Page 42 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

40 WISCONSIN II~STORICAL COLLECTIONS.
lar ' and Literary Gazette,' who has scattered periodicals,
letters, circulars, and catalogues, containing historical informa,
tion and exhortation, broadcast over the land.
'LFormerly his purch:~ses included whatever was rare and valu-
able in literature, but of late, his specialty, and that in which he
is rendering a great and essential service, not only to private
taste, but to national welfare, is his collection of Americm
history and biography; a service, which if it be made exhaustive
of this department of literature, will merit and, nc doubt,
receive a better testimonial than a mere newspaper paragraph.
We suppose that all these works have been at the disposal of
HILDRETII and BANCROFT, and our otiher national historians;
but it is requisite that the original authorities should in some
way be made accessible to the people; so that when the standard
authors are dead, there may be many qualified by original inves-
tigation to take up the contest of all the queries and doubts in
regard to our origin which intervening and increasing time will
naturally beget. Mr. NORTON has forccast this necessity, and
is providingfor it. Within eight years, more than 100,000 vol-
umes relating to the history of this continent have passed
through his hands, and some idea of the extent of such an en-
terprise may be gathered from the fact that the whole of this
vast mass has been purchased, for the most part, in single
volumes from individuals, or in small lots from dispersed libra-
ries. The utter inadcquscy of the collections, as yet effected,
to meet the wants even of the present, much more of the next
generation of scholars, must be very apparent. It is a great
thing, however, to havc gotten a competent mediuill for collec-
tion, such as we have in Mr. YORTOX.
Hints to States a7zd Public Institutio?ts.
"And now me desire, in the most earnest manner, to cell tho
attention of our state governments, aud colleges, to the neces-
sity of their either undertaking tlle work of these historical
collections themselves, or affording such countenance and encour-
agcment to individual enterprise as shall effect.ually secure tho
performance of it. Considerations of economy alone should bo