The early inhabitants of Vermont, though, for the most part, they were rough backwoodsmen, were imbued with a strong desire for useful and instructive reading, and this led to the formation of circulating libraries in several towns, almost as soon as the settlers had fairly established themselves in their new homes. This was notably the case in Montpelier, where a library was begun in 1794, only seven years after the first pioneer's axe broke the shade and solitude of the wilderness. Its two hundred volumes were well chosen, being histories, biographies, and books of travel and adventure, while all works of fiction and of a religious nature were excluded, the one class being deemed of an immoral tendency, the other apt to breed dissension in the sparse and interdependent community.[103] In many other towns similar libraries were formed; though perhaps not with like restrictions, yet, as far as one may judge now by the scattered volumes, they were of excellent character. A rough corner cupboard in the log-house kitchen, or a closet of the "square room," held the treasured volumes of gray paper in unadorned but substantial leather binding. What a treasure they were to those isolated settlers, to whom rarely came even a newspaper, can scarcely be imagined by us who are overwhelmed with the outflow of the modern press. It is a pathetic picture to look back upon, of the household reading of the one volume by the glare of the open fire, spendthrift of warmth and light, eldest and youngest member of the family listening eagerly to the slow, high-keyed words of the reader, while between the pauses was heard the long howl of the wolf, or the pitiless roar of the winter wind. Yet it is questionable if they were not richer with their enforced choice of a few good books than we with our embarrassment of riches and its bewildering encumberment of dross. In 1796 an act was passed incorporating the Bradford Social Library Society,[104] the first corporate body of the kind of which there is any record. Similar associations in Fairhaven and Rockingham were incorporated soon after. In recent years several large public libraries have been instituted, such as the libraries of St. Johnsbury, St. Albans, Rutland, and Brattleboro, the Norman Williams Library at Woodstock, the Fletcher Free Library at Burlington, and others, founded by wealthy and public-spirited Vermonters. The library of the Vermont University comprises forty thousand volumes, including the valuable gift of George P. Marsh. This now occupies one of the finest edifices of the kind in New England, the Billings Library Building. Such a wealth of literature as is now accessible to their descendants could hardly have been dreamed of by the old pioneers, even while they laid its foundation.