The museum is, of course, largely educational and not entirely or even largely artistic in its aims. It and the art-gallery are also in a very different position from such activities as the subsidized theatre because they are devoted to the unique object--the specimen or the picture--which _must_ be in the hands of the State if it is to be available to all. There is no alternative to the public ownership of museums and art-galleries. The public library, though it does not deal with the unique, is in another way in a different category, since it, alone of all State provisions, can give something to all men. Those who do not desire good literature can obtain some other service--books on business, science, sport, etc., recreative reading, and so on _ad infinitum_--in return for their contribution towards its upkeep. The public library, by appealing to all men, brings together a multitude of interests and provides unlimited opportunities for the awakening of new ideas. At the library alone is the good made as easily accessible as the indifferent, and the very fact that they are to be found in the same place is an educational factor of great significance. The man who does not want good pictures or good plays has no need to come into contact with them, and remains outside their influence. On the shelves of a library books of all degrees of excellence and worthlessness (within limits) are side by side so that even mere luck or too hasty selection may lead to better tastes or fresh interests being acquired. Therefore the library is an institution to be encouraged. Frankly I believe the remedy to lie in the hands of those who want good art. None of these now can get as much of it as they desire; most enjoy only a small portion. If people set to work to provide for themselves so that, instead, a large part of their artistic desires was satisfied, they would so do a great deal to improve the average tastes of the community, since the membership of a healthy organization always increases. Of course they must avoid the insidious desire, which has wrecked many repertory enterprises, to attract outsiders, and must never forget that the function of the Societies is the quite selfish one of supplying their own needs. They, too, must be prepared to cut their cloth accordingly. It is the desire to do more than the means of the actual membership permits that leads to attempts to curry popular favour “to help to balance things”. By so doing they put themselves on the same footing as the commercial man, must take the same risks, and suffer the same failures--and these are liable to be more disastrous since Societies lack what little knowledge of popular tastes the commercial man possesses.