ort of the service which they
actually perform. They begin with the child before he leaves school;
while he is still in his elementary studies they furnish to him books
which stir his imagination, and bring the teaching of the text books
into relation with the art and with life. They thus help to render more
vivid the formal studies pursued; but they also prepare the child to
become an intelligent constituent hereafter. This work cannot begin too
early, for four-fifths of the children pass out into active life without
reaching the high schools. It need not be deferred, for now the number
is almost countless of books that touch with imagination and charm of
style even the most elementary subjects; and the library can add
illustrations which through the eye convey an impression of the largest
subjects in the most elemental way.

If the library begins with the citizen earlier than was foreseen, it is
prepared to accompany him further than was thought necessary. It
responds not only to the needs of the general reader, but also to those
of the student and even, to the extent of its means, to those of the
scholar engaged in special research. The maintenance of universities at
the common expense is familiar in the West; it is less so in the East.
And there is still contention that institutions for highly specialized
instruction should not be charged upon the community as a whole. But no
one has questioned the propriety of charging upon the community the
support of a library whose leading purpose may be the encouragement of
the higher scholarship.

Finally, to the services just above described the public library has
added another: the supply of books for proposes purely recreative. This
service, if anticipated, was certainly not explicitly argued for; nor
was it implied in Edward Everett's prediction that the public library
would prove the "intellectual common" of the community. The common that
Mr. Everett had in mind was a pasturage, not a baseball ground, or
lover's walk, or a loafing place for tramps.

But as regards certain of the books customarily supplied, the ordinary
public library of to-day is furnishing recreation rather than
instruction. In fact, if we look at the history of free public libraries
in this country, we find that the one point of practice on which they
have been criticised is the supply of merely recreative literature. The
protest has come from thoughtful persons, and it means something,
lightly as it