get the best and final opinion, but all opinions, from which they are to draw conclusions. Now, the duty of the librarian is simply to represent all opinions, and not his own opinion, or his notion of the best opinion, or somebody else's notion of the best opinion; but, given a doctrine which is important, which is attracting attention, he assumes that this doctrine must be represented in his collection. It is only a question of what represents this doctrine best--not whether the doctrine is right or wrong. If there is a book regarding which there are two opinions, the appraisal may give the two opinions, as all appraisals should, so far as it can be done. The substance of what I wish to say is this: our duty is not one of exclusion; it is one of selection, and that fact is as little understood as any element in library administration to-day--and I am sorry to say that the misunderstanding is apt to be countenanced by the librarian. Take for instance the case of the Boston Public Library, berated all over the country for excluding certain books from its collection. Now, the Boston Public Library deliberately excludes, to my knowledge, almost no book. Its process is of selection. It receives about seven hundred volumes of recent fiction a year, to consider for purchase. It believes that it is for the best interests of its constituents to buy less than two hundred titles and multiply copies. Now, how is it going to dispose of the other five hundred? They are neither rebuked, disapproved of or placed in an index. They are simply left out, because in the process of selection, the first two hundred seem most useful for the purpose of the library.