The opening of a free public library, then, is a most important event in the history of any town. A college training is an excellent thing; but, after all, the better part of every man's education is that which he gives himself, and it is for this that a good library should furnish the opportunity and the means. I have sometimes thought that our public schools undertook to teach too much, and that the older system, which taught merely the three R's, and taught them well, leaving natural selection to decide who should go farther, was the better. However this may be, all that is primarily needful in order to use a library is the ability to read. I say primarily, for there must also be the inclination, and, after that, some guidance in reading well. Formerly the duty of a librarian was considered too much that of a watchdog to keep people as much as possible away from the books, and to hand these over to his successor as little worn by use as he could. Librarians now, it is pleasant to see, have a different notion of their trust, and are in the habit of preparing for the direction of the inexperienced lists of such books as they think best worth reading. Cataloging has also, thanks in great measure to American librarians, become a science, and catalogs, ceasing to be labyrinths without a clew, are furnished with finger-posts at every turn. Subject catalogs again save the beginner a vast deal of time and trouble, by supplying him for nothing with one at least of the results of thorough scholarship, the knowing where to look for what he wants. I do not mean by this that there is or can be any short-cut to learning, but that there may be, and is, such a short-cut to information that will make learning more easily accessible.