship and sympathy are worth more to us than 
 the building itself. His valuable gifts of books upon art and science and 
 theology, we have already had occasion to acknowledge; and he has now 
 the satisfaction of seeing how one good thing prepares the way for another 
 in the statue of the Reading Girl which is to be presented here to-day. 
 
 We trust, and believe, that he will yet see with his own eyes the rapid 
 gathering of literary treasures into this storehouse during many years which 
 are to come. 
 
 depart oi[ tlje Building Committee Iiy i^His. 
 
 The announcement by Mr. Spear, in the spring of 1884, that he was 
 ready to furnish $25,000 for a library building, opened the way to meet the 
 most pressing need of the College. After consultation it was decided to 
 arrange also for the present accommodation of the cabinet, and the teach- 
 ing and the work connected with it, in the library building. Mr. Spear and 
 Prof. C. G. Fairchild at once commenced to devise a plan for such a 
 building. They visited the principal libraries of the country, talked and 
 corresponded with experienced librarians, and considered what was the most 
 complete and commodious provision that could be secured for the sum 
 offered. Mr. F. O. Weary, of Akron, O., was employed as architect, and 
 Messrs. Parker & Kinney of Norwalk as builders. The ceremony of the 
 laying of the corner-stone took place Oct. 6th, 1884, with an address by Prof. 
 C. G. Fairchild, and closing with an allusion to the fact that Mr. Spear was 
 across the water in search of health, and with the hope that he might be 
 present and share in the services of the dedication, which hope we are 
 glad to know is fulfilled to-day. 
 
 The building is constructed so as to be safe from lire. All timbers and 
 joists and rafters and roof-boards are covered with a coat either of plaster 
 
6 
 
 DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY. 
 
 or asbestos. The floors are laid on the top of a surface of mortar. The front 
 rooms are separated from the two large rooms in the rear by a fire-wall that 
 runs through the roof-boards to the slate, and the openings are closed with 
 iron-clad doors. 
 
 The walls are sandstone from the La Grange quarry, laid in rock-face 
 rubble courses. The whole building is about 70 feet square. The reading- 
 room is 64 by 40 feet and 30 feet in height. The corner rooms in the front 
 are 26 by 27 feet and 14 feet in height. The rooms on the first floor are the 
 same size and 14 feet in height. On the third floor are suites of rooms for 
 janitor and librarian and a large center room for work-room for library and 
 cabinet. The first floor, given up for the present to the department of 
 Natural History, is designed to be occupied with books as the need arises. 
 
 The entire building thus occupied will afford shelf-room for 175,000 
 volumes. 
 
 INTERIOR VIEW. 
 
 ^Miiess fiy IJey. ©fiaiilcs X- ?psaii. 
 
 I rejoice, Mr. President and friends, in the kind providence that permits 
 me, after so long an absence, again to walk your streets and receive your 
 cordial greetings, and I am especially thankful that I may share to-day in 
 
DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY. 
 
 7 
 
 your joys and mutual congratulations over this completed building. Let me 
 add the further personal expression of my gratification that the finished 
 work, which I am most happy to hear you call “beautiful” and pronounce 
 “ good,” Seems to me, who saw it before only in the pencilled drawings of the 
 architect, and now behold it for the first time in its fair proportions of wall 
 of stone and beautiful interior, to possess a charm of excellence and adap- 
 tation I did not quite expect. 
 
 The building, like all human works of any value, is a resultant of many 
 diverse forces. God, the great source of good, is its Giver, and to Him be 
 all thanks and praise. By it, and all that Oberlin is, has been, and will be, 
 whether of material possessions or spiritual and most beneficent forces, He 
 answers the prayers and honors the faith of its founders. And so they, 
 under Him, are the donors of the College and of this added building to the 
 world. 
 
 The College outgrows its accommodations. The property of a young 
 ladies’ school in Massachusetts, of some forty years’ use, is no longer 
 needed for that use, and its Principal, long in sympathy with the struggles 
 and the necessities and the noble work of the young colleges of the West, 
 desires to make its resources available for their use. And a providential 
 acquaintance with the special need of this College, succeeding a general 
 previous knowledge of its worth and work, leads, in the summer of 1884, 
 to the immediate appropriation of the proposed funds to the erection of this 
 building, which we to-day dedicate to its future use. 
 
 And what may we hope its use to be ? A beautiful and most appropri- 
 ate and most valuable work of art is its first adornment, and by the favor 
 of its generous donor and the forethought of the committee, stands here to 
 grace this first occasion, a promise of its pleasant greetings of all who in 
 future decades and scores of years, perhaps centuries, shall come hither. 
 May it not be a promise and prophecy of many another work of art that 
 shall gratify the eye and educate the taste of student and citizen and friend ? 
 
 A further use of the building is of course to receive the libraries that 
 await larger and better accommodations. Will not an important and im- 
 mediate benefit and use of these ample shelves be to invite large-hearted 
 donors to add to the book treasures already accumulated ? I hear with 
 much gratification that such a result begins already to be realized. And I 
 am sure that the Faculty, students, and citizens will vie with each other in 
 praiseworthy and persistent endeavors to enlarge the library and so increase 
 its value and usefulness. May the time not be far distant when it shall 
 overrun the limits now proposed for it, and require for its proper storage 
 and use the entire building. Indulge me in a little reminiscence. I had 
 once the honor to be the President of a library association, and in process of 
 
8 
 
 DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY. 
 
 time I had the greater honor to transfer the responsibility of my office to 
 the shoulders of a wealthy and large-hearted financier and statesman of 
 national fame, who gave to his native town a beautiful $50,000 building into 
 which in due time the small library and hardly the beginning of a museum 
 were removed. And now, but a few years later, 20,000 volumes go from 
 its shelves in most active circulation, and its museum and well-provided 
 reading-rooms have become a most interesting, instructive, and constant 
 resort. And recently while abroad I executed, with the aid of Professor 
 Wright, a commission to purchase for its art gallery $1,200 worth of casts of 
 antique statuary, a good portion of which I found, as I passed through the 
 place last week, on their pedestals, and delighting and enriching the 
 numerous frequenters of the gallery. So sure, and much more sure, from 
 your increasingly wide constituency, in bequests and donations, will these 
 rooms, above and below, gather treasures for the College and the 
 community. 
 
 And how — this suggests the topic, and I should like to say a word 
 about it — how should the library be used? For whom is its wealth of 
 blessing to be gathered and dispensed ? Of course, to the College. We 
 spent last winter a month in an interesting and ancient German town of 
 50,000 people, where was accumulated in a fine old castle-palace a library 
 of 750,000 volumes. It did not seem to do very much good. No throng 
 of readers and book-takers was ever there, coming and going, during our 
 visits, to its well furnished office. It had no such spirit of enterprise, or 
 convenient and accessible catalogues as your and our American libraries 
 generally show and possess. And yet it was a magnificent reservoir, from 
 which flowed in the ever open channels of the churches and the schools, 
 through preacher and professor, its beneficent streams. Of how much 
 greater use to the eager student, and the already learned Professor, will be 
 the smaller, but better adapted and every way more accessible treasures of 
 literature and science in this library! 
 
 Shall the community at large have place and welcome here? I confess 
 my own observation elsewhere gives me some interest in this question, as I 
 suppose it is a question, here. In closest harmony and sympathy, as the 
 college and town are, to a degree nowhere else to be seen, the building well 
 located for a community of interest and use, likely to receive a double 
 benefit, in the greater intelligence and sympathy with its aims and work, if 
 the town may make the freest use of the library, and sure of its aid in its 
 enlargement, and with apparent room now for all, why should not the 
 College invite the town to a large participation of its benefits ? Let me 
 
 again refer to a little experience. The use of the public library I have 
 mentioned is already far wider and more beneficial than its founders ever 
 
DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY. 
 
 9 
 
 dreamed. A single good-sized room in the building contains the reference 
 library, and the use which the high-school boys and girls make of those 
 encyclopedias and other works of reference is a constant gratification and 
 surprise to the president, who declares it the most useful of all the depart- 
 ments of the complex institution. I need not say, in this presence, how 
 prominent and promising a feature of our new methods of teaching this use 
 of books by young students is. 
 
 Let me briefly add, in closing, one further thought, that to my mind 
 enhances the value and glorifies all the future use and benefits of the edifice. 
 The frequenters of this library who in steady procession are to ascend these 
 steps and throng these rooms, to pursue investigations, solve doubts, acquire 
 general information, solace care by pleasing diversion, or ennoble themselves 
 by quiet communion with the great and good of the past, will, I am per- 
 suaded, go to their life-work in the pulpit or in the court-room, the dwelling 
 of the sick or the editorial sanctum, the legislative hall or the more private 
 walks of life — in the teeming city or the wide prairie, in far off Africa or the 
 isles of the sea, with a broader and richer equipment, and, may we not hope, 
 with a more quickened spiritual life for the added material resources this 
 building gives to Oberlin College. 
 
 statue clj “ IgEerfling <^ir[l ” 
 
 Was presented by Prof. Albert H. Currier, who is a relative of the donor, 
 and has been for many years a frequent visitor at his home. He spoke 
 substantially as follows : 
 
 Mr. President, my Associates in the Faculty , and Students of Oberlin 
 College : It gives me great pleasure to present to the College, on this occa- 
 sion, on behalf of the donor, Mr. Aaron Healy, of Brooklyn, N. Y., this 
 statue of the “ Reading Girl.” It is not the first gift of Mr. Healy to the 
 College. He is entitled to a place among our benefactors by reason of 
 numerous previous donations of books to the Reference Library of the 
 Theological Seminary. This statue, however, is by far his most important 
 gift. He first announced his purpose to bestow it upon us in May of last 
 year, soon after Mr. Spear had signified his intention to build for us this 
 library. At that time he wrote : “ I will send it to Oberlin, because I think it 
 the best place I know of for it, and where it will be appreciated, and a joy 
 to the students for a long time.” When informed a few weeks since that 
 the building for which the Reading Girl was intended was nearly finished 
 and to be dedicated to-day, he, to make this occasion more complete, fulfilled 
 
DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY. 
 
 IO 
 
 his promise of giving it — by boxing it up and sending it to us — and it now 
 •stands before us. 
 
 It had stood in his home parlor fourteen years, an object of beauty 
 around which his family life revolved, and a daily joy through all that time. 
 Its worth as a gift from Mr. Healy to the College is not to be estimated by 
 its money value, though that is considerable ; we must, to appreciate it as 
 a token of regard, think of it as among the heart-treasures of the donor. 
 
 THE “READING GIRL.” 
 
 It would not be strange if he and his children felt some regret at parting 
 with it. It had taken on a kind of personality to them and come to be 
 regarded as a silent, not inanimate inmate of their home. In the letter, by 
 which he informed me that the statue had started on its journey hither, he 
 says : tl It has given us all much enjoyment, and never looked more beauti- 
 ful to us than when she was leaving the house, as blessings brighten as they 
 take their flight. But we find our compensation in the thought that she 
 
DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY. 
 
 I I 
 
 will be a source of pleasure to many more admirers than she could have in 
 our parlor. I hope she will prove to be a lasting blessing to all concerned 
 with your important institution.’’ 
 
 You will all agree with me in the opinion that nothing could be more 
 appropriate for the adornment of this particular place. We need only to 
 look at it to be struck with its singular fitness for the reading-room of the 
 Library building of the College, which first opened its doors to young 
 women seeking the higher education. 
 
 As a work of art it may be said also to embody in itself, and happily to 
 express, the thoughts that naturally occur in this place. Perpetual youth 
 and unfading beauty are among her charms. For this she is a symbol of 
 Wisdom, whose attractions never decay to those whose eyes have been 
 opened to see them. Those who look upon her face to-day will grow old 
 and pass away, but she will not change. The sweet, thoughtful seriousness 
 that we observe will remain to stimulate to studiousness future generations 
 of students. 
 
 j^ffcfllESS By Q- ®itost. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — We have all realized during these past months 
 something of the power of architecture. Lectures upon this subject have 
 been delivered here for many years, but they were purely theoretical, as 
 would be a lecture here upon mountain scenery, or the constellations of the 
 tropics. Now, however, we have more than theory or photographs. There 
 is scarcely a boy in Oberlin who could not appreciate Ruskin’s noble defini- 
 tion of this noble art as “that which so disposes and adorns the edifices 
 reared by man, for whatsoever uses, that the sight of them may contribute to 
 his mental health, power and pleasure.” 
 
 It has been a pure delight like that afforded by poetry and music, to 
 watch lintel and arch, pillar and capital, chimney and turret rising before 
 our eyes ; to see the oak, toughened by a thousand storms, and the iron 
 beams, fresh from Vulcan’s smithy, fitted to their places ; and at last to 
 behold the finished structure, in all its loveliness of form, color and propor- 
 tion, with its very stones smiling into flowers — “a thing of beauty and a 
 joy forever.” 
 
 ’Mid such surroundings it is no surprise, no incongruity, to find that one 
 of the real graces, carved from the pure element of which gods were made, 
 has taken up her abode here, to be the Genius Loci , and in her absorption 
 in her book, as w r ell as her unconsciousness of admiring eyes, to be the 
 model for all our reading girls. 
 
DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY. 
 
 12 
 
 Dazed by this luxury of architecture and of art, we may, for the time 
 being, forget the substantial uses of the building, and its place in our 
 college work. That place is a central one. In this munificent gift all 
 departments are sharers. There is but one place which will be more 
 familiar to every student than this room. Yonder is the Chapel — the 
 college altar ; here is the college hearth. 
 
 In a great library, more than in any other place, we realize that we are 
 the heirs of all the ages. Without books the centuries would fall apart, 
 and the dying past could make no will, and leave no legacy. 
 
 When the alphabet was discovered, the race could have a history, a 
 storehouse of accumulated wisdom, a library. Then came the age of 
 scribes, with styles, and quills, and parchment, and papyrus, lovingly and 
 laboriously copying the best thoughts of one generation for the study of 
 the next. And then came printing, which placed a trumpet in the mouth 
 of genius, so that each golden word might be reproduced, echoed, in a 
 thousand volumes scattered over the world. 
 
 By these inventions we are enabled to build here a Pantheon to the 
 genius of all lands and ages. Every great teacher, every high-priest of 
 learning, every leader of thought, will be here, not in a cold dull image, 
 but in his living, breathing, burning words. Westminster Abbey, Dumfries 
 Kirkyard, or the Catacombs, may hold their ashes, and their bones, but 
 their immortal part — their thoughts, will be here. 
 
 Nor do we scorn the gifts of smaller contributors to human knowledge. 
 These shelves are the comb in which shall be stored honey gathered by ten 
 thousand anonymous bees from all the fields of human thought. They are 
 of every language and tongue — a silent Babel. 
 
 Rivals and enemies will sit here side by side, in “ the pure democracy 
 of letters.” Truth and Error, in true Protestant fashion, will be left to the 
 survival of the fittest — Buckle, Hume, Paley, and Joseph Cook, Hodge 
 and Finney, the Bibliotheca Sacra and the Andover Review. 
 
 How many a pilgrim to Parnassus will in this room catch the first 
 glimpses of the promised land before him ! How many a novice in letters 
 will, beneath this window open to the sky, discover for the first time that 
 Horace was more than the author of a college text-book, and that Milton 
 and Schiller are not mere titles on the backs of books. An innumerable 
 company of genial friends will await the tired school-boy in this quiet 
 retreat. Here will be Poole, the great librarian, to refer him to the best 
 magazine articles on any subject, and Allibone, to gossip about the lives 
 of noted people. Here will be the great specialists in every branch of 
 learning to give him any information he may ask, and better still, the 
 orators and essayists, ready to lend him thoughts, figures, and eloquence. 
 
DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY. 
 
 3 
 
 But to meet these ideals we must have something more than shelves 
 and stained windows ; we must have the books ; books, till no department 
 of thought is unrepresented ; books, till no author is forgotten ; books, till 
 no inquirer shall be turned away unsatisfied; books, till students from 
 distant places shall come here to find what they cannot find elsewhere — 
 books of all descriptions, from the ephemeral pamphlet which is supposed to 
 be read but once, up to the learned and ponderous tomes which are never 
 read at all ; quartos, duodecimos, octavos, folios; bindings in paper, cloth, 
 calf, sheep, and morocco ; parchments, illuminated missals and editiones 
 principes from the dim 9th and 15th centuries, as well as the swarming 
 products of the dazzling nineteenth ; books, till the shelves are full ; books, 
 till the stacks are full ; books, till the dry bones and other representatives 
 of the lower orders are expelled from the basement, and the entire build- 
 ing, from garret to cellar, is packed with the accumulated records of human 
 thought. What enterprise could reinforce every department like this ? 
 What other feature of our work can be so surely and speedily brought 
 to commanding eminence ? And what gift can we more surely anticipate ? 
 
 The modern library, like every other modern institution, is the result 
 of a process of evolution. It is more than books in a building. Ever since 
 Solomon’s famous aphorism upon the making of many books, men have 
 wrestled with the problem of classification and arrangement. Yet most 
 libraries are sadly defective. The vast stores of the Pontifical library of 
 the Vatican have no catalogue. One may stand in those lordly chambers 
 and be sure that somewhere within a hundred yards of him lies every book 
 that has ever been written, save those of the Index Expurgatorius, and yet 
 be helpless and hopeless in the search. A few monks who have spent 
 their lives there, poring 
 
 “ Over many a quaint and curious volume 
 Of forgotten lore,” 
 
 know something of the whereabouts of certain classes of books. But when 
 they die, their knowledge dies with them, and the rare volumes are left to 
 darkness and the worms. 
 
 Who does not remember Carlyle’s feeling lament over the pamphlets of 
 the British Museum ? “ There are,” he says, “ from thirty to fifty thousand 
 
 pamphlets of the civil war ; huge piles of mouldering wreck. They have 
 been printed, but never edited, only as you edit wagon-loads of broken 
 bricks, simply by tumbling up the wagon. Their sound is not a voice ; it 
 is a wide-spread, inarticulate, slumberous mumblement, issuing from the 
 lake of eternal sleep.” 
 
 Many systems of classification have only succeeded in concealing the 
 
DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY. 
 
 14 
 
 books, placing them, with perverse ingenuity, where only a philosopher 
 would think of placing them, and where no other man, philosopher or 
 otherwise, would think of looking for them. 
 
 Like the medieval system of classification, was the medieval plan of 
 library administration. At first books were bound in iron and chained to 
 posts, where the literary public might come and read. And to this day in 
 many libraries the student can see only one book at a time, which is passed 
 out to him by an attendant, like a captive’s meal through prison bars. A 
 young man in a neighboring institution wrote to his father that in passing 
 the library one Sabbath morning, he noticed an open window, crawled 
 through it, and oblivious to meals and services, spent one whole glorious 
 day among the books. We hope our students may spend all the time 
 they choose among the books without committing burglary. 
 
 Gradually the true idea has dawned upon the world. Books are to be 
 read. Libraries are to facilitate reading. A book unknown or inaccessible 
 -is a book lost, like the sage Merwin, 
 
 “ When in the hollow oak he lay as dead, 
 
 And lost to life and use and name and fame.” 
 
 One thousand books read ten times are equivalent to ten thousand 
 books read once. The librarian is not to be a miser hoarding his treasures, 
 but a merchant pushing his wares upon the market. 
 
 The card catalogue of subjects, alphabetical and classified, and of 
 authors, is an invention, or rather a group of inventions, destined to affect 
 the scholarship of the world. It enables the seeker after knowledge to 
 find, with certainty and dispatch, upon the vast beach, whatever particular 
 sand grain of truth he is after. It is an Ariadne’s thread, to lead him 
 through all the labyrinthian paths of literature. It tells the uninitiated at 
 once all that has been written, rightly or wrongly, upon any subject. 
 Whether you seek a sonnet for a love-letter, or a remedy for a burned 
 finger, the card catalogue sends you to the proper shelf. Would you trace 
 the career of some great man like Webster? The catalogue refers you to 
 his speeches, his biography, his letters ; then the speeches of his friends and 
 of his critics; then the contemporary press, now praising and now censuring, 
 and giving his speeches as they were actually delivered — both the north- 
 ern and the southern editions of them ; and at last to the account of his 
 obsequies, and the judgment of this and that historian upon him. In this 
 way a full library and catalogue trace every subject to its last vein and 
 ramification, and make all human thought and knowledge available to the 
 humblest learner. All genius, all erudition, is placed at our command. 
 The Humboldts, the Shakespeares, the Aristotles, come to our call and 
 
DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY. 
 
 
 soothe our chafed moods or answer our questions — he that is the greatest 
 becomes the servant of all. 
 
 The library is a place for records and mementos, where the Lares and 
 Penates of the College may naturally dwell. Here will be deposited the 
 Oberlin Covenant, President Finney’s manuscripts, and the relics of the 
 “big tent ” and Tappan Hall. Here we shall build up the great collection 
 on Slavery. There is room here for portraits, and for busts. 
 
 With all these we trust the spirit of ancient Oberlin may enter in and 
 dwell here — that spirit that first dwelt in the log cabins and the hall of 
 slabs, and later in the beams of old Colonial and the bricks of Tappan — 
 the spirit of work, the spirit of prayer, the spirit of inquiry ; the spirit that 
 sent a missionary to the Rocky Mountains with no resources but an ear of 
 corn in his pocket, and a rich Father in Heaven ; that robust, earnest, 
 progressive spirit which moves the world. 
 
 Jn all the appointments of this structure we see the marks of per- 
 manency. Arthur Tappan gave the College in its infancy an influence and 
 a credit which assured its success ; but his funds were so expended that 
 they ceased to be useful, and to-day there is no name and no stone in 
 Oberlin to remind us of the merchant philanthropist. It is a neglect that 
 shames us, and which must be remedied. The architect, the builder, and 
 the committee have wrought more wisely here. These beautiful stones 
 may stand as long in the walls of Spear Library as they have stood in the 
 quarry. They are part of the eternal hills. They witnessed the world’s 
 creation, and they may see its dissolution. The constant stars will gaze 
 down, nightly, at the Reading Girl, when all other readers, of this and 
 succeeding generations, have passed away. 
 
 What a monument is such a building in this changing world ! Would 
 any man build for the future, let him build on college grounds. Such soil 
 is sacred. Private palaces grow antiquated and desolate, warehouses and 
 factories fall to decay, structures that are merely monumental are disfigured 
 by time ; but the lamp of learning burns steadily on ; a wisely planned 
 college building meets a permanent need, and while a college may grow old 
 it can never grow decrepit — the fresh sap is in it ; it is not merely an oak, 
 it is a succession of oaks which will continue to flourish while the world 
 stands. 
 
 It is an auspicious day for the University when she enters into the 
 possession of so important and fit a building as this. This day marks an 
 epoch in the life of every student, and still more in the life of every teacher. 
 It is a happy day for the librarian. It is a happy day for him whom Provi- 
 dence has enabled to make so princely a gift. We all join in the wish — 
 
6 
 
 DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY. 
 
 and we can wish him nothing better — that he may truly find it as blessed 
 to give as it is to receive. 
 
 i[oii liiEijciiiy. 
 
 To the Friends of Oberlin : 
 
 The College Library now contains 13,000 books, and perhaps 3,000 
 pamphlets. The books of the Union Library Association, 6,400 volumes, 
 and the Theological Reference Library, 2,000 volumes, are also available 
 to a portion of our students. Many of these books are obsolete, and 
 others came to the College at second hand, and are not of the highest 
 value. Less than 2,000 new books have been actually selected and pur- 
 chased by the Library Committee during the past eleven years.* 
 
 The lack of suitable rooms, and the urgency of other needs, have 
 caused this great interest to be comparatively neglected, but it can be neg- 
 lected no longer. 
 
 The work which this Institution is called upon to do cannot be per- 
 formed without far greater library facilities. Our teachers have long felt 
 cramped by the narrowness of our resources in this direction. They are 
 circumscribed by this lack of books, both in their own studies and in the 
 range of their instruction. Our professors are compelled to purchase from 
 their own means, books which should be furnished by the College, and 
 which are essential to their success in teaching. Not a single department 
 is adequately equipped. 
 
 Moreover, the advanced education of the present day requires the 
 teacher more and more to bring the student to share his own studies and 
 methods. This involves far greater use of the library. Subjects are 
 assigned to the student for original investigation. He is sent to the 
 Library to consult the primary authorities, and thus becomes accustomed to 
 independent work. We expect that a very large proportion of our students 
 will visit the Library every day. 
 
 The improvements in Library administration also bring this department 
 of our work into greater prominence and importance. 
 
 
 Volumes in College Library. 
 
 Average Annual Increase. 
 
 Society Libraries, &c. 
 
 Amherst .... 
 
 45,000 
 
 2,000 
 
 6,000 
 
 Michigan Univ. . . 
 
 44 A 3 ° 
 
 2.313 
 
 12,21 I 
 
 Marietta, (1882) . . 
 
 I 7 > 3 °° 
 
 536 
 
 12,700 
 
 Williams .... 
 
 23,000 
 
 1,000 
 
 6,000 
 
 10,000 
 
 Yale 
 
 124,000 
 
 29,000 
 
DEDICATION OF THE SPEAR LIBRARY. 
 
 n 
 
 The first great step toward meeting these pressing needs is taken by 
 the erection through the appreciative liberality of Mr. Spear, of the Library 
 Building. 
 
 We now confidently appeal to the former students and friends of Ober- 
 lin for donations, to enable us to fill a portion of this building with the 
 books which are indispensable. The present opportunity to put our 
 Library into better condition must not be lost. 
 
 No part of our work is in greater need of advancement ; none can be 
 more surely and rapidly improved ; and in no direction will gifts, whether 
 large or small, produce greater results. 
 
 Many friends of the Institution can never render financial assistance 
 unless they contribute to some such enterprise as this. Is there a single 
 friend of Oberlin who cannot give five dollars a year for five years ? Are 
 there not many who will gladly give fifty, one hundred, or one thousand 
 dollars ? 
 
 We are in urgent need of $25,000 to be expended in the next few years 
 in cataloguing and enlarging the Library, and beyond that we must aim to 
 secure a permanent endowment. 
 
 Our friends must remember that while the buildings recently given 
 increase very greatly our facilities and advantages, they do not help to 
 “make ends meet,” but are the occasion of increased expenditure. 
 
 The smallest gifts will be appreciated, and in every instance the donor’s 
 name will be recorded in the Treasurer’s office. 
 
 In the case of every individual contributing five hundred dollars, a 
 special label, commemorating the donor, shall be placed in each book pur- 
 chased from such funds. 
 
 In the case of every individual contributing twenty-five hundred dollars, 
 the money will be set aside as endowment, and the books annually pur- 
 chased shall commemorate the donor in perpetuum. 
 
 Subscriptions may be made payable in installments. 
 
 Contributions of books, especially rare books, files of periodicals, pam- 
 phlets relating to Slavery, or otherwise of historical interest, medals, coins, 
 works of art, etc., are solicited. 
 
 In view of the urgency of this need, and encouraged by the present 
 opportunity, we have requested Professor Frost to commit his regular work 
 to others for the winter term, and go into the field to lay this object before 
 the friends of the Institution. 
 
 Jas. H. Fairchild, President. 
 
 J. B. T. Marsh, Secretary and Treasurer.