n average circulation, at the three periods, of twenty-one
hundred, thirty-four hundred and thirty-six hundred copies each. The
circulation thus outgrew the numbers in the proportion of nearly
two to one. And both are largely in excess of the increase of the
population, that being in the twenty years but 65 percent. The number
of daily papers (254 in 1850 and 574 in 1870) must now be equal to the
entire number of periodicals in France outside of Paris (796 in 1875),
with an average issue less than half that of ours. The proportion of
readers to the population, certainly in this class of literature, thus
appears to be rapidly growing: and the change is most striking if we
take, for example, that group of periodicals which are most purely
literary and most remote from the mere chronicle. The returns for
the three periods place the monthlies at, respectively, 100, 280 and
622--an advance of sixfold.

The magazine leads us to the door of the library; and here the exhibit
is still more marked, significant and gratifying. The census figures
are, for many reasons, extremely confused, but in the general result
they cannot be outrageously wrong, and they can mislead us only in
degree as to the immense multiplication of books in both public and
private libraries. The returns are manifestly far below the truth.
To give them here without the explanations accompanying them in
the census volumes would mislead; and those explanations, or a fair
synopsis of them, would occupy too much space, and would, after all,
leave the problem unsolved. That the supply of books has fully
kept pace with every other means of culture is patent enough. The
Congressional Library has risen in half the century from the shelves
of a closet to nearly four hundred thousand volumes--an accumulation
not surpassed in '76 by more than two libraries in Europe. It now
demands a separate edifice of its own, fit to stand by the side of
the fine structures which have within a generation recreated the
architectural aspect of the Federal metropolis with the most stately
government-offices in the world. Other public libraries, belonging to
colleges, schools, societies and independent endowments, show similar
progress. While none of them are equal, for reference, to some of the
great European establishments, they are generally better adapted to
the purposes of popular instruction. Their literary wealth is fresh
and available, little encumbered by lumber kept merely becau