have also the power to grant free
admission to others, and the library and reading-room are thus thrown
open for reference to a wide range of readers.

The history of the Astor Library, opened in 1854, has been made too
familiar by repeated publication to need repetition here. The generous
founder gave two per cent. out of his fortune of $20,000,000 to create a
free public library for the city which had given him all his wealth. The
gift was a splendid one, greater than had ever before been given in money
to found a library. Moreover, the $400,000 of Mr. Astor, half a century
ago, appeared to be, and perhaps was, a larger sum relatively than four
millions in New York of to-day. Yet it remains true that the bequest was
but one-fiftieth part of the fortune of the donor, and that the growth
and even the proper accommodation of the library must have stopped, but
for the spontaneous supplementary gifts of the principal inheritors of
his vast wealth.

The growth of the Astor library has been very slow, the annual income
from what was left of Mr. Astor's $400,000 bequest, after defraying the
cost of the library building, and the $100,000 expended for books at its
foundation in 1848, having been so small as to necessitate a pinching
economy, both in salaries of the library staff, and in the annual
purchase of books. It was an example of a generous act performed in a
niggardly way. But after the lapse of half a century, enlightened public
policy, building upon the Astor foundation, and on the Lenox and Tilden
bequests for founding public libraries in New York city, is about to
equip that long neglected city with a library worthy of the name. There
has already been gathered from these three united benefactions, a
collection of no less than 450,000 volumes, making the New York Public
Library take rank as the fourth, numerically, in the United States.

While no library in America has yet reached one million volumes, there
are five libraries in Europe, which have passed the million mark. Some of
these, it is true, are repositories of ancient and mediaeval literature,
chiefly, with a considerable representation of the books of the last
century, and but few accessions from the more modern press. Such, for the
most part, are the numerous libraries of Italy, while others, like the
Library of the British Museum, in London, and the National Library, at
Paris, are about equally rich in ancient and modern literature. The one
great advanta