[puRPEE] MODERN PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THEIR METHODS 13 
to have outlived its usefulness, and was gradually superseded by the 
present system.* 
The centre of the free public library system of the State of New 
York is the State University at Albany, founded in 1784 “ to encourage 
and promote higher education”. This unique university now includes 
038 institutions and 510 affiliated institutions, making a total of 1448. 
Under the system in vogue, when a town or village wishes to establish 
a public library, the local trustees obtain a charter from the university, 
which entitles them to a state grant (not exceeding $200) equal to the 
amount raised for the library by local effort. The library then 
becomes an integral part of the State University. The state library 
at Albany is the heart of the whole system. Here an efficient Library 
School is maintained for the training of librarians and their assistants ; 
from here an Inspector visits the various libraries throughout the 
State, and keeps them up to a proper standard of efficiency; from here 
travelling libraries are sent forth to various centres — there are now 
about 500 of these travelling libraries moving about the State. The 
various libraries are kept in touch with the central department, and. 
every possible assistance is given to librarians and library trustees, by 
means of reports, circulars, bulletins, personal advice, assistance in 
planning library buildings, lists of best books, and public addresses 
and discussions. 
The public library movement in Massachusetts may be said to be 
almost as old as the colony. One Captain Robert Keayne, an eccen- 
tric tailor, founded the first public hbrary in Boston by a legacy of 
hooks and money. ‘This early progenitor of the present magnificent 
library was housed, in 1658, in a room in the markethouse. It was 
not, however, until 1848 that Boston secured legal authority to establish 
and maintain a public library. Gifts of books and money at once 
began to come in for the purpose, but the library was not formally 
established until 1852. The present splendid collection of books had 
for its nucleus a gift of about fifty volumes from the city of Paris 
in 1843, “through the efforts of an enthusiastic Frenchman named 
Vattemare, who proposed to build up libraries through a system of 
international exchanges”. The Boston Public Library is now the 
largest and most thoroughly organized free public library in the world. 
Boston was the pioneer in library extension in the state, but a 
general law was soon passed, which was rapidly taken advantage of 

? The district library system was adopted by Massachusetts and Michigan 
in 1837; Connecticut in 1839; Rhode Island and Iowa in 1840; Indiana, 1841; 
Maine, 1844; Ohio, 1847; Wisconsin, 1847; Missouri, 1853; California and 
Oregon, 1854; Illinois, 1855; Kansas and Virginia, 1870; New Jersey, 1871; 
Kentucky and Minnesota, 1873; and Colorado, 1876. 
