od when
the librarian must insist upon strict chaperonage, and it is also the
period when resentment of discipline, or even of suggestion, runs high.
They would no more follow the advice of the Librarian in the matter of
invitations, introduction of wall-flowers and how a dance is to be "run
off" generally, than they would copy her taste in dress, which they
invariably consider very "old-maidy." The standards to which social
clubs adhere rigidly are those observed in places of commercialized
amusement. One group of boys met to teach each other dancing, where the
girls would not see them. As it was a case of the blind leading the
blind, a volunteer who had been teaching folk-dancing to the girls all
winter, offered her services. After one trial she was _persona non
grata_, because she wouldn't let them "rag."

Some of the dances are quite grim. One will not hear a note of laughter
all the evening. Five or six girls will often come together. Those who
know boys will dance with them, and between dances will not make the
slightest effort to introduce their friends to possible partners. The
friends, instead of resenting this inactivity, often sit all the evening
on the side lines watching and chewing gum, apparently perfectly
satisfied.

At the opposite pole is the wild desire for "rough house." In the early
stages of auditorium work and before these days of H.C.L., pieces of
cake have occasionally gone flying across the hall.

As soon as branch libraries recognized these facts, and it was very
soon, the application for dances became fewer and of better quality.
Leavings from other club rooms no longer apply, and disgruntled alumni
associations in schools have ceased to contemplate a move to the nearest
branch library.

No effort has been made to advertise the club rooms, beyond these
statements of the branch librarians in passing, except the exhibiting of
the rooms themselves to visitors who "stop in to show our library to
cousin Sarah, from Davenport," or Illinois, or Oklahoma, as the case may
be. Word-of-mouth publicity accounts for the gradual steady growth in
the use of the rooms. One of the many examples began with a stenographer
who sewed, "in secret," as she said, at noon in the club room. She was
embroidering an engagement present for one of the girls in her office.
Needless to say, she scattered information about the rooms, and the
rules governing them, wherever any one would listen. Eventually a Sunday
School