retaining the association after its
accomplishment. The more efficient the association the sooner its aims are
accomplished and the sooner it is disbanded. Such groups or bodies, by
their very nature are affairs of small detail and not of large and
comprehensive purpose. As they broaden out into catholicity they
necessarily lose in efficiency. And even when they are accomplishing their
aims satisfactorily the very largeness of those aims, the absence of sharp
outline and clear definition, frequently gives rise to complaint. I know
of clubs and associations that are doing an immense amount of good, in
some cases altering for the better the whole intellectual or moral tone of
a community, but that are the objects of criticism because they do not act
in matters of detail.

"Why don't they do something?" is the constant cry. And "doing something,"
as you may presently discover, is carrying on some small definite,
relatively unimportant activity that is capable of clear description and
easily fixes the attention, while the greater services, to the public and
to the individual, of the association's quiet influences pass unnoticed.
The church that has driven out of business one corner-saloon gets more
praise than the one that has made better men and women of a whole
generation in one neighborhood; the police force that catches one
sensational murderer is more applauded than the one that has made life and
property safe for years in its community by quiet, firm pressure.

There is no reason of course, why the broader and the more definite
activities may not be united, to some degree, in one organization. Either
smaller groups with related aims may federate for the larger purpose, or
the larger may itself be the primary group, and may subdivide into
sections each with its specified object. Both these plans or a combination
of the two may be seen in many of our large organizations, and it is this
combination that seems finally to have been selected as the proper form of
union for the libraries and the librarians of the United States. We have a
large organization which, as it has grown more and more unwieldy, has been
subdivided into smaller specialized sections without losing its continuity
for its broader and perhaps vaguer work. At the same time, specialized
bodies with related aims have been partially or wholly absorbed, until, by
processes partly of subdivision and partly of accretion, we have a body
capable of dealing alike