1859.

No. 19.

[ No. 19. ]

MINORITY REPORT of the Committee on Education, relative to the establishment of School District Libraries.

A minority of the Committee on Education, to whom was referred "A bill to provide for the establishment of School District Libraries," have, after due deliberation, directed their chairman to report the following views in support of the provisions of this bill, and to some extent in explanation thereof.

An almost universal dissatisfaction with the present library system of the State seems to prevail, and a very general desire, and even expectation, has been expressed that some reform should be attempted.

The acknowledged defects of the present system, are: 1. The inequality of the taxation, each township being required to devote $25 annually to the library, whether it has one district or ten;

2. The injustice to fractional districts, which being allowed access to but one library at a time, get but a small proportion of the books due them;

3. The amount of labor imposed upon school directors in requiring them to go quarterly to the township library to get and return books, and the consequent inefficiency of the system, leaving a large majority of the districts without any library at all;

4. The selection and purchase of the books by men whose inexperience or whose remote location exposes them to the impositions of itinerant book venders, both as to the character and the prices of the books.

From these causes the libraries are often worthless in character, and the books are quickly ruined or lost. Their use is mainly confined to the central villages where their benefits are really least needed.

Evidently the best and most useful of all libraries is the family library, which stands as a perpetual invitation to parents and children to spend their leisure hours in the healthful companionship of books. No family will long remain ignorant with a good library within their doors. Next to the family library, which all families cannot possess, stands the school district library, which is but a little removed from each man's fireside, and is easily accessible to even the children of the district.

The purpose of the library system is not mainly to furnish books to those who already have formed a taste for reading, and who will have books even at a great expense of time and trouble in getting them, but to awaken such a taste in the young. This thirst for reading once created, a child's education is greatly facilitated, and his intelligence is secured. Thus the library becomes a most important auxiliary to the school. This main purpose of the library can only be fully secured by the district library system.

The bill reported prescribes a simple and uniform system of district libraries; provides for the central location and safe keeping of the books, and while it does not increase the tax for library purposes, adjusts it more propor

tionately to the wealth and the wants of the various townships.

Placing the selection of the books in the hands of the State Board of Education, it ensures, 1st, the purchase of good books, and 2d, secures them at greatly reduced prices, at from 30 to 50 per cent. below ordinary prices.

It brings a large and valuable list of books to the notice and within the reach of the districts, thus really enlarging rather than restricting their privilege of choice.

It places the remotest districts in the new counties on an equality with those in or near the great cities in their facilities for getting books, while it saves the immense expenditure of time and labor which it must cost for each district, or even township, to examine critically a large assortment of books. The Board of Education, by a general circular addressed to the leading scholars and school officers of the State, would be enabled to combine the wisdom of the entire State in making their list.

If it be objected that the plan seems arbitrary, abridging the rights of the people to use their own money as they will, it should be reflected that our whole public school system is open to the same objection. The people may not hire whomever they please as the teacher of their school, but must take some one holding the certificate of the inspectors. Nor are the books as now purchased selected by the people themselves, but by a board of township inspectors. But the object of the law is to regulate and protect, not merely to restrict; and it is a false view that considers all such laws a limitation of natural liberty.

If it be asked why not leave it optional with the districts to select either from the list proposed by the Board of Education, or from any other books they may prefer, we reply this would sacrifice the real excellencies of the system, to wit: the complete securing to the people of good books, and the great reduction of prices. It would not be generally the more intelligent district boards that

would depart from the proposed list, for the advice of such boards would be most likely of all to concur with the choice of the Board of Education, but would be oftenest those inexperienced district boards whom some traveling peddler could persuade that his books were better than those on the recommended list. And to secure to these few dissenting boards this privilege of choice, all the rest of the State must be heavily taxed, since no contract could be made on so favorable terms by 20 or 25 per cent. where no assurance could be given to the contractor of the number of books wanted.

The committee cannot concur in the opinion that the division of the township libraries should be left to a vote of the people, believing that such a measure would be fruitful in strife and dissensions, often arraying the central villages, where the township library is usually kept, in bitter hostility to the remoter districts, which might desire the division of the library.

Finally, your committee would most earnestly bespeak for the bill the careful attention and consideration of the House, confident that the more carefully its provisions are studied and compared with those in operation, that the more will this House be inclined to favor its passage.

FOSTER PRATT,

THOS. MITCHELL.

1859.

No. 20.

[ No. 20. ]

REPORT of the Select Committee relative to building a State Capitol.

The select committee to whom was referred so much of the Governor's message as relates to the building of a State capitol having had the same under consideration beg leave to report:

now so.

That they find the several propositions stated in the message to be actual and urgent. It is certain that the present capitol was erected for a temporary purpose, which, if ever adequate to the needs of the State, is not That the State officers no longer have sufficient room in which to perform their duties with the assistants around them which are indispensible. That the archives of the State are in an unsafe condition and that the very building itself in which they are kept is at any time liable to fall. That there is no proper place for the Supreme Court to hold its sessions. There is no room to meet the increasing wants of the Treasury, in view of the enlargement of its duties in respect to a bank department. There is no adequate accommodation for the Library. Without