encouraged or greatly extended. In the public library it will be
found perhaps necessary not to exclude this class of juvenile
books entirely. Such an exclusion is not here advocated, but it
is rather urged that they should not form the staple of juvenile
reading furnished by the library. The better books should be
duplicated so as to be on hand when called for; these should be
provided in such numbers merely that they can occasionally be had
as the "seasoning" to a course of good reading.

But the young patrons of the library ought not to be encouraged
in confining their reading to juveniles, of no matter how good
quality. It is the one great evil of this era of juvenile books,
good and bad, that by supplying mental food in the form fit for
mere children, they postpone the attainment of a taste for the
strong meat of real literature; and the public library ought to
be influential in exalting this real literature and keeping it
before the people, stemming with it the current of trash which is
so eagerly welcomed because it is new or because it is
interesting. When children were driven to read the same books as
their elders or not to read at all, there were doubtless
thousands, probably the majority of all, who chose the latter
alternative, and read but very little in their younger years.
This class is better off now than then by the greater
inducements offered them to mental culture in the increased
facilities provided for it. But there seems to be danger that the
ease and smoothness of the royal road to knowledge now provided
in the great array of easy books in all departments will not
conduce to the formation of such mental growths as resulted from
the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. There is doubtless
more knowledge; but is there as much power and muscle of mind?