Ideal role of public libraries... 1851

"Public Libraries will supply the whole people with ample sources for im- portant practical information. . . . Where they are provided every farmer will have access to the best books on agriculture, every mechanic to the best books on the arts, every merchant ... to the best exposition of the laws of trade and the sources of wealth. Would not this be a great advantage? Is it not important to practical men? Would it not much promote their success, to become ac- quainted with what is already  known on the subjects which occupy their atten- tion? And is it not undeserving of remark, that, even in the most simple and uni- form operations of labor, it has been found that . . . more is accomplished, and the work better done, by intelligent and weH-informed individuals? " John B. Wight, "Public Libraries," Common School Journal, XIII (1851), 260.[source],  John B. Wight, "A Lecture on Public Libraries Delivered in Boston in the Hall of the House of Representatives, 1854, and in Several Other Places" (unpub- lished MS in the possession of Mrs. John B. Wight of Wayland, Mass.).
Also quoted in Dictionary of Library and Information Science Quotations   Edited by Mohamed Taher and L S S R Valluri Ramaiah. ISBN: 8185689423 (New Delhi , Aditya, 1994) (p. 385).