The cover has been created by the transcriber and placed in the public domain.
IN THE PATH OF THE ALPHABET.
‘Frances D Jermain’
IndianaPREFACE.
In one of the closing days of August, 1905, theauthor of this work, Frances D. Jermain, receivedthe summons of her Maker to join the Silent Majority.The call came suddenly, finding her in thefull possession of her ever remarkable intellectualpowers, and with the ambition for much yet to do.
For nearly twenty-five years, she had been at thehead of the Toledo Public Library, in the upbuildingof which she was ever the inspiration and the guidingspirit.
With more than the ordinary capacity for organizationand the practical, she planned and carried outthe working details of all notable improvements, inthat thoroughly modern library.
Others, who took up the work from which she retiredabout a year before her death, will carry it forwardwith that devotion and capacity which it shouldinspire; but they will but build additions to the edificewhich she reared.
Her death brought forth a remarkable outpouringof voluntary tributes to her worth and work. Fromthese has come the realization that by her deathToledo has lost one whose influence upon its intellectuallife was the most potent and far reaching ofany citizen it has ever lost.
Living and working nobly in public as in herideally perfect domestic life, her loss is profoundlyfelt.
[4]Political administrations came and went, partytriumphs and party defeats lived out “their littleday” and are long since forgot; but year afteryear, until a quarter of a century had nearly gone,this brave and learned little woman ruled, withgentle power and kindly wisdom, the destinies ofthe Toledo Public Library.
In the growth and development of this notablepublic institution, selecting its contents, the literaryadvisor of lawyers, journal