be strong magnets for
attracting the interest of the boys and young men. The World's work,
Collier's weekly, and the American magazine, are the three great
exponents of optimism in our national life which should find a place on
the reading room tables, as should McClure's, Everybody's, Hampton's,
Scribner's, Harper's, Century, and the Atlantic. In the small towns the
local paper and one or two of the near-by metropolitan dailies should
also be taken.

Attractive libraries and reading rooms make less attractive the
seductions of other places. George Eliot said long ago, "Important as it
is to direct the industries of men, it is not so important as to wisely
direct their leisure." It is indeed true, as a critic of our national
life has said, that "The use of a nation's leisure is the test of its
civilization." To win people to a love of good literature, to bring back
the old days of reading and meditation, are two of the great problems
that confront the present-day librarian. In the words of one earnest
library worker, "The modern library movement is a movement to increase
by every possible means the accessibility of books, to stimulate their
reading and to create a demand for the best. Its motive is helpfulness;
its scope, instruction and recreation; its purpose, the enlightenment of
all; its aspiration, still greater usefulness."

WHERE NEIGHBORS MEET

Extracts from a special report on the social work of the St.
Louis Public Library made in 1917 by Margery Quigley, then
librarian of its Divoll Branch.

Margery Closey Quigley was born in Los Angeles, Cal., Sept.
16, 1886, and graduated from Vassar College. She entered the
service of the St. Louis Public Library in February, 1909,
studied at the New York State Library School in 1914-15, and
in August, 1918, became librarian of the Free Library in
Endicott, N.Y.

The experience of the St. Louis Public Library goes to prove that no
matter what the neighborhood may be, and however well-supplied it
already is with meeting places, there is always room for the library
auditorium and club rooms without subtracting in any way from the
business of the other agencies. In fact, they seem to increase each
other's use.

Of our six branch buildings, one is located in the heart of the older
ghetto, one in Carondelet, two in purely residential neighborhoods, one
at the Soulard civic center, where nine or ten European languages are
repr