TABLE XV.- Statistical summary of all degrees conferred― Continued.

As a means of maintaining the full significance of scholastic honors one of two conditions should be made a requisite for degrees: (1) a special examination, or (2) extended research or other worthy achievement in the department of knowledge represented by the degree. Our leading institutions insist more and more upon these requirements and the relative proportion of honorary degrees decreases from year to year.

TABLE XVI.—Summary of statistics of additional public libraries for 1881.

Adding the totals of the preceding summary to those of the summaries of 1880, 1879, 1878, 1877, 1876, and of the Special Report on Public Libraries published by this Bureau in 1876 (see also the Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1875, p. cvii), we have the following aggregates for the libraries now reported:

Total number of public libraries reported, each having 300 volumes or upwards___

Total number of volumes.

Total yearly additions (1,749 libraries reporting).

Total yearly use of books (883 libraries reporting).

Total amount of permanent fund (1,765 libraries reporting)

Total amount of yearly income (1,000 libraries reporting)

Total yearly expenditures for salaries and incidental expenses (773 libraries reporting)

Total yearly expenditure for books, periodicals, and binding (923 libraries reporting)

3,988 12, 889, 598 507, 832 9,912, 760 $6,832, 657 1, 474, 585

636, 594

781, 869

ture.

Salaries and inci

dentals.

It should be noted, however, that the figures for these items are but approximately true for the libraries of the country, inasmuch as they do not include the very considerable increase of the 3,647 libraries embraced in the Special Report on Public Libraries or the increase of the 270 libraries embraced in the Reports of the Commissioner of Education for 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879, and 1880, from the dates thereof to the present time.

The idea that a library is not a luxury but a necessity has become recognized among the most intelligent people. It has powerful influences which penetrate deeply and widely through nearly all classes to refine their tastes and elevate their principles as certainly as the organized systems of school instruction, though perhaps less rapidly. The general tendency of persons who continue the practice of drawing books from a library has been stated by good authority to be a gradually increasing interest in a more instructive and improving class of books than that for which they had at first shown a preference. A librarian has an opportunity to stimulate and direct this upward tendency, and where it is most apparent there is the greatest probability that this opportunity has been improved. "A collection of good books, with a soul to it in the shape of a good librarian," says Mr. Justin Winsor, "becomes a vitalized power among the impulses by which the world goes on to improvement." Manifestations of the appreciation of public libraries have appeared frequently in statutes providing for their support and protection. Not less than twenty States have legislated in their favor during the last decade. Few years go by in which some State, previously neglectful of its reading population, does not enact a law in the interest of free libraries. The statistics of additional public libraries previously given show their number and size to be greater this year than in any year subsequent to the publication of the special report on libraries in 1876. In 1880 the number of libraries reported was larger, but they contained fewer volumes. The functions of public libraries have been summarized by Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, of Boston, under the following heads:

First, in due proportion of funds to answer the requisition of scholars; second, to supply sufficient reading for all, and without inquiring too nicely whether that reading is merely for amusement or with some vague notion of acquiring useful knowledge; and lastly, that of instruction for the class who are generally pupils in the public schools.

LIBRARY MANAGEMENT.

The true aim of public library administration is to make the books in it accessible and useful to the greatest number of readers. The time has passed when the preservation of a library was the chief end in its economy. Methods of arranging, classifying, numbering, and charging books affect materially the usefulness of any collection, but a discussion of them would involve many questions and details that have only a secondary bearing on their educational value. These matters have been brought to a high degree of perfection, so that those skilled in them are familiar with excellent plans for conducting libraries of any size whatever. Librarians generally hold themselves in readiness to render assistance to libraries needing the help of experts.

The great need of a library, after it is supplied with books, is a qualified librarian. It would be difficult to say what are the most essential qualifications. A prime test of a librarian's quality, says Mr. Winsor," is his power to induce an improvement in the kind of reading." Mr. S. S. Green, of the Worcester (Mass.) Free Public Library, mentions courteous disposition, sympathy, cheerfulness, patience, and enthusiasm as qualities peculiarly desirable in library officers. The following suggestive sentences are from the pen of Melvil Dewey, esq., of Boston:

The best librarians are no longer men of merely negative virtues. They are positive, aggressive characters, standing in the front rank of the educators of their communities, side by side with the preachers and the teachers. * * * It is not now enough that the books are cared for properly, are well arranged, are never lost. It is not enough if the librarian can readily produce any book asked for. It is not enough that he can, vhen

asked, give advice as to the best books in his collection on any given subject. All these things are indispensable, but all these are not enough for our ideal. He must see that his library contains, as far as possible, the best books on the best subjects, regarding carefully the wants of his special community. Then, having the best books, he must create among his people, his pupils, a desire to read those books. He must put every facility in the way of readers, so that they shall be led on from good to better. He must teach them how, after studying their own wants, they may themselves select their reading wisely. Such a librarian will find enough who are ready to put themselves under his influence and direction, and if competent and enthusiastic he may soon largely shape the reading and, through it, the thought of his whole community.

LIBRARIES AND SCHOOLS.

Much attention is given to the use of libraries in connection with the public schools. Once it was the complaint that, though the school and the library stood side by side, no bridge stretched from the one to the other. Now librarians and the trustees of libraries generally are trying to coöperate with teachers and parents in directing into profitable channels the reading of children and youth. The younger children are helped to select interesting and instructive stories and books of history and travel; older ones are guided to the sources of history, the authorities in science, and the finest examples in literature. The choice of the books is aided by the acquaintance of the teacher with the tastes and capacities of his pupils, the discernment on the part of the librarian of their wants and his knowledge of the books that will supply them, and by the increasing abilities of readers to choose for themselves. Many circumstances and influences must unite in order to produce the highest degree of mutual helpfulness between the school and the library. Some of these essentials are mentioned by Mr. W. E. Foster, of Providence, as follows:

On the part of the pupil, then, are requisite a continuous mental development and sufficient scope of individuality; on the part of the teacher and librarian are requisite a genuine interest in the work and mutual coöperation. The choice of methods must aim to bring the strongest light of interest to bear on the presentation of each subject, and must be essentially direct and personal, and must follow up the first steps of continuous efforts. Instead of a policy which contemplates brilliant but superficial operations should be chosen one which, with patience and persistency, enters upon measures which require time for their development, but whose results are substantial and permanent.

A few years ago the trustees of the Quincy (Mass.) Public Library adopted a rule by which each of the schools might become practically a branch library, the master selecting a number of volumes from the main library and circulating them among his scholars. In the Wells School, Boston, a plan has been devised for promoting the study of good literature. It involves the loan from the Public Library to the public school of copies of some one book sufficient in number to enable the pupils of the school to read the same book at the same time. Once a week they are examined in a free conversational way as to the structure of the work, the relation of its parts, the spirit in which it was written, the excellence of its style and diction, and similar qualities. It is said that after a few months' study of "Leslie Goldthwaite's Journal" the pupils "came to have a perception more or less clear, according to the intellectual endowments of individual girls, of all those elements by which the professional critic is enabled to give judgment upon the value of any novel as a work of art." The use of libraries has been greatly increased in Cincinnati by interesting public school scholars in authors of unquestioned merit. The school district libraries of California are meeting with marked success. It is not too much to say that seven-eighths of them are doing good service in the education of the people. Mr. Foster has given some excellent rules for the guidance of pupils in their use of the public library. They are as follows:

(1) Begin by basing your reading on your school text books. (2) Learn the proper use of reference books. (3) Use books, that you may obtain and express ideas of your own. (4) Acquire wholesome habits of reading. (5) Use imaginative literature, but

not immoderately. (6) Do not try to cover too much ground. (7) Do not hesitate to ask for assistance and suggestions at the library. (8) See that you make your reading a definite gain to you.

CATALOGUES AND INDEXES.

The practical value of libraries has been enhanced by the skill and industry employed in the preparation of catalogues and indexes. This technical and laborious work can be accomplished satisfactorily only by persons of talent and experience. General rules are adopted by library associations, and they furnish guidance and tend to secure uniformity of entries and arrangement. They have the same purpose and consequently are essentially alike in matters of substance. The details may depend on the fulness of entries, the kind of catalogue, the purposes of the library, and the characteristics of librarians. The mental qualities and the facilities possessed by the employés of any library will determine to a considerable extent the character of the catalogue issued by it. Such a work as the subject catalogue of the United States Surgeon General's Office could not come from a library which had inferior officers and ordinary facilities. It may be that some system of coöperation will be inaugurated by which catalogues for general use will be prepared by the combined effort of the men best able to do such work.

The movements in the line of indexing are attracting much attention. It is now considered feasible to index, not individual books only, but those of a class or subject. A series of publications entitled the Q. P. Indexes has been received with favor.1 The earliest of them contain references to the articles which appeared in some single magazine during a selected period. Later numbers give references to contributions to several periodicals during a particular year. An index of articles relating to history, biography, literature, and travel contained in essays will be attempted in the near future. In the forefront of projects of this kind is the preparation of a greatly extended edition of Poole's Index to Periodical Literature. The work is being done through the coöperation of leading libraries under the direction of Mr. William F. Poole, of Chicago. He prescribed rules for indexing and assigned particular magazines to libraries possessing full files. The number of serials indexed up to February was 188, comprising 4,318 volumes. Mr. Poole said at that time:

The work of more than fifty of the coöperating libraries has been sent in, with the references to the current serials brought down to January, 1880. The matter has been revised by the editors, distributed under the first letter of the headings, and about six hundred pages of copy have been arranged for the printers. ***The arrange

ment and revising of the copy we estimate will be completed during the present year, and the printing will begin early in 1882 and will be carried on as rapidly as the nature of the work will permit. It will make a royal octavo volume of about 1,200 pages.

1This work has been undertaken by Mr. W. H. Griswold, a graduate of Harvard College, who studied two years in Europe and is now assistant to Mr. Spofford, librarian of Congress. His indexes show honest and well considered work and have received recognition abroad creditable to him as well as to the progress of indexing in the United States. The Deutsche Rundschau, in an extended notice, observes:

"The readers of the Deutsche Rundschau will be pleased to learn that an index of its authors and subjects has been published. This publication comes from America: Germans are not index makers. The work is excellently done and will be of great value to the readers of the Rundschau. Mr. Griswold has made similar indexes to several American periodicals. His work shows great industry and accuracy. Open it where one may, there is no possibility of mistake. These indexes will be exceedingly useful to libraries having the periodicals covered by them."