is neighbors and win their approval and affection.

A library in ---- would be the center of our intellectual life and would
stimulate the growth of all kinds of clubs for study and debating.

It is a great part of our education to know how to find facts. No man
knows everything, but the man who knows how to find an indispensable
fact quickly has the best substitute for such knowledge. We need a
library to carry forward in a better manner the education of the
children who leave school; to give them a better chance for
self-education. We need it to give thoughts and inspiration to the
teachers of the people, those who in the schoolroom or pulpit, on the
rostrum, or with the pen attempt to instruct or lead their fellow
citizens. We need it to help our mechanics in their employments, to give
them the best thoughts of the best workers in their lines, whether these
thoughts come in books or papers or magazines.

WISCONSIN FREE LIBRARY COMMISSION.

The public library is an adult school; it is a perpetual and life-long
continuation class; it is the greatest educational factor that we have;
and the librarian is becoming our most important teacher and guide.

SIR WALTER BESANT.

WHAT A LIBRARY DOES FOR A TOWN

1 Completes its educational equipment, carrying on and giving permanent
value to the work of the schools.

2 Gives the children of all classes a chance to know and love the best
in literature. Without the public library such a chance is limited to
the very few.

3 Minimizes the sale and reading of vicious literature in the community,
thus promoting mental and moral health.

4 Effects a great saving in money to every reader in the community. The
library is the application of common sense to the problem of supply and
demand. Through it every reader in the town can secure at a given cost
from 100 to 1000 times the material for reading or study that he could
secure by acting individually.

5 Appealing to all classes, sects and degrees of intelligence, it is a
strong unifying factor in the life of a town.

6 The library is the one thing in which every town, however poor or
isolated, can have something as good and inspiring as the greatest city
can offer. Neither Boston nor New York can provide better books to its
readers than the humblest town library can easily own and supply.

7 Slowly but inevitably raises the intellectual tone of a place.

8 Adds to the material value of property. Real estate agents in t