r use is one of
the advantages that the city has over the country, though the public
library has been extended far within one or two decades. The child
goes from home to school and widens the circle of his acquaintances in
the community; through the daily newspaper the adult gets into touch
with a far wider environment, reaching even across the oceans; in the
library any person, without respect to age, color, or condition, if
only he possess the key of literacy to unlock knowledge, can travel to
the utmost limits of continents and seas, can dig with the geologist
below the surface, or soar with the astronomer beyond the limits of
aviation, can hob-nob with ancient worthies or sit at the feet of the
latest novelist or philosopher, and can learn how to rule empires from
as good text-books as kings or patriarchs possess.

What the library does for intellectual satisfaction the museum and
art-gallery do for aesthetic appreciation. They make their appeal to
the love of beauty in form, color, or weave, and call out oftentimes
the best efforts of an individual's own genius. Often the gift of one
or more public-spirited citizens, they register a disposition to serve
society that is sometimes as useful as charity. Philanthropy that
uplifts the mind of the recipient is as desirable as benevolence that
plans bodily relief; the soul that is filled has as much cause to
bless its minister as the stomach that is relieved of hunger. The
picture-galleries of Europe, the tapestries, the metal and wood work,
the engravings, and the frescoes, are the precious legacy of the past
to the present, not easily reproduced, but serving as a continual
incentive to modern production. They set in motion spiritual forces
that uplift and expand the human mind and spur it to future
achievement.

297. =Music and the Drama.=--Music and the drama have a similar
stimulating and refining influence when they are not debauched by a
sordid commercialism. They strengthen the noblest impulses, stir the
blood to worthy deeds by their rhythmic or pictorial influence, unite
individual hearts in worship or play, throb in unison with the
sentiments that through all time have swayed human life. Often they
have catered to the lower instincts, and have served for cheap
amusement or entertainment not worth while, but concert-hall and
theatre alike are capable of an educative work that can hardly be
equalled elsewhere. When in combination they appeal to both eye and
ear