The first is the necessity for economy in spending one's appropriation. I imagine your astonishment and disapproval of the judgment of a person who can count the need of economy as any cause for congratulation. But let us look for a moment at some of the things you are saved by being forced to be "saving." The greatest good to your public and to yourself is that you must think of the ESSENTIALS, the "worth while" things first, last and always. You cannot afford to buy carelessly. Every dollar you spend must bring the best return possible and to the greatest number of people. Every foolish purchase means disappointment to your borrowers and wear on your own nerves. So, instead of being able to order in an off-hand way many things which may be desirable but which are really not essential, one gets a most valuable training in judgment by this constant weighing of good, indifferent and indispensable. To apply this to the principle of the selection of children's books--and nothing in work with children, except the personality of the worker with them is so important as this, we cannot buy everything, we must buy the best, and we therefore have an argument that must have a show of reasonableness to those borrowers who advocate large purchases of books you tell them your income will not cover. What are the essentials in children's books if your selection must be small? Our children can grow up without Henty. They must not grow up without the classics in myth and fable and legend, the books which have delighted grown people and adults for generations, and upon the child's early acquaintance with which depends his keen enjoyment of much of his later reading, because of the wealth of allusion which will be lost to him if he has not read aesop and King Arthur and the Wonder Book, Gulliver, Crusoe, Siegfried and many others of like company, in childhood. Then the librarian cannot afford to leave out collections of poetry. Her children must have poetry in no niggardly quantity, from Mother Goose and the Nonsense Book to our latest, most beautiful acquisitions, "Golden numbers" and the "Posy ring." And American history and biography must be looked after among the first things and constantly replenished. So must fairy tales, the best fairy tales--Andersen, Grimm, the Jungle books, MacDonald, Pyle, "The rose and the ring." Much more discrimination must be exercised in selecting the nature and science books than is usually the case.