best possible opportunity to prove its worth; so that if it has at all justified its existence at Minnesota the credit must be given largely to the generous and helpful attitude which the faculty and the board of regents have steadily maintained.

The work of the dean of women naturally takes three main lines. The first of these, while perhaps most important, is most difficult of definition. She must make herself accessible. It must be easy for those to see her who desire her help or her advice. While she cannot pretend to stand in the place of a parent or even of an older sister, she ought to be able to offer some solution for those problems which distinctly pertain to college life. The girl who finds her course of study too heavy or too difficult, the girl who does not know to what end to direct her work, the girl who finds in her private life hindrances to her work as a student-these and many others should have free access to such an officer as the dean of women. It is impossible to catalogue the variety of cases which present themselves for discussion and settlement, nor can any definite account be given of such work. It is highly exhausting, it consumes what sometimes seems like an inordinate amount of time, and it is bound to be unsatisfactory to one who knows her advice to be, very often, quite the reverse of wise and enlightened. Yet it is necessary work, and, as our University is at present organized, it falls particularly to the lot of the dean of women. Nor does it lack its joys and its rewards.

In the second place, the keeping of a list of boarding places, and of opportunities for employment is numbered among the duties of the office of which we speak. Because of the importance which living conditions and conditions of employment have in the life of the college girl, this work should always be a part of the general supervision of the women students. Yet in itself it is somewhat mechanical and may, in time, be shifted to the hands of a secretary or an assistant.

In the third place, it is the work of a dean of women to keep in close touch with the great

organizations which control certain phases of student life. At this University the Woman's League, the Young Women's Christian Association, the Women's Athletic Association and the Student Government Association are these great controlling bodies. They are the constructive forces in which certain principles and ideals are given a habitation and a name. To neglect them would be, in my mind, to ignore great influences for the teaching of democracy, helpfulness, and public spirit. In general, this work--which, concretely means a faithful attendance at councils and committees-is wholly delightful. The girls who throw themselves into these activities are of our finest types. To work with them is constantly to renew one's belief in the generosity and loveliness of the human heart. Very often the chief service which an older person can perform is to restrain the ardor which urges the students to work beyond their strength.

At present, the dean of women is connected with one of the departments of the University, and is occupied for a part of her time with teaching. In many ways this division of duties is to be desired. The peril which always confronts this office is that it may degenerate into the position of a preceptress or head chaperone. The holding of academic rank and the performance of academic duties give the dean of women an advantage both with the faculty and with students, and afford her with the latter, an additional avenue of approach. On the other hand, the work of the office grows steadily heavier; and it may soon be necessary either to relieve the dean of women of her teaching duties, or to reinforce her by an assistant.

The immediate occasion which led to the creation of the office with which this article deals was Mr. Thomas H. Shevlin's gift to the University of Alice Shevlin hall. This building has been the stronghold of the dean of women, her domain, and the most effective of her tools. The dormitory, now in process of construction, will be, it is hoped, another instrument of great value. Work among the women students of the University is likely to develop it seems to

me, in two ways: in the fitting of women for a greater variety of gainful occupations, while retaining for them the broad training which we associate with the bachelor's degree; and in the

creation for them of influences tending toward the refinement and cultivation which we love to call womanly.

The act establishing the University of Minnesota passed by the territorial assemby in February, 1851, empowered the board of regents. to elect, among other officers, a librarian and on May 31st of that year, the board, at their first meeting, appointed to that office William R. Marshall, one of their own number and later governor of the state.

The library, however, notwithstanding its very dignified head, had little more than a fictitious existence. A few books seem to have been collected, which, when instruction ceased in 1854, were left in the care of Isaac Atwater, secretary of the board, and by him turned over to the new board in 1860. No record of what these books were is in existence and it is very improbable that any of them are extant in the library of today.

When instruction in the preparatory department was resumed in the fall of 1867, efforts were made at once to gather the nucleus of the future library and, at the end of the year, Principal Washburn was able to report that the University possessed a set of Appletons Cyclopedia, a few dictionaries, forty volumes of the Annals of Congress, ten volumes of the Congressional globe, ten volumes of the reports of the Smithsonian institution and a small collection of miscellaneous documents.

Not a very large beginning surely but good so far as it went. I am inclined to believe that this catalog was included in the report to add emphasis to the plea which Mr. Washburn makes for an appropriation of from $2,000 to $3,000 to buy the reference books, without which instruction of any kind was almost impossible. Money was, however, very scarce and during the following year there were no purchases, although 83 volumes were added by gift, 72 of them from the Minnesota historical society.

ADA L. COMSTOCK.

themselves in need, was the coming of Dr. Folwell. In other sections of this volume, there are tributes of appreciation of the work which he did in the organization of the University but, of all the good things for which he was responsible, and they were many, one of the most valuable, and probably the most lasting in its effects, was his constant interest in the library and his far sighted appreciation of what it meant and must mean to the University and to the state. A scholar himself, he brought with him to his new work not only a scholar's love for books but a willingness to sacrifice almost everything else, if necessary, to secure them.

The University and in particular the present librarian, will never cease to be grateful that, for a period of thirty-seven years, he was the head of the library. The writer knows something of a good many libraries but he has never seen one, which, in his judgment, shows the evidence of greater discrimination and catholicity of taste in its collection than does ours at the University of Minnesota. The library

as it stands to-day, is a monument to Dr. Folwell, a "momentum aere perennis" and if those of us who are continuing his work can keep up the high standard which he has set, we shall continue to have a library of which the University may well be proud.

When Dr. Folwell became president, the library, such as it was, was housed in a room at the north end of the top floor of the original part of the "Old Main" and was kept open during the afternoon under the charge of Arthur Beardsley, instructor in enineering.

Shortly after the arrival of Dr. Folwell, the executive committee of the board, without the knowledge of the president, appointed a student by the name of Campbell, a brother of Professor Campbell, as assistant in the library. It was the understanding of Professor Beardsley that Campbell was to work under his direction and of Campbell that he was to have exclusive charge.

Sparks flew for a while and one fine morning, when Professor Beardsley appeared at the library, he found the door locked against him and Campbell holding the fort. In the informal manner of those days, Beardsley kicked in the door and took possession. In a few hours Professor Campbell appeared on the scene, accompanied by Governor Pillsbury, the president of the board, and demanded that Beardsley be dismissed from his position in the University. The matter was referred to President Folwell who succeeded in quieting, if not harmonizing, the warring factions and cut the Gordian knot by taking charge of the library himself. This incident, trivial in itself, was responsible for the beginning of Dr. Folwell's long term of service as librarian. Mr. John Sinclair Clark,

then a student and later our honored professor of Latin, was engaged as assistant.

The legislature of 1867 made an appropriation of $10,000 for repairs and equipment of the University building and Dr. Folwell had the courage to use $4,000 of it in the purchase of books for the library. A portion of this sum, $1,200, was used for the purchase of the Robertson collection of about 1,300 volumes. Col. D. A. Robertson was a pioneer citizen of St. Paul, editor of the Democrat and the first professor of agriculture in the University. His collection contained many books of great value in the fields of anthropology, voyages and travels, slavery, etc.

During the same year Professor Campbell, who was on leave of absence in Europe, was commissioned to expend a considerable part of the remainder of the fund and he brought back with him nearly 3,000 volumes of great value.

The purchase of these two collections made it necessary to provide larger quarters for the library and a room on the second floor next to the office of the president was assigned to it.

An alphabetical author catalog was at once. begun and completed in time for inclusion, in printed form, in the regents' report for 1871. As published separately, it makes a volume of 177 pages and contains about 4,000 titles. Most of the work in the preparation of this catalog was done, without remuneration, by Professor Edward Hadley Twining and Professor Beardsley, and, in accuracy and technical form, it is quite on a par with most of the printed catalogs of its day. Supplements to this catalog were printed at various times and were published as appendices to the regents' report: that of 1874 containing the list of additions from March 1872 to February 1874; that of 1875, the books received up to February 1875 and in particular the Tappan collection; those of 1877 and 1878 contain identically the same list, that of the books added up to April 1878; and the fifth and final printed list, covering the period up to June 1881, was included in the first biennial report for 1878-80

This report contained also the first attempt at the publication of a subject index. This list