might be ready to endow a museum, or to enlarge by their free offerings the one rather than the other, and thus really to contribute to the efficiency of both. The marked tastes of individuals for encouraging different forms of human activity has its origin in our common nature; and men with these tastes cannot fail to be stimulated by the sight of such collections, and to receive such impressions of their value to the community, that they will be tempted to exercise their munificence by contributions in some form either to the museum or the library, and to endow the town, large or small, which they love, with such treasures as they possess or can purchase.

Some may regard museums, of whatever character, as only adapted to the great centres of human movement, and as having no practical value for cities of less than 50,000 inhabitants. We think, however, that the inhabitants of such towns would regard museums with more interest than the inhabitants of the larger towns, where there are more distracting influences. They would make their home-life more satisfying and attractive. Those who might not be drawn by the library at first would be attracted by the objects of the museum, and ultimately become the zealous frequenters of the library. Many of us can recall the very place, in some small collection of objects of art or nature, where we received our first awakening to the wonders of the one and the possibilities of the other; and we might add that the influence of those early impressions has shaped our impulses and aims ever since. It is appropriate to the subject, and to the city where we are assembled, that I should cite the language of an honored secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, lately deceased. Prof. Henry, who did not overestimate museums as a means of popular education in nature and art, wrote:

"Advantage should be taken through museums of a feature of the human mind essential

to progress, the desire for novelty, - to lead the public to the employment of the intellectual pleasure derived from the study and the contemplation of nature. It is truly surprising how tastes may be formed, how objects, before disregarded, may, when viewed as a part of a

In recommending the establishment of museums with libraries I have referred to the advantage to be derived from their being administered by a single Board of Trustees. Each would be created, developed, administered, and protected under the same general law. One portion of the trustees would practically have charge of one branch of the work, and the other portion of the other branch, while the united members would afford each other mutual counsel and support. At the outset a moderate-sized building would accommodate both the museum and the library. A library built upon the present modern plan of storing books compactly, like the Roxbury Public Library, or the new addition to Gore Hall at Harvard University, would occupy comparatively little space. Its interior architectural elegance would be confined to the readingroom, temporarily adorned with paintings, statuary, and objects of art, and cabinets of natural history, to be removed, as the museum grows in size and strength, into adjoining

rooms.

The first step necessary to give effect and speedy extension to this plan for uniting museums with libraries will be that in each State of the Union where a general law exists authorizing towns to tax themselves to maintain public libraries, the two words, "and a museum," should be added by amendment to the statute upon the subject already existing; and a small additional amount to the tax for the expenses of the museum; whereas, in the first enacting of a general law for public libraries, in States where such a law does not as yet exist, museums will simply be included with libraries in the section providing for the maintenance of the new institutions. For our principal purpose in this paper has not been so much to recommend the establishment of museums, as that they be maintained with libraries by taxation as well as by donations.

Now, although it may appear to some equally novel and bold to recommend a plan for the

1 Smithsonian Report of 1870.

wide extension of museums as free public institutions, as if they had equal claims with libraries on the score of public importance, yet the plan is neither new nor bold. Their utility is much better understood and acknowledged in England than in this country. The perpetuation for twenty-five years at South Kensington of such a museum of art and industry as the exhibition of 1851 at London had been, and since then continually enlarged and improved, has already given to England a fresh superiority in the arts of design as applied to manufacture.

Now, it is well worthy of note that when that phenomenal law of Great Britain of 1850 was enacted, the year before that exhibition, which allowed towns to tax themselves for the support of public libraries, it bore as its title "An act to enable town-councils to establish libraries and museums." Those museums were defined in a section of the law to be "museums of art and science." But even this remarkable law for "libraries and museums was but an extension to libraries of the language of a law enacted five years before, entitled "An act for encouraging the establishment of museums in large towns." In 1845 Manchester had the only free public library in England. The object in both of these laws is defined to be "for the instruction and amusement (or recreation) of the people." The law of 1850 declared that the museum, as well as the library, should be absolutely free.

The successive amendments to this law of 1850, made in 1855, 1866, and 1877, extend to smaller towns and to combined districts the privileges of the old law, and they increase the amount of the tax which a town or district may levy. In 1877 a bill was introduced to make the rate of tax for these purposes as high as two pence in the pound. I have not discovered that it became a law. To facilitate the establishment of museums, a law of 1866 amended the act of 1850 in such a way that it was made lawful to join a library to a museum, or a museum to a library already established, without taking proceedings additional as required under the former acts.1

1 British almanac, Companion, 1867, p. 207.

By the statute of 1877 it was further enacted and declared to be consistent with the libraries' and museums' laws, which allow schools of art in connection with them, that under them towns might establish public schools of music also.1

It is not surprising that in England, in the opinions of the educated class, intellectual and esthetical development of the nation should be intimately associated with the museum as well as with the library, when we recall the more than a century of existence of the British Museum, whose trustees have administered i as an institution containing both one of the largest libraries of the world and an immense museum of art and science. If, after a century of growth and development, a process of differentiation has taken place, and its natural history and some other collections have been transported to the South Kensington Museum, it does not even suggest that every new institution should be held to be bound to begin its life at the same stage of development in its first year, without having passed through any of the previous stages. It was interesting to observe that the British conference of librarians, under the influence of this great historic example, voted at the conference in 1878 that "the Council be recommended to obtain government aid to meet local funds raised for library and museum purposes." I have naturally enlarged somewhat on the course pursued by England regarding museums and libraries jointly, on account of its intimate relations to the subject, and also because of the pleasure it gives to cite such admirable statutes, which will be a perpetual honor to her good name, and an honor to us to follow her example

After the necessary legislation has been secured placing museums upon the same basis with libraries as regards municipal support, many suggestions may be made regarding various methods of filling museums with articles of value and interest. Ten years since one suggestion on the subject was gracefully made by R. W. Emerson. He wrote: I do not un

1 Chitty, Supplement to Statutes of Great Britain. British almanac, Companion, 1869.

dervalue the fine instruction which statues and pictures give. I think the public museum in each town will one day relieve the privatė house of the charge of owning and exhibiting them... I wish to find in my own town a library and museum which is the property of the town, where I can deposit this precious treasure, and I and my children can see it from time to time, and where it has its proper place among hundreds of such donations from other citizens, who have brought thither whatever articles they have judged to be in their nature rather a public than a private property.'

In accordance with this thought we are justified in hoping, from the experiments in Great Britain, that one of the resources for founding, sustaining, and enlarging museums will be by deposits and loans. I do not refer to those occasionally very interesting exhibitions of collections of paintings and of archæological material which are loaned in cities and towns for a few weeks for the public use, but with a fee for admission; but rather to such loans as are made of the same classes of objects for a year, or for several years,, to some organization that can guarantee safety and protection to the articles. It is found possible that after a period these works of art can be exchanged for the exhibition of new ones in their place, through the kindness of other persons.

Their owners even are enabled to discover beauties in their treasures, when rightly displayed, which they had never discerned before. It is with the help of frequent exhibitions of loan collections of medieval and modern art that the South Kensington Museum has attained its present magnificent proportions; and, in addition, it has a system for circulating its own treasures, precious works of art, throughout the provinces, by means of a large staff of officers, and these works are again returned to the museum.

The India Museum of London, with the cooperation of the government, deposits with various museums the natural and art products of all India, many of them sent to England for the purpose."

1 Society and solitude, p. 117. Nineteenth century, June, 1880.

"the

They

In the administration of the Smithsonian Institution the regents are carrying out, on a grand scale, the wishes of its founder,diffusion of knowledge among men." have distributed, according to a late report, more than 250,000 objects of natural history to various institutions in the country. It receives contributions from geographical and naval expeditions of the United States, and receives exchanges from foreign institutions, and is eager to contribute from all of them to the institutions which apply. Besides this work of the Smithsonian Institution, Congress devotes $20,000 a year to sustain the National Museum at the Capitol, chiefly for natural history and anthropology, and the government sustains museums in the agricultural and the surgeon general's departments and in the general land office.

Those desirous of forming museums of art and science would soon become familiar with the channels through which materials might be obtained, and the museum be begun with economy and efficiency by means of copies of both natural and art objects in casts and paintings in oils.1 Casts of sculpture can be obtained from Paris, Munich, and Naples, and casts of fossils of every size from Mr. Ward, of Rochester, all at moderate prices. Just so far as the funds at the disposal of the several institutions would allow, the opportunity might be improved of enhancing the practical value of the collections, by means of lecturers or guides to explain the significance and relations of each article, -a measure to be applied in the same spirit as in the plans adopted for opening the treasures in libraries to readers by special teachers.

I have learned that in Great Britain, under the libraries and museums statute, there are 23 towns that have availed themselves of its provisions to establish the two in connection; and I do not count among these some towns that have museums and libraries independent of the statute. Liverpool stands out in honorable prominence among all the cities of the kingdom, in having upon a single street a

1 U.S. Libraries report, 1876. Prof. Frieze's paper P. 443. C. C. Perkins, in "N.A. review."

We cannot point to the public museums in connection with public libraries which are maintained by towns in our own country, because we have no laws authorizing them. Such combined libraries and museums as do exist, like those of the Boston Athenæum, the Lenox Library, the Peabody Institute, and others, are proprietary institutions, and those of our colleges may be mentioned in the same connection. The statistics showing the number of cases where the same trustees superintend both a museum and a library are well worth collecting. They should show how recently they have been founded, or have received fresh development, and the extent of the privileges accorded to the public.

My apology for presenting this topic before you, in spite of the obvious fact that so many must be already familiar with it, is that it has never before been introduced before the conference, and, as we acknowledge ourselves to

be propagandists, it did not seem proper that the subject should be ignored in our programmes, as though we regarded it as one of slight importance.

Much of my encouragement to present it came from the thought that we were holding this conference in a city, the seat of government of the nation, which is not yet a hundred years old; and yet is a city which may be counted among those which have the largest collections of books, and that more of these books are by their freshness adapted to answer the questions which most occupy the minds of the student than those of the libraries of any city in the land. I knew also that, in visiting the various museums established here, all our members would have evidence of the vast influence collections of like nature must have, wherever planted, in building up in the community a sterling manhood. I felt confident that in the sight their patriotism would be inspired with the hope that our countrymen, everywhere enjoying religion combined with knowledge, and exercising industry combined with culture, would become partakers of a life possessing elements of continuous growth and development.

THE

HE committee of this association appointed to consider the subject of the 'distribution of public documents present the following report:

If it is the object of the government, in the distribution of public documents, to dispose of them in such a manner as to make the community acquainted with its doings, it cannot better effect this object than by making a large use of public libraries, instruments already existing and vigorous - for the free, or comparatively free, dissemination of information. Such institutions are, in most parts of the country, permanent also.

Libraries are, at present, used by the government as channels for the distribution of docu

ments. A larger use should be made of these channels.

A part of the system now in vogue for distributing documents is infelicitous. It is a notorious fact that a considerable portion of the public documents distributed otherwise than through libraries are sold to dealers in old books, in Washington and elsewhere, for a few cents a volume. To give a single example: a gentleman who wished to buy a set of the "Congressional Globe," covering the period of reconstruction after the late domestic war, was enabled, such had been the price paid for the volumes by the dealer, to purchase them, in this city, for 25 cents a volume. These books cost the government, say, $2.25 a volume.

Many members of Congress distribute documents given them for this purpose conscientiously, and with the object of disseminating, in the best way, the information they contain. Thus large numbers of these are sent to libraries and other institutions that have large constituencies. Some members of Congress, however, and most of them to a limited extent, give documents at their disposal to such persons, in the portion of the country they represent, as apply for them, and to influential persons whom it is for their interest to conciliate or reward.

--

As citizens and librarians we are unwilling that money raised by taxation should be wasted in printing documents to be disposed of in these ways. In the interests of economy, it may be stated, that further waste arises from printing, for the immediate use of Congress and the other departments of the government, of a very much larger number of copies of documents and bills which are to remain unbound than are really needed. Thus, of 1,900 copies of reports, executive documents, etc., usually ordered by Congress to be printed, say 800 or 900 on an average remain unbound. If 50 volumes are issued in a session of Congress, there would be printed, of documents not to be bound, 40,000 or 45,000 volumes. It is stated by an officer of the government, who has the best means of knowing, that a large proportion of these volumes find their way into the waste-paper basket, and that 400 copies, instead of 800 or 900, would supply the existing demand for them.

Attention should also be called to the fact that it would lessen, very considerably, the amount of money spent annually for printing were all documents printed by order of Congress to be sent from the printing-house of the government to a single distributing agent, say the Secretary of the Interior, — to be sent out by him to persons and institutions, on the order of such persons as have a right to control their distribution.

Suppose, to illustrate the subject by an example, Congress orders 4,000 copies of some document to be printed, and directs 1,000 copies to be delivered to the following recipients: namely, the Senate, the House of Represent

atives, the Secretary of the Interior (for distribution), and the department of the government particularly interested in the subject-matter of the report. Of course it is possible that four copies

of the work printed will be sent, by the different distributing agents, to a single person or institution. Were all documents to be sent from the Interior Department, it should be stated, in the letters accompanying their despatch, at whose request they had been sent.

The committee believe that a radical change is needed in regard to methods now in use for the distribution of public documents, and that all documents of interest to any considerable portion of the citizens of the United States should be put on sale subsequent to publication, at a price which is only a small advance, say five per cent., on their cost.

The existing law on this subject is inadequate in its provisions, as it makes it necessary for a person wishing to buy a government publication to give notice that he wishes to do so before the document is printed. A sufficiently large edition of documents in demand should be printed to make it sure that persons wishing to buy them can do so after they learn of their existence, which does not generally happen until after their issue.

The committee wish to call attention, in this connection, to provisions in the laws of Great Britain respecting the distribution of public documents.

In that country, where the system of selling all public documents and parliamentary publications has long prevailed, the number of any document printed varies from 1,000 to 2,000, and is determined by a printing committee. One copy, and that only, of the more important papers goes to each member of Parliament. The rest are kept for sale at a fixed price, to cover cost; and the costliest "Blue book" in folio, no matter how thick a volume it may be, rarely costs more than three or four shillings, while the average is but 3d. or 4d. From the evidence of Wm. Rathbone Greg, controller of the Stationery Office in 1873, it appears that the whole public printing, binding, and stationery and blank book supplies, including parliamentary and department job printing, cost £450,000. The Record Office and War