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"Tell me your company and I will tell you the man," is an old adage of wisdom, and most truly illustrates the volumes of interesting works with which our world now I abounds. Reading, says Lord Bacon, makes a learned man, and King David says, "study to show thyself a man."

It is not the number or the value, but the subject and the quality that determines the utility of books. All the external conditions in which thought is presented to the mind, does not vary the character of the thought itself, but tends only to produce an agreeable or favorable avenue to the conducting of it. To look at pretty books, adorned with gold leaf and embellishments, is gratifying to the sight, but is often like those persons of quality (?) who keep their furniture and carriages covered up, and are up in arms if any one disturbs or soils them. To be in a parlor, where there has been so much trouble to look nice, and such a reproving look, as if fearful that the guest might innovate, is irksome indeed. Show! Show!! To have a library in a beautiful book-case, and never read a book, though in a splendid garb, is very wicked; and some persons have a desire to be librarians for our old friend Fashion's sake, and who endeavor to plane off the rough edges of their rudeness by a splendid library-room, adorned by the master-pieces of upholsterers and book-binders.

And yet it is better for all person, to have books, and to patronize the arts and letters as much as they are able. Although strong minds should read all and everything, children of weaker capacities should be discriminate, or friends should for them. The minds of men are as various as their tastes, and require very different degrees of cultivation. The different styles and subjects should be adapted to the states of improvement in individuals. Generally, books are read for fashion's sake. It is really too bad to say we have not read Bulwer, or Scott, or Johnson, or Shakespeare: and but a few months back, the tide of fashion, in consequence of Mr. Thackeray's Lectures, set strongly in favor of Smollert, Fielding, &c. and it was fashionable for gay belles to read Roderick Random, Tom Jones, Humphrey Clinker, &c., &c. But all who desire respect should cultivate their minds by reading, for people -- intelligent people -- will form an idea of us as we read. "Wise heads keep their mouths close," except for proper occasions, and do not gabble for the sake of it, and annoy good folks by thoughtless common-places, that libels the intelligence of those who think at all; and some read books they would be ashamed to have people see them reading; and disown the charge of mental aberration or vitiated tastes. To "own up" is the best rule in errors, and frankly declare that it is more a taste to know what is going forward than to patronize what is wrong. Persons live in the midst of books who are very poor thinkers.

In colleges there are five classes, -- freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors, and resident graduates who pursue various kinds of reading. "Oh," said a graduate "if I had to live my college life over, I would confine myself entirely to the college studies, and leave reading till afterward; I would discipline my mind for the tasteful and discriminating perception of ideas." Study leads to originality, and to anticipations of what books contain, and he who reads the book of nature with prayer and skill, is in a state of preparation for those other works that ornament the shelves and firesides and parlors of those who live in and feel interested in the world; and those who do not become college-ized can study and read some or all the authors studied, and be as proud as collegians, declaiming in their silk-gowns the splendors of Greece and Rome.

In our College here are no pre-requisites of study required on entrance; no three grammars, Caesar, Virgil, Cicero, Greek Reader, Four Gospels, Arithmetic and Geography are necessary to enter this Freshmen Class and President Benedict, Professors Gray, Headley and Wolcott, award a course of study not altogether consonant with the freeness of collegiate life, still it must be allowed that appearances, which are very deceitful, are here truly characteristic of a respectability that will bear probing. Painful, indeed, is the ignorance under which people labor with regard to Asylums, or the minds therein; and when crowds come here to see, how aptly could this scripture be applied, -- "what went ye up for to see? A reed shaken with the wind?" Bruised reeds, tender and pliant; whose bending and growth is to be sustained and advanced by the science here.

The question naturally arises -- Is the mind, in its incoherent state, prepared for the exercise that engenders thought? Is it to be abstracted by book, from external objects and directed to subjects that tend to edification? Yes; and through books that mothers place in the hands of their children, some simple narrative, or novel story, a taste for reading is created, which lends the mind to thoughtfulness, and to that calm contemplation, incident to cultivation. Dr. Macdonald recommends narrative for certain classes of mind, and earn Mother Goose's Melodies and Riddles and Morals, the mind ascends in order to the apprehension of all things comprehensible by mortals. The mind that appreciates truthful narrative is prepared for the genius of fiction, and not with the jealous cant that it is falsehood, but that it is imaginative and instructive. Some will not justify any deviation from truth on any pretence whatever, and they become narrow-minded, bigoted and superstitious. Nursery Tales adapted to the variations and intellectual combinations properly regulated become a source of incalculable good, whereas, if uncontrolled, become an evil.

Dr. Woodward says; "Next to labor, reading is the most valuable and extensive means of improvement adapted to the hospital. By it the mind is quieted, and rendered tranquil; old associations are renewed; matter for rational conversation and reflection is obtained. This influence, daily impressed, is most important for the insane."

The distinguished Dr. Ray declares that defective early education is a fruitful source of disturbed minds, -- unreal wants, hopes and aims are engendered, leading to disappointments, and vexations, and, shipwrecks of mind; and he, with Drs. Bell, Kirkbride, Benedict, Awl, Buttolph, Nichols, and our own Dr. Gray, (who has taken such a deep interest in the establishment of a library here, -- THE OPAL LIBRARY, -- and whose judgment and skill in the selection presents a monument to his tastes as a scholar and a gentleman of great reading himself) these gentlemen, and indeed all the principal superintendents of asylums, recommend the reading of books, and their study as minds permit, and the establishing of libraries for the presence sake, if for nothing more; as books are like good society, reproachful to the uncultivated, and embarrassing unto conviction those who have neglected their manners, their morals, or their minds.

The books that have been read here, by so many, are on compound interest; and even if weak brethren and sisters read pages without remembering one page, they are as well off as a certain graduate of ___ University, who would read Brown's Philosophy, and not know what he had read.

Breaking down -- breaking in, is not for the mind. "Our rule," said an errorist, "is to break down the mind, and build it up after our fashion." But our rule here is, to present the mirrors, hold them up to nature, and, on the suggestive principle, awaken kindred and healthful affinities, presenting to the mind external comforts fresh from the fountains of health and beauty. The simple opening, assorting, and placing in order for the Asyluminans the works Dr. Gray purchased and received during his late tour, produced an electric influence, interrupting old channels, and presenting before the minds, the brazen serpents of Moses to the children of aberrations, bidding them come, look, and be healed.

Asylums are not to be burlesques of the world, but the world too often presents a counterpart of what they are considered to be, not what they are -- arranged in all the form, degree, and perfectness of refined, stern, decided, and yet gentle humanity. Assimilation seeks its kindred in the chemical world, why not in the intellectual? It does, and will; and will prove a powerful aid in the herculean, almost overwhelming, task of restoring the disturbed mind to the tranquil state attendant on useful and independent natural actions.

Arduous duties require constant aid. The reservoirs of sanity belonging to New-York need to be well supplied in order to preserve the equilibrium, lest a preponderance should determine in favor of this Retreat, consecrated to the holy and exalted purpose of relieving agony, comforting and stimulating to good aims, and lawful and becoming action.

The cares and duties of our good Superintendent, and his aids are sufficiently numerous; the barriers to a correct ascertainment of the degree of intellectual healthfulness, sufficiently powerful; the hedge-rows of their spheres as full, or fuller than required for beauty, comfort or use, that we would not urge a single duty further, in the way of promoting the grand objet for which it is founded. God in heaven grant that it may continue sacred to the object for which it was erected, despite the innovations of the curious, the unenlightened or the unsympathizing!

With pleasure, pride and honor, do we view the advancement Opalians have made, by the aid of their Illustrious Chieftains, whose virtue, talent, industry and skill have all been directed to the attainment of so good an object as to establish a Library for the City of Asylumia. The innumerable obligations conferred excites our profoundest gratitude. But "let us pray" for the blessing on the books, and the Curators, and be allowed to beg a favor for the future. Mr. George Peabody, a very eminent gentleman in London, sent some twenty thousand dollars to Danvers, his native town, for a Library and place to put it in. A gentlemen sent to Trenton Asylum, where Dr. Buttolph is Superintendent, some four thousand dollars to erect a Library building, and we hope, yes we hope that soon some liberal son or friend of Asylumia will contribute a mite for a building here. It will be pretty, to have a Hall, so large as the Cliosophic, dedicated to the one purpose of Books and Literature, with a watchful and careful librarian, a Lunatic's Atheneum if you please. When it is so merged in the more active transactions of the Asylum it becomes burdensome, and needs one person, and he a second Cogswell, to watch and promote its interests, understandingly and expansively. The cares of the Superintendent and aids, are sufficiently numerous, and the simpler the way to an exact knowledge of the intellectual state, the more advantageous to the Institution.

As yet there is no distinct permanent order of madmen, recognized as parts of society, and so long as there are those in our world, will the necessity devolve of diminishing whatever of clan or clique may attach unto them. Like Incorporations to a tyro in Law, Asylums unfold a labyrinth somewhat inexplicable, and deserving of studious, serious consideration. No heterogeneous masses of incongruous jargon or absurd associations should ever issue to the eye of the Public. Select, thoughtful views of the relation it sustains, should be held by every person who respects New-York and its Institutions; and whether at home, abroad in the abandon of retirement or the studied phrase and demeanor of the public, the same obligation is devolved, to render tribute unto virtuous exertion and enterprize, by a friendly intelligent and cordial sympathy that extends the hand of reliable constancy and citizenship rather than the sneaking, doubtful one of curiosity and selfishness. The sooner the heart of Insanity is reached the better, the sooner the restoration to the duties of life is obtained, the better for individual, for Asylum, and the State. The more direct the application, the more sure the remedy. -- Change ever produces a strange aspect to the face of society, and few make sufficient allowances for the effect of the past on the present, who have not been actors in the scenes. These changes that rotate on the eye, consign too oft to forgetfulness those mysterious influences of deferred hope that weigh as an incubus on the too oft forgotten Lunatic; and as Asylums cannot expect to set up trade in opposition to the world, it is certain, and honorable as it is certain, that their residents and occupations present an area of utility, and comfort -- the society of the sane might envy -- a scene fulfilling the commands of wisdom and virtue, and inspiring every youthful heart, by the influence of its example to exclaim with Watts:

"In books, or work, or healthful play,"
Let my first years be past --
That I may render of each day,
"Some good account at last."

A word at parting to those who have ever been benevolent in books or flowers. A Yankee friend said, "that when persons give to those who appreciate, to any 'you thank them' is to insult them. They contribute to the general stock in the adventure of the world, and expect to reap their reward in the good it will do." Notwithstanding our Yankee, thanks would be a feeble return for the kindness, the interest, the respectability that is thrown so endearingly around sorrow, desolateness and abjectness -- that at so much real hazard and expense, rears a tabernacle for the Moses, the Elias and the Lord, who will reward those who have presented this splendid foreground in the picture of human sorrow, as a prelude to that perspective yet to be developed in the loveliness of the scene its radiation diffuses.