As to secular self-improvement, the students will always be few and far between, and the experience of most libraries is that there is little or no demand for improving books. So much is _taught_ that there is little inclination to learn. A reaction sometimes comes to men, but seldom to women, whose home industries and occupations necessarily absorb them so that their reading must be either devotional or recreative. Thus there is very little call for improving books in the lending library, in proportion to those meant for recreation; but I would urge that they should be used for prizes. At present, the usual habit is to choose gay outsides and pretty pictures, with little heed to the contents, but it should be remembered that the lent book is ephemeral, read in a week and passed on, while the prize remains, is exhibited to relatives and friends, is read over and over, becomes a resource in illness, and forms part of the possessions to be handed on to the next generation. Therefore, after the infant period, the reward book should generally be of some worthiness, either religious, improving, or at least standard fiction. Weakness and poverty of thought should be avoided, especially as these books may fall into the hands of clever, ungodly men, and serve to excite their mockery. It should be remembered that the child to whom the book is given will not always remain a child, and therefore that it is better to let the new and cherished possession go beyond its present level of taste or capacity. The elder lad, whose schooldays are over, sometimes begins to waken to intelligence, and to be ready to seek information, in some cases being glad of really deep reading on scientific, political, or theological subjects, and it is all-important to preoccupy his mind with sound views before he meets with specious trash. Many indeed both of lads and men are absorbed in actual practical life and never read at all, or nothing but newspapers. Yet even these when laid low by illness will accept a book to pass away the weary hours. Nothing, of course, can equal the effect of personal influence, from schoolmaster, clergyman, or lady, but each of these may find books, lent, recommended, or read aloud, of great assistance. Some books of advice deprecate reading aloud in Sunday schools. My own experience, now of many years, is that it is of great assistance in impressing the scholars, and gives great pleasure. I have been told of my old pupils mentioning it as one of the enjoyments of their younger days; and when a part of a story has been missed by absence, the connection is eagerly supplied by the listeners who have been present. Moreover, those books in the lending library are always most sought after which have been read aloud, and sometimes elucidated, either at the Sunday school or at the mothers’ meeting.