Eseleco turn eading novel? of Vicce and irably s with young If it nd let culate being praries ormed hould thing bad to muse es are read, maga supthese etry, com at is ove From irty all, phs and chromos in which bad drawing, bad portraiture, and bad coloring vied with each other to produce pictures which it would be a mild use of terms to call detestable. Then came the two great international art expositions at Philadelphia and Chicago, each greatly advancing by the finest models, the standard of taste in art, and by new economies of reproduction placing the most beautiful statues and pictures within the reach of the most moderate purse. What has been the result? An incalculable improvement in the public taste, educated by the diffusion of the best models, until even the poor farmer of the backwoods will no longer tolerate the cheap and nasty horrors that once disfigured his walls. The lesson in art is good in literature also. Give the common people good models, and there is no danger but they will appreciate and understand them. Never stoop to pander to a depraved taste, no matter what specious pleas you may hear for tolerating the low in order to lead. to the high, or for making your library contribute to the survival of the unfittest. Is it asked, how can the librarian find out, among the world of novels from which he is to select, what is pure and what is not, what is wholesome and what unhealthy, what is improving and what is trash? The answer is—there are some lists which will be most useful in this discrimination, while there is no list which is infallible. Mr. F. Leypoldt's little catalogue of "Books for all Time" has nothing that any library need do without. Another compendious list is published by the American Library Association. And the more extensive catalogue prepared for the World's Fair in 1893, and embracing about 5,000 volumes, entitled "Catalogue of A. L. A. Library: 5,000 vols. for a popular library," while it has many mistakes and omissions, is a tolerably safe guide in making up a popular library. I may note that the list of novels in this large catalogue put fo by the American Library Association has the names of only out of the twenty-eight writers of fiction heretof pronounced objectionable, and names a select few only the books of these five. As for the later issues of the press, and especially t new novels, let him skim them for himself, unless in cas where trustworthy critical judgments are found in jou nals. Running through a book to test its style and mor drift is no difficult task for the practiced eye. Let us suppose that you are cursorily perusing a nov which has made a great sensation, and you come upon th following sentence: "Eighteen millions of years woul level all in one huge, common, shapeless ruin. Perish th microcosm in the limitless macrocosm! and sink thi feeble earthly segregate in the boundless rushing chora aggregation!" This is in Augusta J. Evans Wilson's stor "Macaria", and many equally extraordinary examples o "prose run mad” are found in the novels of this once noted writer. What kind of a model is that to form the style of the youthful neophyte, to whom one book is as good as an other, since it was found on the shelves of the public library? I am not insisting that all books admitted should be models of style; even a purist must admit that one of the greatest charms of literature is its infinite variety. But when book after book is filled with such specimens of literary lunacy as this, one is tempted to believe that Homer and Shakespeare, to say nothing of Thackeray and Hawthorne, have lived in vain. Never fear criticism of those who find fault with the absence from your library of books that you know to be nearly worthless; their absence will be a silent but eloquent protest against them, sure to be vindicated by the utter ob tforth of five etofore nly of ly the cases jourmoral novel on the would sh the - this -horal story es of noted le of s an ic li d be the But Elit mer law ab ear ent ob livion into which they will fall. Many a flaming reputa- As Let not the fear of making many mistakes be a bug-bear in your path. If you are told that your library is too exclusive, reply that it has not means enough to buy all the good books that are wanted, and cannot afford to spend money on bad or even on doubtful ones. If you have excluded any highly-sought-for book on insufficient evidence, never fail to revise the judgment. All that can be expected of any library is approximately just and wise selection, having regard to merit, interest, and moral tone, more than to novelty or popularity. In the matter of choice, individual opinions are of small value. Never buy a book simply because some reader extols it as very fine, or "splendid," or "perfectly lovely." Such praises are commonly to be distrusted in direct proportion to their extravagance. A good lesson to libraries is furnished in the experience of the Cleveland (Ohio) Public Library. In 1878, out of 16,000 volumes in that library, no less than 6,000 were novels. The governing board, on the plea of giving peo what they wanted, bought nearly all new books of fictic and went so far, even, as to buy of Pinkerton's Detecti stories, fifteen copies each, fifteen of all Mrs. Southworth novels, etc. But a change took place in the board, and th librarian was permitted to stop the growing flood of wort less fiction, and as fast as the books were worn out, the were replaced by useful reading. It resulted that fou years later, with 40,000 volumes in the library, only 7,00 were novels, or less than one-fifth, instead of more tha one-third of the whole collection, as formerly. In th same time, the percentage of fiction drawn out was reduced from 69 per cent. of the aggregate books read, to 50 per Libraries are always complaining that they cannot buy many valuable books from lack of funds. Yet some of them buy a great many that are valueless in spite of this lack. Can any thing be conceived more valueless than a set of Sylvanus Cobb's novels, reprinted to the number of thirty-five to forty, from the New York Ledger? Yet these have been bought for scores of libraries, which could not afford the latest books in science and art, or biography, history, or travel. There are libraries in which the latest books on electricity, or sewerage, or sanitary plumbing, might have saved many lives, but which must go without them, because the money has been squandered on vapid and pernicious literature. In almost every library, while some branches of knowledge are fairly represented, others are not represented at all. Nearly all present glaring deficiencies, and these are often caused by want of systematic plan in building up the collection. Boards of managers are frequently changed, and the policy of the library with them. All the more important is it that the librarian should be so well equipped people Fiction, ective worth's nd the worththey four 7,000 than n the duced 0 per buy ne of E this an a er of Yet -ould phy, atest ing, out apid owl at are the ed, m -ed with a definite aim, and with knowledge and skill competent to urge that aim consistently, as to preserve some unity of plan. I need not add that a librarian should be always wide awake to the needs of his library in every direction. It should be taken for granted that its general aim is to include the best books in the whole range of human knowledge. With the vast area of book production before him, he should strengthen every year some department, taking them in order of importance. Some scholarly writers tell us that very few books are essential to a good education. James Russell Lowell named five, which in his view embraced all the essentials; namely, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Goethe's Faust. Prof. Charles E. Norton of Harvard remarked that this list might even be abridged so as to embrace only Homer, Dante and Shakespeare. I can only regard such exclusiveness as misleading, though conceding the many-sidedness of these great writers. To extend the list is the function of all public libraries, as well as of most of the private ones. Next after the really essential books, that library will be doing its public good service which acquires all the important works that record the history of man. This will include biography, travels and voyages, science, and much besides, as well as history. Special pains should be taken in every library to have every thing produced in its own town, county, and State. Not only books, but all pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, and even broadsides or circulars, should be sought for and stored up as memorials of the present age, tending in large part rapidly to disappear. In selecting editions of standard authors, one should always discriminate, so as to secure for the library, if not the best, at least good, clear type, sound, thick paper, and |