omfort and consolation to the
old, recreation and companionship to all ages and conditions.

I close as I began:

Education is the greatest concern of mankind; it is the foundation of
all human progress. The library is an essential factor in all grades of
education; and it is the agent plenipotentiary in the betterment of
society and the culture and cheer of the human soul. "The highest gift
of education is not the mastery of sciences, but noble living, generous
character, the spiritual delight that comes from familiarity with the
loftiest ideals of the human mind, the spiritual power that saves each
generation from the intoxication of its own success."

THE LIBRARY AS A FACTOR IN MODERN CIVILIZATION

Read by President Faunce of Brown University, at the
Narragansett Pier Conference of the American Library
Association in 1906. Elaborates the library's three gifts to
the nation--"knowledge, perspective and ideals."

William Herbert Perry Faunce was born in Worcester, Mass.,
Jan. 15, 1859, graduated at Brown University in 1880,
entered the Baptist ministry, and after holding several
pastorates became in 1899 president of his alma mater. He is
known as an effective writer and speaker, especially on
religion and education.

We have long been accustomed to speak of three great factors in modern
civilization--the school, the church, and the home. Must we, in view of
such a significant meeting as this, add a fourth factor--the library?
The modern library has in some places become a true school; in other
places it has radiated something of the refinement for which we once
looked to the home, and something of the idealism which is a peculiar
gift of the church. The library is vastly more than a collection of
books: it is a social, civilizing, moralizing force. We expect to find
the library building in every city and town as much as to find the spire
of the church or the flag of the schoolhouse. The visitor to Boston
to-day finds the public library as commanding a pile as Trinity Church,
and far more imposing than any schoolhouse. The visitor to New York
finds the new public library building climbing into a mass and dignity
as great as that of any cathedral. No smallest village is now complete
without its library, and when some future Goldsmith shall sing the
praise of another "Deserted village," he will point out not only with
the "noisy mansion" of the school-master, not onl