A Brief Outline of the History of Libraries

_A word about the Alexandrian Museum. Learned men dwelt in it supported from the Public Funds. Kings and Emperors made this Museum their special Care._

I have nothing further that seems worth saying on this subject of libraries, except a few words about their use. If they stand empty, or with only an occasional visitor; if students do not frequent them and make use of their books, why were they ever established, and what are they save that "idle luxury in the garb of scholarship" to which Seneca alludes? The Alexandrian kings saw to it that there were students to make use of their library, for they built near it a Museum, so called because it was, so to speak, a temple of the Muses, in which it was possible to follow the Muses, to cultivate the humanities, free from all cares, even from the labour of providing food and lodging, since the students in it were supported from the public funds. How admirable an institution! Strabo gives us the best description of it: