If Bodley argued that men who teach a subject are necessarily acquainted with its literature, and are consequently the fittest guardians and directors of a library, he argued very badly, and in ignorance of facts. Ability to teach a subject is one thing; knowledge of the literature of that subject--such knowledge as is required in the superintendents of a library--is a totally different thing. The two may be indeed united, but very rarely are so. A man, for instance, may be a finished Latin scholar without ever having heard of Coster's Donatus, and without being able to offer an opinion on that or on any of the other editions in which Dutch libraries glory. Probably not one man in fifty who reads the sentence which I have just written will have the very remotest idea of its true meaning; and if he has not, it will not follow that he is a dunce, or that he is a poor Latinist; all that follows is that he has much to learn before he is fit to take any part in the management of a large library. What is wanted, what in fact is necessary, is that sort of knowledge which the Italian government proposes to give to all employed in the libraries under its control. In Rome and in Florence a course of bibliographical instruction and examination has lately been instituted. The syllabus of the course, which is a very good one, lies before me, and in it the subject is divided into six parts: 1. Paleografia, 2. Bibliologia, 3. Bibliografia, 4. Biblioteconomia, 5. Amministrazione, 6. Lingue. The knowledge required is neither recondite nor profound, yet I shudder to think what the result would be were we Curators to submit ourselves to the tender mercies of this Italian board. To speak for myself, I should have faced such an examination without the least trepidation some twenty years ago; but now, though I have been trying to brush up faded knowledge, I would not stake a single sixpence on a favorable issue; and to judge from all I have seen and heard during the last two years, I suspect that, though a few might perhaps scramble through, the great majority of us would emerge from the ordeal more completely plucked than was the unhappy bird, which Diogenes introduced to the astonished disciples with the words 'Here is Plato's man!'