An objection is sometimes raised against the multiplication of free libraries on the ground that they promote exclusively the perusal of the most worthless fiction among the class least likely to be proof against the social dangers of this class of writing. No novel, perhaps, is so entirely mischievous as not to be preferable to the occupations from which for a few hours, it may withdraw the illiterate reader. In truth however a very careful examination of the facts by enquiries made at representative free libraries throughout the country justify the statement that novels form a stepping stone to books of a more seriously improving kind.
The same statistics show the demand for fiction already to be on the decrease. Thus, in the case of the Newcastle-on-Tyne library; during a recent twelvemonth, of the books issued to readers 65·69 were fiction. The next year the proportion was 64·28. A year later it was 61·81. In 1896 the figures were 55·22. The latest enquiries show this decline in the demand for fiction to be steadily going forward. Further, the category of fiction is stretched by free libraries to include not only the coloured paper boards containing the latest sensational romance of the day, but all the masterpieces of Fielding, nearly all the writings of Defoe, the _Arcadia_ of Sir Philip Sidney, the _Tristram Shandy_ of Lawrence Sterne, the _Don Quixote_ of Cervantes, and the Dialogues of Lucian.
The remarkably elastic connotation with which the word fiction is thus invested, may make one doubt whether a case might not be established even for novel reading. As a fact the works most in demand at any typical London library, _e.g._, that of Chelsea, are not novels at all. Here the favourites seem to be Herbert Spencer's _First Principles_, thrice asked for on the day this library was visited, his _Ecclesiastical Institutions_, twice asked for. Aristotle's _Ethics_, the works of Spinoza, Martineau's _Types of Ethical Theory_, Adam Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, J. S. Mill's _Logic_, Professor Sayce's _Vindications of Revealed Religion by the Light of Ancient Monuments_, all Sir Charles Dilke's works of travel, Carlyle, Froude; _Cassell's Popular Educator_, Todhunter's _Euclid_ are in greater demand than any fictions. However many copies of these there might be, none, it is thought, would be often out of hand.