ory (based upon memory); 2. Philosophy (based upon reason); 3. Poetry
(based upon imagination). This scheme was much better adapted to a
classification of ideas than of books. Its failure to answer the ends of
a practical classification of the library led to radical modifications of
the plan, as applied to the books on the shelves, for reasons of logical
arrangement, as well as of convenience. A more thorough and systematic
re-arrangement is now in progress.

Mr. C. A. Cutter has devised a system of "Expansive classification," now
widely used in American libraries. In this, the classes are each
indicated by a single letter, followed by numbers representing divisions
by countries, and these in turn by letters indicating sub-divisions by
subjects, etc. It is claimed that this method is not a rigid unchangeable
system, but adaptable in a high degree, and capable of modification to
suit the special wants of any library. In it the whole range of
literature and science is divided into several grand classes, which, with
their sub-classes, are indicated by the twenty-six letters of the
alphabet. Thus Class A embraces Generalia; B to D, Spiritual sciences
(including philosophy and religion); E to G, Historical sciences
(including, besides history and biography, geography and travels); H to
K, Social sciences (including law and political science and economics); L
to P, Natural sciences; Q, Medicine; and R to Z, Arts (including not only
mechanical, recreative and fine arts, but music, languages, literature,
and bibliography).

The sub-divisions of these principal classes are arranged with
progressive fullness, to suit smaller or larger libraries. Thus, the
first classification provides only eleven classes, suited to very small
libraries: the second is expanded to fifteen classes, the third to thirty
classes, and so on up to the seventh or final one, designed to provide
for the arrangement of the very largest libraries.

This is the most elaborate and far-reaching library classification yet
put forth, claiming superior clearness, flexibility, brevity of notation,
logical cooerdination, etc., while objections have been freely made to it
on the score of over-refinement and aiming at the unattainable.

What is known as the decimal or the Dewey system of classification was
originally suggested by Mr. N. B. Shurtleff's "Decimal system for the
arrangement and administration of libraries," published at Boston in
1856. But in its presen