activities include the National Conference of
Day Nurseries, the Central Council of Civic Agencies, the W.C.T.U.,
playground rehearsals for the Child Welfare Exhibit, and the Business
Men's Association; and the Advertising Men's League; musical organizations
embrace St. Paul's Musical Assembly, the Tuesday Choral Club, etc. Among
exhibitions are local affairs such as wild flower shows, an exhibit of
bird-houses, collections from the Educational Museum, the Civil League's
Municipal Exhibit, selected screens from the Child Welfare Exhibit, and
the prize-winners from the St. Louis Art Exhibit held in the art room of
our central library. Then we have the Queen Hedwig Branch, the Clay School
Picnic Association, the Aero Club, the Lithuanian Club, the Philotechne
Club, the Fathers' Club, and the United Spanish War Veterans.

I trust you will not call upon me to explain the objects of some of these,
as such a demand might cause me embarrassment--not because their aims are
unworthy, but because these are skilfully obscured by their names. If
anyone believes that there is a limit to the capacity of the human race
for forming groups and subgroups on a moment's notice, for any reason or
for no reason at all, I would refer him to our assembly room and clubroom
records; and he would find, I think, that these are typical of every large
library offering the use of such rooms somewhat freely.

It will be noted that the library takes no part in organizing or operating
any of these activities; it does not have to do so.

The successful leader is he who repairs to a hill and raises his standard,
knowing that at sight of it followers will flock around him. When you drop
a tiny crystal into a solution, the atoms all rush to it naturally: there
is no effort or compulsion except that of the aptitudes that their Creator
has implanted in them. So it is with all centers, business or religious or
social. No one instituted a campaign to locate the business center of a
city at precisely such a square or corner. Things aggregate, and the point
to which they tend is their center; they make it, it does not make them.
The leader on a hill is a leader because he has followers; without them he
would be but a lone warrior. The school or the library that says proudly
to itself, "Go to; I will be a social center," may find itself in the same
lonely position. It can offer an opportunity: that is all. It can offer
houseroom to clubs, organizations, and group