with all its great merits, must remain very much in the nature of a sealed book to the reader who stands in need of immediate use and reference. We have to take it for what it is--a collection of masterly treatises, rather than a handy dictionary of knowledge. The usefulness and success of any library will depend very largely upon the sympathy, so to speak, between the readers and the librarian. When this is well established, the rest is very easy. The librarian should not seclude himself so as to be practically inaccessible to readers, nor trust wholly to assistants to answer their inquiries. This may be necessary in some large libraries, where great and diversified interests connected with the building up of the collection, the catalogue system, and the library management and administration are all concerned. In the British Museum Library, no one ever sees the Principal Librarian; even the next officer, who is called the keeper of the printed books, is not usually visible in the reading-room at all. A librarian who is really desirous of doing the greatest good to the greatest number of people, will be not only willing, but anxious to answer inquiries, even though they may appear to him trivial and unimportant. Still, he should also economise time by cultivating the habit of putting his answers into the fewest and plainest words. How far the librarian should place himself in direct communication with readers, must depend largely upon the extent of the library, the labor required in managing its various departments, the amount and value of assistance at his command, and upon various other circumstances, depending upon the different conditions with different librarians. But it may be laid down as a safe general rule, that the librarian should hold himself perpetually as a public servant, ready and anxious to answer in some way, all inquiries that may come to him. Thus, and thus only, can he make himself, and the collection of books under his charge, useful in the highest degree to the public. He will not indeed, in any extensive library, find it convenient, or even possible, to answer all inquiries in person; but he should always be ready to enable his assistants to answer them, by his superior knowledge as to the best sources of information, whenever they fail to trace out what is wanted. In any small library, he should be always accessible, at or near the place where people are accustomed to have their wants for books or information supplied: and the public resorting to the library will thus come not only to rely upon him for aid in their intellectual researches, but to appreciate and respect him for the wide extent of his knowledge, and to consider him, in time, an indispensable guide, if not leader, in the community. His reputation, in fact, will depend upon the extent to which he has been able to help others, as well as upon the number of people whom he has thus aided.