A distinguished librarian, who has been a pioneer of progress in the library movement, has recently suggested the propriety of abolishing book stores (_see Publishers' Weekly_, May 11, '01, p. 1149) and allowing public librarians to receive orders and forward them to the publishers. If the distinguished gentleman did not have in view visions of personal gain for public librarians, he should have carried his philanthropic suggestion farther, and proposed to abolish both booksellers and librarians, and to allow the public to procure their books directly from the publishers, thus saving that moiety of gain that would be made by either in return for the service rendered. It cannot be supposed that so able and conscientious an administrative officer ever contemplated maintaining an extra corps of assistants, at an extra expense to the municipality or to those liberal benefactors who have endowed public libraries, in order that opulent citizens may still further indulge their tastes by purchasing larger private libraries, without paying the small commission or profit that is usually allowed to retail booksellers. On the other hand, if this proposal was made for the purpose of allowing libraries maintained by taxing the municipality, to engage in gainful occupation, this is carrying the socialistic idea farther than even our populistic friends have ever yet proposed. However, inasmuch as this question has been raised, we are bound to treat it from an economic point of view. The question is, "Shall the bookseller be abolished and his office merged into that of the librarian, and can the librarian perform the offices of the bookseller?" No one has ever questioned the value of the public library from the burning of the Alexandrian Library to the present day. The value of a library, as a _librarium_, or storehouse for the permanent preservation of books, has always been manifest. Again, the public library gives a larger opportunity and a wider range than is possible in the private collection; and scholars, historians and students of all classes are daily made grateful to the trained, professional librarian, who has so classified the contents of the library as to make the whole available at a moment's notice. Still another inestimable feature of the public library is that it maintains a public reading room for children as well as adults. Finally, the library furnishes reading at home to those who are not yet in a position to become owners of books. The benefit derived from reading of this character is often of questionable value. The _habitué_ of the circulating library makes his selections from misleading or sensational titles. Little care and less intelligence is exercised in choosing either title or author. As a result librarians are constantly complaining that only the trashiest and most worthless books are read.