"The books were distributed to the districts by the town clerk to be returned by the directors every third month for exchange. This would now require more than 60,000 miles' travel per annum, at a positive expense to the directors, certainly, of $100,000, to say nothing of more than 10,000 days' time. This was like putting two locomotives ahead of each other to draw a hand-car. The result was the books were generally hidden away in the clerks' offices, like monks in their cloister, and valueless to the world. And what kind of books were they? Some good ones, doubtless; but generally it was better to sow oats in the dust that covered those books than to give them to the young to read. Every year, soon after the taxes were collected, the state swarmed with pedlers, with all the unsalable books of Eastern houses--the sensational novels of all ages, tales of piracies, murders, and love intrigues--the yellow-covered literature of the world." Finally, the superintendent for 1873 says: "The whole system seems to have come into general disfavor; and is, more than any other feature of our school system, the one of which we are least proud." Now we come to the fifth stage in the evolution of libraries--that of libraries fully endowed by private generosity, and thrown open to the public on such conditions as the founders have been pleased to indicate; sometimes called patronymic libraries. Notable specimens of this class of libraries are the Astor, Cooper, and Lenox Libraries, of New York, and the Peabody Library, of Baltimore. The note of this species of library is this: it is for the use of the public entirely without cost to the public. In short, it is a library completely endowed, not only as to the original expense of its erection and equipment, but absolutely for all subsequent expense in its increase and administration. Concerning this species of library, I have this to say: It is a noble use to make of private wealth; it does immense good; but it is not the best final form of library evolution. And for two reasons: first, the man who will completely endow a free public library does not arise in every community; whereas, every community needs a free public library. And, second, the wholesomest kind of a gift is not that which does it all for the community and requires no exertion or sacrifice on their part; but that which gives the community a good generous start, but still leaves something for the community to do for itself. In other words, the healthiest sort of help, whether for one man or for ten thousand, is that help which helps a man to help himself.