Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-02-21
TUESDAY, FEBRUA~Y e., 1888
" has we Have Done.

disposition amongst certain class OF
newcomers to make light of the men
who pioneered and built up this
State. The tone of some OF the letters
sent East, and which find their way
into the papers, ID that of hostility
and prejudice to the early Cali
fornians. One writer has the bad
taste to say that the new element
coming to the Pacific Coast will teach
the old timers what civilization means,
by bringing to them higher culture
and a more perfect state # society,
religi us and civil. There is no need
of answering this kind of narrow pre-
judi ce seriou, ly. he men who found
thisState wilderness brought it in less
than two score years. to position in
the scale of commonwealths of which
they need not be ashamed. The in
complete report of the Commissioner
of Education will best answer one
potion Of the exceptions taken to the
work OF the old-timers whom it is
the fashion in certain quarters 10
deiide. California, according to tn 8
report, is only the twenty second
State in the Union in population |;
but she is the fourth in the number
of public libraries with over $4,000
volumes each, the fifth in the number
of over 10000 volumes each, and the
sixth in the total number of volumes.
She has five times as many volumes
rs Kansas, which claims population
. fourt b larger, and thirteen times as
many as Texas, whose population is
more than twice as great. Cali
fornia has more volumes in public Ii
braries than Texas, Kansas, Nebraska,
Arizona, Colorado, Dakota, Idaho,
the Indian Territory, Montana, New
Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington,
Wyoming. Iowa, Arkansas and Ne
vada combined. These eight States
and nine Territories contain more
than 10, 1000, 900 inhabitants, and cover
more than hall the area of the Union.
California has only 100000 people,
but they read more than the other
100000. This disproportion is
not confined to the far West. Cali
fornia has more volumes in proper
tion to her population than any other
State in the Union outside of New
England. She has fifteen times as
many as Alabama, three times as
man y as Illinois and so per cent.
more than New York. Illinois, with
the great metropolis of Chicago to
help her, had in 1856 only one lib
rary of over fifty thousand volumes,
against four in California. California
now has FIVE, and will soon have at
least seven. Pennsylvania, with five
million inhabitants and two cities
containing as many inhabitants as
the whole OF California, had only five.
The San Francisco Examiner, COM
menting upon these interesting COM
PARSONS, says that what has already
been accomplished is only prelim-
mary sketch of what is to be. Our
libraries, art galleries and universi-
have just been making their start in
community with no leisure class and
no hereditary fortunes. The Sutro
Library sprang into existence with
100, 600 volumes, the State University
ends its twentieth year with an en-
dowment equal to that which Yale
has been accumulating through two
centuries, and Oxford, the beneficiary
Of kings from the time Of the crusades,
is no richer than the Stanford Uni
versity in its infancy. The people
who founded State that can boast of
all the elements Of enlightened
advancement already developed in
California, are not sadly in need of
instruction in their duties towards the
"higher" or any other kind Of culture.