“The present writer is convinced that there will never be a full measure of health and vitality in libraries generally until some central control of this nature is established. The largest and best of the public libraries do not need it, but would welcome it to secure the welfare of the library body politic. But there is a class of libraries, and it is to be feared that it is not a small one, which seriously need to have light from the outside brought to bear upon their administration. Such libraries are managed in a narrow, illiberal manner, with rules which hamper rather than help the public. The staff is selected without regard to conditions of suitability, training, or merit, and every method adopted is of the tamest and least efficient kind. Only national and systematic inspection can alter this state of affairs. His Majesty’s inspectors of public schools perform an efficient and salutary work without curbing local aspirations, and similar inspectors of public libraries would be able to carry out an equally useful task in connection with the municipal libraries. But it is plain that no form of public Government inspection would be agreeable to existing library authorities, unless accompanied by some kind of substantial State aid.”[34] Government inspection of libraries is not unknown in other countries, on both sides of the Atlantic, and appears to cause no friction but a spirit of good feeling and mutual help. It is carried on, for instance, in Canada, and it is one of the functions of the State library commissions in the United States. The libraries accept it in the spirit which Edwards saw would animate the efficient library authority, and, further, welcome it as a potent means for extending their benefits into regions hitherto unreached. In Ontario the Minister of Education is responsible for the administration of the Public Libraries Act, and assigns this part of his duties to the Public Libraries Branch, of which the Inspector of Public Libraries is superintendent. But in Ontario the local authorities are so whole-hearted in their zeal that the energies of the Branch are mainly confined to general work in the interest of libraries, to routine inspections, the collection of statistics, and the payment of grants. Yet, it is admitted, the majority of librarians and library trustees would welcome a demand for a minimum standard of efficiency.