852 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



sional Printer of 50 copies of all books and other publications by the 

 Government of the United States for the purpose of exchange with 

 foreign governments for similar public documents. The system, how- 

 ever, for want of oversight and attention, has worked very imperfectly. 

 The foreign governments with whom the exchange list has been formed 

 are some 26 in number, and of those the most voluminous receipts by 

 the Library of Congress are so utterly irregular as to destroy any 

 value arising from their continuity and completeness. 



The Government of Great Britain sends but few, or none, of its 

 publications to our Library, and that is simply owing to the fact that 

 the details and machinery for making such exchange can not be effi- 

 ciently managed through the medium of mere epistolary correspond- 

 ence. It will require the active supervision of an intelligent person 

 to establish a practical system of proper exchange of these public 

 documents in the manner designed by Congress, and it would be 

 exceedingly useful and valuable to our Library. 



In addition to the matter of the interchange of governmental pub- 

 lications, there have been great improvements of which we should 

 avail ourselves in the construction, supervision, classification, and 

 arrangement of European libraries within the last twenty-five years. 

 The very preservation of the books themselves, their methods of 

 classification, arrangement, and cataloguing, are all matters in which 

 great advance has been made, the benefit of which I desire should 

 accrue to our own Library. 



The erection of a national library is every day becoming a matter 

 of greater necessity. There is in this country no one whose intelli- 

 gence and capacity to inform Congress properly upon this subject 

 exceeds that of the modest, accomplished, and worthy gentleman who 

 fills the post of Librarian so acceptably to all of those who have occa- 

 sion to need his services or who are at all competent to judge of their 

 value. 



It is therefore, in my opinion, exceedingly proper and highly 

 expedient that a visit to and an inspection of the public libraries of 

 Europe should be made in behalf of the American people and their 

 Library as soon as may be. 



As I said, there is no one fitter for this mission, nor who would 

 more creditably represent the American Government, than the gentle- 

 man named in this resolution. I may say, also, as a matter which is 

 not without weight with me, I think it would not only be a duty to 

 him, but a well-earned pleasure and delight. To make such a tour of 

 inspection would be to Mr. Spofford a labor of love as well as the per- 

 formance of a most important duty a season of relaxation and release 

 from very confining labors, which his industry and devotion to public 

 service have heretofore rendered impossible. 



It is proper to add that, except so far as inquiry made by me into 



