USE OF LIBRARIES FOR REFERENCE
An ability to glean information quickly and accurately from books and periodicals, to catch a fact when it is needed and useful, is an indispensable factor in that self-education which all citizens should add to the education obtained in the schools. The schools cannot give a wide range of knowledge, but they can give the desire for knowledge, and the library can give the opportunity to gain it.
Nearly every branch taught in the schools may be lightened and made more interesting by supplementary information gained from a good library. The pupil who is studying the life of Washington should find many interesting facts concerning him and his time and associates, not given in any of the formal biographies. He will find an article on Washington in the "Young Folks' Cyclopedia of Persons and Places," but if he knows how to use the index he can find fourteen other articles in the same volume in which Washington is mentioned. A large encyclopedia will give scores of facts wanted, under various articles treating of important events in the latter colonial and earlier national history of our country, in articles on places, customs, epochs, battles, and soldiers and statesmen who were Washington's contemporaries.
A teacher cannot train a large number of young people to habits of thorough investigation in a brief time, but she can easily train a few, one or two at a time, and they will help to train others.
F. A. HUTCHINS.