this morning would fit the question of abolishing the toll-roads. A great many people keep no horses. Why should they be taxed to maintain the roads? We have the fire department. We do not tax only the people whose houses are on fire. It is a public necessity. We have the best illustration of the case in our schools. The tax-supported high school has killed off a number of private schools, and estimable people who were earning their living that way were thrown out of employment. And the tax-supported high school is in analogy with the public library. It has offered instruction free and has ruined the business of others. It is so with many professional schools. A transition has been going on very rapidly. The last big fight we have been having is over the business colleges, some of which are directed by mere charlatans, and others by those who are giving admirable instruction, doing their work well. But they have outlived their time. The public demanded that certain instruction of this kind should be made available cheaply to all the people. Now, we have been charged with wanting to abolish the bookseller. I never said anything about abolishing him. It is like saying that because the tadpole is going to be a frog we are abolishing the tadpoles. It is nature that does it; it is a matter of growth. Or it is like saying that the entomologist in pointing out that the moth is going to develop into the butterfly, is abolishing all the moths. So the good booksellers, if they go on with the work of supplying the public with good reading, will do it through the agency of the public library, where they can do it cheaper. When we are sure that a certain thing ought to be done; that it is a good thing; and, secondly, when we are sure that it can be done cheaper than in any other way, we are not inclined to waste a great deal of time theorizing over anybody's philosophy as to whether it is a proper thing to do or not. We want the right things done in the best and cheapest way. I am sorry to see the old-time bookseller, who did good work, crowded out of the field. I do not see any way in which he can save himself, except in the largest cities. I am sorry to see a great many of the old schools, the secondary schools, crowded out of business and entirely replaced by the tax-supported schools. I do not understand that it is our purpose, either in this Association, or in life, to be studying how we are going to feed every man after the system which has fed him up to the present time is abolished. If the man is good for anything, he will earn his wages; and it is utterly fallacious to say a thing is wrong because somebody is going to lose his business. When the railroad was built a great many worthy men who drove stage coaches were driven out of business in just that way. Every modern improvement does that; new machinery of all kinds has the effect of driving people out of employment; but, in the long run, it pays.