424 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BOOKS. 



the idiotic, are placed with that of other kinds ; but the treatment of the hope- 

 lessly insane could not reasonably be placed anywhere but with medicine, in 4*. 

 This is one of the cases of forcible divorce of classes of books commonly kept 

 together. 



Prison discipline, also, (which some might expect to find in the social class, 

 VI,) and, in fact, philanthropy in general, is grouped with education (7^'). 

 Others might insist upon making a distinct division ; but any one who handles 

 the literatures of both classes will find it practically impossible to separate them 

 more widely. 



After this analytical statement of its genesis, it is only necessary to reproduce 

 the whole scheme before the reader's eye and leave him to make what use of 

 it he can. It is no just objection to any good arrangement of a libi-ary that it 

 requires study to be used. It Avould be unskilful, indeed, if it did not. Students 

 of books must learn the contents of each book by studying the author's arrange- 

 ment. How much more needful to learn the contents of a library by a careful 

 analysis of its departmeu.ts ! It is the librarian's duty to save a large part of this 

 labor to the cousulters of the library, by a more complete and conscientious 

 analysis than any they can find time to make. The least that they can do is to 

 become accustomed to this analysis when made. Libraries are commonly 

 arranged without, or jjrevious to, any analysis, and in obedience to local accidents 

 or temporary expediency; and, in the case of those which crowds of readers 

 throng, it is not to be so much wondered at. But in quiet libraries it is always 

 possible to collect books of one subject into one place, that the reader may have 

 the entire treasury of that theme before his eyes. 



The eight classes of our books are thus collected into eight suits of bookcases, 

 as their titles on cards are arranged in eight drawers. To facilitate the handling 

 of the books, they are also spotted on the back with paper patches of eight dif- 

 ferent colors, corresponding to the eight suits of bookcases ; and each different 

 drawer of the card catalogue is filled with cards of a corresponding color. It is 

 not easy, therefore, for either a card or a book to get astray. The convenience 

 might be extended to the printed catalogue b^^ tinting the pages devoted to 

 each class division with its appropriate color. In the choice of colors there 

 was nothing arbitrary. White being, of course, the color for the first class, 

 general science, the colors of the other seven followed in the order of the solar 

 spectrum : 



For mathematics, &c red II. 



For chemistry, &c orange . III. 



For natural history, &:c '. .yellow IV. 



For chronology, &c green V. 



For sociology, &c blue VI. 



For language, &c indigo VII. 



For biography, &c violet VIII. 



Under the principal analytical law of arrangement of the library, rule two 

 others — the one a law of space, the other a law of time. 



Wherever a geographical arrangement could be made out, it was adopted. 

 Such was the case with learned societies and their publications, and the cata- 

 logues of libraries; with astronomical observatories and their observations; 

 with books of geography, and voyages and travels ; with whole ranges of books 

 in the various physical sciences; with books on ethnology, local history, local 

 manufactures, local laws, and legislation; with books on language, belles-lettres, 

 &c. And the geographical sequence proceeds, like that of history, y}<?w tJie 

 cast wcsticard. 



In all other eases, and in all the sub-sections throughout the catalogue, a 



