WASTED LIBRARY OPPORTUNITIES.

Few students, whether members of the Union or not, seem to appreciate the value of the Union Library, at least one department of the Union which is beyond reproach. Competent judges have pronounced it the best selected collection of books for the young reader of taste to be found in the country.

Most libraries have some inevitable drawbacks. The shelves are inaccessible, and they contain much matter of only historical or specialized interest. The Union Library, however, offers every possible convenience and comfort. Its shelves, which are freely accessible, contain a generous collection of carefully chosen books. There are ample reference works, a large number of the best books of English fiction, essays, and poetry, and a considerable representation of German, French, Italian, and classical literatures. Art, music, the social sciences are also well represented; and not the least attractive are the books of biography and history, both ancient and modern, which are to be found in the north room of the library. There is also a very interesting and growing collection of books by Harvard men; and there are more books which are prescribed in courses than is generally realized. The volumes are selected with a view to the needs not of the research worker, but of the general reader of taste.

Another library even less known and appreciated by most men is that in Warren House. This is made up of the Child and Lowell Memorial libraries and a large modern language library. All told there are more than 10,000 volumes in Warren House, of which some 5,000 are English and the remainder mainly French and German.

There is an unfortunate impression among some students that this library is a musty collection of antiquated books, of interest only to certain mysterious persons known as scholars. This is by no means the case, as the complete sets of such authors as Charles Reade, Thomas Hardy, George Meredith and the mid-Victorians testify. Warren House contains also an excellent collection of works in French and German.

Why is it that these two libraries are so little used? Hardly more than one hundred of the members of the Union enter the library in a day; and many of these seem to think themselves privileged to mutilate or purloin the books. Less than fifty men use the Warren House Library per day. Both could accommodate many more.

Such libraries as these form some of the attractions which make Harvard famous. It is a philistine indifference which fails to take advantage of them.