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The Courier-Review.
Astor once said, I believe, that in the accumulation of wealth the difficulty had been to get the first million; after that it was an easy task.
Then as to the home this library owns. I remember when it had scarcely any home at all, with hardly a "local habitatation or a name." Then the books were all in one little room! It lived in one room like a good many people in Kansas in those days! And now it has this magnificent building! Surely this will teach us not to disdain the day of small beginnings, but to render gratitude for the past, pride in the present, and hope and trust for the future.
Now I should like to summarize my personal impressions on the present conditions of the library, especially in view of this dedication today, but have nothing original to say on the subject, so shall have to turn to that resource of the speaker, "that last infirmity of noble minds," quotation. I will tell you something that was said to me a few days ago by a commercial traveller. In reference to that body of energetic, whole-souled men, the commercial traveller, I must say that there seems to be still a little indefiniteness in the minds of many in regard to them. In this, as in other libraries, we find no exhaustive treatise on the natural history of the drummer. The travelling man is not adequately represented in literature. He scarcely appears. Charles Dickens wrote the "Tales of an Uncommercial Traveller;" but the wonderful tales of the "commercial" man that he tells to his customers, his tales on the road, and at the "Wayside Inn," where he sojourns over night and monopolizes the best rooms of the hotel; all these just barely suffice to get him into literature. There is no other type of man who is so various. He seems to be all mankind. But he has one invaluable characteristic: he is always ready of wit and ready of retort. Well, one man I want to tell you about was an old Hebrew traveling man. He was in a railway carriage, and all of the rest were traveling men too, with the exception of one minister. He had been helping at the dedication of a new church or a new library (not this library—and it wasn't any of these
ministers); consequently dignity sat high enthroned upon his brow. Our old Hebrew friend supposed that all the rest of the company were drummers and he proceeded to address the minister familiarly and as an equal and companion. He opened the conversation by saying, "Mein goot friend, what ish your line?" The preacher drew himself up somewhat haughtily and replied, "Brains, sir." And then this Israelite without guile replied, "Prains, dot ish a very goot line surely. You garries no samples, hey!" There was another travelling man, a young man this time. I did not think he was very wise—not, however, because he wore eye-glasses, or a little fine gold chain, nor that he parted his hair in the middle, for, in these days, very many great and good men thus nobly "do" their part, but because he trained a little tender curl on his forehead. Now he carried his samples, which were perfumery. He expatiated on the fine quality of his "quadruple extract." And I said, "My young friend, what in the world do you mean by quadruple extract?" And, to show that he did know, he answered, "Why, consecrated extract."
Now there has been a good deal said here about the virtues of books. Books—those of the library of Kansas University, selected with the finest discrimination—these are the finest extracts, concentrated extracts of the literature and the learning, the wisdom and wit of the world. And this memorial temple, which shrines the books, after the appropriate dedicatory services of this day is now fitly consecrated to the cause of science and of learning in Kansas and the West.
Webster Davis: "The University and Practical Life."
I have a speech prepared for this occasion, but I will not give it to you at this late hour. I came to Lawrence today, not specially to make a speech at this time; I have a date in town tonight, hence I will not attempt to make two speeches in this town the same day. It is after an absence of ten years that I find myself in Kansas University. I note signs