y at the outset of a course of training
but continuously thruout its duration. We speak of a student being "put
thru the mill," and we must not forget that a mill not only grinds and
stamps into shape but also sifts and selects. A finished product of a
given grade is always such not only by virtue of formation and adaptation
but also by virtue of selection. In human training one of the most potent
of these selective agencies is the individual will, and to train that will
and make it effective in the right direction there is nothing better than
constant association with the records of past aims and past achievements.
This must be my excuse for saying so much of libraries in general, and of
one library in particular, in an address on what I have ventured to give
the name of Selective Education.

THE USES OF FICTION[2]

[2] Read before the American Library Association, Asheville
Conference, May 28, 1907.

Literature is becoming daily more of a dynamic and less of a static
phenomenon. In other days the great body of written records remained more
or less stable and with its attendant body of tradition did its work by a
sort of quiet pressure on that portion of the community just beneath
it--on a special class peculiarly subject to its influence. To-day we have
added to this effect that of a moving multitude of more or less ephemeral
books, which appear, do their work, and pass on out of sight. They are
light, but they make up for their lack of weight by the speed and ease
with which they move. Owing to them the use of books is becoming less and
less limited to a class, and more and more familiar to the masses. The
book nowadays is in motion. Even the classics, the favorites of other
days, have left their musty shelves and are moving out among the people.
Where one man knew and loved Shakespeare a century ago, a thousand know
and love him to-day. The literary blood is circulating and in so doing is
giving life to the body politic. In thus wearing itself out the book is
creating a public appreciation that makes itself felt in a demand for
reprinting, hence worthy books are surer of perpetuation in this swirling
current than they were in the old time reservoir. But besides these books
whose literary life is continuous, though their paper and binding may wear
out, there are other books that vanish utterly. By the time that the
material part of them needs renewing, the book itself has done its work.
Its valu