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 superior, both from the ready command of the most abundant material, and from experience in its use. On the other hand, while authorship may be said to be the most besetting temptation of the librarian, it is one that should be steadily 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 during library hours, he is safe. Some years since it was a common subject of reproach regarding the librarians 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 most prolific and versatile of authors, while John Fiske, once assistant librarian at Harvard, Reuben A. Guild, William 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 respect to the qualifications of a librarian, it may appear that I have insisted upon too high a standard, and have claimed 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 show 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 not given to mortals to achieve perfection: but it is none the less our business to aim at it, and the higher the ideal, the nearer we are likely to come to a notable success in the work we have chosen.