homes and most prominent in the shops is enough to show what this
means, and to explain the fact, that the young persons first
admitted to the public library at fourteen years of age come to
it with a well-developed taste for trash and a good acquaintance
with the names of authors in that department of literature, but
with apparently little capacity left for culture in higher
directions."

Mr. Winchester, of the Russell Free Library, Middletown, Conn.,
said in his report, last January: "A departure from the ordinary
rules governing the use of the library has been made in favor of
the teachers in the city schools, allowing a teacher to take to
the school, a number of books upon any topic which may be the
subject of study for the class for the time, and to retain them
beyond the time regularly allowed." In a letter three months
later he writes, "I cannot trace directly to this arrangement any
change in the reading of young folks. We have taken a good deal
of pains to get good books for the younger readers, and I make it
a point to assist them whenever I can. I feel quite sure that, if
trash is shut out of the library and withheld from young readers,
and, if good and interesting books are offered to them, they will
soon learn not to care for the trash."

Mr. Bassett, of the Bronson Library, Waterbury, Conn., says in
his printed report: "The librarian can do a little towards
leading young book-borrowers towards the selection of proper
books, but it does not amount to much unless his efforts are
seconded by parents and teachers. It is of little use, I fear, to
appeal to parents to look after their children's reading. It is
possible that they do not know that, in not a few cases, boys and