Excerpt from The 25th-42nd Annual Report of the Board of Directors of the Brooklyn Library: Presented March 29, 1883-March 29, 1900 Mr. Rossiter W Raymond spoke in a general way of books and their various uses. A book is simply a man with one thing to say. When books were scarce no one could afford to own all he wanted. Now they have become so numerous that no one, not even a millionaire, can afford to get all he wants. Even the Astor Library is not complete in any given field. One is now satisfied if he knows the men who knew the facts, without knowing the facts himself. The library of the educated man should consist of as many working tools as possible - the clas sics, the various books, and as many en'cyclopaedias, dictionaries, and circulars as possible. The Catalogue of the Brooklyn Library was a model of literary work, and, as has been well said, almost a perfect realization of an impossibility. For his own part he thought more of the Catalogue than he did of any other volume in the entire Library. To a reading man the Catalogue was invaluable, and he would consider no library - no private library of any considerable extent - perfect without it. Without it the library would be a mockery to the mass of readers. As a student he wished to express his gratitude to the Brooklyn Library. All his thinking and active life was associated with it. Brooklyn is a City of homes and has only a few things to unite it as a people, among which may be mentioned the Park, the Bridge, Ridgewood, and this Library. The distinguished merit of the Catalogue had not escaped the notice of the compilers of the elaborate article upon Libraries in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.