about £1,200. This is scarcely enough for the service of its 3,000 patrons, says the president. In a city of 800,000 inhabitants the collection of 100,672 volumes should be brought within the reach of more than one person in 266.

The first attempt at the founding of a library of a public character in Philadelphia was made by a small association, composed of Benjamin Franklin and his friends, who called it the Junto. This society, out of which grew, in after years, the Library Company of Philadelphia and the American Philosophical Society, was established about 1727, when the future philosopher was twenty-one or twenty-two years old. It was a debating society to a certain degree, inasmuch as the regular exercises included statements and communications upon current subjects of interest among the people, with conversation, remarks and expression of opinion thereon. In the course of its proceedings the members of the Junto found that it was necessary to have a small library, by the use of which they might add to the force of their arguments, and open up more completely whatever points of interest connected with the subject under discussion were imperfectly known to them.

Books were brought to the meeting-room. The custom was followed by agreement to establish a library at their place of meeting for their own convenience. The library remained there for about a year, when, in consequence of some of the books having been injured, the individual owners became dissatisfied and took them away. This action destroyed the value of the collection, but the circumstance induced Franklin and some of his companions to enter into a much larger experiment-the establishment of a general library for use by all who might be disposed to avail themselves of the advantages of participation in such a scheme. Before that time, most of the large libraries in Europe were only used for consultation, the books to be examined only in the library halls and not to be taken away. The Franklin plan was to diffuse knowledge and to associate the members of the company together, not only for the accumulation of books, but to make them practically useful by allowing subscribers to take them to their own homes, there to be read at their leisure. There are now a number of Public Libraries in Philadelphia, and including libraries of every description Pennsylvania has 433 libraries, with a gross total of 1,965,093 volumes.

The Congressional Library at Washington, now in course of erection, will be the largest national library in any country when completed. The foundations alone have cost £100,000, and there is some discussion about the cost of the entire building being likely to reach over two-and-a-quarter millions sterling. The plans were adopted in 1886, and the completed structure will afford storage capacity for eight to ten million volumes. The principal feature of the building the heart, so to speak, around which everything centres-is the reading-room. In shape it is octagonal, and the diameter is 100 feet, which is four feet larger than the Rotunda

of the Capitol. From floor to dome the measurement is 90 feet. It is lighted from eight large semi-circular windows, each 36 feet in diameter, located above the roofs of the book repositories, adjacent to the reading-room, some 50 feet from the floor. In addition to the flood of daylight thus admitted there will be a lantern light, 30 feet in diameter, set in the crown of the roof. In the reading-room of the National Library in Paris there is one square foot of light to 428 cubic feet of space, and in the British Museum one foot of light has to do duty for 191 cubic feet of space. Thus the reading-room of the Congressional Library will be better lighted than either. The centre of the reading-room floor will be occupied by a circular enclosure of catalogue counters, in the central portion of which will be the desk of the librarian in charge. Radiating from the centre there will be sixteen reading-tables, each 22 feet long, and fashioned after those in use in the British Museum. The tables have a partition on them, running lengthwise, so that readers on one side do not disturb those who sit facing them at the same table. The sixteen tables will accommodate 350 readers. In the eight screened recesses around the room there are located sixteen book alcoves, two storeys high, in which will be kept such books as are in frequent use.

The Chicago Public Library has an arrangement for the convenience of citizens living at remote distances from the main collection, by which stations have been established. Book lists can be left at these stations, and are collected by the library messengers, who afterwards leave the books to be called for by those who have ordered them. This plan appears to work well. The book rooms are on the fourth storey of the City Hall, but it is hoped that a permanent home for the collection will ultimately be found at Dearborn Park.

This movement has not yet taken deep root in Canada. There are a considerable number of small libraries attached to mechanics' institutes, scattered throughout the dominion, but at the present time there are only some six Public Libraries in all Canada. The province of Ontario displays the most widespread interest in educational matters, and the province of Quebec is decidedly in the rear. In the whole of this latter province there is no so-called Public Library, although in Montreal there are one or two libraries open free to the public. Whether the French and Roman Catholic influence has kept back the progress of education in the province of Quebec may be a matter of opinion; but certainly the province, both in educational and commercial affairs, is far behind Ontario. There are some seventy-eight mechanics' institutes in Ontario, each with an average of 2,500 volumes. The one Public Library in the whole of Canada, which overshadows all libraries open to the public, is the Public Library of Toronto with its five branches. The work is in charge of Mr. James Bain, jun. The seventh annual report shows that the institution has made rapid growth and done considerable work. It circulated last year from the five central and the branch libraries 387,480 volumes.

It possesses about 70,000 books valued at £16,310, and its total assets of land, buildings, books, and furniture stand in the accounts at £28,630. It spent last year upwards of £8,300, including £2,877 for books, £2,360 for salaries, and £510 for newspapers and magazines. As a source of information and an integral branch of the civic life it occupies a high position, and it may be grouped with those educational efforts on which money is spent not so much with the idea of a direct dollars and cents return in kind, but as seed from which future harvests of intelligence, sweetness, and light are to spring. Some of the most instructive and interesting pages of the report are those in which the classified circulation of the various books is clearly presented, both for the central department and the various branches. As might be expected, the popularity of works of fiction is apparent in all of them, varying from 49.5 per cent. of the entire lendings at the central library to 730 per cent. at the western branch. During the session of 1889 provincial Parliament an amendment was made to the "Public Libraries Act," empowering the boards of management of Public Libraries to organize and manage evening-classes for artisans, mechanics, and working-men in such subjects as might promote a knowledge of the mechanical and manufacturing arts. By resolution of the City Council, July 8, 1889, the board of management was asked to take the necessary steps for establishing such evening-classes, and the sum of £400 was passed as a special grant for this purpose.

The rate produces about £6,840, and to this there is a grant from the Legislature of £40. The building is admirably adapted for its work, and there is every prospect that it will soon experience more extended and useful labours. The library of the Dominion Legislature in Ottawa is an exceedingly prepossessing building, octagonal in shape, with alcoves, and, lighted from the dome, the effect is very striking.

Since the foregoing pages were printed a copy of the last report and some other data have come to hand respecting the Chicago Public Library. The total number of books now in the library is 166,475. Apparently the number of books unaccounted for in the annual stock-taking is 134, a very much larger proportion than is to be found in any library on this side of the Atlantic. Six new delivery stations were established during the year, making the number now in operation twenty-four. Of these, six are located in the North Division, six in the South Division, and twelve in the West Division. The total issue of books from the twenty-four stations was 294,880 volumes, an increase of 94,623 over the report for 1890. Four delivery wagons are now required to carry the books to and from the stations, and two deliveries a day are made to each station, except two. The appropriation by the City Council reached for maintenance for the year £21,935, and for the fund for the building of the new library £65,806. The tax has been increased from one-half of a mill to two mills (1,000 mills to a dollar) for five years to defray the cost of this new building. What would

some of the town authorities in England think if a total of £88,000 was voted in one year for Public Library purposes? Mr. F. H. Hild is the librarian.

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CHAPTER XXXII.

Statistics.

HE few following pages are devoted to the statistics of the various rate-supported libraries. Most librarians have replied promptly to the schedule of questions sent out for this edition. Some few have not replied at all, notwithstanding that several applications have been sent to them. The question of statistics is a very vexed one with librarians, and the comparative statements which are put forward in some library reports are in many cases not quite fair, and in other cases they are certainly misleading. Like all other departments of library work, statistics are passing through a process of evolution, and in the course of a few years there is good reason to think that something like a uniform method of tabulating these particulars will have become general. Librarians state that they are overwhelmed with applications for statistics about their work received from those seeking to further the movement in various parts of the country. The question may well be asked whether this additional burden of work laid upon librarians is at all necessary in view of the figures here given. Statistics are not the vital point upon which this movement rests. The time is within measurable distance when the time of librarians will be better occupied in aiding and directing the tastes of readers in the selection of books than in the counting of heads.

The tables on pages 548-557 give the following results of the adoptions of the Acts up to September 24th, 1891.

Before the end of the year this number will receive considerable additions, and at periodical intervals these new adoptions of the Acts will be given in a separate slip inserted after the preface.

The poll on September 19th, 1891, for Penge, in Surrey, fully justified the efforts of its advocates, the result being as follows:For the library, 1,020; against, 275; majority for the library, 745. This is the heaviest poll recorded for local purposes.