PROFESSIONAL LIBRARIES.

Divinity Chapel was comfortably well filled last evening by those assembled to hear Mr. Justin Winsor's lecture on the "Function of a Library in a Community of Professional Students." Our libraries, said Mr. Winsor, are yet in a transition state, although a marked improvement has taken place in the past century. The people are beginning to realize the value of a library as a leading agent in the education of the masses, and the result is that the restrictions which marked its earlier stages have been to a great extent done away with. Although the collections of a few libraries are very complete, notably that of the British Museum, yet they are by no means as comprehensive as they ought to be to satisfy the specialist. This is partly because they do not contain all the books written, and partly because all the books needed have not yet by any means been written.

Mr. Winsor said it was certainly surprising to see how lightly the vast domain of knowledge has been encroached upon by the books that have been penned. On this account a librarian cannot afford to exercise the right of selection in the reception of matter for his library, as it is impossible for him to know that the lightest and apparently most ephemeral works may not prove of great assistance to some specialist. Among the comparatively recent improvements in our libraries has been the introduction of the catalogue system. Formerly the librarian himself was expected to be a walking catalogue of his own library, and therefore was almost indispensable in connection with it. Mr. Winsor said he hoped that the time was not far distant when his specialty would be recognized as a branch of knowledge, and schools for librarians be instituted as well as for medicine, theology or any other profession.