that bears fruit in an essay or discourse. In
fact, it may be laid down as an axiom, that nearly every new book that is
written is indebted to the library for most of its ideas, its facts, or
its illustrations, so that libraries actually beget libraries.

Some of the endlessly diversified uses of a well-equipped library, not
only to scholars but to the general public, may here be referred to.
Among the most sought for sources of information, the periodical press,
both of the past and the current time, holds a prominent rank. When it is
considered how far-reaching are the fields embraced in the wide range of
these periodicals, literary, religious, scientific, political, technical,
philosophical, social, medical, legal, educational, agricultural,
bibliographical, commercial, financial, historical, mechanical, nautical,
military, artistic, musical, dramatic, typographical, sanitary, sporting,
economic, and miscellaneous, is it any wonder that specialists and
writers for the press seek and find ready aid therein for their
many-sided labors?

To the skeptical mind, accustomed to undervalue what does not happen to
come within the range of his pet idols or pursuits, the observation of a
single day's multifold research in a great library might be in the nature
of a revelation. Hither flock the ever-present searchers into family
history, laying under contribution all the genealogies and town and
county histories which the country has produced. Here one finds an
industrious compiler intent upon the history of American duels, for which
the many files of Northern and Southern newspapers, reaching back to the
beginning of the century, afford copious material. At another table sits
a deputation from a government department, commissioned to make a record
of all notable strikes and labor troubles for a series of years, to be
gleaned from the columns of the journals of leading cities.

An absorbed reader of French romances sits side by side with a clergyman
perusing homilies, or endeavoring to elucidate, through a mass of
commentators, a special text. Here are to be found ladies in pursuit of
costumes of every age; artists turning over the great folio galleries of
Europe for models or suggestions; lawyers seeking precedents or leading
cases; journalists verifying dates, speeches, conventions, or other
forgotten facts; engineers studying the literature of railways or
machinery; actors or amateurs in search of plays or works on the dram