his duty and his right, to ask other men as to the absolute and relative merits of works which they might know better than he. It has been fortunate in the fact that the prominent members of the faculty of the institution, the litterateurs, engineers, and scientists, have largely been men who were much interested in their professional literature, well-read, and studious to know and get the best. The co-operation of these men has resulted in a hard-working, unusually well selected library. Money has always been scarce, the funds averaging about $1000 a year; there are no illuminated texts, no luxurious bindings, no curiosities, very few antiques; but about 25,000 much used, serviceable looking volumes-and these constitute a fair state university library of to-day. The university library should be especially considered from the stand-points of relation to class work, selection of books, and arrangement. All these things go to determine the general position of the library in the university course of education; not courses, for the librarian's work in administering the affairs of his department must be with regard to the demands of the university as a whole, not to those of some one school or college. Class work, under the circumstances of to-day, is at best hurried and crowded. The real object of collegiate instruction being to inculcate habits of study and research which are to continue in after life, as well as to give all possible instruction during the years of the specified course, many subjects are touched upon. Investigation is commenced in many lines, carried far enough to give the student a glimpse of the possibilities beyond, and can be carried little if any farther in the time allotted for the consideration of each. Right or wrong, this is the best way known at present to build a broad foundation of general knowledge to support the structure which is to come. This being the case, instructors and text-books act as guides to the fields of knowledge which they represent, and these fields are brought together with a degree of success, greater or less, according to attendant circumstances, in the general library of the institution. By attendant circumstances are meant the men in charge, the methods of selection of books, the money available for purchasing, and the policy of development which has been and is being followel out. In this general library should be collected the records of historical investigations, of scientific research, of engineering experiment, of every kind of acfivity in the brain-working world; so that every student on emerg ing from his class-room may, if he will, enter the wider world of past and present action in whatever direction his inclination may lead him. Through the medium of the library he should be enabled to examine, investigate and compare the work of the best men in their respective professions, for he can do it in no other Knowledge of other times, thoughts and deeds, of whatever stamp they may be, can best give strength and breadth to the mind; and the furnishing of this knowledge is the greatest work, the true mission, of the library. way. Regarding then the professors and text-books as guides, and the professors the guides in command by reason of their selection of text-books, personal influence, and general direction of the study of the subjects under consideration, the whole plan of library reference work should be developed and carried out during the years of the college curriculum in proportion as students learn more how to study, become more mature, more capable of choosing that which is best. There will always be exceptional cases, individuals who require special treatment, but in general a class will develop as well in the matter of library work as in any other. As a rule the natural tendency is to this result. With each step upward and onward in his chosen course the student comes in contact with older minds, more mature experience, broader and deeper methods of thought and action; he should be gradually released from a position in which his text-book work takes nearly all of his time to one in which these circumstances are reversed. And in this transition he passes, day after day and year after year, from the tutelage of the young man who has read comparatively little to that of the man of greater age and learning; so that in his graduating year, when he should be at his best in his relations to his alma mater, he should also be under the guidance of the best that the institution affords. This constant, careful, increasing development should be the great underlying principle of library reference work; a principle which is steadily becoming better recognized and more thoroughly carried out. With the idea, then, of introducing the student into the theoretical world of his profession, and of implanting in him desire for and methods of research that are to be permanent, library reference work should be regarded of as much importance, and developed as carefully, as any branch of work in an institution. In many respects there is more opportunity for real development in the library than in the class-room; for the reader is left more to his own judgment and selection of that which he wants to remember and put into practice, and is placed in a much wider field. Professors should give due respect to its importance, and lay out their course accordingly. And because it is a new phase of brain-work, for no matter how thorough the preparation for college may have been, it must have been largely the close routine of the preparatory textbook, it needs more careful attention in the beginning, that the start may be right. Much depends on the habits into which the reader falls, and professors and librarians alike have a responsibility in modifying first inclinations if necessary, and seeing that they are proper ones. (Concluded next month.) LOWLAND MUSIC. JULIA H. MAY, OKLAHOMA CITY. Higher! Still higher! My hungry heart cries out. My strong desire All I have longed for; would be good to go Come! Sacred muse! my thought, my lips inspire! Higher! Still higher! Child! Why should you inquire The way to mount? Ah! Dullard! have you seen All that is lying 'neath the valley's green? Ere you shall turn toward yonder cliff-pierced sky, Survey the lowly valley where you lie. Look in these nooks-See how the wild-flowers bloom. Keep step to lowland music-Drink perfume. Then may you mount by your attuned lyre Higher! Still higher! ELECTIVE STUDY IN THE HIGH SCHOOL COURSE. EDITH GILES, DEDHAM HE principles of education are based upon the laws govern THE ing life; these laws primarily are three: the law of beauty, the law of love, and the law of control with reference to an end. During the first years of school-life when the child's thinking is necessarily dependent, the teacher applies these principles to develop the faculties of her pupils toward the promotion of independent reasoning. When the pupil enters the high school at the average age of fourteen years, his consciousness awakes to recognition of itself; he thinks, and knows himself to think; consequently he is able to look forward to the "sequel of his life" to understand the purpose and the object of his education. He is arrived at the time when instruction should be superseded by education. The ultimity of the public school system is the propagation of worthy citizenship. National character is supremely modified by national culture. The people who think most and think best are going to make the history of the next era. Proportionally as the work done in the high school grades determines the future career of the pupils, does it develop national character; and just so far as this work awakens a serious interest and purpose for subsequent education,-be this education academic or individual-does it promote national culture. The subsequent education of the majority of high school graduates is individual. Since the pursuance of numerous branches of study is both impracticable and impossible, the election of certain studies becomes the means of attaining the desired culture. Says Mr. Philip Gilbert Hammerton, "This or that, not this and that is the rule to which all of us have to submit. Men are qualified for their work by knowledge; they are also qualified for it by ignorance. If we have any kind of efficiency, very much of it is owing to our narrowness which is favorable to a powerful individuality. If this statement is axiomatic as regards the life beyond the jurisdiction of the school-room, surely the life within the school-room should be subject to the same governance. Yet Many pupils enter the high school predisposed to the election of certain studies, but the majority decide from temporary impulse rather than from serious reflection. "Shall he take French or German?" Shall he take the Latin course or the English? the election determines life's "far off issues." The importance of these issues cannot be overestimated. Indefinite issues they may be, yet Nature points to them almost without exception by direct predisposition. Is it not significant that mathematics is the favorite study? or geography? or language? A critical consideration of a pupil's preference will go far toward guarding his influence in the right direction. The analytical faculty manifested in the predilection for mathematics will be valuable in scientific investigation: the synthetic faculty that gives language the preference will add zest to the pursuance of languages. An interest in history in the grammar school will be valuable in the literature and History study in the high school. Regarding these things, it were well to make the high school work elective. To burgeon, to blossom, to fructify, the sequence of natural law is as real and as practical for implanted knowledge as for any agricultural product. It is not sufficient that the garden of the mind be strewn thickly enough with seed in faith that the harvest-home will be an unques tioned result. "Non multa sed multum" were better. Knowing, feeling, willing, is the natural evolution of whatever is learned by heart as well as by head. Truth is the lode-star of vitalism revealed through organic or inorganic manifestations; "the truth of the laboratory" leads their nature toward perfect physical revelation, if not unto final consummation; the "truth of the market-place " leads toward an epiphany of perfected civilization, through the history of the ages ancient, medieval and modern, wherein men have lived, moved and had their being; and in "the quiet cloisters of literature," where the soul silently meets beauty face to face, the illumination of "the truth of the soul" reveals purer appreciation, higher ideals, truer standards of living. The student whose susceptibility is aroused to the power of truth, will learn the truth not only as it has been, but as it is in his daily life; he will learn how that life is affected thereby; as he grows older he will learn that truth's application to the future generations whose history depends upon himself and his contemporaries, whose greatness and strength shall be according to his own. |