must be the minimum foundation for the most unambitious kind of library service, as distinguished from a mere book service. This latter may be furnished by a circulating system, centering in a repository at some distance; but the permanent collection must be there, in the village, or the book service will be bereft of most of its educational value. The Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, at whose request Professor Adams had carried out his investigation, adopted for the sake of experiment his suggestion that the Trust should take over the Coats Libraries in the Highlands and Islands, which had been initiated by Sir Peter Coats of Paisley and at that date numbered 186 on the mainland, 59 in Shetland and Orkney, 33 in Lewis and Harris, and 37 in the other Hebrides. A repository was established at Dunfermline, from which these local centres were supplied with periodical batches of books. This was the beginning of the Carnegie rural library scheme, which during the next few years offered the public and the Government an object-lesson in the methods of supplying the neglected two-fifths of the population in the four kingdoms with a library service. The first county scheme to be set on foot was in Staffordshire. In 1915 the Trust offered £5,000 to this county council to be expended in five years on a central repository, a stock of books, travelling boxes and other equipment, and the costs of administration and carriage, asking in return for “reasonable assurances that, at the conclusion of the period and after the expenditure of the grant named, the scheme would be maintained and supported on funds other than theirs.” From 54 centres at once established in Staffordshire schools the scheme gradually spread in four years to 206. The county councils of Gloucestershire, Cardiganshire, Somerset, and Wilts undertook similar schemes under like financial conditions, and the Trust made grants to the public libraries of Perth and Grantham to organize a service in the neighbouring country parishes. These rural systems were given a statutory basis in Scotland, under sec. 5 of the Scottish Education Act of 1918; but it was not till the Public Libraries Act of December, 1919 that the position in England and Wales was legalized. That Act gave an immense stimulus to the rural library movement. Library schemes have now been prepared for nearly half the rural area of Great Britain, and a large number are in actual working order.[20] The Trustees in 1920 set aside a sum of £192,000 for grants to county authorities during the six years 1920-5, such grants to be employed on the initial expenses of the stock of books, boxes, shelving, and similar accessories for the central repository. From that date they ceased to pay for the erection of buildings or for running expenses. The premises used are mostly temporary buildings, such as Government huts, or else rooms in schools. These central repositories look bare and insignificant