284 The Smithsonian Institution 



library, pure and simple, tendered his resignation as a Con- 

 gressional Regent thereupon. An investigation of the policy 

 of the Institution followed ; but the investigating committee, 

 both in the Senate and in the House, supported the policy 

 which Professor Henry had pursued. 



Although offered the presidency of a college and a profes- 

 sorship in another college, Professor Jewett preferred to 

 accept the office of Superintendent of the Boston Public 

 Library, whose new building had just then been completed. 

 The next ten years of his life were devoted to the develop- 

 ment of this great library. 



"It was a fortunate misfortune," said President D. C. Gil- 

 man, of the Johns Hopkins University, "that removed Pro- 

 fessor Charles C. Jewett from the Smithsonian Institution 

 and placed him at the head of the Boston Library." 1 



" He was chosen," says Doctor Guild, "because he was, 

 by common consent, the ablest bibliographer and most ac- 

 complished librarian in the country. . . . For more than ten 

 years Mr. Jewett has thus been identified with the best inter- 

 ests of learning in the metropolis of New England. The 

 catalogues which he has prepared, and the rules for the gov- 

 ernment of the library which he has suggested, have served 

 as models for similar libraries in all parts of the country." 



He had the largest share in the preparation of the index to 

 the catalogue of the Boston Public Library (1861), and pub- 

 lished in the same year a plan for the circulation and use of 

 the books in the upper hall of the Public Library. He pro- 

 posed a system of charging books, which, with minor excep- 

 tions, is still in use there, and is the prevailing practice in 

 most of the large libraries of this country. 2 



1 " Development of the Public Library in Oilman (formerly librarian of Yale College) 



America." An address delivered at the open- published by the University, 1891, page 4. 



ing of the Cornell University Library, Octo- 2 The Library Journal, Volume XIV, 1889, 



ber 7, 1891, Ithaca, New York, by Daniel C. page 206. 



