3C KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
which, except for our interest and forethought, would not now exist. Why sur- 
render such a valuable property? I answer, because the Academy of Science is 
working in the interests of Kansas, and the State can use this property to better 
advantage than can the Academy. By making it a part of the general library of 
the State, open to the public, its benefits will reach a larger number of people 
than are now reached. The State, too, by paying our printing biils and binding 
our exchanges, has acquired an equity in this property. On no other ground than 
that of ultimate ownership can the State be expected to appropriate money from 
year to year to build up libraries. Since the question of ownership of the Acad- 
emy library is, to say the least, a debatable one, I am sure that every member of 
the Academy would be ready to relinquish his personal rights for the greater 
good. Regulations could easily be provided by which our members could retain 
the privilege of drawing scientific books for private use. 
The State Historical Society is similar to the Academy in its organization and 
relation to the state. Its title to its library is like ours, differing mainly in the 
greater size of its collection. The housing together and placing in a single col- 
lection all these libraries, under one general administration, would in nowise 
interfere with the function of the State Historical Society or of the Academy of 
Science as collectors of historica] and scientific materials; on the contrary, it 
would assist the secretaries in doing this work, since it would relieve them of the 
cares of library administration. 
The publication of reports and the exchanges arising therefrom should go on 
as at present. The historical museum and the scientific museum could be main- 
tained under the management of each society. Even the purchase of books in 
each particular field could continue as at present, with safeguards to prevent 
wasteful duplication. It is the care of the books and the library management 
only that would be changed. 
The duplicate volumes growing out of the union of the libraries, especially 
the miscellaneous books, could well be employed to help in establishing traveling 
libraries for circulation throughout the state. 
Let me say, in this connection, that the promotors of the ‘‘ traveling library” 
idea are forgetting the difference between the functions of a circulating library 
and a library of reference. Our state library is exclusively a library of reference. 
If it is to manage the traveling libraries, it must have a stock of duplicate books 
for that purpose. It would be manifestly absurd to use its stock of miscellaneous 
books for the circulating libraries and thus be without them for reference. 
At the last annual meeting of the Academy, at Baldwin, a committee was ap- 
pointed to secure proper legislation to obtain for the Academy the space neces- 
sary for making a suitable exhibit of the property and literature of the Academy 
in the state-house. As chairman of that committee, I have gone over that sub- 
ject in many of its phases, have consulted the other members of the committee, 
members of the Academy, the librarians in the state-house, and out of all have 
evolved a plan, which I can present here only in outline. If the Academy should 
approve it, the plan can easily be drafted into a bill for presentation to the legis- 
lature. It can be rejected if it seems impractical, or it may be radically modified. 
THE STATE LIBRARY. 
I.— Governing Body. The governor of the state, the chief justice, the su- 
perintendent of public instruction, the secretary of the State Historical Society, 
the curator of the Academy of Science and the secretary of the State Agricul- 
tural Society shall constitute a library board, whose duty it shall be to meet at 
some stated time each four years and elect one chief librarian and three assist- 
