4. In towns and cities with free libraries, much may be and has
been done by establishing direct communication between libraries
and schools, making schools branch libraries.

5. This can be done only by insisting that teachers in such towns
and cities shall know something of literature, and by refusing to
grant certificates to teachers who, in the course of an hour's
talk, do not show themselves well enough informed to guide
children to a love of good books. The classes now reading under
Mr. Metcalf's direction in Boston, or celebrating authors' days
and the founding of their own state in Cincinnati, will be, in a
few years, the teachers, the fathers, or the mothers of a new
generation, and the result of their reading may be expected to
appear in the awakened intelligence of their pupils and children.

6. Daily newspapers may be used with advantage in schools to
encourage children to read on current events and to verify
references.

7. Direct personal intercourse of librarians and assistants with
children is the surest way of gaining influence over them. Miss
Stevens, of Toledo, has put the secret of the whole matter, so
far as we are concerned, into four words: "Librarians should like
children." It may be added that a librarian or assistant in
charge of circulation should never be too busy to talk with
children and find out what they need. Bibliography and learning
of all kinds have their places in a library; but the counter
where children go needs no abstracted scholar, absorbed in first
editions or black-letter, but a winsome friend, to meet them more