“In farming communities, where houses are few and far between, and an hour an evening at a central reading-room would be an impossibility, I shall suggest a circulation of periodicals after the fashion of our Eastern book clubs. “One great demand which will be made on us, and which we are not yet ready to supply, is for good librarians. I wish to call the attention of intelligent young women to this field of work which is about to be opened to them, provided that they are fitted for it. “In these new libraries, I propose to provide the librarian at my own expense for the first two years, thereby insuring the judicious management and consequent popularity of the scheme. “A librarian who has the missionary spirit can have, in a small town, about as christianizing an influence as a home missionary. She will make the library a pleasant place, where quietness and good manners are the rule, and every one is made to feel at home; she will offer wise suggestions as to the selection of books, and give occasional talks on authors and good literature. “I mean to send out strong, earnest, college-bred young women, who will take a missionary view of their work, and make it a means of great good. I shall pay them well, and, as their terms expire, shall transfer them from one place to another to do pioneer work, varying their salary according to the amount of work done. “My reason for choosing women for the work is, that I think them to be more faithful and conscientious than men, as a rule, and to have more tact and knowledge of detail. Besides, there are more capable women than men who would be benefited by the money and experience. “I am especially interested in the success of my scheme in the South, where a circulating library, open to every one without distinction of race or sex, is an almost if not quite an unheard-of thing. “The scarcity of reading matter among both colored and white teachers, to say nothing of other people, is something fairly startling, and my agents in the Southern states will probably be compelled to adopt somewhat different measures from those used in the West. “A circulation of magazines and papers will be necessary in sparsely settled districts, where people would otherwise have to walk two or three miles to get any benefit from a reading-room. “Suppose, for instance, there is a little community of fifty families, both black and white, whose cabins and clearings are scattered over an area five miles square. There are hundreds of such places in the South where the people are completely out of the world, and where not one adult in five sees a weekly paper regularly or could read it if he saw it. To these people, up on the mountain sides, in the pine forests or on the river-bottoms, my BRAVE NEW ENGLAND TEACHER