The plan as advocated in New York soon passed over into Massachusetts, where it was taken up and advocated by Horace Mann, that noble-minded and eloquent champion of popular enlightenment. Through his influence the necessary law was passed in 1837, but the operation of the plan was never very successful in that state, and after twelve years had resulted in the accumulation of only 42,707 volumes.
Michigan appears to have been abreast of Massachusetts in the adoption of the plan of district school libraries, incorporating it into its school law of 1837.
After New York, Massachusetts, and Michigan, the several other states which adopted this plan did so in the following order: Connecticut in 1839; Rhode Island and Iowa in 1840; Indiana in 1841; Maine in 1844; Ohio in 1847; Wisconsin in 1848; Missouri in 1853; California and Oregon in 1854; Illinois in 1855; Kansas and Virginia in 1870; New Jersey in 1871; Kentucky and Minnesota in 1873; and Colorado in 1876.
These data will give you some idea of the wide extension of this fourth stage in library evolution. Its merits are very great. Perhaps its greatest merit is that it recognizes the true function of the public library as a part of the system of public education, and therefore as entitled to a share in public taxation. Moreover, it has undoubtedly done a vast amount of good in placing the means of intellectual improvement within the reach of millions of people of all ages; it has stimulated the love of books and diffused knowledge and happiness. And yet with all these merits, it has been a failure; and this is largely due to just three defects in administration:
1. Lack of care and wisdom in the selection of the books, resulting in the acquisition of many volumes of trash and of profligacy.
2. Lack of care as to the distribution and return of the books, resulting in their rapid dispersion and disappearance.
3. Lack of care in the preservation of the books that were not strayed and stolen, resulting in their rapid deterioration.
You have got to apply business principles to the handling of books, as well as of any other material possessions. Libraries as well as sawmills need to be dealt with according to common-sense and with efficiency. Now upon the general failure of these libraries, let me quote for you a little testimony. The superintendent of schools in New York State, in 1875, says: “The system has not worked well in this state.... The libraries have fallen into disuse, and have become practically valueless.” [1 Pub. lib. of U.S., i. 41.]
The superintendent for 1861 says that in “nearly every quarter of the state,” the libraries are “almost totally unused and rapidly deteriorating.” [2 Pub. Lib. of U.S. i. 40.] For 1862, the superintendent gives a more detailed picture of the condition of the school libraries. He finds them “mainly represented by a motley collection of books, ranging from ‘Headley's sacred mountains‘to the ‘Pirate's own book,’ numbering in the aggregate a million and a half of volumes, scattered among the various families, constituting a part of the family library, or serving as toys for children in the nursery; ... crowded into cupboards, thrown into cellars, stowed away in lofts, exposed to the action of water, the sun, and of fire, or more frequently locked away into darkness unrelieved and silence unbroken.” [2 Pub. Lib. of U.S. i. 40.]