has
been accomplished with an entire expense to the commonwealth of less
than ten thousand dollars. _Per contra_, more than half a million
dollars were given by individuals in a single year for similar purposes
within the state. Certainly, this has been a most economical and
effective public outlay; free, too, from all suspicion of any one's
fattening by political jobbery.

The record of New Hampshire is even more remarkable. This state passed a
law in 1891, similar to the one outlined above, and over eighty towns
accepted its provisions, and established free libraries within a
twelvemonth after it came in force. We are glad to read that the states
of Maine, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania are moving in the direction of a
measure that has proved so effective in its operation, and that must be
so widely beneficent.

The state of New York has adopted another system to stimulate the
development of the free library. Her enabling act of many years ago
produced, as we have seen, comparatively small results; and in 1892 a
law was passed authorizing the Regents of the University of New York to
lend for a limited time--usually six months--selections of books from
the duplicate department of the state library, or from books purchased
for the purpose, to any public library in the state; or, where none
exists, to twenty-five petitioners in any town or village of the state.
A fee of five dollars is required, to cover cost of transportation,
catalogue, etc., for a loan of one hundred volumes, and a smaller sum
(three dollars) for a loan of fifty volumes. This plan, it will be seen,
is a revival of the old school district method; and of that instituted
by Samuel Brown in Scotland, and the later one found successful in
Australia. The antipodes have a fashion lately of suggesting valuable
object-lessons for social legislation. In small communities it has the
advantage of making books do manifold duty, and of meeting the wants of
varied communities and occupations. By judicious and varied selection,
clubs, classes, schools, and reading circles may be aided in special
courses and investigations. At the end of twenty months one hundred and
twenty-five of these free loan libraries had been sent out by the New
York Board of Regents; of which nearly one half (44) went to communities
without public libraries, the remainder going to libraries already
established (22), to university extension centers (18), and to academy
libraries open to the pu