tivate with better success his miserable scrap of a back-garden. Such men will spend pounds in constructing elaborate poultry hutches, and then proceed to devastate their stock, because they prefer the imperfect instructions or hints of friends, as wise as themselves, to the clear and simple directions to be found in any ordinary book on the management of fowls. Or, as is just as likely, they never dream of inquiring if any book on their particular trade or hobby exists. Even the Public Library has not yet eradicated the belief, prevalent in many minds, that books are not written on every conceivable subject. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, if the habitual users of Public Libraries are excepted, no man or woman dreams of consulting books for even the most elementary information. It is extraordinary when one considers how ignorant a vast majority of the people are with regard to the valuable information stored in books, and how necessary it is, therefore, that the small library should be forced to become a more potent and influential factor in the daily life of the general public.
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Introduction
9
