Lord Windsor presided this year at the meeting of the
Library Association, and made a speech the drift of which is that men have always read fiction, and that the fact of their reading it now is no proof that public libraries are useless. "Our forefathers liked romances, and the library of the Earl of Warwick in 1315 contained nothing else. Quite true ; but the 'forefathers of " the people" read nothing. We wish the next president would tell us whether, out of the 25 per cent. of readers who, according to the returns, ask for serious books, any appear to educate themselves by their perusal. Reading will never be anything to the majority of mankind but a means of passing time, and the real defence for free libraries is that a few derive from them an effective ednca- tion. Is that end answered or not? The dispute about fiction may be considered ended, and we want now to know something else about the use of free libraries. The librarians know pretty nearly how many students they have who read with a purpose other than amusement. Are they many .or few ? One Hugh Miller at a time justifies a parish library, but do we get him P
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