Page:The small library. A guide to the collection and care of books (IA smalllibraryguid00browiala).pdf/13

Rh sitting in the schoolmaster's chair and dictating to you what it is proper that you should read, rather give you a sly hint that they are going a-vagabondising through the byways of literature, and will take you with them if you like.' This sweeping and, in its way, perfectly just condemation of selective bibliographies, applies to the class of guide which existed in 1862, when the Book-hunter first appeared, and might with equal propriety be extended to more recent efforts in the same field. But it cannot be held to apply to more than a few of the modern bibliographical guides, because to a very great extent criticism, personal preferences and the 'pragmatical priggism' of the average pedagogue have been eliminated. Instead, we have guides and aids to book-selection which are suggestive rather than aggressively dogmatic, and which are intended for ordinary mortals who make no pretension to book-learning or knowledge of book-classification. Undoubtedly such folks exist now, as they have in all times, who are glad to have a little guidance on any unfamiliar subject, from some one who knows a little more than themselves; and to such people, even an elementary and incomplete bibliography is often of immense service. What Burton's attitude might have been towards such an institution as the National Home Reading Union, it is impossible to say, but one may venture to guess that he would probably have described its work in uncomplimentary terms. Nevertheless, even Burton and those of the same self