esented, and the sixth in the older German section of the north
side, near the river.

About each branch is the full quota of meeting places required by any
given neighborhood--moving-picture houses, community halls to let for
dances and entertainments, churches, saloons, Turnvereins, settlements,
club houses, running the gamut from "lid clubs" to the Artists' Guild,
Masonic temples and public schools, which are now managed on the
community-center plan. Several of the branches have all these within a
radius of five or six blocks, and still they must show the
"standing-room-only" sign to many of the clubs that apply for the use of
the library halls.

The remarkable feature of this wider use of the library is that in
spite of the increase of meetings, there has been no spirit of
competition. Between the community halls and the library, for example,
there has been no rivalry for statistics of use. Cabanne branch, in the
heart of perfectly equipped institutions which foster all sorts of
clubs, shows more than 52 meetings a month during the last nine months,
while our report of 1907 said of this branch: "There has been an average
of nearly six meetings a month in the building."

Neighborhood clubs meet in the halls which best suit their purposes, and
no agency seeks to move any one of them to a different roof. In the
Crunden Branch neighborhood, the Socialists meet in a synagogue and a
Yiddish church meets in the library.

The city recreation department reports that the library's work and the
department's community work at the Patrick Henry School and on the
playgrounds, far from duplicating one another are supplementary.

In giving the free use of its meeting-rooms to any reputable group of
persons, the St. Louis Public Library acts upon two principles which it
cannot emphasize strongly enough. They are the same on which it buys its
books; first, that the library stands for no propaganda but seeks to
house all opinions, and second, that it makes no obvious attempt to
reform or "uplift."

Although the books it buys must meet a certain standard in style and
content, the day is past when library assistants seek to force down
readers' throats books which "will be good" for them. In the same way,
the meeting which it shelters must meet the standards of the community;
but the Library has ceased to initiate or direct clubs and meetings,
cultural or otherwise.

Community work can be successful only when it embodies the spon