ing space, enough, in fact, to meet the normal growth of the library for a considerable number of years.

As a library building the second Plummer Hall is in most respects far superior to its predecessor. In the first Plummer Hall the library was lodged on the second floor, reached from the entrance hall by a broad but long flight of stairs. The library was contained in a reading room, small and not particularly attractive, and in the large and elegantly proportioned hall. This hall, it is true, was stately and of considerable beauty, but it was not well adapted to library needs. Its triangularly shaped alcoves were not economical of space and were incapable of expansion. Heating the hall through the winter months was beyond the resources of the Athenæum, and facilities for lighting had never been provided, though this improvement had from time to time been considered. Consequently at the time of year when the library was, at least in later years, most used, this largest room of the Athenæum was practically uninhabitable. The new building, on the other hand, affords almost every facility for the best use of the books and the comfort and convenience of the proprietors. Great changes in architectural ideals have taken place during the past fifty years through the effort to secure greater adaptability of buildings to the purpose for which they are to be used. Mr. William G. Rantoul was the architect of the second Plummer Hall.

The new building was dedicated on the evening of October 2, 1907. The address on that occasion was delivered by George E. Woodberry, LL. D., Litt. D., of Beverly. This address was subsequently issued in pamphlet form.

The change of building was most fortunate for the Athenæum. No longer hampered by the disadvantages incident to the former building, the Athenæum now stood forth in its full individuality. To the improvement in the general condition of the society which had gradually been taking place since 1895 through the infusion of new life into its membership, was now added the stimulation derived from the occupation of a beautiful and most convenient building devoted solely to its own purpose. In entering its new building in 1907 the Athenæum entered upon a new era in its history.

Additions to the library during the last ten years have averaged three hundred and twenty books a year. Last year three hundred and ninety-two volumes were added, twenty-five of these being gifts. They were of the following classes:-books of reference, two; bound magazines, fifty-eight; religion, sociology and science, forty-one; history and biography, eighty-five; fiction, one hundred and twenty-eight; literature and art, twenty-seven; books in the French language, fourteen; new copies of old books, thirty-seven. The Athenæum subscribes to thirty-one magazines and periodicals. Last year the circulation of the library was six thousand, four hundred and fifty-four.

The library is open from nine in the morning to six in the afternoon on week days, and from half past two to six o'clock on Sundays from October first to June first and certain legal holidays. Each proprietor and subscriber is entitled to have four books and one periodical in his possession at one time. Books which have been in the library less than one year may be retained only for two weeks.

Unbound numbers of periodicals may circulate after two weeks and may be retained not longer than one week. The annual assessment levied on shares "for current expenses and the increase of the library" has for more than sixty years been five dollars a year. According to the By-laws of 1906 subscribers not to exceed fifty in number may be admitted to the privileges of the Athenæum upon the payment of a sum not less than one and one half times the annual assessment on a share. Since the adoption of these By-laws the annual fee has been seven and a half dollars. At present there are one hundred proprietors of the Athenæum and forty-eight subscribers.

In the month of March 1910 the Athenæum celebrated the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Social Library and its own centennial. A collection of rare and especially interesting books and articles was on exhibition during the entire month. On Tuesday evening, March twenty-eighth, there was a social gathering in Plummer Hall, and on the following evening literary exercises were held in Academy Hall at which Professor Barrett Wendell of Harvard University delivered the address.

At the termination of its first century,-of its first century and a half, if we reckon from its earliest source, the Athenæum finds itself in a prosperous and stable condition. Its constituency of nearly one hundred and fifty proprietors and subscribers is the largest in its history; for its habitation it has an attractive and adequate building; its productive funds amount to more than forty-six thousand dollars, and yield an annual income of nearly twenty-two hundred dollars. The library itself comprises over twen