y the size of the
library which he represents, or the active part he bears in the
deliberations. He may even be utterly silent, and yet an actual force;
for no speaker fails to feel the inspiration which radiates from an
attentive and enthusiastic listener. In ordinary society the
accomplishment of being "a good listener" is one of the most enduring of
charms. It does not lose its power among librarians. The prosperity of a
paper as truly as a jest's "lies in the ear of him that hears it, never
in the tongue of him that makes it."

To ask these unattached librarians, if perhaps an echo may reach them,
to consider whether their isolation from their profession is not only a
deprivation to themselves which they can illy afford, but a retarding of
the progress of the true library spirit as well, and to suggest a
thought which may possibly prove a stimulus to counteract the
discouragement and depression before spoken of, is all that I have even
hoped to accomplish in the few words which have, somewhat too
ambitiously, been called a paper on "The usefulness of libraries in
small towns."

In regard to the interest and profit of these meetings to the lesser
libraries, I have heard it asserted, and it is, I think, true, that the
papers and discussions were almost exclusively directed to the
consideration of the aims, methods, and needs of great libraries. If the
fact needs explanation, or justification, an ample one is found in the
register of the names of the composing members, with their positions.
That there would be a ready and cordial response to any general call for
the discussion of topics specially pertinent to small libraries is not
to be doubted. Over the editorial columns of one of our most-used
periodicals runs the legend, "Every man is a debtor to his profession."
It was a most wise choice of mottoes by our friend, the editor and
publisher, for in no profession is it more true than in our own. The
constant missionary work which Boston and Chicago, and indeed every
library of any repute in the country, has done and is doing, is proof
enough that the obligation is appreciated. If the smaller libraries want
the discussion of simpler, less technical methods, they have, probably,
but to ask.

It may be objected that the great obviously includes the small, and
that plans and methods which are good and suitable for the former need
but to be reproduced in miniature for the latter. It is true, that, in
many departments,