reasons, but there, as well as in large cities, lectures can be given
which deal with practical subjects and the aid to their knowledge which
the library affords. Many cities are giving such courses of lectures,
notably perhaps New York, and with considerable effect on the use of the
public library. I have no statistics regarding such lectures from the
various cities, but undoubtedly this method offers the easiest plan for
extending the use of the library in smaller cities and towns. I say the
_easiest_, and it will not be difficult to secure good lectures on
literature, history, or art, but lectures on the practical subjects are
much more difficult to obtain, since it is hard to secure lecturers who
know more about the trades than do the craftsmen who constitute the
audience.

If these movements are to succeed, they must not be attempted in an
amateurish way. They must be well planned and well executed--planned and
executed with careful reference to the wants of the men of the
community. Above all, they must be persistently carried out with full
vigor year after year, even though results are apparently small. Their
purpose must be steadfastly maintained and the methods of execution
continually readjusted, as success or failure indicates. It is no light
or easy thing to change the habits of half the adult members of the
community--to cultivate the reading habit in those who have reached
maturity without acquiring it--and the work which the library proposes
for itself involves such a task.

If men are to be reached at all it must be on a business basis, not on
that of occasional effort. Nor must the missionary spirit prevail, for
men, as a rule, do not wish to be reformed or to be helped. They must
find in the library a place which appeals to their sense of comfort and
which gives them things that they want, or, like other sensible people,
they will not use it.

One word in closing this topic, and that in emphasis of what I have
already said. It is easier to keep a boy reading as he grows up than to
catch him again as a man after the library has lost him. Take a lesson
from the church. The boy who graduates from Sunday-school rarely returns
for a post-graduate course. In the wise administration of the work for
children and youth lies the main hope not of reaching, but keeping men
in the library.

But it should be definitely understood that this enlargement of library
work which the times are forcing upon us means i