In an educational point of view, there are very few cities either in these islands or on the Continent that offer more facilities for culture than Dublin. Its new National Library is, for its size, one of the finest and best organised and best managed in Europe. It is not a British Museum, nor is it a Bibliothèque Nationale; and the citizens of Dublin who have children who are fond of reading, and who wish to add to their store of knowledge, ought to feel very well satisfied that their National Library is _not_ like either the monstrous and little-good-to-the-masses institution in London, or the still more monstrous and still less good-to-the-masses institution in Paris. Those to whom time is of little value can afford to wait during a considerable part of the day to get a book from the great libraries of London and Paris; but for any one to whom time is really valuable, to visit the great libraries mentioned as a reader of their books, should, in most cases, be the last thing he should think of. There are three libraries in Dublin, of which two are free to any one known as a respectable person--these are the National Library and the Royal Irish Academy. To become a reader in Trinity College Library costs, to a person known to be respectable, only a couple of shillings a year. Seeing the facilities that are in Dublin for cultured people, or for those who wish to become cultured, it is strange that it does not stand higher as an educational centre. The three great libraries it contains--that is, the National Library, Trinity College Library and the Royal Irish Academy--contain almost every sort of book required for the most complete education in every art and science known to civilised men. But one of the grand advantages of these institutions, an advantage almost as great to the people at large as the treasures they contain, is the fact that they are not controlled by "red tapeism." The amount of trouble and downright humiliation one has to go through to become a reader in the British Museum of London, or in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, is enough to deter any but a person of nerve from seeking admittance to them as a reader. The British Museum is not so bad in the matter of "red tapeism" as it might perhaps be; but the Bibliothèque Nationale puts so many obstacles in the way of those who desire to become readers, that it is little else than a disgrace to Paris and to France. For ridiculous red tapeism it beats any institution of its kind on earth. There are probably not three libraries in the world more easy of access than the three Dublin ones that have been mentioned, and in which there is less red tapeism, or more courtesy shown to readers.