The sum of the whole statement, briefly, is this: There is no limit to the concern of the free state in the education of its citizens. It is as much bound to provide libraries in which the adult may continue his studies as it is to maintain schools in which as a child he may begin them. The day is not distant when this duly will be universally recognized in this country. In most of the states compulsory education laws prevail. In at least one, every town is required by law to establish and maintain a free public library. In this respect, New Hampshire is only leading the way in which others will shortly follow.
Then organized society can truthfully say to the individual, in the language of Professor Hoffman in his “Sphere of the State”: “We have done what we could to develop and strengthen all your powers. We have taught you to the best of our ability to know yourself and to understand your relations to your fellows. Now, so long as you conduct yourself as a child of the day and not of the night, all the rights and privileges of the brotherhood are yours. But if you choose to walk in the darkness rather than in the light, if you trample under foot our laws, if you raise your hand against every man, let the curse of your wrong doing fall upon your own head, not on ours.”
ALTERNATIVES TO TAX-SUPPORT
In the case of a public library, that is, of one intended to be used by all the members of the community, as distinguished from a subscription library, alternatives to public support have usually been in the nature of expedients to tide matters over until the library could be turned over to the municipality. The next two papers are early discussions of some of these alternatives.
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