Cornell's New Library.

To the Editors of the Crimson:

My attention has been called to a notice in your issue of yesterday of Cornell's acquisition of the "law library of the late Nathaniel Moak." With reference to this notice one or two corrections should be made. The statement that both Harvard and Leland Stanford Universities were trying to purchase it as it is, is inaccurate. Harvard University has made no attempt to buy the collection, as is stated, although there has been some correspondence concerning certain American reports that might perhaps have been bought as duplicates. There was no occasion to buy English, Irish, Scotch, or colonial reports, with all of which the library is amply supplied.

Having seen and carefully examined the Moak collection since it was sold and knowing thoroughly the Harvard Law Library, I have no hesitation in saying that the statement that "Cornell now has the finest law library in the country" is very far from correct. Since the disposal of the Moak Collection a similar statement has been published in many papers and the following is quoted from the Boston Daily Advertiser of October 18: "This addition will make the Cornell Law Library, 23,000 volumes, the largest law school collection in this country." The Harvard Law Library at present numbers upwards of 30,000 volumes, and has had the great good fortune that comes from slow growth and careful selection during a period covering nearly a century. It is the equal, if not the superior, of any strictly law library in this country. I fully appreciate the value of the Moak collection and consider it remarkable that a busy lawyer during his life time should have made it. The institution that has acquired it is most fortunate. It is desirable, however, in view of the present size and richness of our own library that something should be said of what we have at home.

A.