350 CIVIC BIOLOGY 



the laboratory bookshelf ought to be made to answer 95 per 

 cent of the questions that arise. Individual pupils should 

 also be gathering libraries relating to their own problems, 

 interests, and projects. A really practical working method 

 in using a library is of lifelong value to everyone. How 

 many have acquired this at the end of their school or even 

 college courses ? This is the one thing necessary to reason- 

 ably intelligent modern living, and if many have failed to 

 acquire it in the course of their schooling, is it not because 

 they have not had any real problems to solve that required 

 such use of libraries ? Lincoln stated the case in a word 

 when he said: ''A capacity and taste for reading gives access 

 to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the 

 key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. 

 And not only so : it gives a relish and facility for success- 

 fully pursuing the unsolved ones" (p. 92). 



Catalogues, publication lists, and indexes. A library may be 

 too poor to buy many books, but still be 100 per cent efficient 

 if it keeps these indispensable helps in order and up to date. 

 People can then find everything that has been written on any 

 subject or by any author, and the local library can usually 

 borrow from the state library or from that of their nearest 

 university; or people might often buy books and donate them 

 to their local library when they have finished with them. 



Every laboratory bookshelf must have for constant refer- 

 ence the Monthly Lid of PuhUcations (which is sent free to 

 all who apply for it) and the Experiment Station Record} 

 The first lists every bulletin of the central Department at 

 Washington, as it appears, and the Experiment Station Record 

 gives a well-annotated monthly bibliography of everything 

 relating to the practical biology of agricultural advancement 

 for the entire country and, in fact, for the world. Another 



1 For both these publications address United States Department of Agri- 

 culture, Washington, D.C. Subscription price of the Record is |1 a year. 



