less tempting, now that it is less rugged. So full of human nature are we all—still—despite the Radical missionaries that labour in the vineyard. Before the National Gallery was extended and rearranged, there was a little St. Catherine by Pinturicchio that possessed my undivided affections. In those days she hung near the floor, so that those who would worship must grovel; and little I grudged it. Whenever I found myself near Trafalgar Square with five minutes to spare I used to turn in and sit on the floor before the object of my love, till gently but firmly replaced on my legs by the attendant. She hangs on the line now, in the grand new room; but I never go to see her. Somehow she is not my St. Catherine of old. Doubtless Free Libraries affect many students in the same way: on the same principle as that now generally accepted—that it is the restrictions placed on vice by our social code which make its pursuit so peculiarly agreeable.
But even when the element of human nature has been fully allowed for, it remains a question whether the type of mind that a generation or two of Free Libraries will evolve is or is not the one that the world most
