Text-books of various grades, in astronomy, botany, chemistry, natural philosophy, arithmetic, and mathematics, geography, geology, political and moral philosophy, are used in all the higher classes of the schools.

Female education, both useful and ornamental, is very generally and liberally attended to. Among the larger institutions is the female seminary at Troy, New York, which has more than 200 pupils. In this institution, even the mathematics and classics are studied-a practice upon which opinions may differ. At the admirable female seminary in Albany, there are more than 400 pupils, and the course of study is very extensive. Music and drawing are very generally taught in private schools, as essentials in a young lady's education.

CHAPTER V.

LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS, LIBRARIES, ETC.

IT cannot be expected that a comparatively young country should at once possess a Bodleian library, a Vatican, or a Bibliotheque du Roi,-the growth of centuries; but, considering the time and the means, there has certainly been gratifying progress in the collection of useful available libraries of moderate pretensions. The college libraries, as we have seen, number about 600,000 volumes. Boston has its Athenæum, with 32,000; New York, its 'Society' with 40,000; and 'Mercantile' with 30,000; Philadelphia, a collection of 52,000;* Congress, one of 27,000; and the cities of Charleston, Providence, Salem, Portsmouth, Portland, Hartford, Albany, and others, have their Athenæums or public libraries, each numbering from 5000 to 15,000 volumes. Besides these, there is scarcely a town of any importance in the Union, but has some sort of a public library, readingroom, lyceum, or athenæum. The libraries of the legislatures of the different States are also considerable; and there are many valuable books in the collections of the various scientific and historical societies, to be mentioned presently. There are then, at least, some 800,000 or 900,000 volumes in public collections

* This collection is open to every respectable person, for reading or consultation, every day, without charge.

mostly well chosen, and placed within the reach of all classes. Are they not more adapted to be useful, as far as they go, than two or three times the amount of learned lumber piled in folios and quartos on miles of dusty shelves, and rarely disturbed in their slumbers? But learned lumber is not quite neglected, and many important additions have recently been made to the collections mentioned.

The principal scientific and literary societies may be briefly mentioned

The American Philosophical Society, at Philadelphia, founded in 1769, by Franklin, has published ten illustrated quarto volumes of Transactions.

The American Academy of Natural Sciences, at Philadelphia, has published its transactions in some ten or twelve volumes; and a society of nearly the same name, at Boston, has existed since 1780.

The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, at New Haven, founded 1799.

The Literary and Philosophical Society of New York, founded 1815.

The National Institute of Science, at Washington, founded 1840, has issued three bulletins' of its proceedings. Scientific and historical lectures have been given at its hall, by the Hon. J. Quincy Adams, and other members of Congress.

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The American Institute, at New York, holds an annual fair' of several days, and gives premiums for the encouragement and display of American industry and agriculture. At the anniversaries, lectures are given by some competent person on these subjects; and there is a library and reading-room always open. The Boston Society of Natural History, has published

twelve numbers of a quarterly 'Scientific Journal' on that subject.

The American Antiquarian Society, at Worcester, has a valuable library, and has published two volumes of its transactions and collections.

The American Oriental Society was recently formed at Boston, and has published the first number of a 'Journal.' The president is the Hon. John Pickering, the learned philologist, and author of a Greek lexicon; Professors Robinson and Stuart, the oriental scholars, are vice-presidents.

The United States Naval Lyceum, at Brooklyn, New York, is a useful institution connected with the navy. The list of local societies, etc. would be quite too long to quote. The religious and benevolent societies have already been mentioned.

Popular Lectures, historical, literary, and scientific, have been of late what may be termed fashionable, in all the larger cities. In Boston, especially, they have been carried to an ultra extent-theatres, concerts, and balls stood no chance before them; ladies preferred experimental philosophy even to Macready, and Egyptian antiquities to the mysteries of the Polka; and the principal theatre was actually shut up and sold for a church.

There are frequently three or four courses of lectures going on at the same time at the Lowell Institute,' the Temple,' or the 'Mercantile Library,' so that every evening in the week is provided with one or more of these intellectual entertainments.

Many of these lectures are by the most competent and distinguished men in the country. At the Lowell Institute, endowed by a wealthy citizen of that name,

with a fund of 250,000 dollars, there is an annual course by such men as ex-president Adams, on history; Professor Silliman, on chemistry; Professors Nuttall and Gray, of Harvard College, on botany, etc.; and to all these the public are admitted (by the founder's will) free of expense, yet they are attended by the highest classes' of society.

At the Mercantile Library of New York, with a well-chosen collection of 27,000 volumes, and a reading room filled with the periodicals of the world, there is also an annual course of twenty lectures by distinguished men, who are well paid; and yet it belongs exclusively to merchants and tradesmen's clerks, who, being 4000 in number, pay for all these privileges but two dollars (8s. sterling) per annum! Nearly the same is true of the New York and Brooklyn lyceums, and many similar institutions in smaller places; and whatever may be the abuse of such lectures, or the different degrees of estimation of their utility, there can be no doubt that, especially to clerks' in such a busy place as New York, they have afforded a vast amount of useful information and sound knowledge, which would not otherwise have been acquired; and the form in which this knowledge is thus presented -orally, and with maps or experiments, is at once more graphic, pleasing, and available, than it could be by mere reading.

One of the earliest incentives to a study of history, which the writer remembers, was a lecture at this same clerks' library in New York, by the present American minister to Great Britain, who is so justly respected as a classical scholar, a rhetorician, and a gentleman. The force of his original and happy illus