If prices rise ten per cent., it will diminish the number of books he can buy. I followed the argument this morning. If it is correct, there is only one thing we can do. We, as librarians, are cutting into the revenues of these men, and we ought not only not to ask a discount but librarians ought to pay twenty-five per cent. in addition, because we are cutting into their revenues. We ought to appoint a committee, which without a bit of the spirit of antagonism, should meet the publishers and booksellers and point out all over the United States large consumers who buy for cash. I think it is a practical mistake to try to force up the price, and that we are bound as custodians of this money that is put in our hands, firmly and courteously, but, I am sure, with the most friendly relations on both sides, to see that the prices of our books shall not be cut down. I say, therefore, in summing up, after an observation of thirty years, that I am confident that the library of this century is going to assume those educational functions, and that among the most prominent of these is the putting into the hands of the people who wish to make their lives wealthier in arts or trades the books of power and of inspiration. The public library cannot afford not to put into their hands at a minimum price the books they want to read. And, logically we shall be forced in that direction. You will find that this tendency is growing all the while, and we will have to put the library squarely alongside the high school. Indeed the library in its development is following exactly the line of development of the tax-supported high school and for that same reason, that in the high school we now offer instruction free, the library will offer books for sale without profit--there should be no profit in the library--and will lend books freely, and will with regret kill the local book store and supplant it by something that is worth a great deal more.