the struggle for existence that we forget that the best thing in life is just to live. Not all reading is for material profit; some of it is for happiness, and that happiness is purest and most complete which we find for ourselves. It is the discovery of one's own light that brings the abiding joy. What man or woman cannot look back to the inspiration of some finding of his own for which he owes no one but his Creator? These are the finest moments of life. "Then felt I like some watcher of the skies, When a new planet swims into his ken." So said Keats upon first looking into Chapman's Homer. To express the rapture of the poet is given only to the poet. But the pure joy of finding for ourselves some of the true and beautiful with which we are in harmony, is reward enough. Whether we look upon our library as a source of recreation, of happiness or profit (and it is all of these) this army, who have fallen out of the ranks in the onward march of education in the school, seem to be our especial wards. To open the door through the book for them is a work worth doing, not as a means of salvation, but as a means of sowing more efficiency and more happiness among men. Ours is not the schoolmaster's task of teaching things: it is the nobler task of showing humanity how to teach itself. And, while we speak of missions, the library need not take itself too seriously. The world is not looking to us for the salvation of mankind. When all is done that can be done, there will still be those who will not read, and who will follow the primrose path after their natures. There are many agencies in life that work for good and the library is one, not the only one. Our field is clear-cut and well-defined--to extend the use of books. There seems to be a sort of nervous notion abroad that one of the chief ends of libraries is to draw a crowd and put a nice book into every hand. I do not know about all these enrichments of our libraries as I read of them. Have books any compelling power over those who merely come into their presence, unless such people love the books or at least wish to read them? Of this I have no doubt: There are enough who care to use our libraries, if we can take away that helpless bewilderment which overcomes those who are cast adrift, without rudder or compass, upon a sea of books. Teach them the ways in which books may be made to yield their treasures. Open that door in youth if possible, and it will be the best possession which youth carries into manhood. But open it sometime, for the real harvest time is when he who wishes to read, reads what he wants. It might be more soul-satisfying to me to hand out to my chicken boy books that minister to more attenuated needs--but what about the boy? Is he not better that he finds for himself in the book what feeds his mind? The glory and power of the library is that he who can merely read, may there find what the in-dwelling spirit asks for. It is good that