ibrary is neglected, or starved with
excessive thrift, or if it is crowded into a corner, opened at rare
intervals and approached with difficulty, all this influence is lost.

The increase of reading tends to a general broadening of life. Human
nature is selfish so long as the man is isolated, for he is controlled
by his impulses and passions, and guided by his own narrow ideas.

Our views of life are moulded by reading. The records are here,
describing lands and people we have never seen, centuries in which we
have not lived, men who passed off the stage in past ages. The
discoveries of science, the developments of workmanship, the growth of
civilization; thought, wit, fancy, feeling, which has appealed to the
world, and that study, the study of man, is illustrated in infinitely
diverse forms of story and song: all these are in books and they give us
the advantage of wide horizons and enlarged acquaintance with life. A
community leavened with such influences, where people generally
understand, where all grow up from their youth to know, to think, to
communicate and to have common acquaintance with the past and the
distance and with the secrets of nature, and all the many ways of doing
things, is a stronger, happier and more prosperous community because of
that very fact, and the books are plainly a means to so desirable an
end.

W. R. EASTMAN.

HOW A LIBRARY HELPED THE BOYS

As the children have grown up since our library was established, it is
wonderful how their demands for books have widened. A boy in his casual
reading finds some particular branch of study, in science, mechanics,
art or politics, which arouses a sleeping instinct. Straightway he
forsakes his stories and his plays and goes to the library to satisfy
his new desires. Year by year the demand upon the library has broadened
and books have been added treating of electricity, the X-ray, wireless
telegraphy, mending bicycles, telephones, bee-keeping, care of pet
animals, political, social and economic questions, and still the books
do not meet all demands. New subjects are called for and new books must
be bought.

BEAVER DAM ARGUS.

Side by side in the wilderness, our forefathers planted the church and
the school; and on these two supports the nation has stood firm and
grown great. But a tripod is necessary for stable equilibrium. As the
country has grown, its industrial, economic and political problems have
grown more numerous and more complex