Number of volumes in library 1703. Number of volumes taken out for the year ending March 1, 1891, 2575. Largest number of books issued any one evening, 81. Least number 30. Average, 50. The books may be classified as follows: History, 287 volumes; Travels and adventures, 181; Biography, 182; Fiction, 582; Poetry, 61; Natural History 41; Science, 27; Agriculture, 28; Moral and religious, 49; Miscellaneous.

While there has been a decrease in the number of volumes circulated, it is gratifying to notice an increasing interest in works of history and travels. This result is partly due to the course adopted by your committee in purchasing works of fiction, based on or illustrating some fact or incident in history, and the reader thus becoming interested and wishing to know more of the subject, has procured and read historical works he otherwise would not have become interested in.

It also has been the earnest endeavor of your committee to exclude every book not of a strictly moral tone, or that would be apt to leave a harmful impression on the mind of a youthful reader.

And while we regard with pride our fine schools, and the opportunities they offer to the young for obtaining an education, every citizen should be just as interested in having a good library in our midst, for it is second only to the common schools as a means for creating a greater degree of intelligence in a community, and in a certain measure is more far-reaching than even the public school.