educational movement of the past fifty
years is that which has created the modern public library and developed
it into broad and active service. There are now over five thousand
public libraries in the United States, the product of this period.
In addition to accumulating material, they are also striving by
organization, by improvement in method, and by co-operation, to give
greater efficiency to the material they hold, to make it more widely
useful, and by avoidance of unnecessary duplication in process to reduce
the cost of its administration.

In these efforts they naturally look for assistance to the Federal
library, which, though still the Library of Congress, and so entitled,
is the one national library of the United States. Already the largest
single collection of books on the Western Hemisphere, and certain
to increase more rapidly than any other through purchase, exchange,
and the operation of the copyright law, this library has a unique
opportunity to render to the libraries of this country--to American
scholarship--service of the highest importance. It is housed in a
building which is the largest and most magnificent yet erected for
library uses. Resources are now being provided which will develop the
collection properly, equip it with the apparatus and service necessary
to its effective use, render its bibliographic work widely available,
and enable it to become, not merely a center of research, but the chief
factor in great co-operative efforts for the diffusion of knowledge and
the advancement of learning.

For the sake of good administration, sound economy, and the advancement
of science, the Census Office as now constituted should be made a
permanent Government bureau. This would insure better, cheaper, and more
satisfactory work, in the interest not only of our business but of
statistic, economic, and social science.

The remarkable growth of the postal service is shown in the fact that
its revenues have doubled and its expenditures have nearly doubled
within twelve years. Its progressive development compels constantly
increasing outlay, but in this period of business energy and prosperity
its receipts grow so much faster than its expenses that the annual
deficit has been steadily reduced from $11,411,779 in 1897 to $3,923,727
in 1901. Among recent postal advances the success of rural free delivery
wherever established has been so marked, and actual experience has made
its benefits so plain, that th