e writers of our day has thus expressed: "Our early
voyagers are dead: not a plank remains of the old ships that first
essayed unknown waters; the sea retains no track; and were it not for
the history of these voyages contained in charts, in chronicles, in
hoarded lore of all kinds, each voyager, though he were to start with
all the aids of advanced civilization," would be in the helpless
position of the earliest voyager.

Once more, each reader of the strongly written book which we have been
considering should ask the question for himself, whether all of the
various propositions maintained therein necessarily stand or fall
together. Because the compiler has chosen to bracket together two such
headings as "Free libraries" and "The state and electrical
distribution," it certainly does not follow that the argument which
carries conviction in the one case must in the other also. We shall not
be suspected of having our judgment in this regard swayed by the natural
weakness with which, to use Mr. O'Brien's illustration, the shoemaker is
inclined to think that "there is nothing like leather," if we suggest,
what the public at large in this country is very plainly persuaded of,
that, for one person who has appreciated the need for public action in
the latter case there are thousands in the former. The writer lives in a
city in which for more than eleven years the public library was
administered by funds not in the least degree derived from municipal
appropriations. Yet the character of its service to the public had so
widely impressed itself upon the community that, largely from sources
outside of the library board, a movement arose for recognizing the
closeness of the relation, by public support. A report by a committee of
the city government, recommending this course, significantly declares:
"Your committee are unanimously of the opinion that this public library,
already existing in the city, is a useful and a necessary adjunct to the
educational system sustained by the city in its public schools, and
properly appeals to the treasury for an appropriation towards its
support." After eleven years' opportunity for observation and
comparison, such a judgment as this has the merit of deliberation and
conviction.

It is true that by far the greater part of the considerations which
lead the present writer to find Mr. O'Brien's view untenable are drawn
from observation and experience of conditions existing in this country.
Yet it