Mr. Henry E. Andrews accepted the keys on behalf of the library trustees and addressed those gathered for the celebration as follows: On behalf of the trustees of the Kennebunk Free Library Association of Kennebunk, I receive these keys - the token of the possession of the building which Mr. George Parsons has generously caused to be erected and now freely gives into their keeping for the use and advantage of this community.
It is a munificent gift, and a gift opportune, enduring, humane. He provides, in the very heart of the township, a new and an adequate habitation for a high enterprise. He advances a project which, in earlier years, public-spirited men, whose memory we honor, conceived and inaugurated for the public welfare. Their hope has been justified, their expectation exceeded. By the timely bestowal of this building, he prospers their project a hundred fold. A structure so substantial not only promotes, it perpetuates, the institution on which, with the church, as on a foundation four-square and firm, rests our common human good. Farther into the future than we can look, this structure will safeguard the treasures of books which we have accumulated and will engage after generations to add to them. Its influence will be as pervasive as it is permanent, as catholic as it is constant. Carlyle only uttered the conviction of mankind at large when he said, 'The founding of a library is one of the quietest things we can do with regard to results. It is one of the greatest things, but there is nothing I know of at bottom more important.' With regard to results, it is no less important to further than to found a library; and sir, the building which Mr. Parsons gives us today, enlarges and enhances the operation of that subtle force issuing from wise books to inspire the individual, and to mould the community. If its adequacy, its order, its perfected equipment, in its dignity and beauty, it offers to every citizen of the town a wider opportunity, a more gracious and suasive invitation, a higher incentive, to seek self-development and civic betterment, than the past has offered. Its very presence is a symbol. It appeals to a higher mood than the mood of every day. It stands apart from our factories and shops in a contrast that suggests the contrast between the literature of all times and the periodical of the hour. It witnesses the deep satisfaction of art. It speaks, even to the hurried passer-by, some words of an unusual languages, such as, in the fine phrase of Thoreau, 'are raised above the trivialness of the street to be perpetual suggestions and provocations.' Thus in itself it is educative, and prepares the mind for the pursuit of culture. In and of itself it points the quiet , withdrawn ways to wisdom and understanding. By the visible example of its own excellence it incites us to walk in those ways.
To establish here in our midst an influence that tends unchangingly to enrich the individual life, unceasingly to refine public taste, unwaveringly to lift up our intellectual ideals, and to guide our communal progress towards that 'wider and wiser humanity' which shone in the vision of Lowell as the goal of Democracy, that is an act in the highest, the truest, sense humane; and for his disinterested act, for his gift, for his abiding benefaction, I beg, sir, that you will carry to Mr. Parsons the heartfelt and lasting gratitude of all his fellow-citizens in this town." (York County Coast Star, August 2, 1907)
Words from a hundred years ago with a very modern context. Although today it's about more than just the books, the public library brings to each and every community a connection to the entire world.
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