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The new library of the History department in Harvard Hall is already being largely used; the only wonder is that the department has been able hitherto to accomplish its purposes without the help of a special library. The new library will form one of the many special libraries at Harvard. As the University has grown during the past few years, the establishment of these libraries has been rapid. They are fulfilling the objects which the broader interests of the University are continually demanding.

It is interesting, in this connection, to note the advance in her libraries which Harvard has made over the other colleges. In none of them are the libraries so well equipped or so generally used as at Harvard. The statistics at Yale show that the percent of students using the library is much below that of Harvard; and that of the books which are used, by far the greatest portion are works of fiction. Such facts would seem to indicate that the method of conducting the courses at Harvard is largely to account for the increased use of general literature. This method is to unite, with regular text-books, a large amount of outside reading. At the other colleges this plan is by no means so extensively used, and the motives for a broader reading are not so forcibly presented to the students. This is shown plainly enough by the fact that the reading room for the new library at Yale will be no larger than the reading room for our new History department library.