arena of our work is large enough already to make claims on every
faculty and power we can bring to it; and yet our plainest duty is to
enlarge it still. I think we may be sure that there are portals yet to
open, agents yet to enlist, alliances yet to enter, conquests yet to
make. And in the end--what?

Those of us who have faith in the future of democracy can only hold our
faith fast by believing that the knowledge of the learned, the wisdom of
the thoughtful, the conscience of the upright, will some day be common
enough to prevail, always, over every factious folly and every
mischievous movement that evil minds of ignorance can set astir. When
that blessed time of victory shall have come, there will be many to
share the glory of it; but none among them will rank rightly before
those who have led and inspired the work of the public libraries.

THE LIBRARY AS AN INSPIRATIONAL FORCE

What a librarian may do to direct the attention of his
readers to the really great writers and thinkers--a plea for
original work and for innovation in the library--a note
frequently heard in 1920, but new in 1899 when Mr. Foss,
librarian and popular poet, sounded it in _Public Libraries_
for March.

Sam Walter Foss was born in Canadia, N.H., June 19, 1858,
graduated at Brown University in 1882 and served on the
editorial staff of various papers. In 1895 he left that of
the _Boston Globe_ and from 1898 to his death, Feb. 26,
1911, he was librarian of the Somerville, Mass., Public
Library. He published several volumes of popular verse.

A library has no especial reason for self-felicitation simply because it
distributes a large number of books. In fact, it is possible for it to
give out a very large number of books and do more harm than good. The
test question to ask is: Is it grinding out a product of enlightened and
symmetrical men and women? Is it transforming the community into
intellectual, thoughtful, better equipped, more roundly developed
citizens? Is it making life any ampler, is it making men any manlier, is
it making the world any better? If there is any library that cannot
answer these questions affirmatively, its librarians are doddering their
lives away in useless activity, and receiving a salary without rendering
any real service in return. The activities of such a library are useless
contortions, and the taxpayers have a right to protest its further
existence.

W