quently called for have been uniformly, and for that special reason, placed below, and will continue so to be placed. It should also be stated that the Upper Hall has been freely open for the consultation of books, during the whole time that the Index to its contents has been in press, and that it has been much used. Some persons have been in the habit of spending several hours each day for months, in study and investigation among its

treasures.

The extensive circulation of the books among all classes of the community, is a remarkable and most pleasing feature of this institution. The great design of the establishment of a free Public Library, was to scatter its benefits among the homes of the people, and this design it has nobly fulfilled, and to an extent of which its earliest and most sanguine friends did not dream. This result is sure. It is also conspicuous, and easily exhibited in statistics.

But the other high purpose of the Library, rendering it the complement of the great system of public instruction for which Boston has so long and so justly been distinguished — that namely of making public, and entirely free provision for the widest intellectual culture-has not been forgotten nor ever neglected. Mr. Bates and other donors of permanent funds wisely stipulated that the proceeds of their endowments should be expended for books of solid and standard worth. The appropriations of the city government could thus be devoted to the purchase of books of immediate popularity and interest.

I would not by any means intimate that the bulk of the circulation is not of standard and valuable books. On the contrary, I believe that, in this respect, were it practicable to classify the issues, it would be seen that the proportion of books of real and solid worth which have been distributed, books of history, biography, travels, and science, — is larger here than in any other lending library, and that this proportion is annually increasing.

So remarkable, however, is this circulation of the books, that we may be in danger of exhibiting it so prominently as to do injustice to the institution, by conveying the impression that its

scope is more limited than it really is, and that its results are less permanent and valuable than showy and ephemeral. I have even heard the great result of the Library stated to be the lending of so many thousand volumes a year at a total cost to the city of so many thousand dollars. It is easy to see that such statements rest on a great misapprehension of the character of the Library, and involve much injustice to its purposes and resources; for, in the first place, the circulating of books is but one way in which a library is useful; and, in the second place, only a fraction of the expense of the library is immediately connected with the circulation.

More persons visit this library daily for other important purposes than for borrowing books for home use. The reading room is open daily thirteen hours. Its tables are supplied with one hundred and fifty of the best magazines and reviews in the world, and it is visited daily by hundreds of readers, intent as any one can see, from their quiet manner and steady application, upon substantial mental improvement.

The large library in the Upper Hall, too, is never without students, some of them with a large number of books open before them for comparison and minute investigation. The books of reference are in almost constant demand. Daily visits are made to the building for settling a single fact or ascertaining a date; items which seem slight, but which may be of immense importance. Of one set of books belonging to the Library, the Specifications of English Patents, I am able to state that it has been consulted, since December last, by seventy-one different persons, often by the same person several days and even weeks in succession. How great may be the pecuniary interests involved in these researches I cannot of course say, but they have often been represented to be of considerable magnitude.

It should be borne in mind when estimating the relative importance of the lending out of books and of their use within the building, that institutions like the British Museum and the Astor Library, universally conceded to be among the most useful in the world, never allow their books to be taken from the building.

If the sole criterion of the excellence of a library is the number of its lendings, then is the smallest circulating library more valuable and useful than the British Museum. The Trustees could doubtless increase the circulation almost indefinitely, if they could divert the funds to buying only the last novelties in literature, in hundreds or thousands of copies either piling them up after a few weeks' use in dead masses which would soon fill several buildings like this, or selling, generally for mere nominal sums, books which were bought in the first flush of their success and of course at their best prices. The owners of circulating libraries are paid for the use of their books. The great glory of the free library is that it is free. It could not therefore demand money for the use of its books, and what it would receive from the sale of copies no longer desired by borrowers, would be but a fraction of their cost. It is easy therefore to see that although an individual who gives out books on hire may make an immense establishment, like Mudie's in London, profitable, competition in such business by the city would be in the last degree preposterous, to say nothing of the fact that, for the purpose of offering mere gratification to one class of the community, it would deprive all others of the great and truly substantial and permanent benefits of a real library; one where every citizen educated in our public schools and appreciating knowledge, though he be poor and unable to purchase books for himself, may find not only lighter productions of the press for reading and recreation, but also works which have stood the test of time-of a few years or of many centuries and which embody the thoughts, the facts, the arts, the principles, that have produced, that sustain, and that alone can advance civilization.

But although mere extent of circulation is not the only test of the usefulness of a library, still in an establishment like this, possessing books carefully selected for their intrinsic value as well as their immediate interest, a wide distribution of them for home use, is a very striking, important, and beneficent object, and one which should not be abandoned nor depreciated upon any hasty and inaccurate estimate of its expensiveness.

If any one desires to know what the circulation of our books actually costs, he must ascertain what it would cost to sustain such a library without lending the books, and deduct this sum from the whole amount now expended. The difference would be found to be but a fraction of the whole annual expenditure. The cost and value of this part of the service may be separately estimated and considered. If the benefits of the circulation are not thought to be sufficient to compensate for the outlay and inconvenience, the books can all be retained within the building and great permanent blessings still be dispensed from the institution. But I have no fear that, so long as the results continue to be such as they have thus far been, it will by any one be seriously proposed to abolish the circulation, though it should cost many times what it actually does.

A strenuous and persevering effort has been made to furnish all truly valuable books in numbers sufficient to meet the permanent demand. Persons desiring books and being disappointed in finding them are invited by one of the printed rules and have repeatedly been requested in other ways to make known their wants, and I believe that in every case the book has been purchased, unless there were some special reason for its rejection.

I desire also to say, that examinations made for a week at a time at three different periods during the year, establish the fact that the number of applicants who leave the library without a book, is reduced to less than three per cent., and nearly all of these it is believed asked only for common novels. This is a remarkable fact, when it is considered that nearly 600 cards are presented daily for books, and that almost all the disappointment is confined to those who ask for books which can easily be procured elsewhere.

The library is visited daily by more than 1,000 persons for literary or scientific purposes, and it is certainly matter for congratulation if not more than 20 or 30 of these find their visits fruitless; particularly if the object of these 20 or 30 is of no greater consequence than has been mentioned.

It is apposite and pleasant to mention here that during this

time of general anxiety the Public Library has been found a ready and most cheering resource and has been, gratefully recognized as such by very large numbers of our citizens. Notwithstanding the absence of so many as have left the city for service in the national armies, the number resorting to the library has constantly and largely increased.

It will also be gratifying to many of our citizens to know that the various missionary, charitable, and sanitary enterprises conducted within the city have derived and acknowledged much assistance from the library.

During the year, 4,522 new names have been inscribed upon the Register, making a total of 22,660 who have secured the privileges of the Library by subscribing a promise to conform to its rules and regulations, this being the only condition required.

The large circulation which has been reported has not been attained without some loss and injury of books. It is impossible to give at present an exact statement of the number actually lost, inasmuch as full returns of notices issued have not yet been received. The number of books unaccounted for, to-day, is 340, which will doubtless be considerably diminished within a few days; 119 of the 262 books reported missing last year have since been recovered. The final loss this year will not perhaps vary materially from the average of former years.

About 81 dollars have been collected in fines, and this sum would go far towards replacing the books which have been lost.

The number of books worn out this year in the service is 261, of which 157 have been replaced. The whole number condemned as no longer fit for use since opening the library in this building, is 661. Of these, 432 have been replaced.

Four hundred and forty duplicates were by special permission of the City Council, sent in June last to troops from the city of Boston in the service of the United States, and we have received assurances that they proved acceptable and useful.

The fourth Supplement to the Index of the Lower Hall, con