be created, bridges rebuilt, ruined fortifications in every quarter repaired, and so great was the public extremity, that the Prussian ladies, with noble generosity, sent their ornaments and jewels to supply the royal treasury. Rings, crosses, and other ornaments of cast iron were given in return to all those who had made this sacrifice. They bore the inscription, 'Ich gab gold um eisen,' (I gave gold for iron); and such Spartan jewels are much treasured at this day by the possessors and their families. This state of things lasted till after the war of Liberation,' in 1812. But it is the pride of Prussia, that at the time of her greatest humiliation and distress, she never for a moment lost sight of the work she had begun in the improvement of her schools." Thus, in 1809, the minister at the head of the Section of Instruction, wrote as follows to some teachers who had been sent to the institution of Pestalozzi to learn his method and principles of instruction: "The Section of Public Instruction begs you to believe, and to assure Mr. Pestalozzi, that the cause is the interest of the government, and of his majesty, the King, personally, who are convinced that liberation from extraordinary calamities is fruitless, and only to be effected by a thorough improvement of the people's education." And amid these sufferings and calamities, the educational advancement of Prussia never flagged for a moment; universities were established, and seminaries founded for the education of teachers.

Some twenty years ago, there was at least some talk that Pennsylvania would be compelled to repudiate her State debts, so large had they become, and so difficult even to provide for their interest; when a distinguished citizen of that State proposed to divert the money appropriated for the support of common schools to the payment of interest on these debts. Alluding to which, Prof. STEPHENS, after enumerating the herculean efforts of Prussia in behalf of public education, even amid her severest sufferings, thus eloquently remarks: “Is not this noble policy, on the part of an absolute government, at a time when the nation was struggling for existence, a severe rebuke upon the narrow and short-sighted expedients of those republican politicians, who can invent no better way to pay a public debt than by converting into money that institution on which the virtue and intelligence of the people, and the special safety of a republican State, mainly depend?"

But, we believe, this unrighteous diversion of the school money was not made. This was indeed creditable to the sturdy integrity of Pennsylvania; and to this day, the Key Stone State must pay heavier taxes, and with more becoming cheerfulness, than the people of any other State in the Union.

Penn

sylvania has unfortunately no School Fund. She appropriated last year from her general fund nearly $300,000 for school purposes, the counties raising the balance needed, which amounted to nearly two millions of dollars more, including building expenses, and this too, when direct taxation is necessary to pay all their ordinary State expenses besides, and over two millions of dollars annually in addition to meet the interest on their forty million State debt, incurred for internal improvements, in which the State does not now possess a dime's interest. Yet cheerfully and ungrudgingly do the sturdy sons of Pennsylvania insist on maintaining their excellent school system, at any cost and every sacrifice. The people of Wisconsin could vastly improve their schools, and inaugurate a Township Library system which should annually augment its priceless treasures, and never feel a tithe of the expense, compared with the heroic sacrifices of Prussia and Pennsylvania, to educate their children.

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Wherever the Township Library has been introduced, as in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, it has proved exceedingly useful, and consequently very popular. We hear no lisp of their repeal. The State Superintendent of Michigan declares that the Township Libraries of that State "have been productive of incalculable good." Hon. H. H. BARNEY, wrote in August, 1856, when State Commissioner of Common Schools of Ohio: During the last four months, I have visited about sixty counties, and have not found one man in fifty that desires a repeal of this library provision of our School Law. I have also found that the demand for the books on the part of the youth, as well as adults, is rapidly increasing, so much so that not the least doubt is entertained, that those libraries will ultimately create a general taste for reading throughout all classes and ages of our people."

"Good books," says Hon. HARVEY RICE, of Cleveland, the father of the School Law of Ohio, "are not only good tools, but indispensable in the field of education; or, to change the figure, they may be regarded as teachers of the highest order, both for the young and the old. In twenty years, if the library tax be continued, the people of Ohio as a mass, I will venture to predict, will become the most intelligent people on the face of the globe; and that, too, at a cost nobody would feel.”

Hon. CALEB MILLS, late Superintendent of Public Instruction of Indiana, pronounced their Township School Libraries "the crowning excellence" of the educational system of that State. Nor is it wonderful, when we learn, that one Township reported 1,230 volumes taken out in three and a half months; another 687 in four months; another 1,242 in nine months; another 1,050 in six months; another 700 in nine months;

another 1,540 in ten months; another 2,127 in eight and a half months; others during the year, 1,900, 1,920, 2,075, and even 2,226 volumes when not one of these libraries contained more than 330 volumes. In the whole city of Cincinnati there is but a single School Library, which happily avoids a wasteful multiplication of the same books ;' and with little more than 12,000 volumes in the Library, the circulation of books during the past year was 47,866 volumes, or four times the total number in the Library.

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As an instance illustrative of the strong feeling of attachment with which the Township Libraries are regarded where they have been established and tested, and how cheerfully the expense is borne by the people, I cite the following from an excellent address by Prof. READ: "I will give the substance of a conversation which I had during my recent visit to Indiana, while in the Auditor's office, examining the most beautiful series of books the Indiana School Library. A farmer from the remotest township of the county came in. After a little, I said to him, Gentry, you are heavily taxed here in Indiana; I have been running away to Wisconsin where they have no old dead horses in the form of canals to pay for, and no interest to pay on bonds which our sharp-sighted Indiana Commissioners were cheated out of.' 'Well,' said he, we are heavily taxed, and this year, with our short crops and hard prices, it is as much as we can do in our neighborhood to pay our taxes.' 'But,' I said to him, 'it will be the policy of this Legislature to diminish taxation.' He said 'in all mercy he hoped so.' They will begin upon your extravagant school system. Now, look at these books-what is the use of them? Do they do a particle of good?' 'Let them,' said he, cut off what else they please -let them even cut off the whole school tax beside, but the books we must have.' He then told me, that the books had done his neighborhood more good, and had produced a greater change in the habits of families, than any other means of improvement which had ever been brought to bear upon the people.

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The citizens of Wisconsin are not less sensible of these inestimable advantages, nor less ready to make sacrifices to secure them, than are their neighbors in other Western States. People who truly love their children will willingly, nay gladly, make any possible sacrifice for their intellectual and moral culture; and quite as cheerfully too, will they learn to do it for the common benefit of all the children of the community in which they live.

I think that it may justly be regarded, that this matter of

Township School Libraries is emphatically the present great educational want of Wisconsin. It rises superior, in my humble estimation, to all others. It appeals most powerfully to the parent, to the Legislator, and to every lover of his race. It is only a question of time. It must come. I firmly believe the people of this State are already prepared for it, and waiting for, and demanding its inauguration. They long to witness legislation the benefits of which will accrue directly and tangibly to every child and every family in the State-redounding to the lasting good of the State itself, to virtue, intelligence, and morality. They long to see legislation which shall, like the dews of Heaven, bring untold blessings to the very domicils of the humblest in community-legislation, of which every man, woman and child in Wisconsin can emphatically see and enjoy its happy results. They are willing to pay for the economical support of the State government, an upright judiciary dispensing justice alike to all, and humane institutions for the unfortunate; but they ask also for the bread of intellectual life for their children. They demand School Libraries-the very best that wisdom and economy can devise-shall they have them? Never was a truer remark uttered, than that of CARL SCHURZ when he recently thus admonished our legislators: "Let them never forget, that true economy does not consist in close parsimony alone, but in a wise and appropriate application of the public moneys."

There should be a special fund permanently set apart for Township Library purposes, to be annually used in the purchase of carefully selected and approved books, uniformly and substantially bound, and apportioned among the cities and towns of Wisconsin according to some just system of equalization. That the books be selected by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, or a State Board of Education, or in such other manner as the Legislature may designate, and the contract made for them on the best terms, and in such manner, as may be provided by law.

The three States of Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, which have taken the initiative in the grand enterprise of Township Libraries, have neither of them taken a dollar from their School Funds for this purpose-and doubtless because those funds were not sufficiently large to warrant it. In the discussion of the present and prospective condition of the School Fund of our State, I think I have shown conclusively, that it is not now, nor ever can be, in a condition to divert from it any considerable amount for either library or other similar purposes. It should be husbanded with the most rigid watch-care exclusively for sustaining the Public Schools. I could not, therefore, with these

views, advise any diversion of this fund for even so noble an object as establishing and perpetually replenishing Township Libraries.

While Indiana imposes a State tax of a quarter of a mill on taxable property, and a poll tax of twenty-five cents, and Ohio levies the tenth of a mill, for Library purposes, I would be inclined to suggest, whether a Library Fund for Wisconsin could not be best created, by setting apart one third of the annual income from the Bank tax, and all of the Railroad tax income. The State of Maine devotes the whole of her Bank tax to the benefit of her public schools, and so does Indiana. Assuming our present population at from 800,000 to 1,000,000, this would give us about the same proportional amount set apart for Library purposes as in Indiana, where as much as $110,000 a year has been raised; and would be none too much to secure efficient and useful Libraries. Estimating, as has been done, the Railroad tax at $20,000, and $30,000 as one third of the Bank tax, we should have $50,000 annually for Library purposes; or, upon an average, about seventy-five dollars for each of the six hundred and fifty towns and cities in the State-some getting more, and others much less than that amount. Of course, an increase of population, together with an increase in the number of towns in the frontier counties, might or might not diminish the number and value of the books to be apportioned to each town, depending very much upon the fact whether the Library Fund would be of such a nature as to increase in a relative proportion.

For the 10,000 volumes added last year to here and there isolated district Libraries throughout the State, the people of Wisconsin could not have paid probably less than fifteen thousand dollars; and it would be safe to estimate, that one half of the works, obtained of the itinerant venders, were worthless, or even worse. Deducting this worthless expenditure, we should be paying some $15,000 for 5,000 useful volumes, and these in poor, varied, and unsubstantial binding. Suppose we were to expend $50,000 annually for Township Libraries, and secure say 65,000 or 70,000 volumes-all thoroughly examined, and faithfully tested as good and useful-we should then for the $35,000 in addition to what we now expend, get not less than sixty thousand useful volumes more than we now do. should, besides, have them in a far neater and more serviceable style of binding, and they would be three times as generally diffused as are our present libraries-for only one third of the State, after ten years' steady efforts to that end, has as yet been supplied with libraries, and that with but a few volumes to each collection. Sixty-five or seventy thousand volumes a year ap

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