and training, we must confess that overshadowing all are the
qualities of the man. To my thinking, a great librarian must have a
clear head, a strong hand, and, above all, a great heart. He must have a
head as clear as the master in diplomacy; a hand as strong as he who
quells the raging mob, or leads great armies on to victory; and a heart
as great as he who, to save others, will, if need be, lay down his life.
Such shall be greatest among librarians; and, when I look into the
future, I am inclined to think that most of the men who will achieve
this greatness will be women.

It is well to hold up high ideals, but it would be a sad mistake to
underrate the services of the noble men and women who in some, perhaps
many, respects fall far short of the standards we lay down, and yet who
have done, and are doing well, much of the world's best work. Let us
dwell on what has been well done, not on what has been omitted or on
what might have been done by other men in other circumstances.

I remember, some twenty-five years ago, reading in George Eliot's
_Romola_ these words, which we should remember when thinking of any
great librarian who of necessity fails in some respects to meet all our
ideals: "It was the fashion of old, when an ox was led out for sacrifice
to Jupiter, to chalk the dark spots and give the offering a false show
of unblemished whiteness. Let us fling away the chalk, and boldly say
the victim was spotted; but it was not therefore in vain that his mighty
heart was laid on the altar of men's highest hopes."

METHODS OF SECURING THE INTEREST OF A COMMUNITY

This paper by Wm. E. Foster, Librarian of the Providence
Library, appears in the double number of _The Library
Journal_ for September-October, 1880. Written forty years
ago it is more advanced from the standpoint of
socialization, especially as regards group-action, than some
pronouncements that one might hear to-day. A sketch of Mr.
Foster appears in Vol. I. of this series.

This mainly resolves itself into a consideration of direct and indirect
methods. The one attempts only to supply the public with what it wants;
the other, striving after the truest improvement of the readers, in time
secures, with the growth of intelligent appreciation, an interest even
more active, and vastly more permanent, than the other. No library may
safely disregard either class of methods, and their proper adjustment is
a point which may v