428 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



about the fact and the sense of ownership in a public institution, free 

 and untrammelled, provided by the collective action of the com- 

 munity for all classes of the community, and not for sections of it, 

 kept up mainly by the people's taxes, and under popular government, 

 makes the average person accept and use opportunities far more 

 largely than any privileges which may be offered to him under the 

 guise of a Subscription Library. Compare the marked difference 

 that is made of a popularly controlled library like that of Boston 

 with that which is made of a library under a select Board like the 

 Astor, and one is forced to the conclusion that the people like best 

 to use that which is their own. 



A library which exists as a close corporation, no matter how 

 much it is aided by Government or Municipality, is only a stepping- 

 stone to that Public Library which is an essential part of the educa- 

 tional system of the state, and which is always a standing witness of 

 the self-reliance and public spirit of the community that maintains 

 and uses it. 



The one expenditure, and the only expenditure of a Government 

 which is returned an hundred-fold to the country governed is its ex- 

 penditure in educational work ; and if South Africa is to go ahead 

 and make strides like u^e States have done, it will only be by a return 

 to the principle laid down in 1818, by which "Home Education " is 

 placed in the forefront of the schemes of the Government. 



