of power. When any one of them
can be shown to encourage waste of power, it needs looking after. In our
complex social condition, the real consequences of any government
interference extend far beyond its apparent consequences. An institution
may be very useful up to a certain point, and yet hurtful if allowed to
run its full course without restraining criticism.

The managers of our smaller libraries are apt to be picked men, who
give unrequited labor and intelligence to their trust. But they are
chosen at town meetings,--and to a certain extent must carry out the
wishes of their electors. Upon this matter, as upon most others, it is
the duty of the thoughtful men and women to create a wholesome public
opinion. They must recognize the fact that the change from a few good
books to an unlimited supply of all sorts of books is by no means an
unmixed advantage to a community. While the results of town libraries,
taken in the aggregate, are undoubtedly good, it is our duty to consider
whether they ought not to be better.

THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY

The public library had now passed the period of the merely
academic advocacy exemplified in the Ticknor letter of 1851.
It was an actual, functioning institution, and as such was
called upon to answer criticism and to justify its
existence. The atmosphere of apologetics begins to appear in
what its friends have to say about it. This is evident in
the extract from Col. Higginson's "Men and Women" (New York,
1888) which immediately follows. The author's comparison of
the evolution of a library with that of a great railroad
system is perhaps the first hint of a comprehensive vision
of the library as something bigger than any individual town
or city institution and beyond it.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson was born in Cambridge, Mass.,
Dec. 22, 1823, and graduated at Harvard in 1841. He entered
the ministry in 1847 but retired in 1858 and served in the
Civil War. From that time until his death, May 9, 1911, he
devoted himself to literature, publishing a large number of
books.

Just as there is a good deal of anxiety wasted in regard to our free
public schools, especially on the part of those who have never entered
them, so there is some misplaced solicitude in regard to our libraries.
The free town or city library is one of the few things in our democratic
society that would have pleased the splenetic