lthy households can no more supply this general need of books than
the great private dinners which are given in the same households can
keep the entire community from going hungry.

Accordingly, the second stage in the evolution of libraries is away
from mere private ownership and use, and is toward complete public
ownership and use; but it stops far this side of it; it is the stage of
special scholastic libraries, collected by colleges and other learned
corporations, and intended for the particular use of the learned
class--students, investigators, and specialists. The earliest library of
that sort ever formed in this country was begun at Harvard College in
1638; near the close of the 17th century, another was begun at William
and Mary College, and still another at Yale; thenceforward, and
especially during the past eighty years, such libraries have been
multiplying in the land, so that at the present moment there are more
than three hundred of them, and a few of them are now really vast
library collections. The value of these libraries--who can doubt? Yet
their direct value is only for a class; they are scholars' libraries,
not people's libraries. This will not suffice; society cannot rest
satisfied, and will not rest satisfied until everywhere good books for
all are placed within the reach of all. The complete popularization of
books is the goal.

So we come to the third stage of library evolution--that of libraries
gathered and controlled by voluntary associations of people, _e.g._,
joint stock associations, but of course for the use only of those who
subscribe to them and share in the expense.

Here we have a natural step forward; a goodly step; a step in the right
direction, but still not far enough. We shall all agree that this is the
strong and hearty modern method of doing difficult things--the method of
clubbing together to do something; it is self-reliant, social,
cooperative, mutually, helpful, What the individual cannot do alone a
club of individuals can do together. Thus the hardest and grandest
achievements of our time have been brought about--vast railroads, vast
manufacturing and commercial enterprises. And so men and women, who
could not singly get the books they wanted, have joined forces and have
got them by combination.

It is a notable fact, however, that this third stage of library
evolution was not reached until more than a hundred years after the
first colonies had been settled.

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