Sage Public Library, West Bay City, Mich.,.... 25,000 Hoyt Public Library, Saginaw, Mich., 24,000 Osterhout Free Library, Wilkesbarre, Pa.,.... 24,000 Morrison-Reeves Library, Richmond, Ind.,.. 21,000 20,000 Cornell Library Association, Ithaca, N. Y., ..... 20,000 19,000 18,000 17,000 Peabody Institute Library, Danvers, Mass.,... 17,000 Tufts Library, Weymouth, Mass.,. 17,000 ... Warder Public Library, Springfield, Ohio, 17,000 Withers Public Library, Bloomington, Ill.,.. 15,000 Cary Library, Lexington, Mass., 15,000 Fritz Public Library, Chelsea, Mass.,. 15,000 15,000 14,000 Bigelow Free Library, Clinton, Mass.,.. 14,000 14,000 Harris Institute Library, Woonsocket, R. I.,.... 14,000 Merrick Public Library, Brookfield, Mass.,.. 14,000 Robbins Library, Arlington, Mass.,. 14,000 Nevins Memorial Library, Methuen, Mass.,. Beebe Town Library, Wakefield, Mass.,.. 12,000 Carnegie Free Library, Braddock, Pa.,. 12,000 Goodnow Library, South Sudbury, Mass.,. 12,000 Millicent Library, Fairhaven, Mass.,... 12,000 Thayer Public Library, South Braintree, Mass., 11,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 Parlin Memorial Library, Everett, Mass.,. Besides the preceding list, purposely confined to free libraries chiefly founded by individuals, which have reached the ten thousand volume mark, there are a multitude of others, too numerous to be named, having a less number of volumes. In fact, the public spirit which gives freely of private wealth to enlarge the intelligence of the community may be said to grow by emulation. Many men who have made fortunes have endowed their native places with libraries. It is yearly becoming more and more widely recognized that a man can build no monument to himself so honorable or so lasting as a free public library. Its influence is well nigh universal, and its benefits are perennial. We now come to consider the city or town libraries, created or maintained by voluntary taxation. These, like the class of libraries founded by private munificence, are purely a modern growth. While the earliest movement in this direction in Great Britain dates back only to 1850, New Hampshire has the honor of adopting the first free public library law, in America, in the year 1849. Massachusetts followed in 1851, and the example was emulated by other States at various intervals, until there now remain but fifteen out of our forty-five States which have no public library law. The general provisions of these laws authorize any town or city to collect taxes by vote of the citizens for maintaining a public library, to be managed by trustees elected or appointed for the purpose. But a more far-reaching provision for supplying the people with public libraries was adopted by New Hampshire (again the pioneer State), in 1895. This was nothing less than the passage of a State law making it compulsory on every town in New Hampshire to assess annually the sum of thirty dollars for every dollar of public taxes apportioned to such town, the amount to be appropriated to establish and maintain a free public library. Library trustees are to be elected, and in towns where no public library exists, the money is to be held by them, and to accumulate until the town is ready to establish a library. This New Hampshire statute, making obligatory the supply of public information through books and periodicals in free libraries in every town, may fairly be termed the high-water mark of modern means for the diffusion of knowledge. This system of creating libraries proceeds upon the principle that intellectual enlightenment is as much a concern of the local government as sanitary regulations or public morality. Society has an interest that is common to all classes in the means that are provided for the education of the people. Among these means free town or city libraries are one of the most potent and useful. New Hampshire and Massachusetts, in nearly all of their towns and cities, have recognized the principle that public books are just as important to the general welfare as public lamps. What are everywhere needed are libraries open to the people as a matter of right, and not as a matter of favor. The largest library in the country, save one (that at Washington), owes its origin and success to this principle, combined with some private munificence. The Boston Public Library is unquestionably one of the most widely useful collections of books open to the public in this country. Of all the greater collections, it is the only one which lends out books free of charge to all citizens. Instituted in 1852, its career has been one of rapid progress and ever widening usefulness. I shall not dwell upon it at length, as the facts regarding it have been more widely published than those relating to any other library. Under the permissive library laws of thirty States, there had been formed up to 1896, when the last comprehensive statistics were gathered, about 1,200 free public libraries, supported by taxation, in the United States. A still more widely successful means of securing a library foundation that shall be permanent is found in uniting private benefactions with public money to found or to maintain a library. Many public-spirited citizens, fortunately endowed with large means, have offered to erect library buildings in certain places, on condition that the local authorities would provide the books, and the means of maintaining a free library. Such generous offers, whether coupled with the condition of perpetuating the donor's name with that of the library, or leaving the gift unhampered, so that the library may bear the name of the town or city of its location, have generally been accepted by municipal bodies, or by popular vote. This secures, in most cases, a good working library of choice reading, as well as its steady annual growth and management, free of the heavy expense of building, of which the tax-payers are relieved. The many munificent gifts of library buildings by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, to American towns and cities, and to some in his native Scotland, are worthy of special note. And the reader will see from the long list heretofore given of the more considerable public libraries to be credited wholly or in part to private munificence, that American men of wealth have not been wanting as public benefactors. In some cases, whole libraries have been given to a town or village where a public library already existed, or liberal gifts or bequests of money, to be expended in the enrichment of such libraries, have been bestowed. Very interesting lists of benefactions for the benefit of libraries may be found in the volumes of the Library Journal, New York. It is with regret that candor requires me to add, that several proffers of fine library buildings to certain places, coupled with the condition that the municipal authorities would establish and maintain a free library, have remained without acceptance, thus forfeiting a liberal endowment. Where public education has been so neglected as to render possible such a niggardly, penny-wise and pound-foolish policy, there is manifestly signal need of every means of enlightenment. We now come to the various State libraries founded at the public charge, and designed primarily for the use of the respective legislatures of the States. The earliest of these is the New Hampshire State Library, established in 1790, and the largest is the New York State Library, at Albany, founded in 1818, now embracing 325,000 volumes, and distinguished alike by the value of its stores and the liberality of its management. The reason for being of a State library is obviously and primarily to furnish the legislative body and State courts with such ample books of reference in jurisprudence, history, science, etc., as will aid them in the intelligent discharge of their duties as law-makers and judges of the law. The library thus existing at each State capital may well be opened to the |