Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/14

x first. A generous view should be taken of such a library, ample space for additions should be secured, and the plan should be so framed that any future accretion should be a legitimate and harmonious development of the original model. So liberal a procedure, however, is only practi- cable when and where the public library has established itself in the public consciousness as an institution of paramount importance. American libraries are planned on a larger scale than the British, and with more complete appliances, be- cause the library and the librarian are more regarded in America than here. It rests with librarians themselves, and with national instructors generally, to raise the British conception to the American standard, and with the public itself to demonstrate the inadequacy of the existing libraries by copious resort to them. Should this come to pass, the subject of library architecture will gain greatly in importance, and as the nineteenth century has been an age of construction, the twentieth may prove one of reconstruction.