lly those which have
proved sound in the free library system of England and New England, of
Australia and the Northwestern cities. In the light of fifty years'
experience, indeed, Everett's skepticism reads like Governor Berkeley's
report on education in Virginia, in which he thanked God that there were
no free schools in Virginia and hoped that there would be none for a
hundred years. The communities in which libraries, approaching George
Ticknor's ideal, have been longest established, would do without paved
streets or electric lights sooner than without these libraries, and they
support them by taxation as cheerfully as the public schools. Indeed,
the free library in not a few communities is reckoned an invaluable and
indispensable adjunct of the public school, the very crown of the system
of popular education. Such librarians as Green of Worcester,
Massachusetts, and Whitney of Watertown, and Hosmer of Minneapolis, keep
in touch with the work of the schools, and apprize the various classes
of pupils of new books especially valuable for their work. More than
this, they have regard to the needs of the various clubs, trades, and
professions, and keep their members aware of valuable books in their
special departments. But perhaps the most helpful service of all is
rendered by capable librarians in the constant advice given to
inexperienced readers, and the frequent bulletins sent out to stimulate
the interest and instruct the intelligence of the community. It is of
special interest to note that the demand for good reading has been
greatly increased wherever the public library has been administered in
this way. Indeed, booksellers and proprietary libraries have come to
favor the opening of the free library as largely increasing the demand
for their books.

It is not strange that with this large and various capacity of social
service, the free library should be rapidly growing in public favor; nor
that private munificence should frequently come to the municipal
provision. There is no public object for which so generous gifts are
often made. In the year 1893, for instance, five hundred thousand
dollars were contributed to public libraries and the erection of library
buildings in Massachusetts alone. "There has been ready perception,"
says Fletcher in his "Public Libraries in America," "of the truth that
one's memory cannot better be perpetuated than by association with an
institution so popular and at the same time so eleva