vals, a large proportion want
recreative reading, and the vast majority use the library not at all.
Now the former, who want and love the library, you need not be troubled
about. They will naturally come to the library, and you will find
pleasure in serving them. But these latter classes who either come for
pleasure or come not at all must be drawn and held through the social
instincts, and through their desire for pleasure. Every human being must
have social life. We seek company and companionship with whom we can
find mutual pleasure. We may find it in friendly gatherings, social
clubs, or music or conversation or games, but social pleasure of some
sort is sought by all of us, great and small, in town and country alike.
In the city there is usually plenty of opportunity--I might almost say
that there is a surfeit--and one must pick and choose. But in the towns
and villages it is often different; good amusement and profitable
pleasures are not always to be had, and being social beings, the social
craving is satisfied with whatever means may be at hand. Young people
especially can not isolate themselves, or live unto themselves. Just
where is the library going to stand in this matter? Is there anything
which we can do to satisfy these natural desires and to enter more
vitally into the lives of the people? This is the question to take home
and think about.

As individuals, we are coming to have an enormous interest in other
human lives, there is a sense of social obligation upon us; we have come
to know that personal righteousness is not all that is required of us,
but that we must help to realize the social righteousness. The library
has the duty of being all things to all men. It is no longer simply a
repository of books, it is exactly what Mr. Carnegie calls it, the
cradle of democracy, filled with the democratic spirit, and it
endeavors, as far as circumstances permit, to minister to all the needs
of the community in which it dwells. The library stands for progress,
the progress of its town, and this does not mean increasing the material
prosperity of the people, though that may follow, but it chiefly means
the raising of the moral, social and intellectual standards of all its
people, and helping men and women to be more effective in every way. The
library does not exist for one side only of the life of the people, but
for every side, and if it fails to provide for those who seek amusement,
it shirks a duty and renou