Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/141

Rh has grown greatly. Library clubs, state associations, interstate conferences and the American Library Association have all grown in membership, while their number has increased threefold at least. Two new schools for training librarians have been established in the past decade, and the older schools have strengthened their curricula and raised their standard for admission. One new journal devoted particularly to the work of public libraries has come into existence.

Any summary of this decade would be incomplete which failed to mention the great additions to American libraries in the shape of special collections or endowments for special purposes. Such gifts as the John Carter Brown Library of Brown University, the Giant collection at Harvard, the Yale collection of Semitic manuscripts, the Dante collection presented to Cornell by Willard Fiske, the Avery Architectural Library at Columbia, the Morgan collection of Vergils and the Garrett collection of Arabic manuscripts at Princeton, and the Ford and other collections of the New York Public Library, are but conspicuous examples of the collector's generosity which has been so prominent a part of recent library history. The man of wealth may easily give money for a building, but the scholarly collector who turns over to a library for keeping and use the result of his efforts of years gives perhaps even more munificently. The libraries of this country are yearly receiving such donations in ever increasing numbers.

It would be a rare and happy fate were the librarians of America able to remind themselves of no great losses from their ranks in the past decade. Such is, unfortunately, not the case. Three of the pioneers in library progress have died during this period. Those who know intimately the history of the library movement will at once acknowledge that in the loss of Wm. F. Poole, Justin Winsor and C. A. Cutter the library world has been sorely stricken. Dr. Poole is remembered by historians and librarians alike for his services to American history and bibliography. Mr. Winsor's achievements as a cartographer, historian and librarian are too well known to need more than mention. Mr. Cutter, whose death occurred only last summer, was not so widely known outside the circle of technical workers. To librarians he was celebrated for a long series of most valuable contributions to the problems of classification and cataloguing, while his personal qualities endeared him to all. That such men were to be found foremost among American librarians is one of the occasions for pride in their calling. Their memory should prove one of the greatest incentives to future workers in their chosen field.

It would be a rash man who should venture to predict the directions of library growth in the next ten years. Certain tendencies, however, may be inferred from the immediate past. It is almost certain that the impetus given to public libraries by Mr. Carnegie will