.K 
 
 LIBRARY 
 SCHOOL 
 
'a' 
 
 State Library 
 
*' 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING 
 
 CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE 
 
 "TUKSDAY, JANUARY 8, 1895 
 
 Published by Authority of the State 
 
 CONCORD 
 
 EDWARD N. PEARSON, PUBLIC PRINTER 
 1895 
 
SCNOOi. 
 
.^73 3 
 
 LAWS OF 1895, CHAPTER 125. 
 
 JOINT RESOLUTION PROVIDING FOR THE PRINTING OF THE PRO- 
 CEEDINGS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE STATE LIBRARY BUILD- 
 ING, JANUARY 8, 1895. 
 
 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives in General 
 Court convened: 
 
 That the governor and council be requested to procure the 
 printing of two thousand copies of the proceedings at the dedi- 
 cation of the State library building at Concord, January 8, 1895, 
 including the addresses of William J. Tucker and Ains worth R. 
 Spofford, with suitable cuts of the exterior and interior of the 
 building. 
 
 r - /f \« . 4 «>Q 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction . . . vii 
 
 Description of the Building i 
 
 Trustees, i 866-1 895 13 
 
 Librarians, i 834-1 895 15 
 
 Addresses : 
 
 Hon. J. S. H. Frink, President of the Day . . 17 
 Rev. Harry P. Dewey, Invocation ... 22 
 Hon. Charles H. Burns, of the Building Com- 
 mission ......... 24 
 
 His Excellency Charles A. Busiel ... 26 
 Hon. Isaac W. Smith, Associate Justice of the 
 
 Supreme Court 27 
 
 Hon. Parsons B. Cogswell, Mayor of Concord . 38 
 
 Hon. George C. Gilmore, Trustee of the Library 40 
 
 Orations : 
 
 Rev. William J. Tucker, d. d., President of Dart- 
 mouth College . 42 
 
 Hon. Ainsworth R. Spofford, Librarian of Con- 
 gress 59 
 
 Appendix 77 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 New Hampshire, in assuming to do for the people 
 what the people formerly accomplished for themselves, 
 has made progress only after demonstration that pater- 
 nalism in government does not trespass upon the theory 
 and practice of a pure democracy. The progress of 
 thought and the enlargement of practice have founded 
 state institutions and generally have granted privileges 
 and facilities which individually the people could not 
 secure for themselves. The internal history of the state 
 library reveals an origin and development in harmony 
 with a liberal interpretation of the functions of a wise 
 and comprehensive state administration. 
 
 So long as the library remained under the immediate 
 control and supervision of the legislature its growth was 
 dwarfed and its functions were limited to a narrow 
 sphere. In 1866, under more liberal legislation, the 
 library became an institution with a permanent board 
 of control, and during the succeeding years it has 
 profited under the fostering care of the state. Within 
 thirty years the number of volumes has been increased 
 tenfold, and the interest of the public has kept an even 
 pace with the rapid progress of the library. 
 
 In the early history of the state, there was no state 
 library or thought of one. Until 1816 there was no 
 state house nor any public building in which a state 
 library could be sheltered. During the first twenty 
 years under the constitution, the legislature held only 
 
Viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 two successive sessions in the same town, and these 
 were special and not annual sessions. During the 
 years preceding the establishment of a permanent seat 
 of government, it is evident the state was not saving and 
 moving books from town to town. The treasurer was 
 summoned to attend with the iron chest wherever the 
 general court pitched its tent, but no library was trans- 
 ported from one temporary capital to another. The 
 state had none. If we claim for the institution the 
 added glory of antiquity, we must admit that in its 
 imaginative existence it was vehicular. With the com- 
 pletion and occupancy of a permanent state house, it is 
 probable that a few books were collected, but it was 
 several years before the state entertained any thought of 
 a permanent library, or even reserved a copy of its own 
 publications for its use. The Journals of the Senate and 
 House of Representatives, and other volumes, published 
 by the state, previous to 1826, and now in the state 
 library, were secured by donation or purchase at a later 
 date. 
 
 For the first time the state library receives mention in 
 the state records in an act of 1823 appropriating $100 
 annually for its enlargement. The poverty of the insti- 
 tution is revealed in an act of 1826 which provided for 
 the purchase of **one copy of the Journal of the Senate 
 and House of Representatives for each session since the 
 adoption of the present constitution." 
 
 In 1828 Jacob Bailey Moore was appointed an agent 
 to prepare a room under the senate chamber for the 
 accommodation of the state library. Mr. Moore caused 
 to be arranged a series of shelves in a long, narrow 
 room across the north end of the state house, and here 
 the library remained until the autumn of 1864. An act 
 of 1848 provided for the removal of the library to the 
 west side of the state house, but no action was taken on 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 account of a failure of the general court to make an ade- 
 quate appropriation for the purpose. 
 
 In 1828 the whole number of volumes was less than 
 600. These were packed rather than shelved in limited 
 accommodations, and the door was securely locked the 
 greater part of the year. During the succeeding fifteen 
 years about an equal number of volumes of a miscellane- 
 ous character was added to the originals, and with them 
 committed to a continued and solitary confinement. 
 
 The only printed catalogue of the state library was 
 issued nearly fifty years ago. An act approved June 
 30, 1846, directed the secretary of state, the librarian, ex- 
 officio^ to print three hundred copies of a catalogue of 
 the librar}^. The catalogue demonstrates that the col- 
 lection of statutes and legislative journals of the United 
 States and of the several states, had been considerably 
 increased within the few years immediately preceding. 
 At this date the library also contained nearly 400 law 
 reports, digests, and works of an elementary character. 
 In the miscellaneous department there were about 600 
 volumes of history, biography, and reference books. 
 
 At the June session, 1849, Alexandre Vattemare, of 
 Paris, delivered an address before the legislature, advo- 
 cating an international exchange of public documents. 
 The address was printed at the expense of the state, and 
 a joint resolution was passed directing the librarian to 
 present Mr. Vattemare **such copies of the Journals of 
 the legislature and other volumes and pamphlets in his 
 possession as in his opinion can be consistently thus 
 appropriated." In exchange the library received in 
 uniform and substantial bindings 125 volumes in French. 
 They are silent reminders of a policy suddenly adopted, 
 and as speedily relinquished. 
 
 In 1834, Jacob C. Carter was chosen librarian, and by 
 annual elections was continued in office until the close of 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the session of 1846. During this period, and for many 
 succeeding years, the library was opened only during 
 the session and for the sole accommodation of the legis- 
 lature and the state officers. An act of 1846 changed 
 the form, but not the spirit, of the control of the library. 
 The secretary of state became the librarian ex -officio 
 with authority to appoint a special deputy to open the 
 library during the session, and in 1857 the deputy secre- 
 tary of state was made librarian ex-officio, and continued 
 to discharge the limited duties of the office until 1866. 
 
 The state house was re-modelled between the special 
 session in August, 1864, and the June session, 1866. In 
 the meantime the books of the state library were stored 
 in the basement of the city hall. They were removed 
 from the state house in the autumn of 1864, eighty years 
 after the adoption of the state constitution. At this time 
 it could be called a library only by courtesy. At best 
 it was a broken collection of law books and state 
 documents with a very few volumes of a miscellaneous 
 character. The repairs upon the state house provided a 
 room for the library upon the centre of the west side. 
 It was left unfinished, and the books remained in storage 
 until the summer of 1867. During eighty years the 
 legislature practically retained the immediate control and 
 supervision of the library. The laws were temporary 
 in their character and to no one was delegated an 
 authority to secure any permanent results. Each 
 annual session legislated for its immediate convenience, 
 often doing too much for a month and always too little 
 for a year. 
 
 At the June session, 1866, the legislature assembled 
 in the re-modeled state house. It was the beginning of 
 an era in the history of the library. The spirit of the 
 prophet was breathing in the dead bones in the valley, 
 and the voice of progress called the people to the opened 
 
INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 doors of the library. Under the provisions of the act of 
 1866 the state library was enlarged from a legislative 
 convenience to a public institution. The control was 
 delegated to a perpetual board of trustees, and a more 
 liberal provision was made for its support. Under this 
 management the room provided was completed and a 
 permanent librarian was appointed. The results were 
 immediate and constant, and the library soon outgrew 
 the accommodations provided by the trustees. The 
 situation found frequent expression in the legislature 
 without results until the session of 1889, in the passage 
 of a joint resolution authorizing the governor and coun- 
 cil to procure plans and estimates for the enlargement 
 of the state house or the erection of a separate building 
 for the accommodation of the library. Under this 
 authority the governor and council appointed Charles 
 H. Burns, John W. Sanborn, Benjamin A. Kimball, 
 Irving W. Drew, and Charles J. Amidon. The com- 
 mission held frequent sessions, and industriously prose- 
 cuted the work of inquiry and investigation. To the 
 succeeding legislature they recommended a site, and 
 presented plans and estimates for a new building. The 
 plan contained provision for a court room and adjoining 
 rooms for the accommodation of the court and members 
 of the bar. The recommendations of the commission 
 were promptly accepted by the legislature, and without 
 opposition an act was passed authorizing the governor 
 and council to appoint four commissioners to erect a 
 l)uilding in accordance with the accepted plans and 
 upon the proposed site. The commission under the act 
 of 1889 consisted of five members, and with the knowl- 
 edge of the desire of Mr. Amidon to be excused from 
 further service, the building commission under the act 
 of 1891 comprised four members. The governor and 
 council appointed Charles H. Burns, John W. Sanborn, 
 
xii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Benjamin A. Kimball, and Irving W. Drew commis- 
 sioners for the erection of the new building. The plans 
 accepted were those of A. P. Cutting of Worcester, 
 Mass., and he remained associated with the commis- 
 sioners during the construction of the building. The 
 liberality of the people as expressed in legislation, and 
 the wisdom of the commissioners are fittingly expressed 
 in the fair proportions and the spacious accommodation 
 of an attractive and durable structure. 
 
 The state library enters upon a new era of its exist- 
 ence with hope and confidence. During the past 
 twenty-eight years, under the management of the 
 trustees, its growth has been uniform and constant. 
 It now contains, exclusive of duplicates, 50,000 volumes, 
 of which 14,000 are in the law department. Including 
 pamphlets, state and United States documents, it pos- 
 sesses over 100,000 duplicates. Every year is adding 
 more volumes than the library contained fifty years ago. 
 
THE STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 The problem as received from the commissioners was 
 for a building, first, to contain and accommodate the state 
 library, with ample means for immediate growth within 
 its walls, and so arranged that a stack room for future 
 growth could be added, retaining the present structure 
 for administrative purposes, with reading room of ample 
 dimensions for its prospective growth for many years to 
 come. 
 
 Second, to provide rooms for the supreme court of the 
 state, comprising court room, judges' consultation and 
 private rooms, clerks' and attorneys' room, with such 
 additional rooms as would naturally grow out of the 
 development of the scheme, and suitable for offices 
 under the state government, and the whole to be of the 
 most substantial character, as nearly fireproof as con- 
 sistent with available use. 
 
 It is not necessary to minutely describe all the intricate 
 details entering into the construction of the building, but 
 in any description, however brief, it should not be over- 
 looked that the foundations are laid deep and strong ; 
 that the materials were carefully selected and of the best 
 quality available ; that each and every one of the intri- 
 cate details have in turn received all, and much more care 
 and thought than is usually expended upon such prob- 
 lems ; that the building not only looks strong and per- 
 manent, but it has really greater strength than is appar- 
 ent, for by the solid character of the backing of the 
 
2 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 exterior walls and by the tying into them of the solid 
 masonry partitions, which buttress them in every direc- 
 tion and add untold strength to its otherwise massive 
 solidity ; that in heating, lighting, ventilation, and sani- 
 tation it is the best that expert service can give ; in deco- 
 ration and ornament it is true to the style selected. That 
 it is not highly decorated, is true, for both its material 
 and purpose forbid such a course. 
 
 It is situated fronting the state-house grounds from the 
 north , with a frontage on Park street of 141 feet 6 
 inches, on State street, 104 feet 2 inches, with a width 
 of 94 feet 4 inches at the narrowest point through the 
 library east of the main entrance, with a slight project- 
 ing tower 24 feet square at the southwest corner, one 
 story higher than the main building, with a high, pitched 
 roof; a segmental bay from the centre of the court room 
 at the west end, and a semi-circular bay at the right of 
 the main entrance with finish membering into and join- 
 ing the same. The extreme height of main walls from 
 grade is 44 feet, with a gable over main entrance 57 feet 
 in height, and a tower 83 feet in height. 
 
 The exterior is wholly of New Hampshire granite 
 in two colors. The body of the work and basement 
 entire are of Conway red granite, rock face, except 
 reveals and mouldings which are fine cut. The trim- 
 mings comprising all belts, mouldings, pilasters, cor- 
 nices, copings, entrance steps, etc., are of Concord 
 gray granite, and wholly dressed work. The backing 
 of all exterior walls and partitions is of brick laid in 
 cement. 
 
 The framing of floors, ceilings, roof trusses, stairs, 
 columns, entire, are of steel. The floors, columns, ceil- 
 ings, and roof are filled with burnt clay tiles, with pro- 
 jecting flanges wholly enclosing metal construction, by 
 a solid covering of previously burnt materials. The 
 
THE DEDICATION. 3 
 
 floors and roof arches are filled and leveled with con- 
 crete to receive floors and roof covering. 
 
 The floors for vestibule, main hall first and second 
 stories, and border of court room are of marble mosaic, 
 and all other floors marble tiles. 
 
 The roof has a waterproof covering over masonry con- 
 struction overlaid with seven-eighths inch planed slates 
 bedded in mastic. Flashing and skylight ribs are of 
 copper. Skylights are glazed with one-half inch thick, 
 hammered plate glass, with all windows glazed with 
 thick, polished plate glass. 
 
 The plastering is laid directly to masonry construction. 
 The door and window trimmings for the vestibule, main 
 and staircase halls, and court room are of polished mar- 
 ble ; all other trimmings are of Keene cement. The book 
 cases and stacks are of iron. Wood is only used for door 
 and window casements and furniture is mainly quartered 
 oak, and is of so inconsiderable an amount that the whole 
 could be burned in any room in the building without 
 endangering its construction. 
 
 The basement has a strong battered wall 6 feet 9 inches 
 in height, of unusually large stone, springing from a solid 
 underpinning with projecting wash and terminating with 
 a belt 3 feet wide of three members, base, die, and sill 
 course, running entirely around the building. 
 
 From this belt of light colored granite spring pilasters 
 2 feet 6 inches wide projecting 6 inches, with moulded 
 base and delicately carved capitals, coupled at the 
 angles, single at each division or bay, around the build- 
 ing and running up to and supporting the main cornice. 
 The motive of the main cornice is Grecian, 4 feet in width, 
 composed of frieze, dentils, egg and dart, bed moulding, 
 facia and corona. Over the main cornice is a sort of bat- 
 tlement wall 3 feet 3 inches in height, of red granite 
 trimmed with gray, forming roof stop. 
 
4 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 The segmental bay at the west end back of the judges' 
 bench from the court room, is pierced with triple windows 
 standing high up on massive panels of red granite, 
 with rugged split faces. The spandrils over the same 
 windows have similar panels surrounded by ornamental 
 mouldings. Through the curtain walls between the pilas- 
 ters are the windows for the first and second stories, with 
 moulded panels between them, giving the effect of con- 
 nected windows. The lower ones have stone mullions 
 and transoms, and the second semi-circular tops. 
 
 The rear entrance to the library from the north and 
 the hatchway to the basement, while absolutely without 
 ornament, are wonderfully interesting, showing as they 
 do the massive strength of the work. 
 
 The main entrance is from Park street in the south 
 front, 53 feet from the southwest corner to the centre. 
 The entrance is composed of thirteen granite steps 20 feet 
 wide, solidly buttressed at either side and flanked with 
 massive stone piers 6 feet 3 inches wide up to the height 
 of first story, from which spring coupled pilasters running 
 up to and supporting gable cornice above the battlement 
 walls of the main building. The tympanum, formed by 
 the pitch of the gable, is richly carved, the central motive 
 of which is the modified state seal. 
 
 Standing between the main piers of the first story and 
 the pilasters of the second, are four pairs of coupled 
 columns, one standing back of the other. These columns 
 are polished and of green granite from Conway quarries. 
 The lower ones have pedestals membering with the belt 
 extending around the building, with moulded bases and 
 delicately carved capitals, and support the massive stone 
 lintel 2 feet high, 3 feet 9 inches wide, and 18 feet long, 
 over which rests the die bearing the inscription in polished 
 letters ** STATE LIBRARY.** The die and its capping 
 form guard for upper balcony, and from which spring 
 
THE DEDICATION. 5 
 
 companion columns supporting the great arch over the 
 balcony. The portico and balcony over it are faced 
 with granite with floors and ceilings of solid granite 
 flags. 
 
 The motive of the exterior, as it finds expression in its 
 coursed ashlar walls, mouldings, panels, cornices, pilas- 
 ters, etc., is of the early Italian renaissance period, 
 which originated near the end of the fifteenth century, at 
 a time when the great masters of Italian art had grown 
 weary of the Byzantine, Gothic, and Romanesque, and 
 were reaching out into new fields and gaining fresh con- 
 quests in their chosen profession, receiving their inspira- 
 tion from Grecian art of 2,000 years before ; their works 
 were so successful that they have ever since found ex- 
 pression in the best works of every European country, 
 and are steadily gaining in favor at home. While in the 
 whole there is scarcely a new thing in the builders' art, 
 the adaptation to its purpose is quite unusual in archi- 
 tecture, and the whole gives the impression of great 
 solidity as if built for eternity. 
 
 From the main porch through double doors of polished 
 oak surrounded by transoms and side lights, we pass 
 through a vestibule 5 feet 6 inches by 22 feet, and enter 
 the main hall by similar doors. This hall is 22 feet by 74 
 feet 6 inches, running through and receiving its light 
 from the triple windows over the main staircase in the 
 rear wall, and forms a dividing line between the two 
 departments of the building, at the right of which is the 
 library and at the left the court departments. 
 
 From this hall by two pairs of double doors at the 
 right, we enter the great reading room of the library. 
 This room is 42 feet wide, 70 feet 8 inches long, and 34 
 feet 6 inches high ; is flanked on either side by a colon- 
 nade of six Grecian Doric columns surmounted by a 
 classic entablature, which supports a similar colonnade 
 
6 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 with Grecian columns with composite capitals, with inter- 
 secting arches, beams in the first story and arches in 
 the second story, intersecting with pilasters on the outer 
 walls of the room, extending up to the main ceiling. 
 
 The columns forming the second story colonnade are 
 connected between them, as well as at the ends, with 
 marble rails, supported on ornamental wrought iron bal- 
 ustrade. These columns are 9 feet from the alcove walls, 
 and are designed to form separating corridors between 
 the alcoves and the central section of the main reading 
 room, which is lighted with large windows at the east end 
 and skylight comprising nearly the whole central section 
 of the ceiling. The second story colonnade with the 
 attendant balustrade forms galleries around the room from 
 which the second story alcoves are reached. 
 
 In entering the library at the first door, at the right is 
 an attendant staircase from the basement to the second 
 story. Adjoining this is a trustees' room, the extreme 
 dimensions of which are 16 feet by 30 feet, with the outer 
 end occupying the semi-circular bay, which is pierced with 
 a group of five transomed windows. Of the remaining 
 four alcoves upon the right hand or south side, three are 
 10 feet 2 inches by 22 feet and the fourth is 13 feet by 22 
 feet. The three central alcoves on the north side are of 
 the same dimensions as the south side, while opposite the 
 trustees' room is a vault 13 feet 6 inches by 16 feet 8 
 inches, constructed of hard brick with 3-foot walls 
 laid solid in cement. At the northwest corner of the 
 library department, and connected with a driveway from 
 the rear entrance, is a staircase connecting with base- 
 ment, and with first and second stories. 
 
 The alcoves in the library department are each 14 feet in 
 the clear height, giving the requisite height for two tiers 
 of bookcases, when the same shall be required, and are 
 each lighted from end walls by large windows surrounded 
 
THE DEDICATION. 7 
 
 by bookcases and provided with reading tables and 
 chairs, forming a series of reading rooms for classified 
 books. 
 
 The basement immediately under the library depart- 
 ment has faced and jointed lining walls and. piers of 
 brick, with a metalithic concrete floor covering the whole 
 space. The whole is amply lighted and used for book 
 storage and supplies. Between the basement staircase 
 and the main library the two alcoves on the right are 
 fitted for cataloguing purposes. 
 
 At the left of the main hall by the first door we reach 
 the judges' consultation room, 19 feet by 22 feet 3 inches, 
 through which we reach a private office, 15 feet 8 inches 
 square, in the space occupied by the tower. From either 
 of these rooms through a lobby 7 feet by 9 feet 5 inches, 
 entrance to the court room is formed. Outside of this 
 lobby is the judges' lavatory, of similar size. Through 
 the next three doors from the hall, a wide one in the 
 centre, flanked on either side by single doors, we enter 
 the court room, 2^ feet by 50 feet by 26 feet 6 inches 
 high, with a segmental bay in the immediate front. The 
 windows of the bay stand high up over the judges' 
 bench, which is located 9 feet from the outer wall. 
 
 Connecting with the court room from the northwest 
 corner of the building is a clerk's room, about 17 
 feet square, with vault. Adjoining this room and con- 
 necting with main hall is a similar room for consulta- 
 tion. 
 
 At the rear end of the main hall at the right, is the 
 main staircase, 9 feet wide, constructed of iron and 
 marble, and leading to the second story, and connecting 
 directly with the second story reception hall, 22 feet by 57 
 feet 9 inches, which is surrounded by a finely ornamented 
 cornice, with semi-circular glazed ceiling with extreme 
 height of 26 feet. From this hall, through a glazed par- 
 
S STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 tition, the balcony over the main porch is reached. The 
 light of this room is admirably adapted for the exhibi- 
 tion of paintings, views, and other objects of art. 
 Through this room are reached the gallery in the library 
 and the second story rooms occupying the space used by 
 the judges in the lower floor, comprising rooms 19 feet by 
 22 feet 3 inches, 15 feet 8 inches square, and 9 feet 5 
 inches by 15 feet, and from the landing in the main stair- 
 case at the north side of the building a room 17 feet by 36 
 feet, thus completing the appointments of the building. 
 
 The heating and ventilating of the building are accom- 
 plished by a power system, consisting of two horizontal 
 locomotive boilers with heating coils, and a fan driven 
 by electric power. These are located under the main 
 hall, and are absolutely disconnected from the library 
 department, except the heating conduits. The cold air 
 is taken from high up in the north wall, and conducted 
 by the solid masonry conduits to the heating coils 
 through the fan to the distributing conduits. The sys- 
 tem includes mixing dampers with thermostats and elec- 
 tric control, and as computed by the manufacturers is 
 rated at 25,000 cubic feet of fresh air per minute. By 
 the electric control a change of two degrees in temper- 
 ature only is required to open or close the hot and cold 
 air supply. 
 
 The computation of ventilating flues provides for a 
 capacity sufficient to change the air in the court room 
 every ten minutes, and in the library every fifteen 
 minutes. 
 
 The vestibule, main and staircase halls have a rich 
 wainscot 5 feet 6 inches high of Sienna marble with base 
 and cap mouldings, door and window trimmings of 
 Verona red marble, extending up the main staircase to 
 the second story, and including the triple windows over 
 the staircase. 
 
THE DEDICATION. 9 
 
 Midway between the doors to the library is a massive 
 mantel of Grecian design, and like the hall surrounding 
 it, is of Sienna marble, with Verona red trimmings, the 
 motive of which is solid paneled pilasters relieved with 
 decorated mouldings up to and supporting the shelf, 
 above which spring coupled fluted pilasters with rich 
 capitals carrying the main entablature. 
 
 The space over the shelf between pilasters to the cor- 
 nice, is filled with a bronze panel bearing the names of 
 those officials who have been instrumental in the build- 
 ing's erection, surrounded by symbolic carvings in bas- 
 relief. 
 
 The floors of main hall and vestibule are mosaic, of 
 colored marble, with rich borders and centre pieces. 
 
 The space at the rear end of the main hall under the 
 staircase is occupied for a general lavatory. 
 
 In the reading room of the library, opposite the man- 
 tel in the hall, is the companion fireplace of white mar- 
 ble, of classic design, the motive of which is two pairs 
 of entasised composite columns, with delicately carved 
 capitals 8 feet in diameter, and 7 feet 10 inches high, 
 supporting classic entablature with decorated mouldings, 
 with mantel shelf terminating between them. Over the 
 centre and supported by main entablature is a marble 
 clock, designed in harmony with the mantel. 
 
 The main reading room in the library has Italian mar- 
 ble wainscot 3 feet 6 inches high, intersecting with the 
 pedestals of wall pilasters, and matching the independent 
 pedestals of the main colonnade. All the finish above 
 the wainscot is of Keene cement, and the floors of the 
 reading room and alcoves connected with the same are 
 of marble tiles. 
 
 The court-room floor is surrounded by a colored mar- 
 ble mosaic border, moderatel}^ decorated, with the cen- 
 tral floor covered with concrete and overlaid with rich 
 
lO STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 carpet. The room has marble wainscot 5 feet i 1-2 inches 
 in height, intersecting with the two marble mantels at 
 either end, and with door and window trimmings, the 
 whole of carefully selected Italian vein marble. 
 
 The mantels have coupled Grecian Doric columns, 
 decorated with egg and dart mouldings, at either side, 
 supporting shelves. 
 
 Through the main wall back of the columns are 
 grilled registers connected with main flues for ventila- 
 tion. 
 
 The fireplaces are also designed for heating the build- 
 ing in moderate weather, and supplement the main flues 
 for ventilation. 
 
 The room has an intermediate cornice 13 feet from 
 the floor, forming capping over doors and windows and 
 encircling the room, from which spring fluted pilasters 
 with composite Grecian capitals, supporting the main 
 cornice, which is also decorated with Grecian ornamental 
 mouldings. From the centre of the court room ceiling 
 springs an elliptical dome 28 feet in diameter, with 
 ribbed and paneled soffit springing up to and receiving 
 light from the ceiling through an ornamental circular 
 ceiling light 13 feet in diameter. The judges' bench, 
 standing on marble base 15 feet in height, is of classic 
 design in solid mahogany. 
 
 The furniture throughout is of oak in general har- 
 mony with the work, and of excellent quality. 
 
 The main rooms in the building are provided with 
 fireplaces with marble mantels of simple design, which 
 will be found of advantage in heating the rooms in mod- 
 erate weather, and in aiding materially in the general 
 ventilation of the building. 
 
 The system of artificial lighting is for a combination 
 of both gas and electricity, and the fixtures were 
 designed for the building. The wiring for electric lights 
 
THE DEDICATION. II 
 
 is a full line of metal-armored conduits starting from the 
 basement, and from which every wire in the building 
 can be introduced or removed. The fixtures comprise a 
 row of lights every thirty inches around the cornice of the 
 lower colonnade in the library, with brackets from the 
 walls in the first and second stories. Each alcove is 
 lighted with independent chandeliers. The second story 
 hall is lighted in a manner similar to the library, by a 
 row of lights supported by and suspended from the main 
 cornice at spring of circular ceiling, rendering the room 
 suitable for the display of works of art. 
 
 The court room has a series of electric lights around 
 the upper and lower members of the dome, and brack- 
 ets at the right and left of the judges' bench. 
 
 The main hall has brackets on the court room side, 
 with candelabra of elaborate design at either side of the 
 mantel. 
 
 Springing from the walls at either side of the portico 
 and back of the piers and columns, are a pair of solid 
 bronze brackets carrying electric lights, the models for 
 which originated in Southern Italy, and their prototypes 
 used for another purpose will be found in the Metropoli- 
 tan Museum of Fine Arts, in New York city. They 
 find so fitting place through the personal efforts of a 
 member of the commission. The reflected electric light 
 from them shows with eflect the tri-colored granite, of 
 which the portico is composed. 
 
 When the interior of the building shall have received 
 the simple color decoration of soft gray, illuminated with 
 slight touches of higher color and gold to properly 
 emphasize its details ; when time shall have softened its 
 exterior tones, and overgrown its lawns with a few 
 choice vines and shrubs, giving to its exterior the charm 
 of age ; when the same softening influences shall have 
 removed from the interior the slight resonance always 
 
12 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 incident to new work ; when the walls and every availa- 
 ble space shall be filled with cases, and the cases filled 
 to overflowing with the choicest works of law, literature, 
 and art ; when the daily throng of those seeking knowl- 
 edge where knowledge can be best obtained shall be 
 welcomed; then, and not till then, will the full measure 
 of its usefulness, and the wisdom of its promoters and of 
 the commonwealth that so generously provided for it, be 
 fully realized. 
 
TRUSTEES. 
 
 Under the provisions of the Act of 1866, the trustees 
 (except two of the first appointments) are appointed for 
 
 the term of three years, and one is appointed each year. 
 The following is a record of appointments : 
 
 1866. Asa McFarland, declined to serve. 
 
 1866. George Stark, for three years. 
 
 t866. Nicholas V. Whitehouse, for two years. 
 
 1866. Parsons B. Cogswell, for one year. 
 
 1867. Parsons B. Cogswell, for three years. 
 
 1868. William L. Foster, for three years. 
 
 1869. George Stark, for three years. 
 
 1870. Parsons B. Cogswell, for three years. 
 
 187 1. William L. Foster, for three years. 
 
 1872. George Stark, for three years. 
 
 1873. Parsons B. Cogswell, for three years. 
 
 1874. William M. Chase, for three years. 
 
 1875. George Stark, for three years. 
 
 1876. Parsons B. Cogswell, for three years. 
 
 1877. Wilham M. Chase, for three years. 
 
 1878. George Stark, resigned 1879. 
 
 1879. William L. Foster, for two years. 
 
 1880. William M. Chase, for three years. 
 
 1881. William L. Foster, for three years. 
 
 1882. Austin F. Pike, for three years. 
 
 1883. WiUiam M. Chase, for three years. 
 
 1884. William L. Foster, for three years. 
 
 1885. Amos Hadley, for three years. 
 
14 
 
 TRUSTEES. 
 
 1886. William M. Chase, resigned 1888. 
 
 1887. Charles R. Corning, for three years. 
 
 1888. Albert S. Batchellor, for one year. 
 
 1888. George C. Gilmore, for three years. 
 
 1889. Albert S. Batchellor, for three years. 
 
 1890. Charles R. Corning, for three years. 
 
 1891. George C. Gilmore, for three years. 
 
 1892. Albert S. Batchellor, for three years. 
 
 1893. Frank S. Streeter, for three years. 
 
 1894. George C. Gilmore, for three years. 
 
 1895. Albert S. Bachellor, for three years. 
 
LIBRARIANS. 
 
 1834-1846. Jacob C. Carter, chosen by the legislature. 
 1846-1847. George G. Fogg, secretary of state, ex- 
 
 officio. 
 1847-1850. Thomas P. Treadwell, secretary of state, 
 
 ex-officio. 
 1850-1855. John L. Hadley, secretary of state, ex- 
 
 officio. 
 1 85 5-1 85 7. Lemuel N. Pattee, secretary of state, ex- 
 
 officio. 
 1857-1858. Nathan W. Gove, deputy secretary of state, 
 
 ex-officio, 
 1858-1861. Allen Tenney, deputy secretary of state, 
 
 ex-officio. 
 1861-1862. George H. Chandler, deputy secretary of 
 
 state, ex-officw, 
 1862-1864. Benjamin Gerrish, deputy secretary of 
 
 state, ex-officio. 
 1864-1865. James H. Burpee, deputy secretary of state, 
 
 ex-officio . 
 1865-1866. Nathan W. Gove, deputy secretary of state, 
 
 ex-officio. 
 1866-1867. Vacancy. 
 
 1867-187 1. William H. Kimball, appointed by trustees. 
 1871-1872. Mitchell Gilmore, appointed by trustees. 
 1872-1890. William H. Kimball, appointed by trustees. 
 1890-1894. Arthur R. Kimball, appointed by trustees. 
 1894 . Arthur H. Chase, appointed by trustees. 
 
THE DEDICATION. 
 
 The State Library Building was formally dedicated 
 Tuesday, January 8, 1895. The general arrange- 
 ments were made by Governor Smith and his Coun- 
 cil acting in concurrence with the commissioners, 
 and will be fully set forth in the following narrative 
 of the proceedings. The audience was large, filling 
 the spacious building to its utmost limit, and includ- 
 ed many distinguished guests from New Hampshire 
 and from other states. 
 
 The exercises were formally opened at one o'clock 
 by Harry G. Sargent, Esq., of Concord, the marshal 
 of the day, who introduced as president Hon. J. S. 
 H. Frink, of Greenland. Mr. Frink spoke as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 
 
 No ''loyal lover of letters" can approach and enter 
 this magnificent edifice, which we to-day dedicate to 
 literature and law, without a feeling of pride and 
 gratification. 
 
 Without any analysis of the architectural design of 
 the building, we feel, at once, that it is " comely " to 
 look upon. 
 
1 8 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 I know not whether the capitals, those upper mem- 
 bers of the columns and pilasters that adorn its 
 outer and inner walls, are Ionic or Doric or Roman- 
 esque or English, but I do know, that this building 
 answers the prime purpose of true architecture ; a 
 beautiful and harmonious adaptation to the purposes 
 for which it was designed. 
 
 There is a realism about it and its appointments, 
 an apparent absence of surrender of utility to orna- 
 mentation, such a blending of the beautiful and 
 the uselul, as to make it very satisfactory to one who 
 studies its details. 
 
 Let me say, however, parenthetically, that obvi- 
 ously, one of the purposes for which this room was 
 designed, was not to accommodate this large audi- 
 ence. 
 
 Gratifying and acceptable, as is this library building, 
 yet it is not so much this result of the state's munifi- 
 cence, and the commissioners' taste, — this beautiful 
 achievement of stone and mortar, — that awakens our 
 thankfulness, as the implied assurance of an increas- 
 ing and abiding interest of our people in the cause of 
 a higher education and, consequently, a better 
 government. 
 
 From this day the State's Library is assured of an 
 invigorated and healthier life. The commonwealth, 
 by the erection and dedication of this building, gives 
 a pledge of a more active assumption of its duties, 
 towards this, one of its most worthy beneficiaries. 
 To be sure, if our little library should enjoy the most 
 abundant prosperity that its warmest patron could 
 reasonably expect, it will always remain, com'para- 
 
^<::,^'L^ijf 
 
 THE DEDICATION. I9 
 
 tively an inconsiderable collection of books ; yet it 
 will serve well all the purposes of our community. 
 
 The. legislator intent upon forecasting the future 
 from the lessons of the past ; the public official 
 seeking some guidance in his duty, and the jurist 
 striving to solve the enigmas of the law ; and who- 
 ever may be interested in the religious, social, 
 scientific, or political problems of the day, will find 
 abundant counselors here, whose advice is wise, 
 because born of experience. 
 
 " That place that does contain 
 My books — my best companions — is to me 
 A glorious court, where hourly I converse 
 With the old sages and philosophers, 
 And sometimes for variety, I confer 
 With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels." 
 
 If this event should awaken an interest in his- 
 torical investigation, the origin of this library will 
 furnish a subject of interest to our local historians. 
 It seems to be involved in some obscurity. Ency- 
 clopaedists and bibliographers credit it with a birth 
 antedating our state government. Without invest- 
 igation, and upon general principles, I assume that 
 this belief is well founded. New Hampshire has 
 never been credited, historically, with more than she 
 deserved. In fact, we all know that a disposition 
 has sometimes been manifested by some of her sister 
 states to appropriate her renown. 
 
 With an editor of our State Papers, who has sub- 
 dued the most fanciful imagination and grotesque 
 humor of any story teller in the state, that he might 
 become the most zealous and accurate of historians ; 
 
20 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 with a new librarian, who has abandoned a profes- 
 sion, in which he might have succeeded to the honors 
 of his father, to become a companion of books; and 
 with an assistant, who imbibed from his revered 
 parent, — the former custodian of this Hbrary, — a per- 
 sonal acquaintance with every book and manuscript 
 contained in it; certainly we ought not to want for 
 some one who has the ability and interest to pursue 
 this investigation. 
 
 New Hampshire, although far removed from the 
 great intellectual and commercial centres of our 
 country, has been a "quasi" pioneer in the encour- 
 agement of public libraries. Our legislative enact- 
 ment of 1849, authorizing towns to appropriate money 
 to establish and maintain libraries within their limits^ 
 was the first public statutory law in the states to this 
 end. Our legislature has never been niggardly in 
 its appropriations for public institutions of learning 
 within the borders of the state. Its munificence has 
 reached its climax in the erection of this much 
 needed and greatly admired structure, which will 
 stand for years as a monument of architectural pro- 
 priety and state pride. 
 
 But we dedicate this building to-day to jurispru- 
 dence as well as to letters. Many of you have visited 
 personally the court room. If you have not, I wish 
 I could give you a pen picture of its many beauties 
 and conveniences, but I am inadequate to the task. 
 
 I can only say in a general way, that in its sym- 
 metrical proportions, its elegant yet chaste adorn- 
 ments, and rich but substantial furnishings, it has no 
 peer in New England, if in this country. 
 
THE DEDICATION. 21 
 
 The character of this room and all its surround- 
 ings is so honestly adapted to the purposes for 
 which they are intended, that they would seem to 
 act as constant monitors to its professional occupants, 
 that ''ways that are dark and tricks that are vain" 
 are inharmonious with the clear light and wholesome 
 atmosphere of such an apartment. 
 
 Of the site of this building, we can say with the 
 psalmist, it is "beautiful for situation." It occupies 
 a prominent place in the most beautiful square in 
 New England, save Copley square. It is a fit com- 
 panion for its handsome neighbor, the post-office 
 and federal court house, and it lies almost in the 
 embrace of its foster parent, the state house. 
 
 The commission to which was entrusted the erec- 
 tion and furnishing of this building has discharged 
 its duties. How well, this handsome structure and 
 its no less handsome furniture tell. "Finis coronat 
 opus." In the language of our governor's inaugu- 
 ral, it is a "substantial and commodious structure;" 
 as "a work of art, instructive," and in "its strength 
 and durability a living prophecy of the perpetuity of 
 the institutions it shelters." 
 
 Still some modern "Momus" may carp at its archi- 
 tecture, or its arrangement, or cost. 
 
 To the thoughtful and patriotic citizen, such criti- 
 cism will seem as unreasonable as that of his pro- 
 genitor, who found fault with Jupiter for not having 
 placed a window in the breast of man so that his 
 thoughts could be read. Were "Momus's lattice " in 
 the breasts of such carpers, their secret thoughts 
 would reveal the insincerity of their strictures. 
 
22 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 If this building encounters such criticism, it will 
 be exceptional and transitory. When the ^'chiefest 
 temple " of all who are actors in the scenes of to-day, 
 shall be a *' tomb," and other eyes shall behold its 
 substantial walls, and other voices awake the echoes 
 of its lofty corridors, and other feet tread its mosaic 
 walk, it will survive, a beautiful inspiration to wise 
 thoughts and worthy deeds. 
 
 But, ladies and gentlemen, a wise man wrote, 
 
 **Let him be sure to leave other men their turns to speak." 
 
 Better things await you than I can offer, and with- 
 out further introduction we will proceed with the 
 dedicatory exercises. 
 
 INVOCATION BY REV. HARRY P. DEWEY. 
 
 Almighty God, we look to Thee for Thy blessing, 
 as we enter upon the exercises of this hour, and we 
 are humbly confident that Thou art pleased to hearken 
 unto our prayer. We have come to dedicate this 
 building. Thy hills and forests have furnished it 
 substance; forces controlled by Thee hold its walls 
 firm and strong ; seeking to realize in its symmetry 
 and grace the beautiful which Thou Who art alto- 
 gether lovely, dost delight in, its designers and work- 
 men have fashioned it ; and all who have given or 
 labored with brain or hand for its erection are Thy 
 children ; but more than all must it be to Thee, that 
 it is set apart to uses that are righteous and holy. 
 We are grateful for the means and the skill and the 
 toil which have made this imposing structure possible. 
 
THE DEDICATION. 23 
 
 May Its chaste and noble presence ever purify and 
 elevate. May it be a persuasive sermon in stone to 
 all who look upon it, reminding the citizen of the 
 gracious ends it is appointed to serve, the ends of 
 truth and justice. Our Father, may we who are 
 assembled here feel that we are upon sacred ground. 
 May every utterance of the lip and every thought of 
 the heart be touched with a feeling of reverence as 
 we reflect upon the high and exalted uses to which 
 this edifice is consecrated. And in dedicating it, 
 may we give ourselves to the cause of truth and 
 justice, yea, to Thee, who art Perfect Truth, Perfect 
 Justice. So shalt Thou be pleased to establish the 
 works of our hands, and the house that is builded 
 shall not have been raised up in vain. To Thee be 
 praise and honor and dominion, now and evermore. 
 Amen. 
 
 The President. — We read in the Scriptures, 
 ** which of you intending to build a tower, sitteth not 
 down first and counteth the cost, lest happly after 
 he hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish, 
 all that behold it begin to mock, saying, this man 
 began to build and was not able to finish." 
 
 The commissioners entrusted with the erection 
 and furnishing of this building, heeding the Scripture 
 lesson, have counted the cost and finished. To-day 
 they render it up to the state complete in all its 
 appointments. 
 
 We come here to-day not to '' mock," but to thank 
 them. 
 
 Mr. Burns in behalf of the committee will now 
 
24 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 deliver the keys to the governor, and the governor 
 will respond without further announcement. 
 
 Presentation of the keys by Hon. Charles H. 
 Burns : 
 
 Your Excellency : — The commissioners to whom 
 was committed the duty of purchasing land and 
 erecting thereon a suitable building for the accom- 
 modation of the supreme court and the State Library, 
 have completed their work. It is now ready for 
 inspection, dedication, and occupancy. It is hoped by 
 the commissioners that it will be acceptable to the 
 people of the state, and a blessing for many years. 
 
 This building has been designed and built for prac- 
 tical and useful purposes. While New Hampshire 
 was the first state in the Union to empower towns 
 "to maintain free public libraries by taxation" by a 
 law enacted by its legislature almost half a century 
 ago, and providing that such libraries should be 
 "open to the free use of every inhabitant;" and 
 while, under the impetus of this beneficent law, 
 substantial library buildings have been erected and 
 public libraries established and maintained through- 
 out the state to the manifest advantage of our peo- 
 ple, the state found itself in the possession of books, 
 maps, charts, periodicals, and valuable documents 
 of all sorts, increasing rapidly, and with no ade- 
 quate rooms or safety vaults in which to keep them. 
 It has been obliged to store large quantities in pack- 
 ages and boxes. In times past, books, papers, and 
 manuscripts of great value and importance con- 
 cerning colonial history, and which can now prob- 
 
THE DEDICATION. 25 
 
 ably never be supplied, have been lost or destroyed 
 for want of a place where they could be safely stored. 
 This large and commodious room, with fireproof 
 vaults, will furnish ample accommodations for our 
 valuable library, of which we shall not be ashamed. 
 
 This building is to be the home of the supreme 
 court. Here important questions concerning the 
 rights of all the people are to be settled. It has not 
 been creditable to the state that the court has never 
 until now had a suitable place for its deliberations, 
 and in which to hold its law sessions. Our citizens 
 must be justly proud that the tribunal which is both 
 their guide and guardian is now provided with com- 
 forts and conveniences to some extent commensu- 
 rate with its manifest necessities, and with its high 
 character and usefulness. 
 
 This substantial building, erected by the state, 
 aided materially by the city of Concord in the gift 
 of a valuable tract of land, supplies these wants in 
 a manner befitting the dignity and honor of the 
 commonwealth. The prosperity of a state does not 
 depend upon the beauty or convenience of its public 
 buildings, but, rather, upon its men and women of 
 culture, character, and conscience ; but such build- 
 ings do contribute in large measure to the cultiva- 
 tion of the tastes of its people, inspiring them with 
 grander ideals of strength and beauty. This noble 
 edifice of ours is to be filled with books containing 
 the best thoughts of the great thinkers of all ages, 
 and with ** whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
 things are pure," in art ; it is to be the home of the 
 highest court of the commonwealth, where justice — 
 
26 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 whose seat, like law, is **the bosom of God" — shall 
 be dispensed ; and It will become an Indispensable 
 source of protection, enlightenment, and education 
 to our citizens, raising higher and still higher the 
 standards of civilization ; — for law and learning go 
 hand In hand, and are the most effective of human 
 instrumentalities in the structure and superintend- 
 ence of society. 
 
 It is, therefore, with pride and satisfaction that, in 
 behalf of my associates and myself, I deliver to you, 
 as the custodian of the property of the state, the key 
 to this beautiful building. 
 
 Response by His Excellency Charles A. Buslel : 
 
 In behalf of the State of New Hampshire, I accept 
 from your hand the key to the new state library. In 
 the discharge of an agreeable duty I am permitted 
 to express my appreciation of the ability and the suc- 
 cess of the commissioners who have formulated the 
 plans and have directed the construction of this ele- 
 gant and commodious building. 
 
 Your labors, in this direction, are happily ended. 
 The completed building In all Its appointments 
 reflects your wisdom and your ready appreciation of 
 the needs of the present and the demands of the 
 future. 
 
 I congratulate the trustees and the patrons of the 
 library, and the judges and officers of the supreme 
 court, on the completion of this commodious structure. 
 
 By a thoughtful impulse the people have liberally 
 provided for the future accommodation of the library 
 and of the court. 
 
THE DEDICATION. 2*J 
 
 As we proceed with the services of dedication, the 
 inspiration of the day should be an invitation to 
 renewed labor and enlarged usefulness on the part 
 of all who are the chosen tenants and custodians of 
 this spacious and attractive temple. 
 
 The President: — A portion of this building has 
 been set aside for the use of the supreme court. 
 The appointments of the court room are so elegant, 
 that it is not impossible, that you, gentlemen of the 
 legislature, may be called upon to make an appropri- 
 ation to purchase silken gowns for the members of 
 the court, that their personal adornments may com- 
 port with those of the room. It was hoped that the 
 Chief Justice might so favor this judicial embellish- 
 ment, that he would be present to-day ; but with 
 characteristic modesty, he has deputed Judge Smith 
 to represent the court. 
 
 Judge Smith, to the regret of all, is soon to retire 
 from the place he has so long adorned. I know you 
 will all listen with interest to what may be his last 
 public judicial utterance. 
 
 Judge Isaac W. Smith responded as follows : 
 
 Our congratulations are due to the distinguished 
 gentlemen of the building committee for the success 
 which has crowned their labors. This spacious 
 building, beautiful in design, in construction, and in 
 finish, is a lasting monument of their united wisdom. 
 We cheerfully acknowledge the estimable value of 
 their services to the State in the discharge of the 
 varied and, perhaps at times, perplexing duties 
 
28 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 imposed upon them by the legislature. Their suc- 
 cess lies not in the fact alone that here is a building 
 beautiful in its architectural effect, which the eye 
 views with delight and the mind dwells upon with 
 pleasure, — but also a building solid as the native 
 granite of which its walls are built, massive in its 
 structure, and planned in its minutest details for the 
 imperative wants and necessities of the State. Their 
 reward consists in the conscious knowledge that the 
 service so cheerfully rendered is fully appreciated by 
 a grateful people. 
 
 The state is also to be congratulated, that at 
 length, after much patient waiting, and after no little 
 inconvenience from unsuitable, and overcrowded 
 apartments, it has come into possession of a building 
 so admirably adapted to the purposes of its construc- 
 tion. The people, through the legislature, have 
 brought hither their offerings for its erection, that 
 they may enjoy accommodations so imperatively re- 
 quired by their growing wants and increased pros- 
 perity. Without lavish expenditures of money, they 
 have provided a building worthy the dignity of the 
 state, and the intelligence of its people, and in keep- 
 ing with their simple tastes and frugal habits ; where 
 there is ** comfort without luxury, and elegance with- 
 out display." 
 
 Wilberforce said, in the British House of Com- 
 mons, ''Wherever the English language is spoken, 
 men shall be free." He meant the freedom that 
 comes from minds enlightened by knowledge, and 
 from hearts inspired by the love of justice. The 
 framers of our constitution, recognizing this truth, 
 
THE DEDICATION. 29 
 
 inserted in the fundamental law of the state this, as 
 article 82: *' Knowledge and learning generally dif- 
 fused through a community being essential to the 
 preservation of a free government, and spreading the 
 opportunities and advantages of education through 
 the various parts of the country being highly condu- 
 cive to promote this end, it shall be the duty of the 
 legislators and magistrates ... to cherish the 
 interest of literature and the sciences, and all semi- 
 naries and public schools," etc. The sources of 
 knowledge are many and illimitable: the family, the 
 common school from lowest to higher grades, the 
 academy, college, seminary, pulpit, press, stump, 
 and, what interests us at this present moment, the 
 library, the power of which no man can weigh or 
 describe. It is sometimes called the ** People's Uni- 
 versity." Within these alcoves will be deposited for 
 use of the historian, the scholar, the bibliographer, — 
 of every one in search of facts, or thirsting for 
 knowledge, forty thousand books and pamphlets, — 
 the slow accretion of a century, upon law, theology, 
 medicine, science, and the arts. The suggestion of 
 His Excellency, the Governor, in his message to the 
 legislature of last week, whether some system of 
 administration may not be found which shall render 
 its usefulness more general, is deserving of the 
 fullest consideration, the discussion of which I leave 
 to those better qualified by study and experience. 
 
 I am invited to speak in behalf of my brethren 
 in acceptance of the apartments provided in this 
 structure, and this day dedicated to the use and ac- 
 commodation of the supreme court of the state. 
 
30 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 We turn instinctively to the names of our judges 
 whose Hves have passed into history. The occasion 
 does not require nor permit a biographical sketch of 
 their lives, nor even a review of their judicial work, 
 were I able to perform that interesting duty. A 
 brief insight into the times in which they lived, and 
 the environment by which they were surrounded, is 
 all that is permissible on this occasion. 
 
 In colonial times the practice prevailed of making 
 judges of men who were not lawyers. It is said that 
 this practice was general in New England. Paul 
 Dudley, appointed in 1718, is said to have been the 
 first person regularly bred to the law, who sat on 
 the bench in Massachusetts. Of Richard Martyn, 
 chief-justice of New Hampshire in 1693, 1694, the 
 late Governor Bell, in his valuable ''History of the 
 Bench and Bar of New Hampshire," says, '' He ap- 
 pears to have possessed intelligence and good busi- 
 ness qualifications, and to have performed his public 
 trusts acceptibly ; " of William Vaughn, chief-justice 
 in 1708-1716, '' He was an honest and courageous 
 supporter of the people's rights and interests, and 
 was the object of their warm affection and admira- 
 tion;" of Samuel Penhallow, justice in 17 14-17 17, 
 and chief-justice in 1717-1726, ''His mental pow- 
 ers, his education, and his familiarity with public 
 business rendered him a valuable and excellent 
 judge;" of George Jaffrey, justice in 1717-1726, 
 and chief-justice in 1 726-1 732, a graduate of Har- 
 vard college in 1702, "He was the first man of 
 liberal education who appeared on the bench in New 
 Hampshire His long service in public 
 
THE DEDICATION. 3I 
 
 offices Indicates the confidence he inspired in his 
 ability and integrity;*' of Nicholas Gilman, justice 
 from 1 732-1740, "He performed the duties satis- 
 factorily;" of Benjamin Gambling, justice in 1733- 
 1737, that he was characterized by Governor Belcher 
 as *' knowing and honest;" of Samuel Gilman, jus- 
 tice in 1 740- 1 747, *' He was a man of the highest 
 character, and universally respected ; " of Meshech 
 Weare, justice in 1747- 17 75, chief-justice in 1776- 
 1782, "During the Revolution he administered 
 simultaneously the highest offices in the state, legis- 
 lative, judicial, and executive, — a conjunction of 
 powers which, under the circumstances, and in a 
 man of less principle and patriotism, would have 
 
 been hazardous in the extreme He 
 
 sat thirty-five years upon the bench of the superior 
 court, where his father and grandfather had sat 
 before him, — a remarkable succession never paral- 
 leled ; " of William Parker, justice in 1771-1775, 
 ** By common consent allowed to be at the head of 
 his profession in New Hampshire ; " of John Went- 
 worth, justice in 1776-1781, ''a man of intelligent 
 views, and a sincere patriot ; *' of Josiah Bartlett, 
 justice in 1 782-1 790, and chief-justice in 1790, phy- 
 sician, delegate to the Continental congress, signer 
 of the Declaration of Independence, and president 
 and governor of New Hampshire three years, *' His 
 fellow citizens reposed in his honesty and ability, 
 and he executed the duties of his important stations 
 with general approbation." 
 
 The Revolution, it will be seen, brought with it 
 new men. Of Samuel Livermore, chief-justice in 
 
32 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 1 782-1 790, William Plumer, Jr., in his scholarly trib- 
 ute in memory of his father, published in 1856, 
 says : '' Though bred to the law, he was not inclined 
 to attach much importance to precedents, or to any 
 merely systematic or technical rules of procedure. 
 In a manuscript report which I have of one of his 
 charges," writes Mr. Plumer, *'I find him cautioning 
 the jury against paying too much attention to the 
 niceties of the law, to the prejudice of justice — a 
 caution of which juries do not ordinarily stand much 
 in need." 
 
 John Dudley, justice in 1 785-1 797, was a trader 
 and farmer. Woodbury Langdon, justice in 1782- 
 179 1, was a merchant of Portsmouth. Timothy 
 Farrar of New Ipswich, justice in 1 791-1803, was 
 originally designed for the pulpit. Of them Plumer 
 says: ''These judges were men of strong powers 
 of mind, of large acquaintance with business, and 
 superior in talents and information generally to 
 second rate lawyers." Jeremiah Smith, in 1796, 
 wrote, — "There are now two lawyers on the bench, 
 but I think they are by no means the two best of the 
 four. Farrar and Dudley, in my judgment, greatly 
 overmatch them." Theophilus Parsons of Massachu- 
 setts, who practised many years in our courts, and 
 later was chief-justice of that state, said of Dudley, — 
 ** You may laugh at his law, and ridicule his lan- 
 guage, but Dudley is, after all, the best judge I ever 
 knew in New Hampshire." Arthur Livermore said 
 that "justice was never better administered in New 
 Hampshire than when the judges knew very little of 
 what we lawyers call law." Plumer writes that Web- 
 
THE DEDICATION. 33 
 
 ster told him he had heard the story that a question 
 on demurrer filed by Mason was put by Dudley to 
 the jury. Happy the judge who could thus rid him- 
 self of the decision of a troublesome question of 
 law, and retain the respect of such men as Parsons 
 and Jeremiah Smith. 
 
 The consensus of opinion is that substantial justice 
 was done in the determination of questions involving 
 the property, rights, and liberties of the people ; and 
 our admiration is increased when we consider that 
 the bench and bar of the seventeenth and eigh- 
 teenth centuries had almost no books on legal 
 subjects. When William Plumer in 1785 entered 
 the office of John Prentice in Londonderry (after- 
 wards attorney-general) his law library consisted of 
 Blackstone's Commentaries, Wood's Institutes of the 
 Laws of England, Hawkins' Pleas of the Crown, 
 Jacobs' Law Dictionary, Salkeld, Raymond and 
 Strange's Reports, the New Hampshire Statutes, 
 and a manuscript volume of pleas and declarations. 
 The year previous in the office of Joshua Atherton 
 in Amherst he was given Coke upon Littleton as 
 his first initiation into the mysteries of the law. 
 Plumer (Jr.) is authority for the statement that 
 when Patrick Henry applied for admission to the 
 Virginia bar, he was asked by Jefferson what books 
 he had read, and replied with entire confidence in 
 the extent of his legal acquirements. Coke upon 
 Littleton and the Virginia Statutes. 
 
 Lord Campbell says that 'Tn the simple and happy 
 times of Edward I, Glanville, Bracton, and FJeta com- 
 posed a complete law library." Plumer, writing between 
 
34 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 1 850 and 1854, estimates the number of reports of law 
 courts then in existence as between 500 and 1,000. 
 To-day they are estimated at 4,000. In this paucity 
 of books, judges as well as lawyers looked for the 
 law as deduced from acknowledged legal principles. 
 From necessity, they dealt less with authorities and 
 more with the reason of the law, and attempted to 
 find the rule in the immutable principles of justice. 
 
 The nineteenth century brought with it as judges 
 men of judicial science. Of Jeremiah Smith, chief- 
 justice in 1 802- 1 809, and in 18 13-18 16, Bell says he 
 ** did more perhaps for the improvement of the state 
 than any other man. Like the monarch who changed 
 a city from brick to marble, he found law without 
 form and void, and during his connection with the 
 courts he reduced it to order and harmony. His 
 genius was constructive ; he had the systematizing 
 faculty. He did not conceive of the law as a mass 
 of detached, independent rules ; in his mind it was 
 a series of requirements, each connected with and 
 deducible from great central principles. Before his 
 day the judges were mostly unversed in the technique 
 of the law, and aimed at what they deemed to be 
 equitable conclusions. The result was that no man 
 could foresee with any confidence the issue of any 
 cause. Judge Smith drew straight the lines which 
 had been confused or obliterated, and gave the bar 
 and the public firm ground on which to stand. The 
 counsel who knew the law began to take his place 
 above the mere tonguy man who saw nothing 
 beyond the case in hand. The influence of this 
 upon the bar and upon the administration of reme- 
 
THE DEDICATION. 35 
 
 dial justice could not fail to be of the most benefi- 
 cial character. Fortunately we have now the evi- 
 dence of Judge Smith's reformatory work in a dura- 
 ble form. A volume of his decisions from his own 
 manuscript has been recently published, which bears 
 unmistakable testimony to his vigorous and scientific 
 administration of the law. ... It was unfortu- 
 nate that it was withheld so long, for if the opinions 
 contained in it had been at once promulgated, great 
 expense would have been saved to parties who sub- 
 sequently litigated the very questions which Judge 
 Smith had before settled so conclusively." 
 
 The state was equally fortunate in the selection of 
 his successor, William M. Richardson, chief-justice 
 from 1816 to his decease in 1838. With his induc- 
 tion into office was commenced the publication of 
 reports of cases adjudicated in the superior court. 
 His opinion in the famous Dartmouth College case, 
 although overruled by the supreme court of the 
 United States, has always been regarded as one of 
 the ablest on that side of the question litigated. 
 Bell says of him, **The judicial ermine received no 
 stain from his wearing it. He knew no friends and 
 no enemies while in the seat of judgment, nor any 
 of the ordinary lines of decisions among men. His 
 ideal was the very highest." Judge Perley in " East- 
 man V. Meredith, 36 N. H., 284, 299," speaks of him 
 as "our own learned and excellent Chief-Justice 
 Richardson " in connection with Parsons and Shaw 
 of Massachusetts and Mellen and Shepley of Maine, 
 '' names which carry with them an irresistible weight 
 of authority on all legal questions." 
 
36 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 The memory of Joel Parker, justice in 1833-1838, 
 and chief-justice in 1 838-1 848, is yet green with the 
 present generation of lawyers. In ability and learn- 
 ing he was fully the equal of his two distinguished 
 predecessors. His published opinions in thirteen 
 volumes of the New Hampshire Reports show his 
 familiarity both with the authorities and with funda- 
 mental legal principles, and established our reports 
 as high legal authority with his cotemporaries. 
 Smith, Richardson, and Parker formed a trio *' of the 
 most able and learned of a sequence of jurists rarely 
 equalled in the annals of any state." 
 
 Time forbids more than allusion to their succes- 
 sors : Gilchrist, scholarly, industrious, popular ; 
 Woods, even-tempered, patient, and upright ; Perley, 
 strong, positive, self-reliant, primus inter pares, 
 whose opinions in style and substance are unsur- 
 passed in our reports ; Bell, clear-headed, strong- 
 minded, justum et tenacem propositi virum ; Bel- 
 lows, the high-minded, gracious gentleman and 
 learned and conscientious judge; Sargent, careful, 
 painstaking, and sensible ; and Gushing, the polished 
 gentleman and scholar, and patient and learned 
 jurist ; these were the magistrates to whom with 
 their learned associates New Hampshire entrusted 
 the enforcement of her laws, and whose memories 
 we gratefully cherish. 
 
 Five times within the century, In the mad passion 
 engendered of political strife, has the court been 
 overturned. That this action of the legislative de- 
 partment was acquiesced in does not render it any 
 the less deplorable or questionable. It may be per- 
 
THE DEDICATION. 37 
 
 mitted, perhaps, to one who looks forward with a 
 sense of relief from official responsibility to the early 
 day when he shall again put on the gown of the bar, 
 to express the hope that henceforth better counsels 
 will prevail, and the line of separation between the 
 legislative and judicial departments of the govern- 
 ment marked out in the fundamental law of the state 
 be kept intact. 
 
 The chief-justice in 1905 will probably write no 
 better opinions, seated in his upholstered chair at his 
 table of quartered oak in yonder spacious and com- 
 modious rooms embellished by art, than did his 
 predecessor, Chief-Justice Bell in i860, seated in 
 his plain chair before his table of pine. For the 
 principles of justice are immutable ; but its growing 
 spirit inspires the world. Wendell Phillips said that 
 to be as good as our fathers we must be better. We 
 cannot cast any dishonor on our fathers; but we 
 shall honor them best by taking what is best and 
 not by being content with their limitations. Discon- 
 tent no less than contentment may be a virtue. 
 To-day is not as yesterday. It is not a good thing 
 to think one's work cannot be better done, because 
 it can be better done. There may be great truths 
 in law and ethics as in the arts and sciences 
 not yet attained. Therefore as we this day conse- 
 crate this beautiful temple to the cause of learning 
 and justice, may the memories which cluster around 
 the past incite us and our successors to higher 
 achievements in the cause of good government, that 
 this structure in all that it stands for in the pro- 
 motion of law, order, and knowledge be endeared 
 
38 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 in the hearts of the people as long as it shall 
 stand. 
 
 The President: — I believe the whole state (ex- 
 cepting possibly Manchester) is disposed to credit 
 the capital city with a generous act in the donation 
 of a part of the land occupied in connection with this 
 building. 
 
 Mayor Cogswell, in behalf of the city of Concord, 
 will make to you such suggestions as may seem to 
 him pertinent in regard to his city's connection with 
 the selection and purchase of the site of this building. 
 
 RESPONSE OF HON. P. B. COGSWELL, MAYOR OF CONCORD. 
 
 As a representative of the municipal government 
 of the capital city, it gives me pleasure to assist in 
 the dedication of this superb edifice to the noble 
 purposes for which it is designed. In a spirit be- 
 fitting part of the motto of our city seal — '' Law, 
 Education" — the city council responded to the call 
 of the state library commissioners for additional land 
 to enable them to carry out more completely their 
 plans for this library building, by condemning in the 
 spring of 1892, certain real estate on the north, 
 extending to Centre street. The awarded damages 
 to the owners of that property aggregated over 
 $25,000, and provision for payment thereof was 
 made by a temporary loan, which was met by the 
 present city council authorizing an issue of bonds 
 bearing three and one half per cent, interest. It is 
 a fact which may possess some historical interest 
 hereafter, that these are the lowest rate interest- 
 bearing bonds ever issued by any city or town of 
 
THE DEDICATION. 
 
 39 
 
 our good old commonwealth, and that most of them 
 were taken by our own citizens. 
 
 When the library commissioners called last spring 
 for the land taken for a public park, the city council 
 ordered the speedy removal of the houses situated 
 thereon, and aided in the construction of substantial 
 sidewalks on the streets around this building and 
 its grounds. The city of Concord has thus met all 
 the calls made upon it by the state library commis- 
 sioners concerning this edifice, and faithfully fulfilled 
 all of its obligations relating thereto. I confess to 
 a feeling akin to pride for our goodly city in that 
 it has borne its part so well in furthering the aim 
 of the commissioners to provide a befitting home 
 for our state library, and suitable apartments for the 
 administration of justice, guarded by law. 
 
 Of the helpfulness and unmeasurable usefulness 
 of public libraries, it is not my province to speak. 
 Others who have profited from them, largely and 
 wisely, will hold your attention with apt and gracious 
 words concerning them. It only remains for me to 
 commend the state library commissioners for the 
 able, faithful, and successful manner in which they 
 have discharged the duties imposed upon them by 
 the legislature of 1891; and to congratulate the 
 trustees of the state library and all its beneficiaries, 
 and the Supreme Court of our state, that they are 
 to have so beautiful, commodious, and well-appointed 
 quarters in the future as this edifice of enduring 
 granite and marble will afford them. I am sure I 
 voice the sentiment of all present in expressing the 
 hope that this building may long escape the crum- 
 
40 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 bling decay incident to age and climate, and that 
 the state Hbrary to be housed herein may never 
 suffer from fire, or flood, or other destructive agency, 
 but that it may continue to grow in interest and 
 vahie to our city and state for centuries to come, 
 aye, "to the last syllable of recorded time." 
 
 The President: — From this day the active man- 
 agement and control of this library will be assumed 
 by its trustees. 
 
 The present board is eminently well qualified for 
 the proper discharge of this important duty, and we 
 only hope that in the coming years its interests will 
 always find as intelligent and faithful guardians as 
 those who are to-day represented by their president, 
 whom I now have the pleasure of introducing to 
 you, — Mr. Gilmore of Manchester. 
 
 REMARKS BY HON. GEORGE C. GILMORE IN BEHALF OF 
 THE TRUSTEES OF THE STATE LIBRARY. 
 
 Little, I apprehend, is expected of the local man- 
 agement in the exercises of to-day, our duties being 
 all of the future, and it would certainly be pre- 
 sumption on my part to attempt to interest this 
 large audience by anything I might say, especially 
 so when our distinguished guests are waiting on the 
 platform to be heard, — men who have given a life 
 time to library management. But I cannot forbear 
 saying a few words to place on record the early 
 efforts of the inhabitants of the towns in this state 
 to establish libraries. Dover is undoubtedly entitled 
 to the honor of having been the first in the list, as 
 
THE DEDICATION. 4I 
 
 early as July, 1776, although the charter for her 
 social library was not granted until December 18, 
 1792; Rochester's social library chartered February 
 14, 1794; Portsmouth's and Tamworth's both the 
 same date, June 14, 1796, the above being the first 
 four charters granted; from 1792 to 1800, sixty, and 
 from 1801 to 1883, one hundred and eighty-seven, 
 making a total of two hundred and forty-seven, and 
 at the present time only sixty towns are without a 
 library. 
 
 The petitioners for the social library of Tamworth 
 present the advantages of a library as follows: 
 "Whereas a general diffusion of useful knowledge 
 in a land of liberty has a happy tendency to pre- 
 serve freedom, and make better men and better 
 citizens." 
 
 The first absolutely free public library is supposed 
 to be that of the town of Peterborough, in 1833. 
 The legislature of New Hampshire in July, 1849, 
 passed an act allowing towns to maintain libraries 
 by taxation, being the first act authorizing the 
 people of the several towns to tax themselves to 
 maintain libraries, in the United States. 
 
 The President: — Without any disloyalty to our 
 own alma mater, we all have a feeling of pride in 
 our state institution of learning, which is now having 
 a new birth under its recently appointed president, — 
 a man known and honored by scholars all over the 
 land. 
 
 I think I may adopt the words of the brilliant 
 English essayist and historian, in introducing to you 
 
42 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Tucker, president of Dartmouth College, 
 " He is a man of the world among men of letters, 
 and a man of letters among men of the world." 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Your Excellency, Your Honors, 
 AND Gentlemen of the Legislature : I ask at once 
 in your presence, — the question is prompted by the 
 occasion, — how shall we ensure to the state or 
 commonwealth, a rightful part in the present revival 
 of civic pride throughout the country ? 
 
 The chief effect of that revival, as we are now 
 conscious of it, is the glorious assurance of nation- 
 ality. '* We the people" have at last become the 
 nation, and we know it. It has not been an easy 
 matter for us to reach this supreme consciousness. 
 As late as 1811 Josiah Quincy made this confession 
 from his seat in congress : " Sir, I confess it, the first 
 public love of my heart is the Commonwealth of 
 Massachusetts. There is my fireside ; there are the 
 tombs of my ancestors." That was the utterance, 
 not of South Carolina, but of Massachusetts, in the 
 national house of representatives, twenty-three years 
 after the adoption of the constitution. No Massa- 
 chusetts man, no man, I trust, from any state, would 
 utter that sentiment now. The events of our gener- 
 ation, in which some of you were actors, have 
 wrought a mighty change in our opinions and in our 
 feelings. The nation sits enthroned to-day in the 
 hearts of the people. The most interesting and the 
 most inspiring expression of civic pride is this calm 
 but proud consciousness of nationality. We are 
 beginning to realize to ourselves the great conception 
 
THE DEDICATION. 
 
 43 
 
 of Milton : " Not many sovereignties united in one 
 commonwealth, but many commonwealths in one 
 united and entrusted sovereignty." 
 
 The present revival of civic pride may be seen at 
 work, if not equally, yet with marked effect, at the 
 other extreme of our political organization, in the 
 municipality. Next to the national feeling, the 
 municipal feeling is at present the strongest. Some- 
 thing of this feeling is due of course to the recog- 
 nized peril of the cities. It is in many cases the 
 sense of danger which tests the depth of our affec- 
 tion, which may discover the fact itself to us. 
 Probably no city in the country has had, in proportion 
 to its importance, less municipal pride than the city 
 of New York, but he must be less than an alien, 
 whether resident for longer or shorter time, who does 
 not now feel the responsibility of citizenship. The 
 sense of responsibility, however, is not the chief sign 
 of municipal pride, but rather the increasing sense of 
 opportunity. The city is beginning to stand for 
 more than size ; it represents every possible advance 
 and improvement. The period of silly rivalries and 
 competitions about numbers has been out-grown, 
 and account is being taken of solid and substan- 
 tial growths. Men are seeking to be identified 
 not only in personal interest, but in reputation and 
 name with their respective cities. Schools, libraries, 
 museums, parks, bearing the names of individual 
 donors, are the visible evidence of an enlarged 
 municipal enthusiasm ; while the surer though less 
 conspicuous sign is found in the fact that here and 
 there a citizen of acknowledged capacity is willing to 
 
44 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 forego further gains in his business or profession, 
 that he may answer in person the demand for honest 
 and capable government. The ardent imagination 
 of Mr. Depew interprets a popular tendency, when 
 he predicts that the second office in the United 
 States will soon be that of mayor of greater New 
 York. 
 
 Now in this revival of civic pride, so manifestly 
 affecting the nation and the city, what of the state, 
 the old commonwealth, the original substance and 
 life out of which in due time the nation was born, 
 and from whose permanent and abounding vitality 
 cities are now springing forth ? Evidently the day 
 for the reassertion of rights once surrendered is 
 forever past, and no encroachment upon the interests 
 of the growing communities may be allowed. But 
 the commonwealth remains, worthy of a like place in 
 the honorable pride of its citizens with that held by 
 the nation or a city. 
 
 And amongst us the opportunity, if not the neces- 
 sity, for some very practical expression of this pride 
 of state, is apparent in the fact that the influence of 
 New Hampshire is not overshadowed by that of a 
 great municipality within its borders. With us the 
 state is not in bondage to the city, nor subordinate to 
 it. Neither can the state throw off its responsibility to 
 provide for the higher wants of its citizens upon any 
 one locality, equipped with all the modern appliances 
 of progress, — the library, the museum, the university. 
 In few states of the nation are the resources so 
 variously, if not equally, distributed as in our own. 
 Every section of it, east and west, south and north, 
 
THE DEDICATION. 45 
 
 has a share In its history. The whole state had its 
 pre-existence in the province. And under the 
 incoming of the later industries, and the consequent 
 re-distribution of population, the ancient equality 
 has not been altogether destroyed. It is the state, 
 not a city, which still offers the great attraction to 
 visitors from far and near. It is the state, not any 
 one locality, which holds undeveloped resources out 
 of which new industries may spring for the support 
 of new populations. It is the state at large which 
 shelters the great schools, which send out the sons of 
 New Hampshire into other states, and which draw 
 to their training the sons of all the states. It is, in 
 a word, the state, the old commonwealth in its 
 entirety, not a city, not any localized centre, by 
 means of which we are to maintain the honor of our 
 inheritance, and keep step with the march of the 
 nation. 
 
 I welcome therefore, Mr. Chairman, as a citizen 
 of New Hampshire, the occasion in which we dedi- 
 cate in the name of the state another building, the 
 choicest of its outward possessions, to be henceforth 
 one more visible reminder of the real presence and 
 personality of the commonwealth. I rejoice espe- 
 cially in the object of this building, which shows in 
 so representative a way the enlarging functions of 
 the state. It answers in part, by illustration at least, 
 the question with which I began — how shall we 
 ensure to the commonwealth its share in the present 
 revival of civic pride ? 
 
 I go on then to speak of the maintenance of the 
 state library as one of the means through which we 
 
46 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 may show our pride of state, and also as one of the 
 agencies through which we may develop the higher 
 interests of the commonwealth. I congratulate my- 
 self and you that I may restrict my further thought 
 to this nearer aspect of the present occasion in view 
 of the scope of the address which is to follow. It is 
 to the honor of New Hampshire that at the dedica- 
 tion of its library building, the state may summon 
 one of its sons from his post at the head of the 
 national library. 
 
 It may seem almost too obvious for me to say, 
 that it is through the agency of the library, that the 
 state is best able to avail, itself of its own history. 
 But the full meaning of this statement does not 
 appear in the utterance of it. The history of a great 
 past is made available only to the degree in which it 
 can be reproduced in spirit in the continuous life of 
 a people. But what is the continuous life of a 
 people ? What is the continuous life of the people 
 of New Hampshire ? Not the unbroken succession 
 of families. Not the local increase of the native 
 stock. Names once significant in the annals of the 
 state have disappeared, or appear only in remoter 
 regions. Families of wide connection and of ex- 
 tended influence remain as remnants. Others, let 
 us rejoice, survive in the fullness of their strength, 
 and gain upon their heritage. But if the state, if 
 any of the older states, were dependent upon the 
 original stock it would exist as a fragment of its 
 former self, unless it could call home its own. The 
 state continues to live through the incoming of the 
 new, through constant accessions from various and 
 
THE DEDICATION. 47 
 
 unforeseen sources. This continuity of life is abso- 
 lutely dependent upon the process of assimilation, 
 the moral part of which lies in the power of the state 
 to impress its principles, its history, itself, upon 
 those who may choose to share its fortunes. 
 
 Pardon me if I pause to assert and emphasize the 
 fact, that there are none amongst us upon whom the 
 great men and the great events of our history are 
 making a deeper impression, than upon the more 
 receptive minds of the new population. We ignore 
 or underestimate this fact in times of social depres- 
 sion. We forget the philosophy which underlies it. 
 Noble traditions lose their power when held in too 
 easy and familiar possession. Inspiration does not 
 long abide in what has become to anyone the com- 
 monplace. But the familiar deed springs into new- 
 ness of life as often as it gains a fresh hearing. It 
 is not alone the new seed, it is the new soil, which 
 explains the harvest. Again and again have I 
 watched the kindling of eager minds, coming from 
 other states, as I have told the early story of Dart- 
 mouth, that heroic romance in education, when there 
 was nothing in personal inheritance or personal 
 association to waken the mind, nothing but the 
 contact of an inspiring history with a quick intelli- 
 gence. We grievously mistake if we suppose that 
 history appeals only to those who are the natural 
 heirs to the deeds which it records. History never 
 fails in its appeal to men as they come and go, pro- 
 vided the sources are kept full and open, so that it 
 may be rewritten to the mind of each generation. 
 Here is the advantage in part of such a library as 
 
48 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 this, in distinction from the ordinary private, educa- 
 tional, or public library. We build here upon foun- 
 dations already laid a great storehouse for orig- 
 inals — documents of every sort illustrative of early 
 and later history, dispatches, records, reports, ad- 
 dresses, letters, — nothing of this nature too small or 
 too remote to be neglected. This is not the mate- 
 rial for a circulating library. It has another use and 
 another value. Here is the material on deposit 
 which gives worth to the current literature of its 
 kind. You open here a home and a workshop for 
 the investigator, the scholar, the writer, the man 
 who is to come hither with knowledge and imagina- 
 tion, capable of translating this ancient life into the 
 speech and life of to-day. So you make the history 
 of the state available in ever recurring variety of 
 form. For, as I have intimated, it is of the very 
 genius of history, that it should be written to an age, 
 and therefore its story continually retold with new 
 motive and in new setting. The age which sings 
 the Iliad to the notes of camp and battle and siege, 
 is not content till it has sung the Odyssey in the 
 strains of love and home and kindred, the arts of 
 peace, and the common ways of men. Every con- 
 siderable period of history presents various aspects. 
 We want to know them all to know the period. We 
 want to know, of course, the story of discovery, and 
 adventure, and war ; we want to know the record of 
 political struggle, and religious advance, and educa- 
 tional development, the growth of the arts and 
 industries. There is the true source and reason of 
 events, the mere narration of which we sometimes 
 
THE DEDICATION. 49 
 
 think makes history. History in Its highest form Is 
 the discovery of cause and reason ; It Is the explana- 
 tion of actions and events. We read the memorable 
 speech of the '' Defender of the Constitution " 
 through which he postponed secession for thirty 
 years, and made It thereafter more possible to save 
 the Union. Is that speech of Mr. Webster's to be 
 explained by Its own greatness ? Not at all. His 
 father had made It before him. At that critical hour 
 when the convention of New Hampshire met to 
 adopt or reject the constitution, when Its vote to 
 adopt would complete the number of states neces- 
 sary to form the Union, when the conventions of 
 New York and Virginia then in session were anx- 
 iously waiting the result, couriers having been sta- 
 tioned by order of Hamilton to carry the news from 
 Concord to Poughkeepsle, and on to Richmond, In 
 that convention where the result was in serious 
 doubt, Colonel Webster arose and uttered this senti- 
 ment, — the language may show the revision of a 
 later hand : 
 
 '' Mr. President : I have listened to the arguments 
 for and against the constitution. I am convinced 
 that such a government as that constitution will 
 establish. If adopted — a government acting directly 
 on the people of the states — is necessary for the 
 common defense and the general welfare. It Is the 
 only government which will enable us to pay the 
 national debt, the debt which we owe for the Revolu- 
 tion, and which we are bound in honor fully and 
 fairly to discharge. Sir, I shall vote for Its adoption." 
 
50 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 The reply to Hayne was the echo of the speech of 
 the New Hampshire farmer. It was the same spirit 
 which urged the adoption of the constitution in that 
 hour of doubt, which, in the hour of its danger, rose 
 to its defense. The speech was in the blood. 
 
 The constant and honorable boast of New Hamp- 
 shire has been of the quality of the men whom she 
 could furnish to the nation. One historian writes of 
 a given administration, and that one of the best, 
 that at its time New Hampshire could have furnished 
 from the number of her own public men, the full 
 equivalent for those who held the offices of president 
 and vice-president, and also of those who held seats 
 in the cabinet. Grant it. Who were behind these 
 men, and made them possible ? As we have seen in 
 an illustrious instance, such men do not explain 
 themselves. You might as well try to explain the 
 flow of the Merrimack as it sweeps these meadows 
 on its way to the struggle and toil below, without 
 pointing to the hills, as to attempt to explain the 
 public men of the state without going back into the 
 life of the people. What we ask, therefore, first of 
 all for this library, is that it shall be made complete 
 to the last degree in whatever pertains to the history 
 of the people of the state ; that it shall be a reposi- 
 tory, not only for public documents, but also for 
 private papers ; that it shall reach out after all facts, 
 however transmitted, which have a bearing on vital 
 questions of state interest ; and that it shall be able 
 to trace the great events in which the state has had 
 a part, and the great men whom it has sent forth, 
 back to the causes which determined or produced 
 
THE DEDICATION. 5 1 
 
 them. What we want, in a word, is a library which 
 will explain New Hampshire. 
 
 A more direct, if not equally obvious, use of the 
 library for the advancement of the state, is to be 
 seen in the very great aid which it offers toward 
 intelligent legislation, the interpretation of the laws 
 and general administration. Doubtless we have in 
 this use of the library the chief intent of its founders. 
 The statute under which the library is administered, 
 provides first that it shall be *'for the use of the 
 governor and council, officers of the state govern- 
 ment, the legislature and the clerks thereof, the 
 judges of the supreme court, and such other persons 
 as the trustees may determine; " and afterward in 
 fixing the duties of the trustees, it prescribes that 
 **they shall procure for the library full sets of the 
 statutes and law reports of the United States, and 
 of the several states; histories, including those of 
 the counties and towns of the state whenever pub- 
 lished ; maps, charts, works on agriculture, political 
 economy, the arts and natural sciences, copies of 
 state papers and publications relating to the material, 
 social, and religious conditions of the people, or 
 bearing upon the business and objects of legislation, 
 and such other works as they may deem suitable, 
 works of fiction excepted." 
 
 Naturally this is a law library in its largest intent 
 and purpose. The provision which has been made 
 in this building for the sessions of the supreme 
 court emphasizes this purpose, as also the mention 
 of the duty, first among those prescribed for the 
 trustees, '* of procuring for the library full sets of 
 
52 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 the Statutes and law reports of the United States 
 and of the several states.'* It is a matter of congrat- 
 ulation, that in the comparison which this array of 
 statutes and reports invites, the reports of New 
 Hampshire hold by common consent so high and 
 honorable a place. Indeed this was to have been 
 expected, if we recall the names, which, in the 
 quaint language of a former generation, '' reflected 
 the gladsome light of jurisprudence," — the names of 
 Weare, Bartlett, Langdon, Livermore, Woodbury, 
 Bell, Smith, Parker, Perley, and so many of their 
 associates, — an honor one and all to any bench. 
 
 It does not fall to my lot to speak of the relation 
 of the state to its bench or courts, but without 
 venturing beyond the province of a layman, I may 
 fitly call attention to the present demand for the 
 more general knowledge of what may be termed the 
 literature of the law, the knowledge of statutes and 
 reports, as indispensable to wise legislation. As 
 any one can see, the relation between the federal 
 and state authority is becoming at certain points 
 complicated and sensitive. No past political condi- 
 tions have ever involved issues of greater perplexity 
 than those involved in present economic and indus- 
 trial conditions. Decisions are rendered almost 
 every month by some one of the United States 
 courts affecting the interests of corporations and of 
 labor in every state of the Union. Not long since, 
 in a western state, I chanced to listen to an after- 
 dinner speech from one of the younger judges of 
 the United States court of appeals, in which, though 
 a man of remarkable wit, he put aside at once the 
 
THE DEDICATION. 53 
 
 pleasantries of the hour that he might impress upon 
 the company the very great seriousness of the 
 questions upon which the federal courts were called 
 upon to pass in determining the rights of property 
 and the rights of service. The discussion was as 
 earnest as an utterance of the pulpit. And between 
 the states the lack of uniformity in the very princi- 
 ples of legislation is becoming in some cases not 
 only serious but grievous. One has but to refer in 
 illustration to subjects so widely removed from one 
 another as taxation and divorce. At such a time the 
 value of a state library which gives ready and com- 
 plete ihformation on all points of current decisions 
 and statute law cannot be overestimated. A library 
 with these facilities seems as much a part of the 
 equipment of the legislature as of the courts. It 
 has a distinct moral influence. Through its system 
 of exchange it keeps open communication between 
 the states. It enables us to realize the closeness of 
 the fellowship of the body politic. '' If one member 
 suffers, all the members suffer with it." 
 
 The statute, however, which wisely gives prece- 
 dence to law in the furnishing of the library, makes 
 generous provision for other subjects which have to 
 do with the material and social development of the 
 state. I see no reason why this provision should 
 not be fulfilled, as far as the annual appropriations 
 may allow. The teachers of the state have already 
 asked that a department of pedagogy may be 
 opened. Why should not requests be urged from 
 other sources? Why, for example, should not the 
 library be made tributary to our great industries ? 
 
54 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 Where should one interested in any one of these 
 expect to look for careful information except to such 
 a library as this ? Where else within the state could 
 one hope to find it? Technical departments are to 
 be found to a certain extent in our educational 
 libraries, and here and there thQ public library of a 
 city may provide some books of this character on a 
 given industry. But to what source ought one to 
 turn for such discriminating and well-directed in- 
 formation on the industries of the state as to the 
 state library ? Here again I must remind you that we 
 have no great centre to which we can look except to 
 the state itself. And in so far as the state may see 
 fit to answer this demand, let us suggest that when- 
 ever any department of this kind is set up, the fact 
 be made known, and a classified list of the books in 
 the department be published and circulated. Grad- 
 ually and without undue expense, the state library 
 may become an authority upon many matters of 
 industrial and economic value. 
 
 Allow me the further suggestion that such works 
 as have to do most immediately with the resources 
 of the state be duplicated, and distributed at conven- 
 ient centres, usually in connection with a town 
 library, but under the control of the state library. 
 Such a distribution would create among our citizens 
 a habit of thinking about the state and its interests. 
 It would provide material in advance for our legisla- 
 tures. It would add to that general intelligence 
 which they bring to their duties a special knowledge 
 on many points, which there is little time to gain 
 during the session of the legislature- It would be a 
 
THE DEDICATION. 55 
 
 Step for the state to take out among the people, 
 arousing them to a greater interest in their citizen- 
 ship. Like the attempt of which I have spoken to 
 make the Hbrary available for recovering the history 
 of the state, it would make the library more available 
 for its present and future advancement. A great 
 library, of any kind whatever, is more than a reposi- 
 tory. That is its second use. The first and supreme 
 object is to inform, incite, awaken. Rightly used, it 
 is one of the creative agencies of civilization. 
 
 Assuming that the specific uses of a state library 
 are such as have been indicated, namely, to give the 
 state the advantage among its citizens of its own 
 history, and to aid the state appropriately in the 
 making and interpretation of its laws, and the devel- 
 opment of its resources, it remains for me to speak 
 of the library as standing for the identification of the 
 state with the whole intellectual life of the people. 
 In the language of the inaugural address, ''its rela- 
 tions to our educational system should be intimate." 
 I take the apt suggestion of the term. Intimacy of 
 relationship rather than domination or control is the 
 <:haracteristic of the New England states in their 
 educational policy. The distinction in educational 
 policy between the earlier and later commonwealths 
 is marked. The later commonwealths, almost with- 
 out exception, have created elaborate educational 
 systems, culminating in a university, which they sup- 
 port and control. The earlier commonwealths de- 
 mand popular education as the basis of citizenship, 
 and within certain limits they carefully provide for 
 it, but they seek to arouse the public spirit of indi- 
 
56 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 vidual citizens, and to develop private munificence. 
 Hence the peculiar phenomena, to be seen on every 
 hand, attending the intellectual development of New 
 England ; great schools, colleges, and universities 
 founded and maintained by endowments ; the for- 
 tunes of private citizens returning in part to their 
 native towns in the gift of libraries ; voluntary asso- 
 ciations springing up in all parts of the community 
 for the mutual advantage and improvement of their 
 members. Meanwhile the state is no mere on- 
 looker, an indifferent or curious spectator, its inter- 
 ests elsewhere, itself intent on other and lower ends. 
 The state is the watchful guardian, the solicitous 
 friend, the helper and patron. Its interest in what- 
 ever concerns the intellectual life of the people is 
 active, constant, and altogether beneficent. The 
 state acts by various methods ; now working through 
 legislation, as when it reaffirms more vigorously the 
 principle of compulsory intelligence; now entering 
 into cooperation with the communities under its 
 care, as in the library system of our own state and 
 of Massachusetts ; now granting immunities and 
 privileges to institutions of learning when necessary 
 to their freedom, not hesitating if need be to offer 
 the helping hand ; and now teaching by example, as 
 by this occasion, and through the dignity and worth 
 of its own standards, broadening the public thought, 
 and elevating the public taste. Such by tradition 
 and by increasing practice, is the New England com- 
 monwealth in the intimacy of its relationship to the 
 intellectual life of the people. It was a statesman, 
 you recall, not a theorist, a mere scholar or poet, 
 
THE DEDICATION. 57 
 
 who said, **The state is a partnership in all science, 
 a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue. 
 And as the end of such a partnership cannot be 
 obtained in many generations, it becomes a partner- 
 ship not only between those who are living, but 
 between those who are living, and those who are 
 dead, and those who are yet to be born." 
 
 It is impossible to overestimate the impression 
 which the state is able to make upon its citizens 
 through this noble union, this high partnership in 
 great interests. Nothing else can rouse them to 
 such a degree of civic pride. 
 
 The state, we must remember, does not always 
 appear before us in this aspect. So many of its 
 functions are negative and repressive. It is through 
 the state that we deal with crime. Much of its leg- 
 islation is the iteration of the commandments. 
 There is a majesty in this aspect of the state, and 
 there is benignity. The other side of law is secur- 
 ity, order, peace. Still it is not through its repres- 
 sive force that we respond most heartily to the 
 power of the state. 
 
 Through other functions the state is concerned 
 chiefly with material interests. These interests are 
 vital. Nothing concerns any man more than his 
 daily work, the work itself, and the result of it in 
 his livelihood. But the actual power of the state to 
 affect business is far less than that of the general 
 government. In every state election the issue 
 broadens into the field of national politics. No citi- 
 zen looks exclusively to his own commonwealth for 
 the adjustment of those conditions which determine 
 his work, his business, or his investments. 
 
58 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 The State is excluded from the province of reli- 
 gion. The experiment once tried in that direction 
 will never be repeated. The one reservation which 
 the individual citizen has made for himself for all 
 time is liberty of conscience, in every possible ex- 
 pression of it, and in all its results. 
 
 The open field into which the state may enter, 
 where it may exercise unhindered its higher minis- 
 try, where it may illustrate this noble partnership, is 
 education, the development of the intellectual, and 
 through that, the moral life of the people. The 
 essential contribution of New Hampshire, as we 
 fondly believe, to the life of the nation, has been 
 mental character, not simply brain power, not sim- 
 ply conscience, but character informed and devel- 
 oped by the trained mind. That has been the 
 ground of our boasting. We have no other to 
 compare with it. It can have no equivalent and no 
 substitute. We may cherish local associations in 
 the state with a sentiment which will idealize even 
 its rugged and barren hills. We may respect the 
 authority of the state as it guards our rights, and 
 protects our interests. But the one source of civic 
 pride for the state is the maintenance of its extraor- 
 dinary intellectual and moral history. It is the 
 remembrance of that, and that above all else, which 
 quickens the blood, and stirs the spirit within us. 
 
 Fellow Citizens: May this day which is set apart 
 in recognition of one of the higher functions of the 
 state recover and restore to us this former ideal. 
 And accepting the inspiration and teaching of the 
 present hour, may we understand better what is the 
 
THE DEDICATION. 
 
 59 
 
 abiding duty, and what the lasting honor of the 
 sons of this ancient commonwealth. 
 
 Mr. President: As suggested by Dr. Tucker, 
 the Committee has been especially fortunate in 
 being able to summon Mr. A. R. Spofford, librarian 
 of the National library, to address you on this 
 occasion. 
 
 Lord Bacon's classification of books was, "Some 
 are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and a few 
 to be chewed and digested." 
 
 They credit Mr. Spofford with having *' chewed 
 and digested " the greater part of the books in the 
 National library. He will tell you to-day, something 
 of what he knows of the books he has devoured. 
 
 I have the honor of introducing to you Mr. 
 Spofford, a native of New Hampshire, but a citizen 
 of Washington. 
 
 Mr. Ainsworth R. Spofford, Librarian of Congress, 
 delivered the concluding address on 
 
 THE WORLD OF BOOKS. 
 
 When I was honored by the invitation to take a 
 part in this memorial service, I felt myself constrained 
 to respond to the call by two considerations, mainly : 
 first, as cherishing an active interest in libraries, in 
 whose service the greater part of my life has been 
 spent, — and, secondly, as contributing, in some slight 
 degree, to a discharge of the debt which every man 
 owes to the region of his nativity. As a son of New 
 Hampshire, though removed in very early life from 
 the state, I take pride in all that conduces to her 
 
6o STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 honor, her advancement, and her intellig-ence. As a 
 librarian, it is most gratifying to me, in revisiting my 
 native State, to behold this fair temple of learning, 
 which you have carved out of New Hampshire granite, 
 and which you are now dedicating to the enlighten- 
 ment of the legislative body, and of all who may in 
 the future use its stores. It is equally gratifying to 
 recall the fact, that at the capital city of our republic, 
 another great library edifice now nears completion, 
 constructed of New Hampshire granite, from the 
 Concord quarries, as pure and white as the marble 
 walls of the capitol. 
 
 But, my friends, while we are justly solicitous to 
 provide these spacious and fire-proof repositories for 
 the books of the nation and of the state, and to adorn 
 their interiors with fitting ornaments and memorials, 
 we are not to forget the vast importance of filling 
 them with the best and most useful means of infor- 
 mation. To what purpose do we dedicate these 
 splendid temples to science and literature, unless we 
 are ready to provide liberally from the public funds, 
 to equip the government library with all the helps 
 which the legislator needs ? Indeed, when we reflect 
 that, in the last analysis, our laws are only the pro- 
 duct of our learning, (taking learning in its largest 
 sense,) we see that there is almost no knowledge 
 which can come amiss to those who make the laws. 
 
 It is trite enough for me to remind you of the 
 saying of that staunch Scotch republican, Andrew 
 Fletcher, who wrote, two centuries ago, that '*if a 
 man were permitted to make all the ballads of a 
 nation, he need not care who should make the laws." 
 
THE DEDICATION. 6l 
 
 But the profounder meaning of the aphorism comes 
 to us in the reflection that the sentiments of human 
 sympathy, justice, virtue, and freedom, which inspire 
 the best poetry of all nations, become sooner or later 
 incarnated in their laws. If there are those narrow- 
 minded enough to think that poetry is out of place in 
 a legislative library, let them remember the debt the 
 world owes to its great poets, from Homer down to 
 Robert Burns. Even that simple little song — with 
 the refrain — 
 
 " Then let us pray that come it may, 
 As come it will, for a' that, 
 That man to man, the world o'er, 
 Shall brothers be, for a' that,"— 
 
 may have contributed almost as much to spread 
 abroad the great doctrine of human equality, as the 
 British Magna Charta, or the American Declaration 
 of Independence. So, also, the German race are 
 deeply indebted to the ballads of Schiller and Korner, 
 and to the ideas of freedom which they have sown 
 deep in the minds of men and women for two 
 generations, for that measure of constitutional liberty 
 which Germany now enjoys. And if we were to 
 inquire whether books or battles have contributed 
 the most to the progress of mankind, let us put into 
 one scale the military achievements of all the con- 
 querors, and into the other all the glorious literature 
 of the world. If you doubt to which side the balance 
 will incline, take the greatest of the warriors, him 
 who won more battles than any man known to history, 
 who marched from conquest to conquest, made him- 
 self the master of France — then the autocrat of 
 
62 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 Europe, and finally filled the world with his fame. 
 After sacrificing on the altar of his ambition, the 
 liberty of the press, the freedom of opinion, the ties 
 of marriage, the peace and welfare of his country, 
 and the lives of more than a million Frenchmen, he 
 went down at last, his many crimes against humanity 
 all unredeemed by that thin varnish which men call 
 glory — another witness to the truth, that justice still 
 rules the world. 
 
 All history and all literature conspire to teach 
 us that there is nothing at last but intellectual and 
 moral power, that is sacred or enduring among men. 
 We are the fortunate heirs of the intelligence of ages. 
 The thoughts and the facts that are garnered up in 
 books, are endowed with a life that is perennial. 
 Men may die, and legislators may perish, and libra- 
 rians are mortal : but libraries and literature are 
 immortal. Even though the ever-gnawing tooth of 
 time should one day undermine this beautiful struct- 
 ure, and its granite walls should crumble to decay, — 
 yet through the ever-living power of the magic art 
 of printing, books will survive, and the thoughts of 
 the mind will far outlast towers of granite, and mon- 
 uments of marble. 
 
 "The art of writing," says a great scholar of our 
 century, — Thomas Carlyle, ''certainly is the most 
 miraculous of all things which man has devised. Of 
 all things which men can do or make here below, by 
 far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy, are 
 the things we call books." And indeed, when we 
 thoughtfully consider how wide and potential are the 
 uses of written speech, out of which the world of 
 
THE DEDICATION. 63 
 
 books is made, It seems hardly possible to overstate 
 the debt which we owe to authors. Books are the re- 
 positories of the wit and the wisdom of mankind. In 
 their pages are stored the vast results of science, the 
 long annals of history, the speculations of philoso- 
 phers, the Imaginations of poets, the discoveries of 
 inventors, the narratives of travellers and voyagers, 
 the lives of the illustrious, the laws and politics of 
 nations, the observations of naturalists, the dreams 
 of enthusiasts, the fascinating stories of fiction, the 
 creations of graphic art, the harmonies of music, the 
 homilies of theologians, the correspondence of men 
 of letters, the verdicts of criticism, the traditions of 
 the race, and the manifold languages of the world. 
 
 What to read, when to read, and how to read, — 
 these are questions of vital Importance to each one 
 of us. While I have not the presumption to sup- 
 pose that my Ideas upon the choice of reading will 
 present anything new, I must infer that the invitation 
 to address you takes for granted on my part such 
 fitness as a life spent among books and the readers 
 of books may Imply. All that any one can do for 
 others is to suggest to them a clue, which, however 
 feeble, has helped to guide his uncertain footsteps 
 through that tangled maze of folly and wisdom which 
 we call literature. And my excuse for venturing to 
 address you upon a theme at once so exacting and 
 so important, is that the suggestions which I may 
 have to offer are the fruit of a candid observation, 
 and an experience somewhat prolonged. 
 
 The art of reading to the best advantage Implies 
 the command of adequate time to read. The art of 
 
€4 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 having time to read lies in learning- how to make the 
 most of our days. Days are short, and time is fleet- 
 ing, but no one's day ever holds less than twenty- 
 four hours. Engrossing as one's occupation may 
 be, it need never consume all the time remaining 
 from sleep, refreshment, and needful exercise. The 
 trouble is, most persons think that the unappropria- 
 ted intervals when business waits are too brief and 
 fragmentary to be of any value to them. They fear 
 that they will be interrupted before they have done 
 anything to the purpose, and so they do nothing. No 
 one can make the most of life who has never learned 
 the supreme value of moments. The half hour be- 
 fore breakfast, the fifteen minutes waiting for din- 
 ner, diligently given to the book one wishes to read, 
 will finish it in a few days, and make room for 
 another. It is almost literally true, paradoxical as it 
 may seem, that the more you have to do, the more 
 you can do. The idle person never knows how to 
 get ahead of his work ; the busy one always knows 
 how. System and a strong purpose will work mira- 
 cles; will go far toward achieving the impossible. 
 The busiest men I have known have frequently been 
 the best informed and the widest readers. 
 
 Let us suppose that you are determined to secure 
 two hours every day for self-culture; that is equiva- 
 lent to more than seven hundred hours a year — or to 
 three entire months of working time of eight hours 
 a day. What could you not do in three months, if 
 you had all the time to yourself? You could almost 
 learn a new language, or go far toward writing a 
 book, if need were; and yet this two hours a day, 
 
THE DEDICATION. 65 
 
 which would secure you three months of free time 
 every year, is frittered away, you hardly know how, 
 in aimless matters, that lead to nothing. 
 
 A famous writer, some of whose books we have 
 all read, Bulwer-Lytton, devoted only four hours a 
 day to writing; yet he produced more than sixty vol- 
 umes of history, poetry, drama, and fiction, of singu- 
 lar literary merit. The great naturalist Darwin, a 
 chronic sufferer from a depressing malady, counted 
 two hours a good day's work; yet he produced results 
 in the world of science which have made his name im- 
 mortal. Be not over particular as to hours, or the 
 time of day, but seize the unoccupied intervals and 
 you will soon find that all hours are good for the 
 muse. Have a purpose, and adhere to it with good- 
 humored pertinacity. Be independent of the meth- 
 ods and opinions of others. The world of books, like 
 the world of nature, was made for you ; possess it in 
 your own way. If you see no good in ancient history, 
 or metaphysics, let them alone, and read books of 
 art, or biography, or poetry, or travel. The world of 
 letters is so related, that all roads cross and con- 
 verge, like the paths that carry us over the surface 
 of the globe on which we live. Many a reader has 
 learned more of past ages from biographies than 
 from any formal history, and it is a fact that many 
 owe to the plays of Shakespeare nearly all the 
 knowledge they possess of the history of England. 
 
 I look with some distrust upon many of the so- 
 called '' courses of reading." A great amount of time 
 has been consumed in trying to compel the attention 
 to reading through long and prosy didactic works writ- 
 
66 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 ten in a style the reverse of attractive, but believed to 
 be packed full of learning. These courses, under- 
 taken as a task, frequently break down before much 
 progress has been made, thus ending in discourage- 
 ment as well as disappointment ; whereas, if a good 
 book had been selected, written in a fresh and 
 flowing style, and treating any topic whatever with 
 adequate knowledge, it would have been eagerly 
 read and assimilated. Time should be economized 
 by selecting attractive intellectual pabulum — books 
 which are known from the start to be full of good 
 things — capable of nourishing the inner man, and, 
 like a well-cooked and well-seasoned dish, both 
 appetizing to the palate and comforting to the soul. 
 
 Suffer no man's prescription for a weak or 
 deformed intellect to sway your choice, if you are 
 conscious of your own mental strength and sound- 
 ness. When you are weary or perplexed, who shall 
 deny you the recreation of a chapter of Pickwick, or 
 what Doctor Dry-as-dust shall compel you to read 
 David Hume or Adam Smith, when you crave Ten- 
 nyson or the Faust of Goethe ? 
 
 It is unhappily true that books do not teach the use 
 of books. It were easier, perhaps, in one sense, to 
 tell what not to read, than to recommend what 
 is best worth reading. In the publishing world, 
 this is the age of compilation — not of creation. If 
 we seek for great original works, if we must indeed 
 go to the wholesale merchants to buy knowledge, 
 since retail geniuses are worth but little, one must go 
 back many years for his main selection of books. It 
 would not be a bad rule, perhaps, for those who can 
 
THE DEDICATION. 67 
 
 read but little, to read no book until it has been 
 published at least a year or two. This fever for the 
 newest books is not a wholesome condition of the 
 mind. And since a selection must indispensably be 
 made, and that selection must, for the mass of readers, 
 be so rigid and so small, why should valuable time be 
 thrown away upon the untried and unproven writers 
 of the day ? 
 
 As the taste for reading is one of the greatest 
 of human benefits, so the art of reading to the best 
 advantage is one of the foremost things to be desired. 
 One hears with dismay that the statistics of our 
 popular libraries prove that about seventy-five per 
 cent, of the books drawn from them are novels. 
 While such aimless reading to be amused is doubtless 
 better than no reading at all, it is nevertheless true 
 that over-much reading of romances, especially at an 
 early age, enervates the mind, weakens the will, 
 makes dreamers instead of thinkers and workers, 
 and fills the imagination with morbid and unreal views 
 of life. Yet this habit of giving up all leisure hours 
 to fiction is cultivated, more by the cheapness and 
 notoriety of such works, and the absence of wise 
 direction in other fields, than by any native tendency 
 on the part of the young. People will always read 
 the most that which is most put before them, if only 
 the style be attractive. 
 
 A two-fold evil follows upon the reading of every 
 unworthy book; in the first place, it absorbs the time 
 which should be bestowed upon a worthy one ; and 
 secondly, it leaves the mind and heart unimproved, 
 instead of conducing to the benefit of both. As there 
 
68 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 are few books more elevating than a really good 
 novel, so there are none more fruitful of evil than a 
 bad one. 
 
 Hazlitt says, '* we owe everything to the authors 
 of books, on this side barbarism." He who enters a 
 great library walks among the silent ranks of the 
 thinkers of all ages. However dull or vapid he may 
 sometimes find the society of people, that of a well- 
 selected library is never dull. In the world of books, 
 your chosen companions will talk to you only when 
 bidden, and whenever you hold converse with them, 
 they always have something to say. The appreciative 
 reader is never less alone than when alone. Sur- 
 rounded by the spirits of the mighty dead, still 
 surviving immortally in their works, while their mortal 
 bodies are but dust, he drinks in the inspiration and 
 the instruction that dwell among the leaves. His 
 horizon insensibly widens as he reads, and from being 
 a resident of Boston, or of Baltimore, or of Washing- 
 ton, he becomes a citizen of the world. 
 
 The reader who has held communion with many 
 great writers will find his views correspondingly 
 enlarged, and his mental vision cleared. The be- 
 setting conceit of opinion, the ignoble strife of warring 
 sects and schools, are seen in their true light. He has 
 read to little purpose who has not imbibed a charity 
 as wide as the world, and an open-mindedness that 
 is fatal to the slightest taint of bigotry. Much con- 
 verse with books fills him with a sense of his own 
 ignorance. The more he comes to know, the wider 
 opens before him the illimitable realm of what is yet 
 to be known. In the lowest deep which research the 
 
THE DEDICATION. 69 
 
 most profound can reach, there is a lower deep still 
 unattained, — perhaps, even, unattainable. 
 
 But the fact that he cannot by any possibility master 
 all human knowledge should not deter the student 
 from making ever advancing inroads upon that 
 domain. The vast extent of the world of books only 
 emphasizes the need of making a wise selection from 
 the mass. One of the commonest and most incon- 
 siderate of the questions propounded to a librarian is 
 this : '' Do you ever expect to read all these books 
 through " ? And it is well answered by propounding 
 another query — namely : *' Did you ever read your 
 dictionary through " ? A great library is the scholar's 
 dictionary — not to be read through, but to be able to 
 put his finger on the fact or the thought he wants, 
 just when it is wanted. 
 
 He must indispensably learn the art of skipping, — 
 not only of skipping all the useless books (whose 
 name is legion) but all the useless pages in which 
 every book, almost, abounds. This art requires three 
 things : Keen discernment, a practiced eye, and a 
 resolute purpose to make the best use of time. As 
 to the selection, while I am not of those who can see 
 no merit save in books touched with the hoar frost of 
 time, I have yet frequent cause to lament the pre- 
 valent rage for new books, when so many great 
 masters lie unopened and unread. Schopenhauer 
 tells us of the paramount importance of "acquiring 
 the art not to read, or of not reading the books that 
 occupy the public mind, make a noise in the world, 
 and reach several editions in their first (and perhaps 
 last) year of existence." Indeed there is of late, along 
 
70 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 with much good literature, a fearfully increasing 
 number of books that are not useful. The spawn of 
 cheap novels of second and third rate writers, the 
 translations of Zola, Belot, Du Boisgobey, and others 
 of the French erotic school, and their American 
 imitators, some of whom surpass them in grossness, 
 without any of their attractions of style, must be 
 deplored by all who regard the moral and intellectual 
 welfare of our people. Such publications degrade 
 our literature, instead of ennobling and advancing it. 
 Defend them as men may, with whatever glozing 
 excuses, the books which belong to the lately preva- 
 lent bigamy school of fiction are not fit to be written, 
 and not fit to be read. " The trail of the serpent is 
 over them all." Let all friends of good literature, and 
 all teachers and counsellors of the young, never cease 
 to remember, that " the wisdom that is from above is 
 first pure." 
 
 Another class of new literature is the sensational, 
 which tends to vitiate the taste, as surely as the 
 other does the morals. Why should one read such 
 specimens of prose-run-mad as the novels of Augus- 
 ta Evans, or Am^lie Rives, such examples of morbid 
 intellectual anatomy as the journal of Marie Bashkirt- 
 seff, or such pictures of over-wrought passion and 
 vicious life as the stories of Edgar Saltus ? These 
 books, and others referred to, that tickle the palate 
 for an hour, and perhaps leave a bad taste in the 
 mouth, are good books to let alone. They have no 
 staying qualities. Why waste the precious hours, 
 which you will never see again, over things fit only 
 to be forgotten, when the great masters of prose and 
 
THE DEDICATION. 7 1 
 
 verse are waiting to endow you with imperishable 
 wit and wisdom ? 
 
 Yet some readers will eagerly devour every novel 
 of Miss Braddon, or ''The Duchess," or the woman 
 calling herself *'Ouida," but they cannot appreciate 
 the masterly fictions of Thackeray. I have known 
 very good people who could not, for the life of them, 
 find any humor in Dickens, but who actually en- 
 joyed the forced wit of Mrs. Partington and Bill Nye. 
 And you will find many a young lady of to-day who 
 is content to remain ignorant of Homer and Shakes- 
 peare, but who is ravished by the charms of Trilby 
 or the Heavenly Twins. But taste in literature, as 
 in art, or in anything else, can be cultivated. Lay 
 down the rule, and adhere to it, to read none but 
 the best books, and you will before long lose all rel- 
 ish for the poor ones. Surely we all have cause to 
 deprecate the remorseless flood of fictitious literature, 
 in which better books are drowned. 
 
 Let no one be dismayed at the multitude of books, 
 nor fear that with his small leisure, he will never be 
 able to master any appreciable share of them. Few 
 and far between are the great books of the world. 
 The works which it is necessary to know may be 
 comprised in a comparatively small compass. The 
 rest are to be preserved in the great literary conserv- 
 atories, some as records of the past, some as chroni- 
 cles of the times, and not a few as models to be 
 avoided. The Congressional Library at Washington 
 (soon to have its own separate library building) is 
 our great national conservatory of books. As the 
 library of the government — that is of the whole peo- 
 
72 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 pie — it is properly inclusive of all the literature which 
 the country produces, while all the other libraries 
 are and must be more or less exclusive. No national 
 library can ever be too large. In order that the 
 completeness of the collection shall not fail, and to 
 preserve the whole of our literature, it is put into the 
 statute of copyright as a condition precedent of the 
 exclusive right to multiply copies of any book. Ap- 
 prehension is sometimes expressed that the library 
 of the United States will become overloaded with 
 trash, and so fail of its usefulness. 'Tis a lost fear. 
 The public sense is continually winnowing and sift- 
 ing the literature of every period, and to books and 
 their authors, every day is the day of judgment. 
 
 Out of all the publications of any year, how many, 
 think you, ever arrive at the honor of a republication 
 at all ? How many are thought worthy of a reprint 
 by the readers of the generation immediately suc- 
 ceeding ? And will any one learned in the history 
 of literature tell us how many, out of the innumer- 
 able candidates for immortality, ever reach it, by the 
 suffrage of each successive century, calling for con- 
 tinually new editions ? Is not the fate of at least 
 ninety-nine in the hundred writers, a swift passport 
 to oblivion or (which is much the same thing) a 
 place among the myriads of forgotten volumes which 
 slumber on the shelves of the great libraries of the 
 world ? 
 
 It is the melancholy fate of most writers to survive 
 their own literary reputation. Not the least among 
 the evils of that ''furor scribendi'' that rage for writ- 
 ing which afflicts so large a portion of the human 
 
THE DEDICATION. 73 
 
 race, is the utter unconsciousness of its subjects as 
 to the worthless or ephemeral character of their pro- 
 ductions. A moderate acquaintance with the litera- 
 ture of the past would spare these unsophisticated 
 authors the trouble of putting pen to paper. The dis- 
 covery that what they are so eager to say has not 
 only been said before, but a great deal better said 
 than they can say it, might save them the mortifica- 
 tion of publishing a neglected volume. 
 
 That learned French critic, Bishop Huet, was wont 
 to say that all which has been written since the 
 beginning of the world might easily be contained 
 in nine or ten volumes in folio, provided nothing 
 were said more than once. This little proviso is the 
 key to that vast copia librorum under which we 
 groan. So long as men go on repeating one 
 another, so long will this redundancy of literature, 
 which makes the despair of students, continue. All 
 the ancient classics, both Greek and Latin, may be 
 readily contained in a single glass case of very mod- 
 erate dimensions ; but the million-fold echoes and 
 re-echoes of the ancients which fill these twenty cen- 
 turies — is there any library, however vast, which will 
 hold the half of them ? 
 
 Yet the world of books, vast and thickly peopled 
 as it is, presents no anomaly, no exception to the laws 
 which govern the genesis of nature and the growth 
 of nations. Everywhere the chaff far exceeds the 
 wheat. For a hundred blossoms, we gather but one 
 ripe fruit. This ever-growing human race of ours 
 goes swarming on, and how many, out of all the 
 myriads that are born into the world, leave any mark 
 
74 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 of greatness or of goodness to testify that they ever 
 lived at all ? Shall the world of books be expected 
 to form the sole exception ? 
 
 Shall we not rather use the brain that nature gave 
 us to make a wise choice of our intellectual com- 
 panions? And here, let me say, no hard-and-fast 
 rule can be laid down, good for all readers. While 
 the world of books seems literally infinite, and we 
 are ever conscious that our opportunities are finite, 
 we may at least resolve to waste little time upon 
 writers who have not proven their claim to live in 
 literature. Find out how often any author's books 
 have been re-printed, in successive generations, and 
 you will have one standard of merit to which the 
 merely ephemeral writers cannot appeal. The sense 
 of the world is keen, and the survival of the fittest is 
 as certain as that art is long. 
 
 Next, there is no guide to that reading, which will 
 both interest and profit the reader, better than the 
 counsel embodied in these two lines of Shakespeare : 
 
 •' No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en ; 
 In brief, sir, study what you most affect." 
 
 If this precept seems too free, it is to be borne in 
 mind that a book, in order to be relished and remem- 
 bered, must have some pleasing qualities to the 
 reader. Books that are read merely as task-work 
 profit little, in comparison with those which are 
 absorbed eagerly, and with a hungry mind. Now 
 the best books of the world are the histories, the 
 poems, and the stories which are the best told, — and 
 which will never want for readers, so long as the 
 
THE DEDICATION. 75 
 
 generations of men shall endure. The taste for the 
 best literature will be formed fast enough, if only the 
 best be made as accessible as is the trash. 
 
 When Shakespeare would depict for us the sov- 
 ereign value of the intelligence which dwells in the 
 world of books, he says : " Ignorance is the curse of 
 God : Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to 
 Heaven." And elsewhere, when he would describe 
 in few words a man deficient in understanding — he 
 says : ** Sir, He hath never fed of the dainties which 
 are bred in a book." Gibbon declared — '*A taste 
 for books is the pleasure and glory of my life : — I 
 would not exchange it for the wealth of the Indies."^ 
 And we remember the lofty panegyric of Words- 
 worth's sonnet : 
 
 «♦ Blessings be with them, and eternal praise, 
 Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares ; 
 The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs 
 Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays." 
 
 In the companionship of books we move across 
 the centuries, and mingle with every race and every 
 age. They bring us acquainted with the fair forms 
 of truth and poetry, and reveal to us the genius and 
 the virtue that have illustrated the annals of man- 
 kind. Good books are among the few real things of 
 life : they are almost the only pleasure in which there 
 is no alloy. ''Some books," says Petrarch, ''teach 
 us how to live, and others how to die." Through 
 them, the spirits of the dead, not mortal, but immor- 
 tal, hold free converse with us. Through them, 
 each one of us may become endowed with the storied 
 wisdom of six thousand years. The world of books 
 
76 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 is a realm as large as the universe, and its noblest 
 creations take hold on the infinite. They open to 
 us inexhaustible treasures of learning : they awaken 
 the reason, they kindle the imagination, they culti- 
 vate the memory, they refine the taste, they delight 
 us in health, they comfort us in sickness, they 
 enliven the fancy, they quicken the conscience, they 
 purify the soul; they cheer the desponding, they 
 strengthen the weak, they lighten our cares, they 
 soften our griefs, they enhance our joys — they ener- 
 gize and ennoble the mind. They, and they alone, 
 hold that which is imperishable in man ; that which 
 survives centuries, conquers oblivion, and triumphs 
 over the grave. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 JOINT RESOLUTION authorizing the governor and council to procure plans 
 and estimates for additions to the state house. 
 
 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court con- 
 vened : 
 
 That the governor and council are hereby authorized to expend a sum of 
 money not exceeding five hundred dollars, to be used in procuring plans and 
 estimates for additional facilities in the state house for library and other pur- 
 poses, and also plans and estimates for a separate building to be used for the 
 same purposes, and submit their report to the next legislature. 
 
 That the governor is hereby authorized to draw his warrant for the same out 
 of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated. 
 
 Approved August 16, 1889. 
 
 AN ACT for the erection of a state library building. 
 
 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court con- 
 vened : 
 
 Section 1. That the sum of one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars 
 be and hereby is raised and appropriated for the purchase of two tracts of 
 land situate on the corner of State and Park streets in Concord, and the erec- 
 tion of a building thereon, in accordance with the plan of A. P. Cutting, of 
 Worcester, Mass., referred to in and annexed to the report of the commission 
 appointed to procure plans and estimates for additional facilities for the pub- 
 lic library, and other purposes. 
 
 Sect. 2. The state treasurer is hereby authorized, under the direction of the 
 governor and council to borrow said sum of one hundred and seventy-five 
 thousand dollars on the credit of the state ; and to issue bonds or certificates 
 of indebtedness therefor, in the name and on the behalf of the state, payable 
 in twenty years from the first day of July, 1891, at a rate of interest not exceed- 
 ing four per cent, per annum, payable semi-annually on the first days of Janu- 
 ary and July of each year ; such bonds to have interest warrants or coupons 
 attached thereto ; said coupons to be signed by the state treasurer ; said 
 bonds and coupons to be made payable at such place as the governor and 
 council shall designate. 
 
 Sect. 3. Said bonds shall be designated, " State Library Bonds," and shall be 
 signed by the treasurer and countersigned by the governor, and shall be 
 deemed a pledge of the faith and credit of the state. The secretary of state 
 shall keep a record of all the bonds countersigned by the governor, showing 
 the number and amount of each bond, the time of countersigning, the time 
 when payable, and the date of the delivery to the state treasurer. The treas- 
 urer shall keep a record of all bonds disposed of by him, showing the number 
 thereof, the name of the person to whom sold, the amount received for the 
 same, the date of the sale and the time when payable. The treasurer may 
 negotiate and sell such bonds to the best advantage for the state, but no bond 
 shall be sold for less than its par value, nor shall such bonds be loaned, 
 pledged, or hypothecated in any way whatever. 
 
78 
 
 STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 Sect. 4. That His Excellency the Governor, with the advice and consent of 
 the council, be authorized to appoint four commissioners, only two of whom 
 shall belong to the same political party, whose duty it shall be to make all con- 
 tracts necessary for the erection, building, and completion of said state library 
 building upon the plot of ground named in section 1 of this act, and in accord- 
 ance with said plan to procure all necessary specifications for the full comple- 
 tion of said building under said plan. No contract by them made shall be of 
 any binding force until first submitted to and approved by the governor and 
 council, nor shall such contract be made until they have advertised for at least 
 thirty days in not less than three papers in this state for sealed proposals 
 under said plan and specifications for the entire construction of said building 
 in one contract, or in several contracts for the different classes of work to be 
 done, and such contract or contracts shall be made with the lowest responsible 
 bidders complying with the terms of this act in relation to the amount of bonds 
 required to guarantee the completion of said contract ; and it shall be the fur- 
 ther duty of said commissioners to superintend the erection, building, and 
 completion of said library building, and they shall receive for their services 
 each the sum of three dollars per day when employed and their expenses, and 
 their bills shall be approved by the governor and council ; and the governor 
 shall draw his orders upon the state treasurer for the amounts due from time 
 to time upon said bills, and the treasurer shall pay the same out of any 
 money provided for in this act. Said commissioners, or either of them, may 
 be removed at any time by the governor and council. 
 
 Sect. 5. Said commissioners shall have power and authority to purchase for 
 and on behalf of the state the land recommended by the commission and 
 named in section 1 of this act, subject to the approval of the governor and 
 council. 
 
 Sect. 6. In case said commissioners shall be unable to purchase such land for 
 the state at a price which they deem reasonable, they are hereby fully author- 
 ized and empowered to take and appropriate the same for the use of the state, 
 for the purpose aforesaid ; and if such land is so taken and appropriated for 
 the use of the state, said commissioners shall apply to the county commission- 
 ers for the county of Merrimack to assess the damages to the owner or owners 
 of such land, and said county commissioners, upon reasonable notice to all 
 persons interested and a hearing thereon, shall assess and award damages to 
 the owner or owners of such land, for so much land as the commissioners 
 hereby appointed shall designate as necessary and convenient for the pur- 
 poses aforesaid. Said assessment and award of the county commissioners 
 shall be in writing, and filed in the office of the city clerk of said Concord 
 within ten days after the same is completed, which shall contain a particular 
 description by metes and bounds of the land so taken, as well as of the dam- 
 ages and the persons to whom the same is awarded. And upon payment or 
 tender to the owner or owners of the land of the sums so assessed, the title to 
 the land so taken shall be vested in the state. 
 
 Sect. 7. Such land-owner, or other party interested, shall have the right to 
 appeal from said assessment and award to the supreme court in said county of 
 Merrimack, and to an assessment of said damages by a jury on such appeal, by 
 filing in the office of the clerk of said court a petition in proper form for that 
 purpose, within sixty days after the filing of said assessment and award of 
 said county commissioners in the office of the city clerk as aforesaid. 
 
 Sect. 8. The governor shall draw his orders on the state treasurer for the 
 amounts that may be or become due from time to time, under the contracts of 
 the commissioners hereby appointed, for the purposes aforesaid, after said 
 bills shall have been duly approved by the governor and council, to an amount 
 not exceeding one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. 
 
 Approved March 12, 1891. 
 
APPENDIX. 79 
 
 AN ACT in addition and supplemental to chapter 13 of the Laws of 1891, enti- 
 tled "An act for the erection of a state library building." 
 
 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court con- 
 vened. 
 
 Section 1. That the sum of seventy-five thousand dollars be and the same is 
 hereby appropriated for the purpose of completing and furnishing the state 
 library building and the grounds about the same, to be expended under the 
 direction of the commission appointed in pursuance of section 4 of chapter 13, 
 Laws of 1891, entitled an "An act for the Erection of a State Library Build- 
 ing," and in accordance with said act. 
 
 Sect. 2. The state treasurer is hereby authorized, under the direction of the 
 governor and council, to borrow the sum of seventy -five thousand dollars on 
 the credit of the state ; and to issue bonds or certificates of indebtedness 
 therefor, in the name and on the behalf of the state, payable in twenty years 
 from the first day of July, 1893, at a rate of interest not exceeding four per 
 cent, per annum, payable semi-annually on the first days of January and July 
 of each year ; such bonds to have interest warrants or coupons attached 
 thereto ; said coupons to be signed by the state treasurer ; said bonds and 
 coupons to be made payable at such place as the governor and council shall 
 designate. 
 
 Sect. 3. Said bonds shall be designated " State Library Bonds," and shall be 
 signed by the treasurer and countersigned by the governor, and shall be 
 deemed a pledge of the faith and credit of the state. The secretary of state 
 shall keep a record of all the bonds countersigned by the governor, showing 
 the number and amount of each bond, the time of countersigning, the time 
 when payable, and the date of the delivery to the state treasurer. The treas- 
 urer shall keep a record of all bonds disposed of by him, showing the number 
 thereof, the name of the person to whom sold, the amount received for the 
 same, the date of the sale, and the time when payable. The treasurer may 
 negotiate and sell such bonds to the best advantage for the state, but no bond 
 shall be sold for less than its par value, nor shall such bonds be loaned, 
 pledged, or hypothecated in any way whatever. 
 
 Sect. 4. All premiums realized from the sale of the state library bonds, issued 
 under and by virtue of chapter 13, Laws of 1891, and under this act, are hereby 
 appropriated for the uses set forth in section 1 of this act, and to be expended 
 by said commissioners agreeably to this act, and said act of 1891. 
 
 Sect. 5. The governor shall draw his orders on the state treasurer for the 
 amounts that may be or become due from time to time, under the contracts of 
 said commissioners, for the purposes aforesaid, after said bills shall have been 
 duly approved by the governor and council, to an amount not exceeding the 
 several sums appropriated by this act, and said chapter 13, Laws of 1891. 
 
 Sect. 6. This act is in addition and supplemental to chapter 13, Laws of 1891. 
 
 Approved February 14, 1893. 
 
 AN ACT in amendment of chapter 8 of the Public Statutes, and chapter 31 of 
 the Laws of 1893, relating to the state library. 
 
 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court con- 
 vened. 
 
 Section 1. Section 8 of chapter 8 of the Public Statutes is hereby amended so 
 as to read as follows : " Sect. 8. They may dispose, by sale or exchange, of all 
 or any part of the surplus state publications, which have been from time to 
 time deposited in the state library in accordance with the laws of the state, 
 and of such other books, pamphlets, charts, documents, or duplicates thereof, 
 as they deem unnecessary for the uses of the library." 
 
8o STATE LIBRARY BUILDING. 
 
 Sect. 2. Section 16 of chapter 8 of the Public Statutes is hereby amended to 
 read as follows : " Sect. 16. The governor, councillors, members, and clerks of 
 the legislature, during sessions, state officials, the judges of the supreme 
 court, and such other persons as the trustees shall designate, may take books, 
 maps, charts, and other documents from the library, subject to such rules and 
 regulations as the trustees shall prescribe." 
 
 Sect. 3. Section 18 of chapter 8 of the Public Statutes is hereby amended by 
 inserting after the word '* studies," in the last line thereof, the words •' and all 
 other printed matter of the institution." So that said section shall read as fol- 
 lows : "Sect. 18. The principal of each college, academy, seminary, or other 
 institution of learning, incorporated by the laws of this state, shall annually 
 and before the first day of November of each year, forward to the state libra- 
 rian for the state library two copies, and to the New Hampshire Historical 
 Society two copies, of each printed catalogue of its officers and students and 
 courses of study, and all other printed matter of the institution published dur- 
 ing the year ending on that date." 
 
 Sect. 4. Section 6 of chapter 31 of the Laws of 1893 is hereby amended so as 
 to read as follows : " Sect. 6. The public printer shall give the state librarian 
 seasonable notice of every state or department publication that is delivered to 
 him to be printed, and of the time that same will go to press. Upon receipt 
 of such notice the state librarian shall notify the secretary of state of the num- 
 ber of additional copies of every such publication that will be required for sale 
 or exchange for the benefit of the state library, and thereupon the secretary of 
 state shall cause such number of copies to be printed, bound, and delivered to 
 the state librarian, in addition to the number of copies otherwise required to 
 be printed by law ; provided, however, that such requisition shall be made 
 while the work may be done without extra expense on account of composition» 
 and provided that the several state departments shall not receive a less num- 
 ber of copies for the official distribution than is now authorized by law." 
 
 Sect. 5. The residue of all state or department publications remaining in the 
 hands of the secretary of state after distribution by him as required by law, 
 shall be forthwith deposited in the state library, to be disposed of as required 
 by law. 
 
 Sect. 6. Foreign corporations doing business in this state shall file with the 
 state librarian on or before the first day of January in each year, all printed 
 reports of their condition issued by them during the twelve months preceding. 
 
 Sect. 7. This act shall take effect upon its passage. 
 
 Approved February 13, 1895. 
 
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