It ought not to be needful to charge any one never to wet the finger to turn over the leaves of a book--a childish habit, akin to running out the tongue when writing, or moving the lips when reading to one's self. The only proper way to turn the leaf is at the upper right-hand corner, and the index-finger of the right hand will always be found competent to that duty. Still less should it be needful to insist upon the importance to every reader of books, of coming to their perusal clean-handed. When you reflect that nine-tenths of the soiling and spoiling which books undergo comes from the dirty hands of many readers, this becomes a vital point. Fouquet, a learned book collector of France, used to keep a pile of white gloves in the ante-room of his library, and no visitor was allowed to cross the threshold, or to handle a book without putting on a pair, lest he should soil the precious volumes with naked hands. Such a refinement of care to keep books immaculate is not to be expected in this age of the world; and yet, a librarian who respects his calling is often tempted to wish that there were some means of compelling people to be more careful about books than they are. It ought not ever to be true that an enemy to the welfare of library books is found in the librarian himself, or in any of his assistants, yet there have been those employed in the care of books who have abused their positions and the volumes entrusted to their charge, not only by neglect of care, (which is a negative injury) but by positive and continual ill treatment. This may arise from ignorance of better methods, but ignorance is a poor excuse for one credited with the intelligence of a librarian. In some libraries, books are treated with positive indignity, and are permanently injured by tightly wedging them together. Never crowd books by main force into shelves too short or too small for them. It strains the backs, and seriously injures the bindings. Every book should slip easily past its fellows on the shelf. If a volume is too tall to go in its place, it should be relegated to lower shelves for larger books, never letting its head be crowded against the shelf above it. One should never pull books out from the shelf by their head-bands, or by pulling at the binding, but place the finger firmly on the top of the book, next to the binding, and press down while drawing out the volume. From failure to observe this simple precaution, you will find in all libraries multitudes of torn or broken bindings at the top--a wholly needless defacement and waste.