is
peculiar employment, by his daily engagement in manual toil. I now
come to consider the objections which spring up in many minds, when
such views of the laborer's destiny are given. This is our second head.

First, it will be objected, that the laboring multitude cannot command
a variety of books, or spend much time in reading; and how, then, can
they gain the force of thought, and the great ideas, which were treated
of in the former lecture? This objection grows out of the prevalent
disposition to confound intellectual improvement with book-learning.
Some seem to think that there is a kind of magic in a printed page,
that types give a higher knowledge than can be gained from other
sources. Reading is considered as the royal road to intellectual
eminence. This prejudice I have virtually set aside in my previous
remarks; but it has taken so strong a hold of many as to need some
consideration. I shall not attempt to repel the objection by decrying
books. Truly good books are more than mines to those who can
understand them. They are the breathings of the great souls of past
times. Genius is not embalmed in them, as is sometimes said, but
_lives_ in them perpetually. But we need not many books to answer the
great ends of reading. A few are better than many, and a little time
given to a faithful study of the few will be enough to quicken thought
and enrich the mind. The greatest men have not been bookmen.
Washington, it has often been said, was no great reader. The learning
commonly gathered from books is of less worth than the truths we gain
from experience and reflection. Indeed, most of the knowledge from
reading, in these days, being acquired with little mental action, and
seldom or never reflected on and turned to use, is very much a vain
show. Events stirring the mind to earnest thought and vigorous
application of its resources, do vastly more to elevate the mind than
most of our studies at the present time. Few of the books read among
us deserve to be read. Most of them have no principle of life, as is
proved by the fact that they die the year of their birth. They do not
come from thinkers, and how can they awaken thought? A great
proportion of the reading of this city is useless, I had almost said
pernicious. I should be sorry to see our laborers exchanging their
toils for the reading of many of our young ladies and young gentlemen,
who look on the intellect as given them for amusement; who re