Never be too sure of what you find in books; but prove all things and hold fast to those only which you find to be beyond dispute. Thus will you save yourself from falling into many errors, and from recanting many opinions. It is the method of ordinary education to take everything for granted; it is the method of science to take nothing for granted.

I may refer here to another rule always to be observed, and pertaining to the theme of strict accuracy in your daily work. That is, the necessity of carefully examining every piece of work you may have done, before it leaves your hands, for the purpose of correcting errors. All of us are not only liable to make mistakes, but all of us do make them; and if any one has a conceit of his own accuracy, the surest way to take it out of him is to let him serve an apprenticeship in some library, where there is competent revision of all the labor performed. There are multitudes of assistants in libraries who cannot write a letter, even, without making one or more errors. How often do you leave out a word in your writing experience, which may change the meaning of a whole sentence? So, in writing titles, whether for the catalogue, or for a library order, or for the information of some inquirer, you are liable to make errors of date, or edition, or place of publication, or size, or to misplace or omit or substitute some word in the description of the book. There is nothing in the world quite so easy as to be mistaken: and the only remedy (and it is an all-essential one) is to go over every line and every word of what you have written, before it leaves your hands. As second thoughts are proverbially best, so a second careful glance over a piece of writing will almost always reveal some error or omission to be corrected. Think of the mortification you must feel at finding an unverified piece of work returned upon your hands, with several glaring mistakes marked by the reviser! Think, on the other hand, of the inward satisfaction experienced when you have done your best, written and revised your own work, and found it always passed as perfect. I have tried many persons by many tests, and while I have found a great number who were industrious, intelligent, zealous, conscientious, good-tempered, and expeditious, I have found scarcely one who was always accurate. One of the rarest things in a library is to find an assistant who has an unerring sense of the French accents. This knowledge, to one expert in that language, even if he does not speak it, should be as intuitive as the art of spelling correctly, either in English or French. He should write the proper accent over a letter just as infallibly as he writes the proper letters in a word. But, strange to say, it is very common, even with good French scholars (in the book-sense or literary sense of scholarship) to find them putting the acute accent for the grave over a vowel, or the grave instead of the acute, or omitting the circumflex accent entirely, and so on.

Every one commits errors, but the wise man is he who learns by his mistakes, and applies the remedy. The best remedy (as I said in the case of memory in another chapter,) is to cultivate a habit of trained attention in whatever we do. Yet many people (and I am afraid we must say most people) go on through life, making the same blunders, and repeating them. It appears as if the habit of inaccuracy were innate in the human race, and only to be reformed by the utmost painstaking, and even with the aid of that, only by a few. I have had to observe and correct such numberless errors in the work of well-educated, adult, and otherwise accomplished persons, as filled me with despair. Yet there is no more doubt of the improvability of the average mind, however inaccurate at the start, than of the power of the will to correct other bad habits into which people unconsciously fall.

One of the requisites of a successful librarian is a faculty of order and system, applied throughout all the details of library administration. Without these, the work will be performed in a hap-hazard, slovenly manner, and the library itself will tend to become a chaos. Bear in mind the great extent and variety of the objects which come under the care of the librarian, all of which are to be classified and reduced to order. These include not only books upon every earthly subject (and very many upon unearthly ones) but a possibly wide range of newspapers and periodicals, a great mass of miscellaneous pamphlets, sometimes of maps and charts, of manuscripts and broadsides, and frequently collections of engravings, photographs, and other pictures, all of which come in to form a part of most libraries. This great complexity of material, too, exhibits only the physical aspect of the librarian's labors. There are, besides, the preparation, arrangement and continuation of the catalogue, in its three or more forms, the charging and crediting of the books in circulation, the searching of many book lists for purchases, the library bills and accounts, the supervision and revision of the work of assistants, the library correspondence, often requiring wide researches to answer inquiries, the continual aid to readers, and a multitude of minor objects of attention quite too numerous to name. Is it any over-statement of the case to say that the librarian who has to organize and provide for all this physical and intellectual labor, should be systematic and orderly in a high degree?

That portion of his responsible task which pertains to the arrangement and classification of books has been elsewhere treated. But there is required in addition, a faculty of arranging his time, so as to meet seasonably the multifarious drafts upon it. He should early learn not only the supreme value of moments, but how to make all the library hours fruitful of results. To this end the time should be apportioned with careful reference to each department of library service. One hour may be set for revising one kind of work of assistants; another for a different one; another for perusing sale catalogues, and marking desiderata to be looked up in the library catalogue; another for researches in aid of readers or correspondents; still another for answering letters on the many subjects about which librarians are constantly addressed; and still another for a survey of all the varied interests of the library and its frequenters, to see what features of the service need strengthening, what improvements can be made, what errors corrected, and how its general usefulness can be increased. So to apportion one's time as to get out of the day (which is all too short for what is to be done in it) the utmost of accomplishment is a problem requiring much skill, as well as the ability to profit by experience. One has always to be subject to interruptions—and these must be allowed for, and in some way made up for. Remember, when you have lost valuable time with some visitor whose claims to your attention are paramount, that when to-morrow comes one should take up early the arrears of work postponed, and make progress with them, even though unable to finish them.

Another suggestion; proper system in the management and control of one's time demands that none of it be absorbed by trifles or triflers; and so every librarian must indispensably know how to get rid of bores. One may almost always manage to effect this without giving offense, and at the same time without wasting any time upon them, which is the one thing needful. The bore is commonly one who, having little or nothing to do, inflicts himself upon the busy persons of his acquaintance, and especially upon the ones whom he credits with knowing the most—to wit, the librarians. Receive him courteously, but keep on steadily at the work you are doing when he enters. If you are skilful, you can easily do two things at once, for example, answer your idler friend or your bore, and revise title-cards, or mark a catalogue, or collate a book, or look up a quotation, or write a letter, at the same time. Never lose your good humor, never say that your time is valuable, or that you are very busy; never hint at his going away; but never quit your work, answer questions cheerfully, and keep on, allowing nothing to take your eyes off your business. By and by he will take the hint, if not wholly pachydermatous, and go away of his own accord. By pursuing this course I have saved infinite time, and got rid of infinite bores, by one and the same process.

The faculty of organizing one's work is essential, in order to efficiency and accomplishment. If you do not have a plan and adhere to it, if you let this, that, and the other person interrupt you with trifling gossip, or unnecessary requests, you will never get ahead of your work; on the contrary, your work will always get ahead of you. The same result will follow if you interrupt yourself, by yielding to the temptation of reading just a page or a paragraph of something that attracts your eye while at work. This dissipation of time, to say nothing of its unfair appropriation of what belongs to the library, defeats the prompt accomplishment of the work in hand, and fosters the evil habit of scattering your forces, in idleness and procrastination.

It ought not to be needful to urge habits of neatness and the love of order upon candidates for places in libraries. How much a neat and carefully arranged shelf of books appeals to one's taste, I need not say, nor urge the point how much an orderly and neatly kept room, or desk, or table adds to one's comfort. The librarian who has the proper spirit of his calling should take pains to make the whole library look neat and attractive, to have a place for everything, and everything in its place. This, with adequate space existing, will be found easier than to have the books and other material scattered about in confusion, thus requiring much more time to find them when wanted. A slovenly-kept library is certain to provoke public criticism, and this always tells to the disadvantage of the librarian; while a neatly kept, carefully arranged collection of books is not only pleasing to the eye, but elicits favorable judgment from all visitors.

Among the qualities that should enter into the composition of a successful librarian must be reckoned an inexhaustible patience. He will be sorely tried in his endeavors to satisfy his own ideals, and sometimes still more sorely in his efforts to satisfy the public. Against the mistakes and short-comings of assistants, the ignorance of many readers, and the unreasonable expectations of others, the hamperings of library authorities, and the frequently unfounded criticisms of the press, he should arm himself with a patience and equanimity that are unfailing. When he knows he is right, he should never be disturbed at complaint, nor suffer a too sensitive mood to ruffle his feelings. When there is any foundation for censure, however slight, he should learn by it and apply the remedy. The many and varied characters who come within the comprehensive sphere of the librarian necessarily include people of all tempers and dispositions, as well as of every degree of culture. To be gracious and courteous to all is his interest as well as his duty. With the ignorant he will often have to exercise a vast amount of patience, but he should never betray a supercilious air, as though looking down upon them from the height of his own superior intelligence. To be always amiable toward inferiors, superiors, and equals, is to conciliate the regard of all. Courtesy costs so little, and makes so large a return in proportion to the investment, that it is surprising not to find it universal. Yet it is so far from being so that we hear people praising one whose manners are always affable, as if he were deserving of special credit for it, as an exception to the general rule. It is frequently observed that a person of brusque address or crusty speech begets crustiness in others. There are subtle currents of feeling in human intercourse, not easy to define, but none the less potent in effect. A person of marked suavity of speech and bearing radiates about him an atmosphere of good humor, which insensibly influences the manners and the speech of others.

There will often come into a public library a man whose whole manner is aggressive and over-bearing, who acts and talks as if he had a right to the whole place, including the librarian. No doubt, being a citizen, he has every right, except the right to violate the rules—or to make himself disagreeable. The way to meet him is to be neither aggressive, nor submissive and deferential, but with a cool and pleasant courtesy, ignoring any idea of unpleasant feeling on your part. You will thus at least teach a lesson in good manners, which may or may not be learned, according to circumstances and the hopeful or hopeless character of the pupil.

Closely allied to the virtue of patience, is that of unfailing tact. This will be found an important adjunct in the administration of a public library. How to meet the innumerable inquiries made of him with just the proper answer, saying neither too much, nor too little, to be civil to all, without needless multiplication of words, this requires one to hold his faculties well in hand, never to forget himself, and to show that no demand whatever can vex or fluster him. The librarian should know how, or learn how to adapt himself to all readers, and how to aid their researches without devoting much time to each. This requires a fine quality of tact, of adapting one's self quickly to the varied circumstances of the case in hand. One who has it well developed will go through the manifold labors and interviews and annoyances of the day without friction, while one who is without tact will be worried and fretted until life seems to him a burden.

Need I mention, after all that has been said of the exacting labors that continually wait upon the librarian, that he should be possessed both of energy and untiring industry? By the very nature of the calling to which he is dedicated, he is pledged to earnest and thorough work in it. He cannot afford to be a trifler or a loiterer on the way, but must push on continually. He should find time for play, it is true, and for reading for his own recreation and instruction, but that time should be out of library hours. And a vigilant and determined economy of time in library hours will be found a prime necessity. I have dwelt elsewhere upon the importance of choosing the shortest methods in every piece of work to be accomplished. Equally important is it to cultivate economy of speech, or the habit of condensing instructions to assistants, and answers to inquiries into the fewest words. A library should never be a circumlocution office. The faculty of condensed expression, though somewhat rare, can be cultivated.

In the relations existing between librarian and assistants there should be mutual confidence and support. All are equally interested in the credit and success of the institution which engages their services, and all should labor harmoniously to that end. Loyalty to one's employers is both the duty and the interest of the employed: and the reciprocal duty of faithfulness to those employed, and interest in their improvement and success should mark the intercourse of the librarian with his assistants. He should never be too old nor too wise to learn, and should welcome suggestions from every intelligent aid. I have suggested the importance of an even temper in the relations between librarians and readers; and it is equally important as between all those associated in the administration of a library. Every one has faults and weaknesses; and those encountered in others will be viewed with the most charity by those who are duly conscious of their own. Every one makes mistakes, and these are often provoking or irritating to one who knows better; but a mild and pleasant explanation of the error is far more likely to lead to amendment, than a sharp reproof, leaving hard feeling or bitterness behind. Under no circumstances is peevishness or passion justifiable. Library assistants in their bearing toward each other, should suppress all feelings of censoriousness, fault-finding or jealousy, if they have them, in favor of civility and good manners, if not of good fellowship. They are all public servants engaged in a common cause, aiming at the enlightenment and improvement of the community; they should cherish a just pride in being selected for this great service, and to help one another in every step of the work, should be their golden rule. Everything should be done for the success and usefulness of the library, and all personal considerations should be merged in public ones.

Turning now to what remains of suggestion regarding the qualities which should enter into the character, or form a part of the equipment of a librarian, let me urge the importance of his possessing a truly liberal and impartial mind. It is due to all who frequent a public library to find all those in charge ready and willing to aid their researches in whatever direction they may lie. Their attitude should be one of constant and sincere open-mindedness. They are to remember that it is the function of the library to supply the writings of all kinds of authors, on all sides of all questions. In doing this, it is no part of a librarian's function to interpose any judgments of his own upon the authors asked for. He has no right as a librarian to be an advocate of any theories, or a propagandist of any opinions. His attitude should be one of strict and absolute impartiality. A public library is the one common property of all, the one neutral ground where all varieties of character, and all schools of opinion meet and mingle. Within its hallowed precincts, sacred to literature and science, the voice of controversy should be hushed. While the librarian may and should hold his own private opinions with firmness and entire independence, he should keep them private—as regards the frequenters of the library. He may, for example, be profoundly convinced of the truth of the Christian religion; and he is called on, we will suppose, for books attacking Christianity, like Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason," or Robert G. Ingersoll's lectures on "Myth and Miracle." It is his simple duty to supply the writers asked for, without comment, for in a public library, Christian and Jew, Mahometan and Agnostic, stand on the same level of absolute equality. The library has the Koran, and the Book of Mormon, as well as the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and one is to be as freely supplied as the other. A library is an institution of universal range—of encyclopaedic knowledge, which gathers in and dispenses to all comers, the various and conflicting opinions of all writers upon religion, science, politics, philosophy, and sociology. The librarian may chance to be an ardent Republican or a zealous Democrat; but in either case, he should show as much alacrity in furnishing readers with W. J. Bryan's book "The First Battle," as with McKinley's speeches, or the Republican Hand-Book. A library is no place for dogmatism; the librarian is pledged, by the very nature of his profession, which is that of a dispenser of all knowledge—not of a part of it—to entire liberality, and absolute impartiality. Remembering the axiom that all errors may be safely tolerated, while reason is left free to combat them, he should be ever ready to furnish out of the intellectual arsenal under his charge, the best and strongest weapons to either side in any conflict of opinion.

It will have been gathered from what has gone before, in recapitulation of the duties and responsibilities of the librarian's calling, that it is one demanding a high order of talent. The business of successfully conducting a public library is complex and difficult. It is full of never-ending detail, and the work accomplished does not show for what it is really worth, except in the eyes of the more thoughtful and discerning observers.

I may here bring into view some of the drawbacks and discouragements incident to the librarian's vocation, together with an outline of the advantages which belong to it.

In the first place, there is little money in it. No one who looks upon the acquisition of money as one of the chief aims of life, should think for a moment of entering on a librarian's career. The prizes in the profession are few—so few indeed, as to be quite out of the question for most aspirants. The salaries paid in subordinate positions are very low in most libraries, and even those of head-librarians are not such that one can lay up money on them. A lady assistant librarian in one city said she had found that one of a librarian's proper qualifications was to be able to live on two meals a day. This doubtless was a humorous exaggeration, but it is true that the average salaries hitherto paid in our public libraries, with few exceptions, do not quite come up to those of public school teachers, taking the various grades into account. Most of the newly formed libraries are poor, and have to be economical. But there is some reason to hope that as libraries multiply and their unspeakable advantages become more fully appreciated, the standard of compensation for all skilled librarians will rise. I say skilled, because training and experience are the leading elements which command the better salaries, in this, as in other professions.

Another drawback to be recognized in the librarian's calling, is that there are peculiar trials and vexations connected with it. There are almost no limits to the demands made upon the knowledge and the time of the librarian. In other professions, teaching for example, there are prescribed and well-defined routines of the instruction to be given, and the teacher who thoroughly masters this course, and brings the pupils through it creditably, has nothing to do beyond. The librarian, on the other hand, must be, as it were, a teacher of all sciences and literatures at once. The field to be covered by the wants of readers, and the inquiries that he is expected to answer, are literally illimitable. He cannot rest satisfied with what he has already learned, however expert or learned he may have become; but he must keep on learning forevermore. The new books that are continually flooding him, the new sciences or new developments of old ones that arise, must be so far assimilated that he can give some account of the scope of all of them to inquiring readers.

In the third place, there are special annoyances in the service of a public, which includes always some inconsiderate and many ignorant persons, and these will frequently try one's patience, however angelic and forbearing. So, too, the short-comings of library assistants or associates may often annoy him, but as all these trials have been before referred to, it may be added that they are not peculiar to library service, but are liable to occur in the profession of teaching or in any other.

In the next place, the peculiar variety and great number of the calls incessantly made upon the librarian's knowledge, constitute a formidable draft upon any but the strongest brain. There is no escape from these continual drafts upon his nervous energy for one who has deliberately chosen to serve in a public library. And he will sometimes find, wearied as he often must be with many cares and a perfect flood of questions, that the most welcome hour of the day is the hour of closing the library.

Another of the librarian's vexations is frequently the interference with his proper work by the library authorities. Committees or trustees to oversee the management and supervise expenditures are necessary to any public library. Sometimes they are quick-sighted and intelligent persons, and recognize the importance of letting the librarian work out everything in his own way, when once satisfied that they have got a competent head in charge. But there are sometimes men on a board of library control who are self-conceited and pragmatical, thinking that they know everything about how a library should be managed, when in fact, they are profoundly ignorant of the first rudiments of library science. Such men will sometimes overbear their fellows, who may be more intelligent, but not so self-asserting, and so manage as to overrule the best and wisest plans, or the most expedient methods, and vex the very soul of the librarian. In such cases the only remedy is patience and tact. Some day, what has been decided wrongly may be reversed, or what has been denied the librarian may be granted, through the conversion of a minority of the trustees into a majority, by the gentle suasion and skilful reasoning of the librarian.

There are other drawbacks and discomforts in the course of a librarian's duties which have been referred to in dealing with the daily work under his charge. There remains the fact that the profession is no bed of roses, but a laborious and exacting calling, the price of success in which is an unremitting industry, and energy inexhaustible. But these will not appear very formidable requisites to those who have a native love of work, and it is a fact not to be doubted that work of some kind is the only salvation of every human creature.

Upon the whole, if the calling of the librarian involves many trials and vexations, it has also many notable compensations. Foremost among these is to be reckoned the fact that it opens more and wider avenues to intellectual culture than any other profession whatever. This comes in a two-fold way: first, through the stimulus to research given by the incessant inquiries of readers, and by the very necessity of his being, as a librarian; and secondly, by the rare facilities for investigation and improvement supplied by the ample and varied stores of the library always immediately at hand. Other scholars can commonly command but few books, unless able to possess a large private library: their researches in the public one are hampered by the rule that no works of reference can be withdrawn, and that constitutes a very large and essential class, constantly needed by every scholar and writer. The librarian, on the other hand, has them all at his elbow.

In the next place, there are few professions which are in themselves so attractive as librarianship. Its tendency is both to absorb and to satisfy the intellectual faculties. No where else is the sense of continual growth so palpable; in no other field of labor is such an enlargement of the bounds of one's horizon likely to be found. Compare it with the profession of teaching. In that, the mind is chained down to a rigorous course of imparting instruction in a narrow and limited field. One must perforce go on rehearsing the same rudiments of learning, grinding over the same Latin gerunds, hearing the same monotonous recitations, month after month, and year after year. This continual threshing over of old straw has its uses, but to an ardent and active mind, it is liable to become very depressing. Such a mind would rather be kept on the qui vive of activity by a volley of questions fired at him every hour in a library, than to grind forever in an intellectual tread-mill, with no hope of change and very little of relief. The very variety of the employments which fill up the library hours, the versatility required in the service, contributes to it a certain zest which other professions lack.

Again, the labors of the librarian bring him into an intimate knowledge of a wide range of books, or at least an acquaintance with authors and titles far more extensive than can be acquired by most persons. The reading of book catalogues is a great and never-ending fascination to one who has a love for books. The information thus acquired of the mighty range of the world's literature and science is of inestimable value. Most of it, if retained in a retentive memory, will enable its possessor to answer multitudes of the questions continually put to the librarian.

Then, too, the service of a public library is a valuable school for the study of human nature. One comes in contact with scholars, men of business, authors, bright young people, journalists, professional men and cultured women, to an extent unequaled by the opportunities of any other calling. This variety of intercourse tends to broaden one's sympathies, to strengthen his powers of observation, to cultivate habits of courtesy, to develop the faculty of adapting himself to all persons—qualities which contribute much to social interest and success. The discipline of such an intercourse may sometimes make out of a silent and bashful recluse, a ready and engaging adept in conversation, able to command the attention and conciliate the regard of all. Farther than this, one brought into so wide a circle of communication with others, cannot fail to learn something from at least some among them, and so to receive knowledge as well as to impart it. The curious and diverse elements of character brought out in such intercourse will make their impress, and may have their value. All these many facilities for intellectual intercourse both with books and with men, contribute directly to keep the librarian in contact with all the great objects of human interest. They supply an unfailing stimulus to his intellectual and moral nature. They give any active-minded person rare facilities, not only for the acquisition, but for the communication of ideas. And there is one avenue for such communication that is peculiarly open to one whose mind is stored with the ripe fruits of reading and observation. I mean the field of authorship—not necessarily the authorship of books, but of writing in the form of essays, reviews, lectures, stories or contributions to the periodical press. There are in every community literary societies, clubs, and evening gatherings, where such contributions are always in demand, and always welcomed, in exact proportion to their inherent interest and value. Such avenues for the communication of one's thought are of great and sometimes permanent advantage. The knowledge which we acquire is comparatively barren, until it is shared with others. And whether this be in an appreciative circle of listeners, or in the press, it gives a certain stimulus and reward to the thinker and writer, which nothing else can impart. To convey one's best thought to the world is one of the purest and highest of intellectual pleasures.

Let me add that there are two sides to the question of authorship, as concerns librarians. On the one hand, their advantages for entering that field are undoubtedly superior, both from the ready command of the most abundant material, and from experience in its use. On the other hand, while authorship may be said to be the most besetting temptation of the librarian, it is one that should be steadily resisted whenever it encroaches on the time and attention due to library duties. If he makes it a rule to write nothing and to study nothing for his own objects during library hours, he is safe. Some years since it was a common subject of reproach regarding the librarians of several university libraries in England that they were so engaged in writing books, that no scholar could get at them for aid in his literary researches. The librarians and assistants employed in the British Museum Library, where the hours of service are short, have found time to produce numerous contributions to literature. Witness the works, as authors and editors, of Sir Henry Ellis, Antonio Panizzi, Dr. Richard Garnett, Edward Edwards, J. Winter Jones, Thomas Watts, George Smith, and others. And in America, the late Justin Winsor was one of the most prolific and versatile of authors, while John Fiske, once assistant librarian at Harvard, Reuben A. Guild, William F. Poole, George H. Moore, J. N. Larned, Frederick Saunders and others have been copious contributors to the press.

* * * * *

In a retrospective view of what has been said in respect to the qualifications of a librarian, it may appear that I have insisted upon too high a standard, and have claimed that he should be possessed of every virtue under heaven. I freely admit that I have aimed to paint the portrait of the ideal librarian; and I have done it in order to show what might be accomplished, rather than what has been accomplished. To set one's mark high—higher even than we are likely to reach, is the surest way to attain real excellence in any vocation. It is very true that it is not given to mortals to achieve perfection: but it is none the less our business to aim at it, and the higher the ideal, the nearer we are likely to come to a notable success in the work we have chosen.

Librarianship furnishes one of the widest fields for the most eminent attainments. The librarian, more than any other person whatever, is brought into contact with those who are hungering and thirsting after knowledge. He should be able to satisfy those longings, to lead inquirers in the way they should go, and to be to all who seek his assistance a guide, philosopher and friend. Of all the pleasures which a generous mind is capable of enjoying, that of aiding and enlightening others is one of the finest and most delightful. To learn continually for one's self is a noble ambition, but to learn for the sake of communicating to others, is a far nobler one. In fact, the librarian becomes most widely useful by effacing himself, as it were, in seeking to promote the intelligence of the community in which he lives. One of the best librarians in the country said that such were the privileges and opportunities of the profession, that one might well afford to live on bread and water for the sake of being a librarian, provided one had no family to support.

There is a new and signally marked advance in recent years, in the public idea of what constitutes a librarian. The old idea of a librarian was that of a guardian or keeper of books—not a diffuser of knowledge, but a mere custodian of it. This idea had its origin in ages when books were few, were printed chiefly in dead languages, and rendered still more dead by being chained to the shelves or tables of the library. The librarian might be a monk, or a professor, or a priest, or a doctor of law, or theology, or medicine, but in any case his function was to guard the books, and not to dispense them. Those who resorted to the library were kept at arm's length, as it were, and the fewer there were who came, the better the grim or studious custodian was pleased. Every inquiry which broke the profound silence of the cloistered library was a kind of rude interruption, and when it was answered, the perfunctory librarian resumed his reading or his studies. The institution appeared to exist, not for the benefit of the people, but for that of the librarian; or for the benefit, besides, of a few sequestered scholars, like himself, and any wide popular use of it would have been viewed as a kind of profanation.

We have changed all that in the modern world, and library service is now one of the busiest occupations in the whole range of human enterprise. One cannot succeed in the profession, if his main idea is that a public library is a nice and easy place where one may do one's own reading and writing to the best advantage. A library is an intellectual and material work-shop, in which there is no room for fossils nor for drones. My only conception of a useful library is a library that is used—and the same of a librarian. He should be a lover of books—but not a book-worm. If his tendencies toward idealism are strong, he should hold them in check by addicting himself to steady, practical, every-day work. While careful of all details, he should not be mastered by them. If I have sometimes seemed to dwell upon trifling or obvious suggestions as to temper, or conduct, or methods, let it be remembered that trifles make up perfection, and that perfection is no trifle.

I once quoted the saying that "the librarian who reads is lost"; but it would be far truer to say that the librarian who does not read is lost; only he should read wisely and with a purpose. He should make his reading helpful in giving him a wide knowledge of facts, of thoughts, and of illustrations, which will come perpetually in play in his daily intercourse with an inquiring public.



CHAPTER 14.

SOME OF THE USES OF LIBRARIES.

Let us now consider the subject of the uses of public libraries to schools and those connected with them. Most town and city libraries are supported, like the free schools, by the public money, drawn from the tax-payers, and supposed to be expended for the common benefit of all the people. It results that one leading object of the library should be to acquire such a collection of books as will be in the highest degree useful to all. And especially should the wants of the younger generation be cared for, since they are always not only nearly one half of the community, but they are also to become the future citizens of the republic. What we learn in youth is likely to make a more marked and lasting impression than what we may acquire in later years. And the public library should be viewed as the most important and necessary adjunct of the school, in the instruction and improvement of the young. Each is adapted to supply what the other lacks. The school supplies oral instruction and public exercises in various departments of learning; but it has few or no books, beyond the class text-books which are used in these instructions. The library, on the other hand, is a silent school of learning, free to all, and supplying a wide range of information, in books adapted to every age. It thus supplements, and in proportion to the extent and judicious choice of its collections, helps to complete that education, which the school falls short of. In this view, we see the great importance of making sure that the public library has not only a full supply of the best books in every field, avoiding (as previously urged) the bad or the inferior ones, but also that it has the best juvenile and elementary literature in ample supply. This subject of reading for the young has of late years come into unprecedented prominence. Formerly, and even up to the middle of our century, very slight attention was paid to it, either by authors or readers. Whole generations had been brought up on the New England Primer, with its grotesque wood-cuts, and antique theology in prose and verse, with a few moral narratives in addition, as solemn as a meeting-house, like the "Dairyman's Daughter," the "History of Sandford and Merton," or "The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." Very dreary and melancholy do such books appear to the frequenters of our modern libraries, filled as they now are with thousands of volumes of lively and entertaining juvenile books.

The transition from the old to the new in this class of literature was through the Sunday-school and religious tract society books, professedly adapted to the young. While some of these had enough of interest to be fairly readable, if one had no other resource, the mass were irredeemably stale and poor. The mawkishness of the sentiment was only surpassed by the feebleness of the style. At last, weary of the goody-goody and artificial school of juvenile books, which had been produced for generations, until a surfeit of it led to something like a nausea in the public mind, there came a new type of writers for the young, who at least began to speak the language of reason. The dry bones took on some semblance of life and of human nature, and boys and girls were painted as real boys and genuine girls, instead of lifeless dolls and manikins. The reformation went on, until we now have a world of books for the young to choose from, very many of which are fresh and entertaining.

But the very wealth and redundancy of such literature is a new embarrassment to the librarian, who must indispensably make a selection, since no library can have or ought to have it all. Recurring to the function of the public library as the coadjutor of the school, let us see what classes of books should form essential parts of its stores.

1. As geography, or an account of the earth on which we live, is a fundamental part of education, the library should possess a liberal selection of the best books in that science. The latest general gazetteer of the world, the best modern and a good ancient atlas, one or more of the great general collections of voyages, a set of Baedeker's admirable and inexpensive guide books, and descriptive works or travels in nearly all countries—those in America and Europe predominating—should be secured. The scholars of all grades will thus be able to supplement their studies by ready reference, and every part of the globe will lie open before them, as it were, by the aid of the library.

2. The best and latest text-books in all the sciences, as geology, chemistry, natural history, physics, botany, agriculture, mechanic arts, mathematics, mental and moral science, architecture, fine arts, music, sociology, political science, etc., should be accessible.

3. Every important history, with all the latest manuals or elementary books in general and national history should be found.

4. The great collections of biography, with separate lives of all noted characters, should be provided.

5. Dictionaries, cyclopaedias, statistical annuals, and other books of reference will be needed in abundance.

6. A small but select number of approved works in law, medicine, and theology should be embraced in the library.

7. I need not add that the poets and novelists should be well represented, as that goes without saying in all popular libraries.

And special attention should be paid to building up a collection of the best books for juvenile readers, such as have passed the ordeal of good critical judgment among the librarians, as eminently fit to be read. There are several useful catalogues of such reading, as: Caroline M. Hewins' "Books for the Young," G. E. Hardy's "Five Hundred Books for the Young," and the admirable "List of Books for Girls and Women" by Augusta H. Leypoldt and Geo. Iles, contributed to by many experts, and copiously supplied with notes describing the scope and quality of the books. The last two are published by the Library Bureau.

With this broad equipment of the best books in every field, and vigilance in constant exercise to add fresh stores from the constantly appearing and often improved text-books in every science, the library will be a treasury of knowledge both for teachers and pupils in the schools. And the fact should not be overlooked, that there will be found as much growth for teachers as for scholars in such a collection of books. Very few teachers, save those of well-furnished minds and of much careful reading, are competent to guide their scholars into the highways and byways of knowledge, as the librarian should be able to do.

To establish a relation of confidence and aid with teachers is the preliminary step to be taken in order to make the library at once practically useful to them and to their scholars. In case there are several public schools in charge of a general superintendent, that officer should be first consulted, and tendered the free aid of the library and its librarian for himself and the teachers. In some public libraries, the school superintendent is made an ex officio member of the library board. Then suitable regulations should be mutually agreed upon, fixing the number of books to be drawn on account of the schools at any one time, and the period of return to the library. It is most usual to charge such books on teachers' cards, or account, to fix responsibility, although the teachers loan them to the scholars at their option.

In places where there are no school libraries proper, the public library will need to provide a goodly number of duplicates, in order to meet the special school demand. This, however, will usually be of low-priced rather than costly books, as the elementary text-books do not draw heavily upon library funds.

A very attractive feature in providing books for the young is the large number of illustrated books now available to all libraries. All the kingdoms of nature are depicted in these introductory manuals of science, rendering its pursuit more interesting, and cultivating the habits of observation of form and of proportion, in the minds of the young. Pupils who have never accomplished anything in school have been roused by interest in illustrated natural histories to take an eager interest in learning all about birds and animals. This always leads on and up to other study, since the mind that is once awakened to observation and to thought, needs only a slight guidance to develop an unappeasable hunger for finding out all about things.

The ancient maxim that "it is only the first step that costs" is especially true in the great art of education. It matters little what it is that first awakens the intellect—the great fact is that it is awakened, and sleeps no more thenceforward. A mottled bird's egg, found on the way to school, excites the little finder to ascertain the name of the bird that laid it. The school or the teacher supplies no means of finding out, but the public library has books upon birds, with colored plates of their eggs, and an eager search ensues, until the young student is rewarded by finding the very bird, with its name, plumage, habits, size, and season, all described. That child has taken an enormous step forward on the road to knowledge, which will never be forgotten.

Instances might be multiplied indefinitely of such valuable aids to research, afforded by libraries, all along the innumerable roads travelled by students of every age in search of information. One of the most profitable of school exercises is to take up successively the great men and notable women of the past, and, by the effective and practical aid of the libraries, to find out what is best worth knowing about Columbus, Franklin, Walter Scott, Irving, Prescott, Bancroft, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Whittier, Emerson, Lowell, Victor Hugo, or others too numerous to name. Reading Longfellow's Evangeline will lead one to search out the history and geography of Acadia, and so fix indelibly the practical facts concerned, as well as the imagery of a fine poem. So in the notable events of history, if a study is made of the English Commonwealth, or the French Revolution, or the war between the United States and England in 1812-15, the library will supply the student with copious materials for illustration.

Not alone in the fields of science, history, and biography, but in the attractive fields of literature, also, can the libraries aid and supplement the teachings of the school. A fine poem, or a simple, humorous, or pathetic story, told with artless grace or notable literary skill, when read aloud by a teacher in school, awakens a desire in many to have the same book at home to read, re-read, and perhaps commit to memory the finer passages. What more inspiring or pleasing reading than some of Longfellow's poems, or the Vicar of Wakefield, or Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, or Saintine's Picciola, or selections from the poems of Holmes, Whittier, Kipling, or Lowell? For all these and similar wants, the library has an unfailing supply.

As a practical illustration of the extensive, use of books by schools in some advanced communities, I may note that Librarian Green, of the Worcester (Mass.) Public Library, said in 1891 that his average daily account of the books loaned to schools in two busy winter months showed over 1,600 volumes thus in daily use. This too, was in addition to all that were drawn out by pupils on their own independent cards as borrowers. Such a record speaks volumes.

In the same city, where the Massachusetts State Normal School is located, sixty-four per cent. of the scholars visited the library to look up subjects connected with their studies.

A forcible argument for librarians taking an interest in reading for schools is that both parents and teachers often neglect to see that the young get only proper books to read. The children are themselves quite ignorant what to choose, and if left to themselves, are likely to choose unwisely, and to read story papers or quite unimproving books. Their parents, busied as they are, commonly give no thought to the matter, and are quite destitute of that knowledge of the various classes of books which it is the province of the librarian to know and to discriminate. Teachers themselves do not possess this special knowledge, except in rare instances, and have to become far more conversant with libraries than is usual, in order to acquire it.

That the very young, left to themselves, will choose many bad or worthless books is shown in the account of a principal of a school in San Francisco, who found that sixty per cent. of the books drawn from the public library by pupils had been dime novels, or other worthless literature. The wide prevalence of the dime novel evil appeared in the report of the reading of 1,000 boys in a western New York city. Out of this number, 472 (or nearly one-half) were in the habit of devouring this pernicious trash, procured in most cases by purchase at the news stands. The matter was taken up by teachers, and, by wise direction and by aid of the public library, the reading of these youthful candidates for citizenship was led into more improving fields. To lead a mind in the formative stage from the low to the high, from tales of wild adventure to the best stories for the young, is by no means difficult. Take a book that you know is wholesome and entertaining, and it will be eagerly read by almost every one. There is an endless variety of good books adapted to the most rudimentary capacity. Even young minds can become interested in the works of standard writers, if the proper selection is made. Wonderful is the stimulus which the reading of a purely written, fascinating book gives to the young mind. It opens the way for more books and for infinite growth. All that is needed is to set the youth in the right direction, and he will go forward with rapid strides of his own accord. This teaching how to read is really the most profitable part of any education. To recite endless lessons is not education: and one book eagerly read through, has often proved more valuable than all the text-books that ever were printed.

THE USES OF THE LIBRARY TO THE UNIVERSITY.

Closely allied to the benefits derived from the library by the teachers and scholars in public schools are its uses to all those engaged in the pursuit of higher education. For our colleges and universities and their researches, the library must have all that we have suggested as important for the schools, and a great deal more. The term university implies an education as broad as the whole world of books can supply: yet we must here meet with limitations that are inevitable. In this country we have to regret the application of the word "university" to institutions where the training is only academical, or at the highest, collegiate. The university, properly speaking, is an institution for the most advanced scholars or graduates of our colleges. Just as the college takes up and carries forward the training of those who have been through the academy, the seminary, or the high school, so it is the function of the university to carry forward (we will not say complete) the education of the graduate of the college. No education is ever completed: the doctor who has received the highest honors at the university has only begun his education—for that is to go on through life—and who knows how far beyond?

Now the aid which a well equipped library can furnish to all these higher institutions of learning, the academy, the seminary, the college, and the university, is quite incalculable. Their students are constantly engaged upon themes which not only demand the text-books they study, but collateral illustrations almost without number. The professors, too, who impart instruction, perpetually need to be instructed themselves, with fuller knowledge upon the themes they are daily called upon to elucidate. There is no text-book that can teach all, or anywhere near all there is upon the subject it professes to cover. So the library, which has many books upon that subject, comes in to supply its deficiencies. And the librarian is useful to the professors and students just in proportion as he knows, not the contents, but the range of books upon each subject sought to be investigated. Here is where the subject catalogue, or the dictionary catalogue, combining the subjects and the authors under a single alphabet, comes into play. But, as no catalogue of subjects was ever yet up to date in any considerable library, the librarian should be able to supplement the catalogue by his own knowledge of later works in any line of inquiry.

The most profitable studies carried on in libraries are, beyond all question, what we may term topical researches. To pursue one subject though many authorities is the true way to arrive at comprehensive knowledge. And in this kind of research, the librarian ought to be better equipped than any who frequent his library. Why? Simply because his business is bibliography; which is not the business of learned professors, or other scholars who visit the library.

The late Librarian Winsor said that he considered the librarian's instruction far more valuable than that of the specialist. And this may be owing largely to the point of view, as well as to the training, of each. The specialist, perhaps, is an enthusiast or a devotee to his science, and so apt to give undue importance to the details of it, or to magnify some one feature: the librarian, on the other hand, who is nothing if not comprehensive, takes the larger view of the wide field of literature on each subject, and his suggestions concerning sources of information are correspondingly valuable.

In those constantly arising questions which form the subjects of essays or discussions in all institutions of learning, the well-furnished library is an unfailing resource. The student who finds his unaided mind almost a blank upon the topic given out for treatment, resorts at once to the public library, searches catalogues, questions the librarian, and surrounds himself with books and periodicals which may throw light upon it. He is soon master of facts and reasonings which enable him to start upon a train of thought that bears fruit in an essay or discourse. In fact, it may be laid down as an axiom, that nearly every new book that is written is indebted to the library for most of its ideas, its facts, or its illustrations, so that libraries actually beget libraries.

Some of the endlessly diversified uses of a well-equipped library, not only to scholars but to the general public, may here be referred to. Among the most sought for sources of information, the periodical press, both of the past and the current time, holds a prominent rank. When it is considered how far-reaching are the fields embraced in the wide range of these periodicals, literary, religious, scientific, political, technical, philosophical, social, medical, legal, educational, agricultural, bibliographical, commercial, financial, historical, mechanical, nautical, military, artistic, musical, dramatic, typographical, sanitary, sporting, economic, and miscellaneous, is it any wonder that specialists and writers for the press seek and find ready aid therein for their many-sided labors?

To the skeptical mind, accustomed to undervalue what does not happen to come within the range of his pet idols or pursuits, the observation of a single day's multifold research in a great library might be in the nature of a revelation. Hither flock the ever-present searchers into family history, laying under contribution all the genealogies and town and county histories which the country has produced. Here one finds an industrious compiler intent upon the history of American duels, for which the many files of Northern and Southern newspapers, reaching back to the beginning of the century, afford copious material. At another table sits a deputation from a government department, commissioned to make a record of all notable strikes and labor troubles for a series of years, to be gleaned from the columns of the journals of leading cities.

An absorbed reader of French romances sits side by side with a clergyman perusing homilies, or endeavoring to elucidate, through a mass of commentators, a special text. Here are to be found ladies in pursuit of costumes of every age; artists turning over the great folio galleries of Europe for models or suggestions; lawyers seeking precedents or leading cases; journalists verifying dates, speeches, conventions, or other forgotten facts; engineers studying the literature of railways or machinery; actors or amateurs in search of plays or works on the dramatic art; physicians looking up biographies of their profession or the history of epidemics; students of heraldry after coats of arms; inventors searching the specifications and drawings of patents; historical students pursuing some special field in American or foreign annals; scientists verifying facts or citations by original authorities; searchers tracing personal residences or deaths in old directories or newspapers; querists seeking for the words of some half-remembered passage in poetry or prose, or the original author of one of the myriad proverbs which have no father; architects or builders of houses comparing hundreds of designs and models; teachers perusing works on education or comparing text-books new or old; readers absorbing the great poems of the world; writers in pursuit of new or curious themes among books of antiquities or folk-lore; students of all the questions of finance and economic science; naturalists seeking to trace through many volumes descriptions of species; pursuers of military or naval history or science; enthusiasts venturing into the occult domains of spiritualism or thaumaturgy; explorers of voyages and travels in every region of the globe; fair readers, with dreamy eyes, devouring the last psychological novel; devotees of musical art perusing the lives or the scores of great composers; college and high-school students intent upon "booking up" on themes of study or composition or debate; and a host of other seekers after suggestion or information in a library of encyclopedic range.



CHAPTER 15.

THE HISTORY OF LIBRARIES.

The Library, from very early times, has enlisted the enthusiasm of the learned, and the encomiums of the wise. The actual origin of the earliest collection of books (or rather of manuscripts) is lost in the mists of remote antiquity. Notwithstanding professed descriptions of several libraries found in Aulus Gellius, Athenaeus, and others, who wrote centuries after the alleged collections were made, we lack the convincing evidence of eye-witnesses and contemporaries. But so far as critical research has run, the earliest monuments of man which approached collections of written records are found not in Europe, but in Africa and Asia.

That land of wonders, Egypt, abounds in hieroglyphic inscriptions, going back, as is agreed by modern scholars, to the year 2000 before the Christian era. A Papyrus manuscript, too, exists, which is assigned to about 1600 B. C. And the earliest recorded collection of books in the world, though perhaps not the first that existed, was that of the Egyptian king Ramses I.—B. C. 1400, near Thebes, which Diodorus Siculus says bore the inscription "Dispensary of the soul." Thus early were books regarded as remedial agents of great force and virtue.

But before the library of Ramses the Egyptian king, there existed in Babylonia collections of books, written not on parchment, nor on the more perishable papyrus, but on clay. Whole poems, fables, laws, and hymns of the gods have been found, stamped in small characters upon baked bricks. These clay tablets or books were arranged in numerical order, and the library at Agane, which existed about 2000 B. C. even had a catalogue, in which each piece of literature was numbered, so that readers had only to write down the number of the tablet wanted, and the librarian would hand it over. Two of these curious poems in clay have been found intact, one on the deluge, the other on the descent of Istar into Hades.

The next ancient library in point of time yet known to us was gathered in Asia by an Assyrian King, and this collection has actually come down to us, in propria persona. Buried beneath the earth for centuries, the archaeologist Layard discovered in 1850 at Nineveh, an extensive collection of tablets or tiles of clay, covered with cuneiform characters, and representing some ten thousand distinct works or documents. The Assyrian monarch Sardanapalus, a great patron of letters, was the collector of this primitive and curious library of clay. He flourished about 1650 B. C.

In Greece, where a copious and magnificent literature had grown up centuries before Christ, Pisistratus collected a library at Athens, and died B. C. 527. When Xerxes captured Athens, this collection, which represents the earliest record of a library dedicated to the public, was carried off to Persia, but restored two centuries later. The renowned philosopher Aristotle gathered one of the largest Greek libraries, about 350 B. C. said to have embraced about 1400 volumes, or rather, rolls. Plato called Aristotle's residence "the house of the reader." This library, also, was carried off to Scepsis, and later by the victorious Sulla to Rome. History shows that the Greek collections were the earliest "travelling libraries" on record, though they went as the spoils of war, and not to spread abroad learning by the arts of peace.

Rome having conquered Athens, we hear no more of the Athenian libraries, but the seat of ancient learning was transferred to Alexandria, where were gathered under the liberal sway of the Ptolemies, more books than had ever been assembled together in any part of the world. Marc Antony presented to Cleopatra the library of the Kings of Pergamus, said to have contained 200,000 rolls. There is no space to sketch the ancient libraries, so scantily commemorated, of Greece. Through Aristotle's enthusiasm for learning, as it is believed, the Ptolemies were fired with the zeal of book-collecting, and their capital of Alexandria became the seat of extensive libraries, stored in the Brucheion and the Serapeum. Here, according to general belief, occurred the burning of the famous Alexandrian library of 700,000 volumes, by the Saracens under Omar, A. D. 640. If any one would have an object lesson in the uncertainties of history and of human testimony, let him read the various conflicting accounts of the writers who have treated upon this subject. The number of volumes varies from 700,000, as stated by Aulus Gellius, to 100,000 by Eusebius. The fact that in ancient times each book or division of an author's work written on a roll of papyrus was reckoned as a volume, may account for the exaggeration, since the nine books of Herodotus would thus make nine volumes, and the twenty-four of Homer's Iliad, twenty-four volumes, instead of one. So, by an arbitrary application of averages, the size of the Alexandrian Library might be brought within reasonable dimensions, though there is nothing more misleading than the doctrine of averages, unless indeed it be a false analogy. But that any library eight hundred years before the invention of printing contained 700,000 volumes in the modern sense of the word, when the largest collection in the world, three centuries after books began to be multiplied by types, held less than 100,000 volumes, is one of the wildest fictions which writers have imposed upon the credulity of ages.

I cannot even touch upon the libraries of the Romans, though we have very attractive accounts, among others, of the literary riches of Lucullus, of Atticus, and of Cicero. The first library in Rome was founded 167 B. C. and in the Augustan age they multiplied, until there were twenty-nine public libraries in Hadrian's time, 120 A. D. The emperor Julian, in the fourth century, was a founder of libraries, and is said to have placed over the doors this inscription: "Alii quidem equos amant, alii oves, alii feros; mihi vero a puerulo mirandum acquirendi et possidendi libros insedit desiderium."

The libraries of the middle ages were neither large nor numerous. The neglect of learning and of literature was wide-spread; only in the monasteries of Europe were to be found scholars who kept alive the sacred flame. In these were renewed those fruitful labors of the scriptorium which had preserved and multiplied so many precious books in classic times among the Romans. The monks, indeed, were not seldom creators as well as copyists, though the works which they composed were mainly theological (as became their sacred profession and ascetic life). The Latin, however, being the almost universal language for so many centuries, the love of learning conspired to widen the field of monastic study. Many zealous ecclesiastics were found who revived the classic authors, and copies of the works of poets, historians, philosophers and rhetoricians were multiplied. Then were gradually formed those monastic libraries to which so many thousands of mediaeval scholars owed a debt of gratitude. The order of Benedictines took a leading and effective part in this revival of learning. Taxes were levied on the inmates of monasteries expressly for furnishing the library with books, and the novices in many houses must contribute writing materials upon entering, and books at the close of their novitiate, for the enrichment of the library. Among notably valuable libraries, several of which still survive, were those of Monte Cassino in Italy, the Abbey of Fleury in France, St. Gall in Switzerland, and that of the illustrious congregation of St. Maur in France. The latter had at one time no less than one hundred and seven writers engaged in multiplying books.

The first library in England is recorded (in the Canterbury Chartulary) to have been given by Pope Gregory the Great, and brought by St. Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, on his mission to England about A. D. 600. It consisted of nine precious volumes on vellum, being copies of parts of the Scriptures, with commentaries, and a volume of Lives of the Martyrs. The library of the Benedictine Monastery at Canterbury had grown in the 13th century to 3000 titles, being very rich in theology, but with many books also in history, poetry and science. At York had been founded, in the 8th century, a noble library by Archbishop Egbert, and the great scholar Alcuin here acquired, amidst that "infinite number of excellent books," his life-long devotion to literature. When he removed to Tours, in France, he lamented the loss of the literary treasures of York, in a poem composed of excellent hexameters. He begged of Charlemagne to send into Britain to procure books, "that the garden of paradise may not be confined to York."

Fine libraries were also gathered at the monasteries of Durham, of Glastonbury, and of Croyland, and at the Abbeys of Whitby and Peterborough.

Nor were the orders of Franciscans and Dominicans far behind as book-collectors, though they commonly preferred to buy rather than to transcribe manuscripts, like the Benedictines. "In every convent of friars," wrote Fitzralph to the Pope, in 1350, "there is a large and noble library." And Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, and Chancellor of England in 1334, whose "Philobiblon" is the most eloquent treatise in praise of books ever written, said, when visiting places where the mendicants had convents; "there amid the deepest poverty, we found the most precious riches stored up." The Pope, it appears, relaxed for these orders the rigor of their vows of poverty, in favor of amassing books—mindful, doubtless, of that saying of Solomon the wise—"Therefore get wisdom, because it is better than gold."

Richard de Bury, the enthusiast of learning, wrote thus:

"The library, therefore, of wisdom is more precious than all riches, and nothing that can be wished for is worthy to be compared with it. Whosoever, therefore, acknowledges himself to be a zealous follower of the truth, of happiness, of wisdom, of science, or even of the faith, must of necessity make himself a lover of books."

And said Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich—"I can wonder at nothing more than how a man can be idle—but of all others a scholar; in so many improvements of reason, in such sweetness of knowledge, in such variety of studies, in such importunity of thoughts. To find wit in poetry; in philosophy profoundness; in history wonder of events; in oratory, sweet eloquence; in divinity, supernatural light and holy devotion—whom would it not ravish with delight?"

Charles the Fifth of France amassed a fine library, afterwards sold to an English nobleman. Lorenzo de Medici, of Hungary, and Frederic Duke of Urbino, each gathered in the 15th century a magnificent collection of books. All of these became widely dispersed in later years, though the manuscripts of the Duke of Urbino's collection are preserved in the library of the Vatican.

I may here note a very few of the most extensive library collections now existing in Europe and America.

1. Of the great public libraries of Europe, which owe much of their riches to the government privilege of the copy-tax, the national library of France is the oldest and the largest, now numbering two million six hundred thousand volumes. Founded in the 15th century, it has had four hundred years of opportunity for steady and large increase. Paris abounds in other public libraries also, in which respect it is far superior to London.

2. Next to the Bibliotheque nationale of France, comes the Library of the British Museum, with 2,000,000 volumes, very rich both in manuscripts and in printed books in all languages. A liberal Parliamentary grant of $60,000 a year for purchase of books and manuscripts keeps this great collection well up to date as to all important new works, besides enabling it constantly to fill up deficiencies in the literature of the past. Following this, among the great libraries having over half a million books, come in numerical order

Volumes. 3. Russian Imperial Library, St. Petersburg, 1,200,000 4. Royal Library of Prussia, Berlin, 1,000,000 5. Royal Library of Bavaria, Munich, 980,000 6. Library of Congress, Washington City, 840,000 7. Boston Public Library, 734,000 8. University Library, Strasburg, Germany, 700,000 9. Imperial Public Library, Vienna, 575,000 10. Bodleian Library, Oxford 530,000

It is a notable fact that among the richest monuments of learning that have been gathered by mankind, the University libraries hold a very high rank. Reckoned in number of volumes, there are many of them which far outrank the government libraries, except in six instances. Out of 174 libraries, all exceeding 100,000 volumes, as reported in the annual Minerva, in October, 1898, no less than 72 are the libraries of universities. Strasburg heads the list, with a noble collection of 700,000 volumes; then Oxford university, whose Bodleian library numbers 530,000; Leipzig university, 504,000; Cambridge university, England, Goettingen university, and Harvard university, 500,000 each; the university of Vienna, 475,000; the universities of Heidelberg and of Munich, 400,000 each; Ghent and Wuerzburg universities, 350,000 each; Christiania, Norway, university, and Tuebingen, each 340,000; University of Chicago, 330,000; Copenhagen university, 305,000; Breslau, Cracow, Rostock and Upsala, 300,000 each; Yale university, New Haven, 280,000; St. Petersburg, 257,000; Bologna, 255,000; Freiburg and Bonn universities, 250,000 each; Prague, 245,000; Trinity, Dublin, 232,000; Koenigsberg, 231,000; Kiel, 229,000; Naples, 224,000; and Buda-Pest, 210,000. I need not detain you by enumerating those that fall below 200,000 volumes, but will say that the whole number of volumes in the 72 university libraries embraced in my table is more than fifteen millions, which would be much enlarged if smaller libraries were included. A noble exhibit is this, which the institutions of the highest education hold up before us.

* * * * *

We may now consider, somewhat more in detail as to particulars, the origin and growth of the libraries of the United States. The record will show an amazingly rapid development, chiefly accomplished during the last quarter of a century, contrasted with the lamentably slow growth of earlier years.

Thirty years ago the present year, I was invited to give to the American Social Science Association, then meeting at New York, a discourse upon Public Libraries in the United States. On recurring to this address, I have been agreeably surprised to find how completely its facts and figures belong to the domain of ancient history. For, while it may excite a smile to allude to anything belonging to a period only thirty years back as ancient history, yet, so rapid has been the accumulation, not only of books, but of libraries themselves in that brief period of three decades, as almost to justify the term employed.

Antiquarians must ever regard with interest the first efforts for the establishment of public libraries in the New World. The first record of books dedicated to a public purpose in that part of this country now occupied by the English-speaking race is, I believe, to be found in the following entry in the Records of the Virginia Company of London:

"November 15, 1620.—After the Acts of the former Courte were read, a straunger stept in presentinge a Mapp of S^r Walter Rawlighes contayinge a Descripcon of Guiana, and with the same fower great books as the Guifte of one unto the Company that desyred his name might not be made knowne, whereof one booke was a treatise of St. Augustine of the Citty of God translated into English, the other three greate Volumes wer the works of Mr. Perkins' newlie corrected and amended, wch books the Donor desyred they might be sent to the Colledge in Virginia there to remayne in saftie to the use of the collegiates thereafter, and not suffered at any time to be sent abroade or used in the meane while. For wch so worthy a guifte my Lord of Southampton desyred the p'tie that presented them to returne deserued thanks from himselfe and the rest of the Company to him that had so kindly bestowed them."[1]

The college here referred to was the first ever founded in America, and was seated at Henrico, at the confluence of the James River with the Chickahominy. It was designed not only for the education of the Virginia settlers, but to teach science and Christianity to the Indians. Large contributions were raised in England by Sir Edwin Sandys, and others of the Virginia Company, for its support. But this Virginia college and its incipient library were doomed to a speedy extinction. Like so many other brilliant "prospects for planting arts and learning in America," it did not survive the perils of the colonial epoch. It was brought to a period by the bloody Indian massacre of March 22, 1622, when three hundred and forty-seven of the Virginia settlers were slaughtered in a day, the new settlement broken up, and the expanding lines of civilization contracted to the neighborhood of Jamestown.

Harvard University Library was founded in 1638 by the endowment of John Harvard, who bequeathed to the new college his library and half of his estate. Soon afterwards enriched by the zealous contributions of English Puritans and philosophers, of Berkeley, and Baxter, and Lightfoot, and Sir Kenelm Digby, the first university library in America, after a century and a quarter of usefulness, was totally destroyed with the college edifice in the year 1764 by fire. When we contemplate the ravages of this element, which has consumed so many noble libraries, destroying not only printed books of priceless value, but often precious manuscripts which are unique and irreplaceable, a lively sense of regret comes over us that these creations of the intellect, which should be imperishable, are even yet at the mercy of an accident in all the libraries of the world save a very few. The destruction of books in private hands is natural and inevitable enough, and goes on continually. Whole editions of books, now sought with avidity as the rarest volumes known to literature, have been gradually destroyed in innumerable fires, worn out in the hands of readers, used for waste paper by grocers and petty tradesmen, swallowed up in the sack of towns, or consumed by dampness, mould, or, in rare instances, by the remorseless tooth of time. Yet there have always existed public libraries enough, had they been fire-proof, to have preserved many copies of every book bequeathed to the world, both before the invention of printing and since. But, when your insurance office is bankrupt, what becomes of the insured? When nearly all our public libraries are so constructed as to become an easy prey to the flames, the loss of so many books which have completely perished from the earth ceases to be wonderful.

The growth of Harvard University library, from its second foundation a century ago, has been steady, though at no time rapid. Select and valuable in its principal contents, it has received numerous benefactions from the friends of learning, and promises to become the best, as it already is much the largest, among the university libraries of the country. Its present strength is about 500,000 volumes.

The year 1700 witnessed the birth of the first New York library open to public use. The Rev. John Sharp, then chaplain of His Majesty's forces in that city (it was in the days of good King William of Orange), bequeathed his private collection of books to found a "public library" in New York. The library thus organized was placed in charge of the corporation of the city, but the first city library of New York languished with little or no increase until 1754, when a society of gentlemen undertook to found a public library by subscription, and succeeded so well that the city authorities turned over to them what remained of the Public City Library. This was the beginning of the New York Society Library, one of the largest of the proprietary libraries of the country. It was then, and for a long time afterwards, commonly known as "The City Library." The Continental Congress profited by its stores, there being no other library open to their use; and the First Congress under the Constitution, which met in New York in 1789, received the free use of the books it contained. The library is conducted on the share system, the payment of twenty-five dollars, and an annual assessment of six dollars, giving any one the privilege of membership. It now contains about 100,000 volumes.

The same year, 1700, in which the New York Library was founded, ten Connecticut ministers met together at Lyme, each bringing a number of books, and saying, "I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony." Such was the foundation of Yale University, an institution that has done inestimable service to the cause of letters, having been fruitful of writers of books, as well as of living contributions to the ranks of every learned profession. Thirty years later, we find the good Bishop Berkeley pausing from the lofty speculations which absorbed him, to send over to Yale College what was called "the finest collection of books that ever came together at one time into America." For a century and a half the growth of this library was very slow, the college being oppressed with poverty. In 1869, the number of volumes had risen only to 50,000, but it is cheering to relate that the last thirty years have witnessed a growth so rapid that in 1899 Yale University Library had 285,000 volumes.

The fourth considerable library founded in the United States was due in a large degree to the industry and zeal for knowledge of the illustrous Franklin. As unquestionably the first established proprietary library in America, the Library Company of Philadelphia merits especial notice. Let us reverently take a leaf out of the autobiography of the printer-statesman of Pennsylvania:

"And now I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up the proposals, got them put into form by our great scrivener, Brockden, and by the help of my friends in the Junto [the Junto was a club for mutual improvement, founded by Franklin] procured fifty subscribers at forty shillings each to begin with, and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue. We afterwards obtained a charter, the company being increased to one hundred; this was the mother of all the North American subscription libraries now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and continually increasing. These libraries have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defence of their privileges."

When this Philadelphia Library was founded, in 1731, not a single city or town in England possessed a subscription library. Even the library of the British Museum, since become the greatest collection of books in the world, save one, was not opened until 1759, more than a quarter of a century afterwards. Although not designed as a public library of circulation, save to its own subscribers, the Philadelphia Library has been kept free to all for reference and consultation. The record of the gradual increase of the first Philadelphia Library from its first few hundred volumes, when Franklin was but twenty-five years of age, to its present rank as the largest proprietary library in America, with 195,000 volumes of books, is highly interesting. Its history, in fact, is to a large extent the history of intellectual culture in Philadelphia, which remained, until the second decade in the present century, the foremost city of the Union in population, and, from 1791 to 1800, the seat of government of the United States.

The Philadelphia Library Company, in 1774, voted that "the gentlemen who were to meet in Congress" in that city should be furnished with such books as they might have occasion for; and the same privilege was exercised on the return of the Government to that city, in 1791, and until the removal of Congress to Washington in 1800. During the nine months' occupation of Philadelphia by the British army, it is refreshing to read that the conquerors lifted no spear against the Muses' bower, but that "the officers, without exception, left deposits, and paid hire for the books borrowed by them." The collection, in respect of early printed books, is one of the largest and most valuable in America, embracing some books and files of newspapers which are to be found in no other public library. The selection of new books has been kept unusually free from the masses of novels and other ephemeral publications which overload most of our popular libraries, and the collection, although limited in extent in every field, and purposely leaving special topics, such as the medical and natural sciences, to the scientific libraries which abound in Philadelphia, affords to the man of letters a good working library. The shares in the library cost forty dollars, with an annual assessment of four dollars to each stockholder.

In 1869, the great bequest of Doctor James Rush to the Philadelphia Library of his whole property, valued at over $1,000,000, was accepted by its stockholders, by the bare majority of five votes in a poll of over five hundred. This lack of harmony is attributable to the fact that the bequest, so generous in itself, was hampered by the donor with numerous conditions, deemed by many friends of the library to be highly onerous and vexatious. Not the least among these was the following, which is cited from the will itself:

"Let the library not keep cushioned seats for time-wasting and lounging readers, nor places for every-day novels, mind-tainting reviews, controversial politics, scribblings of poetry and prose, biographies of unknown names, nor for those teachers of disjointed thinking, the daily newspapers."

Here is one more melancholy instance of a broad and liberal bequest narrowly bestowed. The spirit which animated the respectable testator in attempting to exclude the larger part of modern literature from the library which his money was to benefit may have been unexceptionable enough. Doubtless there are evils connected with a public supply of frivolous and trifling literature; and perhaps our periodicals may be justly chargeable with devoting an undue proportion of their columns to topics of merely ephemeral interest. But it should never be forgotten that the literature of any period is and must be largely occupied with the questions of the day. Thus, and thus only, it becomes a representative literature, and it is precious to posterity in proportion as it accurately reflects the spirit, the prejudices, and the personalities of a time which has passed into history, leaving behind it no living representatives. If we admit that the development of the human intellect at any particular period is worth studying, then all books are, or may become, useful. It is amazing that a person with any pretensions to discernment should denounce newspapers as unfitted to form a part of a public library. The best newspapers of the time are sometimes the best books of the time. A first-class daily journal is an epitome of the world, recording the life and the deeds of men, their laws and their literature, their politics and religion, their social and criminal statistics, the progress of invention and of art, the revolutions of empires, and the latest results of science. Grant that newspapers are prejudiced, superficial, unfair; so also are books. Grant that the journals often give place to things scurrilous and base; but can there be anything baser or more scurrilous than are suffered to run riot in books? There is to be found hidden away in the pages of some books such filth as no man would dare to print in a newspaper, from fear of the instant wrath of the passers-by.