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THE RATlONALE OF FREE PUBLIC LIBRARIES. jt
It is quite an open question whether all towns of 10,000
inhabitants ought not to have libraries. The number of suoh
toms, even in 1871, was 221, since grcatly increased. Thie
view of the matter would make a list of 135 defaulters,
to be increased to at least 150 when the results of the new
census are published. The question must soon arise, too,
whether literature is to bo confined to towns-whether rural
parts nlay not share in tho advantages of a library seated in
tho nearest market-town. Owing to the simple intervention
of distance country people never can have tho facilities of
town dwellers; but on market-days almost every farmer's
family could exchange books.
Thirteen or fourteen years ago, Mr. George Harris proposed
the establishmcnt of Parochial Libraries for working men, in
small towns and rural districts.* Tho ground upon which he
advocatcd his plan is very good as applying to Froo Libraries
gencrally-namely, that tho country already spends o. great
deal of money in promoting education, and yet omits that
small extra expenditure on a uuiversal system of librarietl
which would enable young men and womcn to keep up tho
three It's and continue their education. Wo spend the 2.97, as
Mr. Harris put it, and stingily decline the 23 per cent. really
needed to make the rest of the &IO0 effective. But as applied
to rural districts his scheme is weak in the fact that numbers
and concentration aro needed to make an efficient, attractive,
and economical library. A small collection of a few hundred
books is.soon exhausted by an active reader, and fails ever
afterwards to present the novelty which is the great incentive
to reading. The fat is that there exists no legal impediment
to the establishment of parochial libraries, because the Sixth
Section of the Public Libraries Amendment Act, 1866 (29 & 30
Vic. cap. 114), provides that the Public Libraries Act of 1855,
end the corresponding Scotch Act, "shall be applicable to any
borough, district, or parish, or burgh, of whatever population."
Moreover, the Fourth Section of the same Act enables any
parish of whatever population to unite with the Town Connoil
''h~tions of the Social Science Association," MBnchestgr
Meeting, 1866, p. 416.