hat produced them. On the contrary, the experience of
librarians shows that the most sought-for, and the most useful
contributions to any subject are frequently found, not in the books
written upon it, but in the files of current periodicals, or in those of
former years. It is especially to be noted that the book may frequently
lose its adaptation and usefulness by lapse of time, and the onward march
of science, while the article is apt to reflect the latest light which
can help to illustrate the subject.

While, therefore, there is always a liability of finding many crude and
sketchy contributions in the literature of the periodical press, its
conductors are ever on the alert to reduce to a minimum the weak or
unworthy offerings, and to secure a maximum of articles embodying mature
thought and fit expression. The pronounced tendency toward short methods
in every channel of human activity, is reflected in the constantly
multiplying series of periodical publications.

The publishing activities of the times are taking on a certain
cooeperative element, which was not formerly known. Thus, the "literary
syndicate" has been developed by degrees into one of the most
far-reaching agencies for popular entertainment. The taste for short
stories, in place of the ancient three volume novel, has been cultivated
even in conservative England, and has become so wide-spread in the United
States, that very few periodicals which deal in fiction at all, are
without their stories begun and finished in a single issue. The talent
required to produce a fascinating and successful fiction in this narrow
compass is a peculiar one, and while there are numerous failures, there
are also a surprising number of successes. Well written descriptive
articles, too, are in demand, and special cravings for personal gossip
and lively sketches of notable living characters are manifest. That
perennial interest which mankind and womankind evince in every individual
whose name, for whatever reason, has become familiar, supplies a basis
for an inexhaustible series of light paragraphic articles. Another
fruitful field for the syndicate composition is brief essays upon any
topic of the times, the fashions, notable events, or new inventions,
public charities, education, governmental doings, current political
movements, etc. These appear almost simultaneously, in many different
periodicals, scattered throughout the country, under the copyright
_imprimatur_, which w