An extensive system of parochial schools is also maintained in connection with the Roman Catholic churches in Baltimore and in some of the smaller towns•in the State.
Mrs. Eliza Seton, foundress of the Sisters of Charity in the United States, established a school at Emmitshurg for the education of girls in 1809. The Order of the Visitation conducts schools for girls in Baltimore and Frederick, the Carmelites in Baltimore and the Sisters of Notre Dame also in Baltimore.
Among the important private secondary schools in Maryland are: For boys, the Gil man County School, the Boys' Latin School and Marston's School in Baltimore city; the Mc Donough Institute and Farm School for needy orphans in Baltimore County, and the Jacob Tome Institute, a largely endowed hoarding school with fine buildings, at Port Deposit in Cecil County. The Hannah More Academy at Reisterstown in Baltimore County, the Fred erick Seminary in Frederick County and Saint Mary's Female Seminary in Saint Mary's County, are the more important boarding schools for girls, and in Baltimore city the Bryn Mawr School and the Girls' Latin School are day schools of high standard.
The Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts was established in Balti more, in 1847. It formerly conducted exhibi tions and gave courses of lectures in its long building upon Market space, which was the scene of several Presidential nominating con ventions. After this building was consumed in the fire of 1904, a new building was erected on Mount Royal avenue for the Day Schools of Art and Design, and a building on the old site is used for the night school of mechanical drawing. George Peabody spent part of his early life in Baltimore, and in recognition of that fact he established in 1857 the Peabody Institute, which contains a very fine reference library, a lecture hall, an art gallery and a largely attended conservatory of music.
A school district library law was passed in 1873. In Baltimore the generous gift of about $1,200,000 to the city by Enoch Pratt in 1882 secured the establishment of the free library which bears his name and which was opened in January 1886, with Dr. Lewis H. Steiner as its
librarian. This institution, the public library of the city, from its inception was planned to contain a central building and branches in dif ferent parts of the city of Baltimore. These branches have increased from 4 to 18 and several more will soon be built. In February 1919 the library possessed 363,646 volumes, and in the previous year it cirulated 586,645 books.
The Washington County Free Library at Hagerstown was established by the generosity. of B. F. Newcomer in 1899, and has been con spicuously successful, being one of the first county libraries in the country. The other pub lic libraries are small and are not as numerous as in many other States. In 1902 the legisla ture passed a law establishing a State Library Commission. The Public Library Commission now has its office at the State Normal School at Towson and receives $2,000 a year from the State. It circulates traveling libraries and gives advice and counsel to public libraries and to places desiring to establish them. In Balti more city, there are also to he found the libra ries of the various educational institutions of the diocese of Maryland, of the Baltimore bar and of the Maryland Historical Society which are valuable special collections. The New Mer cantile Library, a subscription one, containing about 35,000 volumes, should also be mentioned. In 1854 there was established in Baltimore the Maryland School for the Blind, a private cor poration largely supported by the State. The school has removed, in recent years, to fine new buildings, on the cottage plan, in the suburb of Overlea, where about 100 children are in structed, coming from all parts of Maryland and the District of Columbia. A school for the colored deaf and blind, situated at a little dis tance hut on the same grounds and under the same superintendent, instructs about 70 children. The Maryland State School for the Deaf, in corporated in 1867, is attended by about 120 pupils, and is situated at Frederick City, on the site of the barracks built during the Revolu tionary War and occupied by prisoners from Burgoyne's army.