naged in an effective
manner. It would not only be an act of ingratitude, but it would be a
mockery, if in such an edifice as this we should not find a good and
growing and well administered library. There is no more important
commission in your city than the commission charged with the care of
your library. Let us hope that they will always be chosen with special
regard to their fitness for their official duty and without regard to
their party affiliations.

Especially is wisdom needed in the selection of your books. It is not
so difficult to choose books for the cultivated and scholarly readers.
But in a city library you must provide for all your population.
Particular care should be had to procure books attractive and useful to
your artisans and mechanics and common laborers. They should be led to
feel that this is the place where they can most profitably spend a spare
hour and can find something to bring new brightness into their
monotonous lives. The efforts which you have already initiated to make
the library serviceable to the pupils in your schools must now be
redoubled. The teachers and the library authorities must always contrive
to cooperate heartily. The multiplication of libraries in this country
has already elevated the work of the librarian to the dignity of a
distinct profession. And no profession promises to be more useful. In
addition to the proper organization and care of the library, the
influence which a competent librarian can wield in his guidance of the
reading and studies of the young is seldom outweighed by that of the
teacher or the preacher. In no manner can a generous appropriation of
funds for the support of a library be more wisely expended than in
securing a competent librarian.

Judging by my own experience and by my observation of others, I doubt
whether the guide books which have been written to tell one what works
to read have been of great service. The simple reason why they are not
very helpful is that to advise one what to read, you should know
something of his aptitudes and taste and something of his plans of life.
General advice is a shot in the air. It may hit nothing.

But a competent person may give helpful counsels to the young
concerning useful methods of reading whatever one does read, and may
indeed specify what are some of the best books on certain topics. A good
librarian, if leisure enough is left him, may attract and help willing
auditors by occasional lectures or i