aste in reading
among the pupils of the schools by compiling lists of the best books
upon the shelves, and distributing these lists to the pupils. Such
lists may be classified as suitable to different grades or ages, or
by subjects, as, History of different countries or epochs, Biography,
Travels, Nature work, Fiction, etc.

The possible good that may be achieved in this way is immeasurable.
Although, according to Dogberry, to write and read comes by nature,
we must remember that a taste for good reading is not innate but
acquired, and that it is not ordinarily acquired under unfavorable
conditions. To ensure the acquirement of this taste by the child, good
reading must be made as accessible as the bad, the librarian and
the teacher must conspire to put good reading, interesting reading,
elevating reading in his way. The well-read person is an educated
person. The taste for good reading once acquired is permanent. There
is little danger of backsliding. It grows with indulgence. One writer
says: No man having once tasted good food or good wine, or even good
tobacco, ever voluntarily turns to an inferior article. So with our
reading habits; a taste for good reading once acquired becomes a joy
forever.

Teachers do not realize, as does the librarian, the low tone of the
reading taste of the community. When they fully understand this,
together with the fact that the acquirement of a reading habit and
a love for good literature are largely dependent, in a majority of
cases, upon the public school training, then will the librarian have
to bestir himself to supply the demand for good books made by the
school.

The habit thus formed, the taste thus acquired, will be of infinitely
more value to them than the information gained. The latter may soon
be forgotten, the former will stay with them through life; but the
influence of good books taken into the homes of our school children,
from the library or from the school, does not stop with the children
themselves. It is impossible that such books should go into even an
ignorant, uncouth, unlettered family without exerting an elevating and
refining influence.

Thus the school opens to the library the broadest field for doing
the greatest good to the greatest number, the shortest avenue to the
masses.

But the consciousness of good done will not be the only reward for
the library. The reflex action upon the library of this intimate
connection with the school will be highly ben