THE HISTORY OF LIBRARIES.
The Library, from very early times, has enlisted the enthusiasm of the
learned, and the encomiums of the wise. The actual origin of the earliest
collection of books (or rather of manuscripts) is lost in the mists of
remote antiquity. Notwithstanding professed descriptions of several
libraries found in Aulus Gellius, Athenaeus, and others, who wrote
centuries after the alleged collections were made, we lack the convincing
evidence of eye-witnesses and contemporaries. But so far as critical
research has run, the earliest monuments of man which approached
collections of written records are found not in Europe, but in Africa and
Asia.
That land of wonders, Egypt, abounds in hieroglyphic inscriptions, going
back, as is agreed by modern scholars, to the year 2000 before the
Christian era. A Papyrus manuscript, too, exists, which is assigned to
about 1600 B. C. And the earliest recorded collection of books in the
world, though perhaps not the first that existed, was that of the
Egyptian king Ramses I.--B. C. 1400, near Thebes, which Diodorus Siculus
says bore the inscription "Dispensary of the soul." Thus early were books
regarded as remedial agents of great force and virtue.
But before the library of Ramses the Egyptian king, there existed in
Babylonia collections of books, written not on parchment, nor on the more
perishable papyrus, but on clay. Whole poems, fables, laws, and hymns of
the gods have been found, stamped in small characters upon baked bricks.
These clay tablets or books were arranged in numerical order, and the
library at Agane, which existed about 2000 B. C. even had a catalogue, in
which each piece of literature was numbered, so that readers had only to
write down the number of the tablet wanted, and the librarian would hand
it over. Two of these curious poems in clay have been found intact, one
on the deluge, the other on the descent of Istar into Hades.
The next ancient library in point of time yet known to us was gathered in
Asia by an Assyrian King, and this collection has actually come down to
us, _in propria persona_. Buried beneath the earth for centuries, the
archaeologist Layard discovered in 1850 at Nineveh, an extensive
collection of tablets or tiles of clay, covered with cuneiform
characters, and representing some ten thousand distinct works or
documents. The Assyrian monarch Sardanapalus, a great patron of letters,
was the collector of this primitive and curious library of clay. He
flourished about 1650 B. C.
In Greece, where a copious and magnificent literature had grown up
centuries before Christ, Pisistratus collected a library at Athens, and
died B. C. 527. When Xerxes captured Athens, this collection, which
represents the earliest record of a library dedicated to the public, was
carried off to Persia, but restored two centuries later. The renowned
philosopher Aristotle gathered one of the largest Greek libraries, about
350 B. C. said to have embraced about 1400 volumes, or rather, rolls.
Plato called Aristotle's residence "the house of the reader." This
library, also, was carried off to Scepsis, and later by the victorious
Sulla to Rome. History shows that the Greek collections were the earliest
"travelling libraries" on record, though they went as the spoils of war,
and not to spread abroad learning by the arts of peace.
Rome having conquered Athens, we hear no more of the Athenian libraries,
but the seat of ancient learning was transferred to Alexandria, where
were gathered under the liberal sway of the Ptolemies, more books than
had ever been assembled together in any part of the world. Marc Antony
presented to Cleopatra the library of the Kings of Pergamus, said to have
contained 200,000 rolls. There is no space to sketch the ancient
libraries, so scantily commemorated, of Greece. Through Aristotle's
enthusiasm for learning, as it is believed, the Ptolemies were fired with
the zeal of book-collecting, and their capital of Alexandria became the
seat of extensive libraries, stored in the Brucheion and the Serapeum.
Here, according to general belief, occurred the burning of the famous
Alexandrian library of 700,000 volumes, by the Saracens under Omar, A. D.
640. If any one would have an object lesson in the uncertainties of
history and of human testimony, let him read the various conflicting
accounts of the writers who have treated upon this subject. The number of
volumes varies from 700,000, as stated by Aulus Gellius, to 100,000 by
Eusebius. The fact that in ancient times each book or division of an
author's work written on a roll of papyrus was reckoned as a volume, may
account for the exaggeration, since the nine books of Herodotus would
thus make nine volumes, and the twenty-four of Homer's Iliad, twenty-four
volumes, instead of one. So, by an arbitrary application of averages, the
size of the Alexandrian Library might be brought within reasonable
dimensions, though there is nothing more misleading than the doctrine of
averages, unless indeed it be a false analogy. But that any library eight
hundred years before the invention of printing contained 700,000 volumes
in the modern sense of the word, when the largest collection in the
world, three centuries after books began to be multiplied by types, held
less than 100,000 volumes, is one of the wildest fictions which writers
have imposed upon the credulity of ages.
I cannot even touch upon the libraries of the Romans, though we have very
attractive accounts, among others, of the literary riches of Lucullus, of
Atticus, and of Cicero. The first library in Rome was founded 167 B. C.
and in the Augustan age they multiplied, until there were twenty-nine
public libraries in Hadrian's time, 120 A. D. The emperor Julian, in the
fourth century, was a founder of libraries, and is said to have placed
over the doors this inscription: "_Alii quidem equos amant, alii oves,
alii feros; mihi vero a puerulo mirandum acquirendi et possidendi libros
insedit desiderium._"
The libraries of the middle ages were neither large nor numerous. The
neglect of learning and of literature was wide-spread; only in the
monasteries of Europe were to be found scholars who kept alive the sacred
flame. In these were renewed those fruitful labors of the _scriptorium_
which had preserved and multiplied so many precious books in classic
times among the Romans. The monks, indeed, were not seldom creators as
well as copyists, though the works which they composed were mainly
theological (as became their sacred profession and ascetic life). The
Latin, however, being the almost universal language for so many
centuries, the love of learning conspired to widen the field of monastic
study. Many zealous ecclesiastics were found who revived the classic
authors, and copies of the works of poets, historians, philosophers and
rhetoricians were multiplied. Then were gradually formed those monastic
libraries to which so many thousands of mediaeval scholars owed a debt of
gratitude. The order of Benedictines took a leading and effective part in
this revival of learning. Taxes were levied on the inmates of monasteries
expressly for furnishing the library with books, and the novices in many
houses must contribute writing materials upon entering, and books at the
close of their novitiate, for the enrichment of the library. Among
notably valuable libraries, several of which still survive, were those of
Monte Cassino in Italy, the Abbey of Fleury in France, St. Gall in
Switzerland, and that of the illustrious congregation of St. Maur in
France. The latter had at one time no less than one hundred and seven
writers engaged in multiplying books.
The first library in England is recorded (in the Canterbury Chartulary)
to have been given by Pope Gregory the Great, and brought by St.
Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, on his mission to England
about A. D. 600. It consisted of nine precious volumes on vellum, being
copies of parts of the Scriptures, with commentaries, and a volume of
Lives of the Martyrs. The library of the Benedictine Monastery at
Canterbury had grown in the 13th century to 3000 titles, being very rich
in theology, but with many books also in history, poetry and science. At
York had been founded, in the 8th century, a noble library by Archbishop
Egbert, and the great scholar Alcuin here acquired, amidst that "infinite
number of excellent books," his life-long devotion to literature. When he
removed to Tours, in France, he lamented the loss of the literary
treasures of York, in a poem composed of excellent hexameters. He begged
of Charlemagne to send into Britain to procure books, "that the garden of
paradise may not be confined to York."
Fine libraries were also gathered at the monasteries of Durham, of
Glastonbury, and of Croyland, and at the Abbeys of Whitby and
Peterborough.
Nor were the orders of Franciscans and Dominicans far behind as
book-collectors, though they commonly preferred to buy rather than to
transcribe manuscripts, like the Benedictines. "In every convent of
friars," wrote Fitzralph to the Pope, in 1350, "there is a large and
noble library." And Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, and Chancellor of
England in 1334, whose "Philobiblon" is the most eloquent treatise in
praise of books ever written, said, when visiting places where the
mendicants had convents; "there amid the deepest poverty, we found the
most precious riches stored up." The Pope, it appears, relaxed for these
orders the rigor of their vows of poverty, in favor of amassing
books--mindful, doubtless, of that saying of Solomon the wise--"Therefore
get wisdom, because it is better than gold."
Richard de Bury, the enthusiast of learning, wrote thus:
"The library, therefore, of wisdom is more precious than all riches, and
nothing that can be wished for is worthy to be compared with it.
Whosoever, therefore, acknowledges himself to be a zealous follower of
the truth, of happiness, of wisdom, of science, or even of the faith,
must of necessity make himself a lover of books."
And said Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich--"I can wonder at nothing more
than how a man can be idle--but of all others a scholar; in so many
improvements of reason, in such sweetness of knowledge, in such variety
of studies, in such importunity of thoughts. To find wit in poetry; in
philosophy profoundness; in history wonder of events; in oratory, sweet
eloquence; in divinity, supernatural light and holy devotion--whom would
it not ravish with delight?"
Charles the Fifth of France amassed a fine library, afterwards sold to an
English nobleman. Lorenzo de Medici, of Hungary, and Frederic Duke of
Urbino, each gathered in the 15th century a magnificent collection of
books. All of these became widely dispersed in later years, though the
manuscripts of the Duke of Urbino's collection are preserved in the
library of the Vatican.
I may here note a very few of the most extensive library collections now
existing in Europe and America.
1. Of the great public libraries of Europe, which owe much of their
riches to the government privilege of the copy-tax, the national library
of France is the oldest and the largest, now numbering two million six
hundred thousand volumes. Founded in the 15th century, it has had four
hundred years of opportunity for steady and large increase. Paris abounds
in other public libraries also, in which respect it is far superior to
London.
2. Next to the Bibliothèque nationale of France, comes the Library of the
British Museum, with 2,000,000 volumes, very rich both in manuscripts and
in printed books in all languages. A liberal Parliamentary grant of
$60,000 a year for purchase of books and manuscripts keeps this great
collection well up to date as to all important new works, besides
enabling it constantly to fill up deficiencies in the literature of the
past. Following this, among the great libraries having over half a
million books, come in numerical order
Volumes.
3. Russian Imperial Library, St. Petersburg, 1,200,000
4. Royal Library of Prussia, Berlin, 1,000,000
5. Royal Library of Bavaria, Munich, 980,000
6. Library of Congress, Washington City, 840,000
7. Boston Public Library, 734,000
8. University Library, Strasburg, Germany, 700,000
9. Imperial Public Library, Vienna, 575,000
10. Bodleian Library, Oxford 530,000
It is a notable fact that among the richest monuments of learning that
have been gathered by mankind, the University libraries hold a very high
rank. Reckoned in number of volumes, there are many of them which far
outrank the government libraries, except in six instances. Out of 174
libraries, all exceeding 100,000 volumes, as reported in the annual
_Minerva_, in October, 1898, no less than 72 are the libraries of
universities. Strasburg heads the list, with a noble collection of
700,000 volumes; then Oxford university, whose Bodleian library numbers
530,000; Leipzig university, 504,000; Cambridge university, England,
Göttingen university, and Harvard university, 500,000 each; the
university of Vienna, 475,000; the universities of Heidelberg and of
Munich, 400,000 each; Ghent and Würzburg universities, 350,000 each;
Christiania, Norway, university, and Tübingen, each 340,000; University
of Chicago, 330,000; Copenhagen university, 305,000; Breslau, Cracow,
Rostock and Upsala, 300,000 each; Yale university, New Haven, 280,000;
St. Petersburg, 257,000; Bologna, 255,000; Freiburg and Bonn
universities, 250,000 each; Prague, 245,000; Trinity, Dublin, 232,000;
Königsberg, 231,000; Kiel, 229,000; Naples, 224,000; and Buda-Pest,
210,000. I need not detain you by enumerating those that fall below
200,000 volumes, but will say that the whole number of volumes in the 72
university libraries embraced in my table is more than fifteen millions,
which would be much enlarged if smaller libraries were included. A noble
exhibit is this, which the institutions of the highest education hold up
before us.
* * * * *
We may now consider, somewhat more in detail as to particulars, the
origin and growth of the libraries of the United States. The record will
show an amazingly rapid development, chiefly accomplished during the last
quarter of a century, contrasted with the lamentably slow growth of
earlier years.
Thirty years ago the present year, I was invited to give to the American
Social Science Association, then meeting at New York, a discourse upon
Public Libraries in the United States. On recurring to this address, I
have been agreeably surprised to find how completely its facts and
figures belong to the domain of ancient history. For, while it may excite
a smile to allude to anything belonging to a period only thirty years
back as ancient history, yet, so rapid has been the accumulation, not
only of books, but of libraries themselves in that brief period of three
decades, as almost to justify the term employed.
Antiquarians must ever regard with interest the first efforts for the
establishment of public libraries in the New World. The first record of
books dedicated to a public purpose in that part of this country now
occupied by the English-speaking race is, I believe, to be found in the
following entry in the Records of the Virginia Company of London:
"November 15, 1620.--After the Acts of the former Courte were read, a
straunger stept in presentinge a Mapp of S^r Walter Rawlighes contayinge
a Descripcon of Guiana, and with the same fower great books as the Guifte
of one unto the Company that desyred his name might not be made knowne,
whereof one booke was a treatise of St. Augustine of the Citty of God
translated into English, the other three greate Volumes wer the works of
Mr. Perkins' newlie corrected and amended, wch books the Donor desyred
they might be sent to the Colledge in Virginia there to remayne in saftie
to the use of the collegiates thereafter, and not suffered at any time to
be sent abroade or used in the meane while. For wch so worthy a guifte my
Lord of Southampton desyred the p'tie that presented them to returne
deserued thanks from himselfe and the rest of the Company to him that had
so kindly bestowed them."[1]
The college here referred to was the first ever founded in America, and
was seated at Henrico, at the confluence of the James River with the
Chickahominy. It was designed not only for the education of the Virginia
settlers, but to teach science and Christianity to the Indians. Large
contributions were raised in England by Sir Edwin Sandys, and others of
the Virginia Company, for its support. But this Virginia college and its
incipient library were doomed to a speedy extinction. Like so many other
brilliant "prospects for planting arts and learning in America," it did
not survive the perils of the colonial epoch. It was brought to a period
by the bloody Indian massacre of March 22, 1622, when three hundred and
forty-seven of the Virginia settlers were slaughtered in a day, the new
settlement broken up, and the expanding lines of civilization contracted
to the neighborhood of Jamestown.
Harvard University Library was founded in 1638 by the endowment of John
Harvard, who bequeathed to the new college his library and half of his
estate. Soon afterwards enriched by the zealous contributions of English
Puritans and philosophers, of Berkeley, and Baxter, and Lightfoot, and
Sir Kenelm Digby, the first university library in America, after a
century and a quarter of usefulness, was totally destroyed with the
college edifice in the year 1764 by fire. When we contemplate the ravages
of this element, which has consumed so many noble libraries, destroying
not only printed books of priceless value, but often precious manuscripts
which are unique and irreplaceable, a lively sense of regret comes over
us that these creations of the intellect, which should be imperishable,
are even yet at the mercy of an accident in all the libraries of the
world save a very few. The destruction of books in private hands is
natural and inevitable enough, and goes on continually. Whole editions of
books, now sought with avidity as the rarest volumes known to literature,
have been gradually destroyed in innumerable fires, worn out in the hands
of readers, used for waste paper by grocers and petty tradesmen,
swallowed up in the sack of towns, or consumed by dampness, mould, or, in
rare instances, by the remorseless tooth of time. Yet there have always
existed public libraries enough, had they been fire-proof, to have
preserved many copies of every book bequeathed to the world, both before
the invention of printing and since. But, when your insurance office is
bankrupt, what becomes of the insured? When nearly all our public
libraries are so constructed as to become an easy prey to the flames, the
loss of so many books which have completely perished from the earth
ceases to be wonderful.
The growth of Harvard University library, from its second foundation a
century ago, has been steady, though at no time rapid. Select and
valuable in its principal contents, it has received numerous benefactions
from the friends of learning, and promises to become the best, as it
already is much the largest, among the university libraries of the
country. Its present strength is about 500,000 volumes.
The year 1700 witnessed the birth of the first New York library open to
public use. The Rev. John Sharp, then chaplain of His Majesty's forces in
that city (it was in the days of good King William of Orange), bequeathed
his private collection of books to found a "public library" in New York.
The library thus organized was placed in charge of the corporation of the
city, but the first city library of New York languished with little or no
increase until 1754, when a society of gentlemen undertook to found a
public library by subscription, and succeeded so well that the city
authorities turned over to them what remained of the Public City Library.
This was the beginning of the New York Society Library, one of the
largest of the proprietary libraries of the country. It was then, and for
a long time afterwards, commonly known as "The City Library." The
Continental Congress profited by its stores, there being no other library
open to their use; and the First Congress under the Constitution, which
met in New York in 1789, received the free use of the books it contained.
The library is conducted on the share system, the payment of twenty-five
dollars, and an annual assessment of six dollars, giving any one the
privilege of membership. It now contains about 100,000 volumes.
The same year, 1700, in which the New York Library was founded, ten
Connecticut ministers met together at Lyme, each bringing a number of
books, and saying, "I give these books for the founding of a college in
this colony." Such was the foundation of Yale University, an institution
that has done inestimable service to the cause of letters, having been
fruitful of writers of books, as well as of living contributions to the
ranks of every learned profession. Thirty years later, we find the good
Bishop Berkeley pausing from the lofty speculations which absorbed him,
to send over to Yale College what was called "the finest collection of
books that ever came together at one time into America." For a century
and a half the growth of this library was very slow, the college being
oppressed with poverty. In 1869, the number of volumes had risen only to
50,000, but it is cheering to relate that the last thirty years have
witnessed a growth so rapid that in 1899 Yale University Library had
285,000 volumes.
The fourth considerable library founded in the United States was due in a
large degree to the industry and zeal for knowledge of the illustrous
Franklin. As unquestionably the first established proprietary library in
America, the Library Company of Philadelphia merits especial notice. Let
us reverently take a leaf out of the autobiography of the
printer-statesman of Pennsylvania:
"And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a
subscription library. I drew up the proposals, got them put into form by
our great scrivener, Brockden, and by the help of my friends in the Junto
[the Junto was a club for mutual improvement, founded by Franklin]
procured fifty subscribers at forty shillings each to begin with, and ten
shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue.
We afterwards obtained a charter, the company being increased to one
hundred; this was the mother of all the North American subscription
libraries now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and
continually increasing. These libraries have improved the general
conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as
intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have
contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the
colonies in defence of their privileges."
When this Philadelphia Library was founded, in 1731, not a single city or
town in England possessed a subscription library. Even the library of the
British Museum, since become the greatest collection of books in the
world, save one, was not opened until 1759, more than a quarter of a
century afterwards. Although not designed as a public library of
circulation, save to its own subscribers, the Philadelphia Library has
been kept free to all for reference and consultation. The record of the
gradual increase of the first Philadelphia Library from its first few
hundred volumes, when Franklin was but twenty-five years of age, to its
present rank as the largest proprietary library in America, with 195,000
volumes of books, is highly interesting. Its history, in fact, is to a
large extent the history of intellectual culture in Philadelphia, which
remained, until the second decade in the present century, the foremost
city of the Union in population, and, from 1791 to 1800, the seat of
government of the United States.
The Philadelphia Library Company, in 1774, voted that "the gentlemen who
were to meet in Congress" in that city should be furnished with such
books as they might have occasion for; and the same privilege was
exercised on the return of the Government to that city, in 1791, and
until the removal of Congress to Washington in 1800. During the nine
months' occupation of Philadelphia by the British army, it is refreshing
to read that the conquerors lifted no spear against the Muses' bower, but
that "the officers, without exception, left deposits, and paid hire for
the books borrowed by them." The collection, in respect of early printed
books, is one of the largest and most valuable in America, embracing some
books and files of newspapers which are to be found in no other public
library. The selection of new books has been kept unusually free from the
masses of novels and other ephemeral publications which overload most of
our popular libraries, and the collection, although limited in extent in
every field, and purposely leaving special topics, such as the medical
and natural sciences, to the scientific libraries which abound in
Philadelphia, affords to the man of letters a good working library. The
shares in the library cost forty dollars, with an annual assessment of
four dollars to each stockholder.
In 1869, the great bequest of Doctor James Rush to the Philadelphia
Library of his whole property, valued at over $1,000,000, was accepted by
its stockholders, by the bare majority of five votes in a poll of over
five hundred. This lack of harmony is attributable to the fact that the
bequest, so generous in itself, was hampered by the donor with numerous
conditions, deemed by many friends of the library to be highly onerous
and vexatious. Not the least among these was the following, which is
cited from the will itself:
"Let the library not keep cushioned seats for time-wasting and lounging
readers, nor places for every-day novels, mind-tainting reviews,
controversial politics, scribblings of poetry and prose, biographies of
unknown names, nor for those teachers of disjointed thinking, the daily
newspapers."
Here is one more melancholy instance of a broad and liberal bequest
narrowly bestowed. The spirit which animated the respectable testator in
attempting to exclude the larger part of modern literature from the
library which his money was to benefit may have been unexceptionable
enough. Doubtless there are evils connected with a public supply of
frivolous and trifling literature; and perhaps our periodicals may be
justly chargeable with devoting an undue proportion of their columns to
topics of merely ephemeral interest. But it should never be forgotten
that the literature of any period is and must be largely occupied with
the questions of the day. Thus, and thus only, it becomes a
representative literature, and it is precious to posterity in proportion
as it accurately reflects the spirit, the prejudices, and the
personalities of a time which has passed into history, leaving behind it
no living representatives. If we admit that the development of the human
intellect at any particular period is worth studying, then all books are,
or may become, useful. It is amazing that a person with any pretensions
to discernment should denounce newspapers as unfitted to form a part of a
public library. The best newspapers of the time are sometimes the best
books of the time. A first-class daily journal is an epitome of the
world, recording the life and the deeds of men, their laws and their
literature, their politics and religion, their social and criminal
statistics, the progress of invention and of art, the revolutions of
empires, and the latest results of science. Grant that newspapers are
prejudiced, superficial, unfair; so also are books. Grant that the
journals often give place to things scurrilous and base; but can there be
anything baser or more scurrilous than are suffered to run riot in books?
There is to be found hidden away in the pages of some books such filth as
no man would dare to print in a newspaper, from fear of the instant wrath
of the passers-by.
When I consider the debt which libraries and literature alike owe to the
daily and weekly press, it is difficult to characterize with patience the
Parthian arrow flung at it from the grave of a querulous millionaire, who
will owe to these very newspapers the greater part of his success and his
reputation. The father of the respectable testator, Doctor Benjamin Rush,
has left on record many learned speculations concerning the signs and
evidences of lunacy. We may now add to the number the vagaries of the
author of a ponderous work on the human intellect, who gravely proposed
to hand over to posterity an expurgated copy of the nineteenth century,
with all its newspapers left out.
The Library of Congress, or, as it was called in its first general
catalogue in 1815, "The Library of the United States," was founded in
1800, by the purchase of five thousand dollars' worth of books by act of
Congress, upon the removal of the government to Washington. By the act of
January 26, 1802, entitled "An act concerning the Library for the use of
both Houses of Congress," this library was placed in charge of a joint
committee of both Houses of Congress, consisting of three Senators and
three Representatives, and a Librarian, to be appointed by the President
of the United States. It had grown to the number of only 3,000 volumes in
1814, when the British army made a bonfire of our national Capitol, and
the library was consumed in the ruins. The first library of Congress
being thus destroyed, ex-President Jefferson, then living, involved in
debt, and in his old age, at Monticello, offered his fine private library
of 6,700 volumes to Congress, through friends in that body, the terms of
payment to be made convenient to the public, and the price to be fixed by
a committee. The proposition met with able advocacy and also with some
warm opposition. It is illustrative of the crude conceptions regarding
the uses of books which prevailed in the minds of some members, that the
library was objected to on the somewhat incongruous grounds of embracing
too many editions of the Bible, and a number of the French writers in
skeptical philosophy. It was gravely proposed to pack up this portion of
the library, and return it to the illustrious owner at Monticello, paying
him for the remainder. More enlightened counsels, however, prevailed, and
the nation became possessed, for about $23,000, of a good basis for a
public library which might become worthy of the country. The collection
thus formed grew by slow accretion until, in 1851, it had accumulated
55,000 volumes. On the 24th of December in that year, a defective flue
in the Capitol set fire to the wood-work with which the whole library was
surrounded, and the result was a conflagration, from which 20,000 volumes
only were saved. Congress at once appropriated, with praiseworthy
liberality, $75,000 for the purchase of new books, and $92,500 for
rebuilding the library room in solid iron; the first instance of the
employment of that safe and permanent material, so capable of the
lightest and most beautiful architectural effects, in the entire interior
structure of any public building. The appropriation of $75,000 was
principally expended in the purchase of standard English literature,
including complete sets of many important periodicals, and a selection of
the more costly works in science and the fine arts. In 1866, two wings,
each as large as the central library, and constructed of the same
fire-proof material, were added to it, and quickly filled by the
accession, the same year and the following, of two large libraries, that
of the Smithsonian Institution, and the historical library of Peter
Force, of Washington. The latter was the largest private library ever
then brought together in the United States, but its chief value consisted
in its possession of a very great proportion of the books relating to the
settlement, history, topography, and politics of America, its 45,000
pamphlets, its files of early newspapers of the Revolution, its early
printed books, and its rich assemblage of maps and manuscripts, many of
the latter being original autographs of the highest historical interest,
including military letters and papers of the period of the American
Revolution. The Smithsonian library, the custody of which was accepted by
Congress as a trust, is rich in scientific works in all the languages of
Europe, and forms an extensive and appropriate supplement to the Library
of Congress, the chief strength of which lies in jurisprudence,
political science, history, and books relating to America. Yet no
department of literature or science has been left unrepresented in its
formation, and the fact has been kept steadily in view that the Library
of the Government must become, sooner or later, a universal one. As the
only library which is entitled to the benefit of the copyright law, by
which copies of each publication for which the Government grants an
exclusive right must be deposited in the National Library, this
collection must become annually more important as an exponent of the
growth of American literature. This wise provision of law prevents the
dispersion or destruction of books that tend continually to disappear; a
benefit to the cause of letters, the full value of which it requires
slight reflection to estimate.
This National Library now embraces 840,000 volumes, besides about 250,000
pamphlets. It is freely open, as a library of reference and reading, to
the whole people; but the books are not permitted to be drawn out, except
by Senators and Representatives and a few officials for use at the seat
of government. Its new, commodious and beautiful building, which may
fitly be called the book-palace of the American people, open day and
evening to all comers, is a delight to the eye, and to the mind.
* * * * *
The library of the Boston Athenaeum originated, in the year 1806, with a
society of gentlemen of literary tastes, who aimed at creating a
reading-room for the best foreign and American periodicals, together with
a library of books. To this a gallery of art was subsequently added. The
undertaking proved at once successful, leaving us to wonder why
cultivated Boston, though abounding in special and parish libraries,
should so long have done without a good general library; New York having
anticipated her by fifty-two years, and Philadelphia by three-quarters
of a century. The Athenaeum Library is peculiarly rich in files of
American newspapers, both old and new, and its collection of early
pamphlets is one of the largest in the country. In literature and science
it embraces a heavy proportion of the best books, its total number of
volumes being reckoned at 190,000. Its collection of books, pamphlets,
and newspapers relating to the recent civil war is among the completest
known. The price of a share in the Athenaeum is three hundred dollars, a
large sum when compared with that of other proprietary libraries; but it
involves much more valuable property-rights than any other. The annual
assessment is five dollars to shareholders, who alone possess the right
to draw books. The proprietors have also the power to grant free
admission to others, and the library and reading-room are thus thrown
open for reference to a wide range of readers.
The history of the Astor Library, opened in 1854, has been made too
familiar by repeated publication to need repetition here. The generous
founder gave two per cent. out of his fortune of $20,000,000 to create a
free public library for the city which had given him all his wealth. The
gift was a splendid one, greater than had ever before been given in money
to found a library. Moreover, the $400,000 of Mr. Astor, half a century
ago, appeared to be, and perhaps was, a larger sum relatively than four
millions in New York of to-day. Yet it remains true that the bequest was
but one-fiftieth part of the fortune of the donor, and that the growth
and even the proper accommodation of the library must have stopped, but
for the spontaneous supplementary gifts of the principal inheritors of
his vast wealth.
The growth of the Astor library has been very slow, the annual income
from what was left of Mr. Astor's $400,000 bequest, after defraying the
cost of the library building, and the $100,000 expended for books at its
foundation in 1848, having been so small as to necessitate a pinching
economy, both in salaries of the library staff, and in the annual
purchase of books. It was an example of a generous act performed in a
niggardly way. But after the lapse of half a century, enlightened public
policy, building upon the Astor foundation, and on the Lenox and Tilden
bequests for founding public libraries in New York city, is about to
equip that long neglected city with a library worthy of the name. There
has already been gathered from these three united benefactions, a
collection of no less than 450,000 volumes, making the New York Public
Library take rank as the fourth, numerically, in the United States.
While no library in America has yet reached one million volumes, there
are five libraries in Europe, which have passed the million mark. Some of
these, it is true, are repositories of ancient and mediaeval literature,
chiefly, with a considerable representation of the books of the last
century, and but few accessions from the more modern press. Such, for the
most part, are the numerous libraries of Italy, while others, like the
Library of the British Museum, in London, and the National Library, at
Paris, are about equally rich in ancient and modern literature. The one
great advantage which European libraries possess over American consists
in the stores of ancient literature which the accumulations of the past
have given them. This advantage, so far as manuscripts and early printed
books are concerned, can never be overcome. With one or two hundred
thousand volumes as a basis, what but utter neglect can prevent a library
from becoming a great and useful institution? The most moderate share of
discrimination, applied to the selection of current literature, will keep
up the character of the collection as a progressive one. But with nothing
at all as a basis, as most of our large American libraries have started,
it will take generations for us to overtake some of the vast collections
of Europe--even numerically.
In the "American Almanac" for 1837 was published the earliest statistical
account of American libraries which I have found. It is confined to a
statement of the numerical contents of twenty public and university
libraries, being all the American libraries which then (sixty years
since) contained over 10,000 volumes each. The largest library in the
United States at that date was that of the Philadelphia Library Company,
which embraced 44,000 volumes. The first organized effort to collect the
full statistics of libraries in the United States was made in 1849, by
Professor C. C. Jewett, then librarian of the Smithsonian Institution,
and the results were published in 1851, under the auspices of that
institution, in a volume of 207 pages. It contains interesting notices of
numerous libraries, only forty of which, however, contained as many as
10,000 volumes each. In 1859, Mr. W. J. Rhees, of the Smithsonian
Institution, published "A Manual of Public Libraries, Institutions, and
Societies in the United States," a large volume of 687 pages, filled with
statistical information in great detail, and recording the number of
volumes in 1338 libraries. This work was an expansion of that of
Professor Jewett. The next publication of the statistics of American
Libraries, of an official character, was published in "The National
Almanac," Philadelphia, for the year 1864, pp. 58-62, and was prepared by
the present writer. It gave the statistics of 104 libraries, each
numbering 10,000 volumes or upwards, exhibiting a gratifying progress in
all the larger collections, and commemorating the more advanced and
vigorous of the new libraries which had sprung into life.
The work of collecting and publishing the statistics of American
Libraries has for years past been admirably performed by the United
States Bureau of Education. Begun in 1875, that institution has issued
four tabular statements of all libraries responding to its circulars of
inquiry, and having (as last reported in 1897) one thousand volumes or
upwards. Besides these invaluable reports, costing much careful labor and
great expense, the Bureau of Education published, in 1876, an extensive
work wholly devoted to the subject of libraries, bearing the title
"Special Report on Public Libraries in the United States." This
publication (now wholly out of print) consisted of 1222 pages, replete
with information upon the history, management, and condition of American
Libraries, under the editorship of S. R. Warren and S. N. Clark, of the
Bureau of Education. It embraced many original contributions upon topics
connected with library science, by experienced librarians, _viz._:
Messrs. W. F. Poole, Justin Winsor, C. A. Cutter, J. S. Billings, Theo.
Gill, Melvil Dewey, O. H. Robinson, W. I. Fletcher, F. B. Perkins, H. A.
Homes, A. R. Spofford, and others.
I have prepared a table of the numerical contents of the thirty-four
largest libraries in this country in 1897, being all those having 100,000
volumes each or upwards:
Library of Congress, Washington, 840,000
Boston Public Library, Boston, 730,000
Harvard University Library, Cambridge, 510,000
New York Public Library, New York City, 450,000
University of Chicago Library, 335,000
New York State Library, Albany, 320,710
Yale University Library, New Haven, 285,000
New York Mercantile Library, New York, 270,000
Columbia University Library, New York, 260,000
Chicago Public Library, 235,385
Cincinnati Public Library, 223,043
Cornell University Library, Ithaca, N. Y., 220,000
Sutro Library, San Francisco, 206,300
Newberry Library, Chicago, 203,108
Philadelphia Library Company, 200,000
Philadelphia Mercantile Library, 190,000
Boston Athenaeum Library, 190,000
Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore, 185,902
Philadelphia Mercantile Library, 183,000
Detroit Public Library, Detroit, Mich., 148,198
University of Pennsylvania Library, Phila., 140,000
Princeton University Library, Princeton, N. J., 135,000
Pennsylvania State Library, Harrisburg, 134,000
Peabody Institute Library, Baltimore, 130,000
Cleveland Public Library, Cleveland, O., 129,000
St. Louis Public Library, 125,000
Mechanics and Tradesmen's Library, New York, 115,185
Free Public Library, Worcester, Mass., 115,000
San Francisco Public Library, 108,066
Philadelphia Free Library, 105,000
American Antiquarian Society Library, Worcester, Mass., 105,000
California State Library, Sacramento, 100,032
Massachusetts State Library, Boston, 100,000
New York Society Library, New York, 100,000
Public libraries endowed by private munificence form already a large
class, and these are constantly increasing. Of the public libraries
founded by individual bequest, some of the principal are the Public
Library of New York, the Watkinson Library, at Hartford, the Peabody
Institute Libraries, of Baltimore, and at Danvers and Peabody, Mass., the
Newberry Library and the John Crerar Library at Chicago, the Sutro
Library, San Francisco, the Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore, and the
Carnegie Libraries at Pittsburgh and Allegheny City, Pa. Nearly all of
them are the growth of the last quarter of a century. The more prominent,
in point of well equipped buildings or collections of books, are here
named, including all which number ten thousand volumes each, or upwards,
among the public libraries associated with the founder's name.
New York Public Library (Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations), 450,000
Newberry Library, Chicago, 203,100
Sutro Library, San Francisco, 206,300
Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore, 185,900
Peabody Institute Library, Baltimore, 130,000
Davenport Library, Bath, N. Y., 90,000
Silas Bronson Library, Waterbury, Conn., 52,000
Pratt Institute Free Library, Brooklyn, N. Y., 51,000
Watkinson Library, Hartford, Conn., 47,000
Sage Library, New Brunswick, N. Y., 43,000
Case Library, Cleveland, Ohio, 40,000
Grosvenor Library, Buffalo, N. Y., 39,000
Forbes Library, Northampton, Mass., 36,000
Cooper Union Library, New York, 34,000
Fisk Free Public Library, New Orleans, 33,000
Peabody Institute Library, Peabody, Mass., 33,000
Reynolds Library, Rochester, N. Y., 33,000
Carnegie Free Library, Allegheny, Pa., 30,000
Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, Vt., 30,000
Howard Memorial Library, New Orleans, 26,000
Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, Pa., 25,000
Sage Public Library, West Bay City, Mich., 25,000
Hoyt Public Library, Saginaw, Mich., 24,000
Osterhout Free Library, Wilkesbarre, Pa., 24,000
Seymour Library, Auburn, N. Y., 24,000
Hackley Public Library, Muskegon, Mich., 22,000
Willard Library, Evansville, Ind., 22,000
Otis Library, Norwich, Conn., 21,000
Morrison-Reeves Library, Richmond, Ind., 21,000
Baxter Memorial Library, Rutland, Vt., 20,000
Cornell Library Association, Ithaca, N. Y., 20,000
Thomas Crane Public Library, Quincy, Mass., 19,000
Dimmick Library, Mauch Chunk, Pa., 18,000
Gail Borden Public Library, Elgin, Ill., 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
Turner Free Library, Randolph, Mass., 15,000
Ames Free Library, North Easton, Mass., 14,000
Bigelow Free Library, Clinton, Mass., 14,000
Clarke Public Library, Coldwater, Mich., 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., 14,000
Sturgis Library, Barnstable, Mass., 13,000
Birchard Library, Fremont, Ohio, 12,500
James Prendergast Library, Jamestown, N. Y., 12,500
Rogers Free Library, Bristol, R. I., 12,300
Abbott Public Library, Marblehead, Mass., 12,000
Armour Institute, Chicago, Ill., 12,000
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
Dyer Library, Saco, Maine, 10,500
Cossit Library, Memphis, Tenn., 10,000
Gloucester (Mass.) Sawyer Free Library, 10,000
Ferguson Library, Stamford, Conn., 10,000
Parlin Memorial Library, Everett, Mass., 10,000
Jennie D. Haynes Library, Alton, Ill., 10,000
Hornell Free Library, Hornellsville, N. Y., 10,000
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 public for reading and reference, thus greatly enlarging its
usefulness.
Every State in the Union has now at least a legislative library, although
the most of them consist chiefly of laws and legislative documents, with
a few works of reference superadded; and their direct usefulness to the
public is therefore very circumscribed. The New York State Library is a
model of what a great public library should be in the capital of a State.
In it are gathered a great proportion of the best books in each
department of literature and science, while indefatigable efforts have
been made to enrich it in whatever relates to American history and
polity. Its reading-room is freely opened to the public during many hours
daily. But a State library should never be made a library of circulation,
since its utility as a reference library, having its books always in for
those who seek them, would thereby be destroyed. Even under the existing
system, with the privilege of drawing books out confined to the
Legislature, some of the State libraries have been depleted and despoiled
of many of their most valuable books, through loaning them freely on the
orders of members. The sense of responsibility is far less in the case of
borrowed books which are government property, than in other cases. The
only safe rule for keeping a government library from being scattered, is
strict refusal of orders for loaning to any one not legally entitled to
draw books, and short terms of withdrawal to legislators, with
enforcement of a rule of replacement, at their expense, as to all books
not returned at the end of each session.
* * * * *
There is one class of libraries not yet touched upon, namely, school
district libraries. These originated for the first time in a legally
organized system, through an act of the New York State Legislature in
1835, authorizing the voters in each school district to levy a tax of
twenty dollars with which to start a library, and ten dollars a year for
adding to the same. These were not to be for the schools alone, but for
all the people living in the district where the school was located. This
was supplemented in 1838 by a State appropriation of $55,000 a year, from
New York's share of the surplus revenue fund distributed by Congress to
the States in 1837, and the income of which was devoted by New York to
enlarging the school district libraries. After spending nearly two
millions of dollars on these libraries in forty years, the system was
found to have been so far a failure that the volumes in the libraries had
decreased from 1,600,000 to 700,000 volumes.
This extraordinary and deplorable result was attributed to several
distinct causes. 1st. No proper responsibility as to the use and return
of books was enforced. 2d. The insignificance of the sum raised by
taxation in each district prevented any considerable supply of books from
being acquired. 3d. The funds were largely devoted to buying the same
books in each school district, instead of being expended in building up a
large and varied collection. Thus the system produced innumerable petty
libraries of duplicates, enriching publishers and booksellers, while
impoverishing the community. The school district library system, in
short, while promising much in theory, in the way of public intelligence,
broke down completely in practice. The people quickly lost interest in
libraries which gave them so little variety in books, either of
instruction or of recreation.
Although widely introduced in other States besides New York, from 1837 to
1877, it proved an admitted failure in all. Much public money, raised by
taxation of the people, was squandered upon sets of books, selected by
State authority, and often of inferior interest and utility. Finally, it
was recognized that school district libraries were an evanescent dream,
and that town libraries must take their place. This instructive chapter
in Library history shows an experience by which much was learned, though
the lesson was a costly one.
The Historical libraries of the country are numerous, and some of the
larger ones are rich in printed Americana, and in historical manuscripts.
The oldest is that of the Massachusetts Historical Society, founded in
1791, and among the most extensive are those of the New York Historical
Society, American Antiquarian Society, the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania, the New England Historic-genealogical Society, and the
Wisconsin State Historical Society. There are no less than 230 historical
societies in the U. S., some forty of which are State associations.
The Mercantile libraries are properly a branch of the proprietary, though
depending mostly upon annual subscriptions. The earliest of these was the
Boston Mercantile Library, founded in 1820, and followed closely by the
New York Mercantile the same year, the Philadelphia in 1821, and the
Cincinnati Mercantile in 1835.
Next we have the professional libraries, law, medical, scientific, and,
in several cities, theological. These supply a want of each of these
professions seldom met by the public collections, and are proportionately
valuable.
* * * * *
The most recent plan for the wide diffusion of popular books is the
travelling library. This originated in New York in 1893, when the
Legislature empowered the Regents of the State University (a body of
trustees having charge of all library interests in that State) to send
out selections of books to any community without a library, on request of
25 resident taxpayers. The results were most beneficial, the sole
expense being five dollars for each library.
Travelling libraries, (mostly of fifty volumes each) have been set on
foot in Massachusetts, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and other
States, and, as the system appears capable of indefinite expansion, great
results are anticipated in the direction of the public intelligence. It
is pointed out that while the State, by its free school system, trains
all the people to read, it should not leave the quality of their reading
to chance or to utter neglect, when a few cents _per capita_ annually
would help them to an education of inestimable value in after life.
Some objections, on the other hand, have been urged to the system, as
introducing features of paternalism into State government, and taking out
of the hands of individual generosity and local effort and enterprise
what belongs properly to such agencies. The vexed question of the proper
function and limitations of State control in the domain of education
cannot here be entered upon.
In the volume last published of statistics of American libraries, that of
1897, great progress was shown in the five years since 1891. The record
of libraries reported in 1896 embraced 4,026 collections, being all which
contained over 1,000 volumes each. The increase in volumes in the five
years was a little over seven millions, the aggregate of the 4,026
libraries being 33,051,872 volumes. This increase was over 27 per cent.
in only five years.
If the good work so splendidly begun, in New England, New York,
Pennsylvania, and some of the Western States, in establishing libraries
through public taxation and private munificence, can only be extended in
the Southern and Middle States, the century now about to dawn will
witness an advance quite as remarkable as we have seen in the latter
years of the century about to close.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] MS. Records of the Virginia Company, in the Library of Congress.