598 Presidential Addresses 



furtherance of its declared purpose for the "in- 

 crease and diffusion of knowledge among men" 

 the Congress has from time to time given it other 

 important functions. Such trusts have been exe- 

 cuted by the Institution with notable fidelity. There 

 should be no halt in the work of the Institution, in 

 accordance with the plans which its Secretary has 

 presented, for the preservation of the vanishing races 

 of great North American animals in the National 

 Zoological Park. The urgent needs of the National 

 Museum are recommended to the favorable con- 

 sideration of the Congress. 



Perhaps the most characteristic educational move- 

 ment of the past fifty years is that which has created 

 the modern public library and developed it into broad 

 and active service. There are now over five thou- 

 sand public libraries in the United States, the prod- 

 uct of this period. In addition to accumulating ma- 

 terial, they are also striving by organization, by 

 improvement in method, and by co-operation, to give 

 greater efficiency to the material they hold, to make 

 it more widely useful, and by avoidance of unneces- 

 sary duplication in process to reduce the cost of its 

 administration. 



In these efforts they naturally look for assistance 

 to the Federal library, which, though still the Li- 

 brary of Congress, and so entitled, is the one national 

 library of the United States. Already the largest 

 single collection of books on the Western Hemi- 

 sphere, and certain to increase more rapidly than 



