ries and library services is evident from figures in the budgets of
succeeding years since I was inaugurated as Governor in 1959. For
example, appropriations for State aid to public libraries have more
than quadrupled since my first budget, that of fiscal 1960. The al-
lotment in aid to libraries that year was $318, 992. The appropriation
for the current year was $1, 275, 634. And in my budget which will
be submitted to the General Assembly next month I shall recommend
an appropriation of $1, 443, 805.

In addition to our support of public libraries, we have been trying
to improve and strengthen the libraries of the University of Maryland
and the other State institutions of higher learning. For example, in
my first budget the appropriation for the library of the University of
Maryland was $316, 884. this year the allotment for the University
is $987, 970, and for next year I shall recommend an expenditure of
$1, 174, 626. Here again, you will note, the appropriation for the
library of the University of Maryland has nearly quadrupled since
I became Governor of the State.

Incidentally in that connection, the suggestion has been made to
me that we establish at the University of Maryland a graduate school
of library science. In view of our plans to increase substantially State
aid for public education, and in view of other pressing budgetary
requirements, I have temporarily withheld approval of the University's
proposal to proceed in the coming year. I want to assure you, how-
ever, that my mind is not closed to the plan, and I have requested
the University President and the Budget Director to supply additional
information as to the urgency of the establishment of the Library
Science School.

But to summarize your State government's concern for the estab-
lishment and maintenance of excellent library facilities for the people
— in the communities and in our public institutions — the total
State appropriation for the current year for libraries is $2, 448, 630.
For next year, I will ask the General Assembly to allot $2, 917, 015
for these purposes.

Save perhaps for our public schools and our colleges and universities,
I can think of no service your government can provide that offers
a sounder bulwark to our free society than libraries such as you have
erected here in Prince George's County. As I suggested in the begin-
ning, books have been acclaimed through all history as the intellectual
sustenance of mankind. They are the means by which one generation
hands down all that it has acquired in thought and knowledge to
succeeding generations.

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