FORTY-FOURTH

ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE DIRECTORS

OF THE

PROVIDENCE ATHENÆUM

TO THE PROPRIETORS:

SUBMITTED

SEPTEMBER 22, 1879.

PROVIDENCE:

E. L. FREEMAN & CO., PRINTERS TO THE STATE.

REPORT OF THE DIRECTORS.

In accordance with the requirement of the Constitution, the Directors herewith present their Forty-fourth Annual Report to the Shareholders of the Athenæum.

The Board of Directors was organized, at its first regular meeting, by the reëlection of William Gammell, Esq., as President, and Alexander Farnum, Esq., as VicePresident. The President having been absent from the country during a large part of the year, the duties pertaining to his office have been faithfully discharged by the Vice-President.

For the first time in twenty-five years we hold our annual meeting without the presence of one whose name and labors have become forever identified with the history of the Providence Athenæum. The memory of not a few of the present shareholders, indeed, will fail to recall the time when any other name than that of Mr. J. Dunham Hedge was connected with its office of Librarian, and by these, as well as the older members, the remembrance of his scholarly tastes, his genial bearing, and his self-forgetful efforts in their behalf will long be most affectionately cherished. With a deep sense of the loss this Institution has sustained