Baker Library Gets Millionth Book

At the Bicentennial Meeting of the Dartmouth Trustees at Wyman Tavern in Keene, N. H., on October 22, The Friends of the Dartmouth Library presented the College library with its one-millionth volume.

Speaking for The Friends, Edward C. Lathem '51, College Librarian, handed President Kemeny what is generally considered to be the first book of poetry and the first literary work to come out of America:

"Mr. President, acting on behalf of The Friends of the Dartmouth Library, and at the request of the organization's chairman, Richard H. Mandel 1926, I should like to make a presentation to you and your colleagues of the Board of Trustees: a volume which is given in memory of a distinguished alumnus of the College, internationally famous as a bookman and one of the founding members of The Friends of the Library, Thomas Winthrop Streeter, Class of 1904. The book's author was Anne Bradstreet, who in 1630 emigrated from England to America—whose father was the second Governor and whose husband became, in turn, the nineteenth Governor of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. The book's title is The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up inAmerica, a collection of Anne Bradstreet's poetry recognized as representing the very beginnings of American literature—the earliest volume of this country's native belleslettres. It is a product, even as is Dartmouth itself, of Colonial America—a book of substantial historical importance which, like the College, came into being through ties of association with the mother country, where it was published, at London, in the year 1650."

Only eight copies of The Tenth Muse are known to be in existence, two in England and six in this country.

The acquisition of the rare volume, Mr. Lathem noted in his statement of presentation, is particularly fitting since "it is a product, even as is Dartmouth itself, of colonial America—a book of substantial historical importance which, like the College, came into being through ties of association with the mother country."