INTRODUCTION. 17 



corrupt, and the evidences of a bad taste, both as to thought and language, are 

 visible in their proceedings public and private. There is nothing the ladies so 

 generally neglect as reading, and indeed all the arts for the improvement of the 

 mind — a neglect in which the men have set the example."* 



The legislature, in 1796, passed an act by which, after reciting that a dispo- 

 sition for improvement in useful knowledge had manifested itself in various parts 

 of the state, and for procuring and erecting social and public libraries, and that it 

 was of the utmost importance to the public that the sources of information should 

 be multiplied, and institutions for that purpose encouraged and promoted, provi- 

 sion was made for the incorporation of public library associations. Valuable 

 libraries were established under this law in many of the principal towns ; and 

 they were exempted by a subsequent act, and still remain free from taxation. 



A state library, deposited in the capitol, was commenced in 1818. The law 

 department therein contains 4,273 volumes ; and the scientific, literary and miscel- 

 laneous division contains 4,218 volumes. The collection has been enriched by 

 very munificent donations from the government of Great Britain ; and the selec- 

 tion, which has hitherto been made with great care, is now continually increased 

 by means of annual legislative appropriations of about three thousand dollars. 



But the most important public measure in relation to libraries, was the act be- 

 fore referred to, by which the sum of $55,000 of public money was annually for 

 rive years devoted to the establishment of a school library in each of the eleven 

 thousand school districts in the state. Each district was moreover obliged to 

 raise a sum equal to that apportioned to it from the treasury ; so that the amount 

 devoted to the establishment of these collections, which, as they are distributed 

 so as to bring a library within the reach of every family, may be called domestic 

 libraries, is $550,000. The Messrs. Harpers, publishers in New- York, acting 

 in harmony with the intentions of the legislature, have already issued from their 

 press two hundred volumes, constituting a series of popular works, chiefly by 



* American Gazetteer, 1762. 



Intr. 3 



