But whilst we pay this tribute to its architectural grace, one wonders at the same time at the shortsightedness which has sacrificed everything to appearance, and given us a building not even equal to existing demands--as if a library was a thing of the present, not to increase with the intellectual requirements of the country. As it is now, the library contains only some 100,000 volumes, many of which have no particular value. The American and Canadian department is confessedly inferior in many respects, although we ought to excel in that particular. Of late years, the annual grant has been extremely small, and chiefly devoted to the purchase of books for the law branch, for the especial benefit of lawyers engaged in the Supreme Court. But we have as yet no Free Libraries like those in the United States, of which the Boston Library is a notable illustration. [Footnote: Boston, twenty years ago, spent and spent well, in founding her great free library, more than two dollars for each man, woman, and child within her limits, and she has sustained it to this day with great spirit and liberality. That library has now more than 360,000 volumes, and her citizens in 1879 took to their homes more than 1,160,000 volumes. Many smaller places in New England and elsewhere, not without careful investigation, have followed her example, finding in the practical results of her 20 years' work, proof satisfactory to their tax-payers, that a free library is a profitable investment of public money, while in the West the great cities of Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis, with Western free-handed energy, have already free libraries on such a scale that one at least of them bids fair to rank among the greatest in the world--_Scribner's Monthly_ for September, 1880, where the advantages of a free library are very tersely shown.] But, nevertheless, the reading facilities of the people generally have increased very largely within two decades. At the present time, as far as we can estimate from the information within reach, there are some 130,000 volumes in the Parliamentary Libraries of the Dominion, 700,000 in the Universities, Colleges and Schools--all of which are necessarily of a limited professional class--and 140,000 in Mechanics' Institutes and Literary Societies. The grand total of library and prize books despatched to the Public Schools of the Province of Ontario alone within twenty-five years is over one million and a quarter of volumes--comprising of course books of an educational character, but nevertheless valuable in laying the foundation of general culture, and bringing the means of acquiring knowledge to sections where otherwise such facilities would be wanting. Last year, the value of the books imported into Canada amounted to about a million of dollars, or an increase of about 30 per cent. in ten years. Literary and Scientific Institutes are increasing in number, and some are doing a useful, if not