We may now consider, somewhat more in detail as to particulars, the origin and growth of the libraries of the United States. The record will show an amazingly rapid development, chiefly accomplished during the last quarter of a century, contrasted with the lamentably slow growth of earlier years.
Thirty years ago the present year, I was invited to give to the American Social Science Association, then meeting at New York, a discourse upon Public Libraries in the United States. On recurring to this address, I have been agreeably surprised to find how completely its facts and figures belong to the domain of ancient history. For, while it may excite a smile to allude to anything belonging to a period only thirty years back as ancient history, yet, so rapid has been the accumulation, not only of books, but of libraries themselves in that brief period of three decades, as almost to justify the term employed.
Antiquarians must ever regard with interest the first efforts for the establishment of public libraries in the New World. The first record of books dedicated to a public purpose in that part of this country now occupied by the English-speaking race is, I believe, to be found in the following entry in the Records of the Virginia Company of London:
"November 15, 1620.—After the Acts of the former Courte were read, a straunger stept in presentinge a Mapp of Sr Walter Rawlighes contayinge a Descripcon of Guiana, and with the same fower great books as the Guifte of one unto the Company that desyred his name might not be made knowne, whereof one booke was a treatise of St. Augustine of the Citty of God translated into English, the other three greate Volumes wer the works of Mr. Perkins' newlie corrected and amended, wch books the Donor desyred they might be sent to the Colledge in Virginia there to remayne in saftie to the use of the collegiates thereafter, and not suffered at any time to be sent abroade or used in the meane while. For wch so worthy a guifte my Lord of Southampton desyred the p'tie that presented them to returne deserued thanks from himselfe and the rest of the Company to him that had so kindly bestowed them."[1]
The college here referred to was the first ever founded in America, and was seated at Henrico, at the confluence of the James River with the Chickahominy. It was designed not only for the education of the Virginia settlers, but to teach science and Christianity to the Indians. Large contributions were raised in England by Sir Edwin Sandys, and others of the Virginia Company, for its support. But this Virginia college and its incipient library were doomed to a speedy extinction. Like so many other brilliant "prospects for planting arts and learning in America," it did not survive the perils of the colonial epoch. It was brought to a period by the bloody Indian massacre of March 22, 1622, when three hundred and forty-seven of the Virginia settlers were slaughtered in a day, the new settlement broken up, and the expanding lines of civilization contracted to the neighborhood of Jamestown.
Harvard University Library was founded in 1638 by the endowment of John Harvard, who bequeathed to the new college his library and half of his estate. Soon afterwards enriched by the zealous contributions of English Puritans and philosophers, of Berkeley, and Baxter, and Lightfoot, and Sir Kenelm Digby, the first university library in America, after a century and a quarter of usefulness, was totally destroyed with the college edifice in the year 1764 by fire. When we contemplate the ravages of this element, which has consumed so many noble libraries, destroying not only printed books of priceless value, but often precious manuscripts which are unique and irreplaceable, a lively sense of regret comes over us that these creations of the intellect, which should be imperishable, are even yet at the mercy of an accident in all the libraries of the world save a very few. The destruction of books in private hands is natural and inevitable enough, and goes on continually. Whole editions of books, now sought with avidity as the rarest volumes known to literature, have been gradually destroyed in innumerable fires, worn out in the hands of readers, used for waste paper by grocers and petty tradesmen, swallowed up in the sack of towns, or consumed by dampness, mould, or, in rare instances, by the remorseless tooth of time. Yet there have always existed public libraries enough, had they been fire-proof, to have preserved many copies of every book bequeathed to the world, both before the invention of printing and since. But, when your insurance office is bankrupt, what becomes of the insured? When nearly all our public libraries are so constructed as to become an easy prey to the flames, the loss of so many books which have completely perished from the earth ceases to be wonderful.
The growth of Harvard University library, from its second foundation a century ago, has been steady, though at no time rapid. Select and valuable in its principal contents, it has received numerous benefactions from the friends of learning, and promises to become the best, as it already is much the largest, among the university libraries of the country. Its present strength is about 500,000 volumes.
The year 1700 witnessed the birth of the first New York library open to public use. The Rev. John Sharp, then chaplain of His Majesty's forces in that city (it was in the days of good King William of Orange), bequeathed his private collection of books to found a "public library" in New York. The library thus organized was placed in charge of the corporation of the city, but the first city library of New York languished with little or no increase until 1754, when a society of gentlemen undertook to found a public library by subscription, and succeeded so well that the city authorities turned over to them what remained of the Public City Library. This was the beginning of the New York Society Library, one of the largest of the proprietary libraries of the country. It was then, and for a long time afterwards, commonly known as "The City Library." The Continental Congress profited by its stores, there being no other library open to their use; and the First Congress under the Constitution, which met in New York in 1789, received the free use of the books it contained. The library is conducted on the share system, the payment of twenty-five dollars, and an annual assessment of six dollars, giving any one the privilege of membership. It now contains about 100,000 volumes.
The same year, 1700, in which the New York Library was founded, ten Connecticut ministers met together at Lyme, each bringing a number of books, and saying, "I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony." Such was the foundation of Yale University, an institution that has done inestimable service to the cause of letters, having been fruitful of writers of books, as well as of living contributions to the ranks of every learned profession. Thirty years later, we find the good Bishop Berkeley pausing from the lofty speculations which absorbed him, to send over to Yale College what was called "the finest collection of books that ever came together at one time into America." For a century and a half the growth of this library was very slow, the college being oppressed with poverty. In 1869, the number of volumes had risen only to 50,000, but it is cheering to relate that the last thirty years have witnessed a growth so rapid that in 1899 Yale University Library had 285,000 volumes.
