Mr. SUMNER. I believe I am not wrong when I say there is everywhere a disposition to reduce taxation, whetherit may be on foreign or on domestic articles. It is the desire of the country and it is the irresistible tendency of things; and at this moment, when the country is filled with that desire, will they not be astonished if they find that instead of reducing a tax on knowledge you augment it? I insist that in o;this duty you not only change the existing law, but you depart from the standing policy of republican institutions. Everywhere we have education at the public expense. The 1st form of this is in the public school, which is open to all. But the public library is the complement or supplement of the public school. As well impose a tax on the public school as on the public library. I doubt if the Senate is fully aware of the number of public libraries springing into existence. This is a characteristic of our times. Nor is it peculiar to our country. Down to a recent dayE. libraries were chiefly colle giate. In Europe they were collegiate or conventional. There were no libraries of the peole. But such libraries are now appearing in ngland in France. considerable place or center has its library for the benefit of the neighborhood. But this movement, like every liberal tendency, is more marked in the U.S. Here public libraries are coming into being without number. The public library of Boston and the Astor library of NewYork are magnificent examples, which smaller towns are imitating. In my own State there are public libraries; in Salem, Newburyport, NewBedford, Worcester, Springfield, indeed I might almost say in every town. But Massachusetts is not alone. Public libraries are springing up in all the northern States. They are now extending like a belt of light across the country. They are like a new zodiac, in which knowledge travels with the sun from east to west. Of course these are all for the public benefit. They are public schools, where every book is a schoolmaster. To tax such institutions now for the 1st time is a new form of that old enemy a “tax on knowledge.” such is my sense of their supreme value that I should be disposed to offer them bounties rather than taxes. In continuation of this same hospitality to knowledge I wish to go still further and relieve imported books of all taxes so far as may be not inconsistent with interests already embarked in the book business. For instance, let all books, maps, charts, and engravings printed before 1840 take their place on the ree list. Publications before that time cannot come in competition with any interests here. The revenue which they afford will be unimport ant. The tax you impose adds to the burdens of scholars and professional men who need them. And yet every one of these books, when once imported, is a positive advantage to the country, by which knowledge is extended and the public taste is improved. I do not wish to claim too much for these instructive strangers belonging to another generation. I think that I do not err if I ask for them a generous wel come. But above all do not tax them. It is sometimes said that we tax food and clothes, therefore we must tax books. I regret that food or clothes are taxed; because the tax presses upon the poor. But this is no reason for any additional tax. Reduce all such taxes rather than add to them. But you will not fail to remember the essential difference between these taxes. In NewEngland education from the beginning was at the public expense, and this has been for some time substantially the policy of the whole country, except so far as it was darkened by slavery. Therefore I insist that because we tax food and clothes for the body this is no reason wh we should tax food and clothes for the mind.