amusing. That this view is an erroneous one thought and
observation agree in showing. Much like the caution of the mother
who would not allow her son to bathe in the river till he had
learned to swim, is that of those who would have youth wait till
a certain age, when they ought to have good tastes formed, before
they can be admitted to companionship with the best influences
for the cultivation of them. Who will presume to set the age at
which a child may first be stirred with the beginnings of a
healthy intellectual appetite on getting a taste of the strong
meat of good literature? This point is one of the first
importance. No after efforts can accomplish what is done with
ease early in life in the way of forming habits either mental or
moral, and if there is any truth in the idea that the public
library is not merely a storehouse for the supply of the wants of
the reading public, but also and especially an educational
institution which shall create wants where they do not exist,
then the library ought to bring its influences to bear on the
young as early as possible.

And this is not a question of inducing young persons to read, but
of directing their reading into right channels. For in these
times there is little probability that exclusion from the public
library will prevent their reading. Poor, indeed, in all manner
of resources, must be the child who cannot now buy, beg, or
borrow a fair supply of reading of some kind; so that exclusion
from the library is likely to be a shutting up of the boy or girl
to dime novels and story papers as the staple of reading.
Complaints are often made that public libraries foster a taste
for light reading, especially among the young. Those who make
this complaint too often fail to perceive that the tastes