has been waved aside.

The excuse that used to be given for the supply of inferior books was
that they would entice to the use of the better books. There was to be
reached a mass of persons of inferior taste and imperfect education.
These persons must be introduced gradually to an acquaintance with the
better class of reading through the medium of the familiar. And, at all
events, it was better that they should read something than not read at
all.

I am not quite so confident of the regenerating virtue of mere printed
matter as such; and I am confident that the reading of a book inferior
in style and taste debases taste, and that the book which sets forth,
even with power, a false view of society does harm to the reader, and is
so far an injury to the community of which he is part. But even granting
the premises, the conclusion is doubtful. We do not deliberately furnish
poor art at public expense because there is a portion of the public
which cannot appreciate the better. Nor when the best is offered,
without apology, does the uncultured public in fact complain that it is
too "advanced." Thousands of "ordinary" people come to see and enjoy the
Abbey and Chavannes and Sargent decorations in the Boston Public
Library. No one has yet complained that the paintings are too advanced
for him. The best of art is not too good for the least of men, provided
he can be influenced at all. Nor are the best of books too good for him,
provided he can be influenced, and provided they are permitted, as are
the pictures to make their appeal directly. They must not be secluded
behind catalogs and formal paraphernalia. The practice which admitted
the scholar to the shelves, and limited the general reader to the
catalogues, gave the best opportunity to him who least needed it. The
modern practice sets before the reader least familiar with good _titles_
a selection of good _books_. It places them on open shelves where he can
handle them without formality. The result is almost invariably, that he
is attracted to a book in advance of his previous tastes. Perhaps a
chance paragraph appeals to some experience or ambition, or an
illustration stirs his imagination. The books themselves draw him
outside of his previous limitations.

In the place, therefore, of books inferior in quality, the more modern
public library seeks to attract by the freest possible access to books
of the best quality. Not that this practice is universal. But the
opinion