expense. Why then should the public
libraries struggle to supply it in book form at the public expense?

But as to a certain percentage of current light literature there is an
embarrassment that I have not touched. It is the embarrassment of making
selection without giving offense. All cannot be bought. A choice must be
made. With reference to standard literature authoritative judgement is
not difficult to obtain. But here there has been no lapse of time to
balance opinion. An anticipatory estimate must be attempted and
attempted by the library itself.

Now, if the library decide against the book it is very likely held to
blame for "dictating" to its readers. "It is one thing," says a journal
commenting on an adverse decision, "it is one thing to consider this
novel pernicious, but it is another and more serious thing for the
foremost library in the country maintained at public expense, to deny to
a large and respectable portion of the public an opportunity to judge
for itself whether the work of a man of (this author's) calibre is
pernicious or not."

The author in this case was, of course, not Mr. X., but rather Mr. A.,
an already known quantity.

So a library is not to be permitted to apply a judgement of its own! It
is not protected by the fact that this judgment coincides with the
judgment of professional critics--so far at least as these may be
ascertained. The author may have turned perverse and written a book
distinctly bad. Yet this book is to be bought and supplied to enable
each member of the public to form a judgment of his own upon it. And it
is to be so bought out of public funds entrusted to the library for
educational purposes. Censorship has to us an ugly sound; but does the
library act as censor when it declares a book beyond its province? Does
it dictate what the people shall read when it says, "We decline to buy
this book for you with public funds"?

This is a question which is far larger than the selection or rejection
of a novel or two. It involves the whole question of authority, and it
concerns not merely the extremes, but the varying degrees of worth in
literature. Most departments of educational work are founded upon
principles, cautiously ascertained, and systematically adhered to. Their
consistent maintenance upon principle is the easier because each other
such department deals with a special constituency, limited either in age
or perhaps in sex, or at least in purpose, and one which acc