flict, the ultimate issue cannot be doubted. That indispensable
condition of all human progress--liberty--cannot be permanently
suppressed by the arbitrary dictates of majorities, however potent. When
the socialistic legislation of to-day has been tried, it will be found,
in the bitter experience of the future, that for a few temporary, often
imaginary, advantages we have sacrificed that personal freedom and
initiative without which even the longest life is but a stale and empty
mockery.

ARGUMENTS FOR PUBLIC SUPPORT OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES

A rejoinder to the preceding paper was made by William E.
Foster, of the Providence Public Library, before the
American Library Association at its conference held in San
Francisco, Cal., in 1891. It may be considered as giving the
normal American view as contrasted with the
ultra-conservative attitude of Mr. O'Brien. A sketch of Mr.
Foster appears in Vol. I. of this series.

The rise of the public library system both in this country and Great
Britain, during the past half-century, has been almost coincident with
the very noteworthy reexamination of every phase of social economy now
so powerfully influencing the thought of the world. In this discussion
the contributions of Kaufmann, of Fawcett, of Graham, of Jevons, and
above all, of Herbert Spencer, have been more than influential--they
have been almost epoch-making--and whatever view one may hold in regard
to the social question, in its various phases, one cannot fail to
acknowledge the deep debt which we owe to these profound thinkers.

No book, from Mr. Spencer's point of view, which has appeared within
recent years, is worthy of a wider reading than the volume entitled "A
plea for liberty; an argument against socialism and socialistic
legislation," which appeared about the beginning of the present year. In
it thirteen writers, whose point of view is very nearly identical, have
discussed in successive chapters such topics as postal communications,
electric communication, investment, improvement of workingmen's homes,
free libraries, education, and other subjects, in their relation to the
question, "What action shall the State take in regard to them?" The
underlying purpose of the book is thus expressed in the words of Mr.
Mackay, the editor of the volume:--"If the view set out in this volume
is at all correct, it is very necessary that men should abandon the
policy of indifference, and that the