ted in trying to
account for his disappearance. The Public Library, for one thing, has been
blamed for it. I have no time now to disprove this, though it is very
clear to me that libraries help the book trade instead of hindering it. I
shall simply give you my version of the trouble. The book-dealer
disappeared, as soon as he entered into competition with the department
store. He put in side lines of toys, and art supplies, and cameras and
candy. He began to spread himself thin and had no time for expert
concentration on his one specialty. Thus he lost his one advantage over
the department store--his strength in the region where it was weak; and of
course he succumbed. If you will think for a moment of the special
businesses that have survived the competition of the department store, you
will see that they are precisely the ones that have resisted this
temptation to spread themselves and have been content to remain experts.
Look at the men's furnishing stores. Would they have survived if they had
begun to sell cigars and lawn-mowers? Look at the retail shoe stores, the
opticians, the cigar stores, the bakers, the meat markets, the
confectioners, the restaurants of all grades! They have all to compete
with the department stores, but their customers realize that they have
something to offer that can be offered by no department store--expert
service in one line, due to some one's life-long training, experience and
devotion to the public.

I do not want the pharmacist to go the way of the book dealers. Already
some of the department stores include drug departments. I do not see how
these can be as good as independent pharmacies. But I do not see the
essential difference between a drug department in a store that sells also
cigars and stationery and confectionery, and a so-called independent
pharmacy that also distributes these very things.

I am assuming that the druggist is an expert. That is the object of our
colleges of pharmacy, as I understand the matter. As a librarian I want to
deal with a book man who knows more of the book business than I do. I want
to ask his advice and be able to rely on it. When I have printing to be
done, I like to give it to a man who knows more about the printed page
than I do. When I buy bread, or shoes, or a house, or a farm I like to
deal with recognized experts in these articles. How much more when I am
purchasing substances where expert knowledge will turn the balance between
life and de