Accelerated growth from the seventies onwards was due to various causes, first and foremost the general advance in education, especially when the effects of Forster’s Act of 1870 began to tell. Successive amending enactments, down to the consolidating Act of 1892, each removed some obstacle. Thus the resistance of London ratepayers was conciliated by an Act in 1877 permitting them to vote a lower limit than one penny. More libraries were opened as a consequence, but the handicap of an exiguous income militated against their welfare. Many gifts of funds, buildings, or special collections of books were received from time to time, often with a proviso that the municipality should build and maintain a library. The old objection to the public endowment of libraries, that it would discourage private bounty, was thus shown to be against experience as it was against reason; though British generosity in this respect cannot stand comparison with that of rich Americans. It was calculated by an English librarian, Thomas Formby, in 1889, that in the last thirty-five years British libraries had received a million pounds from private sources, and American libraries six times as much. A stimulus of far-reaching effect came into operation towards the close of the century, when Andrew Carnegie began to make systematic contributions, first to Scottish and then to other British municipalities, for the establishment and extension of public libraries. The benefactions of an English philanthropist Passmore Edwards, though more modest in amount, had relatively a more salutary result, because they were more carefully adjusted to local needs. The policy of Mr. Carnegie was, however, very sagacious. As a rule, he gave money for buildings and fixtures alone, on the understanding that the maximum rate allowable should be raised. The expectation was that, once started, the library enterprise was bound to go on, and that with a building free from debt it was bound to thrive. The sequels were not always so satisfactory. Many places were tempted by the free gift to build more expensive premises than they had the wherewithal to maintain efficiently. Some embarked on ambitious schemes that left them with a heavy burden of debt. Large buildings meant, of course, large staffs and heavy establishment charges; but the income was strictly limited. Hence many libraries were unable to pay their way, and at the same time afford a proper service of books. There was a judicious clause in the Scottish Act which ought to have been inserted in all, by which authorities were forbidden to raise a loan of more than twenty times one quarter of the annual rate income.