ally, it
was recognized that school district libraries were an evanescent dream,
and that town libraries must take their place. This instructive chapter
in Library history shows an experience by which much was learned, though
the lesson was a costly one.

The Historical libraries of the country are numerous, and some of the
larger ones are rich in printed Americana, and in historical manuscripts.
The oldest is that of the Massachusetts Historical Society, founded in
1791, and among the most extensive are those of the New York Historical
Society, American Antiquarian Society, the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania, the New England Historic-genealogical Society, and the
Wisconsin State Historical Society. There are no less than 230 historical
societies in the U. S., some forty of which are State associations.

The Mercantile libraries are properly a branch of the proprietary, though
depending mostly upon annual subscriptions. The earliest of these was the
Boston Mercantile Library, founded in 1820, and followed closely by the
New York Mercantile the same year, the Philadelphia in 1821, and the
Cincinnati Mercantile in 1835.

Next we have the professional libraries, law, medical, scientific, and,
in several cities, theological. These supply a want of each of these
professions seldom met by the public collections, and are proportionately
valuable.

* * * * *

The most recent plan for the wide diffusion of popular books is the
travelling library. This originated in New York in 1893, when the
Legislature empowered the Regents of the State University (a body of
trustees having charge of all library interests in that State) to send
out selections of books to any community without a library, on request of
25 resident taxpayers. The results were most beneficial, the sole
expense being five dollars for each library.

Travelling libraries, (mostly of fifty volumes each) have been set on
foot in Massachusetts, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and other
States, and, as the system appears capable of indefinite expansion, great
results are anticipated in the direction of the public intelligence. It
is pointed out that while the State, by its free school system, trains
all the people to read, it should not leave the quality of their reading
to chance or to utter neglect, when a few cents _per capita_ annually
would help them to an education of inestimable value in after life.

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