Mis. No. 48. 41 



which are formally cited, are not to be found in the largest law libraries in 

 the United States. More than one-half of the remainder are common 

 books, to be found in any well selected general library of 5,000 volumes. 

 This work was Avritten in Europe. It could not liave been written in this 

 country from the materials contained in our public libraries. 



If we take a book of a diflerent kind, demanding for its composition a 

 thorough knowledge of the history of one of the physical sciences, and, 

 consequently, requiring the assistance of authorities less accessible and of 

 less general importance, the result will be all the more striking. 



In the first volume of Hoefer's History of Chemistry, 251 works afe re- 

 ferred to. Of these, about fifty are common books, to be found in almost 

 any library of 5,000 volumes.' Of the remaining 191, 1 cannot find 75 in 

 all our public libraries. 



The plan of our Institution contemplates the publication of a series of re- 

 ports on the condition and progress of various branches of knowledge, pre- 

 pared by collaborators who are to be furnished with all the journals, domestic 

 and foreign, necessary to aid them in their labors. Such reports, if properly 

 prepared, will be very useful. We need merely refer, for illustration, to 

 those published by the Swedish Academy. But the preparation of them 

 will require the purchase of a great number of books which are not at 

 present to be found in our public libraries. This will be made manifest 

 by a few facts. Of 38 publications, mostly periodical, referred to in a late 

 report of Berzelius on the progress of chemistry, I can find but 13 in our 

 public libraries. 



Mr. J. R. Bartlett informs me that of 204 works which he refers (o in 

 his report on the progress of ethnology, 129 are not to be found in the 

 public libraries of New York, nor in any others probably in the United 

 States. The cost of the books which, in order to prepare his work, he 

 had to procure at his own expense, was ^1,000. And yet this report is 

 only a pamphlet of 151 pages. 



From these facts it is manifest that there is no exaggeration in the 

 language of one of the members of our Board of Regents, from South 

 Carolina, who, in a report to the Senate in 1836, stated that " our 

 whole body of literature, if collected in one place, would not aflbrd 

 the means of investigating one point of science or literature through all, or 

 even a considerable portion of what has been written on it." Here, he 

 adds, " where the foundations of government repose on the aggregate in- 

 teUigence of the citizens, the assistance afforded by public insiitutions to 

 the exertions of intellect is but one-tenth of that whhin the reach of the 

 mind of civilized Europe." 



The complaints of our scholars testify to our deficiency. Their 

 wants have weighed heavily upon them. They have repressed genius. 

 They may have condemned to oblivion names tliat would have rivalled 

 the brightest in the history of science and letters. 1 miglit mention, 

 it is true, Americans who have ranked among the most learned of the 

 Avorld. But they, like others less renowned, have had sorrowful ex- 

 perience of the deficiency of which we complain. They, however, in 

 most instances, have, from their own private wealth, supplied the de- 

 fects of public provisions. Had they been poor they would not gene- 

 rally have been the authors tliey were. They could not have had access 

 to the necessary books, had they not possessed the wealth for buying 

 them, or for crossing the Atlantic to consult them where they were already 



