Excerpt from Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, Vol. 1 It was not, however, a very encouraging prospect for an institution of that kind. The population of St. Paul was only 400 or 500, and there were but three or four towns in the Territory, which was then still occupied by the Indians, and had altogether not over white imbabi tants. These were mostly poor settlers, and in the struggle for subsist ence in a new country, still a wilderness, had scarcely leisure or means to cultivate aesthetics or write or study history. Consequently the development of the Society was very slow during the first few years. In 1858 there were only 441 volumes in the Library, and those of minor value. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.