e
squeamish, Rabelais wrote that, "Science sans conscience n'est que
ruine de l'ame."

There is but a puny barrier against this, for the statistical year-book
of German cities gives the number of public libraries in forty-two
cities as 179. Twenty-seven of these cities gave an annual support
to 114 of these libraries of only $64,847! According to the figures of
Herr Ernest Schultze, in 1907 the forty largest German cities, with a
population of 11,380,000, had public libraries containing a sum total
of 807,000 volumes. In the year 1906-1907, 5,437,000 volumes were
taken out and 1,607,476 persons frequented the public reading-rooms,
and in these forty-two cities $280,095 were contributed from private
sources for such library purposes. In 1910 Germany had in some 400
cities, each of more than 10,000 inhabitants, about 650 public
libraries and reading-rooms, with together about 3,250,000 volumes.

Berlin has thirty public libraries with 231,300 volumes; the number of
books taken out in 1910 was 1,655,000. Hamburg has one public library
with 100,000 volumes, of which 1,364,000 were taken out. Breslau has 7
libraries and 4 reading-rooms, with 75,578 volumes. Leipzig has 7
libraries and 3 reading-rooms, with 42,100 volumes. Munich has 6
libraries and 26,671 volumes. Cologne has 7 libraries and 6 reading-
rooms, with 24,898 volumes.

The smallest library is in the village
community of Dudweiler, in the Rhine province, which contains 132
volumes for the 22,000 inhabitants.

There were 14,941 books published
in Germany in 1880, 18,875 in 1890, 24,792 in 1900, and 31,281 in
1910.

There were 13,470 books published in America in 1910, 9,209 of
them by American authors.

There were 10,914 books published in England in 1911, of which 2,384
were new editions. Of this number 2,215, which includes 933 new
editions and 40 translations, were fiction; religion, 930; sociology,
725; science, 650; geography, 601; biography, 476; history, 429;
technology, 525. In 1820, there were only 26 novels published in
England.

Of the 31,281 books published in Germany in 1910, 4,852 dealt with
education and juvenile literature; 4,134, belles-lettres; 3,215, law
and political economy; 2,510, theology; 2,082, commerce and industry;
1,981, medicine; 1,884, philology and literary history; 1,480,
geography, including maps; 667, military science and equestry; 1,030,
agriculture and forestry; 1,750, natural science and mathematics;
1,108, engineeri