"There is nothing which more clearly marks the intellectual progress of Flint during the last fifty years than the edifice which toady is dedicated to free public use. In it is represented the desire for broader knowledge, a more perfect mental culture, a closer acquaintance with the best thought of the past and present and a clearer insight into the investigations and achievements of modern science. To satisfy the hungry longings of the mind, this building has been erected in order that it may serve as the repository in which to store the intellectual treasures of the world and from which the people, old and young, can draw for their enjoyment, their enlightenment and their inspiration.

"Libraries have stimulated and aided and , to a certain degree, have measured the civilization of nations and the intelligence of communities. Where learning is repressed and books are denied, there is subjugation and superstition. Where education prevails and books are easily accessible, there will be found improved social order, a clearer conception of individual rights and duties, a higher standard of public responsibility and greater freedom. Every additional library creates a new center of intellectual life, working for the elevation of mankind to a higher plane.

"It has been mentioned that the residence across the way facing the library building was the home of my father, a citizen of Flint respected and honored by his fellow townsmen. This circumstance in itself has little or no significance, but, Mr. chairman, your kindly mention of him today prompts me to allude, perhaps not inappropriately on this occasion, to his early struggle for education and to contrast the present with the past. He was born on a rocky New England farm which, by insistent and unremitting hard work, with the practice of painstaking frugality, furnished a scant livelihood. The prospect which opened up before the boy was one of toil and deprivation. He longed for better things and to rise above the narrow limitations of adverse surroundings. To accomplish this he must have education. His only hope for success in the outside world was through an outfit of mental equipment. I have heard him tell of his three months' schooling and the long walks through the snow to the distant school house. Denied the training of schools, it was for him to educate himself. Encouraged by a sympathizing mother, the few pennies that could be spared went for the purchase of school books, which were studied in the long hours of the night by the light of the home-made tallow dandles. The few books in the houses of neighboring farms were borrowed and mentally devoured. If there had been granted to him the opportunities and privileges which this institution will afford to the youth of the present time, what a flood of sunshine would have cheered and brightened his boyhood days. At eighteen he was the teacher of a country school, and in teaching others he had better opportunity for teaching himself. This story is not an unusual or extraordinary one. It is the story of hundred of New England farming boys of one hundred years ago. To them there was not royal road to learning. The path was stony and beset with thorns and briars. The laggard, the incompetent, the indifferent who entered it stumbled and fell by the way, but those with determined purpose and unfaltering will reached the goal. At the age when the university student receives his diploma, those men of rugged training were employed in the activities of life. While they had not the polish of the university, they had acquired self-reliance, and in their hard experience had gained the capacity for sound judgment and power of clear and positive expression which placed them on fair terms with their more favored contemporaries. The ultimate test of men is found in the quality of their performance.

"In studying the lives and career of those men of a hundred years ago and noting what they accomplished, the query is sometimes raised whether the modern methods of learning made easy are in every way advisable, whether the system of instruction which puts a prop here and lubricator there a pads the brain with esthetic culture tends to make strong men and strong women. The possession of much and varied information is useful, but still the question is at times presented whether the crowding of the brain with a miscellaneous assortment of learning, the parts of which have no relation to the whole, and whether the knowing of something about everything and not knowing everything about something, whether the superficial rather than the reality of knowledge, can ine very respect advantageously take the place of the training and discipline of the mind which wrought the mental toughness and fibre and brawn of the earlier days.

"I do not answer this question, nor do I enter upon its discussion. For me to attempt to do so in the presence of the able and distinguished educators who are with us today would be rank presumption.

"The library presents no such inquiry and is clouded with no such doubt. While the tendency, perhaps I should say the necessity, of the public school is to run all the children through one common mould, regardless of disposition or temperament, regardless of hereditary influences--in short, regardless of the child and the life before it--the library deals with the individual and meets the especial wants of the individual, whether in the department of literature or historical research, of philosophy or economics, or of science and arts. The library brings the student in close companionship with the best scholars and furnishes the inquirer and investigator with the searchlight that reveals the achievements of the world's ablest experts.

"There is no magical power in books. More than two hundred and fifty years ago, John Harvard, a young English clergyman, gave his private library and a small sum of money to establish a college in New England. It was a mere pittance, the merest trifle, when compared with the munificence of John Hopkins of Baltimore, or Leland Stanford in California, or John Rockefeller at Chicago, but it was the foundation of Harvard University, the pride and glory of Massachusetts. There lived to Harvard's time eminent statesmen and learned jurists and famous soldiers, some of whose names are now forgotten, or remembered only as found in biographies in the alcoves of libraries but the name of John Harvard is known and honored and blessed throughout the civilized world, and his fame will endure as the ages roll on.

"Little more than two hundred years ago a few orthodox Connecticut clergymen met by appointment in Saybrook at the mouth of the Connecticut River. Each one of them brought with him a book, which he placed upon the table, and in that simple ceremony, and in the dedication of that little pile of books to the uses of education was the beginning of the great Yale University. On the campus of New Haven stands the library building constructed of brown stone, beautiful in its architecture. Perfect in its proportions, and admirably adapted to the use for which it was intended. The students of fifty years ago gazed upon it with admiration, for it was then by far the finest of the college buildings, and he regarded its contents with reverence' but now the word has come to us that it is proposed to tear down this building, so dear to the hearts of thousands of men throughout the land, in order that upon its site a larger and grander and more magnificent building cane be erected for the accommodation of the accumulating treasures of the university. What a marvelous growth from the little seed planted by these Connecticut clergymen.

"It was thus two hundred years ago that a collection of books, the nucleus of a library, was the primal source from which sprang each of the two older universities of this country, representing as they do so much of the intellectual force of this national in its historical development.

"The donor of this building, in the centuries to come, will not be remembered as the successful iron and steel worker, or as the great captain of industry that he was, but for his enlightened liberality and colossal benefactions to the work in the diffusion of knowledge among men through the agency of books. I congratulate the people of Flint in their coming into the possession of this building of substantial construction and excellent design, and which adds another to the attractive public buildings of which they are justly proud. It is evidence that what was once the little village of Grand Traverse has now become a city of importance, not merely in industrial activities and commercial transactions and social and political influences, but also in educational advantages. This building may not impress the thoughtless and frivolous who pass by without entering it, but those who come with serious purpose will find within its walls the gems and jewels that enrich the mind and give to life added pleasures. It is accessible to all and as free as is the highway to the traveler.

"Coming into this possession, new duties confront you. The library must be equipped and maintained. Let the work be done intelligently and liberally. A few generous public-spirited women forty years or more ago started this movement and, in spite of many obstacles, carried it forward with unselfish and self-denying zeal. They deserve unstinted praise and lasting remembrance. The task now falls upon the men and may they exhibit the same willing spirit and fostering care. Remember that the public library is the crown of the public school in the development of higher education. regard it as the essential adjunct for completing and perfecting the intellectual growth of the community. Cherish it as a precious asset and the city will find its reward in the enlightened mind and the grateful heart of its people.

"Mr. Crapo's address was scholarly, thoughtful and stimulating, and received close attention and approval. Then followed two short congratulatory talks by Hon. William C. Maybury, ex-mayor of Detroit, and the Hon. Francis A. Blades, controller of the same city, two gentlemen who are always given a hearty and cordial reception in the City of Flint.

"One more ceremony of dedication remained, as part of the jubilee, namely, that of the county court house. This took place on the steps of the new building, and long before the hour set for the ceremony a great crowd had assembled in the same place where men had gathered the day before to listen to the army veterans. After an invocation and short address by the Mayor and by Judge C. H. Wisner, who had charge of the erection of the building, came the principal orator of the day, Justice Henry B. Brown of the United States Supreme Court. His address was largely in the nature of an historical review of that court of which he was a distinguished member, from its establishment down to the present day. A special interest was felt in the speaker, aside from his official position, on account of his being a Michgian man, and everyone who could get within the sound of his voice listened with close attention, well repaid by the value of the address and the inside views which it gave of the workings of the greatest court of justice of any nation.

"Justice Brown was followed by Chief Justice Moore, of the State Supreme Court, whose address consisted largely of reminiscences of the Genesee county bar, to which others added their quotas.

"Reminiscences had thus been pretty freely indulged in, in one form or another, at most of the jubilee meetings; but, on such occasions there is never enough until old times have been talked over from every point of view. Hence, for the lawyers there must be many more reminiscences at the banquet given that evening in honor of Justice Brown and the justices of the state supreme court, while for the rest a special reminiscent meeting was held at the Court Street Methodist Church, at which an account was given of the origin and history of the different churches of the city, and a number of old residents of the city told of their experiences in early days. As most of these accounts are reproduced in this volume in one form or another, no attempt will be made to gibe them here. A single incident, however, which created some amusement, maybe worth mentioning. It was an announcement with some solemnity, that a most valuable and interesting relic of the early days was to be presented to the audience, in the shape of the earliest Flint post office. It was explained that in some respects the earliest post office was inline with the latest improvements in that service, as it was moveable, going from place to place wherever its patrons were to be found. With much ceremony the relic was then uncovered, and proved to be an old stovepipe hat.

"While these old-time memories were being recalled at the various gatherings, more spectator entertainment has also been going on elsewhere.

"Early in the afternoon there were band concerts in various places, then later a baseball game,. And at five o'clock an exhibition run by the fire department. As soon as it grew dark the electric display was resumed, there were more band concerts and, finally, as a grand wind-up, a display of fireworks front he Saginaw street bridge. The street in that vicinity was once more thronged to congestion, and as the light faded from the "Good-night" set-piece with which the exhibition closed, the Golden Jubilee went out, as it began, in a blaze of glory.

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Hon. C. H. Wisner, circuit judge, was chairman of the general committee for the Flint golden Jubilee and old Home Coming Reunion. Edwin O. Wood was chairman of the executive committee.

The surplus remaining from the Golden jubilee fund was used to prepare and publish a book. Rev. C. A. Lippincott, D. D., was selected as editor.