lly beyond the
reach of help from books--books in which we find the reflection of our
every mood, the expression in our inmost aspiration, the conservation of
the feeling, the experience and the wisdom of the race.

CONTROL AND GUIDANCE OF READING

Border regions are those of greatest interest, for they are
regions of contact and therefore places where things happen.
This is a border region between the field of the librarian
and that of the teacher. Its activities are the sole
justification for the name "library teacher" bestowed upon
assistants in many of the homelier city districts. Here the
librarian must tread warily. He can not push or pull; he
must effect what he desires by making it attractive to the
reader. In the five following papers this function is
somewhat elaborated--a very modern phase of library work and
one most nearly concerned with its socialization.

PROBABLE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL OUTCOME OF THE RAPID INCREASE OF PUBLIC
LIBRARIES

A paper by Rev. Dr. Pierce, then editor of _Zion's Herald_,
a Methodist publication, read at the Lake George Conference
of the American Library Association in 1885. Notably free
from the caution and hesitancy then often appearing in the
public utterances of the clergy regarding popular libraries,
and full of belief that their power of guidance would make
them "powerful elements of culture."

Bradford Kinney Pierce was born in Royalton, Vt., February
3, 1819, and graduated at Wesleyan University in 1841.
Entering the Methodist Episcopal ministry, he was also
occupied for many years as teacher and editor, being agent
of the Sunday School Union in 1845-56, editing _Zion's
Herald_ in 1872-88 and then serving as librarian of the Free
Library at Newton, Mass., in addition to his other duties,
until his death, April 19, 1889. He has been called "the
Nestor of New England Methodism."

The free public library is now becoming the favorite posthumous
beneficiary of our men of wealth. Heretofore it has hardly been esteemed
respectable in the vicinity of Boston for a man of fortune to die
without leaving a generous bequest to Harvard College or to the
Massachusetts General Hospital. The city and town library is now
beginning to share liberally in these testamentary benefactions. The
college requires too considerable a sum in our days to be often
adequate