erty
to borrow such as he wish'd to read at home. This was accordingly
done, and for some time contented us.

Finding the advantage of this little collection, I propos'd to render
the benefit from books more common, by commencing a public
subscription library. I drew a sketch of the plan and rules that would
be necessary, and got a skilful conveyancer, Mr. Charles Brockden, to
put the whole in form of articles of agreement to be subscribed, by
which each subscriber engag'd to pay a certain sum down for the first
purchase of books, and an annual contribution for increasing them. So
few were the readers at that time in Philadelphia, and the majority of
us so poor, that I was not able, with great industry, to find more
than fifty persons, mostly young tradesmen, willing to pay down for
this purpose forty shillings each, and ten shillings per annum. On
this little fund we began. The books were imported; the library was
opened one day in the week for lending to the subscribers, on their
promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned. The
institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns,
and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations;
reading became fashionable; and our people, having no publick
amusements to divert their attention from study, became better
acquainted with books, and in a few years were observ'd by strangers
to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same
rank generally are in other countries.

When we were about to sign the above mentioned articles, which were
to be binding on us, our heirs, etc., for fifty years, Mr. Brockden,
the scrivener, said to us, "You are young men, but it is scarcely
probable that any of you will live to see the expiration of the term
fix'd in the instrument." A number of us, however, are yet living; but
the instrument was after a few years rendered null by a charter that
incorporated and gave perpetuity to the company.

The objections and reluctances I met with in soliciting the
subscriptions, made me soon feel the impropriety of presenting one's
self as the proposer of any useful project, that might be suppos'd to
raise one's reputation in the smallest degree above that of one's
neighbours, when one has need of their assistance to accomplish that
project. I therefore put myself as much as I could out of sight, and
stated it as a scheme of a _number of friends_, who had requested me
to go about and propo