To sum up, the requisites for the ideal children's library, as we begin to see it, are suitable books, plenty of room, plenty of assistance, and thoughtful administration. Better a number of children's libraries scattered over a town or city than a large central one, since only in this way can the children be divided up so as to make individual attention to them easy. But if it devolves upon one library to do the work for the entire town, and branches are out of the question, something of the same result may be obtained by providing at certain hours an extra number of assistants. I can imagine a large room with several desks, at each of which should preside an assistant having charge of only certain classes of books, so that in time she might come to be an authority on historical or biographical or scientific or literary books for children, and the children might learn to go to her as their specialist on the class of books they cared most for. Perhaps this may sound Utopian. I believe there are libraries present and to come for which it is entirely practicable. THE GROWING TENDENCY TO OVER-EMPHASIZE THE CHILDREN'S SIDE An investigation of rural libraries in North Carolina and of library work with children in Boston and New England towns led Miss Caroline Matthews, a member of the Examining Committee of the Public Library of Boston to believe that "exaggerated leaning toward one phase of library work must throw out of the true the work as a whole." The following paper explaining her conclusions was read before the Massachusetts Library Club in October, 1907. Caroline Matthews was born in Boston in 1855. She has contributed articles to the Educational Review and to the Atlantic Monthly. Miss Matthews is at present living in Switzerland. I have been asked to speak on this subject, not because I have professional or technical knowledge of the subject to be discussed, but rather because I have not. This does not mean that I have no knowledge whatever of this or other phases of library work. It simply means that the little knowledge I do possess is non-professional, and that my impressions, points of view, conclusions, are wholly those of an outsider. Up to three years ago I had had no connection with public libraries beyond being an occasional borrower of books. Then suddenly, through making a comparative study of the financing of public school systems here and in France, I found myself in touch with the public schools of an American city, and through them with the school deposits of the Public Library of the same city. Even so, I did not come in touch with the library side of the work. It was always the school or teachers' side, or the pupils' side, never any other.