s the
condition of the present and attempt, perhaps, a forecast of the future.

In the scheme of classification, our subject appears in the last
department that concerns itself with man's purely mundane affairs, and
is the last section in that department. It thus appears properly as a
climax and summary of the arts and sciences intelligible to man in his
present stage of existence; and if the problem of the future life is
ever solved this side of the grave, the knowledge conserved and
disseminated by the library will be the starting-point and the
inspiration of the advance, as it has been of all progress since the art
of written speech was invented. "The library is the reservoir of the
common social life of the race. It is at once the accumulator and the
transmitter of social energy." Without the library the highest social
culture is impossible; and a most moderate degree could be achieved by
very few.

Under the main division, "Social Culture," the library is one of the
five sections in the Department of Education. In education are summed up
all the achievements of the past and the possibilities of the future. In
the words of Wendell Phillips, "Education is the one thing worthy the
deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man." "Education," exclaims
Mazzini, "and my whole doctrine is included and summed up in this grand
word." It is practically a truism that Jules Simon utters when he says
"Le peuple qui a les meilleures ecoles est le premier peuple; s'il ne
l'est pas aujourd'hui il le sera demain."

Under this Department of Education, with its grades, the School, the
College and the University, the Library is assigned the last section. It
belongs there in chronological order of development as an active factor
in popular instruction and enlightenment; and, furthermore, the
presentation of its claims and functions comes naturally after those of
the other factors in education, because it is an essential coadjutor and
supplement to each and all. It is a summary and a climax. There have
always been libraries, and they have always been a factor in education;
but the public, free, tax-supported library is but just half a century
old, and could hardly be considered out of the long clothes of infancy
till the year 1876; while its general acceptance as an essential
supplement to the public school and a co-ordinate factor with the
college and university may be considered the accomplishment of the last
decade. There are sti