sons. The assistants in charge of
children's rooms should be women of the highest culture and ability, and
it is difficult to secure proper persons at our present salaries.
Assistants in charge of school work must be persons of tact and quickness
of perception, and they should have no other work to do; whereas at
present we are obliged to give this work to library assistants in addition
to their ordinary routine duties, to avoid increasing our staff by about
forty assistants, which our appropriation does not permit.

(2) Misunderstanding on the part of the public, and also to some extent on
the part of teachers, of our aims, ability, and attitude. This I am glad
to say is continually lessening. We can scarcely expect that each of our
five hundred assistants should be thoroly imbued with the spirit of
helpfulness toward the schools or even that they should perfectly
understand what we desire and aim to do. Nor can we expect that our wish
to aid should be appreciated by every one of fifty thousand teachers or a
million parents. This will come in time.

(3) A low standard of honesty on the part of certain users of the library.
It is somewhat disheartening to those who are laboring to do a public
service to find that some of those whom they are striving to benefit, look
upon them merely as easy game. To prevent this and at the same time to
withstand those who urge that such misuse of the library should be met by
the withdrawal of present privileges and facilities uses up energy that
might otherwise be directed toward the improvement of our service. Now,
like the intoxicated man, we sometimes refuse invitations to advance
because it is "all we can do to stay where we are." Here is an opportunity
for all the selective influences that we may bring to bear, and
unfortunately the library can have but little part in these.

Have I wandered too far from my theme? The good that a public library may
do, the influence that it may exert, and the position that it may assume
in a community, depend very largely on the ability and tact with which it
is administered and the resources at its disposal. Its public services may
be various, but probably there is no place in which it may be of more
value than side by side with the public school; and I venture to think
that this is the case largely because education to be complete must select
as well as train, must compel the fit to step forward and the unfit to
retire, and must do this, not onl