The Free Library, however, has not yet reached the same degree of compulsion as the Free School. A majority of the local public must vote for it before it can be established; or rather, we should say, there must be a majority favourable to it amongst _those who do take the trouble to record their votes_: usually only a very small proportion of the electorate think it worth while to cross the street in order to pay a visit to the poll. When the Library is established, its real popularity is to be measured by the fact that its books are borrowed by only about one per cent. of the population. We make bold to say that if it ever becomes popular, it will be an extremely mischievous institution. As yet it is merely a plaything for a number of well-meaning busybodies, and an occasional convenience to a few middle-class readers. The limited amount generally spent upon it prevents it from doing anything more than minister to the sensational indulgences of a very limited section of the reading public. If the working classes of the country ever really become students, it will be impossible to supply them with adequate store of books from the rates: if this is attempted, it can only be at a time when books will be but a small item in the expenditure which a dominant State Socialism seeks to lay on the public purse. On the one hand will stand a class whose only plan for satisfying their wants is the imposition of a new tax, and on the other a harried remnant of ratepayers, both soon to be overwhelmed by the near approach of national bankruptcy.
Want is the spring of human effort. Self-discipline, self-control, self-reliance, are the habits which grow in men who are allowed to act for themselves. The meddlesome forestalling of individual effort, which is being carried into mischievous excess, is going far to bind our poorer classes for another century of dependence.