public library idea appreciably felt
in the civilization of the country.

Nor can it fail to have a reflex influence in securing the interest of
the public. If methods of the former class were able, by their direct
agency, to accomplish practical results, even more significant and more
permanent are those reached indirectly by this method. No class of
people will be so truly attached to the institution, by active interest,
as those who feel that they have been personally aided and improved
through its agency. The former methods are directly adapted to secure
popularity, the latter to win gratitude; and if it should ever become
necessary to choose one of these, at the expense of the other, there can
be little room for hesitation. The growth of public sentiment in
communities like Boston and Worcester, where public libraries have been
administered on these principles, and with these ends in view, for a
series of years, is very instructive. Public sentiment, like confidence,
is "a plant of slow growth"; but experience shows that when the
conviction has once thoroughly penetrated a community that an
institution like this is sincerely aiming to serve the public, a hold on
its sympathy and interest has been acquired not easily to be shaken. It
should be the aim of each librarian to make the usefulness of his
institution so manifest that the public will as soon think of dispensing
with the post-office as with the library.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

The justification for taxing the members of a community to
support a Public Library, although rarely questioned to-day
was argued with heat in former times. Earlier, there was the
same difference of opinion with regard to the public
schools. In order to obtain the argument in opposition, in
its best form, we have had to draw from a British source,
which we consider it proper to quote here because it
elicited a reply from an American librarian which will
immediately follow:

FREE LIBRARIES

(AN ARGUMENT AGAINST PUBLIC SUPPORT)

This paper, by M.D. O'Brien, forms Chapter IX of the
compilation of essays entitled "A Plea for Liberty" edited
by Thomas Mackay (3rd ed. London, 1894). The sub-title of
the book, "an argument against socialism and socialistic
legislation," gives its viewpoint. There is a formidable
introduction by Herbert Spencer in which he condemns even
the extremely limited state support given at