which should be enlisted
(1) The editors of all the local papers. (2) The local clergymen, lawyers
and physicians. (3) All literary men and citizens of wealth or influence
in the community. (4) All teachers in the public schools and other
institutions of learning. (5) The members of the city or town government.
These last will be apt to feel any impulse of public sentiment more
keenly than their own individual opinions on the subject. In any case,
the public-spirited man who originates the movement should enlist as many
able coadjutors as he can. If he is not himself gifted with a ready
tongue, he should persuade some others who are ready and eloquent talkers
to take up the cause, and should inspire them with his own zeal. A public
meeting should be called, after a goodly number of well-known and
influential people are enlisted (not before) and addresses should be
made, setting forth the great advantage of a free library to every
family. Its value to educate the people, to furnish entertainment that
will go far to supplant idleness and intemperance, to help on the work of
the public schools, and to elevate the taste, improve the morals, quicken
the intellect and employ the leisure hours of all, should be set forth.

With all these means of persuasion constantly in exercise, and
unremitting diligence in pushing the good cause through the press and by
every private opportunity, up to the very day of the election, the
chances are heavily in favor of passing the library measure by a good
majority. It must be a truly Boeotian community, far gone in stupidity
or something worse, which would so stand in its own light as to vote down
a measure conducing in the highest degree to the public intelligence.
But even should it be defeated, its advocates should never be
discouraged. Like all other reforms or improvements, its progress may be
slow at first, but it is none the less sure to win in the end. One defeat
has often led to a more complete victory when the conflict is renewed.
The beaten party gathers wisdom by experience, finds out any weakness
existing in its ranks or its management, and becomes sensible where its
greatest strength should be put forth in a renewal of the contest. The
promoters of the measure should at once begin a fresh agitation. They
should pledge every friend of the library scheme to stand by it himself,
and to secure at least one new convert to the cause. And the chances are
that it will be carried triump