e self-sufficient ALCIBIADES that he may rouse him
to loftier aspirations. PYTHAGORAS is writing among disciples, one of
whom holds his musical scale, while above all, and in the midst of the
temple, appear ARISTOTLE, father of natural philosophy, pointing down to
the earth, and PLATO, the father of spiritual philosophy with hand
uplifted toward heaven, man as it were feeling for God. The culture
proffered in such a School of Athens, as RAPHAEL painted--and as an
ideal free library is to my mind, has its fittest emblem in the miracle
of architecture, the dome,--which is well said to unite clustered arches
and pillars and radiate in equal expansion towards every quarter of the
earth, while with every convergent curve it soars heavenward, buried in
air, and looking to the stars.

"Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime."

THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY

This section, devoted to the general relations of the
library and society, which opened with a historical account
by Prof. Moses Coit Tyler, may appropriately close with
another of similar tenor, contributed eleven years later to
_The American Magazine of Civics_ (New York, May, 1895) by
Prof. Henry H. Barber. It covers some of the same ground but
gives results to a later date, while it is still only
introductory to the social development of more recent years.

Henry Hervey Barber was born in Warwick, Mass., Dec. 30,
1835, graduated at Meadville Theological Seminary in 1861
and after holding several Unitarian pastorates was professor
of philosophy and theology there from 1884 to 1904. He was
also editor of the Unitarian Review from 1875 to 1884. He
died about 1915.

No public institution has made greater progress during the last few
years or grown more rapidly in public interest and favor than the free
public library. The building of a magnificent structure in Chicago,
together with the excellent Newberry free reference library, and in
cooperation with the fast growing library of the Chicago University,
will make perhaps the most superb public provision for free literary
culture ever furnished by any municipality. Boston has lately
transferred its more than half a million volumes to the new and noble
public library building on the Back Bay. The newspapers of this last
week tell us that in New York Mr. Tilden is after all not to be finally
counted out; but that the two millions rescued from his estate by th