*

people, but bestow at once, as in the act which we have met to witness and acknowledge to-day. I think we cannot easily esteem the benefit conferred in this, as I foresee, great benefit from it to this noble town. We have a splendid library, which will make readers of those who are not readers, scholars of those who do not study. If you consider what has befallen you when reading a poem, a history, or a novel even-how you forgot the time of day, the person sitting in the room with you, your engagements for the evening-you will easily admit that books make all towns equal. With Concord a library makes it as good as London, Paris, or Rome. Robinson Crusoe, if he had a shelf of books, could easily have dispensed with even his man Friday. Every faculty casts itself into an art, and memory into writing-that is, into books. The plant papyrus, which gave the name to paper, is of more importance in history than silver or gold. Its first use for writing is between three and four thousand years old. I know the word "literature" has in many ears

*

*

a hollow sound. It is thought to be the entertainment of a few fanciful persons-not to be of and for the multitudes. But this comes from those who think everything is useless that cannot in some way add to their physical comforts. There are utilitarians who prefer that Jesus should have wrought as a carpenter and Paul as a tent-maker. Books are a record of the best thought. The river of thought is constantly running from the invisible world into the minds of men. Such was the symbolic custom of the ancient priests of Mexico to obtain fire and distribute it to every hearth in the nation. The influence of a book may extend to those who have never seen it. Shakespeare and Milton and Pindar have, through others, affected the minds of men who never heard of them. What they have in them cannot be contained in a cup; it runs over into all the minds that will have it. Consider that it is our own state of mind in time that makes our own estimate of life and the world. If you sprain your foot, you will think that nature has sprained hers; and so when you sprain your mind you have a bad opinion of life. If you can kindle imagination, you see more, because more active. Music does this for some, poetry for others, and a good book will do it for a reader.

Many a time a book has decided a man's life. A book makes friends for you, for there is an acquaintanceship between you and the man who reads the same book. Dr. Johnson, hearing that a man read Burton's Analysis of Melancholy, exclaimed, “If I knew that man I could hug him." We expect a great man to be a great reader. There is a wonderful similarity between great men in their estimate of books. Cæsar, when shipwrecked and in danger of drowning, did not try to save his gold, but he took his Commentaries between his teeth and swam for the shore. The Duke of Marlborough would not encamp without a copy of Shakespeare. The Duchess d'Abrantes tells us that the first Napoleon cast books and papers out of his carriage while traveling, as fast as he read them, so that they would strew the road. We expect great men to be great readers, for in proportion to the diffusing power should be the receiving power.

The fine building of the Cincinnati Public Library is nearly ready for occupation. Wm. F. Poole, esq., the librarian, thus remarks on this collection and its habitation: Among the accessions of the year were 1,645 volumes of German publications. The call for German and French literature is steadily increasing, and, excepting English prose-fiction and juveniles, this is by far the largest demand made upon the circulating department. A considerable increase of the department of German literature ought to be made during the next year. The press of this country and of England has issued during the past year a smaller number than usual of new books of marked interest. * For the consultation of books and periodicals, the library and reading-rooms have been accessible every day in the year. For the circulation of books, the library has been open three hundred and eight days. The number of volumes taken out for home-reading has been 239,487. The number reported last year was 190,880, and the year previous 100,256. The increase of circulation for the past year was 48,607 and the per cent. 25.5. The largest weekly issue was 6,202 volumes, from March 3 to 8. The largest daily issue was 1,679 volumes, on Saturday, January 25. The average issues on all the Saturdays of the year was 1,103 volumes. For six consecutive weeks, from February 2 to March 8, the average daily circulation was more than 1,000 volumes. The smallest weekly issue was 3,360 volumes, from June 30 to July 6. The smallest daily issue was 381, on September 24. The classification of the

* #

circulation for the past and previous year has been as follows:

Of the persons who have drawn books from the library, 55.6 per cent. have been males and 44.4 per cent. have been females, while, of the fiction and juveniles taken out, 50.6 per cent. have been taken by males and 49.4 per cent. have been taken out by females, showing that the latter take out a larger proportion of novels and juveniles than the former. It will be seen that the rates per cent. in the classification are substantially the same year by year, and they are similar to the statistics of all public libraries. Nothing seems more like an accident than the selection of books from a well-furnished public library; yet there is a hidden law which determines that selection, as fixed as the law which determines year by year the average temperature of our climate. Statistics show that the taste for reading in one community is the same as that of every other community in similar social conditions. Statistics here, in New England, and in Old England show, in the main, the same results. About three-quarters of the selections will be prose-fiction and juveniles. If a library should report a much lower ratio than this, the necessary inference would be that the library was not well furnished in this department, that there was some restriction on the use of these books or that the statistics were not accurately kept.

*

*

#

As I stated in my last report, I am not disposed to mourn over or to apologize for these facts. In the personal experience of all who attain to literary culture there is a time when they read novels, and perhaps too many novels. In passing through this stage of their mental development, which usually lasts but for a short period, they acquire a habit of reading and a facility of thought and expression which are of great benefit to them in their later studies. With many persons the alternative is not whether they will read fiction or something better, but whether they will read fiction cr nothing. As a rule, people read books of a higher intellectual and moral standard than their own, and hence are benefited by reading. Novels of an immoral tendency, or even of an equivocal character, are excluded from the collection.

*

*

*

An inquiry has recently been made to ascertain the proportion of youth below the age of 16 who take books from the library. The result is that of all persons taking books those below the age of 12 years are 2.9 per cent., those between the ages of 12 and 16 are 19.4 per cent., and those above the age of 16 are 77.7 per cent. The project of opening the reading-rooms of a public library on Sunday, which elsewhere had been long discussed, but which was first carried into execution in Cincinnati more than two years ago, can no longer be regarded as an experiment. It has been adopted in nearly all the large cities of our country, by the free library of Birmingham, in England, and is now being considered, if it is not already adopted, in the free libraries of Liverpool, Manchester, and other English towns. If there was any opposition to the measure here in Cincinnati two years ago, it seems wholly to have vanished, and now its most zealous supporters are religious men who have most at heart the welfare of the community. I am informed by the president and superintendent of the Young Men's Christian Association of our city that they are not only earnestly in favor of the public library being open on Sunday, but they know of no opposition to it among the evangelical clergymen and laymen who belong to the Christian Association. The perfect order and decorum which have always prevailed in our reading-rooms would be creditable in a Sunday-school. The attendance and issues on Sunday during the past year have exceeded those of the previous year, although from the contracted space in our temporary reading-room such increase seemed to be impossible. The room especially fitted up for the safe preservation of valuable illustrated books, and with proper appliances for their exhibition, was opened to the public in November last. It has been under charge of an attendant during the regular library-hours on secular days-from 8 a. m. to 10 p. m.-and on Sundays from 3 to 10 p. m. The room has been visited by a large number of citizens and of visitors from abroad, who have uniformly expressed their surprise, as weй as satisfaction, in finding in our city so fine and valuable a collection of illustrated books, and which are so freely accessible to the public. The collection has been largely used by architects, civil-engineers, mechanics, artists, students in the fine-arts, and by the pupils of the McMicken Art-School.

*

*

In this room is a complete collection of the reports, specifications, and drawings of the United States Patent-Office, and it is much used by inventors and patentees. Sets of the British and French patents are greatly needed, there being no sets in the State of Ohio. The ample accommodations which the library is soon to have makes it now practicable to procure these sets. The British government has presented its patentpublications to institutions in some of the large cities of our country where they have been needed, the libraries to which they are presented bearing the expense of binding. The binding of the set alone will cost about ten thousand dollars. * With the completion and occupancy of the new building, the library will enter upon a new phase in its history. It will attract the attention of our own citizens as it has never yet done. Regarded simply for its architectural features, the public-library-building will be the most attractive edifice in the city. That Cincinnati should have the largest, the best-arranged, the most elegant, and the only fire-proof public-librarybuilding in the country will be the occasion of no small amount of local pride. When the building is finished and opened for inspection, its immense capacity, its beautiful

proportions, its well-planned arrangements, and its tasteful details will surprise our own citizens even more than strangers, for the work has gone on behind barricades and so quietly that few persons have watched it while in progress. Up to this time, with the exception of one bequest of $5,000 from Mrs. Sarah Lewis-which has been funded and only its interest expended for the purchase of books-the library has depended wholly on public money for its growth and support. Other public libraries have received large donations of money from noble-minded individuals of wealth. With a capacity of 250,000 volumes in the main building, we shall have for some years an array of empty shelves to beg for us; and may we not hope that these quiet appeals will be heard? The board of education in erecting this building has done its work nobly and generously. It remains for the public-spirited citizens of Cincinnati to second these results and speedily make this library equal, at least in its resources, to any in the land.

*

#

The Chicago public library, by an arrangement with the Federal Government, has received the large square of land known as the Custom-House lot.

Allusion has been made before to the increase of the Library of Congress. In connection with the subject of library-buildings, the following statements by A. R. Spofford, esq., Librarian of Congress, on the immediate necessity for a new structure, are worthy of quotation:

The urgent necessity for more room for the protection and arrangement of the great and overflowing Library under my charge is again brought to the attention of the committee. The large additions of the past year are not exceptional, but are likely to be repeated, if not exceeded, in the annual growth of this Library, which is the only one national in its character and enjoying the benefit of steadily-increasing accessions through the law of copyright, as well as the deposits of the library of the Smithsonian Institution. The accommodation of a collection of books now numbering over a quarter of a million, and which in less than twenty years will outnumber half a million, while at no remote period it will very largely exceed one million volumes, together with the annually increasing importance of the copyright-department as an office of public record, plainly demands the erection of a separate building specially designed for a great public library and adequate to the requirements of its manifold departments. The importance of a prompt provision for the commencement of a new Library-building will be apparent when it is considered that the increasing accumulation of books is such that the alcoves in all departments of the Library are already overflowed, that the one hundred supplementary cases of shelving introduced two years ago to accommodate the surplus are nearly all filled, that the grievous necessity of piling up books on the floors in many quarters has already been reached, and that it will not be possible much longer to provide any space for the thousands of volumes of new accessions constantly wanted for the use and reference of Congress in any quarter where they can be systematically arranged and produced with the necessary promptitude.

*

Perhaps the best appointed public library in the United States is that of Boston. The monthly reports of the superintendent, Justin Winsor, esq., are specially noteworthy.

TABLE XVII.-MUSEUMS OF NATURAL HISTORY.t

My report for 1872 contained a table of museums and cabinets of natural history, with some items serving to show the general nature of the several collections. It

* Each contains information respecting the numbers of volumes used during the month, the largest daily issue, the total delivery during the month, the use of the periodicals on week-days and on Sundays, the accessions to the library of volumes and its extent, the numbers of books condemned and lost, the progress in cataloguing, the gain in pamphlets and engravings, the service of the employés, and the receipts from fines and sale of catalogues.

Monthly report No. 42, for December, 1873, states that during the month 54,757 volumes and 35,192 periodicals were used, 1,512 volumes and 1,801 pamphlets were added; that the library and its branches contained 245,447 volumes, and that 6,356 cards for the catalogue were numbered.

The following letter, the last received at this the Bureau from our lamented naturalist, is of interest in this connection:

MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY,
Cambridge, Mass., November 5, 1873.

DEAR SIR: I have tried earnestly to give you a trustworthy statement of the condition of the inseum; but it is growing so rapidly that, while preparing my report, it became incorrect, and to do justice to our institution would require more time than I am able to give to such a work. I inclose the statement of our librarian; other departments shall be filled as fast as possible. I would only say that

seemed desirable, however, to bring out more distinctly, if possible, the means possessed by our colleges, scientific schools, and natural-history-societies for illustrating instruction in the several departments of natural history. To this end the Office obtained the co-operation of Prof. Theo. Gill, M. D., Ph. D., of the Smithsonian Institution, a gentleman well known for his scientific attainments and possessing special qualifications for the work, who prepared a series of inquiries designed to elicit such information as would clearly indicate the character and extent of the collections of the institutions to which the inquiries were addressed, as well as the special facilities afforded by each in aid of scientific inquiries.* The results of the inquiries having been carefully tabulated were submitted with the returns to Prof. Gill, who comments upon them as follows:

It will be observed that no returns were received from several quite prominent institutions and that those from a considerable portion reporting are vague, and therefore unsatisfactory in some respects. This defect is especially evident in the returns respecting the numbers of species of the respective branches. In the circulars calling for information, blanks were provided for returns as to the numbers of species and specimens of each branch or comprehensive group of the animal-kingdom (as indicated in the table) as well as for the classes generally recognized by American naturalists under those branches. The returns, however, were limited in so many cases to the numbers of specimens combined solely under the more comprehensive groups, that all the others have been reduced in the same manner in the present tables. As the inability to give definite figures respecting the numbers of species of those groups or the included classes may surprise many, some remarks relative thereto seem to be demanded.

we have now ten laboratories, in which twenty-two assistants and fourteen sub-assistants are engaged, and that our pay-roll this year amounts to $34,000, exclusive of collections bought and material used, as alcohol, glass jars, &c., &c. At this rate, our museum must rapidly overtake all others. Very truly, yours,

General EATON, Commissioner of Education.

L'S AGASSIZ.

Statement of librarian.—The library contains at present 8,175 volumes and parts of volumes, of which there are in round numbers

*The schedule of inquiries prepared by Prof. Gill having been frequently called for by superintendents and curators of museums, it is thought that it may be useful to append it in full:

[FORM 21.]

BUREAU OF EDUCATION.

1873.

INQUIRIES RESPECTING MUSEUMS OF NATURAL HISTORY.

Name of museum ?
City?

Location-County!

State ?

By whom now owned }

When founded?

By whom founded?

For what purpose?

Nature of collections ↑

How governed

Title of governing board f

Title of chief officer !

Titles of assistants?

Contrary to prevalent ideas, there is in no class of animals or plants a definite number of forms, concerning which there is unanimity of opinion as to their classificatory value; that is, whether they are generic, specific, varietal, or even individual. The latitude of opinion in regard thereto, is indeed, very considerable, and the transition of individual variations into more definite or limited varieties," and those into "species," is so marked as to constitute a very important element in the apprecia

Are there special rooms for study? And, if so, how many?

What principles or systems of classification are adopted in the arrangement of specimens

Are lectures delivered in connection

with the museum? And, if so

What number?

On what subjects?

How many on each subject?

Terms of admission?

Season of year?

Are the paleontological collections arranged with the geological

or zoological and botanical series?

* Indicate by brackets classes or branches in charge of one curator or committee of curaters, and number in each committee.