ather enjoy the light kindled in his own
house. The latter is certainly important, but not even Mr. O'Brien's
reasoning is likely to persuade us that it precludes the former. Mr.
O'Brien, in the second place, deeply feels for the reader who, in being
brought in contact with the benefits of the library, is, he thinks,
subjected to a wrong system of education. To quote his language: "Just
at the time when a child is beginning to form his tastes, just at the
period when the daily habituation to the simple duties of farm life
would lay the foundation both of sound health and practical knowledge,
he is taken out of the parent's control, and subjected to a
mind-destroying, cramming process, which excludes practical knowledge
and creates a dislike for all serious study." One is compelled on
reading this extraordinary deliverance to cast one's eye to the heading
at the top of the page, "Free Libraries," and ask what this formidable
indictment--not one count in which has any bearing on libraries--can
mean in this connection. The only conclusion possible is that it was
written with a view to appearing in some other chapter of the book.

But Mr. O'Brien's concern is manifested also for the taxpayer, who
unites in the public support of the library. If we understand him
correctly, his contention is that the enormity of this tax consists
largely in the reprehensible nature--as represented in his pages--of the
institution itself. For from this short chapter one gradually frames a
picture of the free library as a place which tramps frequent for
sleeping off the effects of dissipation; as a place used by commercial
travellers for exhibiting their samples; as a place from which in one
instance "a respectable thief took away L20 worth of books"; as a place
used in an almost exclusive degree for reading fiction; as a place where
the time prescribed for keeping books makes 'serious study' impossible;"
and, more serious than all the rest, as a place which, he says, "favors
one special section of the community at the expense of all the rest."
Let us do Mr. O'Brien the justice to add that for the first three of
these counts he gives "chapter and verse" for his charges, quoting,
namely, from various (English) library reports. No one will therefore
wish to dispute his well-fortified statement that in such and such an
instance an unseemly incident occurred. But even a child can assuredly
see the difference between a statement of an isolated occurr