to the arts; the principles of moral and political economy; the history of nations, and especially that of our country; the progress and triumph of the democratic principle in governments on this continent, and the prospects of its ascendency throughout the world; the trials and faith, valor and constancy of our ancestors; with all the inspiring examples of benevolence, virtue and patriotism, exhibited in the lives of the benefactors of mankind. The fruits of this enlightened enterprise, are chiefly to be gathered by our successors. But the present generation will not be altogether unrewarded. Although many of our citizens may pass the District Library heedless of the treasures it contains, the unpretending volumes will find their way to the fireside, diffusing knowledge, increasing domestic happiness, and promoting public virtue.

Gov. WRIGHT, in his message in 1845, refering to the disposition of the public funds for the purchase of libraries, and other purposes of popular education, remarked: "No public fund of the State is so unpretending, yet so all-pervading-so little seen, yet so universally felt so mild in its exactions, yet so bountiful in its benefits-so little feared or courted, and yet so powerful, as this fund for the support of Common Schools. The other funds act upon the secular interests of society, its business, its pleasures, its pride, its passions, its vices, its misfortunes. This acts upon its mind and its morals. Education is to free institutions, what bread is to human life, the staff of their existence. The office of this fund is to open and warm the soil, and sow the seed from which this element of freedom must grow and ripen into maturity; and the health or sickness of the growth will measure the extent and security of our lib

erties.

"The crowning glory of our whole Common School system,' exclaimed JAMES HENRY, Jr., the County Superintendent of Herkimer, in 1843, "is the institution of District Libraries. These institutions are designed to carry forward and complete the process which is but commenced in the schools. The schools are intended to teach children and youth the art of acquiring useful knowledge; the library is designed to afford them the means of reducing that art to practice."

Such were the encouraging words of commendation from every quarter. Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, and many others, were unstinted in their praise; and it seemed for a while, that in the matter of School Libraries, New York had indeed discovered the philosopher's stone. Time, however, began to develop some defects, and these it is proposed to point outor, rather, to let some of the prominent educators and friends of education, in that State, themselves point them out.

The earliest evils that developed themselves, were improper books that were thoughtlessly placed in the libraries, and the misappropriation of the library fund. Hon. HENRY S. RANDALL, late Superintendent of Public Instruction, of New York, and the distinguished author of the Life of Jefferson, as early as 1842, when County Superintendent of Courtland, thus strongly and pointedly spoke against the "Pirate's Own Book,' and "Lives and Exploits of Banditti and Robbers," which had found their way into several of the School Libraries he had examined:

"I have uniformly advised their removal, and assigned the following reasons :-that, in the first place, aside from any directly pernicious tendency which they are supposed to exercise, the information which they contain is not of a valuable character; that the wild and exciting tales which they contain, unfit the youthful mind for the perusal of works of a graver and more useful character; that they cater to a depraved taste by dilating on all the revolting details of the worst crimes of which humanity is capable; and, lastly, that they do exercise a positively bad and dangerous tendency over the youthful mind.The first step to vice is the knowledge of it. And where vice and crime are painted in those illusive colorings which nearly ally them to virtues, they lose their naked repulsiveness.When the brute courage of the lawless buccaneer is held up and expatiated on as lofty heroism; when the capricious mercy, which even the gorged wild beast will occasionally, and perhaps equally often, manifest, is dignified with the name of magnanimity and generosity, it is to be feared that the lives of such men afford not the benefit of a negative example,-at least to the youthful mind, which the Common School libraries are intended principally to benefit. It is to be feared that, to the mind in which sound principles have not taken deep root, and had time to attain some degree of vigor and maturity, these tales of wild excitement and daring adventure,-where new scenes and new objects for ever meet the eye,-where the most unrestrained passions meet with no check, and untold wealth may be had for the asking,—are more prone to dazzle and captivate, than to excite disgust and abhorrence. I have ever thought there was a dangerous kind of fascination in stories of this kind. All have heard of the incident of the young man, who, on witnessing a thrilling representation on the stage, of the 'Ruined Gambler,' exclaimed in an uncontrollable burst of feeling, I, too, will be a ruined gambler !'

"But it has several times been said to me, 'All this is obviated by the fact, that, in the end, this pirate or robber was taken and executed.' The smallest boy, however, knows that

his seizure or escape depends upon contingencies. Some never have been taken; others, we know, have died peaceably in their beds; many have fallen in battle, the common and the honorable lot of the soldier; and, when seized and put to death, even by those vindictive methods, until so recently practiced,--by the cross, by impalement, etc.,-if the youthful mind has not already been prepared to regard it as the martyrdom of a hero, we, at least, have the warrant of experience, in saying that the public exhibitions of scenes of this kind, either on paper or in actual life, have never been found to exercise that salutary influence, which, perhaps, it would be so natural to expect.

"Such, Sir, is an outline of the reasons which I have urged, when I have found such books in the Common School libraries, to procure their removal; and, in corroboration of some of the positions assumed by me, I would remark that, where I have found such books, librarians and other school officers present, have uniformly admitted that they are more read by boys, than any other books in the library. A sensible farmer complained to me, last week, that he wished the Pirate book was out of the library, for his son would read nothing else-his whole thoughts were on it day and night.'

Speaking of the same class of books, Hon. SAMUEL YOUNG, while Superintendent of Public Instruction of New York in 1842, remarked: "They serve only to minister to that morbid appetite for the revolting and disgusting details of vice and crime, especially when exhibited on an extensive scale, which characterizes the undisciplined and vulgar mind. They stimulate and excite the worst propensities and passions of our nature, without contributing, in the slightest degree, to the improvement or elevation of the intellect or the heart. It is deeply and seriously to be regretted, that any considerable portion of an enlightened community should countenance the diffusion of works so exceptionable in their tendency." * * * "I am bound," he continues, "by the position to which I have been called, and by the obligations I have assumed, to see that no contaminating influences are permitted to mingle with the pure streams of knowledge and instruction designed to be secured by the introduction of District Libraries into the several school districts of the State. The public funds set apart by the enlightened munificence of the Legislature for the general diffusion of intellectual and moral science, shall never, with my consent or knowledge, be perverted to unworthy, degrading, and ignoble purposes; and whenever I am satisfied that the District Libraries have been permitted, by those to whom the selection of books has been confided, to become the vehicles of corrupting and contaminating appeals to the passions,

the imagination, or the fancy, I shall promptly apply the remedy which the law has placed in my hands."

Hon. CHRISTOPHER MORGAN, when Superintendent of Schools of New York, speaking of the School Libraries in his report of 1851, observed: "Injudicious selections of books are not unfrequently made by the Trustees, and the library funds committed to their charge squandered upon worthless, or worse than worthless publications." Hon. VICTOR M. RICE, in his report as School Superintendent of New York in 1854, after speaking of there being nearly 12,000 District Libraries in the State, says: "In those districts where the libraries have been best appreciated and most extensively read, the interest in their contents is to the largest degree exhausted, and can only be renewed by a constant replenishing of the shelves with fresh books. The existing appropriation is too small to produce a very marked effect in this way, and the consequence is, that both the old and the new volumes are falling into neglect." In the same report, Mr. RICE elsewhere adds: "The undersigned is constrained to believe, that the future supply of the libraries should be regulated by some safer agency than the hawkers and pedlars, who too often succeed in palming off upon the School Trustees, collections of wretched trash, that have no other recommendation than their nominal cheapness.

"My official investigations and experience," writes Hon. HENRY S. RANDALL, have amply satisfied me, that if the purchase of libraries is made optional with the districts the alternative being that the library money may be diverted to the payment of teachers' wages, &c.--the system will prove a failure. There is no doubt that a better method of selecting the books could be devised than having it done by the Trustees of the districts. On the whole, I should be much inclined to favor the plan proposed in your communication. If its details were well adjusted and carried out, I see no reason why it would not succeed, and result in a vast saving of the public money, and a vast improvement of the character of the works placed in the hands of the readers of Common School Libraries."

AMOS DEAN, LL. D., of Albany, the Chancellor elect of the Iowa State University, and author of the present school system of Iowa, thus writes: "The idea of small districts providing themselves with libraries that will be of any real value, is, in my judgment, perfectly idle. They will not half of them have any books at all, and those that they do have, may stand a great chance of doing more harm than good. If the quality of food that nourishes and sustains the body is at all worth attending to, much more is that which builds up and gives force to the mind, the spiritual principle.'

"The most active and fruitful seeds of good and evil in our social system," writes BENSON J. LOSSING, of New York, the well-known author of the School Histories," are found in the literature of the day; and the wisest discrimination is necessary to separate one from the other. It is impossible -- absolutely impossible-to have anything approaching to the exercise of such wise discrimination in the system of District Libraries, as organized in some States. How can the Trustees of schools, elected for a temporary purpose, many or most of them away from the centres of business and general knowledge, and engaged in absorbing pursuits, be acquainted with the character of the thousands of books that fall from the press every year? They have no data to guide them, and they are left to the mercy of pedlars and others, who go about the country with sensation books'-in other words, moral and intellectual poison- and are compelled to form their judgment from the statements of lying advertisements. This is a monster evil; and many of the libraries of this State are crowded with books that no judicious parent would willingly allow his child to read. In view of the importance of the matter, I heartily coincide with your expressed opinion in relation to Town Libraries, leaving the selection of the books to the State, through proper agents duly chosen by the people."

Hon. SAMUEL S. RANDALL, formerly Deputy State Superintendent of Schools of New York, and now City Superintendent of Schools of New York City, writes: "I cordially approve the substitute of the Town School Library system for that of District Libraries. In our own State the latter plan has been in existence for some twenty years, and although great good has undoubtedly been accomplished by the diffusion of comparatively a few volumes in every district, yet it is manifest that an infinitely greater amount of benefit would have been accomplished by the consolidation of the funds apportioned to the several districts of each town, and the purchase and gradual expansion of a Town Library, centrally located, and easily accessible to all. These views I have repeatedly and earnestly urged upon the Legislature, but as yet without success. consider the funds thus comparatively frittered away upon a few cheap books in each district, as little better than wasted; while by the adoption of the Township plan, large and valuable libraries would speedily spring up, the worth of which would be unappreciable to the rising generation, and to the citizens of the State generally."

Hon. VICTOR M. RICE, the late Superintendent of that State, observes in his last Annual Report: "The amount now apportioned to the rural districts, where libraries are most