The first chapter of the _United States Report on Public Libraries_ is devoted to Public Libraries a hundred years ago. Mr. H.E. Scudder there describes some American libraries which were founded in the last century. One of these was the Loganian Library of Philadelphia. Here is an extract from the will of James Logan, the founder--
"In my library, which I have left to the city of Philadelphia for the advancement and facilitating of classical learning, are above one hundred volumes of authors, in folio, all in Greek, with mostly their versions. All the Roman classics without exception. All the Greek mathematicians, viz. Archimedes, Euclid, Ptolemy, both his Geography and Almagest, which I had in Greek (with Theon's Commentary, in folio, above 700 pages) from my learned friend Fabricius, who published fourteen volumes of his _Bibliothèque Grecque_, in quarto, in which, after he had finished his account of Ptolemy, on my inquiring of him at Hamburgh, how I should find it, having long sought for it in vain in England, he sent it to me out of his own library, telling me it was so scarce that neither prayers nor price could purchase it; besides, there are many of the most valuable Latin authors, and a great number of modern mathematicians, with all the three editions of Newton, Dr. Watts, Halley, etc." The inscription on the house of the Philadelphia Library is well worthy of repetition here. It was prepared by Franklin, with the exception of the reference to himself, which was inserted by the Committee.
Be it remembered, in honor of the Philadelphia youth (then chiefly artificers), that in MDCCXXXI they cheerfully, at the instance of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, one of their number, instituted the Philadelphia Library, which, though small at first, is become highly valuable and extensively useful, and which the walls of this edifice are now destined to contain and preserve: the first stone of whose foundation was here placed the thirty-first day of August, 1789.
Mr. F.B. Perkins, of the Boston Public Library, contributed to the _Report on Public Libraries in the United States_ a useful chapter on "How to make Town Libraries successful" (pp. 419-430). The two chief points upon which he lays particular stress, and which may be said to form the texts for his practical remarks, are: (1) that a Public Library for popular use must be managed not only as a literary institution, but also as a business concern; and (2) that it is a mistake to choose books of too thoughtful or solid a character. He says, "It is vain to go on the principle of collecting books that people ought to read, and afterwards trying to coax them to read them. The only practical method is to begin by supplying books that people already want to read, and afterwards to do whatever shall be found possible to elevate their reading tastes and habits."