As would be expected, the towns which have taken the lead in such extension efforts as courses of public lectures have been places where the traditional bond between the library and kindred foundations like the museum and art gallery have never been severed. Such a combination is a much more appropriate engine of extension activity than is the library that is merely a library. It usually contains a lecture hall, if not smaller rooms for study and discussion. In addition to the books, which must be available and must be read if lectures are to have any lasting results, the collections in the museum are there for use in connexion with scientific and historical lectures, and the gallery provides the most appropriate illustrations for those on artistic subjects. In some towns, library, museum, and art gallery are housed under one roof, governed by the same committee, and even superintended by the same curator. Sometimes the technical school is one of the group. Too close a coalition may have detrimental results. Administration by one chief officer is hardly justifiable unless the whole establishment is only on a moderate scale. There is always the risk that one department will flourish at the expense of the others. One of the most disastrous instances within my experience was when the committee of a many-sided institute chose a librarian for his qualifications as a college lecturer. In this case, it was the library that went to the wall. In others, it has been the museum, the picture gallery, or the school, when there has been one attached; or the whole has suffered from the lack of close attention or of the special knowledge and experience required equally by each department. But this is no argument against the policy of putting them all under one committee as branches of one corporate undertaking. LECTURES IN THE LIBRARY.