. It is not, it is a suggestion to
the wayfarer. For this learning process may be as delightful as it is to
gather flowers by the roadside in a summer walk.

J. C. DANA.

LIBRARY WORTH SELF-DENIAL

An inexhaustible mine of pleasure is open for the boy or girl who loves
good books and has access to them. Without effort on the part of the
parent they are kept off the street and from the company of the idle and
vicious and are storing their minds with useful knowledge, or are being
taught high ideals and noble purposes. Thus they develop into men and
women who are an honor to their parents and worthy citizens of our great
republic.

Such is the product of a Free Public Library. Is it not worth the small
pittance it will cost? Many a laboring man spends more money in a week
for tobacco than the maintenance of a library would cost him in a year.
Is not the education and the development of our bright boys and girls
worth a little self-denial?

We all desire that our children shall have better opportunities than we
have had, and not have to work as we have worked. Here is an opportunity
to help them help themselves, which is the very best help that can be
given any one. Let's be "boosters" and help ourselves, help our town,
and help our boys and girls by unitedly supporting the library
proposition.

IOWA LIBRARY COMMISSION.

REASONS FOR HAVING A FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Public libraries have without delay become an essential part of a public
education system and are as clearly useful as the public schools. They
are not only classed with schools, but have generally become influential
adjuncts of the public schools. The number of readers is rapidly
increasing and the character of the books is constantly improving.

Not infrequently the objection is heard that the public libraries are
opening the doors to light and useless books; that reading can be, and
often is, carried to a vicious and enervating excess, and therefore that
the libraries' influence is doubtful and on the whole not good. This
argument does not need elaborate exposure.

The main purpose of the library is to counteract and check the
circulation and influence of the empty and not infrequently vicious
books that are so rife. A visit to any news-stand will disclose a world
of low and demoralizing "penny dreadfuls" and other trash. These are
bought by boys and girls because they want to read and can nowhere else
obtain reading material. This deluge of wor