knowledge for knowledge's sake

I am cataloging a stack of books today, an effort that seems Sisyphean in a popular culture that seems poised to forget what came before.  I ran across this quote from the preface when I was cataloging Buck's Theological Dictionary from 1831. 

"Knowledge, is in a great measure, forms the true dignity and happiness of man: it is that by which he hold an honourable rank in the scale of being, and by which he is rendered capable of adding to the felicity of his fellow-creatures.  Every attempt, therefore , to enlarge its boundaries, and facilitate its acquisition, must be considered as worthy of our attention and regard." 

 - from the nearly 200 year old A Theological Dictionary Containing Definitions of All Religions Terms' A Comprehensive View of Every Article in the System of Divinity,; an Impartial Account of All the Principal Denominations Which Have Subsisted in the Religious World From the Birth of Christ to the Present Day Together With an Accurate Statement of the Most Remarkable Transactions and Event Recorded in Ecclesiastical History.