Letter from Joseph Caldwell to the Board of Trustees, February 19, 1824
Chapel Hill
Feby. 19, 1824
Dear Sir,
At a meeting of the Board of Trustees in December, an order was
passed, as you may perhaps recollect, that an account be exhibited by the
Faculty of the University, of the purchases made by them of
books for the publick library, with the funds raised by the semiannual payments
of the students, agreeably to an ordinance passed probably at the end of the
year 1813. Of this order, the Treasurer Mr. Manley transmitted to me a copy, before he left
Raleigh for Washington. As I am
informed he will probably not return till after the lapse of a month or two, and
the order may make the account returnable to the Committee, I have concluded to
send it to yourself as a member of the Board, and of the Committee, that it
may be ready to be submitted at such time as the director may possibly give
reason to expect it. Since the notice given by Mr. Manley, I have had the library examined,
and have found that the books are all present, agreeably to the account herewith
transmitted. The Records in the hands of the Treasurer, will show the number of
students for every session, since the year 1814, and consequently the amount may
be accurately ascertained, which ought to have been received by the Faculty, at
the rate of one dollar from each student, at the beginning of every session.
These accounts therefore, as now presented by the Faculty, are completely
subject to control on the part of the Board; and we would invite the
attention of a Committee, or of the Board itself to the state of the Library, at such
time as may be convenient or eligible. I would suggest that a visit to the
Library may be directed and made for inspecting its condition, and its
correspondence with the accounts herewith rendered, during the annual
examination in June. It had not occurred to the Faculty, though there is no
proper reason why it shouldnot have been done, to
exhibit to the Board, our proceedings in the application of these funds. I shall be
particular to do so at all times hereafter, for the reasonable satisfaction of
the Board, at its annual sessions. It was a valuable privilege granted to
the Faculty, and an important provision for the College, when the ordinance was
passed appropriating the library money for the purchase of books. Without some
such fund, I know not how we should have been able to get along as a body of
Teachers. It has enabled us to procure some books from year to year, without
which we must have continued most grossly ignorant. We must have become
completely stationary, within limits, which if known to others would have been
disgraceful. It is perhaps hardly considered with sufficient advertency, that a
professor in a college who is without books in tolerable supply, is analogous to
the creation of nobility which for want of estate is obliged to live in
rags.[*](note1) What should one think
of a lawyer or a judge who was told to go into the practice or the decisions of
the courts, and to prosecute his profession with eminence and extensive success,
while he was destitute of library, and unable to determine what were the laws or
the decisions of authorities? What is to be understood by a standing
professorship in a college, if it be not, that he who occupies it, is to employ
his whole time and his utmost diligence in the extension of his knowledge by the
examination and study of the multitude of authors who have written on the
subjects upon which it is his business to teach and deliver lectures. It has
been well said, upon a late occasion in regard to impost upon books imported
into our country, enforced by a law of Congress, that library constitutes a main part of
the stock in hand to a man engaged in literature.
It is almost proverbial to say of men whose business is literature, that they
are a class who are apt to be found getting along with difficulty, ever cramped
by therestrictions of necessity. What should we
think of laying impost upon a shoemaker's awls and lasts, or a carpenter's
planes and chisels, if there were no possibility of obtaining these instruments
but by sending to Europe?
And how could a printer commence and go on to execute in the handsomest style,
and with the most extensive methods of his business in one of our cities, if he
were turned into a building, and told to go to work with one or two fonts of
types, and those perhaps half worn? Obliged to make out his ink as well as he
could, and to patch up his presses by his own ingenuity? It was easy to enlarge
in these illustrations of the circumstances in which the Faculty here have been
compelled to proceed in their business with few books and no apparatus. We have
however, been greatly relieved by the resource furnished in the library money,
with which we have had it in our own power to furnish some supplies of that
species of food on which as instructors, we are called upon to subsist and grow.
We used at first, and for some time to take opportunities of ordering purchases
from Booksellers in the Northern States, as our funds were able to pay for them. We
afterwards instituted a correspondence in New York, so as to have our books imported annually, if
they could not be had in this country. We had found it often difficult, and for
the most part impossible to get such books as we wanted, in the American market;
and a number of those books which appear in the later lists, had been often
ordered before, but could not be obtained for want of a correspondence providing
for importation. Our books cost us high prices however, when obtained in this
manner, and in the detail in which they are procured. We need very much an
interest to be created in the minds and feelings of some gentlemen, in whom we
could confide for consulting our wishes, and the efficacy of our funds, in London, and Paris, and Hamburg, and perhaps
some other places. We are in hopes of having our business arranged before very
long, upon some better plan than any which we have been able to effect
heretofore.
We are informed recently by an intelligent gentleman in Massachusetts, who has had much
opportunity of experience and information upon this subject, that if a special
agency can be employed to go from this country for laying out $6000
in books, one or two thousand in such a sum may be saved by it. I had before
been thinking of offering or suggesting to the Board for its consideration the
expediency of going myself upon this business. The business of a voyage to the
eastern side of the Atlantick, is at present reduced in such a manner, as to imply very
little more than what it was not long since, to travel to Boston. On this subject, I had some
conversation with Judge
Cameron, as you have probably learned from him. This agency evidently
implies a personal inspection, and sufficient trial of all the instruments and
machines which enter into the composition of the philosophical apparatus to be
procured. This indeed is a matter of so much importance, that we need not be
surprised, if our apparatus, chosen and purchased in an ordinary way, should
upon its arrival at Chapel Hill, be found of very little
worth. It is quite evident that a special agency on whose intelligence and
fidelity upon this particular subject, we can absolutely rely, is indispensably
necessary, before we proceed to the purchase of apparatus. An Astronomical
clock, a Transit instrument, an Astronomical Telescope are articles of high
cost, and if they be not really good, they are so much money thrown away, only
to tantalize us with standing objects chagrin and disappointment. The same may
be said indeed, of every part of philosophical apparatus, as to the purpose they
are to answer. If the purchaser does not subject them to an intelligent, and
scrutinizing and in some cases a patient examination it will in every instance
be perfectly accident, whether they shall not be found articles worked off by
the seller, by arts which he well knows how to practice in his own trade. The
reason of this is, that these are instruments of great delicacy in the
construction, and they are very liable when finished, to prove subjectto defects and imperfections. They must not be lost
however to the maker; they are mingled in the mass of his instruments of the
same kind, and talked off upon the terms of the best. With respect to Books, we
have catalogues to show that the prices of a large portion of such as we want
are double in London
of what they will cost us upon the Continent. Every proper inducement also ought to be
presented to the sellers for effecting purchases upon the most advantageous
terms to us. It is not to be understood that I have thought of such a thing as
deducting the expense of traveling and agency, in my own case from the
$6000 to be disbursed by order of the Board. My idea has been to answer
the bill for all my personal movements in the business from my own resources. I
should have in view very much, such opportunity of personal improvement and
accession of strength, in regard to the affairs of the University, as
might issue both in advantages to myself and to the institution. By taking pains
to contract personal acquaintance in the places visited for the transaction of
business, any future expenditures for the University, in books and
apparatus, might be conducted without the necessity of an expensive or unsafe
agency.
And now with respect to this matter of going myself, I hope you will view it as
suggested only for consideration, and not as entertained by me with any feelings
or opinions which will not hold themselves entirely and at all times, at the
discretion of my friends, and of the members of the Board. I believe I can
say, that whatever they shall judge to be best and most advisable, I shall be
prepared to admit in a moment, and to settle upon it with the utmost complacency
and conclusiveness.
The Trustees it seems provided for the printing of the plan of education, as
it has been recently modified and adopted. This would be a business probably for
Mr. Manley to
transact with a printer. It is of some consequence, that it should be done if
possible without delay, that the teachers of Academies may be aware of the
particulars in which the old plan has been modified. I do not know whether the
determinationof the Board will authorize the
printing of it, on a separate sheet. This is the manner in which it is but to
have it done, that it may be sent specially to Instructors and to all other
persons who may need it, to be kept by them for their continual guidance in the
preparation of students for the classes. If it was contemplated to insert it in
the newspapers only, perhaps it would not cost much more to have it separately
printed. I send you an example of the manner in which the former plan of studies
was printed. I suppose 200 or 250 would be a sufficient number. Mr. Gates is, I
have thought, apt to charge highly, and needs to be induced to work upon
reasonable terms, judging from other printers. A refuge may be had in Heartt of
Hillsborough, or in Bell and Lawrence, provided the proof sheet be
submitted to a careful examination, before they proceed to strike off. Possibly
D. McPheeters would
lend us his assistance in this business of the printing. The copy of the present
course is among Mr.
Manley's papers, and may probably be had by writing to him, to know
where it may be found. A note should be subjoined like that upon the back of the
printed list which accompanies this. If this be not done, students may be
prevented from coming next session, under the impression that they may be
excluded, because they are not strictly prepared according to the present
system. It would not be proper in us to insist upon it rigorously, until time is
allowed for falling in with it.
I am Dear Sir,
Yours most sincerely & respectfully
Jos.
Caldwell