manufacturers -— of course embracing only minors. ... The affairs of the institution have been very ably and successfully conducted by its youthful members. The association occupies two rooms in Phillips Place, opposite the head of School Street; the one for reading and lecture-room (say 30 feet by 40) the other (say 30 by 15) for library and conversation room. The library is well selected to promote the intellectual culture of the class for whom it was intended. The reading department contains the principal newspapers and periodicals of the city, and many from different parts of the country, and is in a most flourishing condition. A cabinet of minerals and curiosities has been commenced; an annual course of free lectures is supported by the institution; an elocution class has been formed, the exercises of which consist in the reading of original compositions, declamation, and debate. ... The library is open three hours every Tuesday and Saturday evening. About 10,000 volumes are lent out annually. Upkeep of the library presented challenges. By 1881, the once "flourishing institution" languished. "The decadence of the apprentice system has had a very damaging effect on it, so that it is impossible for apprentices, in sufficient numbers, to be found who will take interest enough in the old society to continue the work from which many men, now leading citizens and manufacturers, reaped so much benefit. The library, once numbering six thousand or seven thousand volumes, has, for months, been stowed away in a dusty room, affording no benefit to anybody. The library "was discontinued only when such action was made necessary by the lack of interest and patronage which was occasioned by the gradual abolition of the apprenticeship system." References Further reading "Societies for promoting useful knowledge, in Boston, Mass." In: Mechanics' Magazine and Register of Inventions and Improvements, v.1, no.5, May 1833 Report of the Committee on the Library, in relation to the Mechanic Apprentices Library Association: made at a meeting of the Mass. Charitable Mechanic Association, April, 1859. Boston: Printed at the Office of the Bunker Hill Aurora, 1859. "Notes: the Mechanic Apprentices Library Association." Boston Evening Transcript, Feb 11, 1899. ("I was a member ...") External links WorldCat. Mechanic Apprentices Library Association. Google news archive. Articles about the Boston Apprentices Library Massachusetts Historical Society. Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association Records, 1791-1995: Guide to the Collection. 1820 establishments in Massachusetts 1892 disestablishments in Massachusetts