uctible delight in so doing. What profits it a man to learn how
to read if he does not read? For what purpose is the mind trained and
developed by the process of systematic study in the schools if it is not
inspired to go farther into the realms of knowledge? Is it a rational
procedure for one, upon the completion of his course of training, to
discontinue all further investigation and to lay aside what little love
for learning and literature and philosophy and science that may have
been aroused in his bosom by school or college inspirations? And how is
this advancing and widening of one's horizon by means of the accumulated
stores of knowledge gathered by the previous generations of the world's
strong thinkers and beautiful writers to be secured, other than by a
collection of good books, by a library?

C. C. THACH.

BOOKS AND STUDY WORK

Have our missionary societies access to Bliss's "Encyclopedia of
Missions," or to Dennis's great "Missions and Christian Progress"? Do
our Bible students know Moulton's "Literary Study of the Bible"?--a book
so illuminating as to seem almost itself inspired. How many of the
members of the young people's societies of our churches have access to a
standard concordance, Bible dictionary, or a dictionary of sects and
doctrines? Has the W. C. T. U. the reports of the Committee of Fifty,
that great committee of master minds, who made exhaustive investigation
and authoritative reports on the various aspects of the liquor question?
Have the Masons a history of free-masonry? Has the Shakespeare Club
books on Shakespeare, and is the Political Equality Club acquainted
with standard works on political science and the franchise? Who has a
good "Cyclopedia of Quotations," or a "Reader's Handbook," where we can
satisfy our curiosity regarding allusions to "Fair Rosamond," "Apples of
Hesperia," "Atlantis" and "Captain Cuttle"?

If we were to see a farmer laboriously cutting his wheat with a scythe,
tying it into bundles by hand, and then carrying the bundles on his back
to the barn, we would think he was crazy. Is it not as foolish, however,
for us in our study work to do without the suitable tools and helps
which we might have in a public library?

HOLLEY (N. Y.) STANDARD.

WHY CITIES SUPPORT PUBLIC LIBRARIES

The proposition that only an enlightened and an intelligent people can
make self-government a success is so self-evident as to make argument
but a vain repetition of empty words. And