Mr. Nutting was followed by Mr. Hughes Reynolds, director of the Rome Library, who told of the good work his library was doing by sending books into the factory districts.

The third session of the Georgia Library Association was held in the hall of the Public Library on Friday, October 29th, at 9:30 o'clock.

Mrs. Ottley was called to the chair, and Miss Wallace made a few remarks regarding the necessity of a library training school in the South. "There is no place south of Philadelphia," said Miss Wallace, "where our Georgia girls may acquire the requisite training for library work. The day has passed when a librarian was simply the custodian of books, and now library economics is a science and technical training for the work is a necessity."

A motion was then passed petitioning the "Georgia Normal and Industrial College" to add to its curriculum a course of library economy. A copy of this resolution was sent to the trustees of the college.

The first paper presented was The Children's Room," which was

prepared by Mrs. Nina Halstead, of Columbus. The paper was followed by informal discussions, and the session was one of the most enjoyable and instructive of the whole meeting.

Mrs. Enoch Calloway read a novel paper on the LaGrange Library, which is unique in this, that it is owned and run entirely by women. The Woman's Club bought a model library, already catalogued from Scribner's Sons, which was the first of the kind in the State.

Mrs. Calloway was followed by Miss Campbell, of Augusta, who spoke of the need of technical training for the librarian, and gave a short history of the development and growth of the library training chools now successfully operated at Albany, N. Y., Drexel Institute, Pratt Institute and Armour Institute, Chicago. Miss Campbell said: In May, 1883, the President of the Columbia College, submitted to the trustees of the college the proposition of their chief librarian that a school should be opened for the training of librarians. He says: "In the past few years the work of a librarian has come to be regarded as a profession, affording opportunities of usefulness in the educational field inferior to no other, and requiring superior abilities to discharge its duties well. Thoughtful observers say that public opinion and individual motives and actions are influenced not so much by what is uttered from the rostrum or the pulpit as by what is read; that this reading can be shaped and influenced chiefly through the library, and therefore the librarian who is master of his profession, is a powerful factor for good."

Many of our greatest librarians have been self-made, and have achieved their eminence by feeling their way patiently through long years of darkness and difficulty. A training school is called for, not only for the inexperienced who wish to enter on library work, but for those who are already engaged in it.

The proposal for a library training school resulted in establishing the Columbia College School of Library Economy, under the direction of the chief librarian. Afterward it was transferred to the State library, at Albany, with its faculty, books, pamphlets and all special matters for its use. The school offers the same advantages granted the lawyer, the doctor and the minister.

The students have a definite purpose in view and are prepared to carry it out. It places library work on a more elevated plain by making it a recognized science.

In the same line of thought was Miss L. A. Field's address ou "The Responsibility of the Librarian."

In considering the responsibility of the librarian and her possibilities for usefulness, the subject divides itself into two heads-her qualifications and her duties.

The first requirement for her work must be culture, scholarship

and the ability to manage the complex system of duties to which she has been called. To her intelligence she must add earnestness and enthusiasm. Quick perception and tact must not be lacking, and if she would make her library a school for the young as well as a center of influence for the community, she must meet, with ready sympathy, those who come to her for help.

Mr. Melvil Dewey, whose large experience entitles him to a hearing, says:

"But the great element of success is the earnest, moving spirit which supplies to the institution its life. This should be the librarian. There is nothing so small or so trivial as not to require his attention; and there is nothing in the highest concerns of the institution, its finances and its general policy beyond his proper consideration. and influence. It generally devolves upon the executive to be the motive power as well as the guiding hand-the engine as well as the pilot."

PUBLIC LIBRARIES.

BY. MRS. NINA HOLSTEAD, COLUMBUS.

Many are the beautiful ideas and plans espoused and promoted by the best hearts and talents of the land, for the uplifting and upholding of the moral nature of children. The press, pulpit and forum are thundering for the liberation, enlargement and beautifying of their minds, fully realizing that the hope of the future lies in the children of to-day. Prominent among these ideas is the co-operation of our public schools and public libraries. The cry that rings out more clearly than all others from leaders of the new education is for more literature in the schools, and literature in schools leads naturally to the open doors of the library. Every aspect of this educational question is overshadowed by the demand for a moral safeguard against evil books and evil papers.

The public school merely offers to teach the fundamental truths and business methods. Only incidentally do they teach morals and spiritual culture. Sectarianism is too strong in this land of liberty for church and state to strike hands in educating a boy.

The best that the public school is allowed to do is to inculcate the primal truths of integrity, honor, and sobriety.

When his task at school is done the boy may at his own sweet will take his dime novel and go careering over the plains with Dick Dead-Eye as a cow boy, or he may do worse by shutting himself up behind closed doors and drink from the most pernicious fountain ever sent out by a printing house.

What a happy conjunction of elevating forces then, is this joining:

hands of our public schools and libraries. The teacher has a distinc task to strengthen the intelligence of the child, and as far as it assists her special work, to inspire a love for books, and a desire to travel a little further into the realms to which she has introduced him. This desire will lead him to the library.

Mr. Edwin Milton Fairchild of New York, speaking with great interest on this subject, says it now rests with the librarian to foster and develop what the teacher has begun, by careful and considerate direction, a wise choice of books, and by creating a sentiment among the children that it is the thing to be well read in the literature of childhood. The boy who does not know the " Jungle-Book," should be despised by his peers. Judicious talking on the part of the librarian, continued for a few years, will establish this sentiment among the children of a community, and when once established it will prove a strong educational motive. He also recommends separate rooms for the use of the children, asserting as a fact, with a reasonable explanation, that the child does not like to be continually under the parent's guidance.

Miss Eastman of Cleveland, Ohio, says that "these late years have wrought wonderful progress in library science and economy, but there is nothing which shows the advance of the library of to-day over that of twenty years ago, more than the greater importance which is attached to the work with children.

"If the next generation make the most of the resources of the library, it will be because, as children, they are trained to use it."

The boiling-down process made necessary by lack of time, will not give opportunity for more than indorsement and approval of some of the results wrought out in some of our northern cities, notable Cleveland, Ohio, and Jamestown, New York. In both of the libraries they have separate rooms for children and have formed, and are carrying on successfully, a kind of club called Library League, for the protection and preservation of the books. This little card will give you an idea of the object of the Club:

HONOR ROLL OF THE LIBRARY LEAGUE.

We, the undersigned, members of the Library League, agree to do all in our power to assist the Librarian in keeping the books in good condition.

We promise to remember that good books contain the living thoughts of good and great men and women, and are therefore entitled to respect.

We will not handle any library book roughly nor carelessly, will not mark it, turn

-down leaves, nor put anything into it thicker than a slip of paper

We will also do all in our power to interest other boys and girls in the right care

of books, and will report all which we find in bad condition.

A clean, pure book he'd by clean hands will help make a clean heart, and the pure in heart hath wonderful pronises writ down for them.

In the close of her remarks, Miss Eastman, says: "All of these

plans are along the line of development. They are claiming the attention of educators, whether teachers or librarians, and they are calling for a closer union of forces, a more thoroughly systematized co-operation in a work where the field is white unto the harvest and the laborers' may be many."

FOURTH SESSION.

The fourth session of the Georgia Library Association met in the Public Library October 27, at 3 P. M.

The discussion was general on the subject of college libraries, and Professor Mosely, of Mercer college, and Miss Prosser, of the Georgia Normal and Industrial college, gave interesting accounts of the libraries under their control.

Mrs. Nora L. Barbrey, of Macon, followed with a paper on Classification and Cataloguing, which was highly appreciated by the profession, and it will appear later in permanent form.

Miss Hargrove's paper on "How to Advertise a Library," will also

appear.

Rev. Frank Barnett, of Forsyth, talked in a charming manner on book collecting in general and his recollections of French and Englishsecond-hand book-shops were well told.

Miss Wallace, having called Mrs. Eugene Heard, of Middleton, to the chair, then offered a resolution of thanks to the people of Macon for the hospitality which had been extended to the librarians and visitors of the Association. Miss Wallace also spoke of the fine work being done by the Macon Library, and paid a neat tribute to the ability and energy of Mrs. Nora L. Barbrey, to whose efforts much of the success of the meeting was due.

The resolution was unanimously passed, and the meeting adjourned sine die.

A formal reception was tendered the Association at Wesleyan college from 5 to 7, and the grand old institution never looked better than on this occasion, decorated and lighted and opened to the inspection of the visitors.

Thus closed the first annual meeting of the Georgia Library Association, the first assembly of the kind ever held in Georgia or in the South. Much good will result from such a gathering, and prepares the way for the national meeting of librarians, which will be held in Atlanta in 1899.