when questions of general and immediate interest are under discussion; but he needs no vote.

Assistant librarians should rank as assistant professors, under the same general regulations as to tenure, salary and promotion. Cataloguers and other members of a (large) staff, necessarily well educated if not college-bred, and having a reasonable command of five or more languages (English, German, French, Latin, Greek), should rank with instructors and tutors.

The library as a department is so large, and its necessary expenditures are so great-greater than those of any other single department in the college-that it is entirely proper and desirable that there should be a trustees' library committee. But why a faculty committee, with duties and powers as to library administration, any more than such a committee for the department of Latin or of biology? This is as useless a relic of the past as the appendix or any other outgrown bit of organism. It smacks of the day when the librarian was some dear old lady who had to be cared for," or some inexperienced daughter of a recently deceased professor, or—anyone who would sit in the doorway and make sure that the books did not get down from the shelves and walk out for an airing, with the chances of getting lost meanwhile. To-day no man or woman worthy to be placed in charge of a college library—and there are just as many experienced, well-trained and worthy women as men-could possibly regard such a committee as other than a large and black interrogation point over against his or her competency.

This is not because the librarian wishes to ignore the members of the faculty—far from it. Granting all that can be said in favor of a central and unified library, and this is the only form which can be administered to to the reasonable satisfaction of all without an extraordinary duplication of expenditure in every direction, it is still true that a college library must be composed of quite distinctly developed department collections, so classified that the titles which are peculiar to a department may be quite generally found in one body. To build a library in this way calls for most competent, continuous and intelligent co-operation on the part of all who are interested. The details.

of administration may well be in the hands of the librarian, but the selection of books can never be successfully determined by one or even by a few. There is need of expert information not only in each department but in each division of each department. He who successfully administers a college library should regard the members of the faculty as ex officio members of his staff also, and will constantly seek their counsel. There are many obstacles to the entire success of this plan, such as the fact that officers of instruction are burdened with their special duties and have very little time for careful and extended consideration of the literature of their own fields, that frequent changes among the younger officers prevent continuous and systematic library work on their part, and that unconsciously every man is more or less biased or limited by the intensity of his devotion to his own specialty. But the free use of department officers as aids in library upbuilding is undoubtedly the most practical and satisfactory arrangement that can be established. It would surely save their own time and effort in several directions if these officers gave more time to the study of the catalogue and the books upon the shelves. It would be especially helpful in the line of definite and continued policy if each department would select some one permanent officer to look after the library interests of the department, through whom all requests for purchase should pass to the librarian.

The funds for the library should be apportioned at least thirty days before the close of the academic year. Salaries and contingent expenses should receive first care, next serials and continuations (to keep sets intact), and then the more general books of reference, dictionaries, cyclopedias, annuals. What remains should be devoted to the departments or "chairs," leaving the initiative of choice of books with them; strictly limited, however, to the amount appropriated and by the approval of the librarian. Statements of unexpended balances should be sent to the departments at the close of each month.

In these department appropriations and disbursements the constant effort must be to strengthen the work of instruction. But it is useless to try to "build up the library symmetrically." This is as difficult and as disappointing as would be a similar

effort in the upbuilding of the college itself. The personal factor necessarily plays too important part. The librarian should strive to honestly meet all honest demands, but some departments need more books than others, and know their needs. Some have less need, and do not even know that fact, and some are decidedly indifferent. Generally speaking, it is best to give books to those who use them; and those who use them and know their value will select intelligently, will get their orders in on time, and in every way will prove valuable aids to the librarian. Let him beware of the professor who orders little or nothing till toward the close of the fiscal year, and then comes in hastily with a long list to be ordered "at once" the list smelling suspiciously of recent publisher's catalogues, and on inspection found to be at least half duplicates of titles already on the shelves.

The librarian and his staff must always constitute the academic straight line; that is, the shortest distance between two points, the reader and the book. This calls for experience and skill in classification and cataloguing, in the convenient placing of books on the shelves, and in all manner of devices for keeping such close track of each book that at any moment definite answer can be made immediately to an inquiry for any title. Books used for "required reading" should be out of reach of the students, carefully guarded, and loaned on a day-and-hour scheme generally for use in the building only. All other books should be as conveniently accessible as possible, for the open shelf system has an almost infinitely large balance in its favor. Some provision should be made for evening work in the library, and there should be rare (if any) observance of either academic or legal holidays. As a matter of fact, there are not more than fifty-seven days in the calendar year in which a college library should be closed, and fifty-two of those are Sundays.

J

The modern college library is a workshop-a very quiet workshop it is true, but a workshop nevertheless; everybody's workshop-the laboratory of laboratories. Its most efficient administration keeps every tool ready for use within the easy reach of each workman as each may have need. Changing the figure,

it is the blessed company of the immortals, giving daily and hourly receptions at which the librarian is the master of ceremonies, charged with seeing that each guest meets and has full opportunity for long and quiet conference with the one he most desires to know. Changing once more, the modern library is the very heart of the college.

The Temple of Fame

J. A. EDGERTON

"How far away is the Temple of Fame?"

Said a youth at the dawn of day;

And he toiled and dreamed of a deathless name;
But the hours went by and the evening came,
That left him feeble and old and lame,

To plod on his cheerless way.

For the path to fame is a weary climb

Up a mountain, steep and high.

There are many who start in their youthful prime;
But in the battle with fate and time,

For one who reaches those heights sublime

Are thousands who fall and die.

The youth who had failed could never guess
The reason his quest was vain;

But he sought no other to help or bless;
He followed the glittering prize, Success,
Up the narrow pathway of Selfishness,
And this had been his bane.

"How far away is the Temple of Good?"
Said a youth at the dawn of day;
And he strove, in a spirit of brotherhood,
To help and succor, as best he could,
The poor and unfortunate multitude
On their hard and dreary way.

He likewise strove with adversity,

To climb to the heights above;

But his dream was ever of men made free,
Of better days in the time to be,

And self was buried in sympathy

He followed the path of Love.

He was careless alike of praise or blame;

But after his work was done,

An angel of glory from heaven came

And wrote on high his immortal name,

Proclaiming this truth-that the Temple of Fame
And Temple of Good are one.

For this is the lesson that history

Has taught since the world began-
That those whose memories never die,
That shine like stars in our human sky,
And brighter grow as the years roll by,
Are men who have lived for Man.

T

Beowulf, the Epic of the Saxons

REA MCCAIN, LEBANON, OHIO

HE different forms of literature are sought for different purposes. Any one of them may afford pleasure to some person, and there are many who say with Lamb that they can enjoy any book, but there are some things in the form of books to which they would deny that name. Laying aside this function of literature, to entertain, there are still many ways of approaching books in serious study. We may search for the secret thought of a difficult writer, we may use a grand lyric as an aid in acquiring knowledge of language, or we may search for historical truths. In the quest of the latter much data is found to be inaccurate. The exact time of an event may be disputed, the number slain in a battle wilfully exaggerated, but there is one species of historical study which can never grow old and never be ended. The motive springs of action at any time are the real lives of the people. If we can know what they loved and longed for, the study of their actual achievements is of far greater interest. In the literature may be found the truest record.

But, it may be protested, Maeterlink's essays are much admired to-day, yet he is not typical of a whole people; Seton's animal stories are immensely popular, yet there are many who care nothing for the denizens of the forest. That is true of the present day literature but not nearly in such great degree of the past. The typical form of the earliest literature is the epic, the natural epic, so-called to distinguish it from the creations of a later day. The very formation of these poems precludes the idea of the disfavor of the masses.

Beowulf, the oldest Anglo-Saxon epic, was composed as a series of songs. When the rough warriors were feasting and drinking the minstrel was called forth and, striking his lyre, sang of deeds like those of his listeners. If his lay was admired he sang another on the same theme, and these were repeated and sung over and over by minstrel and by lady till many of