ice-ground of the virtues--favours the
development of the lower factors of character at the expense of the
higher, of weeds at the expense of flowers.

What else can possibly result from the carrying out of a principle which
means the public feeding, clothing, and lodging of children under
official superintendence and control? Will it be contended that State
officers can know better than parents what is really needed for
children? Yet this is what our Free Educationalists are leading us to.
The system which robs the parent of one of the noblest motives to
effort--the desire to give a good education to his children--which
weakens the sense of duty and takes away a wholesome stimulus to the
mental and moral faculties, is only the beginning of an evil that
menaces civilization and threatens to swallow up all natural
distinctions and relationships in a low and promiscuous communism. This
bribe of parental irresponsibility--this patent method of shirking
duties--which the politician offers us in exchange for our manhood, is a
scheme for encouraging the race to cast itself forth into the moral
darkness of a world where the parents are all childless and the children
all orphans.

The Free Library, however, has not yet reached the same degree of
compulsion as the Free School. A majority of the local public must vote
for it before it can be established; or rather, we should say, there
must be a majority favourable to it amongst _those who do take the
trouble to record their votes_: usually only a very small proportion of
the electorate think it worth while to cross the street in order to pay
a visit to the poll. When the Library is established, its real
popularity is to be measured by the fact that its books are borrowed by
only about one per cent. of the population. We make bold to say that if
it ever becomes popular, it will be an extremely mischievous
institution. As yet it is merely a plaything for a number of
well-meaning busybodies, and an occasional convenience to a few
middle-class readers. The limited amount generally spent upon it
prevents it from doing anything more than minister to the sensational
indulgences of a very limited section of the reading public. If the
working classes of the country ever really become students, it will be
impossible to supply them with adequate store of books from the rates:
if this is attempted, it can only be at a time when books will be but a
small item in the expenditure which a dom