Papers and Proceedings of the Twenty-Third General Meeting of the American Library Association / Held at Waukesha, Wisconsin, July 4-10, 1901

by Unknown

CONFERENCE OF LIBRARIANS.

WAUKESHA, WISCONSIN.

JULY 4-10, 1901.

[ BEING A LIBRARIAN: ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT.]

By Henry J. Carr, Librarian Scranton (Pa.) Public Library.

In your presence, and in addressing you to-night as presiding officer, I feel to a far greater extent than I can express in words the high honor that has been conferred in each instance upon all who from time to time have been chosen to serve as a president of this particular association.

There is in this present age, to be sure, no lack of those popular and peculiar entities termed associations—associations of many kinds, and for almost every conceivable purpose. Throughout the entire continent there exist few, perhaps none, whose history, objects, and work, have warranted a more justifiable pride in being a member thereof, than is found in being a member of the American Library Association.

It may here be said that conditions and circumstances have been favorable to the success of the A. L. A.; not the least of which has been the faithful loyalty of its individual members. We realize, too, that even time has dealt leniently with it, upon noting that of the 64 members who attended its first meeting, held at Philadelphia twenty-five years ago, but 18 have died, and that 20 persons are yet included in its membership list out of the 69 who joined the association in 1876, that initial year. Some of that original number, much to our gratification, are present with us at this 23d general meeting.

Considering its purely voluntary nature, the migratory holding of its successive meetings in different parts of the land, and the notable avoidance of fads, or any tendency towards selfish ends that might otherwise mark its united efforts, it becomes almost a matter of surprise that so many persons have unfalteringly kept up their allegiance from year to year ever since the time of their joining the association. But, as a matter of fact, the A. L. A. has at no time fallen off in its total membership; and at this date it numbers nearly one thousand contributing members paying dues for the current year.

The American Library Association has now attained a period of twenty-five years in its history—a quarter of a century. During that time, in the addresses given at its general meetings, as well as in the multiplicity of noteworthy and valuable papers contributed to its Proceedings, and the sundry publications devoted to library interests, it would appear as if there must have been presented almost every conceivable phase of library thought and sentiment. Can anything new be said, or old ideas placed in a new light, so as to be worthy of hearing and attention at this time? I fear not, except as some lessons may be drawn from the experience of one's past work, perhaps, that shall serve to aid yet others who are to tread like paths in life.

I beg, therefore, that you will bear with me for a short space of time while I give expression to some thoughts drawn from the experience of myself and others while Being a Librarian.

Without now restricting their application to particular phases of librarianship, let us at the outset consider them as relating to any and all conditions of it as a vocation. "Why did you take up library work?" is a question not infrequently asked. To that query various answer may be given, according to the individual views of the persons replying. Perhaps one general reason, that in a certain way has had its unconscious influence upon many of us, is best stated in the following characteristic passage from the "Book-hunter:"

"To every man of our Saxon race endowed with full health and strength, there is committed the custody of a restless demon, for which he is doomed to find ceaseless excitement, either in honest work, or some less profitable or more mischievous occupation. Countless have been the projects of man to open up for this fiend fields of exertion great enough for the absorption of its tireless energies, and none of them is more hopeful than the great world of books, if the demon is docile enough to be coaxed into it."

Since Burton's day the "great world of books" has taken on many phases of which he never dreamed. And we, as librarians, may reasonably believe that if not entirely a part and parcel of it, we are nevertheless called upon to deal with that "world" in almost every form, and are ourselves more or less important factors in it. We may not be called upon to adopt the "strenuous life," or seek to impart it to the conduct and activities of others. But necessarily we are and must be accustomed to "doing things"; and, by that very doing, will in some degree, each in our own field, inspire and influence others also.

Furthermore, do we not find our "restless demon of work" more agreeably inclined and contentedly occupied in the library field than in other lines of life which we may have previously entered into? I, for one, certainly think so, even though we may not have had that idea in mind at the outset, or when making the change. And, too, that we derive a certain feeling of encouragement akin to inspiration, that in itself renders us contented and happy, when responding to the varied demands on our time and energy that are entailed by our positions as librarians. That is half the battle, the rest being but a question of persistence in the application of means and ability.

Therefore, in the consoling words of one of Elbert Hubbard's salient sayings: "Blessed is that man who has found his work."

It is not the purpose of these present remarks to set forth particularly the compensations in a librarian's work; neither the advantages or disadvantages, the opportunities or drawbacks therein. Those factors have all been frequently and well discussed in prior years, by some of our well-known associates and various contributors to library literature. I desire, rather, to suggest some features and relationships connected with our work as a profession, from which an occasional lesson may be taken, and possibly a word of encouragement, if such be needed.

First of all, is librarianship a profession? Does it possess the characteristics that make it such; and is that work more nearly professional than otherwise, which lies at its hands to be done? Some such queries were propounded to me by the president of a state library association one day last fall, as we were journeying together to an annual meeting. He, himself, had been a teacher and an educational administrator for a number of years before becoming a librarian; and of the recognized professional standing of his former occupation there could be no doubt.

My first, and off-hand, answer was to the effect that librarianship certainly has many professional features, even though its being a true and undoubted profession in every respect might be disputed now and then. Going further into this question of professional status, however, it will be found that the literature of views and discussions thereon, pro and con, is by no means small. For one of us to now express a doubt that librarianship, as a whole, is a profession, would be almost presumptuous; and I, for one, do not propose to do so. My thesis, so far as it relates to the present remarks, is in affirmation of the claim; not only that it is a profession—our profession—but really the profession of professions!

All other professions now depend to a considerable extent upon that of the librarian for the custodianship of their literature, without whose care much of it might be lost. We may not be able to transmit to future eras such enduring records of antiquity as has been done by the librarian of old in his collection of clay tablets (which now serve to tell us of the affairs of mankind as transacted thousands of years ago), but it is certain that we are doing our part towards making modern literature available in disseminating it, and in preserving it as far as lies in our power.

Cotemporaneous with the organization of this association Melvil Dewey made the following decided and well-supported assertion: "The time has at last come when a librarian, may, without assumption, speak of his occupation as a profession." I cite Mr. Dewey's words, not as necessarily conclusive, but because he has ever been an active and constant supporter of that doctrine in both his work as a librarian, as a noted stimulator of the library movement, and as an originator of professional instruction of other librarians. Similar enthusiastic and persistent efforts on the part of librarians generally may do much towards the furtherance of such features, and the consequent development of librarianship as a profession in all its aspects.

Let us now consider for a few moments some features of resemblance and diversity between the library profession and others quite as well or better known. It has been said that the library exists chiefly for the use of its patrons, and that the librarian is necessarily and essentially a servant. Therefore the librarian must, of equal necessity, earn a livelihood or receive compensation of some kind for his services. All of which, in the main, is true of the professions generally, as will be seen from a brief statement of circumstances.

Doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, artists, etc., are engaged by and receive pay from their respective clients. The clergy are supported by contributions of their church members or from denominational resources. Teachers in the public schools are paid from public taxes, while those of private schools, or endowed institutions, receive their compensation from various sources.

The clergy and teachers, as a rule, like most librarians, no matter how willing or how well qualified, are under the further necessity of obtaining a "call," or position, as a prerequisite to the exercise of their professional faculties. In that respect they are at a disadvantage in comparison with those practitioners in the other professions, already named, who can go to any locality, solicit clients and seek business opportunities, with reasonable assurance of obtaining both according to place and the circumstances of supply and demand.

In some of the professions, both the so-called "learned" and the practical ones, there have been developed certain well recognized differentiations and specializations of professional work. Those lines have usually been taken up in response to what has seemed a reasonable demand for them; and in their exercise have not unfrequently brought both reputation and corresponding remuneration to the specialists.

Possibly the time has arrived for doing much more of that nature in the library profession than has yet been customary. And there are those among us, possessing a due amount of working experience coupled with knowledge of other and allied affairs, who might now do well to devote themselves to some special features of library enterprise as a matter of desirable business opportunity. Some from the library schools, and a few others, have gone out as "organizers," and found more or less of a field for the exercise of their limited special qualifications. The field ought to be a growing one, it would seem, if recourse to incompetent aid is carefully avoided.

But the offices of "consulting librarianship," while possessing many desirable and much needed features, do not appear to be practised as a specific function. Something of the kind has been urged in past years, to be sure, and several well-known librarians did undertake at different times to supply such services. Sooner or later, however, each one was persuaded into a more certain, or better compensated, and permanent, position of local librarianship, and thereupon abandoned that special line of work.

In this era of the establishment of so many new libraries, small and great, and of the gift of hundreds of buildings for such purposes, there is a decided need for the effective services which a consulting librarian might render; and this to a greater extent than is yet fully understood or appreciated. Lacking such, some librarians and more library trustees work too often at a disadvantage. Many more, too, are burdened with repeated calls for information which more properly ought to be obtained from an independent expert; one so situated as to take an unbiased view of circumstances and equally able to give advice best suited to the particular case in hand. Serious mistakes are sometimes made in the preliminary details of new library enterprises that might be just as easily avoided by the employment of a competent and paid professional adviser.

Turning now to another side of our subject, and considering the relation of the individual librarians rather than of the profession as a class, a few words upon personal actions may not be out of place. A librarian's position is usually of a public or semi-public nature; ability for its duties is implied; and the compensation received is for present services as a rule, rather than as a reward of merit. In order that the library shall perform all that is expected of it, not only in being to some extent an ever-running machine but equally in respect to its recognized higher functions, there must be the application of watchful care, constant attention, foresight, and unremitting work. The direction of all of which, and perhaps much of its actual execution, must depend upon the person placed in charge of the institution as its librarian.

It is true that, having a well-trained body of assistants, a library may be able to run on for a time in the prolonged absence of, or when lacking, a chief; because impetus and the effects of past direction are not lost at once, provided that no demoralization has taken place. But it is not a safe policy to allow a library, or other working institution that depends largely upon the work of trained employees for its effectiveness, to go long at a time without the presence and oversight of an actual and capable head.

Yet it does not follow that the working hours of chief librarians should be absorbed in attending to innumerable and trivial items of detail which might be delegated to and done quite as well, or better, by their assistants. Not only is "genius a capacity for evading hard work," as has been said, but one of the proper duties of the executive of a library is to obtain the best results possible from the respective capacities of those through whom the library does its work. All of which should imply the exercise of a kindly and broad-minded disposition towards one's assistants, just as truly as of respect and obedience to one's superiors, or of courtesy and suavity in dealing with customers and the public. It may be only human for one to desire to be that "king of his world," of whom Carlyle speaks; but any policy which reduces the assistants to mere machines is not a true professional one, since it tends to rob the library world of talent which is needed and, except for such repression, might be developed and brought forward.

On the other hand I might plead no less for corresponding loyalty and fidelity on the part of all library workers, both to their respective chiefs and the institutions that employ them. As a matter of fact, however, action of that kind is the prevailing practice in this country, with hardly an exception, and that phase needs no extended discussion. A chief is, of course, entitled to credit for acts done by subordinates at his direction and for which he is responsible. But chiefs, in turn, can well afford to give recognition to the ability and deeds of their assistants, and will seldom, if ever, lose by doing so.

There are one or two other features of librarianship which merit passing mention. Among them are what may be termed library succession, or the librarian's duty to his successor. Some few librarians "die in the harness"; while quite as many more change from one place to another at times. Occasionally they are succeeded by those who come new into the work; and, gaining experience, become a credit to the profession. Advancement of those trained in smaller libraries to places in larger ones, or from the position of assistant in a library to the head thereof, has also brought forward quite as many more of those whose progress we watch with cordial interest.

Although conscious of those facts, and of the inevitable changes and successions that must occur from year to year, do we recognize our duty to our successor? I have asked the question, but its consideration must be left to some future time and opportunity.

Impartiality in enforcing rules, and in dispensing the privileges of the library to all comers, should be deemed an important feature of librarianship, quite as essential to the welfare of the institution as to the professional success of the librarian. And this suggests a query, which has before now been raised, as to how far librarians should go in aiding persons who expect to use information obtained at the library, solely for the furtherance of personal interests or for purposes of pecuniary profit. Impartial and confidential treatment of all readers and seekers, who come to the library after information, would appear to be the only safe practice and criterion, regardless of their particular motives. Care should be taken, of course, to assist them in gaining the desired information by means of their own study, and in their own way, rather than through the efforts of library employees applied to searching out the exact and final facts for them.

In conclusion, I would direct your attention very briefly to yet another side of librarianship which ought to have an occasional bearing so far as ethical principles may apply.

Since we regard librarianship as a profession it would seem that there must needs be some recognized principles of an ethical nature relating to it. Like many of our working methods, however, they must probably exist chiefly as "unwritten laws." It is always a difficult matter to put our ideals into words. They may be quite real to the sensibilities and yet hardly admit of being formulated. And, too, the evident contrast between the ideals aimed at, and the results attained, is often so great that one hesitates to say in so many words just what is his ideal.

Still there have been developed in the other leading professions, those that are regarded as the most reputable and noteworthy, certain recognized principles which serve to guide their members in many ways. The full comprehension of such principles as an authoritative guide tends to a correct measurement of the real value of one's professional work. Likewise, while supplying certain ideals at the outset, they may aid in determining the lines of effort and action which will tend to elevate the profession itself and to the attainment of individual success in its pursuits.

Perhaps it is too soon in the history of so young a profession to expect very much in the nature of such formulations. To properly enumerate and determine the essential principles must call for the attention of many minds, working each in their own channel but aimed in the same general direction, until the final outcome shall be a fully developed and rounded code of library ethics which will thus be entitled to and gain well deserved recognition and observance.

If, in the views and various thoughts, which I have presumed to set forth at this time, such ideas as have a bearing on this last named topic shall serve as hints to spur on some abler and more philosophically versed person or persons to undertake the task, or serve as a ground upon which to build a foundation code, I shall be greatly pleased.

[WHAT MAY BE DONE FOR LIBRARIES BY THE CITY.]

By Thomas L. Montgomery, Trustee Free Library of Philadelphia.

When, in the course of human events, it became necessary for our people to dissolve the political bonds which connected them with another, pretty much everything was declared a free and an inalienable right with the exception of the public library. Whether it would have escaped the attention of that founder of circulating libraries and everything else that is useful, had it not been a time of extraordinary pressure of business, or whether he purposely neglected it in the belief that a people that had expressed such lofty sentiments as to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness might well be trusted to consider such matters in due time it is not our purpose to discuss. He does not hesitate to give credit to the libraries in his autobiography for making the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen in other countries, and for contributing in some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in defense of their privileges. It was not until about 1850 that the desirability of a city library was suggested to the City Council of Boston by Josiah Quincy, then mayor. The council cautiously Resolved, "That it would accept any donation from citizens or others for the purpose of commencing a public city library and that whenever the library shall be of the value of $30,000 it will be expedient for the city to provide a suitable place and arrangements to enable it to be used by the citizens with as great a degree of freedom as the security of the property will permit." In July, 1852, the trustees made a report "that in their opinion the finances of the city will not permit of the erecting of a building and the purchase of an ample library." They suggest "a moderate expenditure on the part of the city for the purchase of books and the compensation of a librarian." It was soon after this that Mr. Bates made his famous gift of $50,000 worth of books "on condition that the city provide an adequate building which shall be an ornament to the city." A complete history of this institution would seem to be the best possible answer which could be made to the question before us. What can the city do for the free library. With a magnificent collection of 700,000 books, selected under the administration of some of the best men who have dignified our profession, and housed in the most expensive building ever erected by a city for such a purpose, it would appear that the citizen of Boston might rightly exclaim "Si monumentum quaeris, circumspice."

The things that can be done by a city are innumerable; what it ought to do and what it will do are perhaps more easily dealt with. Thinking I might obtain some information on the subject I asked the question of the librarian of the Free Library of Philadelphia. He settled himself in his chair and assuming the tone of an oracle said that there were three things that the city should do for its library. 1. Provide an adequate appropriation for its maintenance; 2. Provide an extra appropriation for emergencies; and 3. Provide a special appropriation for some particular work which the librarian might be particularly interested in at the time. I asked several other prominent librarians the same question and their answers were to the same purport—namely, if the city could furnish sufficient money they felt themselves fully competent to build up an ideal institution.

We all know as a matter of fact that the strong libraries of the country have been built up by other means than the mere appropriation of money by city councils, and it is not unreasonable to mention as the first of these the librarian. The city should see to it that this individual is a man (or woman) strong, intellectual and vigorous, without bumptiousness, which is often mistaken for vigor, and with those qualities which will procure for him respectful attention from even those who may be opposed to him. I have often heard addresses made before this Association bewailing the fact that the city librarian had to deal with certain political elements which very much hampered him. I should regard this state of affairs as belonging to the time when the college president was necessarily a professor of moral philosophy whose duties consisted of receiving the senior class for one hour a week to discuss Whewell's "Elements." Such an officer must now be an active administrative power as well as an intellectual entity to at all meet the modern requirements, and in like manner the public librarian should deem it a privilege to meet the representatives of the city government and to have the opportunity of impressing the needs of his institution upon them. There is no better test of the capacity of the man for the great work in which he is engaged.

Speaking practically I would state that in the building up of the Philadelphia Free Library in which I have taken an active interest, the political elements have always responded most generously to our requests, and that the library has been more inconvenienced by the writings and personal influence of certain well-to-do-citizens upon whom the word "paternalism" has acted as a nightmare than by any difficulty with the city government.

While the city should provide means and a proper official to conduct the institution it should take much more care in the selection of the board of trustees than is usually the case. They should be representative men, who not only should be able to assist the librarian in the formation of an educational institution, but also be able to devote a considerable amount of time to matters relating to its policy. If the librarian is not a systematic business man, one of the board or a committee should be delegated to attend to the financial affairs, as it is absolutely necessary that the accounts shall be at all times in as good condition as in the most punctilious business house.

I would also suggest that a certain modesty be observed in the carrying out of such work by a municipality. It is hard to think of anything that could be said for this proposition when the magnificent buildings of Boston, Chicago and Pittsburgh are taken into consideration; but I would respectfully submit that the feeling of unrest among the great army of industrial workers throughout the civilized world is growing. With the tremendous progress in science and industry these people are claiming that they can see no gain in the position of the common people. This discontent has manifested itself lately in the opposition of the labor organizations of certain towns to the munificent proposition made by one of the most conscientious men who has ever been numbered among the [multimillionaires] of the world. While it is not always wise to consider too seriously the socialistic murmurings of a few negative people, I submit that it is our duty to consider the effect produced upon the poorest and most scantily clad patron of our libraries.

It is necessary that the library should be housed in a fireproof building as soon as possible, and the owners of valuable books will always choose such an institution for such gifts as they may make. I believe that the Boston Library has received donations equal to half the cost of the building since it has been housed in Copley square.

Finally, the city should insist that the library be an educational institution and not receive its appropriation for recreation mainly. The extraordinary demand for light fiction in public libraries has led to a very unsatisfactory condition of affairs, and it is not uncommon to find 300 copies of a new novel necessary to at all meet the demand. There is every indication that the public library will be furnished with a happy release from this call upon their resources by the institution of the Book Lovers' Library which has now extended its branches to all the important cities. If this system can be extended on good business principles, the happiness of public libraries would be complete notwithstanding the slight falling off in circulation that might follow.

The motto of every such institution should be: Libri libere liberis, which being freely translated, means: "A free people should have open shelves if possible."

[ WHAT MAY BE DONE FOR LIBRARIES BY THE STATE.] [A]

By E. A. Birge, President Board of Directors, Madison (Wis.) Public Library.

The relation of the state to libraries may be considered from three points of view. The first and oldest library function of the state has been the maintenance of a state library, usually begun for the convenience of the legislature and in many states enlarged into a general library. With this function has also gone the indirect support of libraries for historical and scientific societies, incorporated by the state and in some degree representing it. Much might be said on possible lines of work for the state in this direction, but as this function is the oldest and best understood, it may be named and passed without further discussion.

Second, the state holds a relation to the local libraries in communities which are supporting free libraries without aid from the state. The state aids these libraries by enacting proper laws for their organization. In general, the statutes should be such as will give the local library the best opportunity for organization, and will leave it when organized the largest amount of freedom in doing its work. The earlier library laws of the states have very generally contained the provision that, in order to establish a library in a community, the proposition must be accepted by a majority of the voters at an election. This provision has been found disadvantageous in Wisconsin, and was eliminated from our library

law in 1897. Experience has shown that it is better to leave the establishment of a library, like other public works of necessity and utility, to the common council, or other representatives of the people in the larger towns and cities, rather than to commit the proposition to the chance of a general election.

The third function of the state with reference to libraries is that which may be called library extension. Here the state acts directly to aid in the establishment of libraries and the extension of library work in the communities which would otherwise lack libraries. The necessity for this work has become apparent to the more progressive states of the Union within recent years. The justification of this work lies in two main reasons. First, libraries continue for the older youth of the community and for adults the education which the state requires for children. It is neither fair nor right for the state to maintain a system of education which develops a love of knowledge and of reading, and then leave the community without the means for continuing in later youth the development begun in childhood. Second, it is known that the intellectual isolation of the rural communities is one of the main reasons for the much-lamented drift from the country into the cities, and it has been found that the establishment of libraries affords one of the most important means of bringing these small communities into intellectual touch with the world.

The states then which have undertaken this work of library extension have usually done so by means of the library commission. The first commission was established by Massachusetts in 1890. Seventeen states had established such commissions by the end of 1900—more than half of them in the two years preceding that date. I have no statistics regarding the establishment of such commissions in 1901. The work of these commissions may be either advisory or missionary, aiding in the establishment of libraries in the smaller communities which are able to establish and maintain them under the guidance and advice of the commission, and directly furnishing library facilities to the smallest and weakest communities. In certain states direct state aid is given to the smaller libraries, notably in Massachusetts, where each town library established under the rules of the commission receives books to the amount of $100. In some states aid is given in the purchase of books. The direct furnishing of libraries is done mainly by means of travelling libraries. So far as I can learn, these are now distributed by six states. The system has grown throughout the Union, in various manifestations, and its influence in bringing books to the communities that most lack and need them has been of the utmost value. This work is one of the greatest importance, and yet I believe it is one which will ultimately pass into the hands of the counties or smaller governmental bodies than the state.

Lastly, the commissions are aiding in the library work by the establishment of library schools. In Wisconsin a summer school for library training has been held for the past seven years, and represents a class of work which it seems important that each state should undertake, namely: the training of librarians for the smaller libraries in which the salaries paid are necessarily so small that the librarians cannot afford the expense of a complete course in library training. This instruction applies especially to persons already in charge of small libraries throughout the state, who have not had the opportunity to secure professional training for their work, and it is of great value in bringing them in touch with library effort and setting higher standards of purpose and efficiency. Experience has shown that in a two months' summer session instruction can be given of the greatest value to those who are to have charge of this class of libraries.

In this department of library extension which the states have been entering upon during the past decade lies the most important work which the state can undertake for libraries. The work of the library commissions means a systematic employment of the library as an educational and social factor in the progress of the people. This is the true mission of the library, and the most important function of the state lies in effectively aiding it to perform this work.

[WHAT MAY BE DONE FOR LIBRARIES BY THE NATION.]

By Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress.

You have had suggestions as to what may be done for libraries by the city and what by the state. Whatever is left over—if there is anything left over—I am to treat as something that may be done by the nation—the nation not as an aggregate of its parts, but as a unit, acting through its central authority. There is a disposition to contend that everything which may be more effectively or more economically done by a central authority for the larger area should be undertaken by that authority. I am not prepared to go so far. There may be a value in local effort that will repay its greater cost. But in an educational work which involves the accumulation of material some of which is exceedingly costly, only part of which is constantly in use, and little of which perishes by use; a work whose processes are capable of organization on a large scale and the application of co-operative effort: there must be certain undertakings which, relatively speaking, are possible only if assumed by a central authority. It is such undertakings, for the largest area, that I am asked to discover and set forth.

To do so involves consequences which may be inconvenient. For a possible service means a correlative duty. And as I myself to a degree represent here the central authority in question, whatever I state as a service appropriate for that authority, I shall have to admit as a duty in which I must share. I shall try to be candid. But under the circumstances I cannot be expected to be more than candid.

In some respects the Federal Government of the United States has already influenced the constitution, resources and service of our public libraries. It has enacted laws which, having for their primary purpose the protection of authors and publishers, benefit libraries by encouraging the manufacture of books soundly, substantially and honestly made. It has favored public libraries by exempting from tariff duty books imported for their use. It has encouraged the study of the classics by laying a penalty upon the general importation of books less than twenty years old. In its executive capacity it is itself investigator, author, publisher, manufacturer, distributor, statistician, bibliographer, and librarian. It maintains at Washington, with a generosity not paralleled by any other government, bureaus for scientific research; it compiles, publishes, and freely distributes the results of this research. It is the greatest publisher in the world, and the largest manufacturer of books. In a single publication, repeated each year, it consumes over a million pounds of paper stock; and it maintains a bureau whose purpose is to replenish the forests which as publisher it thus depletes. It distributes gratuitously to the libraries of the United States each year over 300,000 volumes, embodying the results of its research, its legislative proceedings, and an account of its administrative activities. It maintains a bureau for the investigation of problems in education, for the accumulation and dissemination of information concerning the work of educational institutions; and it has included the public libraries of this country among such educational institutions. This bureau has issued three reports tabulating statistics concerning them, one also (in 1876) summarizing their history and two (in 1876 and in 1893) containing essays which embody the best contemporary opinion as to library equipment and methods. It has published as a document the A. L. A. list of best books to form the basis of a public library.

Through its bureau of documents it is seeking to index and adequately to exhibit its own publications, to facilitate their distribution to libraries and to afford to libraries as to federal documents a clearing house for duplicates.

All such services are obviously appropriate for the national authority and may doubtless be continued and extended. If the interchange of books among libraries is to be facilitated by special postal regulations this can be accomplished by the national authority alone.

But in the case of a state a service has been described which is to be rendered to local libraries by the library which the state itself owns and maintains. Now the federal government also owns and maintains libraries. What may be demanded of these? Certain precedents have already been established. The library of the Surgeon General's office—the most comprehensive in the world within its special field—sends its books to members of the medical profession throughout the United States, relieving just so much the burden upon local libraries; and it has issued a catalog which is not merely in form and method efficient, but is so nearly an exhibit of the entire literature of the medical sciences that it renders unnecessary duplication of cataloging and analytical work within the field which it covers. This catalog has conferred a general benefit not equalled by any bibliographic work within any other department of literature. It is perhaps the most eminent bibliographic work yet accomplished by any government. The cost of its mere publication—which is the cost chargeable to the general benefit—has already exceeded $250,000.

But this library is but one of several collections maintained by the Federal Government; the aggregate of which is already nearly two million volumes. In each federal department and bureau there is a library. And there is a central collection which in itself is already the largest on the western hemisphere. It was created as a legislative library—for the use of both Houses of Congress. It is still called the Library of Congress. But it is now being referred to as something more. The government has erected for it a building which is the largest, most elaborate, and most costly yet erected for library purposes. The seven million dollars which it cost has been paid not by the District of Columbia, but by the country at large. No such sum would have been requisite for a building to serve Congress alone. It seems to intend a library that shall serve the country at large, if there is any such thing possible. In fact the library is already being referred to as the National Library of the United States. What does this mean? or rather, what may this mean? One naturally looks abroad—to the foremost of national libraries.

The British Museum is a huge repository of material. In scope it is universal. Its purpose is accumulation, preservation, and the aid of research by accredited persons, upon its own premises. Its service is purely responsive. It has printed catalogs of its own collections, but does not undertake bibliographic work general in nature, nor engage in co-operative bibliographic undertakings. It lends no books.

But I fear you will hardly be satisfied with the analogy. The British Museum, you will say, is placed in a city which is not merely the capital of the British Empire, but the metropolis; the literary metropolis also of the Anglo-Saxon race. The Library of Congress is at the capital of the United States. But this capital is not itself a metropolis. No student in Great Britain has to travel over 500 miles to reach the British Museum. A student in the United States may have to travel as much as 3000 miles to reach the Library of Congress. The area which supports the national library of Great Britain is but 100,000 square miles; that which supports the National Library of the United States is ever 3,000,000 square miles. The conditions differ, and therefore, you will say, the obligation. If there is any way in which our National Library may "reach out" from Washington it should reach out. Its first duty is no doubt as a legislative library—to Congress. Its next is as a federal library to aid the executive and judicial departments of the government and the scientific undertakings under governmental auspices. Its next is to that general research which may be carried on at Washington by resident and visiting students and scholars: which in American history, political and social science, public administration, jurisprudence and international law is likely to make Washington its center, and which, under the auspices of the Washington Memorial Institution—that new project for post graduate study involving the use of the scientific collections and scientific experts at Washington—is likely to be organized in various branches of the natural and physical sciences as well. But this should not be the limit. There should be possible also a service to the country at large: a service to be extended through the libraries which are the local centers of research involving the use of books. That claim may be made. Now what at Washington might be useful to these libraries?

(A lively imagination is not requisite.) Suppose there could be a collection of books universal in scope, as no local library with limited funds and limited space can hope to be: a collection that shall contain also particularly (1) original sources, (2) works of high importance for occasional reference, but whose cost to procure and maintain precludes their acquisition by a local library pressed to secure the material of ordinary and constant need, and (3) the "useless" books; books not costly to acquire, but of so little general concern as not to justify cataloging, space and care in each local library if only they are known to be preserved and accessible somewhere.

Such a collection must include also the general mass of books sought and held by local libraries—the books for the ordinary reader; the daily tools of research. Its maintenance will involve processes—of classification and cataloging—highly costly. Suppose the results of these processes could be made generally available, so as to save duplication of such expenditure upon identical material held by local libraries?

A collection universal in scope will afford opportunity for bibliographic work not equalled elsewhere. Such work centered there might advance the general interest with the least aggregate effort. The adequate interpretation of such a collection will involve the maintenance of a corps of specialists. Suppose these specialists could be available to answer inquiries from all parts of the country as to what material exists on any particular subject, where it is, how it may be had, how most effectively it may be used?

There are special collections already existent in various localities in the United States and likely to come into being through special local advantage or incentive, or the interest of private collectors, or private endowment—which cannot be duplicated at Washington. Suppose there could be at Washington a bibliographic statement of that which is peculiar to each of these collections; in brief, a catalog of the books in the United States—not of every library, not of every copy of every book, but of every book available for an investigator?

There are various bibliographic undertakings which may be co-operative. Suppose there could be at Washington a central bureau—with approved methods, standard forms, adequate editorial capacity, and liberal facilities for publication—which could organize and co-ordinate this work among the libraries of the United States and represent them in such of it as—like the new Royal Society index—is to be international?

There is the exchange of material duplicated in one library, needed by another. Suppose there could be at Washington a bureau which would serve as a clearing house for miscellaneous duplicates as the Bureau of Documents serves for documents? It might accomplish much without handling a single article; it might, like a clearing house proper as it were, set debit against credit, i. e., compare the deficiencies in one library with the surplus in another and communicate the results to the institutions interested. It might do this upon slip lists sent in by each—of duplicates and of particular deficiencies—in sets, for instance. One of my associates has been guilty of this very suggestion. It is likely to bring something upon his head. He may have his choice between live coals and the ashes of repentance.

Now those are some of the things which might be asserted as the duty of Washington to the country at large. I have touched them as lightly as possible: but there they are. And we may not be able to avoid them. Nay, we seem to be drifting toward them. To some of them we are apparently already committed.

There is the building: that in itself seems to commit us. There is equipment. There are books. As regards any national service the federal libraries should be one library. They contain nearly two million volumes. The Library of Congress contains net some 700,000 books and a half million other items. It has for increase (1) deposits under the copyright law, (2) documents acquired through distribution of the federal documents placed at its disposal for exchange—formerly 50 copies of each, now 100, (3) books and society publications acquired by the Smithsonian through its exchanges, (4) miscellaneous gifts and exchanges, and, (5) purchases from appropriations. These have increased from $10,000 a year prior to 1897 to $70,000 for the year 1901-2.

Such resources are by no means omnipotent. No resources can make absolutely comprehensive a library starting its deliberate accumulations at the end of the 19th century. Too much material has already been absorbed into collections from which it will never emerge.

But universality in scope does not mean absolute comprehensiveness in detail. With its purchasing funds and other resources the Library of Congress bids fair to become the strongest collection in the United States in bibliography, in Americana (omitting the earliest), in political and social science, public administration, jurisprudence. If any American library can secure the documents which will exhibit completely legislation proposed and legislation enacted it should be able to. As depository of the library of the Smithsonian it will have the most important collection—perhaps in the world—of the transactions and proceedings of learned societies; and, adding its own exchanges and subscriptions, of serials in general. With theology it may not especially concern itself nor with philology to the degree appropriate to a university library. Medicine it will leave as a specialty to the library of the Surgeon-General's office, already pre-eminent, Geology to the library of the Geological Survey. Two extremes it may have to abstain from—so far as deliberate purchase is concerned: (1) the books merely popular, (2) the books merely curious. Of the first many will come to it through copyright; of the second many should come through gift. (Perhaps in time the public spirit of American collectors and donors may turn to it as the public spirit of the British turns to the National Library of Great Britain.) Original sources must come to it, if at all, chiefly by gift. Manuscript material relating to American history it has, however, bought, and will buy.

Otherwise, chiefly printed books. Of these, the useful books; of these again, the books useful rather for the establishment of the fact than for the mere presentation of it—the books for the advancement of learning, rather than those for the mere diffusion of knowledge.

Lastly there is an organization. Instead of 42 persons, for all manner of service, there are now 261, irrespective of printers, binders, and the force attending to the care of the building itself.

The copyright work is set off and interferes no longer with the energies of the library proper. There is a separate division having to do with the acquisition of material, another—of 67 persons—to classify and catalog it. There are 42 persons attending to the ordinary service of the reading room as supplied from the stacks, and there are eight special divisions handling severally the current newspapers and periodicals, the documents, manuscripts, maps, music, prints, the scientific publications forming the Smithsonian deposit, and the books for the blind. There is a Division of Bibliography whose function is to assist in research too elaborate for the routine service of the reading room, to edit the library publications, and to represent the library in co-operative bibliographic undertakings. There is now within the building, besides a bindery, with a force of 45 employees, a printing office, with a force of 21. The allotment for printing and binding, in 1896 only $15,000, is for the coming year $90,000.

The immediate duty of this organization is near at hand. There is a huge arrear of work upon the existing collection—necessary for its effective use, and its intelligent growth. It must be newly classified throughout; and shelf listed. The old author slip catalog must be revised and reduced to print. There must be compiled a subject catalog, of which none now exists. Innumerable gaps—that which is crooked can be made straight, but that which is wanting cannot be numbered—innumerable gaps are to be ascertained and filled. A collection of reference books must be placed back at the Capitol, with suitable apparatus, to bring the library once more into touch with Congress and enable it to render the service to Congress which is its first duty. The other libraries of the District must be brought into association—not by gathering their collections into the Library of Congress, but by co-ordinating processes and service. The Library of Congress as the center of the system can aid in this. It can strengthen each departmental library by relieving it of material not necessary to its special work. It can aid toward specialization in these departmental libraries by exhibiting present unnecessary duplication. (It is just issuing a union list of serials currently taken by the libraries of the District which has this very purpose.) It can very likely print the catalog cards for all the government libraries—incidentally securing uniformity, and a copy for its own use of each card—which in time will result in a complete statement within its own walls of the resources of every departmental library in Washington. It will supply to each such library a copy of every card which it prints of a book in its own collections relating to the work of the bureau which such library serves.

To reduce to order the present collection, incorporating the current accessions, to fill the most inconvenient gaps, to supply the most necessary apparatus in catalogs and to bring about a relation among the libraries of Washington which shall form them into an organic system: this work will of itself be a huge one. I have spoken of the equipment of the Library of Congress as elaborate, the force as large, and the appropriations as generous. All are so in contrast to antecedent conditions. In proportion to the work to be done, however, they are not merely not excessive, but in some respects far short of the need. To proceed beyond those immediate undertakings to projects of general service will require certain equipment, service, and funds not yet secured, and which can be secured only by a general effort. But the question is not what can be done, but what may be done—in due time, eventually.

A general distribution of the printed cards: That has been suggested. It was suggested a half century ago by the Federal Government through the Smithsonian Institution. Professor Jewett's proposal then was a central bureau to compile, print and distribute cards which might serve to local libraries as a catalog of their own collections. Such a project is now before this Association. It may not be feasible: that is, it might not result in the economy which it suggests. It assumes a large number of books to be acquired, in the same editions, by many libraries, at the same time. In fact, the enthusiasm for the proposal at the Montreal meeting last year has resulted in but sixty subscriptions to the actual project.

It may not be feasible. But if such a scheme can be operated at all it may perhaps be operated most effectively through the library which for its own uses is cataloging and printing a card for every book currently copyrighted in the United States, and for a larger number of others than any other single institution. Such must be confessed of the Library of Congress. It is printing a card for every book currently copyrighted, for every other book currently added—for every book reached in re-classification—and thus in the end for every book in its collection. It is now printing, at the rate of over 200 titles a day—60,000 titles a year. The entry is an author entry, in form and type accepted by the committee on cataloging of the A. L. A. The cards are of the standard size—3 × 5 inches—of the best linen ledger stock. From 15 to 100 copies of each are now printed. It would be uncandid to say that such a number is necessary for the use of the library itself, or of the combined libraries at Washington. The usefulness of copies of them to any other library for incorporation in its catalogs must depend upon local conditions: the style, form, and size of its own cards, the number of books which it adds yearly, the proportion of these which are current, and other related matters. On these points we have sought statistics from 254 libraries. We have them from 202. With them we have samples of the cards in use by each, with a complete author entry. Having them we are in a position really to estimate the chances. I will not enter into details. Summarily, it appears that our cards might effect a great saving to certain libraries and some saving to others, and would entail a mere expense without benefit to the remainder—all of which is as might have been guessed.

The distribution suggested by Professor Jewett and proposed by the A. L. A. had in view a saving to the recipient library of cataloging and printing on its own account. It assumed a subscription by each recipient to cover the cost of the extra stock and presswork. There is conceivable a distribution more limited in range, having another purpose. The national library wishes to get into touch with the local libraries which are centers for important research. It wishes the fullest information as to their contents; it may justifiably supply them with the fullest information as to its own contents. Suppose it should supply them with a copy of every card which it prints, getting in return a copy of every card which they print? I am obliged to disclose this suggestion: for such an exchange has already been begun. A copy of every card printed by the Library of Congress goes out to the New York Public Library: a copy of every card printed by the New York Public Library comes to the Library of Congress. In the new building of the New York Public Library there will be a section of the public card catalog designated The Catalog of the Library of Congress. It will contain at least every title in the Library of Congress not to be found in any library of the metropolis. In the Library of Congress a section of the great card catalog of American libraries outside the District will be a catalog of the New York Public Library.

I have here a letter from the librarian of Cornell University forwarding a resolution of the Library Council (composed in part of faculty members) which requests for the university library a set of these cards. Mr. Harris states that the purpose would be to fit up cases of drawers in the catalog room, which is freely accessible to any one desiring to consult bibliographical aids, and arrange the cards in alphabetical order by authors, thus making an author catalog of the set. He adds "The whole question has been rather carefully considered and the unanimous sense of the council was that the usefulness of the catalog to us would be well worth the cost of the cases, the space they would occupy, and the time it would take to arrange and keep in order the cards."

There is a limit to such a distribution. But I suspect that it will not stop with New York and Ithaca.

There is some expense attendant on it. There is the extra stock, the presswork, the labor of sorting and despatching. No postage, however, for the Library of Congress has the franking privilege, in and out. The results however: one cannot deny them to be attractive. At Washington a statement of at least the distinctive contents of every great local collection. At each local center of research a statement of the distinctive contents of the national collection. An inquirer in Wisconsin writes to Washington: is such a book to be had in the United States; must he come to Washington for it, or to New York?—No, he will find it in Chicago at the Newberry or the Crerar.

If there can be such a thing as a bibliographic bureau for the United States, the Library of Congress is in a way to become one; to a degree, in fact, a bureau of information for the United States. Besides routine workers efficient as a body, it has already some expert bibliographers and within certain lines specialists. It has not a complete corps of these. It cannot have until Congress can be made to understand the need of them. Besides its own employees, however, it has within reach by telephone a multitude of experts. They are maintained by the very government which maintains it. They are learned men, efficient men, specially trained, willing to give freely of their special knowledge. They enter the government employ and remain there, not for the pecuniary compensation, which is shamefully meagre, but for the love of the work itself and for the opportunity for public service which it affords. Of these men, in the scientific bureaus at Washington, the National Library can take counsel: it can secure their aid to develop its collections and to answer inquiries of moment. This will be within the field of the natural and physical sciences. Meantime within its walls it possesses already excellent capacity for miscellaneous research, and special capacity for meeting inquiries in history and topography, in general literature, and in the special literature of economics, mathematics and physics. It has still Ainsworth Spofford and the other men, who with him, under extraordinary disadvantages, for thirty-five years made the library useful at the Capitol.

The library is already issuing publications in book form. In part these are catalogs of its own contents; in part an exhibit of the more important material in existence on some subject of current interest, particularly, of course, in connection with national affairs. Even during the period of organization fifteen such lists have already been issued. They are distributed freely to libraries and even to individual inquirers.

But there may be something further. The distribution of cards which exhibit its own contents or save duplication of expense elsewhere, the publication of bibliographies which aid to research, expert service which in answer to inquiry points out the best sources and the most effective methods of research: all these may have their use. But how about the books themselves? Must the use of this great collection be limited to Washington? How many of the students who need some book in the Library of Congress—perhaps there alone—can come to Washington to consult it at the moment of need? A case is conceivable: a university professor at Madison or Berkeley or San Antonio, in connection with research important to scholarship, requires some volume in an unusual set. The set is not in the university library. It is too costly for that library to acquire for the infrequent need. The volume is in the National Library. It is not at the moment in use at Washington. The university library requests the loan of it. If the National Library is to be the national library——?

There might result some inconvenience. There would be also the peril of transit. Some volumes might be lost to posterity. But after all we are ourselves a posterity. Some respect is due to the ancestors who have saved for our use. And if one copy of a book possessed by the federal government and within reasonable limits subject to call by different institutions, might suffice for the entire United States—what does logic seem to require—and expediency—and the good of the greater number?

The Library of Congress is now primarily a reference library. But if there be any citizen who thinks that it should never lend a book—to another library—in aid of the higher research—when the book can be spared from Washington and is not a book within the proper duty of the local library to supply—if there be any citizen who thinks that for the National Library to lend under these circumstances would be a misuse of its resources and, therefore, an abuse of trust—he had better speak quickly, or he may be too late. Precedents may be created which it would be awkward to ignore.

Really I have been speaking of the Library of Congress as if it were the only activity of the federal government of interest to libraries. That, however, is the fault of the topic. It was not what might be done for science, for literature, for the advance of learning, for the diffusion of knowledge. It was merely what might be done for libraries; as it were, not for the glory of God, but for the advancement of the church. We have confidence in the mission of libraries and consider anything in aid of it as good in itself.

Their most stimulating, most fruitful service must be the direct service. The service of the national authority must in large part be merely indirect. It can meet the reader at large only through the local authority. It can serve the great body of readers chiefly through the local libraries which meet them face to face, know their needs, supply their most ordinary needs. Its natural agent—we librarians at least must think this—is its own library—the library which if there is to be a national library not merely of, but for the United States—must be that library.

Must become such, I should have said. For we are not yet arrived. We cannot arrive until much preliminary work has been done, and much additional resource secured from Congress. We shall arrive the sooner in proportion as you who have in charge the municipal and collegiate libraries of the United States will urge upon Congress the advantage to the interests you represent, of undertakings such as I have described. To this point we have not asked your aid. In the equipment of the library, in the reconstruction of its service, in the addition of more expert service, in the improvement of immediate facilities, our appeal to Congress has been based on the work to be done near at hand. I have admitted to you the possibility of these other undertakings of more general concern. If they commend themselves to you as proper and useful—the appeal for them must be primarily your appeal.

[THE TRUSTEESHIP OF LITERATURE—I.]

By George Iles, New York City.

Six months ago the curtain descended upon what is likely to be accounted the most memorable century in the annals of mankind. So salient are three of its characteristics that they challenge the eye of the most casual retrospection. First of all, we see that knowledge was increased at a pace beyond precedent, to be diffused throughout the world with a new thoroughness and fidelity. Next we must observe how republican government passed from the slender ties spun in the times of Washington, Jefferson and Adams, to the intimate and pervasive cords of to-day, when, as never before, the good of the bee is bound up with the welfare of the hive. Parallel with this political union of each and all there was a growth of free organization which, in every phase of life, has secured uncounted benefits which only joined hands may receive. Fresh torches of light fraternally borne from the centers of civilization to its circumference have tended to bring the arts and ideals of life everywhere to the level of the best. These distinctive features of the nineteenth century were in little evidence at its dawn, but they became more and more manifest with each succeeding decade. In American librarianship, as in many another sphere of labor, more was accomplished in the last quarter of the century than in the seventy-five preceding years.

It is as recently as 1852 that Boston opened the doors of the first free public library established in an American city. Its founders were convinced that what was good for the students at Harvard, the subscribers to the Athenæum, was good for everybody else. Literature, they felt, was a trust to be administered not for a few, but for the many, to be, indeed, hospitably proffered to all. To this hour, by a wise and generous responsiveness to its ever-growing duties, the Boston foundation remains a model of what a metropolitan library should be. As with the capital, so with the state; to-day Massachusetts is better provided with free public libraries than any other commonwealth on the globe; only one in two hundred of her people are unserved by them, while within her borders the civic piety of her sons and daughters has reared more than six score library buildings. The library commission of the state is another model in its kind; its powers are in the main advisory, but when a struggling community desires to establish a library, and contributes to that end, the commission tenders judicious aid. The population of Massachusetts is chiefly urban, an exceptional case, for taking the Union as a whole, notwithstanding the constant drift to the cities, much more than half the people are still to be found in the country. For their behoof village libraries have appeared in thousands. Still more effective, because linked with one another, are the travelling libraries, inaugurated by Mr. Melvil Dewey in New York in 1893, and since adopted in many other states of the Union, and several provinces of Canada. All this registers how the democracy of letters has come to its own. Schools public and free ensure to the American child its birthright of instruction; libraries, also public and free, are rising to supplement that instruction, to yield the light and lift, the entertainment and stimulus that literature stands ready to bestow. The old-time librarian, who was content to be a mere custodian of books, has passed from the stage forever; in his stead we find an officer anxious that his store shall do all the people the utmost possible good. To that end he combines the zeal of the missionary with the address of a consummate man of business. Little children are invited to cheery rooms with kind and intelligent hospitality; teachers and pupils from the public schools are welcomed to classrooms where everything is gathered that the library can offer for their use; helpful bulletins and consecutive reading lists are issued for the home circle; every book, magazine and newspaper is bought, as far as feasible, with an eye to the special wants and interests of the community; information desks are set up; and partnerships are formed with expositors of acknowledged merit, with museums of industry, of natural history, of the fine arts. Not the borrowers only, but the buyers of books are remembered. The Standard Library, brought together by Mr. W. E. Foster, in Providence, is a shining example in this regard.

The sense of trusteeship thus variously displayed has had a good many sources; let us confine our attention to one of them. During the past hundred years the treasure committed to the keeping of librarians has undergone enrichment without parallel in any preceding age. We have more and better books than ever before; they mean more than in any former time for right living and sound thinking. A rough and ready classification of literature, true enough in substance, divides it into books of power, of information, and of entertainment. Let us look at these three departments a little in detail. Restricting our purview to the English tongue, we find the honor roll of its literature lengthened by the names of Wordsworth, Tennyson and Matthew Arnold, Carlyle and Ruskin, Emerson and Lowell. And not only to authors such as these must our debt be acknowledged. We owe scholarly editors nearly as much. In Spedding's Bacon, the Shakesperean studies of Mr. Furniss, and the Chaucer of Professor Skeat, we have typical examples of services not enjoyed by any former age. To-day the supreme poets, seers and sages of all time are set before us in the clearest sunshine; their gold, refined from all admixture, is minted for a currency impossible before. In their original, unedited forms, the masterpieces of our language are now cheap enough to find their way to the lowliest cottage of the cross-roads.

It is not, however, in the field of literature pure and simple that the manna fell most abundantly during the past hundred years. Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, the last of the great students who took all natural history for their province, declares that the advances in discovery, invention and generalization during the nineteenth century outweigh those of all preceding time. Admit this judgment, and at once is explained why the records and the spirit of science dominate the literature of the last ten decades. And let us note that while books of knowledge have increased beyond measure, they have appeared with a helpfulness and with merits wholly new. For the first time in the history of letters, men and women of successful experience, of practised and skilful pens, write books which, placed in the hands of the people, enlighten their toil, diminish their drudgery, and sweeten their lives. Cross the threshold of the home and there is not a task, from choosing a carpet to rearing a baby, that has not been illuminated by at least one good woman of authority in her theme. On the heights of the literature of science we have a quality and distinction unknown before these later days. The modern war on evil and pain displays weapons of an edge and force of which our forefathers never dared to dream; its armies march forward not in ignorant hope, but with the assured expectation of victory. All this inspires leaders like Huxley, Spencer and Fiske with an eloquence, a power to convince and persuade, new in the annals of human expression and as characteristic of the nineteenth century as the English poetry of the sixteenth, in the glorious era of Elizabeth. The literature of knowledge is not only fuller and better than of old, it is more wisely employed. In the classroom, and when school days are done, we now understand how the printed page may best direct and piece out the work of the hand, the eye and the ear; not for a moment deluding ourselves with the notion that we have grasped truth merely because we can spell the word. To-day we first consider the lilies of the field, not the lilies of the printer; that done it is time enough to take up a formal treatise which will clarify and frame our knowledge. If a boy is by nature a mechanic, a book of the right sort shows him how to construct a simple steam engine or an electric motor. Is he an amateur photographer, other books, excellently illustrated, give him capital hints for work with his camera. It is in thus rounding out the circle which springs from the school desk that the public library justifies its equal claim to support from the public treasury.

In the third and last domain of letters, that of fiction, there is a veritable embarrassment of riches. During the three generations past the art of story-telling culminated in works of all but Shakesperean depth and charm. We have only to recall Scott and Thackeray, Hawthorne, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy, to be reminded that an age of science may justly boast of novelists and romancers such as the world never knew before. No phase of life but has been limned with photographic fidelity, no realm of imagination but has been bodied forth as if by experience on fire, so that many a book which bears the name of fiction might well be labelled as essential truth. Within the past decade, however, the old veins have approached their bounds, while new lodes do not as yet appear. Of this the tokens are the eager sifting of the rubbish heap, the elaborate picturing of the abnormal and the gross. Pens unable to afford either delight or cheer have abundant capacity, often with evident malice, to strike the nerves of horror and of pain. If at the present hour high achievement in fiction is rare, if we hear more echoes than ever and fewer voices, quantity abounds to the point of surfeit. With an output in America alone of 616 works for 1900, all fears of famine may well be allayed.

The main fact of the situation then is that the librarian's trust has of late years undergone stupendous increase; this at once broadens his opportunities and adds to his burdens. Gold and silver, iron and lead, together with much dross, are commingled in a heap which rises every hour. Before a trust can be rightly and gainfully administered, its trustees must know in detail what it is that they guard, what its several items are worth, what they are good for. And let us remember that literature consists in but small part of metals which declare themselves to all men as gold or lead; much commoner are alloys of every conceivable degree of worth or worthlessness. There is plainly nothing for it but to have recourse to the crucibles of the professional assayer, it becomes necessary to add to the titles of our catalogs some responsible word as to what books are and what rank they occupy in an order of just precedence.

This task of a competent and candid appraisal of literature, as a necessity of its trusteeship, has been before the minds of this Association for a good many years. A notable Step toward its accomplishment was taken when Mr. Samuel S. Green, in 1879, allied himself with the teachers of Worcester, Massachusetts, that they and he together might select books for the public schools of that city. The work began and has proceeded upon comprehensive lines. Such literature has been chosen as may usefully and acceptably form part of the daily instruction, there is a liberal choice of books of entertainment and inspiration worthily to buttress and relieve the formal lessons. The whole work goes forward with intent to cultivate the taste, to widen the horizons, to elevate the impulses of the young reader. Mr. Green's methods, with the modifications needful in transplanting, have been adopted far and wide throughout the Union. Already they have borne fruit in heightening the standards of free choice when readers have passed from the school bench to the work-a-day world.

Thus thoughtfully to lay the foundation of the reading habit is a task beyond praise; upon a basis so sound it falls to our lot to rear, if we can, a worthy and durable superstructure. It is time that we passed from books for boys and girls to books for the youth, the man and the woman. And how amid the volume and variety of the accumulated literature of the ages shall we proceed? For light and comfort let us go back a little in the history of education, we shall there find a method substantially that of our friend, Mr. Green. Long before there were any free libraries at all, we had in America a small band of readers and learners who enjoyed unfailing pilotage in the sea of literature. These readers and learners were in the colleges, where the teachers from examination and comparison in the study, the class-room and the laboratory were able to say that such an author was the best in his field, that such another had useful chapters, and that a third was unreliable or superseded. While literature has been growing from much to more, this bench of judicature has been so enlarged as to keep steadily abreast of it. At Harvard there are twenty-six sub-libraries of astronomy, zoology, political economy, and so on; at hand are the teachers who can tell how the books may be used with most profit. Of the best critics of books in America the larger part are to be found at Harvard, at its sister universities and colleges, at the technological institutes and art schools of our great cities. We see their signed reviews in such periodicals as the Political Science Quarterly and the Physical Review; or unsigned in journals of the stamp of the Nation. Fortunately, we can call upon reinforcements of this vanguard of criticism. It would be difficult to name a branch of learning, an art, a science, an exploration, from folk-lore to forestry, from psychical research to geological surveys, whose votaries are not to-day banded to promote the cause they have at heart. These organizations include not only the foremost teachers in the Union, but also their peers, outside the teaching profession, of equal authority in bringing literature to the balances. And the point for us is that these societies, through their publications and discussions, enable these laymen to be known for what they are. Because the American Historical Association is thus comprehensive, its membership has opened the door for an initial task of appraisal, important in itself and significant for the future.

Drawing his two score contributors almost wholly from that Association, Mr. J. N. Larned, of Buffalo, an honored leader of ours, has, without fee or reward, acted as chief editor of an annotated Bibliography of American History. The work is now passing through the composing room of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., of Boston; its contributors include professors of history at Bowdoin, Bryn Mawr, Columbia, Harvard, McGill, Toronto, Tulane and Yale, as well as the Universities of Michigan, Wisconsin and Chicago; our own Association is worthily represented by Messrs. James Bain, Clarence S. Brigham, V. L. Collins, W. E. Foster, J. K. Hosmer, E. C. Richardson and R. G. Thwaites. As a rule the notes are signed. Where for any reason a book demanding notice could not be allotted to a contributor, Mr. Larned has quoted the fairest review he could find in print. He has included not only good books, but such other works as have found an acceptance they do not deserve. All told his pages will offer us about 3400 titles; a syllabus of the sources of American history is prefixed by Mr. Paul Leicester Ford; as an appendix will appear a feature also of great value. In their "Guide to American history," published in 1896, Professors Channing and Hart, of Harvard University, recommended such collections of books as may be had for $5, $10, $20, $50 or $100. Professor Channing is kind enough to say that he will revise these lists and bring them down to date as a contribution to Mr. Larned's work. Professor Channing may, we trust, name the books in each collection in the order in which they may be most gainfully read.

In times past our bibliographies have begun to need enlargement the moment they left the bindery; in the present case that need is for the first time to be supplied. Mr. Larned's titles come to the close of 1899; beyond that period current literature is to be chosen from and appraised with the editorship of Philip P. Wells, librarian of the Yale Law Library, who will issue his series in card form. We hope that he may be ready with his cards for 1900 at the time that Mr. Larned's book appears. Thereafter Mr. Wells' series will probably be published quarter by quarter. Beginning with 1897, Mr. W. Dawson Johnston, now of the Library of Congress, has edited for us a series of annotated cards dealing with the contemporary literature of English history. Both the form and substance of his series are capital. In so far as his cards go directly into catalog cases, where readers and students must of necessity see them, they render the utmost possible aid. If subscribers in sufficient array come forward, Mr. Larned's book may be remolded for issue in similar card form, with a like opportunity for service in catalog cases. In the Cleveland Public Library and its branches useful notes are pasted within the lids of a good many volumes. It is well thus to put immediately under the reader's eye the word which points him directly to his goal, or prevents him wasting time in wanderings of little value or no value at all.

With Mr. Larned's achievement a new chapter is opened in American librarianship; he breaks a path which should be followed up with a discernment and patience emulous of his example. If the whole working round of our literature were sifted and labelled after his method, the worth of that literature, because clearly brought into evidence, might well be doubled at least. Every increase in the availability of our books, every removal of fences, every setting-up of guide-posts, has had a heartening public response. So it will be if we proceed with this effort to bring together the seekers and the knowers, to obtain the best available judgments for the behoof of readers and students everywhere. Economics and politics, so closely interwoven with American history, might well afford the second field for appraisal. A good many libraries still find aid in the "Reader's guide" in this department, although it appeared as long ago as 1891. Next might follow the literature of the sciences pure and applied, together with the useful arts. Among useful arts those of the household might well have the lead, for we must not be academic, or ever lose sight of the duties nearest at hand to the great body of the plain people. Mr. Sturgis and Mr. Krehbiel, in 1897, did an excellent piece of work for us in their "Bibliography of the fine arts"; their guide might profitably be revised and enlarged in its several divisions, not omitting the introductory paragraphs which make the book unique in its class. These tasks well in hand, we might come to such accessions of strength and insight as to nerve us for labors of wider range and greater difficulty, where personal equations may baffle even the highest court of appeal, where it is opinion rather than fact that is brought to the scales. I refer to the debatable ground of ethics, philosophy and theology; and, at the other pole of letters, to the vast stretches of fiction and belles lettres in our own and foreign tongues. With regard to fiction and belles lettres, one of Mr. Larned's methods has a hint for us. In some cases he has found it best to quote Mr. Francis Parkman, Mr. Justin Winsor, or the pages of the Nation, the Dial, the American Historical Review, and similar trustworthy sources. With respect to novels and romances, essays and literary interpretation, it does not seem feasible to engage a special corps of reviewers. It may be a good plan to appoint judicious editors to give us composite photographs of what the critics best worth heeding have said in the responsible press.

It is in the preponderant circulation of fiction, and fiction for the most part of poor quality, that the critics of public libraries find most warrant for attack. They point to the fact that many readers of this fiction are comparatively well-to-do, and are exempted by public taxation from supporting the subscription library and the bookseller. The difficulty has been met chiefly in two ways; by curtailing the supply of mediocre and trashy fiction; by exacting a small fee on issuing the novels brought for a season to a huge demand by advertising of a new address and prodigality. Appraisal, just and thorough, may be expected to render aid more important because radical instead of superficial. In the first place, the best books of recreation, now overlaid by new and inferior writing, can be brought into prominence; secondly, an emphasis, as persuasive as it can be made, ought to be placed upon the more solid stores of our literature. "Business," said Bagehot long ago, "is really more agreeable than pleasure; it interests the whole mind, the aggregate nature of man more continuously and deeply, but it does not look as if it did." Let it be our purpose to reveal what admirable substance underlies appearances not always seductive to the casual glance. Lowell and Matthew Arnold, Huxley and John Fiske, Lecky and Goldwin Smith are solid enough, yet with no lack of wit or humor to relieve their argument and elucidation. A New York publisher of wide experience estimates that the average American family, apart from school purchases, buys less than two books a year. Newspapers and magazines form the staple of the popular literary diet. What fills the newspapers is mainly news; their other departments of information are often extensive and admirable, but within the limits of the hastily penned paragraph or column they cannot rise to the completeness and quality of a book carefully written and faithfully revised. The plain fact is, and it behooves us to reckon with it, the average man, to whom we bear our credentials as missionaries, looks upon a book as having something biblical about it. To sit down deliberately and surrender himself to its chapters is a task he waves away with strangely mingled awe and dislike. So he misses the consecutive instruction, as delightful as profitable to an educated taste, which authors, publishers and librarians are ready and even anxious to impart.

We hear a good deal in these days about the need of recreation, and not a word more than is true, but let us remember that the best recreation may consist in a simple change of work. Behold the arduous toil of the city lawyer, or banker, as on a holiday tour he climbs a peak of the Alps or the Adirondacks, or wades the chilly streams of Scotland or Canada a salmon rod in his hands. Why does he undergo fatigues so severe? Partly because they are freely chosen, partly because they are fatigues of an unwonted and therefore refreshing kind. So in the field before us to-day. Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more fascinating when once its charms are recognized and entertained. Our public schools throughout the land prove that a true story of exploration, of invention or discovery, of heroism or adventure, has only to be well told to rivet a boy's attention as firmly as ever did Robinson Crusoe or Treasure Island. When readers take up from instinctive appetite, or wise incitement, the best books about flowers or birds, minerals or trees, an art, a science, a research, they come to joys in new knowledge, in judgments informed and corrected, unknown to the tipplers and topers whose staple is the novel, good, bad and indifferent. And why, if we can help it, should public money ever be spent for aught but the public good?

With a new sense of what is implied in the trusteeship of literature, if we endeavor in the future to ally ourselves with the worthiest critics of books, we must bid good-bye to the temporary expedients which have cramped and burdened our initial labors. The work of the appraisal of literature requires a home, a Central Bureau, with a permanent and adequately paid staff of editors and assistants. The training of such a staff has already begun; in addition to the experience acquired by those enlisted in our present bibliographical tasks, instruction is now given in advanced bibliography at the New York State Library School at Albany, and doubtless also at other library schools. And at the Central Bureau, which we are bold enough to figure to ourselves, much more should be done than to bring books to the balances. At such a home, in New York, Washington, or elsewhere, every other task should proceed which aims at furthering the good that literature can do all the people. There might be conducted the co-operative cataloging now fast taking form; there should be extended the series of useful tracts begun by that of Dr. G. E. Wire on "How to start a library," by Mr. F. A. Hutchins on "Travelling libraries." At such a center should be exhibited everything to inform the founder of a public library; everything to direct the legislator who would create a library commission on the soundest lines or recast library laws in the light of national experience; there, moreover, should be gathered everything to arouse and instruct the librarian who would bring his methods to the highest plane. Thence, too, should go forth the speakers and organizers intent upon awakening torpid communities to a sense of what they miss so long as they stand outside our ranks, or lag at the rear of our movement. In the fulness of time such a bureau might copy the Franklin Society, of Paris, and call into existence a needed book, to find within this Association a sale which, though small, would be adequate, because free from the advertising taxes of ordinary publishing. To found and endow such a bureau would undoubtedly cost a great deal, and where is the money to come from? We may, I think, expect it from the sources which have given us thousands of public libraries, great and small. Here is an opportunity for our friends, whether their surpluses be large or little. When a gift can be accompanied by personal aid and counsel, it comes enriched. It is much when a goodly gift provides a city with a library, it would be yet more if the donation were to establish and maintain an agency to lift libraries everywhere to the highest efficiency possible, to give literature for the first time its fullest acceptance, its utmost fruitage.

In a retrospective glance at nineteenth century science, Professor Haeckel has said that the hundred years before us are not likely to witness such victories as those which have signalized the era just at an end. Assume for a moment that his forecast is sound, and that it applies beyond the immediate bounds of science, what does it mean for librarianship? It simply reinforces what in any case is clear, namely, that it is high time that the truth and beauty of literature known to the few made its way to all the people, for their enlightenment, consolation and delight. If the future battles of science are to be waged less strenuously than of yore, if scholarship has measurably exhausted its richest mines, let us give the broadest diffusion to the fruits of their triumphs past. In thus diffusing the leaven of culture the public library should take a leading, not a subordinate part. Its treasure is vaster and more precious than ever before. The world's literature grows much like the world's stock of gold, every year's winning is added to the mass already heaped together at the year's first day. In the instruction, entertainment and inspiration of every man and woman there is a three-fold ministry, that of art, of science, and of letters. Because letters bring to public appreciation, to popular sympathy, both art and science, and this in addition to their own priceless argosies, may we not say that of art, science and letters, the greatest of these is letters?

[THE TRUSTEESHIP OF LITERATURE—II.]

By Richard T. Ely, Director School of Economics, University of Wisconsin.

It is my purpose to speak plainly and, if possible, forcibly, concerning what seems to me a grave menace to the progress of science, but in all that I shall say, I would have it understood that I have only the friendliest feelings personally for the gentleman who has brought forward what seem to me dangerous proposals. I appreciate his zeal for progress and his self-sacrificing efforts for human advancement in various directions, but I think that in this particular case—namely, the evaluation of literature, or the establishment of a judicature of letters, my friend is working against his own ideals.

I admit freely that the readers in our public libraries very generally need help in the selection of books, and that great assistance may be rendered them by judicious advice. Much time is wasted by those who read scientific and serious works which do not present the results of recent investigations: furthermore, as another consequence effort is misdirected and instead of producing beneficial results may do positive damage. The question may be asked: "Shall I read Adam Smith's 'Wealth of nations?' I hear it mentioned as one of the great works in the world's history." Probably many a librarian has had this precise question asked him. In giving an affirmative answer it will be most helpful to offer a few words explaining the circumstances under which it appeared one hundred and twenty-five years ago, and its relation to the subsequent development of economic schools and tendencies. Doubtless this work is frequently perused as if it were fresh from the press and were to be judged as a work appearing in 1901.

I further admit the harm which has come to individuals from the study of the so-called "crank" literature in economics and sociology, as well as in other branches of learning. Doubtless many a man is working vigorously in a wrong way and attempting to force society into false channels who might be doing a good work had his reading been well directed in a formative period.

But the magnitude of the interests involved in the proposal which greets us requires caution and conservatism in action. We must take a long, not a short, view of the matter, inquiring into remote and permanent results.

It is proposed, as I understand it, to have so-called expert opinions expressed [concerning books], new and old; to secure as precise and definite estimates of their value as possible, and then by means of printed guides, and even card catalogs, to bring these opinions and evaluations before the readers in our libraries.

Let us reflect for a moment on what this implies. It means, first of all a judicial body of men from whom these estimates are to proceed. Have we such a body? Is it in the nature of things possible that we should have such a body? I say that so far as contemporary literature is concerned, the history of knowledge gives us a positive and conclusive negative answer—a most emphatic "No." Let anyone who knows the circumstances and conditions under which reviews are prepared and published reflect on what the attempt to secure this evaluation of literature implies. Many of us know a great deal about these circumstances and conditions. We have written reviews, we have asked others to write reviews, and we have for years been in contact with a host of reviewers. We may in this connection first direct out attention to the general character of the periodicals from which quotations are frequently made in the evaluation of literature. I say nothing about my own view, but I simply express an opinion of many men whose judgment should have great weight when I say that one of the most brilliant of these periodicals has been marked by a narrow policy, having severe tests of orthodoxy along economic, social and political lines, and displaying a bitterness and vindictiveness reaching beyond the grave. I mention no names, and the opinion may or may not be a just one; but it should be carefully weighed whether or not, or to what extent, the evaluations of such a periodical ought to be crystallized as it were: that is, taken from the periodical press and made part of a working library apparatus, to last for years.

Another periodical, an able magazine, which makes much of reviews is under the control of a strong body of men, but they stand for scarcely more than one line of thought among many lines. And sometimes very sharp and very hard things are said about those who believe that scientific truth is moving along one of these other lines. Indeed, the discreet person, knowing personally the reviewer and the reviewed, will not be convinced that there is always in the reviews, here as elsewhere, an absence of personal animosity. Let us for a moment reflect on this personal element in reviews, as it has surely fallen under the notice of every man with wide experience in these matters. As a rule, the reviewers are comparatively young and inexperienced men, frequently zealous for some sect or faction. Sometimes great leaders of thought write reviews, but generally they are unable to find the time to do so. As a result in our reviews in the best periodicals it will frequently be found that an inferior is passing judgment on a superior, and furthermore, reviewers share in our common human nature, and the amount of personal bias and even at times personal malignity found in reviews and estimates of books is something sad to contemplate. An unsuccessful candidate for a position held by an author has been known to initiate a scandalous and altogether malicious attack in a review.

In the next place, I would call your attention to the absence of objective standards. Necessarily are the standards personal and subjective; particularly and above all in economics, but in high degree in sociology, ethics and philosophy in general, and religion. Biological reviews have displayed in marked degree the subjective personal element. Chemistry, physics, astronomy and mathematics probably are best of all fitted for evaluations free from personal bias.

It may be asked what damage will result from evaluation. Passing over grave injustice to individuals, we observe that they must lead to the formation of what Bagehot aptly called a crust, preventing the free development of science. We have been laboring for years to obtain scientific freedom, freedom in teaching, freedom in learning, freedom in expression. For this end many a battle has been fought by noble leaders of thought. Indeed, every new movement of thought has to struggle to make itself felt, and to struggle precisely against those who control the most respectable avenues of publication; against the very ones who would be selected to give expert opinions and make evaluations of literature. Call to mind the opposition to Darwin and Huxley—although they were especially and particularly fortunate in early gaining the adherence of scientific men—also the opposition to Adam Smith, Malthus, Ricardo and John Stuart Mill—and to the last named, even now, some would on a scale of 100 give an evaluation perhaps of 50, others of 65—still others 80 and 90. Recently an economic book appeared of which one widely quoted periodical said that it illustrated a reductio ad absurdum of false tendencies, while another expert opinion inclined to place it among the great works of the age. It would seem to me that if we are to have formal evaluations, they should at least be restricted to works which have been before the public for a period of fifty years.

We have in this proposal, as I take it, an attack on liberty, proceeding from one who would not willingly attack it, but illustrating the truth of the saying "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." It is proposed to publish virtually an index librorum prohibitorum and an index expurgatorius. And of all efforts ever conceived along this line, this is precisely the worst because of its apparently impersonal character. Let the ordinary reader go to a guide and find a book described as unscientific and superficial, and what weight can it have for him. The authority has spoken. It is well enough for librarians personally to guide and direct their constituencies, and one review may be weighed against another review. The old methods even must be used by librarians cautiously, and they are ample for the purpose to be attained. The great point is that there should be a fluid current of opinion, and every facility for a revision of judgment should be maintained. Reviewers themselves change their views. I, myself, remember reviews which I wrote of works by two distinguished American authors, which I now regret, as my estimates were, I believe, not altogether sound and did an injustice to the authors, namely John Fiske and Lester F. Ward. But after all, I suppose no special harm was done, but if extracts from these reviews had been made part of a system of evaluation it would have been different.

Librarians as librarians must watch with impartiality the struggles among tendencies and schools of thought, and above all things, endeavor to keep open a free way for new truth.

[BOOK COPYRIGHT.]

By Thorvald Solberg, Register of Copyright, Washington. D. C.

In order to keep within the time limit provided in the program I have been obliged to refrain from even touching upon many points, but have endeavored to present certain general principles governing copyright in books. I shall, therefore, only attempt to make clear, as briefly as possible:

1. What is copyrighted, i.e., what can properly be designated as a "book" in order to secure copyright protection thereon;

2. What is the nature of the protection secured under the copyright law;

3. The limitation in time during which the protection applies, and its territorial limitations;

4. Who may obtain protection—the difference between an "author" and a "proprietor";

5. International copyright;

6. What conditions and formalities are required to be complied with in order to secure copyright;

7. The functions of the Copyright Office; and

8. Possible copyright law amendment.

1. What is copyrighted?

The copyright statutes enumerate the articles or classes of articles subject-matter of copyright, and first in the list stands "book." The first consideration is, therefore, What is to be understood by the term "book" as thus used? or, in other words, What is a "book," as that designation is employed in the copyright law?

The answer is indicated in the provision of the federal constitution upon which our copyright legislation is founded. This paragraph of the constitution (section 8 of article 1) grants to Congress—"in order to promote the progress of science and useful arts"—the right to enact laws to secure "to authors ... the exclusive right to their ... writings...." This provision is, of course, to be broadly interpreted, but, using the exact wording of the law, it is the writing of an author—his literary composition—the prose or poetical expression of his thought—which makes his "book," as the term is used in the copyright law. In order to be a "book," subject to protection under the copyright law, the author's production must have this literary characteristic. The quality of the literary ingredient is not tested, but its presence is requisite. Hence not everything which may ordinarily be called a book is fitly so nominated, in order to indicate the subject-matter of copyright; while some productions not ordinarily designated as "books" may properly be thus classified in order to be registered as a preliminary to copyright protection.

That an article possesses the corporeal characteristics of a book is of little consequence. The literary substance, not the material form, primarily determines the matter. An article contributed to a newspaper or a periodical—although but a few paragraphs in length—is a "book" under the copyright law, while a bookkeeper's ledger, to all outward appearance answering the description, is not a "book" so far as registering its title to secure copyright is concerned. A calendar whose main features are literary may doubtless be properly registered as a "book," but a pack of playing cards with pictures on the backs, even though each card may be furnished with a linen guard and all bound up, with a plausible title-page, so as to resemble a book, is not a "book" in the meaning of the copyright law.

Orderly arranged information produced in a form which would commonly be termed a chart cannot be registered under that designation which in the copyright law is applicable only to a chartographical work, but may properly be called a "book"; while a so-called book of coupons, or railway tickets, or of blank forms, cannot be thus entitled.

In brief, it should be a book in the ordinary understanding of a work of literature or art, and may not include a production whose main feature is some original idea, however ingenious or fanciful its form may be, or is of the character of something invented. Invention must look for protection to the patent law.

2. The nature of the protection secured.

What is the nature of the protection secured? Copy-right, i. e., the right of copy—the right to make copies. According to the words of our own statute, the author of a book "shall have the sole liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, completing, copying, executing, finishing and vending the same." The exclusive liberty of reproducing his work, and the restriction of the liberty of every one except the author to multiply copies constitute the literary property. It is a much-discussed question whether the author's privilege of copyright is a natural right or was created by legislation. Granting the production a proper one, it would seem that the author of a literary creation has a natural right to the unrestricted use and enjoyment of it. As Professor Langdell recently put it: "he has the right of use and enjoyment, because he can exercise such right without committing any wrong against any other person, and because no other person can prevent his exercising such right without committing a wrong against him." The author's creation is his own, and he has a natural right to the use of it without interference. The state does not create this right, but recognizes it and protects it. Protection is secured by restricting the liberty of other people in the use of the author's creation. Just how far this restriction should go is still a moot question. The law says, however, that you may not reproduce in whole or in part an author's book without his written consent, signed in the presence of two witnesses. It does not say that you may not read the book, nor are you forbidden to read it in public, even for profit, although in the case of musical and dramatic compositions public performance or representation for profit without the author's special—not implied—consent is not only directly prohibited, but is punishable by imprisonment. The International Publishers' Congress, which met in Paris in June, 1896, passed a resolution to the effect that the reproduction of a literary work by means of public readings, in case such readings were held for purposes of profit, ought not to be permitted without the consent of the copyright proprietor. By the Act of March 3, 1891, the exclusive right to translate or dramatize his book is reserved to the author. In this unrestricted and unlimited exclusive right of translation and dramatization our law has exceeded the usual trend of legislation in regard to the author's control over his work in these directions. Foreign legislation usually only reserves to the author the exclusive right to translate or dramatize for a limited fixed period of time, and if he has not himself produced a translation or dramatization within that period, another person may.

It has occasionally been intimated that the efforts made by the public libraries to secure the constant circulation of the same book is a trespass upon the rights of the author, as he is presumably thus subjected to the loss of readers who would otherwise also become purchasers of his book. A case has just been decided to test an author's right to object to having copies of his own copyright editions of his books sold in a manner not indicated by himself as volumes of a so-called collected edition of his works. The decision, on first hearing, was adverse to the author's contention.

It is the literary expression of the author's thoughts and ideas which is the subject-matter of the protection, and not primarily the thoughts and ideas themselves. These last may or may not be original with the author, but once he has made public a thought or an idea he has given it away; he cannot control its use or application. The author of a translation of a book—the original work being in the public domain—may obtain a copyright upon his own translation, but doing so will not debar another from producing an original translation of his own of the same work and obtaining copyright registration for the same.

Copyright does not give to any one monopoly in the use of the title of a book, nor can a title per se be subject-matter of copyright. It is the book itself, the literary substance which is protected, the title being recorded for the identification of the work.

3. Time and territorial limitations of copyright.

A few countries still grant copyright in perpetuity, but usually the term of protection is limited either to a certain number of years, or to a term of years beyond the date of the author's death. This last provision is the more general, and the term varies from seven years after the author's death in England, for instance, to eighty years after the author's death in Spain. The two most common terms are thirty years to fifty years beyond the life of the author. Our own legislation provides for two possible terms of protection. The first being for twenty-eight years from the date of the recording of the title in the Copyright Office, and the second, an extension of fourteen years from the expiration of the first term.

Besides the time limit, copyright—especially as far as the authors of the United States are concerned—is limited territorially, not extending beyond the boundaries of the United States. Whether the protection which follows registration and deposit shall extend so as to include Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines is a matter of some question. Probably as regards the Philippines the answer would be in the negative, but as concerns Porto Rico, since the passage of the "Act temporarily to provide revenue and a civil government for Porto Rico" (April 12, 1900) and Hawaii, since the taking effect (June 14, 1900) of the "Act to provide a government for the territory of Hawaii," the response would be in the affirmative.

The obtaining of copyright protection by a compliance with the United States statutory requirements as to registration of title, deposit of copies, and printing of notice of copyright, does not secure extension of this protection in the territory of any foreign country, the United States not being a member of the International Copyright Union. An American author must comply with the requirements of the copyright laws of a foreign country, just as if he were a citizen or subject of that country, in order to obtain copyright protection within its borders. Presumably, however, the obtaining of valid copyright protection in one of the countries of the International Copyright Union, England for example, would secure protection throughout the various countries of that Union.

4. Who may obtain copyright.

It is the author of the work who is privileged to obtain copyright protection for it. As I have already pointed out, the constitutional provision enacts that Congress is to legislate to secure to authors the exclusive right to their writings. When, therefore, the law states that the author "or proprietor" of any book may obtain a copyright for it, the term "proprietor" must be construed to mean the author's assignee, i.e., the person to whom he has legally transferred his copyright privilege. It is not necessarily transferred by the sale of the book, i.e., the manuscript of the author's work, as the purchase alone of an author's manuscript does not secure to the proprietor of the manuscript copyright privileges. Prior to July 1, 1891, no foreign author could obtain copyright protection in the United States, hence the purchase by a publisher of one of Dickens's novels in manuscript, for example, would not enable the buyer to obtain copyright on the book in this country. No author who has not the privilege of copyright in the United States can transfer to another either a copyright or the right to obtain one. He cannot sell what he does not himself possess. Under the United States law copyright comes through authorship only. It is not a right attaching to the thing—the book—but is a right vested in the creator of the literary production, hence does not pass to a second person by the transference of the material thing, the book, and evidence must be offered showing that the transference of the book carried with it the author's consent to a conveyance of the privilege of copyright.

This same principle is embodied in the provisions of the law as to renewal of the copyright. The second term of protection must also start with the author, or if he be dead, with his natural heirs, his widow or children, but not with his assigns, the "proprietors." The right to the extension term is in the author if he be living at the period during which registration for the second term may take place, viz., within six months prior to the expiration of the first term of twenty-eight years. If the author be dead, the privilege of renewal rests with his widow or children. Whether the author may dispose of his right of renewal so that the transference may be effective for the second term, even though the author should have died before the date of the beginning of that term, is a question upon which the authorities differ. The language of the statute would seem to give to the author an inchoate right which reverts to his widow or children should he be married and die before the expiration of the first term of the copyright.

5. International copyright.

The idea of nationality or citizenship governed our copyright legislation for more than a century, from the earliest American copyright statute of 1783 to July 1, 1891, so that until the latter date copyright protection in the United States was limited to the works of authors who were citizens or residents. By the Act of March 3, 1891, commonly called the international-copyright law, which went into effect on July 1 of that year, the privileges of copyright in this country were extended to the productions of authors who were citizens or subjects of other countries which by their laws permitted American citizens to obtain copyright upon substantially the same basis as their own subjects. The existence of these conditions is made known by presidential proclamation, and up to this time ten such proclamations have been issued extending copyright in the United States to the citizen authors of Belgium, Chile, Costa Rica, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain and her possessions (including India, Canada, the Australias, etc.), Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. The privilege of copyright in the United States is extended only to authors who are subjects of some country in whose behalf a presidential proclamation as to copyright has been issued.

It is well to point out, perhaps, that these copyright proclamations are not equivalent to copyright treaties, but are only notices that certain conditions exist. Only in the case of one country, viz., Germany, has anything been entered into approaching a convention or treaty. Under date of Jan. 15, 1892, an "agreement" was signed with that country to issue a proclamation extending copyright in the United States to German subjects upon an assurance that "Citizens of the United States of America shall enjoy, in the German Empire, the protection of copyright as regards works of literature and art, as well as photographs, against illegal reproduction, on the same basis on which such protection is granted to subjects of the empire."

In order to obtain copyright abroad, therefore, an American citizen must ascertain the requirements of the law of each country in which he desires to protect his book or other production and comply explicitly with such requirements. He can, of course, only avail himself of the legal protection accorded, so far as it is within his power to thus comply, and therein lies the difference between the privileges secured under the present international-copyright arrangements, and such as would be obtainable under copyright conventions or treaties. A citizen of the United States may find himself unable to meet the obligations or conditions of the statutes, just as a foreign author may find it practically impossible to comply with the requirements of the United States law, and in either case there would be a failure to secure the protection desired. In the case of a photograph, for example, the English law requires that the "author" of the photograph must be a British subject or actually "resident within the Dominions of the Crown," and the United States law requires that the two copies of the photograph to be deposited in the Copyright Office "shall be printed from negatives made within the limits of the United States," two sets of conditions difficult of fulfilment. By means of a copyright convention exemption could be obtained in either case from these onerous conditions.

6. Conditions and formalities required by the copyright law.

Two steps are made prerequisites to valid copyright by the laws now in force in the United States. The first of these is the recording of the title in the Copyright Office. For this purpose the statute requires the deposit of "a printed copy" of the title-page, "on or before the day of publication in this or any foreign country." For a number of years it has been the practice of the Copyright Office to accept a typewritten title in lieu of the printed title-page, but in this, as with all other requirements of the law regarding copyright, the preferable course is a strict compliance with the letter as well as the spirit of the law.

The clerical service for thus recording the title requires the payment of a fee, which should accompany the title-page when transmitted to the Copyright Office. The fee for this, as fixed by law, is 50 cents in the case of the title of a book whose author is a citizen of the United States, and $1 in the case of a book whose author is not an American but is a citizen or subject of some country to whose citizens the privilege of copyright in the United States has been extended, under the provisions of the Act of March 3, 1891. If a copy of the record thus made of the title (commonly called a certificate) is desired, an additional fee of 50 cents is required in all cases.

In order to have this essential record of title properly made, in the form exactly prescribed by the statute, it is necessary to furnish the Copyright Office with certain information, namely:

a. The name of the claimant of the copyright. (This should be the real name of the person, not a nom de plume or pseudonym.) b. Whether copyright is claimed by applicant as the "author" or the "proprietor" of the book. c. The nationality or citizenship of the author of the book. (This is required to determine whether the book is by an author who is privileged to copyright protection in this country, and, also, the amount of the fee to be charged for recording the title.) d. The application should state that the title-page is the title of a "book." e. A statement should be made that the book is or will be "printed from type set within the limits of the United States."

The second prerequisite to copyright protection is the deposit in the Copyright Office of two copies of the book whose title-page has been recorded. These copies must be printed from "type set within the limits of the United States," and the deposit must be made "not later than the day of publication thereof, in this or any foreign country." The stipulation as to American typesetting applies to works by American authors as well as to those written by foreign authors.

The statute provides, as regards both the printed title and the printed copies, that the articles are to be delivered at the office of the Librarian of Congress, or "deposited in the mail, within the United States, addressed to the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C." Just what would be held to have been secured under the latter provision in case the deposit in the mail were made and the book failed to reach the Copyright Office has not been determined by judicial decision. The law provides for the giving of a receipt by the postmaster in the case of the title and the copies, if such receipt is requested.

The third step required for obtaining a defendable copyright is to print upon the title-page or the page immediately following it in each copy of the book the statutory notice of copyright. The form of this notice must be either "Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year ——, by A. B., in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington;" or, "Copyright, 19——, by A. B." The name printed in this notice must be the real, legal name of the proprietor of the copyright, and must be the same as that in which the entry of title has been made; the date, also, must be the year date of the record of the filing of the title-page. A judicial decision is on record to the effect that printing the year date in this notice one year later than the date of actual recording of title barred the defence of the copyright. A penalty of $100 is imposed on "every person who shall insert or impress such notice, or words of the same purport in or upon any book ... whether subject to copyright or otherwise, for which he has not obtained a copyright."

An American author may obtain for his book copyright protection in Great Britain, by a compliance with the official instructions as to publication, deposit of copies and registration. The protection, under English law, dates from the day of first publication, but such first publication must be on English territory, and registration may follow, but cannot precede publication. The term of protection in the United States, on the contrary, dates from the day of registration of title in our Copyright Office, which must precede publication, and be followed by deposit of copies made "not later than the day of publication thereof in this or any foreign country." The point to guard, therefore, is simultaneous publication in this country and in Great Britain. Registration in England is a secondary matter. As stated in the official circulars of instructions issued by the English Copyright Office, "Copyright is created by the statute, and does not depend upon registration, which is permissive only, and not compulsory, but no proprietor of copyright in any book can take any proceedings in respect of any infringement of his copyright unless he has, before commencing his proceedings, registered his book."

Under existing legal conditions, in order to secure valid copyright on a book in this country and in England, the following steps should be taken, and in the order stated. 1. Record title in the United States Copyright Office. 2. Print book from type set within the limits of the United States. 3. Deposit two copies of such book in the United States Copyright Office. 4. Send sufficient copies to London to

a. Place copies on sale and take such usual steps as are understood, under English law, to constitute "publication" on a prearranged day, on which same day the book is published in the United States.

b. Deposit copies: one copy of the best edition at the British Museum, and four copies of the usual edition at Stationers' Hall for distribution to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the University Library at Cambridge, the Faculty of Advocates Library at Edinburgh, and the Trinity College Library at Dublin.

c. Register title of book and day of first publication at Stationers' Hall, London.

7. The United States Copyright Office.

One frequently hears the expressions "has obtained a copyright," "issued a copyright," etc., giving the impression that copyrights can be granted somewhat after the manner in which the Patent Office issues letters-patent. But Congress has established no office authorized to furnish any such guarantee of literary property as is done in the case of patent monopoly. The Copyright Office is purely an office of record and simply registers claims to copyright. The form of record prescribed by law being the effect that A. B. "hath deposited the title of a book the right whereof he claims as author or proprietor in conformity with the laws of the United States respecting copyrights." The Copyright Office has no authority to question any claim as to authorship or proprietorship, nor can it determine between conflicting claims. It registers the claim presented in the prescribed form for a proper subject of copyright by any person legally entitled to such registration without investigation as to the truthfulness of the representations, and would be obliged to record, not only the same title for different books, but the same title for the same work on behalf of two or more different persons, even against the protest of either one, were such registrations asked for. No examination is therefore made when a title reaches the office as to whether the same or a similar title has been used before. As I have already stated, the title per se is not subject to copyright, and no one can secure a monopoly of the use of a title by merely having it recorded at a nominal fee at the Copyright Office.

If any one, wishing to use a given form of title but desiring to avoid possible duplication of one previously used, writes to the Copyright Office asking whether such a title has already been recorded, an answer is made stating what is disclosed by the indexes of the office. It must be frankly explained, however, that an absolutely conclusive statement as to whether a given title has been previously used cannot always be given. The copyright records of entries of title previous to July 10, 1870, are but indifferently indexed and rarely by title, usually only under names of proprietors of the copyright. The copyright entries since July 10, 1870, to May 31, 1901, number 1,217,075. The index to these entries consists of more than 600,000 cards, many of which contain a number of entries. These cards index the entries primarily under the names of the proprietors of the copyright, and this proprietor's index is understood to have been kept up continuously and to be complete, so that under the name of each copyright proprietor there is a card or cards showing the titles of all articles upon which copyright is claimed. In addition to the proprietor's index there are cards under the titles of periodicals and under the leading catchwords of the titles of other articles, besides cards under the authors' names for books. Unhappily there are periods of time when what may be called the subsidiary index cards were not kept up.

In addition to cards under the proprietors' names, cards are now made: for books, under the names of their authors; for anonymous books, periodicals and dramatic compositions, under the first words of the titles (not a, an, or the), and for maps, under the leading subject words of the titles, i.e., the names of the localities mapped. It is doubtful if an absolutely complete index of all copyright entries by the title of the book and other article—in addition to the cards at present made—could be justified by even a possibly legitimate use of such an index. When it is remembered that the copyright entries last year numbered 97,967, the magnitude of the task of making several cards for each entry is easily conceived, and it is a question whether it could be rightfully imposed upon the Copyright Office under the present provisions of the law and so long as the registration of a title does not secure the use of that title to some one person to the exclusion of all others.

8. Amendment of the copyright law.

The possible amendment of the copyright laws is a subject which my time does not permit me to consider in detail, even were that deemed desirable. The law now in force consists of the Act of July 8, 1870, as edited to become title 60, chapter 3 of the Revised Statutes, and ten amendatory acts passed subsequently. Naturally there is lacking the consistency and homogeneousness of a single well-considered copyright statute. It is possible that Congress will presently be willing to take under consideration, if not the re-codification of the copyright laws, then, at least, some amendment of them. An increase in the period of protection has frequently been urged, with some advocacy of perpetual copyright. As the Federal constitution, however, distinctly provides that the protection granted the writings of an author is to be for a limited time, an amendment of the constitution would be necessary before Congress could enact perpetual copyright, and such alteration of the fundamental law of the land is not probable.

Much might be said for an increase in the period of protection. It is for a shorter term of years than that provided by most modern copyright legislation, and the trend of such lawmaking has been in the direction of an increase in the length of time during which the author or his heirs could control the reproduction of his work. It should be borne in mind that for books of little value the length of the term of protection is of no great consequence. "Dead" books are not affected by the length of the term of copyright. In the case also of popular new books, the great sales and consequent disproportionate remuneration comes within a short period of time after publication, and are not likely to continue during a long term of copyright. On the other hand, many books of great and permanent value not unfrequently make their way slowly into popular favor, and are not fully appreciated until many years after publication. For such books—the results, perhaps, of long years of study and labor—an equitable return cannot be secured except by a long term of protection.

Perhaps the most urgently desirable forward step in respect to copyright is the adhesion of the United States to the Berne convention, thus securing the inclusion in the International Copyright Union of our country, the leading one of the three great states not yet members of this admirable association of nations. Were the United States a member of the Berne Union a compliance with the statutory provisions of our own laws alone would secure copyright protection not only within the limits of the United States, but practically throughout the whole book-reading world—Great Britain, all Europe (except temporarily Russia, Austria, and Scandinavia), Canada and Australia, India, Japan and South Africa—thus increasing the possible reading public of American authors many fold. It would seem that considerations of justice to our large and constantly increasing national contingent of literary and artistic producers requires this advance of such great practical importance. It is the easier of accomplishment because it involves the adoption of no new principle, but only the extension of the principle embodied in the Act of March 3, 1891, namely, reciprocal international exchange of copyright privileges, and in return for the advantages which would accrue to our own citizens, only obligates the extension of copyright in the United States to the subjects of such countries as are members of the Union. Of the members of the International Copyright Union, all the great nations already enjoy copyright in the United States, and it would only remain to extend this privilege to the citizen authors of the six minor states that are members of the Union, namely, Hayti, Japan, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway and Tunis.

[THE RELATIONSHIP OF PUBLISHERS, BOOKSELLERS AND LIBRARIANS.]

By W. Millard Palmer, Grand Rapids, Mich.

In accepting the president's suggestion to give "expression of the business side of the subject rather than the theoretical or sentimental," I wish at the outset to recall certain functions performed by publishers, booksellers and librarians, and to acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. J. W. Nichols, secretary of the American Booksellers' Association, for material along this line.

Casual observers have come to regard publishers as bookmakers or manufacturers, who merely put the product of authors into merchantable form, and distribute it to dealers, for sale to the reading public. If this were the only function of the publisher, his task would be an easy one; indeed we might soon expect to see all publishers supplanted by one great co-operative factory, to which authors might take their manuscripts, and have them transformed into books and distributed through the ordinary channels of commerce, like any other commodities. Some superficial observers have recently made bold to conjecture that this will be the final outcome of the present troubled state of the general trade of publishing and selling books. But, alas! the actual making of the book—giving to it an appropriate, artistic and really attractive form—is perhaps the least of the publishers' trials, though this, in itself, is a difficult task, requiring an artistic taste, well trained and skilful judgment, and much technical knowledge.

To one who has had an insight into the publishing business, the enormous mass of manuscript that is annually submitted to each of the great publishers is simply appalling. They are compelled to employ a corps of "readers" to cull out that which is worthy of consideration by an intelligent and skilled publisher. Much that come to hand has been hastily prepared by persons who lacked the time, experience or special training necessary to enable an author to prepare an acceptable manuscript, while the great majority of young authors have really no message to tell that is worth recording. Here comes the most difficult and trying task of the successful publisher—the selection of proper material for publication. It often happens that a rejected manuscript contains some good work—a promise of something better to come. Then the publisher points out the best features and encourages the incipient author to try again.

Thus books are made, not after a given pattern, like certain fabrics, but each is a creation in itself. The responsibility of the publisher, for the character of the creation, is by no means unimportant. He acts as arbiter of the standard of excellence that must be attained by an author before he is introduced to the public. The publishers' criterion is simply a question of cash. "Will the public buy the book and pay for it?" Nor can any other standard be adopted with safety. The whole question of supply must always depend upon public demand.

But the publisher is not infallible. He often makes mistakes. Between him and the readers is the dealer. The retail bookseller stands closest to the reading public. He acquaints himself with the essential character of the new book, points out to his customer enough of interest to cause him to glance through it, and finally sells it to him; for the intelligent bookseller knows the taste and reading habits of his customers. He has his leading customers in mind from the time he orders a new book till he has shown it and sold it to them. If they are pleased with it, and recommend it to their friends, who call at the store for it, the bookseller re-orders it, and, if he is so fortunate as not to be restrained by unfair local competition, he advertises the book and pushes its sale with energy, so long as interest in it can be kept alive.

Thus the retail booksellers in every city and hamlet throughout the country, standing close to the reading public, knowing what their customers will buy, are the real monitors of the publishers.

When the publisher considers the advisability of bringing out a new book, he cannot undertake to look beyond a few hundred booksellers. It is through them, and only through them, that he has learned to gauge the taste of the reading public. The paramount question for him to decide is, "How many copies of this particular book can I sell to dealer A, dealer B and dealer C; how many copies of this book can I hope with certainty to sell to all of my customers in the trade?" The publisher well knows that the dealer is governed by the same criterion as himself: "Will it pay; will this book be a ready seller, or will it cost me all of the profit I make on it to sell it?"

Thus the product of the author is subject to the immutable laws of supply and demand from the time he submits his first immature manuscript until he makes two, three, four or more trials, and finally has a manuscript accepted. But even then the publishers prepares only a small edition for a new author, and the dealers are very conservative in ordering a new book—especially by an unknown author. The conscientious bookseller awaits the verdict of certain patrons, knowing that, if the book is commended by one whose judgment is respected by local readers, he can safely re-order a goodly number.

Thus the author is dependent upon the publisher for the standard of excellence he must attain in order to achieve success; the publisher is dependent upon the dealer, not only in forming his judgment of the character of books that will sell, but also for the number that he may safely print; while the dealer is dependent upon his best and most critical patrons. Hence the relation of author, publisher and dealer is so close—indeed they are so mutually interdependent—that one factor could not be removed without vitally crippling the other.

A distinguished librarian, who has been a pioneer of progress in the library movement, has recently suggested the propriety of abolishing book stores (see Publishers' Weekly, May 11, '01, p. 1149) and allowing public librarians to receive orders and forward them to the publishers. If the distinguished gentleman did not have in view visions of personal gain for public librarians, he should have carried his philanthropic suggestion farther, and proposed to abolish both booksellers and librarians, and to allow the public to procure their books directly from the publishers, thus saving that moiety of gain that would be made by either in return for the service rendered. It cannot be supposed that so able and conscientious an administrative officer ever contemplated maintaining an extra corps of assistants, at an extra expense to the municipality or to those liberal benefactors who have endowed public libraries, in order that opulent citizens may still further indulge their tastes by purchasing larger private libraries, without paying the small commission or profit that is usually allowed to retail booksellers. On the other hand, if this proposal was made for the purpose of allowing libraries maintained by taxing the municipality, to engage in gainful occupation, this is carrying the socialistic idea farther than even our populistic friends have ever yet proposed.

However, inasmuch as this question has been raised, we are bound to treat it from an economic point of view. The question is, "Shall the bookseller be abolished and his office merged into that of the librarian, and can the librarian perform the offices of the bookseller?"

No one has ever questioned the value of the public library from the burning of the Alexandrian Library to the present day. The value of a library, as a librarium, or storehouse for the permanent preservation of books, has always been manifest.

Again, the public library gives a larger opportunity and a wider range than is possible in the private collection; and scholars, historians and students of all classes are daily made grateful to the trained, professional librarian, who has so classified the contents of the library as to make the whole available at a moment's notice.

Still another inestimable feature of the public library is that it maintains a public reading room for children as well as adults.

Finally, the library furnishes reading at home to those who are not yet in a position to become owners of books. The benefit derived from reading of this character is often of questionable value. The habitué of the circulating library makes his selections from misleading or sensational titles. Little care and less intelligence is exercised in choosing either title or author. As a result librarians are constantly complaining that only the trashiest and most worthless books are read.

The circulating department of the public library is now supplemented by others that are conducted for cash profit. These have sprung up in many cities. And now we have the "Book-Lovers' Library," a corporation with capital stock, engaging in business for profit. It has the advantage of certain trust features. It proposes to organize branches in all of the principal cities and towns in the country. For five dollars a year it proposes to supply fifty dollars' worth of reading to each subscriber. An automobile is employed, with an attendant to deliver the books to subscribers each week and take up those that have been read. Having paid five, ten or more dollars, at the beginning of the year, the subscriber can read from morning till night, while the new books come and go with the lightning speed of the automobile.

As in many other circulating libraries, new copyrighted fiction is the chief staple supplied by the "Book-Lovers' Library"—the sweetest pabulum automatically administered.

After a season of such dissipation call in a neurologist to diagnose your patient, and he will advise you that by continuing the treatment the mind will be reduced to a sieve, if not ultimately to absolute imbecility. Having abandoned the more serious literature that calls into use all the faculties of the mind, the reader of nothing but fiction converts what would otherwise be a healthful recreation into dissipation, that is enervating and permanently debilitating to all the faculties of the mind, when carried to an extreme. Had the reader been denied the use of this automatic machine, and been compelled, as formerly, to browse through the book store in search of something to read, more serious books would have been selected—history, travel, descriptive writing or popular science, with an occasional novel by way of recreation.

But to continue the argument, suppose we abolish the bookseller, as has been proposed. This would not be a difficult matter. Most of them would gladly be "abolished" if they could sell out their stock for anything near what it cost them. Their profits have been so reduced by unfair competition that they are not sufficient to pay the cost of doing business. They have been compelled to carry side lines, as stationery, newspapers, periodicals, sporting goods, bric-a-brac, wall paper, etc., in order to make a living. By this means they have learned that other lines of merchandise yield a better profit than books. As a result most of them have greatly reduced their book stock, or entirely abandoned the sale of books, and put in more profitable lines of merchandise.

The causes that have led up to this result are manifold: 1st. They were strenuously urged, and they finally consented to allow discounts:

(a) To ministers of the gospel, since they are public benefactors.

(b) To school teachers, since they are public educators and benefactors.

(c) To public libraries, since they are for the most part eleemosynary institutions, and hence entitled to charity.

Indeed, when I recount the charitable benefactions that have been exacted and received at the hands of the retail bookseller, he seems to me to have been the most saintly character that has lived in my day and generation. And right here it is of interest to note that these ministers, these teachers, these physicians, these public librarians were actually receiving out of the hands of the public stated salaries that exceeded by far the annual net profit of the average bookseller.

2d. Having secured from the local dealer a discount equal to the best part of his profit, many librarians have gone behind him and appealed directly to the publishers for a larger discount. This has been granted in most cases, so that most librarians have recently been receiving as large a discount as local dealers.

3d. Commission agents have purchased complete editions of popular-selling books from the publishers, and re-sold them at a slight advance:

(a) To dry-goods stores, where they have been put on "bargain counters" and sold at less than cost, to attract customers to their stores.

(b) To publishers of local newspapers, who give the books away as premiums or sell them at cost prices, to increase the local circulation of their papers.

(c) To mail-order agencies, who advertise the books at less than they are usually sold for by dealers.

4th. Many publishers have been advertising and mailing their books directly to retail customers at reduced prices, or at the same price they recommended local dealers to ask for them, and they have prepaid the postage, thus competing directly with their distributing agents, the booksellers, in their own field.

5th. Finally, some local librarians, who a few years ago were appealing to local booksellers for a discount, having been granted the discount, have recently been supplying books "at cost prices" to other patrons of the local booksellers. Thus our friends, the librarians, having inverted the good old practice of returning good for evil, having helped to rob the local bookseller of his livelihood, now propose to abolish his office.

To carry the proposition to its conclusions, suppose we abolish the bookseller. Can the librarian take his place and send the orders in to the publishers? If so, if this is all there is to the bookselling business, why should the publisher pay a commission to the librarian for doing what the people could as readily do for themselves? But a general business cannot be carried on in this way. Publishers have tried it for years, yet only comparatively few people are willing to order books that they have not had an opportunity to examine, and of this class librarians are the most conservative. They, too, want to know what they are buying before they place their orders. Hence, this postulate: If the librarian is to succeed the bookseller, he must become a merchant; he must order stocks of books and take the speculative chance of selling them. But the librarian has had no experience or training in merchandising. Can he afford to hazard his own capital in an untried field; can he induce his friends to supply him with capital to invest in a business of which he confessedly has no knowledge? It would manifestly be a perversion of the funds of the institution in charge of the librarian, to invest them in a gainful occupation.

From what I have said, it must be apparent that booksellers, as well as librarians, have a province of their own, and perform a service that cannot be delegated to another. And hence it is desirable that we live and dwell together in peace and amity.

But in these days of combinations, reorganizations and revolutions in the conduct of business, the publishers have looked farther, in their quest for more economical purveying agents. For the past ten years they have been trying to induce the dry-goods merchants to carry books. But, after all this time, not more than half a dozen department stores carry fairly representative stocks of books. They confine themselves, for the most part, to new copyrighted fiction, and of this they handle only that which is widely advertised.

Of late, department stores and dry-goods stores have met severe competition in clothing stores, that make no pretext of carrying a book stock. They simply buy an edition of a popular-selling book and advertise it for less money than it actually cost. They do this simply as an advertising dodge, to attract customers to their stores. Then, too, the mail-order agencies have cut the price of the most popular books so low that it is no longer profitable to handle them. The result of this has been that many of the most promising new novels have been killed before they were fairly put on the market; for as soon as they ceased to be profitable no one could afford to re-order them.

The effect of this recent drift of the trade has been to stimulate the frothy side of literature to an extreme degree. The more serious literature is being neglected. The latest novel is the fad. Its average life is reduced to little more than one year, though the copyright lasts for twenty-eight years, and with a renewal it may be extended to forty-two years.

This shortening of the life of books has had a baneful effect:

(a) Baneful to the bookseller, since it frequently leaves him with a dead stock of books on hand that cannot be turned without loss.

(b) Baneful to the publisher, since the book stops selling and the plates become valueless before he has had time fairly to recoup himself for the expense of bringing it out, advertising it, and putting it on the market.

(c) Baneful to the author, since by shortening the life of his books the value of his property in them is reduced.

But perhaps the most baneful effect of this craze for ephemeral literature is upon the people themselves. As the standard or degree of civilization for a given age is marked by the character of the literature the people produce and read, we cannot hope for a golden age in American letters, unless the present system is reversed. Work of real merit is never done by accident, nor is it the product of mediocre talents. If we are to develop a national literature that shall fitly characterize the sterling qualities of the American people in this, the full strength of the early manhood of the nation; at the time when the nation has taken its place in the vanguard of civilization; at the time when the consumptive power of the nation is equal to one-third of that of the entire civilized world; at the time when men of talents and genius are annually earning and expending, for their comfort and pleasure, more munificent sums than were ever lavished on the most opulent princes; I say, if we are to produce a literature that shall fitly characterize this age of our nation, we must hold forth such rewards for the pursuits of literature as will attract men of genius, men of the most lustrous talents, men who are the peers of their co-workers in other walks of life. But this will not be possible so long as the present strife to furnish cheap literature to the people continues.

It should be observed that the bookseller has not suffered alone in this cheapening process. The publisher has suffered. Within the past few months two names that for half a century were household words, synonyms of all that is excellent in the publishing world, have met with disaster, and others were approaching a crisis.

Fortunately one firm stood out so prominently, as a bulwark of financial strength and security, that its president, Mr. Charles Scribner, of Charles Scribner's Sons, could afford to take the initiative in calling for reform. He invited the co-operation of other publishers, and a year ago this month they met in New York and organized the American Publishers' Association. Their organization now includes practically all of the general publishers who contribute anything of real value to current literature.

The publishers canvassed thoroughly the causes that had led to the decline of the trade, and they appointed a committee to draft reform measures.

In reviewing the decline of the trade, two facts stood out so prominently that it was impossible to disassociate them as cause and effect. The three thousand booksellers, upon whom, as purveying agents, the publishers had depended a generation ago, had shrunk in number until only about five hundred could be counted who were worthy to be called booksellers. The other fact, which doubtless made quite as deep an impression upon the minds of the publishers, was that the long line of books, on each of their published catalogs, was practically dead. Those books of high standard character, by eminent authors, books that for years had had a good annual sale, no longer moved. These standard books have been a large source of revenue to publishers and their authors for many years. But now so few of them are sold that it hardly pays the publishers to send their travellers over the road.

Few dry-goods merchants, druggists, newsdealers and stationers, that have recently been induced to carry a small number of books, feel sufficiently well acquainted with salable literature to warrant their carrying anything more than the most popular-selling new copyrighted novels and cheap reprints of non-copyrighted books that sell for twenty-five cents or less. As stated above, there are a few large department stores that carry a more general stock, but they are so few that the support received from them is not sufficient to compensate, in any measure, the loss sustained through the sacrifice of the regular booksellers. Moreover, the regular booksellers that still remain in the business have not been buying many standard books of late. Seeing their profit in fiction sacrificed by unfair competition, many of them have ordered only enough of the new copyrighted novels to keep alive their accumulated stocks of standard books, until they can sell them out or reduce them to a point where they can afford to abandon the book business.

From the character of the reform measures adopted by the American Publishers' Association, which went into effect on the first of May, it is evident that the publishers have determined to restore the old-time bookseller. This can be done only by the publishers enforcing the maintenance of retail prices, the same as is done by the proprietors of the Earl & Wilson collar, the Waterman fountain pen, the Eastman kodak, and many other special lines of which the retail price is listed.

When dry-goods stores and clothing stores bought these special lines and retailed them at or below the cost price, in contrast to the list price asked in the special furnishing stores, in order to attract customers to their stores because of their wonderful "bargain counters," the manufacturers realized that the dry-goods stores were simply using up these wares to advertise their other business. They cut off the supply of their goods to these price-cutting dry-goods stores, and refused to supply any more goods, except under a substantial undertaking on the part of the dry-goods stores to maintain the full list price.

This, in a word, is the substance of the publishers' plan. They have agreed to cut off absolutely the supply of all of their books, net, copyrighted and otherwise, to any dealer who cuts the retail price of a book published under the net-price system.

On the other hand, the nearly eight hundred members of the American Booksellers' Association have entered into a mutual agreement to push with energy the sale of the books of all publishers who co-operate with them for the maintenance of retail prices, and not to buy, nor put in stock, nor offer for sale, the books of any publisher who fails to co-operate with them. This is substantially the same system that was adopted in Germany in 1887, in France a few years later, and in England in 1900.

The effect of this system in Germany has been to lift up the trade from a condition even more deplorable, if possible, than that into which it has fallen in this country, and to make it a prosperous and profitable business. It has proved beneficent and satisfactory, not only to dealers and publishers, but also to authors and to the reading public, for every city, town and village in Germany now sustains a book shop that carries a fairly representative stock of books, so that the people are able to examine promptly every book as soon as it comes from the press, and the authors are sure of having their books promptly submitted to the examination of every possible purchaser.

The results in France and England are equally encouraging, and it is believed that as soon as the American system is fully understood, and as soon as enough books are included under the net-price system, so that a bookseller can once more make a living on the sale of books, many of the old-time booksellers will again put in a stock of books and help to re-establish the book trade in America.

Having tried to define the present relation of publishers and booksellers, I beg leave to say frankly that I know of no reason why publishers and booksellers should maintain any different relations with librarians than they maintain with any other retail customers.

For example, let us take the new "Book-Lovers' Library," so called. Their plan is to sell memberships, and to deliver to each member one book a week for five dollars a year, or three books a week for ten dollars a year. They take up the books at the end of each week and supply new ones.

If this plan could be carried out successfully, it would result in making one book do the service now performed by ten or fifteen books. In other words, this circulating library proposes to furnish its members with ten or fifteen books for the same amount of money they now pay for one book by simply passing the book around from one to another.

The effect of this scheme, if carried into all cities and towns as proposed, would be to reduce the number of books manufactured and sold to about one-tenth of its present magnitude. From a business point of view, publishers and dealers cannot be called upon to make special discounts to encourage such an enterprise.

The encouragement and support given to authors, by patrons of literature, would be reduced by this scheme to about one-tenth of the present amount. The effect of this withdrawal of support to American authors can easily be imagined.

But I do not believe that real book-lovers, intelligent and conservative readers, will be carried away by this passing craze. On the contrary, they have studiously avoided forming that careless, slip-shod habit of reading that characterizes patrons of circulating libraries. The real book-lover selects his books like his friends, with caution, and with discriminating and painstaking care.

From a bookseller's point of view, the "Book-Lovers' Library" is not founded on practical lines. However, as the plan also includes the selling of capital stocks to its patrons, it is probable that the money received from subscriptions, together with the annual membership fees, will be sufficient to keep the enterprise going for some time. But since this is a corporation organized for the purpose of making money, a failure to earn money and to pay dividends will discourage its patrons, cause them to feel that they have been deceived, and finally to withdraw from membership. When the members realize that they are paying five or ten dollars a year for privileges that can be had free at the local library, in most cases they will withdraw their support.

Thus, while in some respects I regard this enterprise as an evil factor, it contains, I think, inherent weaknesses that will finally compass its own end.

But what is said of the relation of publishers and dealers to the Book-Lovers' Library is true in a measure of all circulating and other public libraries. They do not increase, but they positively contract the number of sales that are made in the interest of authors, publishers and dealers.

Under the German system, of which I have spoken, public libraries were at first allowed ten per cent. discount; but recently this has been reduced to five per cent.

Under the English system, profiting by the experience of German publishers, no discount is allowed to public libraries, schools or institutions.

The American system, however, is modelled largely after the German, and it permits the dealers to allow a discount of ten per cent. to local libraries. In doing this local dealers are protected from competition by the publishers, in that the publishers have agreed to add to the net price the cost of transportation on all books sold at retail outside of the cities in which they are doing business. Thus public libraries can buy net books cheaper of the local booksellers than they can buy them of the publishers by just the cost of transportation.

[LIBRARY BUILDINGS.]

By W. R. Eastman, New York State Library, Albany, N. Y.

A building is not the first requisite of a public library. A good collection of books with a capable librarian will be of great service in a hired room or in one corner of a store. First the librarian, then the books and after that the building.

But when the building is occupied the value of the library is doubled. The item of rent is dropped. The library is no longer dependent on the favor of some other institution and is not cramped by the effort to include two or three departments in a single room. It will not only give far better service to the community, but will command their respect, interest and support to a greater degree than before.

The following hints are intended as a reply to many library boards who are asking for building plans.

The vital point in successful building is to group all the parts of a modern library in their true relations. To understand a particular case it will be necessary to ask some preliminary questions.

1. Books.

Number of volumes in library?

Average yearly increase?

Number of volumes in 20 years?

Number of volumes to go in reference room?

Number of volumes to go in children's room?

Number of volumes to go in other departments?

Number of volumes to go in main book room?

If the library is large will there be an open shelf room separate from the main book room?

Is a stack needed?

Will public access to the shelves be allowed?

By answers to such questions a fair idea of the character and size of the book room may be obtained.

Rules for calculation. In a popular library, outside the reference room, for each foot of wall space available 80 books can be placed on eight shelves. Floor cases having two sides will hold 160 books for each running foot, and in a close stack 25 books, approximately, can be shelved for each square foot of floor space. But the latter rule will be materially modified by ledges, varying width of passages, stairs, etc.

The above figures give full capacity. In practical work, to provide for convenient classification, expansion, oversized books and working facilities, the shelves of a library should be sufficient for twice the actual number of books and the lines of future enlargement should be fully determined.

2. Departments.

Is the library for free circulation?

Is the library for free reference?

Are special rooms needed for
high school students?
children?
ladies?
magazine readers?
newspaper readers?

How many square feet for each of the above rooms?

Are class rooms needed as in a college library?
Club rooms?
Lecture rooms?
Museum?
Art gallery?
Other departments?

3. Community.

In city or country?

Population?

By what class will library be chiefly used?
School children?
Students?
Mechanics?
Reading circles?
Ladies?

4. Resources and conditions.

Money available?

Money annually for maintenance?

Size of building lot?

Location and surroundings?

How many stories?

Elevators?

Heat?

Light?

Ventilation?

5. Administration.

Is library to be in charge of one person?

How many assistants?

Is a work room needed?
unpacking room?
bindery?
librarian's office?
trustees' room?

By careful study of these points a clear conception of the problem is gained and the building committee is prepared to draw an outline sketch indicating in a general way their needs and views. They are not likely to secure what they want by copying or even by competition. The best architects have not the time nor the disposition to compete with each other. A better way is to choose an architect, one who has succeeded in library work if possible, who will faithfully study the special problems, consult freely with the library board, propose plans and change them freely till they are right. And if such plans are also submitted for revision to some librarian of experience or to the library commission of the state, whose business and pleasure it is to give disinterested advice, so much the better.

The following outlines taken from actual library buildings are offered by way of suggestion.

Square plan.

An inexpensive building for a small country neighborhood may have one square room with book shelves on the side and rear walls. A convenient entrance is from a square porch on one side of the front corner and a librarian's alcove is at the opposite corner leaving the entire front like a store window which may be filled with plants or picture bulletins. With a stone foundation the wooden frame may be finished with stained shingles.

Oblong plan.

A somewhat larger building may have a wider front with entrance at the center.

Book shelves under high windows may cover the side and rear walls and tables may stand in the open space.

It will be convenient to bring together the books most in demand for circulation on one side of the room and those needed most for study on the opposite side. One corner may contain juvenile books. In this way confusion between readers, borrowers and children will be avoided. Each class of patrons will go by a direct line to its own quarter. This is the beginning of the plan of departments which will be of great importance in the larger building.

The number of books for circulation will increase rapidly and it may soon be necessary to provide double faced floor cases. These will be placed with passages running from the center of the room towards the end and that end will become the book or delivery room and the opposite side will be the study or reference room.

T-shape plan.

The next step is to add space to the rear giving a third department to the still open room. If the book room is at the back the student readers may be at tables in the right hand space and the children in the space on the left. The librarian at a desk in the center is equally near to all departments and may exercise full supervision.

The presence of a considerable number of other busy persons has a sobering and quieting effect on all and the impression of such a library having all its departments in one is dignified and wholesome. It may be well to separate the departments by light open hand rails, screens, cords or low book cases. It is a mistake to divide a small building into three or four small rooms.

Separate rooms.

For a larger library these rails must be made into partitions, giving to each department a separate room. Partitions of glass set in wooden frames and possibly only eight feet high may answer an excellent purpose, adding to the impression of extent, admitting light to the interior of the building and allowing some supervision from the center. With partitions on each side, the entrance becomes a central hallway with a department at each side and the book room at the end. This is the best position for the book room for two special reasons. Overlapping the departments in both wings it is equally accessible from either, and at the back of the house a plainer and cheaper wall can be built admitting of easy removal when the growth of the library requires enlargement.

Sometimes the angles between the book room and the main building may be filled to advantage by work room and office. These working rooms though not large and not conspicuous are of vital consequence and should be carefully planned.

We have now reached a type of building which, for lack of a better word, I may call the "butterfly plan," having two spread wings and a body extending to the back. Others call it the "trefoil." This general type is being substantially followed in most new libraries of moderate size. From one entrance hall direct access is given to three distinct departments, or perhaps to five, by placing two rooms in each wing.

Modifications required by limited space.

If we have an open park to build in we shall be tempted to expand the hallway to a great central court or rotunda. Perhaps the importance of the library may justify it, but we should be on our guard against separating departments by spaces so great as to make supervision difficult or passing from one to another inconvenient. We should aim to concentrate rather than scatter.

More frequently the lot will be too narrow. We must draw in the wings and make the narrower rooms longer from front to back. With a corner lot we can enter on the side street, leaving a grand reading room on the main front and turning at right angles as we enter the house pass between other rooms to the book room at the extreme end of the lot. Or again, we shall be obliged to dispense entirely with one wing of our plan, and have but two department rooms instead of three on the floor. Every location must be studied by itself.

Other stories.

Basement rooms are of great service for work rooms and storage. A basement directly under the main book room is specially valuable to receive the overflow of books not in great demand.

A second and even a third story will be useful for special collections, class and lecture rooms or a large audience hall. In a library of moderate size it will often be found convenient to build a book room about 16 feet high to cover two stories of bookcases and wholly independent of the level of the second floor of the main building.

Extension.

To meet the needs of a rapidly growing library it is important at the beginning to fix the lines of extension.

A building with a front of two rooms and a passage between may add a third room at the rear, and at a later stage, add a second building as large as the first and parallel to it, the two being connected by the room first added.

This is the architect's plan for the Omaha Public Library.

Open court.

When a library is so large that one book room is not enough, two such rooms may be built to the rear, one from each end of the building with open space between, and these two wings may be carried back equally and joined at the back by another building, thus completing the square around an open court.

This gives wide interior space for light and air, or grass and flowers. Such is the plan of the Boston Public and Princeton University libraries. It will be the same in Minneapolis when that library is complete. In the plan of the new library at Newark, N. J., the central court is roofed over with glass becoming a stairway court with surrounding galleries opening on all rooms. In Columbia University, New York, as in the British Museum, the center is a great reading room capped by a dome high above the surrounding roofs and lighted by great clerestory windows.

If the street front is very long there may be three extensions to the rear, one opposite the center and one from each end, leaving two open courts as in the plan for the New York Public or the Utica Public; and this general scheme may be repeated and carried still farther back leaving four open courts as in the Library of Congress. This plan can be extended as far as space can be provided.

When the general plan of the large building is fixed, passages will be introduced, parallel to the front and sides, and departments will be located as may be judged most convenient, always having regard to the convenience of the patrons of each department in finding ready access to the books they need and providing for supervision and attendance at least cost of time, effort and money. Extravagance in library building is not so often found in lavish ornament as in that unfortunate arrangement of departments which requires three attendants to do the work of one or two.

Light.

Natural light should be secured if possible for every room. Windows should be frequent and extend well up toward the ceiling terminating in a straight line so as to afford large supply of light from the top. Windows like those in an ordinary house or office building, coming within two or three feet of the floor are more satisfactory both for inside and outside appearance than those which leave a high blank wall beneath them. From the street a blank wall has a prison-like effect; on the inside it cuts off communication with the rest of the world and the impression is unpleasant. The proper object of library windows six or eight feet above the floor is to allow unbroken wall space for book shelves beneath them. There is no serious objection to this at the back of the room or sometimes at the sides of the house where the windows are not conspicuous from the street, but every room of any size, if it is next to the outer wall, should have windows to look out of on at least one side.

A book room at the back of a building may secure excellent light from side windows eight feet above the floor with lower windows at the back.

The lighting of large interior rooms is often a difficult problem. Light will not penetrate to advantage more than 30 feet. Skylights, domes and clerestory windows are used. In the case of the dome or clerestory the room to be lighted must be higher than those immediately surrounding it. The clerestory plan with upright windows is most satisfactory when available, being cheaper and giving better security against the weather than the skylight. In a large building with interior courts, the lower story of the court is sometimes covered with a skylight and used as a room.

This appears in the plans for the New York Public and the Utica Public libraries. Skylights must be constructed with special care to protect rooms against the weather.

The problem of light is peculiarly difficult in the crowded blocks of cities. A library front may sometimes touch the walls of adjoining buildings so that light can enter only from the front and rear. If extending more than 40 feet back from the street, it will be necessary to narrow the rest of the building so as to leave open spaces on each side, or to introduce a little light by the device of light wells. Occasionally a large city library is found on the upper floors of an office building, where light and air are better than below, and the cost of accommodation is less. The use of elevators makes this feasible.

Shelving.

The general scheme of book shelves should be fixed before the plan of the building is drawn. Otherwise the space for books can not be determined and serious mistakes may be made. Between the two extremes of open wall shelves and the close stack a compromise is necessary. The large library will put the bulk of its books in a stack and bring a considerable selection of the best books into an open room. The small library will begin with books along the walls and provide cases for additions from time to time as needed. Its patrons will enjoy at first the generous spaces of the open room without an array of empty cases to offend the eye and cumber the floor. When walls are covered with books a floor case will be introduced and others when needed will be placed according to plan, till at last the floor is as full as it was meant to be, and the basement beneath having served for a time to hold the overflow, a second story of cases is put on the top of the first. This process should be planned in advance for a term of 20 years.

For public access passages between cases should be five feet wide. Cases have sometimes been set on radial lines so as to bring all parts under supervision from the center. This arrangement, specially if bounded by a semi-circular wall, is expensive, wasteful of space and of doubtful value, except in peculiar conditions. It is not adapted to further extension of the building.

Size of shelf.

For ordinary books in a popular library the shelf should not be more than eight inches wide with an upright space of ten inches. Eight shelves of this height with a base of four inches and crown finish of five inches will fill eight feet from the floor and the upper shelf may be reached at a height of 81 inches or six feet nine inches. Ordinary shelves should not exceed three feet in length. A length of two and a half feet is preferred by many. A shelf more than three feet long is apt to bend under the weight of books. For books of larger size a limited number of shelves with 12 inches upright space and a few still larger should be provided. The proportion of oversize books will vary greatly according to the kind of library, a college or scientific collection having many more than the circulating library. Any reference room will contain a large number of such books and its shelves should correspond.

Movable shelves.

Much attention has been given to devices for adjustment of shelves. Some of these are quite ingenious and a few are satisfactory. No device should be introduced that will seriously break the smooth surface at the side. Notches, cross bars, iron horns or hooks or ornamental brackets expose the last book to damage. If pins are used they should be so held to their places that they cannot fall out. Heads of pins or bars should be sunk in the wood and the place for books left, as near as possible, absolutely smooth on all sides. It is at least a question whether the importance of making shelves adjustable and absolutely adjustable has not been greatly overrated. As a fact the shelves of the circulating library are very seldom adjusted. They may have all the usual appliances gained at large expense but there is no occasion to adjust them outside the reference room. They remain as they were put up. It is probably well to have the second and third shelf movable so that one can be dropped to the bottom and two spaces left where there were three at first. But all other shelves might as well be fixed at intervals of 10 inches without the least real inconvenience and the cases be stronger for it and far cheaper. A perfectly adjustable shelf is interesting as a study in mechanics, but is practically disappointing. Its very perfection is a snare because it is so impossible to set it true without a spirit level and a machinist. All shelves in a reference room should be adjustable. Bound magazines might have special cases.

Wood or iron shelves.

Iron shelf construction has the advantage of lightness and strength, filling the least space and admitting light and air. Where three or more stories of cases are stacked one upon another iron is a necessity. It also offers the best facilities for adjustment of shelves and is most durable.

On the other hand it is more difficult to get, can be had only of the manufacturers in fixed patterns, and costs at least twice as much as any wood, even oak, unless carved for ornament, and four or five times as much as some very good wooden shelves. This great cost raises the question whether the advantages named are really important. Few village libraries need more than two stories of shelves in a stack. If iron is more durable we can buy two sets of wooden shelves for the cost of one of iron—and when we buy the second set will know better what we want. The importance of shelf adjustment has been exaggerated.

A more important consideration, to my mind, is that iron is not so well adapted to the changing conditions of a growing library. It is made at a factory and to be ordered complete. It is bolted to the floor and wall at fixed intervals. But we have seen that a gradual accumulation of bookcases is better than to put all shelving in position at first.

Wooden cases are movable. You begin with those you need and add others as you have more books, you can change and alter them at any time with only the aid of the village carpenter, and enjoy the wide open spaces till the time for filling them comes.

Iron with all its ornaments belongs in the shop. It is not the furniture you prefer in your home. The item of cost will usually decide the question. For libraries of less than 30,000 volumes, where close storage is not imperative, wood has the advantage.

Miscellaneous notes.

A floor of hard wood is good enough for most libraries. Wood covered with corticene or linoleum tends to insure the needed quiet. Floors of tile, marble or concrete are very noisy and should have strips of carpet laid in the passages.

On the walls of reading rooms it is neither necessary nor desirable to have an ornamental wainscot, nor indeed any wainscot at all, not even a base board. Book cases will cover the lower walls and books are the best ornament.

Small tables for four are preferred in a reading room to long common tables. They give the reader an agreeable feeling of privacy.

Do not make tables too high. 30 inches are enough.

Light bent wood chairs are easy to handle.

Steam or hot water give the best heat and incandescent electric lamps give the best light.

Be sure that you have sufficient ventilation.

Windows should be made to slide up and down, not to swing on hinges or pivots.

Without dwelling further on details let us be sure 1, That we have room within the walls for all the books we now have or are likely to have in 20 years; provide the first outfit of shelves for twice the number of books expected at the end of one year and add bookcases as we need them, leaving always a liberal margin of empty space on every shelf. We must plan for the location of additional cases for 20 years with due consideration of the question of public access.

2, That all needed departments are provided in harmonious relation with each other and so located as to serve the public to the best advantage and at least cost of time, strength and money.

3, That the best use of the location is made and the building suited to the constituency and local conditions.

4, That the estimated cost is well within the limit named, for new objects of [expense] are certain to appear during the process of building and debt must not be thought of.

5, That the building is convenient for work and supervision, a point at which many an elegant and costly building has conspicuously failed.

Make it also neat and beautiful, for it is to be the abiding place of all that is best in human thought and experience and is to be a home in which all inquiring souls are to be welcomed. Since the people are to be our guests let us make the place of their reception worthy of its purpose.

[THE RELATION OF THE ARCHITECT TO THE LIBRARIAN.]

By John Lawrence Mauran, Architect, St. Louis, Mo.

The public library, as we understand the name to-day, has had but a brief existence compared with the mere housing of collections of books which has gone on through countless ages.

With the change from the old ideas of safeguarding the precious books themselves to the advanced theory of placing their priceless contents within the easy reach of all, has come an equally important change in the character of the custodian of the books. The duties of the modern librarian are such that he must be not only something of a scholar, in the best sense of the word, but he must be capable also of properly directing others in the pursuit of learning, and, withal, combine executive ability with a highly specialized professional facility. The result of carefully conceived courses of training is apparent in the wonderful results achieved through the devoted and untiring efforts of the members of this Association towards a constant betterment of their charges, and a closer bonding, through affection, between the masses of the people and that portion of the books which lies between the covers.

My purpose in recalling to your memory the wonderful advance made by training in your profession in a comparatively short time, is to give point to an analogy I wish to draw, showing a corresponding advance in the profession of architecture. Not so very many years ago there were ample grounds for the recalling by Mr. David P. Todd of Lord Bacon's warning against the sacrifice of utility to mere artistic composition in the following words: "Houses are built to Live in, and not to Looke on: Therefore let Use bee preferred before Uniformitie; Except where both may be had Leave the Goodly Fabrickes of Houses, for Beautie only, to the Enchanted Pallaces of the Poets; Who build them with small Cost": but to-day, thanks to the munificence of the French government and the untiring energy of some of those who have profited by it, in fostering the growth of our own architectural schools, there are few sections of this broad land which have not one or more worthy followers of Palladio and Michael Angelo. Hunt, Richardson and Post were among the first to receive the training of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and they, moreover, had the rare judgment to take the training only, adapting their designs to the climatic and other local conditions rather than attempting the importation of French forms as well as method of design. Their example and the impetus they were able to impart to the technical schools have been potent factors in the development of the talent of American architects. While it is true, and more the pity, that some students return from Paris with the idea that because Paris is a beautiful city architecturally, the simple injection of some of their own masterpieces into our diverse city street fronts, is going to reincarnate our municipalities, the major portion are sufficiently discriminating to realize that Paris owes much of its charm to a symmetry under governmental control which we, free born Americans, can never hope to attain, and leave behind them the mere forms and symbols of their alma mater to use that which is best and most profitable in their training; that is, a breadth of conception of the problem and a logical method of sequential study of it which ensures a creditable if not an ideal solution. The modern architect, to be successful, must be conversant with a vast amount of information which is apparently outside his chosen profession—such as the minutiae of hospitals, churches, libraries, railroad stations and the like. As a case in point I recall the address of a certain railroad president at the dedication of a large terminal depot, in which he said: "while we have had the co-operation of engineers and specialists in every branch of the work, I must give great credit to our architect who is responsible for the conception of the entire system of the handling of passengers, although he was employed solely to enclose the space designated by our engineers." It is not my purpose to laud the profession of architecture, but rather to show its preparedness to co-operate with you in achieving the best in library construction and design.

May I add to Mr. Todd's advice to library boards about to build, "first appoint your librarian," the suggestion that second, in consultation with him, appoint your architect. It is not disbelief in competition which has led the American Institute of Architects to advise against competitions, for the former is a constant condition, while the latter they believe to result in more evil than good. It is a popular notion among laymen that a competition will bring out ideas and mayhap develop some hidden genius, but in answer to the first I can say, I know of but one building erected from successful competitive plans without modification, and for the second, the major portion of American originality in building designs is unworthy the name of architecture. Aside from the needless expense and loss of time entailed on library board, as well as architect, by the holding of competitions a greater evil lies in the well proven fact, that in their desire to win approval for their design, most architects endeavor to find out the librarian's predilections and follow them in their plans rather than to submit a scholarly solution of the problem studied from an unprejudiced standpoint. It is not often the good fortune of competitors to have their submitted work judged with such unbiased intelligence as that which permitted the best conceived plan to win in the competition for the new library in New York City. Few men would have dared in competition to remove that imposing architectural feature, the reading room, from their main façade and put it frankly where it belongs, in direct touch with the stacks which serve it, as Carrere & Hastings did.

Not long ago a member of a certain library board of trustees wrote to us that we were being considered, among others, as architects for their new building, and he suggested that we send to them as many water colors as we could collect and as large as possible, to impress the board; for, as he added, "some of us appreciate your plans, but most laymen are caught by the colored pictures, the larger the better."

As a rule librarians have very decided ideas as to the plan desired in so far as it relates to the correlation of rooms and departments, and it, therefore, seems manifestly proper that having selected a librarian on account of merit, the next step should be the selection of an architect on the same basis, to the end that in consultation the theory of the one may either be studied into shape or proved inferior to the theory of the other. Under the discussion of two broad minds, the wheat is easily separated from the chaff with the much to be desired result of the assemblying of a well ordered plan to present to the board, which has had such study that few criticisms cannot be answered from the store of experience gathered in the making. This ideal crystallization of ideas, this development of the problem working hand in hand precludes the need of such advice as is found in the following quotation from a paper on library buildings:

"Taking into account the practical uses of the modern library it is readily seen that it needs a building planned from inside, not from without, dictated by convenience and not by taste no matter how good. The order should be to require the architect to put a presentable exterior on an interior having only use in view and not as is so often done to require the librarian to make the best he can of an interior imposed by the exigencies of the architect's taste or the demand of the building committee for a monumental structure."

Such an anomalous relationship between interior and exterior is absolutely opposed to the fundamental training of the architect of to-day. Often have I heard my professor of design, a Frenchman of rare judgment, fly out at a student caught working on his exterior before the interior was complete: "Work on your plan, finish your plan, and when that is perfect, the rest will come."

Architects of experience, who have been students of library development in its every branch, who have followed the changes in the relations of the library to the people, have reached the same conclusions along broad lines, as have the librarians, with respect to lighting, access, oversight and administration, as well as the general correlation of universally important departments, and it is therefore my purpose to state our relationship rather than attempt the raising of issues on details of library arrangement, and to show if possible, that the skilled architect's method of procedure tends to settle mooted points by weighing values and considering relations of parts in a logical and broad minded study of the particular set of conditions pertaining to his problem.

Either owing to the size, shape or contour of the site, its particular exposure, local climatic conditions, the particular character of the library itself or the people whom it serves, the problem presented to an architect by a library board is always essentially a new one. Certain fundamental rules may obtain through their universal applicability, but every step in the working out of a successful plan must be influenced by the particular conditions referred to, and here the co-operation of the librarian is of inestimable value to the architect, no matter how wide his experience may be.

Desired correlation, like most results, can be achieved in divers ways, and in most cases nothing of utility need be sacrificed to secure a dignified plan, which is as much to be desired as a dignified exterior. Realizing the importance of accomplishing successful results, a scholarly architect will strive to mould his plan with an eye to symmetry, without losing sight for an instant of the conditions of use, and never sacrificing practical relationship to gain an absolutely symmetrical arrangement of plan.

The French architect will, if necessary, waste space or inject needless rooms into his plan to secure perfect balance, while his American student will gain all the value of the effect without diminishing the practical value of his building one iota.

Along with symmetry, the logical development of the plan in study keeps in mind something of the rough form of the exterior design, with particular reference to the grouping of its masses to secure the maximum of air and the best light for the various departments. With the best designers, it is an unwritten law, that the next step after completing a satisfactory plan, is to sketch a section through the building, not only to ensure a proper proportion in the enclosed rooms, but most important of all to secure a system of fenestration, allowing wall space where needed and introducing the light as near the top of the rooms as the finish will permit. Having settled then all the details of plans and section, wherein are comprised all of the matter of greatest moment to the practical librarian, it only remains for the architect to prepare a suitable exterior and I certainly agree with my old preceptor that "it will come." The American people believe that education is the corner stone of manhood and good citizenship, and next to our public schools, if not before them, the most potent educational factor is our public library. The librarians are responsible in a great measure for the good work which is being accomplished in the dissemination of knowledge and culture among the people, but let me ask, are we not as responsible for our share, as co-workers with them, to perpetuate in lasting masonry the best which in us lies for the same great cause of the education of the people?

What renaissance has failed to find literature and architecture quickened alike? The awakening of a love of the beautiful brings a thirst for knowledge concerning the beautiful; as the records will show, the interest excited by that marvellous assemblage of architectural masterpieces at the Chicago Fair, created a demand on the libraries almost beyond belief for books on architecture and the allied arts.

Every conscientious architect must feel his responsibility to his clients as well as to the people and strive he must, to combine the ideal in convenience with simple beauty in design; my one plea is that such a combination is not only possible, but in intelligent hands, should be universal, and if my beliefs, hopes and expectations find sympathy with you, I shall feel repaid in the security of a harmonious co-operation between architect and librarian in the great work which stretches ahead of us into the future.

[THE DEPARTMENTAL LIBRARY.]

By James Thayer Gerould, University of Missouri, Columbia.

The recent discussion of the departmental library system at the University of Chicago and the consequent restatement of the position of that university in reference to such libraries, together with the consideration of the problem in the annual reports of Dr. Canfield and Mr. Lane, have called up anew the question of the expediency of the system. Is the departmental library to be a permanent feature of the university library? Is the highest effectiveness of a library to be secured by a policy of decentralization?

The public library has answered the question, finally, it seems, in the affirmative. Do the arguments which have induced the public librarian to establish branches and delivery stations apply in the case of the university library? Is the university library of the future to be housed in a single building, or is it to be scattered about in class rooms and laboratories? To my mind, there is no more important question of administration before those of us who are trying to render the university library an efficient instrument of instruction than this.

With many librarians there is an element of necessity entering into the question. Mr. Lane is facing a condition where the library has altogether outgrown its building, and some place must be found where books can be stored and used. The situation is much the same in many other places. Shall the facilities of the library be enlarged by building or shall the books be transferred to the various departmental libraries? Mr. Lane, speaking for his own library, says of the latter alternative: "It would commit the library to an entirely different policy from what it has pursued hitherto, and such a change would be little short of a revolution for this library."

At the University of Missouri we are expecting in the near future to begin the construction of a library building, but, before adopting any definite plans, we are trying to work out the problems that have just been stated, and to make ourselves reasonably sure that we are right before we go ahead.

There are arguments enough on all sides of this question, of which Dr. Canfield says that it has not two sides only, but a dozen. We must premise that no two departments use their books in exactly the same way, and that, consequently, methods of administration must differ. It is generally for the advantage of all, for example, in a university where there is a law school, that the books on private law should be separated from the main collection and treated as a branch library. Similarly medicine, theology and possibly a few other subjects may be withdrawn and administered separately.

In some of our universities one or more of the departments are several miles away from the main body of the institution. It is obviously necessary that the books most used in those departments should be near enough so that the students can have access to them without too much inconvenience and loss of time. In the ordinary institution, however, most of the buildings are grouped in a comparatively small area, and it is seldom more than five minutes' walk from the most remote building to the library. In a condition such as this, and with the exceptions noted above, I am inclined to the opinion that the university is best served by a central library containing the main collection, and small, rigidly selected laboratory libraries comprising books which from their very nature are most useful in the laboratory as manuals of work.

The arguments generally advanced in favor of the system are these:

1. The instructor needs to be able to refer, at a moment's notice, to any book relating to his subject.

2. The system enables the instructor to keep a more careful watch over the reading of his students.

3. The best interests of the library demand that each division of the library shall be directly under the eye of the men most interested in it, that is to say, the instructors in the various departments; that they should direct its growth and watch over its interests.

That the first and second of these arguments have great weight cannot be denied, but with a properly constructed library building and most careful administration the requirements of both instructor and student can be met quite as well by a central system.

It is, of course, quite impossible for each instructor to have in his office all the books necessary for his work. The duplication necessary for this purpose would be impracticable even for the most wealthy university. He must, therefore, go from his office or class room to the department library and search for the book himself. With the confusion which generally reigns in a library of this sort, and with the lack of effective registration of loans, this is quite often a matter of some difficulty.

At Columbia University the office of each professor is in telephonic communication with the central library. When a book is wanted the library is notified by telephone, the book is found and sent out at once. Within ten minutes from the time that the request reaches the library the book is generally in the instructor's hands. He may lose two or three minutes' time, but the amount lost is more than compensated by the readiness with which others can use the books of the department, and by other advantages to be considered later. At Columbia, too, the system of stack study rooms provides in a very satisfactory way for the second objection. There, as many of you have seen, the stacks are distributed through a series of small rooms, the light side of which is supplied with tables and used for study rooms and for seminar purposes. If the instructor can use the departmental library for his work room, he can certainly use this room to as good advantage, for here he has the entire collection and not a selected few of his books. I believe fully that an instructor who is sufficiently interested in the reading of his students to watch over it carefully in his departmental library, will find that he is able to keep just as close a relation to it, if his students are working in a central library. He may be obliged to make slight changes in his methods, but the result ought to be the same.

The third argument in favor of the departmental library system is of a different nature. Is the librarian or the professor best qualified to direct the growth and watch over the interests of the different departments of the library? So far as I know, this argument is given more consideration at Chicago than anywhere else. It may be true, in certain cases, that the professor has the greater qualification for this work, but when this is the case it argues that the professor is an exceptional one or that the university has been unfortunate in the selection of its librarian.

It is quite needless to say that the librarian should be in constant conference with the teaching force regarding purchases, but that he should delegate all of his powers of purchase in any given field, admits of the gravest doubt. Laude, in his recent work on the university library system of Germany, attributes a great deal of the success of those libraries to the fact that they are independent and [autonomous] institutions, enjoying a much greater measure of freedom than is accorded to any similar American institution. Too many professors are apt to buy books in their special field and slight other lines of research in their own subject. For example, a zoologist, who is doing research work along the lines of embryology, is very apt to overload the collection at that point and neglect other equally important lines.

Again, very few instructors, even granting them the qualifications necessary for the work, have the time or patience for it. If the amount appropriated to the department is at all large, a considerable portion of the sum is quite frequently unexpended at the end of the year. Some interesting tables, prepared by Mr. Winsor for his report for the year 1894-95, show that in seven selected departments the amount of books ordered, including continuations, was only about 50 per cent. of the appropriation, plus one quarter, the allowance for orders not filled. While this proportion would probably not hold good in all departments or in all places, it exhibits an almost uniform tendency and a tendency which must be corrected if a well-rounded out library is to be secured.

The system of departmental control is very sure to create a feeling of departmental ownership, a feeling that the books, bought out of the moneys appropriated to a particular library, should remain permanently in that library, and that any one from outside who wishes to use the books is more or less of an intruder. Pin any one of these men down, and they will admit that the books are for the use of all, but the feeling exists, notwithstanding, and is the cause of constant friction.

The departmental library renders the books difficult of access. If the library is large enough to warrant the setting apart of a separate room for its use, this room can seldom be open for as large a portion of the day as the central library, and when it is open the books cannot be obtained as readily by the great body of the students as if they were in a central building. Most students are working in several lines at once. They are compelled, by this system, to go from one room to another, and to accommodate themselves to differing hours of opening and to varying rules for the use of the books. Then, too, it frequently happens in the case of small libraries that the books are kept in the office of the head of the department, and can only be consulted when he is in his office and at liberty. The difficulty is here greatly increased. I know of cases where even the instructors in the same department have found difficulty in getting at the books, and the library was, in effect, a private library for the head professor, supported out of university funds. If instructors cannot use the books, how can the student be expected to do so?

There is a sentiment, false, perhaps, but nevertheless existing in the minds of many students, that any attempt to use the books under these circumstances is an endeavor to curry favor with the professor. This feeling does not exist in connection with the use of the books at a central library.

If a book in a departmental library is needed by a student in another department, he must either go to the department and put the custodian to the inconvenience of looking it up for him, or he must wait at the central library while a messenger goes for the book. His need of the book must be very pressing before he will do either.

If the different fields of knowledge were sharply defined, the departmental system might be a practicable one, but such is not the case. The psychologist needs books bearing on philosophy, sociology, zoology and physics, the sociologist gathers his data from almost the whole field of human knowledge, the economist must use books on history and the historian books on economics. The system hampers him exceedingly in the selection and use of his material, or it compels the university to purchase a large body of duplicate material, and restricts, by so much, the growth of the real resources of the library.

The system, it seems to me, induces narrowness of vision and a sort of specialization which is anything but scientific. Trending in the same direction is the separation of the books, in any given field, into two categories. The undergraduate may need some such selection, but any student who has gone beyond the elements of his subject should have at his command the entire resources of the library. The needs of the elementary student can be met by direct reference to certain books, or by setting aside the volumes required as special reference books and allowing free access to them.

A large amount of our most valuable material is found in the publications of scientific and literary societies and in periodicals. In many cases these must be kept at the central library. They will be much more frequently read if the readers are using the central library and availing themselves of the information given in the catalog.

From the administrative point of view, there is nothing impossible in the organization of the departmental system, provided that finances of the library admit of the increased expenditure. As Mr. Bishop has pointed out in a recent number of the Library Journal, the element of cost seems to have been utterly left out of consideration in the recent discussions at the University of Chicago. It is possible that, with the immense resources of that institution, they may be able to ignore that factor, but most of us are compelled to reduce administrative expenditures to the lowest point consistent with good work.

Aside from the cost of the duplication of books already noted, necessitated by the division of the books among the different departments, there are the items of space and labor to be considered. It needs no argument to show that there is a great economy of space gained by the consolidation of all libraries, with the exceptions previously referred to, into one central building. An entire room is frequently given up to a departmental library of three or four hundred volumes, when a few extra shelves and possibly a slight increase in the seating capacity of the reading room would accommodate it in the central library. The cost of maintenance, of heating and of lighting is also undoubtedly greater under the departmental arrangement.

The greatest increase in expense is, however, in the item of service. In order properly to control a branch of this sort, an employe of the library must be in constant attendance. The duties and responsibilities of such a position are so small that only the lowest paid grade of service can be employed with economy. The amount necessary to pay the salaries of such persons could, with much greater advantage to the whole institution, be used for the employment of a few specialists, highly trained in different lines, who would act as reference librarians in their respective fields. Our American libraries are, as a class, compared with those of foreign universities, singularly deficient in this quality of assistance. Sooner or later we must supply this lack, and every move which tends in another direction must be examined with care.

The university library exists for the whole university—all of it for the whole university. In an ideal condition, every book in it should be available, at a moment's notice, if it is not actually in use. This should be our aim, and it should be from this viewpoint that we should judge the efficiency of our administration and the value of any proposed change.

[SUGGESTIONS FOR AN ANNUAL LIST OF AMERICAN THESES FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY.]

By William Warner Bishop, Polytechnic Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Graduate instruction and the degree of doctor of philosophy as its reward are not so novel and recent in America as to call for either explanation or definition. Neither are they so old as to require a history. Most of us can well remember when it became a common thing for American universities to have numerous candidates for the doctorate. At the present time there are several hundred students in our universities who are candidates for the doctor's degree and the number is increasing rapidly.

A degree implies a dissertation, or, as it is more commonly and less correctly termed, a thesis. I need not here express any opinion as to the merits or defects of these documents as a class. What I wish to speak of is their value to university and college libraries, and the difficulty of discovering what dissertations are produced annually, and, for reference libraries, of procuring them when discovered. I presume the librarian who knows the specialist's insatiate greed for dissertations, programmen, and small pamphlets generally will need no words of mine to bring home to him the need of procuring as many of these documents as he can. Whatever we may say in derogation of doctors' dissertations—and they have their faults—they at least represent long-continued and careful investigation under supposedly competent direction, and the specialist must have them.

It is a comparatively easy task to get him German and other foreign dissertations. The new ones are listed annually and the old ones load the shelves of the second-hand stores of Europe. But to find what is being produced here in this country is by no means a simple undertaking. And it behooves us, unless we tacitly admit that our American dissertations are not worth having, to take some steps toward bettering the present situation.

In order to ascertain the exact condition of things I have selected fifteen representative institutions which confer the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and have studied their requirements and conducted some correspondence with their librarians. These institutions have been selected purely as representing various geographical and educational conditions, and omissions from the list are not to be taken in malam partem. They are: (1) Brown, (2) Bryn Mawr, (3) California, (4) Chicago, (5) Columbia, (6) Cornell, (7) Harvard, (8) Johns Hopkins, (9) Michigan, (10) Nebraska, (11) Pennsylvania, (12) Princeton, (13) Stanford, (14) Wisconsin, and (15) Yale.

The majority of these universities require that before the degree is conferred the thesis shall be printed and a fixed number of copies, ranging from 50 to 250, shall be deposited with some officer of the university or in the library. The statistics are as follows:

California requires 150 copies.

Chicago requires 100 copies. "Accepted theses become the property of the university."

Columbia requires 150 copies.

Cornell requires 50 copies.

Michigan requires 150 copies.

Nebraska requires 150 copies.

Pennsylvania requires 250 copies.

Stanford requires 100 copies.

Wisconsin requires 100 copies.

Two institutions, Bryn Mawr and Princeton, require the printing of the thesis, but make no requirement, so far as can be ascertained from the catalogs, that there shall be any deposit of copies.

Johns Hopkins and Pennsylvania allow the thesis to be either written or printed; if printed, Johns Hopkins requires the deposit of 150 copies, Pennsylvania of 250, except under certain conditions which will appear later.

Brown makes no requirement for deposit or for printing. Harvard provides that one copy either printed or written must be deposited in the library. Yale requires that the "thesis must be deposited at the library for public inspection not later than May 1st" of the year in which the candidate expects to receive the degree.

Of these universities two only, Brown and California, print the titles of theses in the university catalog.

The foregoing statements are taken from the annual catalogs for 1899-1900 of the universities named, except in the case of Pennsylvania, where the statement made in the catalog is supplemented from a letter received from the Dean.

Although I presumed that most of the copies deposited in the libraries of the universities were used for exchange, I wrote to the librarians of those universities which require the deposit of a number of printed copies, making inquiry regarding their systems of exchange and provisions for the sale of copies not exchanged. I received replies from almost all. [These letters were read, the common condition being shown to be that most of the copies received by the libraries were exchanged with foreign institutions and other American universities. Varying conditions ranging from a refusal to sell any copies to a free distribution of copies not exchanged, was found to exist with regard to sale of theses by the libraries.]

It will be seen from these replies that, if a library does not happen to be on the exchange list of the university in which a thesis is written, and if the thesis is not printed in some journal or in the proceedings of some learned society, such a library stands very little chance either of learning of the publication of a thesis or of procuring it from the author or from the university. That this is not much of an affliction in most cases I cheerfully admit. Still the small colleges which deliberately refuse to attempt graduate work—and, be it said to their honor, there are not a few of these—and the large reference libraries which do not publish, have as much need of certain theses as the large universities, and they have no means of getting them easily.

It appears to me, and I trust to you, that, if our American dissertations are worth anything, if they are valuable enough to preserve, if they are real contributions to knowledge—and I believe that they are all of these—then it is worth while to secure the publication of some list which will tell librarians and specialists where to go to get copies, either from the author or from the university. It should not be difficult to secure co-operation in this matter. The number of theses printed and deposited in any one university in any one year is not large, and it certainly would not be a burden of alarming proportions to send titles to some central bureau. The difficulty will be to secure an editor and the funds for publishing the list. It would seem to me that some one of the large institutions whose libraries publish bulletins and other matter, or possibly the Library of Congress might assume the expense as a matter of patriotic service to learning in the United States. And it might not be out of place for this section, should it care to follow up the matter, to enter into communication with them on the subject. It might be also, that some enterprising publisher would be glad to undertake the task of both editing and publishing, if it could be shown him that he would thus do a favor to American libraries.

One final word should be said before closing. The inevitable delays incident to the publication of such a list would be more than offset by the delays in publishing theses. Many a man is called "Doctor" who has never received his diploma for that degree because his thesis remains unpublished. The laxity in this matter in some quarters is very great. It may be that such a publication of titles as I have proposed might perceptibly hasten the publication of theses.

[OPPORTUNITIES.]

By Gratia Countryman, Minneapolis (Minn.) Public Library.

If I were to sum up in these short moments the opportunities which lie before library workers, it would have to be an epitome of all that has been said at this conference and all previous conferences, and of all that has been written on library extension and influence. Even then the opportunity which lies before you might not even be mentioned.

I will not even try to enumerate the almost endless ways in which library usefulness may express itself, for these various ways are, after all, only different directions in which to use our one great opportunity of service to mankind.

May we not think of a library as a dynamic force in the community, to be used for lifting the common level. There are so many forces at work in the nation pulling down and scattering; but the hundreds of large and small libraries dotted over the country stand for social regeneration, stand for the building up and perfecting of human society, stand for the joy and happiness of individual lives. And no matter how limited seems our own small field, it is a piece of the great domain of helpful activity.

It is not always easy, after a hard and tiresome day of small and perplexing duties, to see beyond our wall of weariness. Yet nothing is more restful than to feel that we are contributing our part to a great work, and that we, in our place, are a part of one of the great building-up movements of the century.

I will not soon forget what Mr. Lane said in his president's address at the Atlanta conference. I would like to quote largely, but this sentence serves. He said: "What a privilege that we are always free to place ourselves at the service of another. Most professions are so engrossed by their own work that they have no time to serve the needs of others, but it is the business of the librarian to serve. He is paid for knowing how."

It is peculiarly true that the librarian's business is to put himself and the library under his custody at the complete disposal of the people. It is his business to watch their interests and to think in advance for their needs.

The librarian must have, in Mrs. Browning's words,

"... both head and heart;
Both active, both complete and both in earnest."

Our opportunities, then, are not something which lie to one side, to be especially thought of, but are the very heart of our business—of our profession.

I have been wondering if there is not an element of discouragement to the librarian of the small library, in such a conference as this, or even to us who fill subordinate places in large libraries. We get so many new ideas, we get so many plans which other libraries are putting into operation. We know we cannot put them into practice, we know well enough that we shall go home and do just what we have been doing, with small quarters, with cramped revenues, with possibly unsympathetic trustees who take unkindly to our new-born enthusiasm. There seems to be the possibility of so much, but the opportunity for doing so little, and then our limitations seem more apparent than our opportunities. The assistant in the larger library says, "I wish I could be the librarian of a small library, they have so much better an opportunity for coming into close contact with the people," and the librarian of the little library who does her own accessioning, cataloging, record keeping, charging, reference work, etc., with one brain and one pair of hands, says, "Oh, if we were only a little larger library, with more money, and with more help, I might do so many things that other libraries do."

Carlyle says, "Not what I have, but what I do, is my kingdom," and I take that to mean in library work that my opportunity is not what I could do if I held some other position in some other library, but what I can do under present conditions with present means. Success does not lie with those who continually wish for something they haven't got, but with those who do the best possible thing with the things they have. "It is not so much the ship as the skilful sailing that assures a prosperous voyage." It is not so much a great collection of books and a fine technical organization as the personal character of the man or woman who stands as a bridge between the books and the people. Your opportunity and mine does not lie in our circumstances, but in ourselves, and in our ability to see and to grasp the coveted opportunity. We are reminded of the pious darkey who prayed every night just before Christmas, "Dear Lord, send dis darkey a turkey." Christmas came dangerously near, and there was no prospect of a turkey. So the night before Christmas he grew desperate, and prayed, "Dear Lord, send dis darkey to a turkey." That night the turkey came. Even so it is with our opportunities.

There are three classes of people toward whom the library has a special mission: the children, the foreigner, and the working classes.

1. As to the children, we have been hearing considerably about them in this conference. Mr. Hutchins in the Wisconsin meeting said that a good book did more good in a country boy's home than in the city boy's. When the country boy takes a book home he and all his family devour it, but the town boy reads his book and exchanges it, and no one in the house perhaps even knows that he has read it. Well, that is a subject for thought. If his family or teachers do not watch his reading, it becomes a serious thing for the librarian who chooses and buys his books for him. Perhaps the library is not large enough to have a children's department or to send books into the schools, or to do any specialized children's work, but it can make judicious selection of books, and being small can know individual cases among the children. It is not so hard to find out the children one by one who need some care and interest, to learn their names and to find out something about their families. They say that letters cut lightly in the bark of a sapling show even more plainly in the grown tree. A boy whom no one has reached comes into your library. By a little watchful care he reads some wonderful life, learns some of the marvellous forces in God's creation, opens his eyes to the glowing sunsets or to the springing blades of grass; suddenly knows the dignity of human nature and his own growing self. His aspirations are born, his ambition is awakened, his life is changed. Library records have not one, but many such cases.

The home library is a method of reaching children which is not used enough by the smaller libraries. Branches and stations may not be practicable, but a group of 15 to 25 books taken into sections of a town by some friendly woman, on the plan of the home libraries, could be carried out in almost any town. The librarian might not have time, but she could find people who would do it, if she set the work to going.

2. As to the foreigners, Europe has used us for a dumping ground for considerable moral and political refuse. We have the problem of making good citizens out of much wretched material, and next to the children there is no greater opportunity for the library. Even the smallest library ought to study ways and means of getting at the foreign element. It would almost pay to make a canvass of the town, to see that these people are reached and that they know about the library. If books in their own language are necessary to draw them, then it is the best investment you can make.

3. But in reality the library does its great work among the mass of common working people. It is the quiet side which makes no showing, but it has always been the telling side. From the common people spring most of our readers. They do our work, they fight our battles, they need our inspiration. For them you make your libraries attractive, for them you make careful selections of books—the student does not need your pains—for their sake you identify yourself with every local interest. You fix your hours for opening and closing to accommodate these working people. You make your rules and regulations just as elastic as possible, that they may not be debarred from any privilege. They do not ask favors, but after all this great mass of common people whose lives are more or less barren and empty are the ones to which the library caters in a quiet, unadvertised way. It is the great opportunity which we scarcely think of as an opportunity at all. It is just the daily routine. Millions of people know little more than a mechanical life, what they shall eat, drink and wear. Many can touch their horizons all around with a sweep of their hands, so narrow is their circle. They live in the basements of their spiritual temples, and never rise to the level of their best ability. They have no joy of life, of abundant life. The library performs a great service to society when it has furnished information to the people, when it has been an educational factor, but it has performed a greater one when it has awakened a man and put him into possession of his own powers.

Well, this is not a very specific setting forth of the ways in which we can extend the work of a small library. The way must vary greatly with the conditions, but the spirit of the work runs through all conditions. If I should name the qualifications of a good librarian, I would give them in the following order, according to importance:

1. Genuine character, with broad natural sympathies.

2. Courteous, kindly manners.

3. Education, general and technical.

Any such librarian, with only a fairly equipped library, will find her opportunity at her hand.

[SOME PRINCIPLES OF BOOK AND PICTURE SELECTION.]

By G. E. Wire, M.D., LL.B., Worcester County (Mass.) Law Library.

1. Books and pictures should be suited to the constituency.—This may seem so trite, so self-evident as to need no statement, much less any argument to support it. But on sober second thought, all will agree that it needs constant reiteration and appreciation. All of us are familiar with libraries—of course not our own—in which we detect glaring inconsistencies in book selection. The story used to be told of one library commission that in its first epoch it used to send the books on agriculture to the sea-coast, and books on fish curing to the hill country. This is now strenuously denied but there may be more truth than poetry in it after all.

In the case of large, 50,000 v. libraries and over, less care need be taken, both on account of expenditure of money and on account of worthlessness of the book itself. A few hundred dollars' worth of rubbish, more or less, does not count and almost any book no matter how poor comes in use some time. But in the case of the small, 5000 v. library or under, with little money to expend and the whole realm of knowledge to cover, it is different. Of course the covering will be scanty and thin, but it will do for the first layer. They should buy but few books in philosophy and religion, more in sociology, only the latest and most popular in the arts and sciences, comparatively fewer in literature and more in history, biography and travel.

Of course fiction, adult and juvenile, must also be bought and at first a disproportionately larger amount in many cases. Too much reliance should not be placed on what some larger library has or on what the neighboring library has.

Avoid imitation and duplication, especially the latter. Now that inter-library loans are coming in, each small library in the more thickly settled portions of the country may be able to supplement its neighbor. Travelling libraries should also help out the smaller libraries which can ill afford to sink a large part of their annual book-fund in evanescent fiction, which soon moulds on the shelves.

As the commissions become better organized, they should also be able to send expensive reference works for the use of study clubs, and so help the small libraries all the more.

The needs of the constituency should be carefully studied and the most pressing should be attended to at first, others can wait. As to buying technical books for those engaged in manufacturing, I think a more conservative policy is now favored. Better wait a while and feel your way before spending much on these high priced books which rapidly go out of date. Theoretically the operatives of a cotton mill should be much interested in all that relates to cotton, but practically when their hours of drudgery are over they are more inclined to a novel, if inclined to read anything. And how much encouragement have they to read in most factories? Better begin with the owners, who may be on your board, or the superintendent, who may live on your street. As liberal purchases as possible should be made in reference books—always selecting the latest and freshest to start on. For example Seyffert's "Antiquities," Bulfinch's "Age of fable," and Murray's "Mythology" will serve better than Smith's books, now out of date and expensive beyond all return for the money invested in them. More will be said along this line under head of cost. Of course in a library of this size, no foreign books should be bought other than perhaps some fiction.

I thoroughly believe in America for Americans. Foreigners would not buy our books under the same circumstances and why should we buy theirs? Reciprocity is good policy. Even in the case of English books most of those on geology, botany, zoology, on fishing and hunting, are valueless to us, by reason of climatic, or other local conditions. Their local history and antiquities are quite as unprofitable for most of our public libraries.

2. As to the matter of outside experts.—Most of us have seen bad examples of the work of outside experts, in fact I think we are safe in saying there are more bad than good examples. In the case of arts and sciences it is quite the fashion to refer the book list to the nearest high school or college professor, with the idea that in his line he knows all there is to be known about these books. In some cases he is practically given carte blanche and his selection is bought without a murmur. The natural consequence is that in many libraries are to be found high priced technical works of momentary interest, fit only for class-room or laboratory use, too deep for general reading and soon out of date. Most of these so-called experts are not even competent to select works for their own department, let alone the public library.

Personal bias, the quarrels of investigators, loyalty to instructors, jealousy of other workers in the same lines are powerful factors which far outweigh the question of real merit. In New England many of the libraries are overloaded with good, blue, orthodox theology, bought on the suggestion and for the sole use of the dominie who was on the library committee. It was a glorious opportunity for him and it has rarely been neglected. These libraries are now really addicted to this habit; it has become a species of intoxication with them and they continue the pernicious practice.

3. Choice by committee.—One of the latest fads is selection by voting or by committee. This usually results in a mediocre selection, all the really good books or pictures being left out, or else a preponderance of votes for a few favorites. Voting choice is seen in the list of books sent out each year from New York State Library as a result of voting by members of the New York State Library Association. This is a list of the 50 best books for a village library from a list of 500 books, including fiction, adult and juvenile. Of course fiction takes a large per cent., while the remaining few books make a most patchy lot. The first list is too large and the last list is too small. Another publication by the Regents of the State of New York is a list of pictures for schools—not so much selected as neglected by a jury of 75 persons. Between religious prejudice, prudishness, peace policy and finical art criticism only the husks of architecture and stately ruins are left for the youths of the Empire State to gaze upon. Think of leaving out the "Sistine Madonna," "1807," "Christ in the Temple," "Queen Louise" and the "Horse fair." Some of these were omitted in cold blood because they were "poor and popular" and "pupils would like them and should not." Most of us, however, have gotten beyond the idea of trying to make people read George Eliot when they want Mary Jane Holmes. Nothing I have seen in the nature of criticism is so cold, hard and repelling as this. It is to be hoped no other state will follow this example, but that is just the perniciousness of such lists made out by people who are supposed to be experts, but who too often fail worse than common mortals. This whole matter of selection by committee is virtually begging the question of individual responsibility.

4. Choice by librarian experts.—This seems to be the most satisfactory solution of the problem. It is true that many if not most of the existing small (5000-10,000) libraries have not or can not afford a trained librarian. But it is also true that more and more are employing trained people as organizers and an increasing number are retaining their organizer as librarian. It is their study and their business to know what books are best suited to the needs of the community. Even should we go beyond that into the larger public library, the reference library or the college library I still hold that the librarian is the best judge of books for the library. His taste is sure to be more catholic, wholly unbiassed and he makes a more even and better rounded selection on the whole. In the small public library he is able to carefully study the constituency and then knowing what books are standard in other places he makes the necessary allowances for the case in hand. The time has, I trust, wholly gone by when the local editor, local clergyman, and local schoolmaster have the pleasure of picking out their favorite books, or of ordering "standard sets" or the "classics" in history and literature at the public expense. Most of these books are on the shelves to-day faded but not worn, the leaves not even cut and usually only the first volume slightly used.

Of course books in useful art and sciences were largely overlooked. Nowadays library committees are turning more and more to the librarian, knowing that he has made a study of book selection and that they will get better results to leave it with him. This is as it should be and the librarian should not lower himself by going outside for assistance on any line. I count it as slipshod and a confession of ignorance for any librarian to tag around after outside "experts." Let him study up his subject and master it himself. There are only a few in which he cannot easily surpass outsiders, and profiting by his knowledge of the many, which enables him to do that part quickly and easily, let him pay more attention to the hard and less familiar subjects. The librarian who delights in religion, philosophy or folklore says of lists on biology, botany, steam-engineering or sanitation—"I leave all that to Professor So and So—of course he knows all about it." Why should he, more than the librarian? What is the librarian for, if not to know things? Is it not time to turn from the material things and concern ourselves more with a higher standard of scholarship and more outside work in our profession? And for the small libraries of 5000 v. or under there are the library commissions who are supposed to, and do, advise them. There is difference with the commissions, some are in closer touch with the local situation than others, some are more conscientious than others about costly books, and some are given to this "expert" business which I have named, but on the whole they are doing good work and bid fair to do better.

5. Matter of cost.—This should be carefully considered. I hold it to be little short of criminal to recommend high priced books for libraries of limited means. By high priced books I mean those costing over $5 a volume. This of course does not apply to reference books. And yet in one annual list such books constantly appear, as not only suggestions but, considering the source, as recommendations or even commands. I am thankful the Wisconsin Library Commission has taken up this work systematically and is doing all it can to discourage such foolish waste of money. The worst example is the "Encyclopædia Britannica" now from 25 to 10 years behind the times and never a satisfactory book of reference at its best. Take De Bry's "Mycetazoa," it stands on the shelves of dozens of libraries, leaves uncut, totally unused, each copy meaning at least four dollars wasted money. These are only given as an example—there might be hundreds of them. There are scores of books now published and more coming out every day on various questions of philosophy, sociology, science, art and particularly literature and history priced from $1 to $2.50 which are far superior for practical purposes to the heavy weight monographs at $5 a volume and upwards. You thus get two or three books on the same subject for the money, and in a small library this is a vital question. The money must bring in the largest possible number of good books.

[BOOK REVIEWS, BOOK LISTS, AND ARTICLES ON CHILDREN'S READING: ARE THEY OF PRACTICAL VALUE TO THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARIAN?]

By Caroline M. Hewins, Hartford (Ct.) Public Library.

A children's librarian has three sources of reliance in the choice or purchase of books. They are: 1, Book reviews in current or earlier periodicals; 2, Lists, graded or ungraded, for libraries; 3, Articles on children's reading in books or periodicals.

1. The children's librarian, or any librarian, who orders children's books from reviews often finds the books entirely different from what the description has led her to suppose. Even if there is no positive untruth in a notice, it is often misleading from the lack of a standard of comparison with the best books for children.

The papers oftenest taken in a country household or small library are a daily or semi-weekly from the nearest large town or city, a religious weekly, and an agricultural weekly or monthly, sometimes all three, oftener only one or two, and it is from the notices and advertisements with quoted notices in these papers that estimates of books must often be formed. Libraries and library trustees who send book lists from such sources as these to a state public library commission are often surprised that they do not receive what they ask for, and write anxious inquiries as to why certain books have not been bought. "There surely can be no objection to them," they say, "for we took the titles from reviews in the —— or —— or ——," naming denominational papers. Now, lest the Children's Section should be accused of unfairness and denominational prejudices, I shall quote no reviews from these papers, except one which came from a leading religious weekly taken by the household in whose pew I have a seat. It is of Eden Phillpotts' "Human boy," a series of sketches of English schoolboy life, which is dismissed with this remarkable sentence: "The scene here, too, is in the west, and various hunting experiences are recorded." The librarian who orders that book for boys greedy for big game will be disappointed!

Such a mistake as this is not common, but reviews in both religious and secular papers are often perfunctory and meaningless. One reason of this is that many books are published for the Christmas trade, between the 15th of September and the 15th of December, when they come into newspaper offices with a rush, until they are piled in stacks on the desk of the hapless reviewer, and hastily noticed, sometimes by title only. In a new edition of Elizabeth Sheppard's fine, but forgotten novel, "Rumour," whose keynote is the quotation from "Lycidas" on the title-page,

"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to the world, nor in broad Rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft in those pure eyes
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove,"

the reviewer did not understand the meaning of the lines, and called the book "a good example of the working, influence, and effect of rumour." On one of our own local papers not long ago there was a review of Mrs. Barr's "Maid of Maiden Lane," which was referred to as the sequel to her "Beau of Orange River." Even in newspapers fortunate enough to command the services of specialists for history and science, and an additional critic for novels, the children's books are hastily noticed, sometimes by the youngest reporter in his spare minutes. In smaller offices the task of reviewing all books falls to the hard-worked editor, who is, like Jacob Riis, also his own "reporter, publisher and advertising agent," but whose sense of literary values is often not in proportion to his knowledge of state politics or local reforms.

It is unfortunate that in the newspapers of as high a class as the Outlook, Independent and Dial the notices of children's books are often carelessly written, and show the lack of a standard of comparison. In the Outlook for Nov. 27, 1897, Richard Pryce's "Elementary Jane," a most unchildlike book, is classed among books for children, and "Pansy" and "Elsie" are recommended in other numbers.

In the Independent, where notices of books for older readers are written with discrimination, Ellis's "Klondike nuggets" is described: "Full of lively adventures and exciting experiences, and is told in a straightforward, off-hand style just suited to the purpose." (Oct. 6, 1898.) There is nothing absolutely untrue in this, but there is nothing to guide a reader in comparing it with better books. One of Alger's heroes is mentioned as "An admirable boy with wonderful ability to take care of himself" (Oct. 20, 1898), and a book by Stratemeyer as "a stirring tale, told with enthusiasm." (Oct. 6, 1898.) Stratemeyer is an author who mixes "would" and "should," has the phraseology of a country newspaper, as when he calls a supper "an elegant affair" and a girl "a fashionable miss," and follows Oliver Optic closely in his plots and conversations.

Mrs. Cheever's "Little Mr. Van Vere of China," with its cheap sentiment and well-worn plot of a stolen child coming to his own at last, is commended as "well made, well illustrated." (Dial, Dec. 6, 1898.) A notice in the religious paper mentioned above says, "He is a thoroughly fascinating little fellow, and his story is told most acceptably." One of Amanda Douglas's tales is spoken of as "A story with a fine moral influence, yet not preachy, in the end leaving in the reader's mind the sense of having been in good company." (Independent, Dec. 15, 1898.)

One notice of "Elsie on the Hudson" is: "The multitude of young people who have read the Elsie books, by Martha Finley, will eagerly welcome this volume by the same author. It has to do with American history in the days of the Revolutionary war, and the style is simple and pleasing." In another: "Miss Martha Finley continues also the instruction which is mixed up with that young woman's experiences." (Dial, Dec. 6, 1898.)

It is, I think, the same periodical, though I have not been able to verify the quotation, which commends Harry Steele Morrison's "Yankee boy's success" thus: "The book is interesting, full of push and go. Boys will read it with a gusto; yet they must remember that what this lucky Yankee boy did is not what they all can do." Another number which puts a just estimate on Master Morrison as a "very unlovely and unpleasant sort of boy, whose impudence and enterprise ought later to fit him for a place on a yellow journal," entirely mistakes the purpose of Pugh's "Tony Drum," a realistic story of London slum life, and classes it as a book for boys. (Dial, Dec. 16, 1898.)

The Outlook says of Frances Hodgson Burnett's mawkish "Editha's burglar," which was well parodied in Punch by Anstey in his "Burglar Bill": "This story of the queer, loving little girl and her daring and successful effort to protect her mother, and the equally queer burglar, is too well known in play and story to need comment." (Dec. 10, 1898.) This story is in almost all library and school lists, even the best selected and classified. The same number calls "Mr. Van Vere" "a charming story." (The adjective is used for four different works for young people in that week's grist.)

Even Noah Brooks, in a signed article in the Bookbuyer (Dec., 1898), gives praise to Drysdale and Stratemeyer, commends the uninteresting Chilhowee books, refers to Pansy's as "strong and helpful," and one of Amanda Douglas's as "rich in chastened and refined sentiment." He mentions Oliver P. Tunk's "Awful alphabet" as "a fit companion for 'A coon alphabet.'" Perhaps it is, but when libraries and schools are circulating Jane Andrews's "Seven little sisters" to teach the brotherhood and sisterhood of all nations, and teachers, in the language of Professor Thurston, of the Chicago Normal School, are "encouraging each nationality to contribute the best it has of song, story, game, home customs and occupations to the life of the school," it is wrong to buy a book for a white child in which black children are held up to ridicule, as they have been many times in Harper's Young People. "Blackberries" and "Comical Coons" are also recommended in the Dial (Dec. 16, 1897), where Gertrude Smith's "Ten little comedies," a book entirely different in spirit from her "Arabella and Araminta" stories; Marion Harland's "Old-field school girl," which has a story of horrible cruelty of a schoolmaster to a child, and is not meant for children; the silly "Elaine" book, and the equally silly and sometimes coarse "Father Goose" are favorably reviewed.

The Nation's reviews of children books have lately not been up to the old standard, as for instance a review of Sydney Reid's would-be funny "Josey and the chipmunk" (Dec. 13, 1900), which is called "a perfectly delightful child's book, nearly as good as the 'Alice' books, and, indeed, might be pronounced quite as good if Lewis Carroll, like Shakespeare, had not 'thought of it first.'"

It will be seen by these instances that reviews help children's librarians very little, and that it is impossible under present conditions for a library to determine the worth of a book without seeing it.

2. There have been in the last 25 years many lists of children's books by libraries, schools, denominational societies and other organizations. The earlier lists, although interesting to a student of the evolution of the Children's Section, have so many books out of print or superseded that they do not concern us now, except in that they are not made for very young children, and often have a profusion of material which is over the heads of boys and girls below, or even in, the high school age. Some of them are made from hearsay or from other book lists, without an intimate knowledge, or indeed any knowledge at all, of books recommended, as in the following instance: A paper read at a library meeting and afterward printed in the report of a state librarian describes the "library ladder" as "a list of books beginning with a tale of adventure. From this the reader's attention will be drawn to the next in order, leading on and out, until finally the child will be unconsciously delving into the mysteries of science; for example, we could first take Butterworth's Indian story, 'The wampum belt': next, Brooks's 'Story of the American Indian'; from this lead to Bancroft's 'Native races,' and finally various United States histories."

Any one who has ever seen the five ponderous volumes of Bancroft's "Native races of the Pacific States" knows that although it has some value as a work of reference, not as a history, for older readers, it is entirely useless as a stepping-stone for children, who can easily go without its aid from Brooks's, or better, Grinnell's "Story of the Indian" to a good one-volume United States history, or even to John Fiske or Parkman. It is no more meant for boys and girls than the other thirty-four volumes on the history of the Pacific coast completed by Bancroft and his corps of assistants.

Some tests of a library or school list are: Are the books in it chosen for their permanent value? Has the maker of the list read them? Will it tell an overworked teacher or librarian what the best modern straightforward stories in simple English are, the best life of Lafayette without any long words like "evacuation," or the best account of a salamander in language that a child of 10 can understand? A list for teachers is not a help in choosing books for children, unless from the point of view of child-study, which has another place than on the shelves of a children's room.

In one list the "Dotty Dimple" and "Flaxie Frizzle" books are recommended for the third-reader grade. Children who are in this grade cannot read the ungrammatical baby-talk easily, and if they could it would demoralize their English.

Another has for the seventh grade a part of the "Library of wonders," translated from the French, and out of date 20 years ago. Teachers should be careful in buying books of popular science that they are modern, and also written in a style that makes them attractive to boys and girls. In a long experience in libraries I have never found that boys and girls liked the "Library of wonders."

A third, for children under 10 years of age, includes Miss Plympton's "Dear daughter Dorothy," and even in one of the best and most recent graded lists it is annotated as a "story of devotion and comradeship between a father and his young daughter." Now "Dear daughter Dorothy" is the best specimen I have ever seen of a kind of book to be kept out of libraries and homes, the story of a little eight-year-old girl, who has the entire control of the $1200 earned yearly by her father, a bookkeeper with literary aspirations. He is arrested on a charge of embezzlement, found guilty in the face of his daughter's testimony, but at last acquitted through the confession of the real criminal, and he and that important little personage, Dorothy, who takes all hearts by storm, sail for England escorted to the ship by a crowd of admiring friends, including the judge who sentenced him.

The next list has Mrs. Burnett's "Little Saint Elizabeth," a morbid tale, and with it a reproduction of "Prince Fairyfoot," a story which the author read when she was a child in a book that she never could find again. In order to understand the pertness and flippancy of her style in this story, one has only to compare it with the original, reprinted within a few months in Frances Browne's "Wonderful chair," or "Granny's wonderful chair," as it is called in one edition. A few lines in the simple, direct English of the old fairy tales, are expanded by Mrs. Burnett into eight or 10 pages, with attempts at wit and allusions to unhappy married life, which should be kept out of books for children.

The same article in the Nation which gives high praise to "Josey and the chipmunk" thinks "The wonderful chair" prosy, but I have tested it on children who do not enjoy stories unless they are simply told, and have found that it holds their attention.

Books on differences of religious belief, books written in a style or on subjects beyond the years of boys and girls, scientific books that are inaccurate or out of date, books that make children despise their elders, or have an overweening sense of their own importance, and books that are cheap, slangy, flippant, or written in bad English, dialect or baby-talk, should have no place in a school list, and books on poor paper and in poor type and binding should also be kept out. There are books that tell stories of wholesome, well-bred children; fairy tales in the simple, old-fashioned style; out-of-door books that are not dull or aggressively instructive; and selections from the best poetry to choose from. There is room yet for the right kind of histories that are interesting without being babyish, and accurate without being dull.

Lists are often made in entire ignorance of the limitations of the children who are to use the books recommended in them. A well-intentioned paper suggests for children of eight or over Ebers' "Uarda" and Thiers' "French Revolution" as attractive historical works. In science it mentions Hooker's books, which are quite out of date, and in biography Lockhart's Scott and Forster's Dickens, which not one boy or girl in a hundred would read through, great as is their charm. Bryce's "American commonwealth" is also named. This list has either been made up from books that the compiler has heard of as classics, or else she is not in the habit of associating on familiar terms with boys and girls, even of high school age. This paper recommends Sophie May for very young children, and also the "Story of liberty," which a mother in the New York Times says is in the library of her daughter of eight. This is a mother who would not allow a child to read Scott's novels till 14 or 15, and thinks Dickens too sad for even that age!

The hundred books recommended in the St. Nicholas for March, 1900, made up from many competing lists, are nearly all good. A few, like Mrs. Richards' "Captain January," Mrs. Wiggin's "The Birds' Christmas Carol," and Munroe's "Through swamp and glade" have no permanent value. If one of Munroe's books is to be included it should be "The flamingo feather," or "Derrick Sterling," both of which are well worth reading many times and are great favorites with children. The defect in the list is the same just spoken of, that too many of the books are for boys and girls from 10 to 14 years old of bookish families, and that little attention is paid to younger or less carefully trained children.

One list puts into the first primary grade, or fourth year of school, for children nine or 10 years old, Abbott's "Cyrus," "Darius," "Xerxes," and other heroes, and Fiske's "War of independence," all of which are entirely beyond the grasp of 499 children out of 500 under 12 or 14. Lists should be shorter, and not too closely divided. A division, "Easy books," should include whatever children need until they can read without difficulty, and should contain books like Longman's adapted stories from the "Blue fairy book" and the earlier volumes of the "Ship" English history, Baldwin's "Fifty famous stories retold" and Eggleston's "Great Americans for little Americans."

In one case where books are not classified by grade, Horace Bushnell's "Woman suffrage," Hinsdale's "President Garfield and education," and Wright's "Industrial evolution of the United States" are in the same class with Emilie Poulsson's "Through the farmyard gate," with no discrimination as to the age for which any one of the four is intended. Three are beyond the understanding of boys and girls below high school age, and if in school libraries should be for teachers only, and the fourth is a book of kindergarten stories.

A book which is often commended by teachers and librarians is Coffin's "Story of liberty," which I said nearly 20 years ago "is so fierce in its Protestantism and so bloody in its details that it causes pain to many a sensitive child." The pictures are too horrible for a child to see, and the book, like any other which wars against any form of religious belief, should not be allowed in a public school.

Some lists admit the "Elsie" books, tearfully sentimental and priggish, where the heroine is held up as a saint and martyr for refusing to obey an entirely reasonable request of her father, and where money, fine clothes, and love-making at an early age hold too prominent a place.

In one list, one of Mayne Reid's books is annotated, "To read carefully any volume of this author is to acquire a considerable knowledge of the trees, the flowers, the animals, the insects, and the human creatures existing in the region where the story takes place." In Mayne Reid's "Desert home" maple sugar trees are tapped in the autumn and yield nearly a hundred pounds of sugar. Emerson's "Trees and shrubs of Massachusetts" states that although sap will flow in summer and early autumn, it has but little saccharine matter. Mayne Reid's stories as stories are delightful for children to read, but should never be used as aids to geography lessons.

One library offers its boy-and-girl readers Bushnell's "Moral uses of dark things," Mrs. Campbell's "Problems of poverty," Ely's "Labor movement in America" and Shinn's "Mining camps."

The lists made by James M. Sawin, of Providence, are good and suggestive, but better for older than younger children, including, however, for beginners in reading some excellent old favorites like Mrs. Follen's "Twilight stories," and for children a little older a book that ought to be in print, Paul de Musset's "Mr. Wind and Madam Rain."

The Milwaukee list for children under 10 is good for the most part, but includes "Dear daughter Dorothy" and "Editha's burglar."

Mrs. Whitney's list of "Books not usually selected by young people" (first published in the Bulletin of Bibliography) is for the most part beyond the grammar-school age, including such books as Sismondi's "Literature of the south of Europe" and Ragozin's "Vedic India." It is unclassified, good and not too American.

The Buffalo Public Library lists are the best that I have found, thoroughly practical, well chosen, and in the pamphlet entitled "Classroom libraries for public schools" well graded as far as one can judge. The grading of schools varies so much in different cities that it is impossible unless one knows exactly what "four" or "eight" or "nine" represents to say whether books are suitable for it. A list of this kind cannot be made without a thorough understanding between librarian and teachers, a thorough knowledge of the condition of the schools and the home-life of the children on the part of the librarian, and a knowledge of books on the part of the teachers.

The graded and annotated list from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is for teachers, not children, and has many suggestive notes, but will bear weeding.

Many lists are almost entirely American, and seem at first sight narrow and one-sided. A little thought and knowledge of the conditions under which they are made shows the cause of this apparent fault. City lists are made for schools which are full of children of newly-arrived emigrants, whose first desire, as soon as they can read English at all, is to know something of the great free country to which they have come. It is to supply this demand that many simple United States histories and historical stories relating to this country have been put upon the market in the last five years, almost to the exclusion of other books of the kind. Teachers and librarians should remember in making lists that there are other countries in the world, and good histories of them, like Longmans' "Ship" series.

The books suggested by public library commissions are usually published in this country, partly for the reasons that it is easier to find them, that they are cheaper than imported books, and that they are in demand in small libraries. The New York State Library lists are of this kind, and the books for children are carefully chosen as far as they can be from this country alone.

With regard to scientific books for children, the Springfield (Mass.) City Library has printed a short list of books on science and useful arts that children really enjoy. This list has been prepared by the children's librarian in connection with the supervisor of science in the Springfield public schools and an out-of-town librarian. The list is the best I have seen, but is open to criticism on account of one or two of the books being out of date. The list for third-grade teachers compiled by Miss May H. Prentice for the Cleveland Library is excellent for supplementary reading and nature-stories and poems.

3. The value of articles on children's reading is variable, but a fair specimen may be found in the Contemporary Review for June, where H. V. Weisse states in his "Reading for the young" that a generation ago the number of published books was small, magazines were high in tone, and in the realm of juvenile literature Ballantyne was "monarch of all he surveyed." On account of the limited supply of children's books, boys and girls were thus driven to standard authors. "Now magazines and so-called 'historical stories' are issued in such quantities that young people read nothing else. They should be trained to better things, and teachers and mothers should read to their children and see that they read good books for themselves, if need be rewarding for a clear reproduction of the sense of any good book, never punishing for a failure to understand, at first hearing or reading, that which involves 'a new form of mental effort.'" We have all heard something like this before! Even Agnes Repplier, with her charm of style and her denunciation of the "little Pharisee in fiction," and the too-important Rose in Bloom in contrast to the well-kept-under Rosamond, makes few suggestions of books which are good for children to read.

The reading lists in the New York Times are based on the experience of the writers, who have often been precocious, over-stimulated children of bookish families without companions of their own age, and have no idea of the needs, wants and limitations of the public library children of to-day, many of whom have few or no books at home. "I have quite a library," wrote one such child. "I have three books, Longfellow's poems, a geography, and a book of fairy tales."

A dreamy boy like "The child in the library" of a recent Atlantic Monthly and the keen little newsboy who snatches a half hour after school is over and he has sold his papers to spell out a simple life of Columbus or the "Story of the chosen people" have little in common, and need different books, but they both need the very best of their kind.

A book reviewer or maker of book lists for children should have an intimate knowledge of the best books which have been written for them, and the unconscious training which this knowledge gives in good taste and a critical sense of style. He (or she) should have also the intimate knowledge of all sorts and conditions of children and their limitations that a teacher or a settlement worker or a wise mother has. More than 20 years ago, in the meeting of the American Library Association in Boston, Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells said: "I would like to have mothers prepare lists, whose headings should vary from any yet given; such as: books that make children cry; books of adventure for unexcitable and unimaginative children; unlovesick novels."

[The best reviews of children's books ever written] in this country were the work of a woman and a mother—Lucy McKim Garrison, who, in the earlier volumes of the Nation, put into her work broad-mindedness, high ideals, and an understanding of children. It is such work as this that should be a model for the reviewers and a guide to the librarians of to-day, and one of the most important duties of the Children's Section is to insist upon higher standards, both in reviewers and through them in the writers of children's books, and upon trained critical knowledge in the makers of children's lists.

[BOOKS FOR CHILDREN:]

I. FICTION, II. FAIRY TALES, III. SCIENCE.

It seems to have been fairly demonstrated that we have as yet no proper standard of values to guide us in the selection of [children's] books. Reviews fail: they either do not evaluate the book at all, or they lack appreciation of it or of the children who are to read it—or both. Book lists fail, as a rule, through eagerness to get something printed before we know what to print. Articles upon children's reading fail because the people who have written them are not always familiar with children's books or are not acquainted with the "public library child." We turn to the books themselves, but, having no standard of values, how shall we judge? How are we to know whether a book is good or poor?

It is not possible to reduce the appreciation of literature—whether books for children or for all time—to an exact science. It is difficult to conceive of any formula for the evaluation of books in general or the books of a particular class which would not fail again and again when applied to the individual book through the medium of a personal judgment. We shall not attempt, therefore, to answer the questions which form the substance of our topic. We have endeavored merely to state a question which to all children's librarians seems to be of paramount importance, trusting that we may eventually reach a partial solution of this problem by bringing the thought of many minds to bear upon it.

This collective paper, or, more properly, this collection of ideas upon different classes of books, requires a word of explanation. The contributors were not asked to prepare papers but to furnish ideas and opinions, which should form the basis for discussion of the general principles of selection and of individual books in the several classes considered. The purpose was to present briefly the principles that should apply in each class, and to emphasize these by citation of specific books.

I. [FICTION.]

We were recently asked to make out a list of a dozen books suitable as prizes for a Sunday-school class of boys and girls from 12 to 16 years of age. We studied a long and carefully prepared list of stories written for girls of this age and supposed to include what was most desirable. Assuming that the girls had read Mrs. Whitney and Miss Alcott, we did not consider them, and we found not one story which we could recommend as possessing permanent interest and literary value. There were many books which girls read and like but they did not reach a fair standard for this purpose. We filled out the desired number for the girls with books written for older readers. Far different was our experience with the books for the boys. It was only a matter of choice between a large number, both suitable and desirable, and yet the lists which we consulted had been compiled by the same hand.

In making selections of books for her readers, the children's librarian encounters at the first step this difference in the quality of the books written for boys and those written for girls. Judged purely by the standard of taste, she must reject the greater proportion of those written for girls. When she finds so few that reach her standard she may blame herself for ignorance of the better books, but she must ultimately reach the conclusion that whatever her own shortcomings there is a lack of desirable books for girls. However, another most important factor comes into the case on the reader's side of the question. If the librarian is going to meet the needs of her readers she must understand what they are instinctively seeking in books, and she must enlist herself on the side of human nature. She will find at once that a distinct division in the reading of boys and girls springs from the fact that, generally speaking, the mental life of the boy is objective, that of the girl subjective. The boy seeks action in fiction, the girl is attracted by that which moves her emotionally or relates itself directly to her own consciousness, and the last thing that either of them cares about is the literary value of the book. Hundreds—no doubt thousands—of our college graduates look back to the period when, according to their sex, the "Oliver Optic" series, or the "Elsie Dinsmore" series, played a very important part in their existence. The love of adventure in the boy gave the charm to the books. Adventure he must have, whether he finds it in the tinsel setting of Oliver Optic or the refined gold of Robert Louis Stevenson. And the magnet in the nature of the girl draws to herself something helpful even from Martha Finley; otherwise, she would not speak of the "Elsie" books as "beautiful": there is something in them which to her represents "beauty." Nevertheless, while justly condemning the Oliver Optic and the Elsie books as cheap, tawdry things, the librarian must seek among better authors the holding quality on the nature of the child which these books possess. She must search for books in which these elements of interest are incarnated in what we call literature—books which, while rivalling these in attraction, will at the same time refine and broaden the taste of the reader.

Now, the lovers of Oliver Optic and Mrs. Finley do not take kindly to the classics and as, in the modern stories for young people, few will pass muster as literature, all that the librarian of to-day can do is to use her judgment and discrimination among those the writers have provided. The boys are readily turned from Oliver Optic to Henty, Tomlinson, Jules Verne, and on to "Ivanhoe," but with the girls the case is hard. The girl tells us that she likes stories about boarding-school. It is a capital subject: in the hands of a writer sympathetic with girls, of fertile imagination and vigorous power of characterization, boarding-school life affords material for most entertaining combinations—but the literature of the boarding-school has yet to be written. The average boarding-school story has three main characters—the attractive, impulsive heroine, always getting into trouble; the cruel, cold-blooded, unscrupulous rival, habitually dealing in falsehood, and the teacher who is singularly devoid of discernment or intuition. The heroine inevitably falls into the snare of the rival, and things are usually set right all around by a death-bed scene—although actual death is sometimes averted. "Louie's last term at St. Mary's" is one of the better stories of this kind, and Mrs. Spofford's "Hester Stanley at St. Mark's" is fairly well written, with a touch of the charm of the author's personality. "Chums," by Maria Louise Pool, is one of the worst of its kind, where envy, hatred, and malice run riot through the pages and the actors in the story are wholly lacking in vitality. The experiences of Miss Phelps's "Gypsy Breynton" and Susan Coolidge's "Katy" are as satisfactory pictures of boarding school life as we have; and Helen Dawes Brown's "Two college girls" is a good story. "Brenda, her school and her club," by Helen L. Reed, is a recent valuable addition to books for girls.

In stories of home life Miss Alcott still easily takes the lead, with Susan Coolidge and Sophie May following in merit and popularity. The boys have an excellent story of home life in Rossiter Johnson's "Phaeton Rogers." The setting is perfectly simple, every day surroundings, but the characters have the abounding vitality that keeps things moving. The entertaining succession of events proceeds directly and naturally from the ingenuity and healthy activity of the young people grouped together. The book is a model in this respect as well as in the use of colloquial English which never loses a certain refinement. Every boy, while reading "Phaeton Rogers," finds himself in touch with good companions—and this is true as well, in Charles Talbot's books for boys and girls.

The most important books for boys are the historical stories, appealing at once to the hero worship and the love of adventure common to boyhood; at the same time they should give a good general idea of history. The story in historical setting is, also, most desirable for girls—in that it balances the too subjective tendency; it carries the mind of the reader beyond the emotional condition of the heroine—indeed the heroine has no time to study her own emotions when brought into vital relation with stirring events. Apart from the value of the historical facts imparted is the indirect but more valuable habit of mind cultivated in the girl reader. Vivid, stirring, absorbing stories for girls can be and should be written in this field, which is practically unlimited. Miss Yonge has done some good service here. "The prince and the pauper" and the "Last days of Pompeii" are also illustrations of the kind of work that should be done—they are both strong in the direct interrelation between the imaginary characters and real history—and both appeal alike to the boy and the girl.

Books written with a direct moral purpose seldom achieve popularity with boys—and yet one of the most popular of all their books is "Captains courageous," which is of the highest moral value though without one line of religious preaching in its pages. Here the boys are in touch with a real, living character, acted upon and developed, through the moulding pressure of life itself—from first to last the aim of the story is the boy; and yet the moral outcome is simple, natural, inevitable and manly; it appeals to the common sense which is strong in boys.

Now when a woman writes for girls on the subject of the transformation of a frivolous butterfly into a girl of sense, instead of giving us character and action with a moral outcome, we have a religious setting with the action of the story and the conduct of the characters bent in every direction to illustrate the motive of the story—the religious idea.

The plastic nature of the young girl wrought upon by life, fresh faculties brought into activity by the hard knocks of fate or the sunbursts of good luck—although these things are happening every day in the real life of young girls, we yet await the writer who will put them into literature without sentimentalizing. What we want is the novel simplified; the story told directly, without byways of description or analysis; where healthy young people, neither saints nor prigs, nor creatures of affectation, jealousy, or malice, are acted upon by life and each other in a natural fashion.

Let boys and girls be brought together as in real life; brothers are a good element in girls' stories, and love affairs need not be excluded, if handled with delicacy, common sense and true feeling. Many books classed as novels are merely stories simply and clearly told, intended for older readers, but far better for young girls than the stories usually written for them. Miss Jeanie Gould Lincoln's stories and Mrs. J. G. Austin's historical novels, some of Mrs. Barr's and Mrs. Oliphant's novels and a wide range of other interesting, well-told stories can be substituted, if care and discrimination are used in the selection. Fortunately, too, many girls of twelve are ready for Dickens and other standard writers.

However it is not only through the emotions that these aspirations and desires are ministered to—when the writer can develop this emotion into spiritual enthusiasm—or when she portrays a character of active spiritual force, she has put something valuable into the life of the reader. Here, as always, it is the personality of the writer—the soul back of the words that most counts, and it is just this quality of true spirituality which gives value to Mrs. Whitney's stories, in spite of their wordiness, lack of proportion and forced symbolism; as it is the genuine goodness and pure idealism of Miss Mulock which forms the very atmosphere in which her characters move.

While it is impossible to offer a practical guide to the selection of books a few suggestions can be made. In the religious stories, for instance, there must be discrimination between those encouraging morbid self-examination or religious sentimentalizing, and those cultivating optimism and the perception of true values and ideals.

In books of adventure the dividing line would fall between, on the one side, those stories where the hero is actuated by pure love of adventure or where the adventure is worth while in itself—as in "Foul play"; and, on the other side, those stories where the hero is merely seeking to exploit himself and in which the tendency might be to incite boys to reckless escapades for the sake of notoriety.

In the purchase of books one must consider the range of the average reader, but in recommending books to the individual boy and girl, appreciation of differences in temperament and culture is indispensable.

Winifred L. Taylor,
Pratt Institute Free Library, Brooklyn, N. Y.

II. [FAIRY TALES.]

Fairy tales must appeal to the love of the marvellous, and must yet be told with a simplicity that precludes all doubt of their reality in the mind of the child, no matter how improbable the circumstances to our prosaic minds. The language must be simple and dignified. To write a fairy tale, one must first of all be a poet, at least must have the poetic instinct. The child very early absorbs the idea of rhyme. He is sung to sleep with cradle songs, and soothed by jingles, and he does not soon outgrow their influence.

These tales from the librarian's standpoint, fall naturally into two classes: the folklore legends adapted for children (in which, regardless of classification, we include mythological tales) and the purely literary, imaginative story.

Fairy tales derived from folk-lore.

Fairy tales derived from folk-lore—stories drifted down from the childhood of the world, were not originally written for children, and perhaps for this very reason, they have claimed them for their own. They are not "the artless appeals to all little masters and misses who are good or intend to be good" of John Newbery's time. They have a naturalness which these first books printed especially for children lack; the moral is not too strongly urged. Different versions of the old, old tales reflect in a measure the manners and customs of the country in which they are collected. Fairies are stolid or clever, mischievous or amiable, according to the characters of the people to whom the stories were told.

To this class belong the Grimm brothers' "Household tales," "Icelandic tales," edited by Mrs. A. W. Hall (tales in which it is the princess or the peasant maiden who rescues the prince, instead of being rescued); the Norwegian tales of Asbjörnsen and Moë, the Grimm brothers of the far North. The collections of Lang, Baring-Gould; and Cruikshank, because of illustrations; Miss Mulock's "Book of fairies" and William Canton's "True annals of fairyland" should be in all libraries.

Collections of tales derived from Greek and Roman mythology, such as Kingsley's "Heroes," Hawthorne's "Wonder book" and "Tanglewood tales," may also be considered as fairy tales derived from folk-lore.

One of the most exquisitely told of the old Greek fairy tales is that of "Eros and Psyche," adapted by Paul Carus from Apuleius. The story appeals to children, regardless of the religious significance indicated in the preface of the book.

"Fairy tales from far Japan," translated by Susan Ballard, is excellent, particularly the story of the "Magic mirror," which is also found in a charming set of booklets published in Tokio, in English. This set is called the "Japanese fairy tale series," the type, paper and colored illustrations being all of Japanese manufacture.

"Fairy stories from the little mountain," by John Finnemore, is a good collection of Welsh stories as is Frere's "Old Deccan days" of Indian folk-lore.

"Wigwam stories," edited by Mary Catherine Judd, are told by Indians, or adapted from ethnological reports and original sources.

Mabie's "Norse stories retold from the Eddas," Keary's "Heroes of Asgard," "The wonder-world stories" of Marie Pabke and Margery Deane, Scudder's "Book of folk tales" and Wiltse's "Folk-lore and proverb stories," both of the latter for the youngest readers, the Countess d'Aulnoy's fairy tales, the collections of Laboulaye and the immortal tales of Perrault, we cannot afford to be without, as well as Howard Pyle's "Wonder clock" and "Pepper and salt," which retain the old-time flavor and are much enhanced by the author's illustrations.

Literary fairy tales.

Hans Christian Andersen's stories, while based often upon tradition, are excluded by Hartland from the list of pure fairy tales and classed as literary. Yet even the old, old fairy tales cannot, with justice, rival his in the hearts of the children. Their feeling for him has been expressed by John White Chadwick, in writing of another:

"But as I muse, I seem at heaven's door
To hear a sound which there I heard before.
When Danish Hans that way did softly wend—
A sound of children making merriest din
Of welcome, as the old man entered in."

Mary S. Claude, in "Twilight thoughts," has shown herself a graceful follower in the footsteps of Andersen. Such stories create a tenderness for plants and animals not easily effaced.

It detracts nothing from the interest of the story that what a child calls a fairy tale we call literature. Even Dr. Johnson recognized that "babies do not want to hear about babies." It is a great pity that a child should never meet the knights of the Round Table, or the Charlemagne legends—half history, half romance—or the Homeric tales, outside the dissecting room of a literature class. Small wonder that a child who heard them there for the first time should exclaim with considerable animus, "I like to read, but I hate literature."

Here is a good field for the "story hour" so successfully introduced in the Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh. That edition which follows most closely the original, or is told in graphic clear-cut English, such as Morris uses in the "Earthly paradise" or the "Life and death of Jason," or Butcher and Lang's translation of the Odyssey, is the best. Such a version read aloud is infinitely better than the best dilution by any well-meaning attendant. Skip judiciously, but do not weaken the story. It is not only the plot but the charm of style which we wish to introduce. The argument may of course first be given, that the child be put in sympathy with the situation.

Modern fairy tales.

A good modern fairy tale is a rare article. One may search far and long before finding it. If it is not worth reading twice, it is not worth reading once. In many of these modern tales there is an atmosphere of haste wholly lacking in the good old tales. Fairyland has a government of its own, where neither time nor space has value. It lies "east of the sun and west of the moon."

One of the best collections is "Granny's wonderful chair," by Frances Browne—in the American edition "The wonderful chair." It is well written, the interest is well kept up, and the language is befitting the subject. The surest way to test a poor fairy tale is to first read one of [unquestionable] merit, and to get thoroughly into its atmosphere.

Good modern fairy tales.

"Princess Ilse," by Marie Petersen; a gracefully told story of a discontented mountain brook.

"Mopsa the fairy," by Jean Ingelow, and "The little lame prince," by Dinah Maria Craik.

"Lob-lie-by-the-fire," by Mrs. Ewing, and "At the back of the North wind" and "The Princess and Curdie," by George Macdonald.

The average modern fairy tale is a jumble of impossibilities, with no continuity of incident, well enough or poorly written, according to the ability of the writer.

"The magic fruit garden," by Marion Wallace Dunlop, is an illustration of this kind. Two very small children, in abbreviated pinafores, are studying their Monday lessons; one is writing an essay on Perseverance, the other is copying geographical names. By the illustrations, one may judge the children to be of kindergarten age. It is not surprising that they fall asleep, and, to dreamland sent, meet with adventures enough to make the strongest head whirl—a case of literary delirium tremens.

"Snow garden," by Elizabeth Wordsworth, is on the whole a good collection; the stories, however, are of unequal merit.

"The other side of the sun," by Evelyn Sharp, is of negative goodness. The witches and wizards are mild and amiable, especial care evidently being taken that no child should be kept awake at night. It does no harm for children occasionally to shiver and shake as poor Hans in the Grimm collection longed to do. The author's satisfaction at the expression the "wymps wimpled" is insisted upon a little too frequently.

"Fairy folk of Blue Hill," by Lily F. Wesselhoeft, is of especial interest to children about Boston, since it accounts for the granite quarries and pudding stone of the region. It is smoothly written and is not spoiled by slang or pertness.

"Summer legends," by Rudolph Baumbach. The stories are not altogether fairy tales nor are they written for the youngest readers. They are gracefully written although they lose somewhat by translation. The book is in some parts amusing and all the stories are peopled with the wonderful creatures of fairyland.

Other tales seem invented only for the purpose of forcing religious sentiment, or pointing a moral in inverse proportion to the size of the reader. Their authors seem sometimes to have reached Mark Twain's conclusion that "every one being born with an equal amount of original sin, the pressure on the square inch must needs be greater in a baby."

"Pixie and Elaine stories," by Carrie E. Morrison, is a mixture of fairy tale and religious story. The author speaks in her preface of the stories having been carefully pruned. One shudders at thinking what they must have been before, with such chapters as "The Elaines' picture of heaven," and "The pixie transforms an Elaine" left in.

"New book of the fairies," by Beatrice Harraden, is marred by the suggestion of cruelty to animals. In one story, in place of rubbing the Aladdin lamp, that what one wishes may happen, one must pull the black cat's tail. It is gratifying to reflect that black cats have their own peculiar method of retaliation for such experiments.

Burlesque fairy tales.

Burlesque fairy tales are the most atrocious of all. They are apt to be broad in their humor, full of fin de siècle jokes or puns, and modern allusions which mar the poetry of the tale if there is any in it, and create an appetite for facetiousness in books. "Lips wagging, and never a wise word," one is tempted to say with Ben Jonson.... Copyright fees should be trebled on this class of books.

Under this head come:

"The book of dragons," by E. Nesbit.

"Here they are!" by James F. Sullivan; full of modern allusions and puns.

["The pink hen,"] by Cuthbert Sterling; a sort of "continuous performance." The pink hen is hatched from a forgotten Easter egg, is driven from the barnyard by her associates and forced to seek her fortune. She links her fate with that of a little girl who has escaped from an ogre, and together they redeem a prince from the curses of bad fairies. The pink hen is continually punning, and the prince while still in the cradle is addicted to smoking.

It is hard to tell how the author of Jewett's "More bunny stories" would classify them. We hope not as fairy tales. They are poor from any point of view. The bunnies might as well be ordinary children as anything. They go to lawn parties, play golf, dance the Virginia reel, go to West Point, tell folk-lore stories, repeat Bible verses and say their prayers. We are sometimes asked for a Sunday book. For one who must have a special book for that day, this might possibly answer; it is certainly full of moral reflections and pious sentiment; but there is no reason at all for reading it on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. The story closes with a wedding where the happy bunnies are united under a bridal bell, while the strains of the march from "Lohengrin" float in the air.

Humor is not early developed in all children, which is perhaps why a great many do not care for "Alice in Wonderland," and for Stockton's fairy tales—"The bee man of Orn," "The griffin and the minor canon," etc.

Laura E. Richards' "Chop-chin and the golden dragon" must also be classed as humorous. It is not as good as the Toto stories.

Animal folk-lore.

Animal folk tales as exemplified in Joel Chandler Harris's stories, "Little Mr. Thimble-finger," "Mr. Rabbit at home," "Daddy Jake," "Uncle Remus," "Story of Aaron," etc., are excellent. Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit, the black stallion and all the animal characters are quite as much realities to the children as Buster John, Sweetest Susan and the Little Master.

Ortoli's "Evening tales," follows the same general line.

Kipling, too, in the "Jungle books" has won the hearts of the children, and here there is no hint of the "garlic flavor," mentioned by Higginson.

Fraser's "Mooswa" also belongs to this class.

A common practice in modern fairy stories is for the author to open the tale in this way: A child falls asleep and enters fairyland via the dream country. Often the child has been sent to bed for some misdemeanor, as in the "Dream fox story book," by Mabel Osgood Wright, or has fallen asleep over his tasks, as in the case of the "One-eyed griffin," by Herbert E. Inman, the fairy tales being offered by way of consolation; a reprehensible practice in itself, besides putting one out of touch with the real fairyland. It is too conspicuously "make believe" and leads one to suspect that the author has little confidence in his own production. As "good wine needs no bush," so a good fairy tale needs no introduction or apology. In the real fairyland one cannot easily be ungraceful.

Nature fairy tales.

Nature fairy tales are more than apt to be failures, and often include a great deal of pertness and cheap talk, in their effort to teach by stealth. (Charles Lamb writes to Coleridge in regard to Goody Two Shoes in this way: "Think what you would have been now, if, instead of being fed with tales and old wives' fables, you had been crammed with geography and natural history.")

A conspicuous example of the faults of this class of story is found in "Sylvia in flowerland," by Linda Gardner. The heroine is introduced as a high-school girl, well-advanced in Latin and mathematics, and amply able to supplement very largely the information which the flowers give her about themselves. Linda strolls into the fields and is told all sorts of facts about the habits of plants by the flowers. The story where the author forgets to interject puns is interestingly told, certainly enough so to attract a girl of fourteen, who has any fondness for flowers. Besides the numerous puns, such glaring sentences as the following, condemn it. "I don't know who you mean." "Why it is a nasty nettle"! said Sylvia. "Nasty, yourself," ejaculated the nettle sharply, "why do you come shoving against me?"

McCook's "Old farm fairies," gives what Mrs. Malaprop calls "a supercilious knowledge" in its attempt to interest children in insect life, by introducing different insects in the form of pixies, brownies and fairies. While it has not the faults of "Sylvia in flowerland," the information is mainly crowded into footnotes and appendices, which as a rule are carefully avoided by children.

Mabel Osgood Wright's "Tommy Anne" and "Wabeno" are more successful; but the same amount of energy spent in making the facts of nature interesting in themselves would be preferable.

While not assuming an absolute censorship in this department, the principle of natural selection may be applied in discarding such books as are characterized by the faults here cited, that we may do our share towards discouraging a taste for facetiousness, flippancy and poor style in literature. For while these modern, sham, soulless fairy tales soon lose themselves in the overwhelming mass of printed matter, in their brief existence they have time to accomplish considerable harm. Far better to encourage re-reading the imperishable tales, than to gratify an insatiable desire for more. Did not we ourselves again and again shed fresh tears over Cinderella's hard fate, or gasp with bated breath while watching with Sister Ann for that distant speck on the horizon? If children are different to-day, it is partly because we are helping to make them so.

Abby L. Sargent,
Medford (Mass.) Public Library.

III. [SCIENCE FOR CHILDREN.]

In the selection of books for children's libraries it is necessary to understand the difference between the aims and methods of the old education and the new.

Until recently the schools have centered their work about man, studying his language, literature, methods of reasoning, and the manner in which he has partitioned off the earth into countries. No importance whatever was attached to his physical surroundings, which form so great a factor in his life and by which he is so profoundly affected. In history, the study of dates, battles and leaders was all that was required. In geography, the work was almost exclusively confined to a description of the earth, the location of mountains, rivers, cities, and political divisions. Before the establishment of the national Weather Bureau there was scarcely any public interest manifested in the phenomena of the atmosphere and its relation to various weather elements. Many of us can recall from our own experience the picture of the earth divided into zones, but why such a division was made did not come up for consideration.

What are we now aiming to do for the child? We are looking beyond the mere cultivation of memory; and we desire to increase the child's point of contact with the world, to bring him into closer relationship with the life about him, to broaden his sympathies and to develop the powers of observation and reason. In so far as we are able to accomplish these results, we shall make him happier by enabling him to understand the great laws that govern the universe. The child is learning that the facts of history are the results of causes, that they are the working out of great principles and that by the comparison of the past with the present he may be able to judge of the future. From a study of the physical features of the earth he learns that slopes determine the course of rivers and that cities are dependent for their growth upon physical environment. The consideration of the weather enables him to understand the state of the atmosphere about him, its effect on climate, the cause of storms, and the different action of solar energy on air, land, and water, which renders possible life upon the earth. Science demands an investigation of the growth and habits of plants and animals, the relationship of one form to another, the function and adaptation of parts, the effect of surroundings, while form and structure are results, not ends.

We want to lead the child from results back to causes. The possession of a vast number of facts, unrelated among themselves, is valueless and even harmful, for the child does not look upon nature as a whole. Nature-study, perhaps more than any other subject, leads the child into sympathy with his environment. He observes carefully and thoughtfully and thus the individual is developed. From personal contact with nature he gains the power of accurate observation, correct thinking and judgment; thus strengthening his moral character. If this is the effect of nature-study upon the development of the child, the question comes to the librarian—What principles shall guide me in the selection of books that the library with which I am connected may be of assistance in accomplishing these results, and meet the demand of modern education?

A book for children should be attractive. The exterior should present a harmony of color and tasteful decoration. The text should be printed with clear type upon good paper and should be well illustrated. Colored plates are preferable, provided the coloring is good, otherwise uncolored illustrations are far more desirable. The text should be clear, simple, and scientifically correct.

The new scientific book differs from the old. The old style book gave dead results, no sympathy in or interest for life was aroused, no suggestions were given for first-hand observations of nature, consequently the book failed to stimulate a desire for personal investigation that could be verified by the recorded work of others. The new scientific book not only gives results but a detailed account of the methods employed in obtaining those results. The reader is interested in trying the same experiments, gains a sympathy and interest in the wonderful life history of a plant, bird, or insect, develops a tenderness for life and feels that all nature is a sympathetic unit.

Within the last few years the interest that has been aroused throughout the country in "nature-study," has caused a great demand for this class of books. Writers and publishers have hastened to meet the demand and as a result the market has been flooded with books that were made to sell. Too often the writers have not been scientific persons, and as a result the books have been mere compilations, or were not true to facts. They lacked the true spirit of science. Other authors have not separated the element of fiction from that of science, thinking that the child could only be interested in nature by means of a story. The writer of this paper does not believe that science books should be made story books. "Tenants of an old farm," by McCook, is a good illustration of the combination of the science and story element. The author is a naturalist and whatever facts are presented may be accepted as being as nearly correct as it is possible to make them since they represent the results of careful personal observation. The author himself did not believe that the truths of nature were so unattractive that they needed to be woven into a story in order that the book might find its way to the general reader. Then why did he employ this method? He was persuaded by his friends to change the original plan of the book and presented it, after much hesitation, in its present form. The book has thereby lost much of its usefulness.

Another element that many authors have employed to a greater or less extent is personification. That the value of a book is lessened thereby and its power over the reader greatly decreased, is beyond question. There may be some excuse for a limited amount of personification in the treatment of bees, wasps, or ants, but the majority of forms of plant and animal life does not need the human factor in order to make clear life-relationships. Grant Allen, in his "Story of the plants," has described the use of the stamens and pistils as "how plants marry" and the modes of fertilization as "various marriage customs." Allen Gould, in "Mother Nature's children," speaks of the "snakehead" fish and its young as "Mr. and Mrs. Snakehead and their babies" and of the seed-vessels of plants as "ways the mother plants have of cradling their babies." This method of treating nature's truths does not make the facts any clearer to the child; it only tends to diminish the grandeur of that truth. Some writers have considered it desirable to embody the thought in terms that are already, or are supposed to be, familiar to the child, that he may be able to grasp the truth. The author forces upon the child a double task, since he must first get the thought as it appears and then search for the concealed fact. This process is not liable to be successful. Mrs. Dana, in "Plants and her children," uses the term "sweet stuff" for nectar, "watery-broth" for the cell-sap of plants. The food of plants is spoken of as the "plant's bill of fare," and in [expressing] the fact that the crude sap which is taken up by the roots needs to be converted into elaborated sap before it may be used as food, she says "When the watery broth is cooked in the sun, the heat of the sun's rays causes the water to pass off through the little leaf mouths. Thus the broth is made fit for plant food." Must not the child possess some scientific knowledge before he will be able to understand the author's meaning? "Plants and her children" is a valuable book, but would not its merits be greatly enhanced if the scientific facts were told in simple language? They certainly have interest enough in themselves to be attractive to the child. Books like Hooker's "Child's book of nature" should be discarded. They represent the old scientific thought. No sympathy or interest in life is aroused, no relationships are suggested, no adaptation to environment is shown, no incentive is given for personal observation. Why should we cling to the old when a book can be obtained that will more nearly satisfy our needs?

There is often a great difference in the individual merits of books by the same author. Mabel Osgood Wright's "Birdcraft" is valuable, while "Tommy Anne and the three hearts" and "Wabeno" are the reverse. The last two represent a type of book that should not be included in a science library. The fairy and story element so greatly exceeds the scientific as to render the books absolutely valueless, nor are they a success from a literary standpoint. No book in which the author wanders from one subject to another, in such rapid succession that the reader has difficulty in following the thought, or is so vague that an effort must be made to understand the topic treated, can be of much practical value. The greater number of the Appleton's "Home reading books" possess little merit. The selections were not written for children; they lack simplicity, are not attractive and are too technical. The article "The life of plants" in "Plant world" would require two or three readings by an adult in order to understand what the author was discussing. The best books in this series are Weed's "Insect world" and Holden's "Family of the sun" and "Stories of great astronomers." Such books as Fanny Bergen's "Glimpses at the plant world," Carpenter's "Geographies," Kearton's "Our bird friends," and Weed's "Stories of Insect life" represent the style of book that the elementary science of to-day demands. We do not wish to make scientists of the children, but by means of the best books on nature-study we would prepare the way for elementary science. Nature-study is not science, for science is classified knowledge. So far as possible let the elements of personification and fiction be omitted, do not select books that are too technical or vague, that are not well illustrated, and that are not true to science.

Then our libraries will contain books that will incite the self-activity of the child and arouse the spirit of investigation; books that will stimulate observation and inculcate a spirit of tenderness and love for all life.

Ella A. Holmes, Assistant curator,

Children's Museum of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences.

[BULLETIN WORK FOR CHILDREN.]

By Charlotte Elizabeth Wallace, Hazelwood Branch, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.

The primary object of bulletin work is to direct the attention of the children to the books. The bulletin, like a poster, attracts the eye, arouses interest in a subject, and advertises the books treating of it. By means of picture bulletins interest may be awakened in topics before unnoticed; the children are curious to learn more about the pictures displayed, their curiosity is further excited by the short descriptive text, and as a result books relating to the subject are read. Thus, without rousing the children's suspicions, we are able to guide their reading.

The second object is the cultivation of the children's appreciation for pictures. If we can catch the eye by attractive pictures, we may add to the children's store of ideas, and aside from broadening their knowledge, bring them under the beneficent influence of beauty. Pictures of æsthetic value placed in a children's room in which harmony of decoration, furniture, and arrangement have been considered, exert a vitally refining influence. When we realize how painfully lacking in refinement are many of the homes of the children who visit the library, how blinded are their eyes to beauty because of their sordid surroundings, we shall then see how essential it is to enrich their lives by every means of cultivation appropriate to our field of work.

Whatever we may do in bulletin work must accord with the high standard of taste evidenced in all of the fittings of a dignified library. While we are to aim to attract the children by bulletins which are simple and childlike in spirit, we must keep a sharp lookout that in our effort to please them our bulletins do not become tawdry and fussy in style. We are to meet the children on their level and yet educate their taste to a higher standard.

The first practical consideration of bulletin-making is the collection of material. Pictures may be obtained from a variety of sources. Old magazines, book announcements, publishers' catalogues, book covers, book plates, railroad guides, advertising sheets, posters, special prints, etc., form the main sources of supply. In addition to a stock of good-toned gray mounting-board for regular use, colored mounting-board may be employed as a suitable background for colored prints, or to express the main idea of the bulletin—a delicate shade of green making an effective mount for certain pictures for bulletins on "Spring."

The choice of subject is of supreme importance. We should study the children whom we are trying to benefit, that we may discover their tastes and learn their interests. We may select a subject in line with the course of school study. This serves not only to illustrate a subject in which the children are already interested, but is an incidental means of making known to the teacher and pupils the usefulness of the library in furnishing reading supplementary to the school studies. We may bulletin a subject of transient interest, thus informing the children along this particular line; or, we may choose a topic which by the novelty of its presentation, may arouse interest in an unfamiliar subject, providing we make sure in choosing that we relate the unknown to the known. We always have a chance of illustrating some one of the universal interests of childhood. Spring and autumn exhibits, bulletins on birds, flowers, and animals, certain anniversaries, etc., invariably prove attractive to children. The bulletins should be such as to satisfy a catholicity of taste and cover a wide range in age and understanding. But whatever be one's choice of subject, let it be carefully thought and wrought out, definite in plan and purpose, and worthy the necessary expenditure of time, material, and effort.

It is well to read thoroughly on a subject before attempting to plan a bulletin. The reading of sketchy accounts in children's books is not a sufficient preparation for this work. It is better to turn to more substantial sources that we may penetrate the meaning of the subject for the children, and reflect this in the selection and arrangement of the pictures in the text, and in the talks with the children about the bulletin. We may thus reinforce the message of the bulletin and lead the children to the best book where the information they are seeking may be found.

The explanatory text of the bulletin should be direct and simple. Accuracy of statement is essential; this is especially important in scientific subjects. Experiment has proved that a concise and simple account will be read, when a longer statement is passed unnoticed.

Poetry may be appropriately introduced to illustrate the thought of the bulletin. We should select the very best poems which will serve the purpose, making sure they are simple and clear enough in meaning to be readily understood by the children. In bulletin work we have an opportunity to acquaint the children with the choicest poetry. In addition to displaying pictures which please the eye, we may also present word-pictures, thus making a double appeal to the mind.

An annotated book list is of great service in connection with the bulletin. This enables the children to gain an idea of the subject matter of the various books, and, if the notes are attractive, induces them to read a book which otherwise might be ignored. In teaching the children the use of lists we are also preparing them for independent work later. The books, it possible, should be placed on a shelf near the bulletin, that they may be conspicuous and easily accessible.

No matter how beautiful the collection of pictures, nor how happy the choice of subject, a bulletin will not be successful unless it is well executed. Technical skill is also necessary in carrying out the idea. Not only should the bulletin direct attention to books but it should nourish æsthetic taste as well. Form is as important as subject. Slipshod mounting, unequal margins, untidy work in general, detract from the appearance of the bulletin, and are most disastrous object lessons to children.

We must collect only material which is worth while and even from this select with the greatest care. Sometimes it may be necessary to make use of weak or faulty prints in reference work, if a subject is sparingly illustrated, but such material should be reserved for this purpose rather than posted on bulletins.

There is danger in exhibiting more than one bulletin at a time—exception being made, of course, for such bulletins as illustrate allied subjects, thus forming an exhibition. The display of too many pictures on any one bulletin is equally inadvisable. Have we not all of us at times felt oppressed and confused by the seemingly endless array of pictures at a large art exhibit? The mind is overtaxed in the effort to grasp it all. Knowing the patience with which little children study a picture, even dwelling on the smallest detail with delight, it would be better to choose with discrimination, and avoid bewildering the minds of the children, and fatiguing their attention by a large collection of pictures. A miscellany of pictures or bulletins defeats its one purpose—that of making a definite impression which should lead to further investigation of a subject.

The arrangement of the bulletin should make its central thought and object apparent. A bulletin on Lincoln's life if properly arranged could easily tell the story of the experiences between the log-cabin and White House. The pictures should have some logical grouping, whether by succession of events, or according to some natural relationship, as bringing a collection of wild flowers together in the order of their appearance, birds and animals by families, etc.

Concerning the composition of the bulletin, we may borrow the rules of pictorial composition and adapt them to bulletin purposes. According to John C. Van Dyke, "Pictorial composition may be defined as the proportionate arranging and unifying of the different features and objects of a picture.... There must be an exercise of judgment on the part of the artist as to fitness and position, as to harmony of relation, proportion, color, light; and there must be a skilful uniting of all the parts into one perfect whole." In a bulletin as in a picture there must be a center of interest. We should strive to effect this by selecting for this purpose a picture which has earned its place, because it best suggests the subject, or because pictorially, either through tone or color, it best adapts itself to the principles of composition. The other pictures should be grouped accordingly, always taking account of the subject and artistic value of each in placing them. The bulletin should be built up architecturally as well, letting the heavy pieces support the light. Such a picture as Rosa Bonheur's "Ploughing" should not surmount Breton's "Song of the lark."

Color has its legitimate place in bulletin work as children are keenly alive to its attractiveness. It is because they are so sensitive and impressionable in this regard that our responsibility is proportionately greater; this alone should make us most discreet and careful in its use. Van Dyke cautions us in the following terms: "Beware of your natural taste, beware of bright pictures for they are generally bad." He tells us "That 'color' does not mean brightness alone; and that a 'colorist' is not one who deals in flaming colors with the recklessness of a crazy-quilt maker, but one who justly regards the relationship, the qualities, and the suitableness of his colors one to another...." Harmony strives to associate colors which are congenial to each other; however, it cannot be comprehended in the abstract. We bring to our bulletin work the results of our previous standards of taste, be these high or low. But we may raise our standards by holding ourselves receptive to the influence of art, whether it be decorative, ceramic, textile, or pictorial, and appropriate the lessons which it teaches in blending color into harmony. The love of prime colors is characteristic of primitive man, while the appreciation of the neutral tones is the acquirement of civilization. Intellectual development conforms to the epochs of racial progress. Children love crude and elementary colors. But while we make concession to their taste we should also educate it to an appreciation of the refined in color.

The question of economy often arises in connection with bulletin work. Are bulletins sufficiently useful and effective to pay for the outlay of time and money? In a system of central and branch libraries this is not so serious a problem as the same bulletin may be of service in the various libraries. The tendency toward extravagance would appear in the excessive quantity of bulletins exhibited, rather than in the expensive quality of any one of them. Certainly we should strive to be economical in the sense of planning the material without loss or waste, but "whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well," and the main question is, are bulletins worth doing at all? The bulletin justifies itself by the results it accomplishes in calling attention to subjects, guiding the reading, circulating books, and increasing the children's observation and enjoyment of pictures.

[REFERENCE WORK WITH CHILDREN.]

By Harriet H. Stanley, Brookline (Mass.) Public Library.

Preliminary to preparing this report, a list of 15 questions was sent to a number of libraries in different parts of the United States, from 24 of which replies were received. So far as space would permit, the facts and opinions obtained have been embodied in this paper.

Reference work with grown people consists in supplying material on various topics; we consider it sufficiently well done when the best available matter is furnished with as little cost of time and trouble to the inquirer as is consistent with the service we owe to other patrons of the library. To a certain extent this statement is true also of reference work with children, but I think we are agreed that for them our aim reaches further—reaches to a familiarity with reference tools, to knowing how to hunt down a subject, to being able to use to best advantage the material found. In a word, we are concerned not so much to supply information as to educate in the use of the library. Seventeen of the 24 libraries reporting judge children to be sent to them primarily, if not wholly, for information. One of the first steps towards improving and developing reference work with children will have been taken when the teacher appreciates the larger purpose, since the point of view must materially affect the character and scope of the work. Another forward step is for the library to have definitely in mind some plan for accomplishing these ends. Whatever the plan, it will in likelihood have to be modified to accord with the teacher's judgment and needs, but a definite proposal ought at least to give impetus to the undertaking.

Six libraries state that a considerable part of the inquiries they receive from children are apparently prompted by their individual interests, and not suggested by the teacher. These inquiries relate chiefly to sports, mechanical occupations and pets. This paper is confined to the discussion of reference work connected with the schools.

Library facilities.

In selecting reference books for the purpose, certain familiar ones come at once to our minds. Beyond those there have been suggested: Chase and Clow's "Stories of industry," "Information readers," Brown's "Manual of commerce," Boyd's "Triumphs and wonders of the 19th century," Patton's "Resources of the United States," Geographical readers, Youth's Companion geographical series, Spofford's "Library of historic characters," Larned's "History for ready reference," Ellis's "Youth's dictionary of mythology," Macomber's "Our authors and great inventors," Baldwin's "Fifty famous stories," "Riverside natural history," Wright's "Seaside and wayside," bound volumes of the Great Round World, and text-books on various subjects.

A dictionary catalog will be useful in teaching the child to look up subjects for himself. If a separate catalog is provided for children, the question arises whether it is wiser to follow closely the A. L. A. headings or to modify them where they differ from topics commonly asked for by children or used as headings in text-books. This question suggests also the advisability of a modified classification for a children's library.

Last and not least, children should have room and service adapted to their needs, so that they may not constantly have to be put aside in deference to the rightful demands of adult readers.

So far as the writer knows, the Public Library of Boston was the first library to open a reference room expressly for children, well equipped and separate from the children's reading room or circulating department, and from the general reference department for adults.

Choice of topics.

Many libraries report that they find the topics habitually well chosen. The gist of the criticisms is as follows:

(a) The teacher should make clear to the child just what he is to look up and how to ask for it. An eastern library furnishes this incident:

"I want a book about flowers."

"Do you want a special flower?"

"Yes, I want the rose."

A book on the cultivation of roses is handed her. Her companion, looking over, exclaims, "Why, she wants the Wars of the roses!" The same librarian was invited to provide something on American privileges; whether social, religious, political, or otherwise, the child did not know.

(b) The teacher should be reasonably sure that there is on the topic something in print, in usable shape, that can be gotten at with a reasonable amount of labor.

(c) The subject when found should be within the child's comprehension. The topic Grasses is manifestly unfit for children, since grasses are difficult to study, and the description of them in encyclopedias and botanies is too technical. An eight-year-old had to investigate the Abyssinian war. Pupils under 16 were assigned the topic Syncretism in the later pagan movement. A western librarian was asked by some girls for Kipling's "Many inventions" and "Day's work." Both were out. "Well, what other books of Kipling's on agriculture have you?" "Why, Kipling hasn't written any books on agriculture; he writes stories and poems." "But we have to debate on whether agriculture or manufacturing has done more for the welfare of the country, and we want a book on both sides."

(d) The topic should be definite and not too broad, and should be subdivided when necessary. The briefest comprehensive description of Rome is probably that in Champlin's "Persons and places," where the six columns, already much condensed, would take more than an hour to copy. A young girl came to find out about Italian painters. None of the several encyclopedias treated them collectively under either Italy or Art. Mrs. Bolton's book of 10 artists includes four Italians, but it takes some time and skill to discover them, as the fact of their nationality does not introduce the narrative. How should a sixth grade pupil make a selection from the 60 painters in Mrs. Jameson's book? Three names were furnished by the librarian, and the child made notes from their biographies. The next day she returned and said she hadn't enough artists.

(e) The question should preferably be of such nature that the child can be helped to find it rather than be obliged to wait while the librarian does the work. One inquiry was, "What eastern plant is sometimes sold for its weight in gold?" This is not in the book of "Curious questions."

(f) The topic should be worth spending time upon. The genealogy of Ellen Douglas will hardly linger long in the average memory.

Use made of the material by the child.

Suppose the topic to be good and suitable material to have been found; for older children there are two good ways of using it—one to read through and make notes on the substance, the other to copy in selection. Children need practice in doing both. The first method suits broad description and narration, the second detailed description. There seems to be a prevailing tendency to copy simply, without sufficient neglect of minor points, a process which should be left to the youngest children, since it furnishes little mental training, uses a great deal of time, keeps the writer needlessly indoors, and fosters habits of inattention, because it is easy to copy with one's mind elsewhere. The necessity for using judgment after the article has been found is illustrated by the case of some children who came for the life of Homer. Champlin, in about a column, mentions the limits within which the conjectures as to the time of Homer's birth lie, the places which claim to be his birthplace, and tells of the tradition of the blind harper. The children, provided with the book, plunged at once into copying until persuaded just to read the column through. "When you finish reading," I said, "come to me and tell me what it says." They came and recounted the items, and only after questioning did they at all grasp the gist of the matter, that nothing is known about Homer. Even then their sense of responsibility to produce something tangible was so great that they would copy the details, and from the children who came next day I judged that the teacher had required some facts as to time and place and tradition. While it is true that we learn by doing and it is well that children should rely upon themselves, it is evident that young pupils need some direction. Even when provided with sub-topics, they often need help in selecting and fitting together the appropriate facts, since no article exactly suits their needs. About half of the reporting librarians are of the opinion that it is the teacher's business to instruct pupils in the use of books; they consider the library to have done its share when the child has been helped to find the material. The other half believe such direction as is suggested above to be rightly within the librarian's province; several, however, who express a willingness to give such help, add that under their present library conditions it is impracticable. We can easily see that time would not permit nor would it be otherwise feasible for the teacher to examine every collection of notes made at the library, but there ought to be some systematic work where the topics are thoughtfully chosen, the librarian informed of them in advance, and the notes criticised. A moderate amount of reference work so conducted would be of greater benefit than a large quantity of the random sort which we now commonly have. Five librarians state that they are usually given the topics beforehand. Several others are provided with courses of study or attend grade meetings in which the course is discussed.

Systematic instruction in the use of the library.

While a general effort is being made to instruct children individually, only a few libraries report any systematic lessons. In Providence each visiting class is given a short description of books of reference. In Hartford an attempt at instruction was made following the vacation book talks. In Springfield, Mass., last year the senior class of the literature department was given a lesson on the use of the library, followed by two practice questions on the card catalog. In one of the Cleveland branches talks are given to both teachers and pupils. At the Central High School of Detroit the school librarian has for the past three years met the new pupils for 40 minutes' instruction, and test questions are given. A detailed account of similar work done in other high school libraries is to be found in the proceedings of the Chautauqua conference. Cambridge has given a lecture to a class or classes of the Latin school. In the current library report of Cedar Rapids, Ia., is outlined in detail a course of 12 lessons on bookmaking, the card catalog, and reference books. The librarian of Michigan City, Ind., writes: "Each grade of the schools, from the fifth to the eighth, has the use of our class room for an afternoon session each month. Each child is assigned a topic on which to write a short composition or give a brief oral report. When a pupil has found all he can from one source, books are exchanged, and thus each child comes into contact with several books. At these monthly library afternoons I give short talks to the pupils on the use of the library, the reference books, and the card catalog, accompanied by practical object lessons and tests." At Brookline our plan is to have each class of the eighth and ninth grades come once a year to our school reference room at the library. The teacher accompanies them, and they come in school hours. The school reference librarian gives the lesson. For the eighth grade we consider the make-up of the book—the title-page in detail, the importance of noting the author, the significance of place and date and copyright, the origin of the dedication, the use of contents and index. This is followed by a description of bookmaking, folding, sewing and binding, illustrated by books pulled to pieces for the purpose. The lesson closes with remarks on the care of books. The ninth grade lesson is on reference books, and is conducted largely by means of questioning. A set of test questions at the end emphasizes the description of the books. In these lessons the pupils have shown an unexpected degree of interest and responsiveness. The course brought about 400 children to the library, a few of whom had never been there before. These were escorted about a little, and shown the catalog, charging desk, bulletins, new book shelves, etc. Every one not already holding a card was given an opportunity to sign a registration slip. The following year the eighth grade, having become the ninth, has the second lesson. With these lessons the attitude of the children towards the library has visibly improved, and we are confident that their idea of its use has been enlarged.

Bibliographical work.

The inquiry was made of the reporting libraries whether any bibliographical work was being done by the high school. The question was not well put, and was sometimes misunderstood. Almost no such work was reported. At Evanston, Ill., one high school teacher has taught her class to prepare bibliographies, the librarian assisting. At Brookline we have ambitions, not yet realized, of getting each high school class to prepare one bibliography a year (we begin modestly) on some subject along their lines of study. Last May the principals of two grammar schools offered to try their ninth grades on a simple bibliography. The school reference librarian selected some 60 topics of English history—Bretwalda, Sir Isaac Newton, East India Company, the Great Commoner, etc. Each bibliography was to include every reference by author, title and page to be found in the books of the school reference collection of the public library. The pupils displayed no little zest and enjoyment in the undertaking, and some creditable lists were made. Observation of the work confirmed my belief in its great practical value. Pupils became more keen and more thorough than in the usual getting of material from one or two references on a subject. Such training will smooth the way and save the time of those students who are to make use of a college library, and is even more to be desired for those others whose formal education ends with the high or grammar schools.

The practice of sending collections of books from the public library to the schools is becoming general. When these collections are along the lines of subjects studied, it would seem as if the reference use of the library by pupils might be somewhat diminished thereby. No doubt it is a convenience to both teacher and pupils to have books at hand to which to refer. The possession of an independent school library also tends to keep the reference work in the school. But in neither case ought the reference use of the public library or its branches to be wholly or materially overlooked, since it is on that that pupils must depend in after years, and therefore to that they must now be directed. We recognize that the people of modest means need the library. As for the very well-to-do, the library needs them. Other things being equal, the pupil who has learned to know and to know how to use his public library ought later so to appreciate its needs and so to recognize the benefits it bestows that he will be concerned to have it generously supported and wisely administered.

Even we librarians claim for our public collections no such fine service as is rendered by those private treasures that stand on a person's own shelves, round which "our pastime and our happiness will grow." Books for casual entertainment are more and more easily come by. But so far as our imagination reaches, what private library will for most readers supplant a public collection of books for purposes of study and reference? Is it not then fitting that we spend time and effort to educate young people to the use of the public library? Do not the methods for realizing this end seem to be as deserving of systematic study as the details of classification and of cataloging? We have learned that to bring school authorities to our assistance our faith must be sufficient to convince and our patience must be tempered by a kindly appreciation of the large demands already made upon the schools. Have we not yet to learn by just what lessons and what practice work the reference use of the public library can best be taught to children?

[VITALIZING THE RELATION BETWEEN THE LIBRARY AND THE SCHOOL.]

I. [THE SCHOOL.]

By May L. Prentice, City Normal School, Cleveland, O.

Years ago a little girl ran down a country road to meet the light wagon returning from town with the purpose of climbing into the back and so getting a ride. Without turning, the wise elder brother spoke from the driver's seat: "I wouldn't undertake that if I were you." And over his shoulder a breathless but dignified voice answered, "But I have already undertooken it!"

A similar answer might reasonably be expected from the library to any well-meant but tardy advice from the school-side in regard to the vitalization of the relation between the school and the library. It has already been accomplished, and comparatively small thanks are due to the school for its doing.

Graded lists of books, special lists of materials for occasions, library league work, the establishment of school branch libraries, all these have been the work of the library in a much larger measure than of the school.

However, there are many teachers who share the library's buoyant faith in the blessing which books bring. These have been first to appreciate all which the library has offered them. They have accepted all that has been offered them and asked for more. They have circulated library books through their own schools, sometimes at considerable cost and trouble to themselves, and for years have done all in their power to make their pupils wise and discriminating patrons of the library. That the children of their care and love might have life and have it more abundantly—that is why they have done these things.

These teachers are comparatively few.

That it is any function of the school to give joy to its children is an idea of slow growth. A child's school-time is usually thought of as preparation for living and not as living itself. Hence the rebuke of the teacher to the child who interrupts the "nature-lesson" to blow the thistle-down which waves over his head, or to watch the bee which booms against the window-pane, or the hawk which floats lazily against the blue sky. Life is such a wild, wilful, irregular thing. Quietude, prudent inaction, is so much safer.

So with books. It is the old search for life, life, more abundant life—for knowledge of it, for entrance into it—which sends the child to the fairy-story, the boy to the tale of adventure, the young girl to the story of romance, the older man and woman to the realistic novel. And it is the instinctive feeling of the teacher and parent that life is a dangerous force and difficult of control which has made school and home look askance upon reading which the child finds too enjoyable.

There is another feeling or belief which lies back of our doubt of work or study or reading which is too enjoyable. It is in regard to the part which love of ease plays in human enjoyment. Love of ease is strong in human nature, and the man who tries to get his knowledge of human life mainly through the novel has indeed sought a short-cut to his end which will bring him but a short distance on his way. This is not the time nor place for the discussion of the value of fiction, but undoubtedly we are inclined to believe that man's indolence is a strong factor in man's enjoyment of certain lines of reading, and indolence is a bad thing. Therefore, we distrust the value of such reading. Whether we like or dislike it, however, we are obliged to admit that fiction is a permanent form of literature, that our children will read it, and that the question for us to settle is shall it be good or poor.

What, then, has the teacher to do? Two things: To be the atmosphere from which the child breathes in love for and delight in good books. This is first. All things in the way of learning are possible after this. Second, to be the pupil's guide and director in what may be called his "laboratory practice" with books.

The Autocrat, mellowest of men of ideas, once suggested that every college and university should have a professorship of books. The Autocrat was an ingrained aristocrat, although one most mild and kind. The true democratic idea is that a professorship of books should be established in every school-room.

But how shall the blind lead the blind? How shall the teacher who herself never has learned to know, to enjoy, and to choose good books guide others to do so?

The library is a storehouse of great thought, an unfailing source of healthful recreation, but also the library is the mine in which the practical man and woman, the lawyer, the machinist, the scientist, the teacher, must dig deep for information, if he is to keep near the head in his own line of work.

So far, as I have said before, nearly all organized effort to teach the teachers along these lines has come from the library. Certain normal school and college librarians have done much, but to a large extent the work has been on sufferance. Odds and ends of the students' time and attention have been given to it.

The desirable thing is that the study of juvenile literature and the use of the library shall take equal rank with other studies in the preparation of prospective teachers; that the normal school, the pedagogical department of the college and university, the teachers' [summer-school] and institute, shall recognize this subject in their curricula.

The practical side of library use—its use for information—is easily seen by the public, and schools for teachers can quite readily be induced to make room for the course of study suggested.

In the Cleveland City Normal Training School an attempt to carry out such a course of study has been made. A term's work is given in juvenile literature and the use of the library. Moreover, this subject is placed upon an equality with the philosophy of teaching, history of education and psychology.

As yet the work is not thoroughly organized. We feel, however, that some things of value have been already accomplished.

In a twelve-weeks' term a class of 116 prospective teachers (the junior class of the school) have taken notes on a series of talks on reference books. They have learned something of the comparative value of various standard encyclopædias, gazetteers, dictionaries and indexes, and they have been sent to the public library a half-day at a time to do work which required the use of these.

For instance, a study of the life of Robert Louis Stevenson was made for the purpose of giving a talk on the subject to fifth-grade pupils. The students were required to look up all the available material in the library, looking not only in the printed and card catalogs for individual and collective biography, but in the various indexes—Poole's, the Annual, the Cumulative—for magazine articles. They were required to select the four or five articles found most valuable and to estimate their comparative value for the purpose in hand, making definite statements of the points of value. They were required to make careful and well-worded notes from the best material available, either books or periodicals, always giving the source, and to read these notes in class subject to the criticism of their instructor and school mates. And, lastly, they were required to write the story of Stevenson's life as they would tell it to the children.

Careful instruction in the use of the printed and card catalogs and of indexes had preceded this assignment. We were fortunate in possessing quite a large number of issues of the Cumulative index unbound. It was thus possible to place one of these in the hands of each student during instruction on the subject. This was a considerable aid.

There was too much work with the less-used ready-reference books. Next year the number will be largely reduced.

A study of fairy stories was made. An attempt was made to find a philosophical basis for the love of children for fairy stories. An attempt was made to discriminate between the good and the bad fairy story. Felix Adler's "Moral instruction of children" was helpful here, but the study of the fairy stories at first hand is still more helpful.

The following books were read by the whole class:

(1) Alcott's "Little Women." Lessons were given on reading it with the children.

(2) Mara L. Pratt's "History stories," vol. 3.

(3) Eggleston's "First lessons in American history." The Pratt and Eggleston books were read in succession for the purpose of contrasting them. A yet better contrast would have been Baldwin's "Fifty famous stories."

(4) Frau Spyri's "Heidi." Some of our girls read this story in the original German but most in the translation published by Ginn & Co. It is a charming story of a breezy little maiden whose home was in the Swiss Alps, and one of the rather scarce desirable books for the fourth grade.

(5) Mrs. Burnett's "Sara Crewe." This was read as a type of the "child novel" and for the sake of a study of the charms, dangers and benefits of this class of books.

(6) Howard Pyle's "Men of iron" was read as a study of the worthy historical story.

The following outline was given the students as an aid in judging the books read: Outline to aid in estimating a juvenile book.

1. Written when? By whom? For children or adults? [e.g., "Robinson Crusoe" and "Gulliver's travels" were written for adults.] If for children, of what age? (Consider both manner and matter.)

2. Essential purpose of the book: Recreative? Instructive? Moral? Is the recreation afforded wholesome? The instruction reliable? The moral lessons sound?

3. Style: Is it clear? Correct? Beautiful? Suitable?

4. If a story, What is the strongest character in it? The most effective passage? Give reasons for thinking so. Is it true to life?

5. Is the book a creator of ideals? How so? Along what lines?

An effort was made that there should be no formal adherence to this outline. Papers on the books read were required in which the outline could not be used. For example, after reading "Men of iron" the students were required to write, in class, a paper on "The education of a boy in chivalry" based on the story of Myles Falworth.

The oral discussions of these books were often very animated.

Each student was also required to hand in an annotated list of at least 20 books actually read by the student and judged by her suitable for the grade in which she is to train. An oral discussion of these lists took place, and the student in many cases was required to justify her judgment, and to answer questions in regard to the books read.

Some of these lists were very cheering. One excellent list for the sixth grade, with very original annotations contained 60 instead of 20 books actually read, and 30 more which the student had listed to be read at her convenience.

Not all of the lists were of that character. A list for the third grade recommended "Gulliver's travels, by Gulliver" as a valuable aid in geography.

The instance is eloquent of the value of a course of study which results in the illumination or the elimination of such a student.

Much remains to be worked out, but a beginning has been made.

Ours is one instance of the awakening of the school to the value of the privileges which the library gives it. And as the reward of doing work well is invariably to have more work to do, from the school fully awakened the library shall receive its exceeding great reward in more work to be done.

Except for the hearty co-operation of the Cleveland Public Library the little experiment here outlined could not have been undertaken.