ment, and best value for money invested, the existing rate-supported libraries are far in advance of the private institutions of this nature.

It is some forty years since Carlyle asked the question, "Why is there not a Majesty's library in every county town? There is a Majesty's gaol and gallows in every one," and it is as long since the Public Libraries Act was passed, and yet the lack of libraries is still one of the most startling deficiencies in these islands. We have given the people ever greater and greater political power, but they displayed no marked inclination to benefit themselves by means of books or other means of culture.

"We must now educate our masters," said Mr. Lowe when the Reform Bill of 1867 was passed. He was quite right, for the said masters were by no means quick to educate themselves, and the number of public libraries which they consented to establish for three years after 1867 was about ten.

Then came Mr. Forster's Education Act, and great things were expected of it. Now that everybody was to be taught his letters, everybody would surely want books to read also. What, indeed, would be the good of teaching people to read at all unless they were also to have a supply of good books? You might as well teach a man the use of his knife and fork and then not give him any meat.

Public libraries are the natural and legitimate outcome of compulsory education.

CERTAIN PHASES OF LIBRARY

EXTENSION1

REAMING of Utopia, an English writer of romance evolved a plan for a people's palace, centering under one roof the pleasures and the interests and the hopes of de

mocracy. Far away, if not improbable, as seemed the fruition of his dream, he lived to see prophecy merge in realization. Were this lover of mankind still living, he would know that his concept, though he saw it carried into being, had not permanence in the form he gave it. Ideals cannot be bounded by the narrow confines of four walls. And yet he had the vision of the seer, for that which he pictured in local form with definite limitations has, in a direction little dreamed of then, assumed form and substance in a great world movement. Not only in great hives of industry, where thousands congregate in daily toil, but in the small industrial hamlets and in the rural towns that dot the land lie the possibilities for many such palaces of the people, and in many-very many-of such communities today exist the beginnings that will combine and cement their many-sided interests.

This great world movement which is gathering accelerated momentum with its own marvelous growth, we call library extension. That term is perhaps sufficiently descriptive, though it gives name rather to the

1Address delivered on behalf League of Library Commissions, Asheville Conference A. L. A., May 27, 1907.

means used than to the results sought to be achieved. For certainly its underlying principle is of the very essence of democracy. There is no other governmental enterprise-not excepting the public schools-that so epitomizes the spirit of democracy. For democracy in its highest manifestation is not that equality that puts mediocrity and idleness on the same level with talent and genius and thrift, but that equality which gives all members of society an equal opportunity in life that yields to no individual as a birthright chances denied to his fellow. And surely if there is any institution that represents this fundamental principle and carries out a policy in consonance, it is the public library. Neither condition nor place of birth, nor age, nor sex, nor social position, serves as bar of exclusion from this house of the open door, of the cordial welcome, of the sympathetic aid freely rendered. In myriad ways not dreamed of at its inception, library extension has sought channels of usefulness to reach all the people. The traveling library in rural regions, the branch stations in congested centers of population, the children's room, the department of technology, are a few of these to mention the ones which occur most readily to mind.

But these allied agencies do but touch the edge of opportunity. The immediate concern of those engaged in library extension must be with the forces reaching the adult population, and especially the young men and women engaged in industrial pursuits. For the mission of the public library is two-fold-an aid to material progress of the individual and a cultural influence in the community through the individual. Perhaps it may be said more accurately that the one mission is essential to give scope for the second. For, first of all, man must needs minister to his physical

wants.

Before there can be intellectual expansion and cultural development, there must be leisure, or at least conditions that free the mind from anxious care for the morrow. So the social structure after all must rest upon a bread-and-butter foundation. It follows as a logical conclusion that society as a whole cannot reach a high stage of development until all its individual members are surrounded with conditions that permit the highest self-development. Until a better agency shall be found, it is the public library which must serve this need. And therein lies the most potent reason for the extension of its work into every field, whether intimately or remotely affiliated, which can bring about these purposes. Its work with children is largely important to the extent that habits are formed. and facility acquired in methods that shall be utilized in years succeeding school life. But its great problem is that of adult education. What an enormous field still lies untilled, we learn with startling emphasis from figures compiled by the government. Despite the fact that provision is made by state and municipality to give to every individual absolutely without cost an education embracing sixteen years of life, there are retarding circumstances that prevent all but a mere fraction of the population from enjoying these advantages in full measure.

To quote a summary printed last year, "in the United States 16,511,024 were receiving elementary education during the year 1902-03; only 776,635 attained to a secondary education, and only 251,819 to the higher education of the colleges, technical schools, etc. Stated in simpler terms, this means that in the United States for one person who receives a higher education, or for three who receive the education of the secondary schools, there are sixty-five who receive.

only an elementary education, and that chiefly in the lowest grades of the elementary schools."

What gives further meaning to this statistical recital is the force of modern economic conditions. From an agricultural we are developing into a manufacturing people, with enormous influx from the rural into the urban communities. The tremendous expansion of our municipalities has brought new and important problems. Within the lifetime of men today a hundred cities have realized populations in excess of that which New York City had when they were boys. Vast numbers of immigrants differing radically in intelligence and in education from earlier comers are pouring into the country annually. It has been pointed out that some of the largest Irish, German and Bohemian cities in the world are located in the United States, not in their own countries. In one ward in the city of Chicago forty languages are spoken by persons who prattled at their mother's knee one or the other of them.

"The power of the public schools to assimilate different races to our own institutions, through the education given to the younger generation, is doubtless one of the most remarkable exhibitions of vitality that the world has ever seen," says Dr. John Dewey in an address on "The School as a Social Center." "But, after all, it leaves the older generation still untouched, and the assimilation of the younger can hardly be complete or certain as long as the homes of the parents remain comparatively unaffected. Social, economic and intellectual conditions are changing at a rate undreamed of in past history. Now, unless the agencies of instruction are kept running more or less parallel with these changes, a considerable body of men is bound to find itself without the training which will enable it to adapt itself to what is going on. It will be left stranded and become a burden for the community to carry. The youth at eighteen may be educated so as to be ready for the conditions which will meet him at nineteen; but he can hardly be prepared for those which are to confront him when he is forty-five. If he is ready for the latter when they come, it