Minnesota, of the Sioux war, and the civil war, of the aboriginal people who built the thousands of prehistoric mounds in this state, and of the Sioux (or Dakotas) and the Ojibways who were living here when the first white men reached this region; and, third, its collection of portraits of pioneers and other prominent citizens of this state, with other portraits, pictures and framed documents, illustrating the history of Minnesota, of the whole Northwest, and indeed of the whole United States.

THE LIBRARY.

In the few minutes allotted to me for these remarks I will speak first and chiefly of the historical treasury which the society has gradually provided for itself and for all the people of Minnesota, in its carefully selected library, now numbering about 63,500 titles of books and pamphlets. While the aim of the society has constantly been to gather and preserve all publications issued in Minnesota, and all relating to Minnesota, wherever they may be published, we have also given great attention to the collection of everything published concerning local history, as of townships, in all the older states, as also in the new states of the West and of the Pacific coast.

What immigrant from any eastern part of our country, or son or daughter of such immigrant, does not still feel an interest in the old home and hearthstone, the old township of their nativity, or the homes where lived fifty years ago the fathers and mothers of the present generation? Many who came here in the early times, and have endured hardships and won success in building up this great Commonwealth, now, in the well-earned leisure of declining years, go back in memory to the old township of their childhood in the Granite State, it may be, or the Bay State, or the Keystone State, which, with all the other states east of us contributed largely to the building up of Minnesota.

This society's library contains many volumes, mostly nowhere else to be found in this state, concerning the detailed local history of all those older parent states. To particularize and give more definite expression of the richness of the library in this department of American township histories,

it may be noted that, according to the librarian's inventory made two months ago, our number of bound volumes of township and strictly local histories was 90 for Maine, 100 for New Hampshire, 35 for Vermont, 460 for Massachusetts, which is richer in these histories than any other state, 40 for Rhode Island, and 100 for Connecticut; besides many for New York and all the states reaching thence southward and westward. Our collection strictly relating to Minnesota, however, far exceeds that here gathered for any other state, if we include the narrations of explorers, visitors, and the many observant travelers who have written about us, and the books issued from our territorial and state government, as the journals and laws of the legislature, reports and proceedings of the departments of state executive affairs, and similar publications of our universities, colleges, commercial, charitable, and religious institutions. All these books describing Minnesota, her people, their work and their history, number about 1,075 volumes, besides about 1,500 pamphlets in this department. To every one who wishes to know with accuracy any part of our state history, its resources, what it promises to any contemplated new industry or investment, we would say, Come to this society's library, ask for its information on the subject, and you will understand the utility of this storehouse of knowledge.

These Minnesota books and pamphlets, although of inestimable value, are yet very far surpassed, in respect to numbers, magnitude and historical importance, by this society's great department of Minnesota newspapers. Our earliest newspaper issue for this state was the first number of the Minnesota Pioneer (which has now become the Pioneer Press of St. Paul), published by James M. Goodhue on the 28th of April, 1849, a few weeks previous to the establishment of the government of Minnesota as a Territory. A complete series of that newspaper, and of nearly all others published in Minnesota during the past fifty years, has been collected and preserved by our society. We are now receiving, by donation from the editors and publishers, 421 newspapers of this state, daily, weekly and monthly. They are preserved with the greatest care and are bound in ponderous volumes, the yearly increase of this depart

ment being about 300 bound volumes. Their number on September 1st of this year was 4,250 volumes. They are a priceless treasury of materials for future historians, being in fact a detailed history of the development of the state, of all its counties and of its separate townships, from their beginning to the present time. This newspaper collection is kept in an extensive fireproof vault, which is a part of the society's rooms in this building. It is accessible to all who wish to consult it, and it is so arranged that any paper of any date can be readily found.

There are also other departments of the library which are of great interest to our people, and which are daily consulted by many readers. The growth of our patriotic societies has brought increased attention to histories of the Colonial and Revolutionary times preceding and beginning our national existence, with inquiries for records of ancestry, in the hope of tracing descent from soldiers of the Colonial wars and of the American Revolution. To all desiring to make any research of this kind, the very comprehensive department of American Genealogy, represented in this library by more than 1,100 bound volumes, and about 450 pamphlets, affords very ample resources of information, equalled only by three or four other libraries in the whole United States.

Another and much larger part of the library consists of the publications of the general government, such as the Congressional Record, and the reports of the many departments and bureaus of the Federal service, among which those of the United States Patent Office are perhaps the most frequently consulted. All the books, pamphlets, and maps issued by our national government are received gratuitously, this being a designated depository library.

THE MUSEUM.

One of the parts of the society's proper work which has received little consideration, is its museum. The needs of the library forbid the use of space in the present rooms to display a great portion of our museum collection, that which presents the work of the aboriginal people of Minnesota, the builders of the mounds, and the Indians of more recent times who have been displaced during this half century. The society is in

debted to one of its life members, Hon. J. V. Brower, whose report upon the sources of the Mississippi river forms the seventh volume of the society's publications, for gifts of many thousand stone and copper implements and other products of aboriginal handiwork, which will form a most instructive exhibit of our museum when the society shall remove to the ampler rooms assigned for it in the new Capitol. We are assured by the most learned archæologists of America, who have examined some of these relics, that they were buried in the mounds where they were found long before the Christian era.

PORTRAITS.

But I must hasten to add a few words concerning the society's collection of portraits. A hundred and twenty portraits are now displayed in the rooms of the society, besides twenty group pictures which comprise 788 portraits. Nearly all these are of pioneers and founders of Minnesota, or of citizens who in more recent years have had a prominent part in the history and development of the state. There are also many other pictures, as of ancient buildings, monuments, paintings of historic scenes, etc., and many framed documents, including a letter of George Washington, written in 1754, which is in the case holding the Washington chair. This collection is the most interesting and attractive part of the society's possessions for visitors who have only a short time to spend in our rooms.

Sitting in the monthly meetings of the Executive Council of this society, I have often thought of the great work done by the founders and leaders of Minnesota, whose portraits look forth from the walls of our assembly room. Observing the earnest, resolute expression of those faces, I recall what Horatio Seymour said to me in our native state of New York, nearly fifty years ago: "It is work, with its reward or failure, the experience of life,-which is expressed by faces and portraits, rather than the deep inherent character received from ancestry."

INCREASE OF THESE COLLECTIONS.

The present space occupied by the library, portrait collection, and museum, is quite inadequate. Each of these fruits of the society's work tends to grow, and they have outgrown

the limits which seemed very liberal when the present rooms began to be occupied sixteen years ago. The growth of a man continues only fifteen or twenty years, and that of a tree perhaps half a century; but of a living and useful library or museum or state portrait collection, there is no natural bound of growth. The duty and destiny of the society here founded and active, to-day completing its first fifty years, imply for it a continuance in the accumulation and preservation of these possessions for the educational and the moral advancement of the people.

The poet Milton gave expression to the duty of preserving valuable books, when he wrote:

"As good almost kill a man, as kill a good book. Who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. It is true, no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss. . . . We should be wary, therefore, what persecutions we raise against the living labors of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man preserved and stored up in books;-since we see a kind of homicide may thus be committed, sometimes a martyrdom; and, if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at that ethereal and sift essense, the breath of reason itself,— slays an immortality, rather than a life."

The volumes on our library shelves have been characterized by some writer as our truest friends, who are never applied to in vain, who are never out when we knock at the door, of whom the announcement "not at home" is never made when we call. They are friends who in the highest as well as in the deepest moods may be applied to, and will never be found wanting.

RETROSPECTION.

It is time to bring these considerations to a close.

The men and women of the half century which we review to-day, have built this great Commonwealth. They and we