The Reading-rooms connected with Boys' Lodging-houses, though sometimes doing well, are not uniformly successful, perhaps from the fact that workingmen do not like to be associated with homeless boys. Besides those connected with the Children's Aid Society, the City Mission and various churches have founded others, so that now the Free Reading-room is recognized as one of the means for improving the "dangerous classes," as much as the Sunday School, Chapel, or Mission. The true theory of the formation of the Reading-room is undoubtedly the inducing the laboring class to engage in the matter themselves, and then to assist them in meeting the expenses. But the lowest poor and the young men who frequent the grog-shops are so indifferent to mental improvement, and so seldom associate themselves for any virtuous object, that it is extremely difficult to induce them to combine for this. Moreover, as they rise in the social scale, they find organizations ready to hand, like the "Cooper Union," where Reading-rooms and Libraries are provided gratuitously. For the present, the Reading-room may be looked upon, like the Public School, as a means of improvement offered by society, in its own Interest, to all. CHAPTER XXV. HOMELESS GIRLS. It was a fortunate event for our charity which led, in 1861, a certain New York merchant to accept the position of President of our Society. Mr. William A. Booth had the rare combination of qualities which form a thorough presiding officer, and at the same time he was inspired by a spirit of consecration to what he believed his Master's service, rarely seen among men. His faculty of "rolling off" business, of keeping his assembly or board on the points before them--for even business men have sometimes the female tendency of rather wide-reaching discussions and conversations--his wonderful clearness of comprehension, and a judicial faculty which nearly always enabled him to balance with remarkable fairness both sides of a question, made him beyond comparison the best presiding officer for a business-board I have ever seen. With him, we always had short and very full sessions, and reached our points rapidly and efficiently. He had, too, the capacity, rare among men of organizing brains, of accepting a rejection or rebuff to any proposition he may have made (though this happened seldom) with perfect good humor. Perhaps more than with his public services in our Board, I was struck with his private career. Hour after hour in his little office, I have seen different committees and officials of numerous societies, charities, and financial associations come to him with their knotty points, and watched with admiration as he disentangled each question, seeming always to strike upon the course at once wise and just. A very small portion of his busy time was then given to his own interests, though he had been singularly successful in his private affairs.