File:Boston, the place and the people (1903) (14741264136).jpg

Identifier: bostonplacepeopl00howem (find matches)
Title: Boston, the place and the people
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Howe, M. A. De Wolfe (Mark Antony De Wolfe), 1864-1960
Subjects: Boston -- History. (from old catalog)
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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ed upon. Incomplete indeedwould be the list if the Boston Public Library wereomitted from it. Though it was not till the fiftiesthat the institution from which the present library hasgrown took definite form, its real beginnings were inthe forties. As early as the seventeenth century thereare allusions to a public library in the town house.There were large private collections, especially in theeighteenth century, made by such clergymen as theMathers and Thomas Prince, and to these booksthe public had some access. As time went on variouslearned bodies built up libraries of their own. In1794 the Boston Library, a private proprietaryinstitution, came into being. Still later, as a previouschapter has shown, the Athenaeum made a largerentrance to the same field. Thus, and through manysubsidiary channels, the reading habit, characteristic ofthe place from its earliest years, was nourished. Theidea of free books for the whole public was yet tobe born. When the military awaited the arrival of
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5 Q MEN AND MONUMENTS 329 Lafayette at the city line, free punch was provided,together with more soHd refreshments. Had anyone proposed to provide free books at the expense ofthe tax-payers, wrote the second Mayor Quincyregarding this circumstance, there would have beenmuch indignation. We should have been aghast atthe impudence of such a proposal; but a few glasses ofpunch was another matter. It is a fact ot curiousinterest that the first stimulus to a public awakening onthe subject of free books came from a Parisian, and thefirst substantial contribution to the project from aLondon banker. By reason of this fact Vattemare andBates have their rightful place amongst those distin-guished local names which, written in letters of brass,help to pave the entrance hall of the present Librarybuilding. Alexandre Vattemare was an unusual person. Hehas been variously defined as a charlatan, a conjurer,and a personator. The last appears to be the truestdefinition, for his employment, under the n

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