Classification is the natural basis of indexing, or rather classifying and indexing are complementary to each other, the object being to have everything in its place and to show how it can be found. Every author, every one who uses or dispenses information, every one who keeps so much as a commonplace book, ought to be an efficient indexer; yet ignorance of what constitutes a good index is almost universal. There has been a slight improvement of late in the proportion of books indexed; but the general standard of precision and scientific arrangement is still very low. Apart from inaccuracy, which is a common defect, our methods, in regard to thoroughness and ease of reference, are painfully inferior to American methods; [49]the fact is patent even in some of our big co-operative treatises, which have no excuse for their slovenliness on the score of economy. Yet the public seem to be content. They are used to taking what is offered them, and have never considered what minimum of efficiency in book-production they are entitled to expect. A review here and there makes its protest against a bad or omitted index, or against inadequate or forgotten maps, or illustrations that do not illustrate, and to this may be attributed the slight improvement noticed. Yet the importance of indexing, in all the affairs of life, is so obvious that, apart altogether from its function in books and libraries, it ought to find a place in any well-planned scheme of education. But the most important and fundamental of the library arts is that of book selection, which is best defined, not as choosing the best books, but as choosing the right, the appropriate books. The student of librarianship is taught literary history so that he may be a safe and discriminating selector of books, and be qualified to see that the library contains the right sort of material. The object of library lectures and reading circles is to direct readers to the right books to read. In her account of a very interesting experiment,[50] Miss Sayle describes how the Hampshire villagers were allowed the casting vote on every book purchased by the simple expedient of eliminating those books that failed to attract readers. The results sound lamentable. Whole sections went under the hammer. Autobiography, Gardening, Lives, Travels, Poetry, are one and all reported “Abolished, owing to lack of readers.” _Waverley_, _Kidnapped_, _Barnaby Rudge_, and Pierre Loti’s _Iceland Fisherman_, were among the classics discarded in one year in order to make room for the works of Mrs. Henry Wood, Miss Worboise, Baroness Orczy, and Gene Stratton Porter. Lamb’s _Tales from Shakespeare_ seldom left the children’s cupboard. Now Miss Sayle is undoubtedly right in extolling the principle of giving her village readers the initiative in the choice of books for their own library, the library they founded and maintain out of their own pockets. But her story is not creditable to those who might, had they gone the right way