4^^
 

SOUVENIR,
 

AGUILAR   FREE  LIBRARY SOCIETY.
 

The Aguilar Free Library Society was called
into being in October, 1886. A number of
gentlemen connected with communal work in
 

7,000 volumes, and the Hebrew Free School
Association had a library of upwards of 3,000
volumes, the books of both libraries being in
the main of the kind and character particularly
suited   for  a  free   circulating   library.    The
 

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Aguilar Free Library Society—Reading Room.
 

the down-town East Side section of the city,
realizing the great influence that a free
public circulating library, with carefully
selected books, would have upon the lives of
thousands living in crowded and unwholesome
tenements, determined to establish a library in
the heart of this district.

The Legislature of this State in 1886 passed
a law investing the Board of Estimate and
Appiortionment of this city with the power
to appropriate to any society having a free
circulating library, certain sums of money an¬
nually towards the support and maintenance
of such library, provided the society owned in
its own right real estate of the value of $20,000,
possessed at least 10,000 books and circulated
at least 75,000 volumes annually.

At this time, the Young Men's Hebrew
Association  owned  a  librar}^  of upwards  of
 

directors of the institutions just mentioned
were alive to the importance of the good work
that a free circulating library would accom¬
plish, and realizing that the scope of the
respective libraries owned by them would be
largely extended, they agreed to donate their
libraries to the newly projected society, pro¬
vided the necessary $20,000 were raised for
the acquirement of real estate, in accordance
with the act of the Legislature.

A public-spirited gentleman, who has largely
identified himself with Jewish institutions and
with public interests generally, and to whom
the idea of establishing the Library was ex¬
plained, promptly favored the proposed plan
and practically demonstrated his earnestness
in its behalf by subscribing the liberal sum of
ten thousand dollars towards the necessary
fund.    The committee worked   diligently to-
 

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