tellectual community, to keep alive a spirit of invention and discovery, and to feed the restless mind with its appropriate food? What, in a word, is to resist the inroads of ignorance, of vice, of error, of infidelity, of sensuality, of luxury—of that dark and dismal chaos of moral elements, that will bid defiance to social order, wholesome subordination, and the restraints of law? Must we not give immediate heed to the intellectual wants of our growing community? Must we not make our facilities for intellectual culture and literary excellence commensurate with our increasing mental activity and irrepressible energies? In a word, must we not, promptly and energetically, meet a want which has already, for years, been felt in our country of an adequate library of reference,-ample, easy of access, sufficiently extensive to meet the varied demands for information in every department of art, science, or literature?

That we do not exaggerate our actual and pressing wants, as regards the several departments of art, science, and literature, will be manifest from the following statements, which we venture to make after careful calculation.

In order to place the department of Architecture on such a footing, in a Library of reference, as to satisfy the generous aspirations of our students and professors in that department, and enable them to exert a benign influence on our cities and country, we could readily and advantageously dispose of the sum of $30,000 in the purchase of works in that department alone. $30,000

Of this any competent bibliographer or well informed architect, may satisfy himself, by enumerating the principal and costly publications which now enrich the libraries of Europe. Under present circumstances, the architectural student or professor must accumulate, at a vast individual expense, an architectural library, if he hope to meet with ordinary success; and the few whose means enable them to indulge in this luxury, must, from the nature of the case, indulge in it alone. The public cannot profit by the presence of these works, except in a very remote and scanty manner.

To place the increasingly popular department of Civil En-
gineering,with its cognate branches, on the same footing,
we could advantageously expend the sum of.
For the Fine Arts, especially the remaining arts of Design
(a very extensive department),

For Chemistry, especially in its connexion with the arts,

$20,000

50,000

10,000

For Geology, Mineralogy, Metallurgy and Fossil and re

cent Conchology,

15,000

For Botany,

15,000

For Zoology, including Mammalogy, Ornithology, Icthyol

ogy, Entomology, and other branches (also a very expensive department),

50,000

For History, Civil and Ecclesiastical,

40,000

For Mathematics, pure and applied,

40,000

For Natural Philosophy, including Astronomy,

30,000

For Moral Science, including Ethics, Political Science,
Natural Law and Political Economy,

50,000

For Greek and Latin Classics,

40,000

For Hebrew and other branches of the Semitic stock,
For other Oriental Languages and literature including the
Indo-Germanic stock,

10,000

10,000

For Modern Languages, including all the necessary helps,
For Rhetoric, Criticism and Belles Lettres,

40,000

30,000

Which would be immediately required, in order to place all these departments on even a respectable footing in a library of reference such as our country now demands.

If therefore we wish to see our country as eminent for its literary cultivation as it is for its enterprise in all the departments. of business-if we wish to see mind exerting its influence on mind, by means of those associations for the promotion of science and literature, which are the chief ornaments of the cities of Europe, we must provide a great library for the supply of their daily intellectual food, and to nourish and invigorate their energies. It is as impossible for such associations to exist, much less to prosper and exert their enlightening and meliorating influence, without the proximity of such a library, as for a community of workmen, employed on some mechanical labor, to cheer each other in their toil, and advance their appropriate work with a miserably contracted allowance of daily food. In each case weakness, lethargy, dulness, starvation, and death

must ensue.

Again; if we would render our country a favorite resort for

a circumstance

literary and scientific men of other climes, which eminently contributes to humanize, refine, and dignify a community, we must provide the necessary attraction-an ample library—a grand store house of knowledge, to which even the European scholar will feel it a privilege to resort.

Is it not, then, high time to commence this enterprise also, and to give it a commanding rank, among the enterprises for which our country has been so justly celebrated?

Permit us here to state a few facts, serving to show the vast inferiority of our country, as regards its provisions for the higher intellectual wants and literary culture of the community.

The public libraries of the United States, embracing those belonging to colleges, theological seminaries, city corporations, companies and societies are rated as follows:

* [The statement in relation to some of the colleges is rather low. The total at Amherst is more than 10,000; at Williams more than 6,000. ED.]

We have enumerated fifty-two universities and colleges. The whole number in the United States is said to be about eighty. Assuming eighty as the number of the organized colleges in the United States, and allowing for the twenty-eight not enumerated, an average of 500 vols. for each, we have for these twenty-eight colleges the gross amount of 14,000 vols. If we allow also 15,000 vols. for the student's libraries of whose size we have no certain information, we shall then obtain the gross amount of volumes in all the colleges, including student's libraries in the United States, 316,900.

Of the fifty-two enumerated colleges six are under the care of the Roman Catholics, with

Of the Baptists, four, with

42,500 vols.

20,200

Of the Episcopalians, five, with

Of the Methodists, four, with

14,500

Of the other denominations chiefly Congregationalists

and Presbyterians the remaining thirty-three, with 192,000

We have here enumerated the fifteen principal theological seminaries. There are said to be about thirty-five in all in the United States. Allowing for the twenty institutions not enumerated, (some of which have as yet no libraries, or none distinct from those of the seminaries with which they are connected), an average of 800 vols. each, which we cannot but regard as amply sufficient, we have for these twenty seminaries 16,000 vols. which gives for the thirty-five theological seminaries of the United States, the gross amount of 83,800 vols.