yet we know that the public
school side of our system of free public education is as yet only able
to secure five years' schooling for the average child in this
country--an all too narrow portal through which to enter upon successful
citizenship. There is an imperative demand, then, for the establishment
and the development and for the wise administration of that other branch
of our system of free public education which we know as the public
library.

We must understand clearly that the beneficent result of this system of
education is just as possible to the son of the peasant as to the son of
the president, is just as helpful to the blacksmith as to the barrister,
to the farmer as to the philosopher; and in its possibilities and in its
helpfulness is a constant blessing to all and through all, and is needed
by all alike.

The most worthy mind, that which is of most value to the world, is the
well-informed mind which is public and large. Only through the
development of such, both as leaders and as followers, can all classes
be brought into an understanding of each other, can we preserve true
republican equality, can we avoid that insulation and seclusion which
are unwholesome and unworthy of true American manhood. The state has no
resources at all comparable with its citizens. A man is worth to himself
just what he is capable of enjoying, and he is worth to the state just
what he is capable of imparting. These form an exact and true measure of
every man. The greatest positive strength and value, therefore, must
always be associated with the greatest positive and practical
development of every faculty and power.

This, then, is the true basis of taxation for public libraries. Such a
tax is subject to all the canons of usual taxation, and may be defended
and must be defended upon precisely the same grounds as we defend the
tax for the public schools.

JAMES HULME CANFIELD.

WHY MR. CARNEGIE ESTABLISHES LIBRARIES

I choose free libraries as the best agencies for improving the masses of
the people, because they give nothing for nothing. They only help those
who help themselves. They never pauperize. They reach the aspiring, and
open to these the chief treasures of the world--those stored up in
books. A taste for reading drives out lower tastes.

Besides this, I believe good fiction one of the most beneficial reliefs
to the monotonous lives of the poor. For these and other reasons I
prefer the free public library