The other long article in this issue was handed to the editor over the romantic signature, "Miss Abby Mitchin, assistant-at-large, Ezra Beezley Free Public Library, 1901-1904." The homely unconsciousness of Miss Mitchin's style gives to her contribution a quaint flavor, which, we believe, only enhances the force of her reflections.

PENSION PROBLEMS.

LIBRARY LIFE is deeply grateful to the Boston Retirement Board for its interest in the Pension Question Box. The answers given have all been submitted to the Executive Officer of the Board, Mr. William F. Reagan, who has been most patient; in every case they have represented his judgment regarding the probable procedure of the Board, as given at the time of publication. Many questions have not yet reached their final solution, and members of the Library staff are cautioned against relying too fully on the answers given in the Pension Question Box, without consulting the Retirement Board, whose interpretation of the Act is subject to progressive modification as new problems arise shedding fresh light on the possible effects of the Act.

This paper is engaged in an earnest effort to aid its readers in their perplexities about the operation of the Retirement Act; but it must be remembered that its answers are not conclusive. In many cases, a careful study of the pamphlet issued by the Board, "What the Boston Retirement System does," will answer one's questions; beyond this, only the Board can give an authoritative decision.

In this connection it may be well to call attention to an editorial statement in the February number of LIBRARY LIFE, which is not strictly accurate. In speaking of the City as giving us "one hundred and eight per cent on our savings," it was not the intention to suggest that the annual rate of interest is 108 per cent, which would be almost beyond the dreams of Ponzi. At the end of one year after each dollar is deducted from

our salary, there will be to our credit in the City treasury, on account of that dollar, the sum of $2.08; in the first year, that is, our savings earn one hundred and eight per cent. This is not true of later years.

It was the purpose of the article in question to emphasize the fact that, while the United States paid us four per cent on our savings, the City first doubles our savings, and then pays us four per cent on this doubled amount..

sor; Mrs. Edwin A. Abbey; and Miss Anna L. Sawyer, formerly reference librarian of the San Francisco Public Library.

On Friday, February 23, Sister Miriam and Sister Miriam Patricia visited the Library with an enthusiastic group of twenty-five young ladies from Mt. St. Joseph's Academy, Brighton, and were conducted over the building.

Miss Jordan spoke on the Work of a Children's Librarian at the Girls' School of Milton Academy on February 23.

An examination for Grade E in the Library service was held on Saturday February 24. Nearly two hundred boys and girls presented themselves.

The Library has lately received as a loan a copy of a large oil painting made by Sol. Eytinge, Jr., the famous illustrator of Dickens, for "Every other Saturday." It portrays Mr. Pickwick sitting on a knoll under a tree. Beside

him stands Sam Weller, pointing to a great parade of Dickens's characters, including all the well-known favorites, from Mr. Dombey to Mr. Sikes's dog.

The picture, which was painted by Mr. Henry B. Kelley, of Dorchester, brother-in-law of Miss Orcutt, of the Jamaica Plain Branch, now belongs to the Boston Branch of the Dickens Fellowship, and has been lent to the Branch Department through the kindly efforts of Mrs. A. Lincoln Bowles, Secretary of the Fellowship. It is now at the West Roxbury Branch, where it hangs in the lecture hall. Later on it will be transferred to some other branch. It is expected that the picture will be of special value in connection with story-telling.

By a recent rule, which makes somewhat more liberal the conditions for the issue of library cards to new residents of the city, regular cards, not restricted in any way, may now be issued, at the discretion of the Chief of the Registration Department, to all such persons as furnish satisfactory references and declare over their signa

In the January bulletin of the Massachusetts Library Club were published a number of very useful book lists. These included one on "The United States in World Politics," by Professor Raymond G. Gettell, of Amherst College; a list of "Law Books for a Public Library," by Dr. G. E. Wire, librarian of the Worcester County Law Library; and one of books on Psychoanalysis and Applied Psychology, "a list for libraries," by Dr. F. L. Wells, of the Boston Psychopathic Hospital.

former alone are three or four times as numerous as the Washington collections of the Library of Congress or of the New York Public Library. It is understood that the books will remain in the Huntington Library as a unit, to be known as the Walter Updike Lewisson Collection, and always accessible to any reader. Mr. Lewisson gives cordial praise for the assistance of the Boston Public Library in build

ing up the collection. He is justly very happy in the final disposition of his treasures, and he has our warmest congratulations.

MEMORIAL TO

SAM WALTER FOSS.

"The House by the Side of the Road" is the name of the memorial to Sam Walter Foss, late librarian of Somerville, to be built at 68 College Avenue, near the West Somerville Branch Library, as one of the units of the group of buildings belonging to the Park Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church. The building will have recreational, social and educational features, and will be used as a demonstration centre for scientific methods by the students of the Boston University

School of Religious Education. The name of the memorial is taken from the title of Mr. Foss's best-known poem, of which the refrain is

Let me live in my house by the side of the road,

And be a friend to man.

A REFERENCE LIBRARIAN.

At times behind a desk he sits, At times about the room he flits. Folks interrupt his perfect ease By asking questions such as these: "How tall was prehistoric man?" "How old, I pray, was Sister Ann?" "What should one do if cats have fits?" "What woman first invented mitts?" "Who said "To Labor is to Pray'?" "How much did Daniel Lambert weigh?" "How do you spell it, 'wo,' or 'woe'?" "What is the fare to Kokomo?"

"Is Clark's name really, truly Champ?" "Can you lend me a postage-stamp?" "Have you the rhymes of Edward Lear?" "What wages do they give you here?" "What dictionary is the best?" "Did Brummel wear a satin vest?" "Which is the tall one, Jeff or Mutt?" "Why can't we have that window shut?" "How do you spell 'anaemic,' please?" "What is a Gorgonzola cheese?" "Who ferries souls across the Styx?" "What is the square of 96?"

"Are oysters good to eat in March?" "Are green bananas full of starch?" "Where is that book I used to see?" "I guess you don't remember me?" "Haf you der Hohenzollernspiel?" "Where shall I put this apple-peel?" "Où est, M'sieu, la grande Larousse?" "Do you say 'two-spot' or 'the deuce'?" "Say, Mister, where's the telephone?" "Now, which is right, to 'lend,' or 'loan'?" "How do you use this catalogue?" "Oh, hear that noise! Is that my dog?" "Have you a book called 'Shapes of Fear'?" "You mind if I leave Baby here?"

GIFTS.

The employees of the Library have recently been asked to give money for reconstruction in three war-ridden countries: for the relief fund for Russian librarians, $42.00 was given; for the rebuilding of the library of the University of Louvain, $32.25 has been thus far received; and $61.10 was contributed for Devastated France, through the candidacy of Miss Agnes E. Daly in the Goodwill Contest.

Miss Daly's Library friends congratulate her on the splendid vote which she received, and wish her a happy journey to France.

The small returns for Louvain, in comparison with the amount given for Miss Daly, would indicate that we of the Boston Public Library are more interested in persons than in causes. A recent report to the Massachusetts Library Club stated that at a time when the Boston Public Library had contributed only $2.30, sent in by two branches, to the rebuilding fund for Louvain, 90 other libraries, most of them small, had given $1002.73. It is pleasant to know that the appeal is meeting a generous response in some quarters.

COMING EVENTS.

The Institute for Librarians, held annually at Simmons College, under the auspices of the Board of Free Public Library Commissioners, is to have its meetings this year in March, instead of in July, as usual. The Institute will cover four days, March 20 to March 23, inclusive. The program has been arranged especially with a view to the needs of village libraries, but a number of the addresses will be of general interest to library workers. At the session of Thursday afternoon, March 22, which will be held in the Lecture Hall of the Boston Public Library, Mrs. Mary E. S. Root will speak on "Children's Books and their Illustrators," and Mr. John A. Lowe will give his "Impressions of a Village Library."

The long-heralded entertainment in honor of the Pension Committee is to take place on April 3. We recognize with appreciation the time and work the Committee gave to help establish the Act by which nearly all of us will benefit in one way or another. Many of us will be glad of an opportunity to express this appreciation in a definite way. Here will be our chance to do this, and to have at the same time an evening of pleasure and fun, provided by Library talent exclusively.

For some time members of the force have been saying, "Let's have a Library Minstrel Show," and now it is coming. If you are not one of the performers you will want to be present to see your friends in new and unusual character. Besides the Minstrel show there will be a play and good music.

The Archbishop John J. Williams Municipal Building, at the corner of West Brookline Street and Shawmut Avenue, facing Blackstone Square, the lower floor of which is occupied by the South End Branch Library, will be officially dedicated on Easter Sunday, April 1, at 3 p. m. The exercises will be held in the Henry L. Higginson Hall, on the floor above the library.

The next meeting of the Massachusetts Library Club will be held June 22-24, at the Cliff Hotel, North Scituate, where the Club had such a pleasant meeting last year. An interesting program is being arranged, and there is sure to be a large attendance. Those who expect to go to the meeting should make early application for rooms to the president of the Club, Mr. Harold T. Dougherty, Newton Free Library.

LIBRARY SALARIES.

In the Bulletin of the American Library Association for November, 1922, is published a comprehensive table of "Salary Statistics of Large Public Libraries," compiled by the A. L. A. Committee on Salaries. The table shows at a glance the salary conditions in thirty-three large American libraries, and makes it possible to form a rough idea of Boston's place in the list. It is, of course, difficult to compare salaries accurately, on account of the different systems of grading employees in the various libraries. It is suggested that such salary statistics be printed annually by the A. L. A., as an aid to standardization.

These figures for large libraries are supplemented in the Bulletin for January by a table of similar statistics for "medium-sized" public libraries

those, that is, in cities whose population is between 50,000 and 140,000.

From a resolution recently adopted by the Association it is interesting to quote the following paragraphs:

"Higher minimum salaries should prevail in cities where the cost of living is above the average and in positions demanding considerable responsibility.

"Library salaries in every city and state should be adjusted to meet the competition of business, teaching, and other vocations, especially in that city and state, to the end that more wellqualified persons may be attracted to library work."

EXHIBITIONS.

HANDICRAFTS.

Did the people who made the furniture for the homes which we now call early American recognize their handwork as an art?

This question was prompted by the interesting exhibition of "Early American Arts" held in the Library last month, where there were interior views of Mount Vernon in its present state of perfected restoration, the Thomas Bailey Aldrich Memorial at Portsmouth, of "Bad Boy" fame, the Dorothy Quincy house, and the Lee Mansion at Marblehead; there were Salem doorways and knockers, Annapolis doorways, and details from the House of Seven Gables, to mention only a few of the examples chosen from the region extending from the James River to Gloucester. Carved bedposts, braided and hooked rugs, tufted coverlets and patchwork quilts, as popularized through the photographs of Mr. Wallace Nutting, with the aid of a cat or two in front of the fire and a very upto-date looking girl in the costume of the period, have had their values as art emphasized in our day. Really, they were the practical, hum-drum product of an age when there was much time, especially in the evenings, and little outside distraction.

The braided rug, now an object of art displayed in the windows of a Boylston Street shop, made by trained

workers in Maine or New Hampshire, and fit to decorate your best hardwood floor, originated in an economical desire to make something useful out of the old pieces that were saved from the family wardrobe. Material from men's worn-out garments, from the woolen gowns of the women, with the addition sometimes of a bright piece of orange flannel to give it color (a purchase, and rightly thought an extravagant one), was cut into long strips and put away in bags. Then, when a winter evening came, with mother at. home and the older children gone skating or driven to a dance miles away, the little ones from six to twelve years old, left behind, would ask,

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Mother, can we braid?" and the bag of strips would come forth and the work of braiding begin. After a time, father, lighting a candle, would go down cellar, come back with a plate of apples, and, peeling and cutting one into quarters, would pass one on the point of his knife-blade to each child. Night after night this would go on, till finally mother, armed with a huge needle and a coarse, black thread, would sew the braided strips into rounds or ovals and the result was something thought suitable to put in the kitchen or in one of the bedrooms or possibly over a hole in the parlor carpet until a new one could be bought.

So it was with the patchwork quilt, made of pieces saved by a girl and her friends and put together at a quilting, the forerunner of our present-day "shower."

Thrift, it was called in those days. Now, time and enthusiastic antiquarians have made it an art.

THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL.

The largest crowds of the year were attracted to the Library Exhibition Room by the brilliant show of original designs submitted in the cover competition organized by The House Beautiful, which was open from February 19 to 26. Of the fourteen hundred designs submitted in the contest, about two hundred and fifty were displayed in the Library. In addition to the awards of first and second prizes and honorable