considerable portion of his labor for the past three years, and which the last report of the Trustees announced as to be published during the year, was unavoidably postponed. The materials for the work were, however, in such condition, that the printing of that most important contribution to the bibliography of Spanish and Portuguese literature is already in progress.

In rehearsing the details of an institution whose work and usefulness have grown in incalculable proportions year by year, the Trustees cannot but feel an increasing responsibility for the right use of the large funds entrusted to their care and proper expenditure. Each year brings a more intimate relation between the Library and the education of the community; each year develops new uses and wants, both of instruction and indirect cultivation. One distinguishes with added experience more narrowly the classes who seek only amusement or employment in idle hours and those who read for intellectual purposes, as well as those who perceptibly grade from the lower to the higher class. While, from the foresight and bounty of the City Government, the Library is not only permitted, but earnestly required, to extend its help to all who need, and by whom it has been sustained in a position of freedom of access previously unknown, it is just to say that the experimental trial of one generation, just completed, has amply and nobly confirmed and surpassed the hopes and expectations of the founders and benefactors of the institution. Without any intention to magnify any result, while considering that it takes its shade and color from the intelligence of the community which surrounds it, it has steadily gained in the magnitude of its resources, and in its relative importance among the great collections of the country. It also has demonstrated the fact that enormous numbers of books may be scattered freely among a dense and diversified population with such

safety to the property as to render the losses quite immaterial. The result has entirely justified the magnitude of the

experiment.

WILLIAM W. GREENOUGH,
CHARLES A. BURDITT,

JOHN T. CLARK,

DANIEL S. CURTIS,

RICHARD FROTHINGHAM,

SAMUEL A. GREEN,

DAVID P. KIMBALL,

WESTON LEWIS,

GEORGE PUTNAM.

PUBLIC LIBRARY, 29th June, 1875.

[A.]

REPORT OF THE EXAMINING COMMITTEE,

CONSISTING OF

WILLIAM T. ADAMS, ESQ., REV. GEORGE A. THAYER, HON. B. F. THOMAS, GEORGE W. WALES, ESQ., CHAS. E. WARE, M.D., WITH DAVID P. KIMBALL, ESQ., OF THE TRUSTEES, AS CHAIRMAN.

THE Committee appointed to examine the condition of the Boston Public Library, and to report thereon to the Trustees, beg leave to submit the following results of their observations:

It is obviously impossible that a Committee of citizens, devoting but a few hours, taken from the many duties of their daily occupation, to the inspection of so complicated and extensive an institution as a great Public Library, with its many branches, should be able to form more than a cursory acquaintance with its work and needs. At best, unless they have a professional librarian's knowledge of such institutions, which, from the importance of a Committee being constituted like the jury of a court, of men with untechnical prejudices, it is not desirable they should possess; their chief service must be to serve as intermediary between the Library officials and the public at large, by obtaining a closer acquaintance with its methods of management, and the general aims of those who control its policy, than can be gained by ordinary visitors.

It might be advantageous, in giving partial direction to the labors of such Committees, and in affording opportunity for any complete vindication of the Trustees and Superinten

dent from alleged faults, if a more general advertisement of the existence of an examining body could be made, to allow, to a reasonable extent, the presentation of possible griev

ances.

Your Committee can say, however, that, so far as they are competent to speak, there are no indications that all departments of the Library are administered in other than the most generous and impartial desire to facilitate every legitimate interest of readers.

The marvel has been, as they have explored its treasures, and become aware of the many perplexing problems arising in at once faithfully guarding books of rare and inestimable value, and carrying out the plan. of a perfectly free Public Library, that so little friction should arise betwixt patrons and officials, and that there should be such apparently general acquiescence in the justice of its rules and restrictions, as is indicated by the striking infrequency of complaints, in any portion of the public newspapers, those sensitive organs of every shadow of public discontent.

:

Two opposing forces are always at work about a Public Library, to afford a severe test of the spirit of its management, viz. the proper conservatism of those in whose charge it is placed, which endeavors to keep steadily in view the interests of coming generations, for whom as well as for living people the institution is created, and the destructiveness of those people who regard public property as everybody's property, to be used according to individual notions of propriety; and in the reconciliation of these two elements, the high degree of skill and good sense of the Superintendent and his subordinates seems to be amply shown in the constant increase of readers, and the remarkable immunity from loss or irremediable injury of books, alike in the department most frequented by the less careful classes of the community, and in Bates Hall, the resort of the more cultivated and studious.

The statistics of the Central and Branch Libraries so clearly presented in the statement of the Superintendent, published with this report, and covering almost every possible ground of inquiry with regard to their work, render it unnecessary for the Committee to do more than express their gratification that the regular increase of expenditure is necessary to keep pace with the popular demands upon the resources of the various departments. It is an occasion of pride with those who have at heart the progress of general education in Boston, that the generous annual and special appropriations of the City Council, which from the beginning of the institution's existence have been uniformly made in the most wise and far-seeing spirit, have met with the best possible response on the part of those whom they were designed to benefit. The $30,000, representing the yearly cost of books, but very inadequately suggests the value to every high interest of the people of having all that is of worth in recent literature, both in periodical and standard publications, and whatever is of classic or established character which has moulded the intelligence, or is likely to command the thought of the world, easily accessible by every citizen of years of discretion; and the oft-noticed fact, which continues to be confirmed, that the extension of the branch system has in nowise diminished the circulation of the Central Library, but, as was desired, has rather helped to increase it, shows a most hopeful popular appreciation of this privilege.

It is evident, however, that the utmost enthusiasm for taking books will not be a sufficient justification for a large expenditure, unless it is also clear that the zeal is rightly directed to the end of the growth of sound knowledge.

There is no lack of taste for reading in our community, but much of it, if left to the guidance of the reader's unenlightened judgment, would be but a slight improvement upon, ir' it were not worse than, absolute idleness. Leaving out of