sensible men, and friends of education, almost without exception, were earnest in their desires for a library, yet they either had fears of their own, or encountered apprehension in others, that the public money devoted to this purpose of general utility, might be perverted, in the hands of partisans, to the furtherance of sinister ends. The proposition submitted to the Board, as above stated, was accompanied by guards designed to obviate these difficulties. It was favorably received, and immediately acted upon.

Being convinced, however, that nothing could be effected towards the accomplishment of so grand an object, except by going before the people with indubitable facts and irresistible arguments, I set myself to the work of making extensive and minute inquiries throughout the State, respecting the number of public libraries, the number of volumes which each contained, their estimated value, the general character of the books, and also the number of persons who had a right of access to them. I obtained returns from all but sixteen towns, which, being small, had an aggregate population of only 20,966. The result exceeded my worst apprehensions. I found that there were but 299 social libraries in the State. The number of volumes they contained was 180,028. Their estimated value $191,538. The number of proprietors, or persons having access to them, in their own right, was only 25,705.

In addition to the above, there were, in the State, from ten to fifteen town libraries,-that is, libraries to which all the citizens of the town had a right of access. These contained, in the aggregate, from three to four thousand volumes, and their estimated value was about $1400. There were also about fifty school district libraries, containing about ten thousand volumes, and worth, by estimation, about $3200 or $3300. Fifteen of

these were in Boston. The number of Public Schools in the State, at that time, was 3,014.

A few of the incorporated academies had small libraries.

There were also a few circulating libraries in different parts of the State,-out of the city of Boston, perhaps twenty,-but it would be charitable to suppose that, on the whole, this class of libraries does as much good as harm.

Of all the social libraries in the State, thirtysix, containing 81,881 volumes, valued at $130,055, and owned by 8,885 proprietors, or shareholders, belonged to the city of Boston.

It appeared, then, that the books belonging to the public social libraries, in the city of Boston, constituted almost one half, in number, of all the books in the social libraries of the State, and more than two thirds of all in value; and yet only about one tenth part of the population of the city had any right of access to them.

I have said above that the whole number of proprietors, or share-holders, in all the social libraries in the State was 25,705. Now, supposing that each proprietor or share-holder, in these social libraries, represents, on an average, four persons, (and this, considering the number of. share-holders who are not heads of families, is probably a full allowance,) the population represented by them, as enjoying the benefits of these libraries, would be only a small fraction over one hundred thousand; and this, strange and alarming as it may seem, would leave a population, in the State, of more than six hundred thousand, who have no right of participation in those benefits.

I omit here, as not having an immediate connection with my present purpose, to give an account of the libraries belonging to the colleges and other literary and scientific institutions in the State. A detailed account of these may be found

in my Third Annual Report to the Board of Education.

Do not the above facts show a most extraordinary and wide-spread deficiency of books in our Commonwealth?

But even where books exist, another question arises, hardly less important than the preceding, as to the suitableness or adaptation of the books to the youthful mind. One general remark applies to the existing libraries almost without exception; -the books were written for men, and not for children. The libraries, too, have been collected by men for their own amusement or edification. There is no hazard, therefore, in saying, that they contain very few books, appropriate for the reading of the young, either in the subjects treated of, the intellectual manner in which those subjects are discussed, or the moral tone that pervades the works.*

*As descriptive of the general character of the public libraries now existing in the State, I give the following extract from my Third Annual Report :

The next question respects the character of the books, composing the libraries, and their adaptation to the capacities and mental condition of children and youth. In regard to this point, there is, as might be expected, but little diversity of statement. Almost all the answers concur in the opinion, that the contents of the libraries are not adapted to the intellectual and moral wants of the young, an opinion, which a reference to the titles, in the catalogues, will fully sustain. With very few exceptions, the books were written for adults, for persons of some maturity of mind, and possessed, already, of a considerable fund of information; and, therefore, they could not be adapted to children, except through mistake. Of course, in the whole, collectively considered, there is every kind of books; but probably no other kind, which can be deemed of a useful character, occupies so much space upon the shelves of the libraries, as the historical class. Some of the various histories of Greece and Rome; the History of Modern Europe, by Russell; of England, by Hume and his successors; Robertson's Charles V.; Mavor's Universal History; the numerous Histories of Napoleon, and similar works, constitute the staple of many libraries. And how little do these books contain, which is suitable for children! How little do they record, but the destruction of human life, and the activity of those misguided energies of men, which have hitherto almost baffled the beneficent intentions of Nature for human happiness! Descriptions of battles, sackings of cities, and the captivity of nations, follow each other, with the

Now the object of a Common School Library is to supply these great deficiencies. Existing

quickest movement, and in an endless succession. Almost the only glimpses which we catch, of the education of youth, present them, as engaged in martial sports, and in mimic feats of arms, preparatory to the grand tragedies of battle ;-exercises and exhibitions, which, both in the performer and the spectator, cultivate all the dissocial emotions, and turn the whole current of the mental forces into the channel of destructiveness. The reader sees inventive genius, not employed in perfecting the useful arts, but exhausting itself in the manufacture of implements of war. He sees rulers and legislators, not engaged in devising comprehensive plans for universal welfare, but in levying and equipping armies and navies, and extorting taxes to maintain them, thus dividing the whole mass of the people into the two classes of slaves and soldiers; enforcing the degradation and servility of tame animals, upon the former, and cultivating the ferocity and bloodthirstiness of wild animals, in the latter. The highest honors are conferred upon men, in whose rolls of slaughter the most thousands of victims are numbered; and seldom does woman emerge from her obscurity-indeed, hardly should we know that she existed--but for her appearance, to grace the triumphs of the conqueror. What a series of facts would be indicated, by an examination of all the treaties of peace, which history records! they would appear like a grand index to universal plunder. The inference which children would legitimately draw, from reading like this, would be, that the tribes and nations of men had been created, only for mutual slaughter, and that they deserved the homage of posterity, for the terrible fidelity with which their mission had been fulfilled. Rarely do these records administer any antidote against the inhumanity of the spirit they instil. In the immature minds of children, unaccustomed to consider events, under the relation of cause and effect, they excite the conception of magnificent palaces or temples, for bloody conquerors to dwell in, or in which to offer profane worship for inhuman triumphs, without a suggestion of the bondage and debasement of the myriads of slaves, who, through lives of privation and torture, were compelled to erect them; they present an exciting picture of long trains of plundered wealth, going to enrich some city or hero, without an intimation, that, by industry and the arts of peace, the same wealth could have been earned, more cheaply than it was plundered; they exhibi the triumphal return of warriors, to be crowned with honors worthy of a god, while they take the mind wholly away from the carnage of the battle-field, from desolated provinces, and a mourning people. In all this, it is true, there are many examples of the partial and limited virtue of patriotism; but few, only, of the complete virtue of philanthropy. The courage, held up for admiration, is generally of that animal nature, which rushes into danger, to inflict injury upon another; but not of that Divine quality, which braves peril, for the sake of bestowing good-attributes, than which there are scarcely any two in the souls of men, more different, though the baseness of the former is so often mistaken for the nobleness of the latter. Indeed, if the past history of our race is to be much read by children, it should be re-written; and, while it records those events, which have contravened all the principles of social policy, and violated all the laws of morality and religion, there should, at least, be some recognition of the great truth, that, among nations, as among individuals, the high

libraries are owned by the rich, or by those who are in comfortable circumstances. The Common

School Library will reach the poor. The former were prepared for adult and educated minds; the latter is to be adapted to instruct young and unenlightened ones. By the former, books are collected in great numbers, at a few places, having broad deserts between; by the latter, a few good books are to be sent into every school district in the State, so that not a child shall be born in our beloved Commonwealth, who shall not have a collection of good books accessible to him at all times, and free of expense, within half an hour's walk of his home, wherever he may reside.

My friends, I look upon this as one of the grandest moral enterprises of the age. The honor of first embodying this idea, in practice, belongs

est welfare of all can only be effected, by securing the individual welfare of each. There should be some parallel drawn, between the historical and the natural relations of the race, so that the tender and immature mind of the youthful reader may have some opportunity of comparing the right with the wrong, and some option of admiring and emulating the former, instead of the latter. As much of history now stands, the examples of right and wrong, whose nativity and residence are on opposite sides of the moral universe, are not merely brought and shuffled together, so as to make it difficult to distinguish between them; but the latter are made to occupy almost the whole field of vision, while the existence of the former is scarcely noticed. It is, as though children should be taken to behold, from afar, the light of a city on fire, and directed to admire the splendor of the conflagration, without a thought of the tumult, and terror, and death, reigning beneath it.

Another very considerable portion of these libraries, especially where they have been recently formed or replenished, consists of novels, and all that class of books, which is comprehended under the familiar designations of " fictions," "light reading," "trashy works," "ephemeral," or "bubble literature," &c. This kind of books has increased, immeasurably, within the last twenty years. It has insinuated itself into public libraries, and found the readiest welcome with people, who are not dependent upon libraries for the books they peruse. Aside from newspapers, I am satisfied, that the major part of the unprofessional reading of the community is of the class of books above designated. Amusement is the object,-mere amusement, as contradistinguished from instruction, in the practical concerns of life; as contradistinguished from those intellectual and moral impulses, which turn the mind, both while reading and after the book is closed, to observation, and comparison, and reflection, upon the great realities of existence.