418 



LIBRARY LEGISLATION. 



republic. Now they are confined to tlie sea- 

 ports, and are not allowed to establish facto- 

 ries or stores up the rivers, or in the interior. 

 2. To lease land for a long term of years, per- 

 haps ninety nine. Now the limitation is twenty 

 years. Such an innovation would certainly en- 

 courage the investment of foreign capital and 

 energize the republic. Most of the colored peo- 

 ple who have emigrated to Africa were poor and 

 comparatively ignorant, and in this new country 

 and hostile climate they have enjoyed neither 

 the support of large capital, nor the direction 

 of general intelligence. They carried to Africa 

 very little idea of voluntary, systematic labor. 

 They worked in America more from outside 

 than inside influences. The climate is against 

 the people. Their education has been against 

 them, and they have increased their weakness 

 by lying down on native muscle and depend- 

 ing too much on foreign philanthropy. Even 

 after sixty years of opportunity, and thirty- 

 seven years of national existence, there are no 

 railroads, no horses or oxen in use, except at 

 Cape Palmas. See " Liberia," by T. McCants 

 Stewart (New York, 1886). 



LIBRARY LEGISLATION. Previous to the 

 Revolution, and for many years after, there 

 appears to have been no legislation in this 

 country for the support of free public libraries 

 from public taxes. The idea of the free public 

 library, as it is known to-day, was not yet 

 evolved. There are in the town records of 

 Boston for 1 686 and 1695 notes relating to " the 

 library room in the east end of the town- 

 house," and concerning "all bookes or other 

 things belonging to the library," and in a will 

 of 1674 ten volumes are bequeathed "to the 

 public library in Boston or elsewhere," which 

 prove that such a library existed then, but it 

 was probably destroyed in the town-house in 

 the fire of 1747. 



The Assembly of South Carolina passed an 

 act, Nov. 16, 1700, for the preservation of a 

 library which Rev. Thomas Bray, D. D., found- 

 er of the Society for the Propagation of the 

 Gospel in Foreign Parts, had sent to Charles- 

 ton " for the publick use " in that province. 



The Philadelphia Library Company was in- 

 corporated in 1742, but was started ten year-s 

 earlier by Benjamin Franklin as a subscription 

 library, " the mother," he called it, " of all the 

 North American subscription libraries," being 

 "imitated by other towns and in other prov- 

 inces." The Charleston (S. 0.) Library Society, 

 organized in 1748, after several failures to 

 secure a charter, was finally incorporated in 

 1755. The New York Society Library was 

 incorporated in 1754. Many towns in New 

 England had libraries at an early date. Salis- 

 bury, Conn., before the Revolution, received 

 a gift of 200 volumes for a library which flour- 

 ished until the town was nearly a century old ; 

 and in 1803 Caleb Bingham presented to the 

 children of the same town a small library which 

 prospered for many years, receiving occasional 

 grants of money from the town without the 



authority of State law, " the first example, it 

 is believed, of municipal aid to a library in the 

 United States." 



The earliest legislation for libraries in the 

 United States took the form of general laws 

 providing for the incorporation of library asso- 

 ciations, variously called subscription, proprie- 

 tary, social, and even public libraries. There 

 is now a general law, providing for the incor- 

 poration of such associations, in each of the 

 sixteen States: California, Colorado, Florida, 

 Illinois, Indian a, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, 

 New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode 

 Island, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and 

 Wisconsin. 



In twenty-three States and Territories Ala- 

 bama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, 

 Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, 

 Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Mon- 

 tana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, 

 Tennessee, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, 

 West Virginia, and Wyoming the libraries and 

 buildings of these associations are exempted 

 from taxation; and in Alabama, Connecticut, 

 District of Columbia, Illinois, Kansas, Massa- 

 chusetts, New York, West Virginia, and Wis- 

 consin, private libraries to a certain amount are 

 exempt from taxation or attachment. 



In 1835 New York passed a law establishing 

 district libraries, not libraries for schools but 

 for the people, in districts of the size of a 

 school-district, the voters in which were au- 

 thorized to levy a tax of $20 to start, and $10 

 annually to continue a library. Another law 

 in 1838 appropriated $55,000 annually to the 

 school districts for the purchase of books, and 

 required them to raise by taxation a similar 

 amount for the same purpose. In 1843 author- 

 ity was granted school districts to use the 

 library fund for the purchase of school appa- 

 ratus, and the payment of teachers' salaries, 

 provided the district libraries contained 100 to 

 125 volumes, according as there were less or 

 more than fifty scholars from five to sixteen 

 years of age in the district. The libraries in- 

 creased up to 1853, when they contained an 

 aggregate of 1,604.210 volumes. From 1853 

 to 1886 the State expended $1,J 95,422 for these 

 district libraries, " and yet they have been 

 steadily running down during this period, and 

 the number of books have decreased more than 

 one half," says the State superintendent in 

 1886. The number of volumes reported in the 

 libraries in 1886 is 734,506. 



Twenty-one States followed New York in 

 passing statutes providing for the establishment 

 of school-district libraries: California, Colorado, 

 Connecticut, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, 

 Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, 

 Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, 

 Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, 

 Virginia, and Wisconsin. But in all the system 

 has proved a failure, because the unit (the dis- 

 trict) was too small ; the amount of money 

 annually obtainable in each was too insignifi- 

 cant, and the number of volumes too few to 



