p. 17

1044

-1198-
1861.

Milwaukee Dec. 9th, 1861.

Mr. L.C. Draper,

Dear Sir,-

I have your favor of the 3rd instant requesting my views of the importance of establishing at Madison a library for the benefit of the whole state. No intelligent person can doubt, that such an institution if founded and endowed with a fund sufficient to meet the current expenses, and to keep up with the new publications would be of immense value to the people of our state. If the books to be purchased were confined to those of scientific importance the maximum of usefulness would not be attained.

At present no original research can be properly conducted here for want of the necessary books of reference relating to the subject. Our people will always labor under great disadvantages and must always remain behind the advance of the age until such a library is established among us.

Whoever undertakes to do anything for Wisconsin in Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, Meteorology, Zoology or anything else must first make a pilgrimage to the Smithsonian Institution, the Astor Library and perhaps to several other places before he can ascertain the present condition of those sciences, where others have left off and where he must begin.

For this reason we may spend a lifetime in efforts to discover truths and establish principles that have already been fully known and illustrated in books to which we have no access[.] He who undertakes an investigation without first knowing what others have done is doing injustice to those who have gone before him, and may also be wasting his efforts in unprofitable labor.