t last
summer, which, with much of error, contains a good deal of truth in a
stimulating form. It presents a subject which must have a somewhat
larger treatment.

It ought first to be said that in this and other articles on the topic
the terms _women_ and _men_ are by no means similarly used. The writers
are not concerned about men at large--the husbands and brothers of the
women who are said to visit the library--the women of comparative
leisure, who are seeking information on art, literature, or ancestry,
who are trying to get up a paper for the club, or who visit the library
for recreation. It is the plumber, the machinist, the grocer, whose
absence they deplore, and to whom they think the library ought to give
help. Not only so, but it is the plumber, rather than as a man, whose
presence is desired and who is to be aided. The library, says the
_Independent_ in effect, ought to teach the plumber how to "plumb";
ought to furnish him with information which his boss is unable to give.
But this is a new function for libraries, however useful it may be, and
a function which libraries do not attempt for women. Dressmakers do not
(I speak under correction, but I think I am right) expect to secure at a
library a knowledge of how to fit a difficult customer, any more than do
tailors. Yet this sort of thing, we are told, the library ought to do
for men; and we are told in a tone which implies that here is an obvious
duty which only wilful ignorance can overlook.

It ought rather to be recognized that in undertaking this work the
public library is entering a new and almost unexplored field of effort,
and also that it is trying to extend its influence to classes of the
community which it has not hitherto reached, and along lines of
knowledge which it has never seriously attempted to follow. In such a
work there must be many experiments and many failures, and the positive
results will be small for a long time....

The problem for the library, as regards men, is therefore twofold: 1.
Can men be induced to visit the library for general purposes, to use it
in ways similar to those for which women come to it? 2. How can the
wage-earners and handicraftsmen be induced to visit the library and use
its books for their practical advantage?

Let us first consider the general question: Can we reach the men? The
women come to the libraries, say the critics, in shoals and droves, for
all sorts of intellectual purposes, good and bad. You c