of the systems themselves has fairly
become a desideratum. The youthful neophyte, who is struggling after an
education in library science, and thinks perhaps that it is or should be
an exact science, is bewildered by the multitude of counsellors, gets a
head-ache over their conflicting systems, and adds to it a heart-ache,
perhaps, over the animosities and sarcasms which divide the warring
schools of opinion.

Perhaps there would be less trouble about classification, if the
system-mongers would consent to admit at the outset that no infallible
system is possible, and would endeavor, amid all their other learning, to
learn a little of the saving grace of modesty. A writer upon this subject
has well observed that there is no man who can work out a scheme of
classification that will satisfy permanently even himself. Much less
should he expect that others, all having their favorite ideas and
systems, should be satisfied with his. As there is no royal road to
learning, so there can be none to classification; and we democratic
republicans, who stand upon the threshold of the twentieth century, may
rest satisfied that in the Republic of Letters no autocrat can be
allowed.

The chief difficulty with most systems for distributing the books in a
library appears to lie in the attempt to apply scientific minuteness in a
region where it is largely inapplicable. One can divide and sub-divide
the literature of any science indefinitely, in a list of subjects, but
such exhaustive sub-divisions can never be made among the books on the
shelves. Here, for example, is a "Treatise on diseases of the heart and
lungs." This falls naturally into its two places in the subject
catalogue, the one under "Heart," and the second under "Lungs;" but the
attempt to classify it on the shelves must fail, as regards half its
contents. You cannot tear the book to pieces to satisfy logical
classification. Thousands of similar cases will occur, where the same
book treats of several subjects. Nearly all periodicals and transactions
of societies of every kind refuse to be classified, though they can be
catalogued perfectly on paper by analysing their contents. To bring all
the resources of the library on any subject together on the shelves is
clearly impossible. They must be assembled for readers from various
sections of the library, where the rule of analogy or of superior
convenience has placed them.

What is termed close classification, it will be found,