The experience of the Boston Public Library shows that in the case of books each increase of facilities creates an increased demand. The trustees of 1852 boasted that they were providing for as many as fifty readers at a time; the trustees of 1887 thought themselves venturesome in providing for 500 readers at a time; and within a month after the new building was opened it was forced to accommodate over 700 at a time. Every week over 30,000 persons enter the Central Library building, and every year 1,200,000 volumes are drawn for home use by the 65,000 card-holders. Yet these figures represent still but a portion of the persons reached and the work to be done. Nor can facilities for distribution keep pace with the need. For a city of a half million people spread over an area of forty square miles adequate library facilities cannot ever be provided. A municipality which even approximates the adequate in providing buildings, equipment, administration and general literature at the public expense must still look to private gift for the specialized material necessary to a great reference collection. That the Boston Public Library is next to the British Museum in Shakespeariana is, to be sure, the result of a special expenditure by the city. But the larger part of its special collections which have given it distinction as a great scholars' library, has come from private gift; the Ticknor collection of Spanish literature, the Bowditch collection of mathematics, the Chamberlain collection of autographs, the Brown collection of music and many others. And a city which erects for its public library a building which is monumental is putting forward the most attractive invitation to private gift. The gifts which have come to Boston as the direct result of the new building have already reached a twelfth of its cost. With proper organization and a liberal co-operation between municipal and private effort the opportunities for service are almost limitless. The risk is the greater of attempts at service either legally inappropriate or practically inexpedient, and the risk is not lessened by a popular appreciation which is more enthusiastic than it is apt to be discriminating. There is, therefore, the greater need of discrimination on the part of the library itself and of an authority which will protect its exercise. This authority can be conferred only by intelligent public opinion on the part of those who are capable of appreciating constitutional limitations. THE PUBLIC LIBRARY: ITS USES TO THE MUNICIPALITY Written for the National Municipal League and printed in _The Library Journal_ for June, 1903, eight years after the author, Dr. John S. Billings, had begun his service as director of the New York Public Library; largely a defence of libraries against certain objections. The statement of the part played by "sentiment" in popular institutions, and its justification, are striking and true.