One reason why the best books are not read is that many people do not know how readable they are. In the vocabulary of the great public the word classic is synonymous with dry. It frightens people. How much the schools are responsible for this through their use of great literary masterpieces as text-books is a disputed question. If we can only succeed in making people understand that the reason these works are classics is because their inherent interest is so great that it has kept them living and vital through the years that have brought oblivion to hordes of weaker writings, we shall have accomplished something truly worth while. But if to many of our patrons the classic is something to be feared and avoided, there are others who really wish the best, but either do not know it or are so busy that they neglect it, taking the book that comes first to hand. Like those daughters of time--the hypocritic days, books too bring diadems and fagots. "To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdoms, stars and sky that holds them all." How often have we, wearied and hurried, hastily taken a few herbs and apples, only to feel later the solemn scorn of a wasted opportunity. There are probably few libraries today, outside the very small ones, that do not employ book lists, more or less elaborate in form, to call attention to their resources. These can be used to good advantage to recommend the purely literary attractions of the library's collection. But there are book lists and book lists. To some librarians a book list is a list of books, and nothing more. The newest member of the staff can take his subject, a pencil and a pad, and look in the card catalog under the proper heading, and lo! the list is made! And it is worth just about the amount of work put into it. A successful list requires far more than this. The books must be carefully selected by some one who knows them. If there are annotations, they must really annotate. If your brief note adds nothing that the public wishes to know, it is wasted. The number of entries, the title, the arrangement, the paper, and the print, all are important in deciding the popularity of a list. A distinction needs to be drawn between the list for students and the list for popular reading. The former may be very full, but experience tends to show that the latter should be brief--twenty-five entries at the longest; and many times, ten would be better. Ten great autobiographies, ten world-famous dramas, ten literary masterpieces--the very titles hint at that multum in parvo which gives popularity to collections like Dr. Eliot's five-foot library. To read five feet of books and find oneself simply but sufficiently armed and equipped to hold one's own with any university giant, how enticing it sounds! and how simple. The public dearly loves superlatives--"the best," "the most famous," "the greatest." If any librarian doubts the drawing power of these phrases, let him make a trial of them. A