Or we may administer--serve, dispense--the books, as in medicine; knowing the powers and the virtues of each; perceiving the stimulating effects of one, the acceleration of heart action induced by another; this one as an emollient and an anodyne, that one as a vesicatory or an excitant; here a bromide, there a sulphite, yonder a tincture blandly dissolved in a vehicle of simple syrup, next a pill, sugar-coated, but none the less a stern and bitter dose. And when we do that we are returning to the habits and practices of that "old librarian" so useful to use now as a horrible example and a subject for humorous divagation, but we are also returning to the faith once delivered to the saints, for after all, the Fathers believed with Lord Bacon that "some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested" and they did love to administer them "as in medicine." It is far from my intention to imply that the new librarian does not know his books. Certainly he has not surrendered one ounce of his faith in their potency. Rather does he impute to them, collectively, greater powers than ever before, regarding his library as a moral unit of large influence and seeking to extend its operation to the uttermost limits of his jurisdiction. But is it not thus collectively that he prefers to regard and administer it; as a great, powerful moral force which shall permeate the community and envelop it so that, by a sort of intellectual pantheism, we may all be in tune with the Infinite if we but open the windows of the soul? Is he not being borne along in the modern trend in therapeutics which is replacing doses and cordials, tinctures and bitter pills with a state of mind?