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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 Masli1achusetts 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 traveling 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. Traveling 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.

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