It amounts to this, that the Free Library is an agency which should save us to a very material extent from actually acquiring books which are not worth holding; it is not only a medium for reference, but for testing and winnowing. But for the select private bookcase it is not, or ought not to be, a substitute.
The Free Library is in its infancy and on its trial. In course of time the spread of education and the force of experience will confer on it better governing bodies, and better governing bodies will guarantee better curators. The actual generation of librarians, or so-called librarians, is the product of inefficient committees of control and selection; and the worst part is that some of these gentlemen receive salaries which would almost enable their employers to secure the services of qualified officers.
I am not personally of the opinion that those institutions are an unmixed blessing. For already there was a marked tendency to a decline in the taste for collecting among the middle classes in the United Kingdom, available resources being devoted to other outlets more generally acceptable to families; and the facilities afforded by the Free Library virtually amount to each individual parishioner being enabled, without appreciable cost, to possess books on a far larger scale than if he had a collection actually his own. The unfavourable operation of this state of affairs is twofold: it injures the literary market, and it promotes superficiality of study in the case of books which should be owned, not borrowed, to be thoroughly mastered and understood.
The range of choice, which embraces the writers of the modern school in prose and verse, is both wide and difficult. During many years past the number of authors within these lines has been continually on the increase, yet, while merit and value may be questions of opinion, there can be no serious or legitimate doubt that the output of literary work of high character is not greater than it was, if indeed as great. In the course of a quarter of a century many popular names have either fallen or faded out of remembrance, alike of authors who belonged to antecedent generations, and of those who have enjoyed a transient and artificial celebrity, and have come and gone, as it were, under the eyes of their immediate contemporaries. With the advantages offered by lending libraries, it appears to be imprudent on the part of any one who cannot conveniently form an extensive collection of modern books to buy on the recommendation of the press or the trade new favourites; for literary acquisitions are unfortunately apt to occupy space, and, save in very exceptional cases, to deteriorate in value. Even the original editions of the later works of Tennyson are not in great demand, and the high figures realised by one or two of his early productions are explainable in the same way as those given for Byrons and Shelleys.