t charge to the people. Those who study the
question from the low plane of dollars and cents, without regard to the
higher things in life, have learned that no investigation pays well. In
many a community men are giving liberally to the schools, and are
beginning to give liberally to the libraries, and they do it because
they know it makes everything more valuable--it makes their business
more prosperous.

The library is going through the same process the public school went
through. Henry Barnard, of Connecticut, visited 27 different states and
spoke before them to urge upon them the system of public education, and
to provide a guidance for the children.

It is true that the educated parents are more likely to have children
educated highly, but there is no question whatever that the great
majority of the men and women who are to shape the future of this
country will be born in the humblest homes, and we come back to the
problem of the general education of all the people as the best possible
advancement and the chiefest defense of the nation; it is the concern of
the state because it is the duty of the state, because it pays, and
because the state does not dare any longer to neglect it. Therefore I
call your attention to the fact that we are repeating in libraries
exactly the process of the school, and that there were meetings to urge
the acceptance of them. There are few who doubt the wisdom of donating
money to support the free library, and when the history of the time is
written it will be marked as the history of free libraries.

Why is it that the people are taxing themselves erecting beautiful
buildings, buying books, paying salaries, printing catalogs, incurring
all these expenses, paying out an amount of money that a short time ago
would have been thought only a dream? It is a recognition of its
necessity and importance. We understand that it is a good thing.

A broad conception at the end of the century of the work of the schools
is simply this, to teach the children to think accurately, with strength
and with speed. If it is in the school that they get their start, then
where do they get their education? Tell me from your own experience, was
it from the school that you got most of your ideas? We had an experiment
some time ago, when the teachers of New York made an elaborate
investigation as to the teaching of boys and girls. The thing that
influenced those boys and girls most was the books they read. What,