would recommend some plan similar to that of Mr. Noyes or the Congress Library. The alphabetico-classed system is just as intelligible and self-explanatory as the dictionary, as scientific and complete as the classed, and as elastic as either, and will meet the wants of both the specialist and the general reader, and may be safely tried by the standard of stupidity which, it seems, we must keep in constant view in cataloguing. J. SCHWARTZ. Of course there is now no question as to the new Index between the alphabetical and the classified systems of arrangement. The system of alphabetical arrangement of subject headings (conformed to original titles as far as may be) has been chosen by the Committee, and their choice is unquestionably wise. While all agree in this, there seems to be a somewhat wide spread desire among librarians that the class system shall be engrafted on the alphabetical one, either by a complete or a partial combination of the two, or by a class-system of cross references. Has it occurred to the advocates of these modifications of the alphabetical system that they are one and all additions to it, and not properly modifications of it, and that the great question about the Index is whether it can be kept within the limits of a convenient volume? Any plan which will provide for increased facility of reference without requiring additional space would certainly be welcomed by the editors and the Committee, but none of the methods of incorporating something of classification into the Index which have yet been suggested meet this prime requirement. Till such a method is brought forward, the question is how far it will pay to increase the size of the work and its consequent expense (and, I might add, the consequent hopelessness of the issue of supplementary volumes) for the sake of introducing classifiVOL. III., No. 4. Ap cation? It has been intimated by the Committee from the first that cross-references would be more freely used than in the old edition, and I understand Mr. Poole that this is his view. Mr. Schwartz makes a comparison which is hardly fair, between the perfection of the "dictionary arrangement . . . as developed by a Cutter, and" the same thing “in its infancy as advocated by Mr. Poole." parently he overlooks the fact that the dictionary arrangement (which means, in Mr. Cutter's catalogue and in his rules, an arrangement under author and subject, perhaps also title, thrown into one alphabet, and which is thus practically the same thing as Mr. Noyes's" alphabeticoclassed" system), is not at all the system proposed for the Index. As I understand the plan of the Index, it contemplates a single entry under subject and that alone, except as it may be found necessary to index one article under two subjects, or make cross-references. Here is certainly a distinction with a difference. If what I have said is to the point, the practical question before us is simply as to the extent to which cross-references shall be used. I think Mr. Perkins is pretty "levelheaded" on this matter, but, after all, I can hardly believe that it will pay to give space in the Index to the "groups" of cross-references he suggests. A little manual (or perhaps it would be a big one) of such references would make a most convenient hand-book if published separately, and we owe Mr. Poole thanks for the suggestion. But its usefulness would be principally in connection with catalogues of books, and not with "Poole's Index." The reader of books is apt to want such finger-posts pointing from the centre of a general subject to its various suburbs; but the consulter of periodical literature, in nine cases out of ten, is after a monograph on some special 16 subject. How often will a person who wants a paper on Mohammedanism, the Bible, Future State, Missions, Prayer, etc., look under Religion? Mr. Schwartz shares keenly in the distress of the specialist who must "wade through the thousand and one special heads . . . before he gains a clear knowledge of the resources,' etc. I think the specialist who wants the Index to give him a tabulated statement of the resources of periodical literature, deserves just as much consideration at the hand of the indexer, as the man who wants to see a list of all the people who live on Washington Street does of the directory-maker. A close study of the practical usefulness and use of the old edition of Poole, has given me a pretty clear idea of the proper rules and limitations for crossreferences in the new edition. I am not yet prepared to put these rules and limitations into shape, but I am prepared to say that I think they would exclude all attempts to introduce something like a system of classification through the means of cross-references. May I lengthen this already too long "piece," to refer to the singular confusion in the editorial columns of the JOURNAL for May and in Mr. Schwartz's article above as to synonymous headings"? The JOURNAL seems to have wished that Mr. Poole had issued instructions by which indexers could tell under what head to put each article on synonymous subjects. How could he have done this without instancing each case, and thus making a volume of instructions almost as large as the Index will be? Of course, each indexer will place articles on "Burying-grounds, Cemeteries, or Grave-yards' under one or the other of these headings, as they seem to him to require. The editors will find a batch of titles under each, and they will hardly wish to "arbitrarily select one at random, and place each subject as fancy dictates." (This is Mr. Schwartz's language, but he seems to mean something different by it.) They will rather allow each article to stand under the subject-heading given by its author, and make cross-references from each to the others. When it is purely a question of nomenclature, as between Physics and Natural Philosophy, they will choose one, and merely cross-refer from the other. But this whole matter belongs to the editors and not to the indexers. WILLIAM I. FLETCHER. There is a deceptive glamour about a well-executed scheme of systematic classification that fascinates at first, but the method when applied to indexes yields unsatisfactory results. The alphabetical author-table of the Revue des Deux Mondes, for instance, is very useful; the classed subject-table is as nearly as possible useless -not because what one wants is not there in its proper place, but because it takes too long to find it. When Mr. Poole says that "nobody understands a classified arrangement except the person who made it," he does not mean that nobody could understand it after study. But he prefers a system which can be understood without study. The arrangement of the letters in the alphabet is such a system, because, unnatural as it is, it has been already learned at school by everybody, and almost everybody can apply it without further instruction or conscious effort; one does not have to learn it over again every time he takes up a catalogue. When the classifiers shall agree upon any system to be taught in the commonschools, so that it can become part of the mental furniture of the nation, we can use that in indexes instead of the irrational alphabet. But in the mean time all the discussion of the comparative merits of the two methods resolves itself into this: The books designed for ready reference ought to be alphabetically arranged; the books designed for thorough and leisurely study ought to be classified. Now nine tenths of the persons who are likely to use Poole's Index will be seeking somewhat in a hurry for answers to specific questions; and many persons will use it seldom enough to forget in the intervals any complexity of arrangement. A minority might be better served by classification, but the greatest good of the greatest number would not be promoted thereby; and as it is not designed for the geologist, the zoologist, the chemist, and, indeed, expressly excludes the periodicals devoted to geology, zoology, chemistry, those specialists have no rights which the author is bound to respect at the expense of the general public. Another objection to any radical change is that the work would no longer be Poole's Index, which is what we undertook to complete. knowledge cannot guide him straight to the right heading, although it might easily lead him to the right class where a little search will set him right. It is a very pretty project (not a new one, by the way), and I should like to see it tried by somebody else. I should not envy the editor. I fear his choice of classes would not suit anybody, even himself, and I am sure that those who used the Index would often be perplexed by doubt whether any given subject was subordinated or treated independently. Copious references would prevent any serious evil, and synonyms would give no more annoyance than in the dictionary system, except that here there would be all the trouble of synonyms under each class plus the difficulty of determining the class. This proposal is much better suited to the catalogue of a complete library than to an index like this, which only grazes A systematically classed index, then, is on the sciences. The proposed class-lists out of the question, but the proposition would only show how poor the Index was of Messrs. Noyes and Schwartz is less in material of that sort, and would be only objectionable, to get the good of both a disappointment to the specialist. But methods by using each in that range there would be just enough departure from of subjects where it is most applicable; the simple alphabetical plan to bother the that is, to arrange proper names and con- much larger class of general readers and crete subjects alphabetically, and to inter- the specialists who were seeking for occasperse among them, still alphabetically, sional information in some other specialty. the various arts and sciences, each forming Even the separate entry of Fiction, a group of subjects alphabetically sub- Drama, and Poetry is of very doubtful arranged. Such a plan would combine expediency; I am very sceptical as to the the power of quickly finding all those existence of any number of persons who things which most people want to find- would want to study or use those kinds persons, places, events-with the oppor- of the periodical literature as a whole, tunity for a bird's-eye view of certain and I do not see how a separate list branches of knowledge, whose separate would help one to find any single play parts are not so likely to be independently or novel. The list would be too long inquired for or are most commonly thought for a man to look wholly through, if of in connection with the class. We he had forgotten a name. Any such should gain too in those cases the chance separation is in itself an evil, for the of assisting the ignorant or forgetful or necessity of thinking every time in what puzzled inquirer who does not know exact- part of the volume one is to look is anly what he wants, who gets poor help from noying, and the certainty of often looking. a mere dictionary, because his vague first in the wrong place, as one is certain to do frequently, is a fruitful cause of failure to enter in full or by reference annoyance. But if the general plan of the Index should be retained, the details ought to be improved. The old edition is decidedly unsatisfactory. I know from my own experience, from watching others' use of it, and from complaints that have been made to me, that it has not unfre quently failed to answer questions that it might reasonably have been expected to answer. No one doubts that, even though not perfect, it has been of immense service, and that the circumstances under which it was prepared-a first attempt, by one man—were a sufficient justification of its imperfection; but they are no justification whatever for making a new Index equally faulty; for though the material to be dealt with has increased fivefold, the workers have increased fiftyfold. Indeed the increase of matter makes an improved method all the more necessary. The defects of the Index were: (a) the entry of precisely similar subjects under several different heads; * (b) the failure, with trifling exceptions, to refer from one of these heads to the other or others; † (c) the failure to assist the inquirer by suggesting other headings of a similar character under which a man might find matter to his purpose; ‡ (d) the occasional * As Gardening and Horticulture and Landscape Gardening, Animals and Zoology, Insects and Entomology, Fishes and Ichthyology, Language and Languages and Philology, Abolition and Anti-slavery, Polar Sea and North Pole. And it is proposed to continue this method of entry in the new edition, if I understand the assistant-editor, Mr. Fletcher, aright. Thus there are no references between the synonyms cited above. A man who was interested in the Poor would certainly like to read about Ragged Schools. The student of Paris can hardly afford to pass by the Quartier Latin. If it was of any use to put under the Middle Ages articles on the Philosophical Investigations of the Middle Ages and on the Philosophy and Poetry, it would be of use to let the articles treating of two subjects, or likely to be sought under either of two names, under both of the headings.* Now for a very considerable number of subjects classification on the worst system could not have been more inconvenient than this, nor more destructive of the very object of the Index-ready reference. When one has not only to look in two or three places to find what one wants, but has to rack one's brain to know where to look, one is not a whit better off than if one had to puzzle through the Brunet or the Jefferson scheme; one is not half so well off as if one had an alphabetical index guiding directly to a judicious classified arrangement. We hear much in this connection about the stupidity of the public; but it is not stupid to be unable to think in a hurry of all the synonyms of the first word that happens to come into one's head (for possession is nine points of the law of mental action), or to think of all the subdivisions of a comprehensive subject, and of all the classes which include the topic one is studying. Yet the including classes may furnish a man with much better material than he will find under the specific head. The cataloguer or indexer himself, with much more time at his command, cannot think of all these without an effort, and even with effort may not succeed in including everything. The more I make and the more I use catalogues, the more I feel that it be reader know that he would find under Scholastic an article on the Scholastic Philosophy of the Middle Ages. Thus there is nothing under Almaden or Idria, though there are articles on the Silver mines in Almaden and the Quicksilver mines in Idria. I may add that the examples in these four notes were not painfully searched out, but were met with in an examination of less than half an hour. They are not occasional oversights, but a few of the many results of the sys tem. comes the cataloguer to take infinite pains to make everything perfectly clear, and that it is his highest as it is his hardest duty to foresee and provide against the perplexities of the reader. Every one was sorry to see from Mr. Poole's article that he fails to attach sufficient importance to the careful, thorough, systematic preparation of cross-references. Without them the Index will be half maimed, and its users blind; it will not be even a good dictionary index. With them it will have most of the merits of classification. The advocates of the latter form, to be sure, strenuously deny this, and I admit that there is wanting something of the luxurious ease afforded by their method; but the result is about the same, if people will take a little pains to run over the references and look up, not by any means every one, but whatever seems likely to be of use. The minority of thorough scholars ought not to complain, provided they are furnished with the references to look over. But so much they have a right to demand. And they will not be provided with what they want by the editor's putting in a reference here and there, when it happens to occur to him, as the work is going through the press. In regard to a number of wellknown synonyms, it ought to be determined beforehand which shall be taken. To avoid the chance of the retention of others, there should be, as Mr. Perkins proposes, a regular scheme of classification, a hierarchy of the sciences, and each subject heading in the Index should be inserted in its proper place there. When that was done we should have a complete chart of the territory covered, and it would be easy to see what was the relation of each part to its neighbors, to choose the references which will bind the different parts of the Index together and make it one systematic whole. If the object were to make the Index as cheaply as possible all this work would be out of the question; but my predecessors have written, and I think the co-operators are working on the supposition that it was intended to make it as good as possible. Nothing less could have aroused their zeal to the degree which Mr. Poole's report implies. One other matter should be mentioned, the desireableness of having some degree of uniformity in the selection of headings, and a correspondence of one part of the Index with another. There are various points to be considered by the editor. Shall he, for instance, use mostly abstract forms or concrete-Entomology or Insects; shall he use popular or scientific names,-Butterflies or Lepidoptera ; shall he put articles on the history of any art or science in a country under the art or science, with local subdivisions, or under the country, with subject subdivisions, or under both heads when there is only one such article? It is not perhaps of great practical importance that there should be an absolute uniformity in the choice of headings; indeed it would probably be inexpedient to carry out any system rigidly; yet some degree of uniformity is as helpful as it is pleasing; and the settlement of the rival claims of countries and other subjects is absolutely necessary. Red tape is bad, but the rule of thumb is sometimes more oppressive. And as Mr. Poole's article certainly gives the impression that he is rather indifferent to all such things, and as all his published catalogues strengthen that impression, it is not out of place to respectfully urge that these points be all carefully considered. If the work were his alone, it would be impertinent to say anything beforehand. We could only criticize it when completed. But surely co-operators have a right to make suggestions. We should rebel against taxation without representation. C: A. CUTTER. |