Were it not for the library, the education of the masses would, in most cases, cease when the doors of the school swung in after them for the last time; but it keeps those doors wide open, and is, in the truest sense of the word, the university of the people. The library is as much a part of the educational system of a community as the public school, and is coming more and more to be regarded with the same respect and supported in the same generous manner.
The public library of to-day is an active, potential force, serving the present, and silently helping to develop the civilization of the future. The spirit of the modern library movement which surrounds it is thoroughly progressive, and thoroughly in sympathy with the people. It believes that the true function of the library is to serve the people, and that the only test of success is usefulness.
JOSEPH LEROY HARRISON.
THE PEOPLE'S UNIVERSITY
There is no institution so intimately, so universally, so constantly connected with the life of the whole people as the free public library—no instrumentality that can do so much to civilize society. The public schools alone cannot accomplish the task of elevating mankind to even the most modest ideal of a well ordered society.
Our public schools have been the chief source of the greater general intelligence and hence the industrial superiority of our citizens over those of other countries. But the public schools cannot accomplish impossibilities. They are not to blame for the fact that they can reach the great majority during only six or eight years, or that only one and one half per cent of the children in the United States go through the high school. But wherever there is a public library, the teachers are to blame if they do not graduate all their pupils, at whatever age they may leave school, into the People's University.
General intelligence is the necessary foundation of prosperity and social order.
The public library is one of the chief agencies, if not the most potent and far-reaching agency, for promoting general intelligence.
Therefore, money devoted to the maintenance of a public library is money well invested by a community.
F. M. CRUNDEN.