GEORGE TICKNOR AND THE COLLEGE LIBRARY

On Dartmouth Night it is perhaps appropriate to speak of the Dartmouth College Library and of a Dartmouth graduate interested in libraries. Such was one of Dartmouth's greatest scholars — George Ticknor of the class of 1807. Harvard men are often inclined to claim Ticknor for Harvard, since much of his later work in life was done there. As professor at Harvard, occupying the chair to which Longfellow and Lowell succeeded, he practically created the department of Modern Languages, and lent his strong influence toward the introduction of the beginnings of the elective system. But I think we may justly claim him for Dartmouth.

Ticknor's grandfather had a farm below here near Lebanon, famous in those days for an excellent flock of imported merino sheep. His father, Elisha licknor, graduated from Dartmouth in the class of 1783, was for two years the principal of Moor's Indian Charity School, and was a life-long friend of President John Wheelock. Elisha later moved to Boston and opened a school, but he sent his son back to the college among the hills. It was from his father that George had the best part of his early education. When Doctor Wheelock, on a visit to Boston, examined him in Cicero's Orations and the Greek Testament, he at once gave him a certificate of admission. George was ten years old then, and it was out of the question to begin his college course at that age; but at fourteen he came up to Hanover, and was entered in the junior class. He had two happy, easy years of college life. Aside from his regular work, which he found very easy, he enjoyed especially reading Horace and making a calculation of the great eclipse of 1806, which, he says, turned out nearly right.

After graduation, while studying further with his father in Boston, he was told one afternoon of the splendid library of the University of Goettingen. He decided at once that Goettingen was the place where he wanted to continue his study, but he thought he ought to learn a little German first. Strange as it may seem, the only person he could find to teach him German was an old Alsatian soldier living out at Jamaica Plain ; and for a German dictionary he had to send'back to New Hampshire. Finally in 1815, being then twenty-three years old, he set sail for Europe. He was one of the first American students to study in Germany. He led the way for Bancroft and Motley and that whole goodly stream of active young men who have gone from American colleges to seek further training and inspiration in foreign universities.

"There is no time to speak tonight of George Ticknor as a scholar, of the years of careful investigation by which he wrote his masterly History of Spanish Literature, nor of the pew intellectual life which he infused into teaching at Harvard. But as a public-spirited citizen of Boston, he did a thing of which Dartmouth men may be ever proud. In Europe he had been greatly impressed with the value of the great public libraries in which he had worked. After his return he had constantly in mind the creation of a public library in Boston; he talked of it frequently with men like Abbott Lawrence, Doctor Channing, and Edward Everett. In a long letter to Edward Everett from Bellows Falls in 1851, he outlined his ideas concretely and really laid down the lines on which the Boston Public Library was to be founded and to grow. He believed that in a democratic government like ours the success and safety of the republic depends on the good general education of the people; the public schools do much toward this, but a public library, free to all. would do a great deal more. It would come as a crowning glory to the public school system. The library should have plenty of popular books, the best recent literature, and many copies of the books most in demand, so that many persons might be reading the same book a" once. This was an innovation upon all existing libraries. He predicted that the appetite for reading, once created, would take care of itself; that people would demand better and better books, especially if aided with a little wise advice and direction from the library management. The history of the Boston Public Library for more than half a century has amply justified his prediction. There should also be a large reference room with dictionaries, encyclopaedias and standard works of literature and reference; these should not be loaned out, but should always be on hand for consultation, especially in the evening, which is the only time many persons are at liberty from their daily work. Ticknor closed his letter with the hope that some publicspirited citizen would see the value of such a library and make the needed donation of money. His hope was not in vain. One Joshua Bates, a banker in London who had been born in Boston, and who had heard of the plans of Ticknor and Everett, offered to give $50,000 for books on condition that the city of Boston would provide a suitable building. This assured success. The library was opened in 1854 in two small rooms on Mason St. In order to spend wisely Bates' gift, Ticknor applied to distinguished men in different branches of knowledge for lists of the most important and valuable books in their subjects. Among others he applied to another Dartmouth man of true scholarly tastes, General Sylvanus Thayer. Thayer was in Ticknor's own class of 1807, and both lived to keep up that intimate college friendship for more than sixty years after graduation. Armed with these lists of valuable books and Mr. Bates' credit, Ticknor again visited Europe, personally visited bookshops everywhere, established agents, and paved the way for the future growth of the great library. So today when you Dartmouth men take the electric car from Boston to Cambridge and hear the conductor calling out alphabetically: Arlington, Berkeley, Clarendon, Dartmouth! you may well look up at the solid, simple, stone building with the great names outside and the great books inside, and remember with pride that the Boston Public Library was founded by a Dartmouth man. It is an appropriate coincidence that it happens now to stand on Dartmouth street.

Our own College Library in Wilson Hall has had a longer life but a far less rapid growth than the library founded by Ticknor. In fact, when Professor Bisbee last spring made a one by one actual count of every volume in the library, there were found to be almost precisely 100,000 bound volumes. This, however, did not include pamphlets, maps, or manuscripts, of which the library has a considerable number. Nor did it include a large number of useless duplicates put away in the attic. But 100,000 represents the number of active, useful, bound volumes. This collection has been of slow growth. In the days when George Ticknor and Sylvanus Thayer were in College it consisted chiefly of a few books on theology and philosophy given by English and Scotch clergymen who took an absent interest in the education of Eleazar's Indians. What there was of the library had been kept in the house of George Ticknor's uncle, Professor Woodward, until Dartmouth Hall was built. Then the books were moved to one of the upstairs rooms in the new hall, and numbered about 2000 volumes, "not selected for their appropriateness for a college library", in the judgment of a student in 1800. But there were soon other libraries in Hanover. There was the library of an ambitious institution known as the Northern Academy, which kept on file several daily and weekly newspapers which are now of great value. They were later turned over to the College Library, and are now being bound. Then there was the library of the Social Friends. This was a literary society started by the students in 1783; i. e. in Elisha Ticknor's senior year: I have no doubt that he was active in its founding. Three years later some of the members were disgruntled, seceded, and formed a rival literary society, the United Fraternity. For three quarters of a century these two rival fraternities strove with each other to secure' the best members in each class, and to buy the best and the largest number of books. Through this laudable rivalry it came about that each of these student societies had a much better library than that of the College. In 1874, for the sake of convenience and economy, the libraries were consolidated with that of the College. When Wilson Hall was finished, in June, 1885, says the Dartmouth of that year, "the students for three days moved the books into the new library, carrying about 20,000 volumes a day." This would seem to mean 60,000 volumes in all, but a considerable number of these were useless dupli- cates. There were not more than 50.000 books of any value moved into Wilson Hall in 1885. Since then the number has doubled; but this does not mean that the value of the library has exactly doubled. It has, in fact, much more than doubled, partly because books of "recent date are usually more valuable to a working library than old ones; and partly because the value of a library increases not in an arithmetical but rather in a geometrical ratio to the number of volumes. You can buy a small, ready-made, Carnegie library of 7.000 volumes completely arranged and even provided with a printed A.L. A. catalogue, for quite a moderate sum; but you could not make an equally good library of 70,000 volumes for anything like ten times that sum. At present the library grows at the normal rate of over 4000 volumes a year, of which, on an average, 1500, i.e. 35 per cent, are donated. The rest have to be bought. For the purchase of books the library has, aside from two or three very small special funds, a regular annual income of $5000. Of this sum $2500 is assigned to the departments of the faculty to be spent at their discretion; $1000 is swallowed up in binding; nearly $500 roore goes for general periodicals, mostly in English, which fall under no special department. This leaves about $100 to be spent by the Library Committee for novels, recent popular books, or general reference works. But even some of this money at the disposal of the committee is somewhat tied up with special conditions. For instance, there is one fund which by the terms of its gift can be spent only for books on "moral subjects morally treated." The committee often has an amusing time when a book comes up for purchase from this fund. Professor Skinner will perhaps think that the subject is moral enough but not morally treated ; Professor Reeves that the subject is scarcely moral but the treatment moral enough; Professor Bisbee may be inclined to : think that the"subject is neither moral nor morally treated; but the genial chairman, Professor Richardson, will conclude the discussion by saving that it is a good book in English Literature, and that he will buy it out of the funds assigned to the English Department.

A couple of years ago the Library Committee urgently pointed out that the library lacked many expensive but very essential large sets of works, especially sets of learned periodicals. In reply the trustees granted a special extra appropriation of $5000 for buying such works. The Library Committee was about as glad to get this as Ticknor was to get his $50,000 from Joshua Bates. It has greatly strengthened the library from the scholar's point of view, and made possible better teaching in the College. But there are still manygaps in the library equipment which ought to be filled as soon as possible.

Address of Professor Sidney B. Fay, Dartmouth Night, November 21