“The same is true of the insanity caused among herders’ and farmers’ wives by their dreary, isolated lives on the treeless plains. We commonly think of people living close to nature and absorbed in simple daily tasks as being exceptionally healthy and placid. But a visit to our hospitals for the insane will tell a different story. The lonely woman, with no outlook but the prairie’s level floor, to whom a new book, a new picture, a new idea never comes, is, as statistics show, as much in danger of losing her mind as the man on Wall Street whose life is a fever of excitement. “Now, to these tired, lonely women, to the young girls who as soon as they are well into their teens begin to think of marrying and abandoning all study, to the young men so eager to make money that self-culture is counted an unnecessary luxury, to the boys who spend their evenings listening to the vulgar talk of the teamsters at the corner grocery, to the ministers and teachers who find that their scant salaries permit of none of the new books and papers which are essential to their mental life,—to all these people I should like to give the blessing of books. “The offer of a ‘St. Nicholas’ or ‘Youth’s Companion,’ from a pleasant librarian, will be quite as effectual to keep a boy off the street of an evening as an invitation from a home missionary to go to a prayer-meeting. And to the man who may never enter the building, the sight, as he passes to his work every day, of a beautiful little temple devoted to the things of thought, will serve all unconsciously to make life seem a little cleaner and sweeter and more dignified than it would be without it. “Now as to the details of this. In the first place, I propose to help only those who are willing to help themselves. That is my principle of work in most matters. “This is not a new scheme of mine. I have thought of it for years, but it was until recently only a dream of which there was no prospect of realization. Now, however, I have taken steps, which, whether I live or die, will scatter all over the states and territories west of the Mississippi and south of the Ohio little centres of learning, which will reach far more people, and, I must again repeat, do far more good than any other way possible. “I have appointed two gentlemen, and they are to select three other trustees, two of whom are to be ladies, who will act with them conjointly in the management of the fund. I shall leave them largely to choose their own methods of work, but I have made some stipulations in regard to the disposal of the amount. “No sum whatever is to be given unconditionally. Except for special reasons, no amount shall ever be given for the establishment of a library or reading-room which shall be less than fifty or more than ten thousand dollars, and the amount given must in every case be DUPLICATED BY THE RECIPIENTS.