dition; and supplied every school district with such a library. These
libraries after remaining in use for a while, and generally being
thoroughly read, were exchanged among the districts. New books were thus
continually coming to new readers. This movement was earnestly forwarded
by that pioneer among American educators, Horace Mann, and during the
period of my boyhood was a godsend to the young people of New England. I
want to bless the memory of Samuel Brown, Father Page (a pioneer of the
system in New York), and Horace Mann for the gleams of literary light
thus cast across the bookless darkness of New England rural homes forty
to fifty years ago. This highly economical missionary agency of general
intelligence passed away in New England with the incoming of the more
satisfactory town system of free libraries. The cause of its decadence
elsewhere is not clear, but it has lately had a remarkable resurrection
in New York, as we soon shall see.

The first free town library in America, or the world, supported by
municipal taxation, was established by the efforts of Abiel Abbot, D.D.,
in Peterboro, New Hampshire, in 1833. A decayed social library and an
operatives' library, and perhaps some other small collections, were thus
gathered under the shelter of the town; and took on new life from its
fostering care, and the small annual appropriation for new books which
is the breath of life to all libraries. Here, as always, it was _a man_
that inspired the advance movement and carried it on to successful
fulfilment.

In 1849, New Hampshire passed a general law enabling towns and cities to
maintain free libraries by taxation; and in 1851 Massachusetts, which
had granted Boston in 1847 the right to establish such a library, passed
a similar general enabling act. Several other states followed almost
immediately, and nearly every northern and northwestern state, except
Pennsylvania, has since adopted the measure. In 1893, twenty states had
enacted similar statutes; and, in all, more than seven hundred free
libraries have been established under them. They have increased--as
might naturally have been expected--most rapidly in the portions of the
country where other library agencies, and where an efficient public
school system, have been longest and most efficiently at work. Thus, of
the seven hundred libraries, more than three hundred are in
Massachusetts (according to the returns of the Public Library Commission
for 1894), or 1,23