Excerpt from Address at the Dedication of the Town Library Building, Erected for the West Brookfield Free Library and Reading Room: Delivered Friday Evening, Nov. 12, 1880 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of ()phir. - Isaiah. IN estimating the worth of a public benefaction such as we honor to-night, it may not be amiss if we begin with a funda mental principle of political economy. I refer to the doctrine of the celebrated Dr. °adam Smith, in his treatise on the Wealth of Nations, that human labor was the first price paid for all things, and must be the ultimate measure of all values. That, then, is the pecuniary equivalent of a man's ability to perform manual labor in other words, what is the money value of human bone and muscle? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.