Lord Rosebery opened on Monday the Edinburgh Public Library, which
owes so much to the munificent gift of Mr. Carnegie, and stated in his opening speech that the Library Committee had spent £12,000 in books, with which they had bought 58,000 volumes,-4,000 children's books for lending, 34,000 for the general lending department, and 20,000 books , of reference (which are not, of course, to be lent out). The reference library and newspaper-room are to be opened next
Monday, and the lending department on July 1st. Lord Rosebery explained what he meant when he said that merit in books is now adjudged by " the thumb-mark of the artisan." He did not mean by dirty thumb-marks, but by that legitimate wear-and-tear which, in spite of the greatest care, must in time wear out all volumes of which the leaves are often turned. Lord Rosebery went on to praise,—we think to over-praise,- the utility of books. " It was once said that every French soldier bore in his knapsack the potential baton of a Field- Marshal. In this library there lies for all the means of potential eminence, of potential greatness." That, we think, is in no slight degree an exaggeration. Potential eminence and greatness lies much more in the man himself than in the culture of the man. Indeed, the transformation of potential into actual eminence not unfrequently depends on a (relative) neglect of books, and an early plunge into the field of practical life.
