ate liberality in aid of
the public.

And it is in this final and most consummate form, combining private
help with public selfhelp, that many of the most successful libraries in
this country have been organized; and yet it is only since 1848 that
such libraries have been possible. For it was in 1848 that the first
state in our Union, Massachusetts, passed an act authorizing a
municipality to tax itself for the support of a free public library.
Since then many other states have followed with similar legislation. So
that it is only within the past thirty-five years that this grand result
has been reached: the systematic popularization of books under the
direction of the municipality, partially at least at the public expense,
and often in combination with private benefaction.

Now, it is this grand result that you have reached here in West Bay
City. The library which you to-day dedicate to the perpetual service of
the people, and which we may believe will continue as long as society
lasts here to do its serene and beneficient work for the instruction and
delight of innumerable generations of mankind--this library represents
the latest, and I think we may say the most perfect and the final term
in a process of library evolution, which has been going forward on this
continent for more than two hundred years, and has involved, as we have
seen, countless struggles and failures and sacrifices for the production
of this single result.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I venture to express the hope that this study
which we have now made of the process--the slow, costly, laborious
process--by which this brilliant result has been made possible and easy
for you, in West Bay City, is something which will enhance even your
pleasure in the acquisition of this noble library as well as your
appreciation of the princely act of Mr. Sage in his creative relation to
it?

I trust it may enhance also your feeling of responsibility for the
perpetual success of this library in the purposes for which it has been
formed. This library has been well organized; but the working of it will
depend upon you. It is on one side of it a business concern; and like
any other business concern it will go to wrack and ruin unless it is
conducted on sound business principles, accurate accounting, sharp
supervision, punctuality, system, order, promptitude, energy.

But more than ordinary business qualities are needed to make this
library all that it should be. Rec