In taking leave of our subject we may go back to our opening simile of the railroad train. The flier that reaches New York is the same train that left Chicago; its passengers have not greatly changed, and yet its environment is wholly different, so that the outlook of those within it has totally altered. It is in some such fashion that the library of 1950 will differ from that of today. It will be the same institution with the same staff, but it will have traveled far on the rails of time. Its environment, its outlook will be different, and in its response to that variation it must needs do different things and render a different service. May its motive power never fail, its machinery be kept well oiled, and the crew maintain their strength, intelligence and sanity! POPULARIZING MUSIC THROUGH THE LIBRARY[18] The purchase of music by a public library is justified by the assumption that its use is to be somewhat analogous to that of printed speech. The analogy is, in fact, somewhat closer than most persons realize, and its consideration reveals some mistaken ideas about the use of music in a library and may give rise to suggestions for the improvement of that use. A page of music, like a page of written language, is a record of something whose primary expression is obtained through sound. Anyone who understands the notation in either case may reproduce the sounds. In one case this is “reading aloud”; in the other it is a performance of the music. In the case of the music the sounds may be made with the voice, or with an instrument or with one or several of both at once, but this is only an apparent complication and does not affect the principle. The reader, of course, may learn the language, or the music, by heart and then dispense with the written record. In practise there are important differences between the treatment of records of speech and music. As sound is readily imagined as well as actually produced, both speech and music may be enjoyed by a reader without making a sound. If the reader of a book cannot do this, he is not regarded as at all skilled. Most of us, I think, do not consider that a person knows completely how to read when he is not able to read “to himself”, but finds it necessary to make the actual sounds of speech, whether loudly, or only under his breath. In the case of music, however, only the skilled musician, as a general thing, is able to read a page of music “to himself”, as he would read a page of written language. This is especially the case with instrumental music and with music where there are several parts. An accomplished musician, however, may run over an orchestral score and hear the performance “in his mind”, with the quality of each instrument brought out, the harmonies and the shading of intensity.