e. He chose a half worn-out bagpipe, and with this returned to
the earth. "With an infinite possibility within his reach, with the
choice of wisdom, of power, of beauty, at his tongue's end, he asked
according to his kind, and his sordid wish is answered with a gift as
sordid." The newspaper is well enough in its way,--even a "penny
newspaper,"--but to condemn whole masses of the population to limit
themselves to this, is to incur the condemnation of Mr. Lowell's fine
scorn when, in another portion of the oration just referred to, he says:
"It is we who, while we might each in his humble way be helping our
fellows into the right path, or adding one block to the climbing spire
of a fine soul, are willing to become mere sponges saturated from the
stagnant goose-pond of village gossip." It is more. It is to help
develop a community from whom in the end every spark of uplifting
influence shall have vanished. Does any one say that this is a result
impossible of attainment by any people? The scientifically true, yet
brutally summary record given by the distinguished European savant,
Elisee Reclus, of a certain European stock which has found and occupied
virgin soil in the South of Africa, is a sufficient answer. "In
general," he says, "the Boers despise everything that does not
contribute directly to the material prosperity of the family group. They
ignore music, the arts, literature, all refining influence, and find
little pleasure in anything," except solid amassing of wealth.

A few additional points remain to be noted. It is an entirely pertinent
question whether every public library in England and America improves
its high privilege, uses to the full the peculiar opportunities open to
it, places itself in close communication with the public school system,
with the university extension movement, and with the influences
continually at work in industrial and artistic development. And we need
not hesitate to answer in the negative. Yet the significant fact is,
that everywhere the tendency is in this direction with a stronger and
stronger momentum. The advance made in this country, within the last
decade even, in this direction, is among the most striking phenomena of
the time; and no less striking is the almost overwhelming percentage of
the body of librarians in this country whose entrance upon the work from
a deep-seated love for it, rather than as furnishing a means of
livelihood, supplies one of the strongest guarantees a