hours, the versatility required in the service, contributes to it a certain zest which other professions lack.

Again, the labors of the librarian bring him into an intimate knowledge of a wide range of books, or at least an acquaintance with authors and titles far more extensive than can be acquired by most persons. The reading of book catalogues is a great and never-ending fascination to one who has a love for books. The information thus acquired of the mighty range of the world's literature and science is of inestimable value. Most of it, if retained in a retentive memory, will enable its possessor to answer multitudes of the questions continually put to the l brarian.

Then, too, the service of a public library is a valuable school for the study of human nature. One comes in contact with scholars, men of business, authors, bright young people, journalists, professional men and cultured women, to an extent unequaled by the opportunities of any other calling. This variety of intercourse tends to broaden one's sympathies, to strengthen his powers of observation, to cultivate habits of courtesy, to develop the faculty of a lapting himself to all persons-qualities which contribute much to social interest and success. The discipline of such an intercourse may sometimes make out of a silent and hasb., ful recluse, a ready and engaging adept in conversation, able to command the attention and conciliate the regard of all. Farther than this, one brought into so w le a circle of communication with others, cannot fail to learn something from at least some among them, and so to receive knowledge as well as to impart it. The curious and diverse elements of character brought out in such intercourse will make their impress, and may have their value. All these many facilities for intellectual intercourse both with books and with men, contribute directly to keep the

librarian in contact with all the great objects of human interest. They supply an unfailing stimulus to his intellecttal and moral nature. They give any active-minded person rare facilities, not only for the acquisition, but for the communication of ideas. And there is one avenue for su1, communication that is peculiarly open to one whose

dis stored with the ripe fruits of reading and observa1. n. I mean the field of authorship-not necessarily the authorship of books, but of writing in the form of essays, reviews, lectures, stories or contributions to the periodical press. There are in every community literary societies, clubs, and evening gatherings, where such contributions are always in demand, and always welcomed, in exact proportion to their inherent interest and value. Such avenues for the communication of one's thought are of great and me times permanent advantage. The knowledge which we acquire is comparatively barren, until it is shared with thers. And whether this be in an appreciative circle of lis teners, or in the press, it gives a certain stimulus and reward to the thinker and writer, which nothing else can impart. To convey one's best thought to the world is one of purest and highest of intellectual pleasures,

Let me add that there are two sides to the question of authorship, as concerns librarians. On the one hand, their advantages for entering that field are undoubtedly utror, both from the ready command of the most abundant material, and from experience in its use. On the other kaz 1, while authorship may be said to be the most besett temptation of the librarian, it is one that should be steadly resisted whenever it encroaches on the time and attention due to library duties. If he makes it a rule to write nothing and to study nothing for his own objects dr.ng brary hours, he is safe. Some years since it was a evmmon subject of reproach regarding the li rarians of

several university libraries in England that they were so engaged in writing books, that no scholar could get at them for aid in his literary researches. The librarians and assistants employed in the British Museum Library, where the hours of service are short, have found time to produce numerous contributions to literature. Witness the works, as authors and editors, of Sir Henry Ellis, Antonio Panizzi, Dr. Richard Garnett, Edward Edwards, J. Winter Jones, Thomas Watts, George Smith, and others. And in America, the late Justin Winsor was one of the met prolific and versatile of authors, while John Fiske, one assistant librarian at Harvard, Reuben A. Guild, Will.am F. Poole, George H. Moore, J. N. Larned, Frederick Saunders and others have been copious contributors to the press.

In a retrospective view of what has been said in rest to the qualifications of a librarian, it may appear that I have insisted upon too high a standard, and have cla.m.ed that he should be possessed of every virtue under heaven. I freely admit that I have aimed to paint the portrait of the ideal librarian; and I have done it in order to s. w what might be accomplished, rather than what has been accomplished. To set one's mark high-higher even than we are likely to reach, is the surest way to attain real excellence in any vocation. It is very true that it is rt given to mortals to achieve perfection: but it is none the less our business to aim at it, and the higher the ideal, nearer we are likely to come to a notable success in work we have chosen.

Ibrarian-p furn.-hes one of the widest fields for the most eminent attainments. The librarian, more than any other person whatever, is brought into contact with the who are hungering and thirsting after knowledge He should be able to satisfy those long.ngs, to learers

in the way they should go, and to be to all who seek his a-tance a guide, philosopher and friend. Of all the pleasures which a generous mind is capable of enjoying, that of aiding and enlightening others is one of the finest and most delightful. To learn continually for one's self is a noble ambition, but to learn for the sake of communicat.ng to others, is a far nobler one. In fact, the librarian becomes most widely useful by effacing himself, as it were, in seeking to promote the intelligence of the community in which he lives. One of the best librarians in the country sad that such were the privileges and opportunities of the profession, that one might well afford to live on bread and water for the sake of being a librarian, provided one had no family to support.

There is a new and signally marked advance in recent years, in the public idea of what constitutes a librarian. The old idea of a librarian was that of a guardian or keeper of books—not a diffuser of knowledge, but a mere cust dan of it. This idea had its origin in ages when books were few, were printed chiefly in dead languages, and rendered still more dead by being chained to the shelves or tables of the library. The librarian might be a monk, or a professor, or a priest, or a doctor of law, or theology, or me-leine, but in any case his function was to guard the beks, and not to dispense them. Those who resorted to the library were kept at arm's length, as it were, and the fewer there were who came, the better the grim or studious custo-lan was pleased. Every inquiry which broke the profound silence of the cloistered 1brary was a kind of ru de interruption, and when it was answered, the perfune try 1.rarian resumed his read ng or his studies. The institution appeared to exist, not for the benefit of the people, but for that of the librarian; or for the benefit, bes,des,

a few sequestered scholars, like himself, and any wide

ing (as previously urged) the bad or the inferior ones, but also that it has the best juvenile and elementary literature in ample supply. This subject of reading for the young has of late years come into unprecedented prominence. Formerly, and even up to the middle of our century, very slight attention was paid to it, either by authors or readers. Whole generations had been brought up on the New England Primer, with its grotesque wood-cuts, and antique theology in prose and verse, with a few moral narratives in addition, as solemn as a meeting-house, like the "Dairyman's Daughter," the "History of Sandford and Merton." or "The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." Very dreary and melancholy do such books appear to the frequenters of our modern libraries, filled as they now are with thousands of volumes of lively and entertaining juvenile books.

The transition from the old to the new in this class of literature was through the Sunday-school and religious tract society books, professedly adapted to the young. While some of these had enough of interest to be fairy readable, if one had no other resource, the mass were irredeemably stale and poor. The mawkishness of the senti ment was only surpassed by the feebleness of the style. At last, weary of the goody-goody and artificial school of juvenile books, which had been produced for generations, until a surfeit of it led to something like a nausea in the public mind, there came a new type of writers for the young, who at least began to speak the language of reason. The dry bones took on some semblance of life and of human nature, and boys and girls were painted as real boys and genuine girls, instead of lifeless dolls and man kine The reformation went on, until we now have a world books for the young to choose from, very many of which are fresh and entertaining.

But the very wealth and redundancy of such literature