Address by Dr. Garnett. 301 adjacent darkness. To a certain extent this is still the case. Missionaries, indeed, no longer go forth from Erin ; but Carlyle admonishes us that the man who, under an earlier dispensation, would have been a preaching friar, now goes upon the Press, "and sets up his pulpit, which he calls newspaper." Now, it is matter of notoriety how largely the Press, not only of Ireland, but of Great and Greater Britain and the United States, is written and directed by Irishmen. Well, if Ireland can produce editors, she can produce librarians, and if she can produce librarians she can produce libraries. The obstacles which may oppose the general extension of public rate-sup- ported libraries throughout Ireland are not of a kind which our Association can remove, or, indeed, prudently deal with in any way. All we can hope is that its visit may both serve to express its own sympathy with the cause, and may en- courage Irishmen to follow the example set in Great Britain. I do not mean to follow it with servility. It is quite possible that an attempt to copy the English system exactly would result in failure. 1 have read with great pleasure in this morning's paper of the steps now being taken to establish a free library in the flourishing town of Newry, but we must remember that not all Irish towns are like Newry, and that the deficiency of population and of rateable property prohibit any considerable outlay in sites, buildings, and salaries. Under such circumstances, if I may venture to speak of what I have yet to learn, something analogous in its way to the trams and light railways now opening up the poorer and remoter districts of Ireland would seem to be desirable. The collections of books in individual towns might be small, the library buildings might be hired or of the most inexpensive character, the librarian's duty might be combined with other more remunerative occupa- tions all this would not matter so long as the books were systematically circulated from town to town, and no collection in any member of the federation contained duplicates of the rest. Take a village with only twenty books by themselves, therefore, scarcely worth having but let the village be a member of a federation of twelve similarly provided, and making a regular monthly exchange with its neighbours, and each village will have two hundred and forty volumes to read in the course of the year. Without some such machinery it will evidently be far from easy to introduce rate-supported libraries into the majority of Irish districts ; but by such a system of mutual aid as now
