We have changed all that in the modern world, and library service is now one of the busiest occupations in the whole range of human enterprise. One cannot succeed in the profession, if his main idea is that a public library is a nice and easy place where one may do one's own reading and writing to the best advantage. A library is an intellectual and material work-shop, in which there is no room for fossils nor for drones. My only conception of a useful library is a library that is used--and the same of a librarian. He should be a lover of books--but not a book-worm. If his tendencies toward idealism are strong, he should hold them in check by addicting himself to steady, practical, every-day work. While careful of all details, he should not be mastered by them. If I have sometimes seemed to dwell upon trifling or obvious suggestions as to temper, or conduct, or methods, let it be remembered that trifles make up perfection, and that perfection is no trifle. I once quoted the saying that "the librarian who reads is lost"; but it would be far truer to say that the librarian who does not read is lost; only he should read wisely and with a purpose. He should make his reading helpful in giving him a wide knowledge of facts, of thoughts, and of illustrations, which will come perpetually in play in his daily intercourse with an inquiring public. CHAPTER 14. SOME OF THE USES OF LIBRARIES. Let us now consider the subject of the uses of public libraries to schools and those connected with them. Most town and city libraries are supported, like the free schools, by the public money, drawn from the tax-payers, and supposed to be expended for the common benefit of all the people. It results that one leading object of the library should be to acquire such a collection of books as will be in the highest degree useful to all. And especially should the wants of the younger generation be cared for, since they are always not only nearly one half of the community, but they are also to become the future citizens of the republic. What we learn in youth is likely to make a more marked and lasting impression than what we may acquire in later years. And the public library should be viewed as the most important and necessary adjunct of the school, in the instruction and improvement of the young. Each is adapted to supply what the other lacks. The school supplies oral instruction and public exercises in various departments of learning; but it has few or no books, beyond the class text-books which are used in these instructions. The library, on the other hand, is a silent school of learning, free to all, and supplying a wide range of information, in books adapted to every age. It thus supplements, and in proportion to the extent and judicious choice of its collections, helps to complete that education, which the school falls short of. In this view, we see the great importance of making sure that the public library has not only a