At time when formal Instituttion of higher education rarely touched the lifes of most Americans,the preed of knowledge among all classes was promoted through a variety of public and commercial ventures.One of the most important means of saisfying the growing demand for knowledge from an increasingly literate public was the public library.By 1830 there existed several varities of private libraries,such as apprentices libraries,subscription libraries and lyceum libraries.More enduring in the long run,however,were the free public libraries that began to appear in Boston and other New England towns in 1830s.In 1849 New Hampshire passed teh first law authorizing tax-supported libraries on a state wide basis Massachusetts followed suit within two years.Like the public school crusade the public library movement optimized the eras boundless faith in public institutions as agents of self improvement and the perfaction of...