ies in recognition by the State that public libraries
are not only good things, but that they are an absolutely necessary part
of our educational system. We started with the university, but found
that we had to put under it the college. Then we went a step further,
and had the academy and high school to prepare for the college; the
primary and grammar schools to prepare for the high school; and now we
have the kindergarten under the primary school. I am not giving a
chronology, but simply pointing out that during these centuries
educators have constantly been facing the question of adequate provision
for meeting completely the public wants. We have at last reached step by
step from the university to the nursery, and have provided a series of
schools covering the entire field. Yet, with all this, we have not
attained the full system of education that we ought to attain, and every
thoughtful person is now asking, "What next?"

Huxley has well said that a system of education which in the early years
trains boys and girls to read and then makes no provision for what they
shall read during all the rest of their lives, would be as senseless as
to teach our children the expert use of the knife, fork, and spoon, and
then make no provision for their daily food. The whole history of
education has been a series of broadening conceptions. I can recall no
case in which the ideal has narrowed, but step by step we have come to a
general recognition that education is for poor as well as rich, for
plebeian as well as prince, for black and white, for native and
foreigner, for brilliant or backward, for women as well as men, for
deaf, dumb, and blind, and all defectives and delinquents, who in the
old conception were left without the pale. It is almost within our
memory that we have come to substantial agreement that the State owes an
elementary education to every boy and girl born within its limits, not
alone as a right to the child, but as a matter of safety and practical
wisdom on the part of the State; and this broader conception is followed
closely by a second and still broader one, that every boy and girl is
entitled not only to an elementary, but to something also of higher
education. I have met no competent student of this subject who dares
deny that hereafter the State must recognize that education is not alone
for the young, for limited courses, in schools which take all the time
of their pupils, but that it must regard adults as