ttedly, all this technical apparatus is expensive; the Boston
library expends every year a quarter of a million dollars for
administrative expenses. But the American taxpayer supports this more
gladly than any other burden, knowing that the public library is the
best weapon against alcoholism and crime, against corruption and
discontent, and that the democratic country can flourish only when the
instinct of self-perfection as it exists in every American is thoroughly
satisfied.

BOOKS AND THE PUBLIC LIBRARY

This paper and the two that follow it relate specifically to
reading as fostered by the public library and yet not
sufficiently to the provision of books to the public as a
definite library service to warrant postponing them to the
section relating to that branch of community service. They
have a somewhat academic or "literary flavor," and yet are
permeated not with the idea of "books for scholars" but with
that of "books for people"--the idea of reading as a
universal function--duty, pleasure and inspiration in
one--which is distinctly that of a socialized library. The
first paper is an address made by Lowell at the opening of
the new public library building at Chelsea, Mass., Dec. 22,
1885.

James Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 22,
1819, and graduated at Harvard in 1838, succeeding
Longfellow as professor of Literature there in 1855. He
edited _The North American Review_ in 1863-72, served as
U.S. minister to Spain in 1877-80 and to Great Britain in
1880-85. He died in Cambridge, Aug. 12, 1891.

"A few years ago my friend, Mr. Alexander Ireland, published a very
interesting volume which he called "The book-lover's euchiridion," the
handbook, that is to say, of those who love books. It was made up of
extracts from the writings of a great variety of distinguished men,
ancient and modern, in praise of books. It was a chorus of many voices
in many tongues, a hymn of gratitude and praise, full of such piety and
fervor as can be parelleled only in songs dedicated to the supreme
power, the supreme wisdom and the supreme love. Nay, there is a glow of
enthusiasm and sincerity in it which is often painfully wanting in those
other too commonly mechanical compositions. We feel at once that here it
is out of the fulness of the heart, yes, and of the head, too, that the
mouth speaketh. Here was none of that compulsory co