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some good in the direction of rousing up ambition for culture in the minds of many of the members. In the long run this can only result in securing greater efficiency in the public service and a higher degree of attainment among the assistants themselves. At present this healthy movement is a little clogged with certain foolish and selfish notions respecting the exclusive right of library assistants to every educational facility and every appointment, irrespective of personal ability or knowledge. No doubt it will be found in the end that narrow trades-union ideas of this sort will run counter to the public interest, and a return to common sense and open competition will be the result.

In what may be termed the mechanics of librarianship still greater advances have been made. After a long period of stagnation, a reorganization of many methods has taken place on more scientific lines, and the result is that labour-saving appliances are being introduced everywhere to the benefit of everybody concerned. Nor is this all. Some of the more recent devices save so much drudgery that both librarians and assistants are set free for higher and more useful work, and the result will be manifested before long in improved methods for the public good. After much delay, and a considerable share of cold regard, classification in its more scientific forms has come to stay, bearing in its train immense improvements and changes in every department of library practice. Ten years ago the minutely classified libraries could be counted on the fingers of both hands; now they are multiplying to a very great extent, and there is hardly a library which does not employ exact classification either on the shelves of the reference or lending departments, or in the catalogue. Arising out of exact classification has come the plan of allowing readers access to the shelves in reference and lending libraries. From very small beginnings, this method is growing rapidly, and in the course of time will form part of the scheme of every liberally administered public library.

Connected with this as improved methods of book distribution are branch libraries and delivery stations, which are yearly doing more to evolve the perfect ideal of a public library-that which brings well-selected, pure, and informative literature to the very doors of the people.

The progress of library ideals and library methods has been much more rapid than either legislation or the resulting increase of public libraries. Although the Libraries Acts have been amended since 1889, no additional powers have been conferred upon library authorities; and the increase in the number of public libraries from 193 in 1889 to about 370 in 1899 cannot be regarded as wonderful, considering the number of large areas still without proper library facilities. Nevertheless, advances have been made of a very encouraging nature, and, no doubt, when libraries come into line as expounders of books and instructors in the right use of literature, the Legislature will in time recognize the need for general extension, and grant the necessary rating powers. many respects the more advanced public libraries of the country have reached a point beyond which it is impossible to go without additional funds, and are now waiting upon a general levelling-up of method and accomplishment before Parliament can be asked for extra powers. doubt this improvement will come, and the public libraries of the United Kingdom will be able to make a fresh start along lines which will lead to more substantial results than have yet been achieved.

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There are many points in Library Progress which have not been touched upon in this brief sketch, but enough has been recorded to show that libraries are improving in every department, while administration more than keeps pace with other branches of the work. The indications given above point to a very extensive spread of the doctrine of the exposition of books in the near future, and it is certain that the erstwhile popular notion of the librarian as a mere custodian or collector of books must

soon undergo a radical change. Everything indicates that the time is approaching when public libraries will be regarded as something else than dumping-grounds for fiction, and the progress made during the existence of the original "Library" is enough to show that the change will neither be slow nor incomplete. It is impossible to look back on librarianship as it was understood in 1889, both in Britain and America, and not be struck by the enormous advances which have been made, in material equipment and in the very idea of the function of the public library. The old-time librarian expected the reader to come to him, charged with full knowledge of his subject and the authors who wrote upon it. His part was to act as go-between from shelf to reader, caring little for his public, and sympathizing not at all with their needs, even when he understood them. The modern librarian is developing more of the missionary spirit. He endeavours to attract readers, and to describe the books under his care. He gives students every facility for special study, and puts the humble, ordinary reader entirely at his ease by entering with sympathy into his requirements and making the path of book-selection as easy as possible. He attacks advanced systems of library management and extracts from them as much advantage to the public as study and practical application will allow, and thus constantly strives to makes his library an educational centre which will attract all kinds of readers.

To sum up the results of these various influences, it is manifest that in everthing relating to the organization, equipment, and management of public libraries, a great forward movement has taken place within the last ten years. Libraries are no longer regarded as stores for the preservation of books, but as centres for their distribution; while the opinion that books are sacred things, not to be contaminated by the grimy hands of the general public, has given way to a more enlightened policy of making literature a vehicle for conveying both instruction and

amusement into the very places where they are most wanted -the homes of the people. Towards this laudable end great things have yet to be accomplished, but the process of preparation has been going on for years, and before other ten years have passed, it is probable the public libraries of the country will have attained a position and influence scarcely contemplated by their founders.

JAMES DUFF BROWN.

THE DECORATIVE WORK OF GLEESON WHITE.

T is a difficult, almost an ungracious thing to write of the work of a living man with whom one is intimate; although the custom of modern journalism has made us only too familiar with such attempts. But even a little while after the work has come to an end, one may perhaps be better able to review it from a disinterested standpoint; to treat it, if the expression can be allowed, as a separate entity, drawing it into something like its proper relation to the surroundings which influenced it, or over which it had power.

This is unusually true in the case of the late Gleeson White. No worker of our generation was ever at so much pains to be thoroughly identified with each latest phase of contemporary art; and few have so often succeeded in being distinctly in advance of it. If, then, while he lived it would have been impossible to place him satisfactorily, it was only his untimely death that could withhold him from the first rank of the advance, and permit a sum to be made of the achievements of his short years of labour.

It is a curious commentary on our elaborate system of

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education in design-in the results of which he always took so keen an interest-that Gleeson White himself should have been for all practical purposes a self-educated designer. With him, it was from the beginning a matter of instinct : although his exceptional faculty of criticism could hardly have failed to carry him along a course of continual improvement. He began as a boy at school. Thoroughly dissatisfied with the poorness of the fretwork patterns then available, he was not content till he had acquired the power of making them for himself and gained such facility thereby that he soon obtained the position of a regularly paid contributor to serials publishing work of the kind. And it may be noted that he continued this humble employment until he had finally settled in London.

The interest thus early awakened in decorative art was fostered by his study of music, and by his gradual acquaintanceship with the colony of artists who have always made Christchurch a painting-ground. To them he doubtless owed many valuable hints on matters of technique, without which his natural gift would have been but weakly equipped and so, patiently, by sheer labour and endless refinement, he gained a power of design which was not perhaps great, not without certain mannerisms to which people were in his early days less accustomed than they now are, but invariably distinguished, in good taste, and most carefully considered with reference to its ultimate purpose.

Almost without exception Gleeson White devoted his powers of drawing to such classes of work as especially appeal to the book-lover. He made a considerable number of book-plates, and was the suggestor of very many more. He also devised ornamental monograms by the score, and of no small worth. But his chief craft was the planning of ornamental book-covers: and in these, what originality and merit he may be allowed to have possessed will probably be seen at their best. His work of this kind was essentially modern. The uses to which it was to be put had nothing in common with the old traditions of fine

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