ant post. He has
doubtless had experience in library work. He comes on to consult with
the trustees. They vote to send him on a trip for getting ideas from
other libraries. He probably has on his hands a beautiful building illy
adapted to library work. He carries the plans with him, and spends most
of the time with other members of the craft, in choosing the least of
several evils in placing the reference-room, catalog, charging-desk,
etc. He secures two or three assistants with training, experience, or
both, and fills the minor places with local help chosen by examination
or by luck or by personal favor. He learns in a general way the
character of the town and selects books with that in view. If there are
certain manufacturing interests or a particular foreign population, he
makes large purchases in those lines. He decides on a system of
classification, of cataloging, and on a method of charging. The books
are rushed through the various processes, though all too slowly for an
impatient public. In a few months at the latest the big educational
plant begins to be utilized.

The circulation surprises the most sanguine, the average of fiction
drops a little below the usual mark, good service is done at the
information or reference desk by the enthusiastic man or woman having it
in charge, work is begun with the schools, and a little fraction of
teachers make the children know books because they know books
themselves. The rest go through the motions. The bookworm fills his
corner, the chronic grumbler has his little say, the usual number of
prize questions are answered. The library becomes the very bread of life
to those who are ready to receive it, and gives refreshment and
suggestion and inspiration to many more. The profession approves. At the
next A.L.A. meeting Mr. ---- is brought forward more prominently, and
the wise ones say, "I always thought he was a rising man."

But only 20 per cent. of the population ever set foot within the
library, and when a stranger asks the way within a block of the
building, a fairly intelligent-looking workman does not appear to know
there is such a thing as the public library.

In looking over the proceedings of the library association for the 18
years of its existence, we are struck by the evidences of industry and
earnestness. There are papers and discussions on libraries and schools,
access to the shelves, bookbinding, systems of classification,
cataloging rules. The keynote is co