The Place of the Free Public Library in Popular Education

Abstract

FHE onward march of Popular Education in the last few •*• years has been amazing, and it is very likely to continue unchecked for many years to come. Movements, which a few years ago were weak and insignificant, are now in the full rush of activity and carrying all before them. The University Extension Movement, the establishment of University Colleges, and the cause of Technical Education have advanced with rapid pace, and now stand conspicuous on the educational highway. Now our clever boys, however poor in their origin, may ascend without hindrance from the elementary day school to the University, or from the artisan's evening class to the Technical College, and thence to a proud position in the world of invention, discovery, or industry. But what is done for the thousands of boys who are not clever, the plodding ones who leave school with credit perhaps, but not with distinction ? Is our educational system so weak, that after being educated at considerable expense to their country they are turned adrift at last with tastes created that their narrow means cannot gratify ? In thousands of villages and in many towns this is unfortunately the case. In some three hundred places it is not so. Whence the difference ? The three hundred places have Free Public Libraries offering free literature to the people, the other places have not. The place of the Free Public Library in the educational system of any town or district where it has been established is one of prime importance to the average person-the person who does not win scholarships, nor proceed to Colleges or Universities. The Public Library is much more than this, but let us first insist on this as the principal reason of its existence. To put it briefly, the Free Public Library is the necessary complement of the Elementary School. How efficiently the after-school education of scholars leaving the Board Schools * Read at the Annual Meeting of the library Association held at Nottingham,