Mr. EDMUNDS. If we refuse to admit the introduction of knowledge into this country on the ground that possibly the tariff law on books in general may be defrauded we shall be as suming, as it seems to me, a singular attitude for legislators. Every law that we pass on every subject is capable of evasion; and I know of no law which has been less evaded than the very one which we are now discussing. My friendfrom Oregon thinks it a hardship to the rest of mankind to allow the free intro duction of foreign books, the production of foreign writers, the product of foreign intellect, because the private citizen, as he says, has to buy his own book. The theory upon which this exemption goes is, as I understand it, that the introduction of books of this description for the use of a public library, whether it is a school or a college or in some society which is organized solely for a library society, uts it within the reach of the poor man, who. not, like my Oregon friend, plenty of money to buy knowledge with, or who was not born with it, as he was, the means of improving his intellectual condition; and it is a well known fact all over the country that there is no means so essential to the diffusion of knowledge among men, there is no means which has been so successful in diffusing intelligence among men, as the use of these very libraries. I do not care by what name you call them, whether you call them school libraries or college libraries or libraries merely. They are bringing information to the doors of the poor, who then get it freely. They do not have to be members of library societies to be entitled to read these books. If it is a school library every child in the town, city, or district is entitled to consult those books, and to drink from the fountains of knowledge that they contain. That is the theory. Now, I am not so much of a protectionist, although I was born in Vermont, as to believe in any prohibitory or any high tariff on knowl edge. o am a free trader on the subject of knowledge; and I believe the more foreign books that we bring into the country that are fit to be used the better. The best foreign books, the productions of the best foreign intellects, do not come in competition with home intellect in the sense that we protect the productions of men's hands, because it remains to be demonstrated that the home intellect will produce the same sort of material that the foreign intellect does.