. Of these, the value of academic freedom to the public school is
slight, because the training of the very young is of its nature subject
little to the influences of which we have spoken. There is little
opportunity, during a grammar school or high school course, to influence
the mind in favor of particular government policies and particular
theories in science or literature or art. This opportunity comes later.
And it is later that the public library does its best work. Supported by
the public it has no impulse and no desire to please anyone else. No
suspicion of outside control hangs over it. It receives gifts; but they
are gifts to the public, held by the public, not by outsiders. It is
tax-supported, and the public pays cost price for what it gets--no more
and no less. The community has the power of abolishing the whole system in
the twinkling of an eye. The library's power in an American municipality
lies in the affections of those who use and profit by it. It holds its
position by love. No publisher may say to it: "Buy my books, not those of
my rival"; no scientist may forbid it to give his opponent a hearing; no
religious body may dictate to it; no commercial influence may throw a
blight over it. It is untrammeled.

How long is it to remain thus? That is for its owners, the public, to say.
I confess that I feel uneasy when I realize how little the influence of
the public library is understood by those who might try to wield that
influence, either for good or for evil. Occasionally an individual tries
to use it sporadically--the poet who tries to secure undying fame by
distributing free copies of his verses to the libraries, the manufacturer
who gives us an advertisement of his product in the guise of a book, the
enthusiast who runs over our shelf list to see whether the library is well
stocked with works on his fad--socialism or Swedenborgianism, or the "new
thought." But, so far, there has been no concerted, systematic effort on
the part of classes or bodies of men to capture the public library, to
dictate its policy, to utilize its great opportunities for influencing the
public mind. When this ever comes, as it may, we must look out!

So far as my observation goes, the situation--even the faintest glimmering
of it--is far from dawning on most of these bodies. Most individuals, when
the policy of the library suits them not, exhaust their efforts in an
angry kick or an epistolary curse; they never even think of tr