JUSTIN WINSOR. 643 



that in 1868 the Superintendent died, and Mr. Winsor was asked to take 

 the place, at first merely as a stop-gap, but soon as the permanent suc- 

 cessor. His career had at last begun, and was destined to grow greater 

 and greater till his death. 



Mr. Winsor's opinions on libraries were at this time somewhat 

 heretical. He believed that, to be useful, books ought to be read, and 

 that the more they were read, the greater their usefulness became. He 

 therefore strove not only to permit, but to encourage, in fact even 

 to tempt, the public to use the library freely. With this object he 

 lowered the age at which young people were allowed to take out books, 

 and reduced the guaranties required of borrowers. He also gave up the 

 customary habit of closing the library for a month every year for the pur- 

 pose of cleaning and of inspecting the books, and he opened new avenues 

 to the public by establishing branch libraries in various parts of the 

 city. But this iu itself was not enough for him, nor was it the most 

 remarkable part of his innovations. To most people, a great library is 

 nothing but a museum of incomprehensible things, — a labyrinth in which 

 it is impossible to find one's way. Such people are perplexed and dis- 

 couraged, feeling that the treasures of a library can be used only by the 

 few learned persons who understand such* subjects. Now Mr. Win- 

 sor set to work to make threads by means of which any one could find 

 his way through the intricate maze of books, and he devised for that pur- 

 pose a system of bulletins and annotated catalogues. Here his long 

 habits of diligent reading and study and his prodigious memory helped 

 him, for they had enabled him to acquire a bibliographic knowledge of 

 marvellous range. 



By methods of this kind, the annual circulation of books was increased 

 seven-fold during Mr. Wijisor's nine years' tenure of office. All these 

 things have been developed since his time to such an extent that one 

 finds it hard to realize how recent they are. The Boston Public 

 Library does a vast deal more for the public to-day, and gives more 

 assistance to readers in finding books by mean of bulletins and special 

 catalogues than ever before, and all this is a development of the policy in 

 which Mr. Winsor was a pioneer. The result has been to make read- 

 ing more general throughout the community. It may almost be said 

 to have made a thorough use of the library possible, for with the vast 

 growth in the number of books the public would have found their use 

 increasingly difficult without the system of dictionary catalogues that 

 has come into existence. 



Mr. Winsor had shown that he possessed both the capacity to conceive 



