CHARLES CARROLL SOULE

"Council.Membership. The Council shall consist of the executive board, all ex-presidents of the Association who continue as members thereof, all presidents of affiliated societies who are members of the Association, twenty-five members elected by the Association at large, and twenty-five elected by the Council itself,"—

And the proposed amendment consists of the following words to be inserted at that place:

—"and one member from each state, provincial and territorial library association or any association covering two or more such geographical divisions which complies with the conditions for such representation set forth in the by-laws."

The PRESIDENT: The amendment is before you for consideration. What is your pleasure? Are you ready for the question?

(The question being called for and put, the amendment was adopted.)

The PRESIDENT: Dependent upon the adoption of the amendment to the Constitution there is now before you for consideration a proposed amendment to the by-laws. The Secretary will please read the suggested amendment which carries into effect now the Constitutional amendment which you have just adopted and which becomes effective, in that it has now been adopted by two successive conferences.

The Secretary then read the proposed amendment Section 3a, which is as follows:

"Sec. 3a. Each state, territorial and provincial library association (or any association covering two or more such geographical divisions) having a membership of not less than fifteen members, may be represented in the Council by the president of such association, or by an alternate elected at the annual meeting of the association. The annual dues shall be $5.00 for each association having a membership of fifty or less, and ten cents per additional capita where membership is above that number. The privileges and advantages of the A. L. A. conferences shall be available only to those holding personal membership or representing institutional membership in the Association."

The President then put the question and the above amendment to the by-laws was duly adopted.

Dr. ANDREWS: I move the addition of the words "or to members of other affiliated societies," in order not to bar these members from attendance at our meetings.

The PRESIDENT: Dr. Andrews' amendment is to include the words "or to members of other affiliated societies."

Mr. RANCK: I think, as a member of the Committee that had something to do with the drafting of the proposed by-law, that I can say that the purpose of that provision was that there should be some advantage to persons holding membership in these organizations, to get the railroad rates, hotel rates, etc.; in other words, to have some pecuniary advantage in their becoming members and not to be able to come and get those advantages without holding any kind of a membership.

If I may be permitted, Mr. President, I should like to give a few figures with reference to the distribution of the members of the Council as it now exists, as given in the last handbook. There were 72 members of the Council, counting the one or two who have died, representing 48 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. However, in the Council only 20 States in the Union have representation. In other words, there are 28 states in the Union that are not represented in the Council. The population of these 28 states is nearly thirty-three millions and their area is nearly two million square miles, whereas the area of the states that are represented is a little over a million square miles. The point is, Mr. President, the purpose of the amendment to the Constitution and these amendments is to give a wider geographical distribution of representation in the Council; in other words, that more than half of the area of the United States may be brought in, on account of this geographical representation, and that the thirty-three millions of people who live in those states may be able to get a representation which it seems at the present time they do not have.

The PRESIDENT: The question before the conference is on the proposed amendment of the by-law as offered by Dr. Andrews.

(The President put the question and the amendment was duly adopted.)

The PRESIDENT: The question now is upon the amendment to the by-laws as amended.

(The President put the question and the amendment to the by-laws was duly adopted.)

The PRESIDENT: The Association during the past year suffered grievous loss in the passing of two of its notable members, members who had long been identified with the Association and its work, and I may add the loss of a friend of librarians everywhere, that splendid gentleman, Mr. Francis Fisher Browne, of The Dial,—a man gentle of soul, keen of intellect and fine of fiber. While perhaps we are not called upon to take official notice of his passing it seems to me very well that we should group him with thosewhose loss we mourn at this time. By request of the Executive Board and of the Council a committee consisting of Dr. Putnam, Mr. Bowker and Mr. Wellman have been asked to draft memorial resolutions on the passing of Dr. Billings and Mr. Soule and I would ask Dr. Putnam to report at this time.

Dr. PUTNAM: With your permission I will ask Mr. Wellman to read the suggested minute with reference to Mr. Soule. And the Committee would suggest that if the expression in these minutes appears to you just, that they be adopted by a rising vote.

Mr. Wellman then read the following resolution which was unanimously adopted by a rising vote.

With profound sorrow, we record the death of Charles C. Soule, whose services and relation to the American Library Association were in many ways unique. Though himself not a librarian, yet in the early days of the public library he was one of those who foresaw the great force which it might be made to exert in our democratic civilization; and to promote the wise realization of this vision, he labored unceasingly as a member of this Association for more than thirty years and was a constant attendant at the meetings. He served as vice-president in 1890, as member of the Institute for six years, as member of the Council for eight years, as trustee of the endowment fund for twelve years, and as a member of the Publishing Board for eighteen years. But his distinctive contribution was in efforts towards the improvement of library architecture; and here by his study and writings, as well as by creating the office of advisory expert in building, he did more than any other man to further the planning of library buildings for library work.

In reciting the tale of his accomplishment, it is impossible to forget the man. Unselfish and high-minded, a good counsellor and a consistent friend, he ever showed eager and affectionate interest in the work of his fellow members, and especially in the success of those beginning their careers. Above all, he possessed a generous faith in his associates and an unfailing good will. These were but a few of the qualities which enabled him to achieve so much for the public library, and which endeared him to hosts of librarians throughout the land.

Dr. PUTNAM: Mr. President, this is proposed as a minute for the records of the Association. It is therefore headed "John Shaw Billings."

The resolution was unanimously adopted by a rising vote.

April 12, 1838—March 18, 1913

A member of the American Library Association 1881-1913—Its President, 1901-02

It is seldom that the death of an individual removes from two professions a unit of singular power in each. But such was the loss in the recent death of John Shaw Billings; a scientist in a department of science intensive and exacting, a librarian rigorously scientific in a profession broadly humane. To the former he made original contributions which constituted him an authority within special fields; but also in his great Index-Catalog of Medical Literature, one which assured certainty and promoted advance in every field—and left the entire medical profession his debtor. As a librarian, having first brought to preeminence the professional library entrusted to him, he was called to the organization into a single system of isolated funds and institutions, achieved that organization, and lived to see it, under his charge develop into the largest general library system in the world, with a possible influence upon our greatest metropolis of incalculable importance to it, and through it, to the welfare of our entire country.

The qualities which enabled him to accomplish all this included not merely certain native abilities—among them, penetration, concentration, vigor, tenacity of purpose and directness of method, but othersdeveloped by self-denial, self-discipline, and a complete dedication to the work in hand. It was through these that he earned his education and his scientific training; and they hardened into habits which attended him to the end of his days, when he concluded in toil that shirked no detail a life begun in toil and devoted to detail.

Such habits, a keen faculty of analysis, and a scientific training kept him aloof alike from hasty generalizations and from the impulses of mere emotion; while his military training induced in him three characteristics which marked alike his treatment of measures and his dealings with men; incisiveness, a distaste for the superfluous and the redundant, and an insistence upon the suitable subordination of the part to the whole. In this combination, and in the knowledge of, and power over, men which accompanied it, he was unique among librarians; in his complete lack of ostentation he was unusual among men. His mind was ever on the substance, indifferent to the form. Apowerin two professions, to have termed him the "ornament" of either would have affronted him; for he was consistently impatient of the merely ornamental. Anypersonalostentation was actually repugnant to him; and he avoided it as completely in what he suffered as in what he achieved; bearing, with a reticence that asked no allowances, physical anguish in which most men would have found ample excuse from every care.

If such a combination of traits assured his remarkable efficiency, it might not have seemed calculated to promote warm personal or social attachments. Yet there was in him also a singular capacity for friendship; not indeed for impulsive and indiscriminate intimacies, but for those selective, deep, steady and lasting friendships which are proof of the fundamental natures of men. And however terse, austere, and even abrupt, his manner in casual relations, where a really human interest was at stake he might be relied upon for sympathies both warm and considerate, and the more effective because consistently just and inevitably sincere.

The testimonies to these qualities in his character, to these powers, and to his varied achievements, have already been many and impressive. The American Library Association wishes to add its own, with a special recognition not merely of the value to the community of the things which he accomplished, but of the value to individuals in the example of a character and abilities so resolutely developed and so resolutely applied to the service of science and the service of men.

The PRESIDENT: To offer a telegram as a substitute for a long and pleasurably anticipated paper is cause for regret, but such must be the case this morning as Miss Arnold finds it impossible to be with us. The telegram reads as follows:

"Emergency meeting of Simmons College Corporation has been appointed for Wednesday and prevents me from attending library meeting. Extreme regrets.SARAH LOUISE ARNOLD."

"Emergency meeting of Simmons College Corporation has been appointed for Wednesday and prevents me from attending library meeting. Extreme regrets.

SARAH LOUISE ARNOLD."

The general theme of this morning's session is "Library influence in the home, in the shop, on the farm, and among defectives and dependents." We shall begin the morning's program with a paper on "The working library for the artisan and the craftsman," by EDWARD F. STEVENS, librarian Pratt Institute free library, and director of the school of library science, Brooklyn.

It is not my privilege to speak to you at this time of the professional, technical, or practical aspects of that recent phase of library work wherein is attempted the reconciliation of shopmen with bookmen. In the very few moments placed at my disposal I may mention only that human relationship which enters so largely into a librarian's dealings with men who are concerned with and about their work.

The straightforward, sympathetic intercourse of man with man may adorn to the point of making almost beautiful a department of librarianship which is extremely matter-of-fact in its essential character and might easily become commonplace in its practicality. The business of a technology department in a public library may best be expressed in terms of the statement of the policy of the Franklin Union established in recent years in Philadelphia—"the further education of men already employed." Such a working library is strictly a library of work. It is almost oppressively utilitarian. Yet to a librarian who has had the privilege of making books known to artisans and craftsmen, and who is now denied that privilege, the sense of the loss of the fellowships, not to say friendships, that formerly were a part of his daily occupation proves that the sympathetic was after all the potential element in his experience.

I may say with Lowell, "I like folks who like an honest piece of steel.... There is always more than the average human nature in a man who has a hearty sympathy with iron."

Theodore Roosevelt has given us a maxim that deserves to be written as a rule of life—"That which one does which all can do but won't do is the greatest of greatness."

Therein is the greatness of work with practical men—the discernment of the simplest facts of life, the performance of the simplest acts of life in working out the complex things of life, recognizing, to begin with, that a man's difficulty is at once less a difficulty when it becomes the friendly concern of a fellow-man. My own first experience as a seeker after help in a public library in matters technical that were then of great importance to me, met the rebuff and disappointment that have given me a point of view which amounts to a conviction.

In the present day, the library assumes considerable confidence in inviting the workingman into its constituency, and the workingman must come to it with no less confidence if the library expects its justification. The mechanic, as formerly the scholar, must approach the library with a calculated expectation. The librarian must understand him, believe in him, and in turn make himself understood by him.

In a recent issue of theAmerican Machinist, a writer deplores the general lack of sympathy and interest in the affairs of the "unheralded mechanic." That the life he lives has no place in men's thoughts nor in literature. This is the closing statement: "As it is, if left to themselves, mechanics will by their silence continue to let those outside the shop think of them as nothing but men tied to a whistle."

Leigh Hunt (himself very much an outsider) in a familiar essay makes this friendly observation: "A business of screws and iron wheels is, or appears to be, a very commonplace matter; but not so the will of the hand that sets them in motion; not so the operations of the mind that directs them what to utter."

But this mechanic that now nears the public library is coming neither as a pathetic figure in distress, nor as a mysterious or heroic figure beyond our comprehension. He comes as an unpretending man dignified by earnestness of purpose not to discredit an honorable vocation.

The best of mutual understanding and feeling, however, will not secure the chief ends of librarianship except so far as they splendidly prepare the way. The recognition of books as tools comes only as the books stand the same practical test that the workman applies to his instruments.

The librarian must furnish books shaped to the man's hand, books that he can use to perform work, that he can depend upon as true, accurate, precise, simple, efficient, economical, reliable in the same sense that his tools must be all these. And so, the selection of books for a working library of technology becomes not unlike the testing of instruments of precision. Care in selection is of supreme importance in fitting up a tool-shop of books.

Wisdom in application is scarcely second to intelligence in choice. A practical man does not often come to a library for this or that particular book, for the work of a specified author, or for a title that he has in mind. If he does, he cannot always be depended upon to know his own wishesin the matter. What this man wants is information about a topic that concerns him. He leaves it to the library to tell him in what printed form that information can be had—and it's risky, for the library, to trifle with him or to play him false. Hesitation, indecision, irresolution are fatal. If the library exhibits lack of faith in itself, who, indeed, shall have faith in it? The workingman will be sure to entertain the same contempt for the librarian's doubtful application of even the best books as he himself would of the misuse of good tools in his own trade.

This necessity for books that will answer to needs is the incentive in the erection of a working library to which men may resort.

At home we have a permanent and constantly revised selection of the most useful technical books registered on cards of varying colors showing the differing characteristics of the books included. This is our Works Library. And within it, on blue cards, are listed the simplest and most direct texts for the man with the least preparation for books. This is our Dinner-Pail Library. And starting with these, we may go on with a degree of confidence in teaching men the use of tools the handling of which we ourselves understand.

Preparedness in attitude, preparedness in equipment, await the arrival of the man the most skeptical of the library's guests. Does he come and go away again confirmed in his skepticism? If he does, it's the library's fault, not his. Does he come, and remain, to come again? Then he is ready to pay the tribute of his allegiance that becomes the librarian's great reward.

We have heard theAmerican Machinistcomplain that the mechanic found no voice to sing his praises. Not less is the genus librarian unwept, unhonored, and unsung. He expects praise as little as he desires it, and, perhaps, I may say, deserves it. But the ready word of appreciation, the acknowledgment of the library's help in overcoming difficulties that drove a man there as a last resort, the confession of awakening to the new knowledge of the library's wider purpose and power, is expressed often with a frankness and fervor that surprise and gratify the fortunate librarian who has been instrumental in bringing things to pass.

I recall how men of few words and little sentiment have spontaneously related to me their experiences of misfortune, perplexity, disappointment, or other embarrassment that caused them to turn to the public library for a possible helping hand, and then, how the library did not fail them in their extremity. At such times, I knew that the free library was doing what it undertook to do.

Of this sort are the few, the impressive instances that illustrate how, on occasions, a working library can meet very exceptional requirements. There are also the very many—the students, apprentices, shopmen, machinists, inventors, chemists, engineers, manufacturers—all artisans and craftsmen in their various ways, who are coming to learn that in their usual daily processes they may expect from the public library the ordinary, indispensable service that the library has always performed for those who know the value of books.

It is this complete idea of a library that still fails of development in the minds of these men, an idea that the library is a live thing, a public utility of which they will naturally and inevitably avail themselves as they do of the street-cars to take them both to and away from their work. Nothing is needed to convince men that a utilityisa utility save the satisfying use of it. When they have found that the library speeds them on in the direction of the day's occupation, then it becomes easy enough for them to learn that the library can also get them far removed from it. And when the workingman fully comprehends theworkinglibrary, and by means of it is introduced to thedivertinglibrary, he becomes a man with the greatest capacity for usefulness, and the library's conquest of the community is finished and triumphant.

The PRESIDENT: Mr. Stevens has very forcefully brought out the factor that a book may be in bringing into life dormant faculties that might otherwise go to waste and recalls to us the remark of Prof. Dewey, that the loss of the unearned increment is as nothing compared with the loss of the undiscovered resource.

Of course you know as well as the members of the program committee that they had nothing to do with the selection of the next speaker; the topic chose her. How could anyone else be asked to present the subject of "The woman on the farm," than Miss LUTIE E. STEARNS, of the Wisconsin free library commission?

Modern programs of library extension through public libraries as distinguished from traveling library systems are practically confined to an arbitrary line drawn tightly around the city's limits. Charters, laws, or ordinances under which many libraries operate are usually interpreted to restrict the use of such institutions to a narrow area and no great attempt has been made through legislation, save in California and a few isolated examples elsewhere, to extend library privileges to adjacent communities. It is a happy omen for the future that the president of the American Library Association, the custodian of a library catering to two-million city dwellers with a circulation second in rank to Greater New York, should have seen fit on his own initiative to place among the topics of this meeting the needs of the woman on the farm, the real founder of the city's citizenship.

"Who's the greatest woman in history?" was the query debated by Kansas school teachers recently. They considered Joan of Arc, Queen Elizabeth, Semiramis, Cleopatra, Cornelia, Catherine of Russia, Maria Theresa, Grace Darling, Florence Nightingale, Susan B. Anthony, and half a hundred others. When they came to deciding, all the names known to fame were ruled out. And to whom do you suppose the judges awarded the palm? Here is the answer: "The wife of the farmer of moderate means who does her own cooking, washing, ironing and sewing, brings up a family of boys and girls to be useful members of society and finds time for intellectual improvement."

These teachers knew that woman, they knew the drudgery she faced at four or five o'clock every morning the year 'round. There are twenty millions of her in this country of ours, she makes up nearly one-fourth of the population of the country, and while we are dealing with these most "vital statistics," we may include the tragic fact that sixty-six per cent of those committed to insane hospitals are from rural districts, the farm women constituting the great majority thereof.

And yet the needs of this great, deserving class of "humans" with minds and hearts even more receptive to ideas than are city women—the needs of such as these are as yet almost wholly unrealized by librarians aside from Commission workers. No committee of the American Library Association has ever had the joy of working out a program of library extension from the great city systems to rural readers. The question put by the then President Roosevelt to his Country Life Commission, "How can the life of the farm family be made less solitary, fuller of opportunity, freer from drudgery, more comfortable, happier, and more attractive?" still awaits solution from the library standpoint.

Though agriculture is our oldest and by far our largest and most important industry, it has only recently occurred to us in the United States that we had a rural problem. It is only within the last decade or so that we have awakened to the fact that there is a rural as well as an urban problem, and the library world is too prone to keep from recognizing it. We are not concerned in this connection with the problem of the retired farmer who moves into a town to spend his last days which are, seemingly, all he is willing to spend; nor shall we discuss those restlessflat dwellers in our cities who, tempted by such alluring and wholly immoral titles as "The Fat of the Land," "The Earth Bountiful," "A Self-Supporting Home," "Three Acres and a Cow," or "Three Acres and Liberty"—"for those to whom the idea of liberty is more inspiring than that of the cow"—attempt to start ginseng, guinea pig, pheasant, and peacock farms, and who return to the city as shorn of guineas as the pigs they leave behind them.

In the serious solution of this problem, we may, in truth, differ as to the sort of farmers we would benefit. As Sir Horace Plunkett has said in his "Rural problem in America," "The New York City idea is probably that of a Long Island home where one might see on Sunday, weather permitting, the horny-handed son of weekday toil in Wall Street, rustically attired, inspecting his Jersey cows and aristocratic fowls." These supply a select circle in New York City with butter and eggs at a price which leaves nothing to be desired unless it be some information as to cost of production. Full justice is done to the new country life when the Farmers' Club of New York fulfills its chief function—the annual dinner at Delmonico's. Then Agriculture is extolled in fine Virgilian style, the Hudson villa and the Newport cottage being permitted to divide the honors of the rural revival with the Long Island home. "But to my bucolic intelligence," concludes Sir Horace, "it would seem that against the back-to-the-land movement of Saturday afternoon, the captious critic might set the rural exodus of Monday morning."

To the New England librarian there probably comes the picture of rugged, bean-clad hills with "electrics" in every valley eager to take the intellectual rustics to the Lowell lectures or the Boston Symphony Orchestra. That books are appreciated in the rural districts even in a state that boasts a library in every town is shown by a letter from one who had received the volumes sent out by the "Massachusetts Society to Encourage Studies at Home." "I do not know where I should stop if I tried to tell how much these library books have helped me in my isolated life—I have craved so much and there seemed no access possible to anything I wanted. I have lived always with a longing for something different; life was a burden to be carried cheerfully, yet I never quite conquered the feeling that the burden was heavy. Books have taken away that feeling and before I was aware, the load was gone. I have written thus of myself, not because my individual experience is of importance enough to interest anyone, but because I believe the world is full of people with the same wants that I have and it may be some satisfaction to know how fully you are supplying them."

To the librarian of New Jersey, the isolated dwellers of the salt marshes would come to mind. Maryland suggests to some librarian epicures the oyster farm, with its succulent product, but to others comes the vision of the "real thing" supplied as in Washington County with the ideal arrangement of central library, branches, deposit stations, traveling libraries, and automobile delivery to the very doors of the Maryland farm homes—the most ideal arrangement of rural extension that exists in America today.

To the Georgian, the "cracker" presents itself with its "Uneeda" book appeal. The "mountain-white" of Kentucky, who comes to Berea in his seventeenth year to learn his letters, would surely appreciate an opportunity to go on with them when he gets "back home." In the north middle west, where farms are still surrounded by a fringe of pine and an "infinite destiny," a farmer's wife writes as follows: "For many years I have lived on a farm on the cleared land of Northern Wisconsin, and I have made an earnest study of the conditions that surround the lives of the average isolated farmer and his family. I have seen all of the loneliness and desolation of their lives, I have witnessed all the dreariness and poverty of their homes. I have been with them when our nearest railroad station meant a twenty-eight mile trip through bottomless mud or over shaking corduroy; where our nearest post-officewas eighteen miles away, over the same impassable roads and where we were often without mail for weeks at a time; when the nearest public library was sixty miles away; when the only element of culture or progress we possessed was the little backwoods school, housed in a tumble-down log shack and presided over by careless or incompetent teachers. I have watched civilization come to us step by step,—the railroad, the rural mail delivery, the country telephone, and other modern rural conveniences. But, before any of these, right into the midst of our lonely backwoods life, came the traveling library, for it is characteristic of the traveling library that it is not dependent on modern conveniences for its appearance. I can recall the thrill of joy with which we received our first case of books. I read their titles over and over, handled and caressed them in a perfectly absurd manner. Almost all of the books were old friends of mine; but, to our little neighborhood of foreigners, they were "brand new" and the enthusiasm over that library knew no bounds.

"We had a regular literary revival that winter. We talked books in season and out of season; and from talking about the books in the little library we fell to talking of other books; of books we had read in our younger, happier days. It mattered little if in the course of these conversations books and authors were hopelessly mixed.

"I cannot say that we derived any great amount of knowledge from our first library, but I do know that it brought into our little backwoods settlement, that which we needed much more—hope and courage and an interest in life. That was my first introduction to the traveling library, but during the years that have gone since then, I have seen much of the work of these little cases of books. While it is true that the traveling library does not always meet with as enthusiastic a reception as our little settlement gave it that winter, yet it always comes to our rural communities as a help and inspiration. My appreciation of the worth of the traveling library has grown with the years."

"Once a library meant nothing but rows of books and its influence was confined to narrow limits. However with the establishment of the traveling library, these books have become veritable missionaries penetrating to all sorts of dreary, isolated places, carrying with them a culture and a pleasure that will aid in illuminating the long, dreary path of existence with the color of happiness."

As one farmer's wife has it in another locality, "Good books drive away neighborhood discussion of the four deadly D's—Diseases, Dress, Descendants and Domestics."

Olive Schreiner in her wonderful and heart searching study of "Woman and Labor," has pointed out that at first woman hunted with the man, and later when the race settled in one spot, the woman was the tiller of the soil and the man the hunter and warrior. Then when man no longer needed to hunt or fight, the woman moved within the house and the man tilled the fields. The woman became the isolated one. Isolation is the menace of farm life just as congestion is of city life. This isolation has a depressing effect upon the intellectual life of those who require the stimulus of contact with others to keep their minds active. The woman on the farm, as Mr. Bailey has pointed out, is apt to become a fatalist. Floods, drought, storms, tornadoes, untimely frosts, backward seasons, blight, predatory beasts, animal and plant diseases render a season's great labor of no avail, or destroy the fruits of it within the hour. Along with these perennial discouragements comes the interminable round of getting up before sunrise and cooking, baking, dishwashing, sewing, mending, washing and ironing clothes from day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year, with additional work peculiar to the seasons, such as at planting times, threshing and harvesting, fruit gathering and preserving, etc., etc., etc. The work of the farm is carried on in direct connection with thehome, thus differing from nearly all the large industries, such as manufacturing and the like. The fact that agriculture is still a family industry where the work and home life are not separated, differentiates it from life in the city with its lack of a common business interest among all the members of the family. This condition tends to make rural life stable. The whole family stay at home evenings and one book is read aloud to the entire family circle. We still find the big family in the country where bridge whist and race-suicide—cause and effect—are as yet unknown. But the big family puts cares and responsibilities upon the mother on the farm and when one sees the "bent form, the tired carriage, the warped fingers and the thin, wrinkled features" of so many farmer's wives, one does not at first see anything but cruelty to animals in urging recreation and reading upon such overburdened women. But a brighter, industrial day is at hand. From perpetual motion to hours of reasonable industrial requirements the daily working period of the farmer is coming to be reduced by labor saving machinery. The modern gasoline engine, to my mind the most important contribution to civilization and culture in recent times, now pumps the water, saws and cuts the wood, runs the lighting plant, the washing machine, the milking machine, the cream separator, the churn, the sewing machine, the bread-mixer, the vacuum cleaner, the lawn mower, the coffee grinder, the ice cream freezer and even the egg-beater. These, with the fireless cooker, have relieved the housewife and made time for reading and other recreation. Good roads, rural free delivery, the interurban trolley car, the automobile and the rural telephone are removing the old-time isolation and are making possible enjoyment and a culture and refinement equal to that of the business and professional classes of the cities. One thing only is still withheld from distinctly rural communities—the opportunity to get good books.

It has been said so often it has become a truism that the rural districts are the seed bed from which the cities are stocked with people. Upon the character of this stock more than upon anything else does the greatness of a nation and the quality of its civilization ultimately depend. The importance of doing something with and for these people is paramount for the farms furnish the cities not alone with material products but with men and women. Census returns indicate that cities are gaining on the country all the time. We who wish to stop the rural exodus must co-operate with other agencies to make farm life more attractive and this we can do by opening our doors to farmers and their wives, the makers of men. It is our city's self-protection that there should come from the farms strong, well-educated minds, and we each should contribute our share to this end. A Chinese philosopher has said, "The well-being of a people is like a tree; agriculture is its root, manufacturing and commerce are its branches and its life; if the root is injured, the leaves fall, the branches break away and the tree dies." State universities and other free educational agencies are recognizing the fact that not the few but all, farm and city-bred alike, must be educated for life and through life. Commencement day is no longer the educational day of judgment for the individual. Rural consolidated high schools are being built to supplement the little red schoolhouse. Libraries, through extension of their service, must aid in the great agrarian movement of the day. We cannot all, perhaps, have the ideal arrangement as worked out in Maryland by Miss Titcomb. It may not be possible to cover other states with book wagons as Delaware proposes to do. We may not accomplish the California ideal of the county as the unit. We may not be able to send traveling libraries on their beneficent mission, but we each may try to let down the bars at our own reservoirs so that whosoever is athirst may come and drink of the waters of life freely.

The PRESIDENT: Whenever I become rash enough to venture a comment upon any paper of Miss Stearns I always takethe precaution to do it before she presents it; afterwards it is entirely superfluous. Yet I venture to express a thought which I am sure has occurred to you likewise; that there is a very strong relationship between the two papers which have been presented this morning; that there is cause and coming effect in that the one activity of the library, as represented by the first paper, is making possible the multiplication of these various devices which shall make for the woman on the farm the new day of which Miss Stearns has prophesied.

During the last few years the library has entered another new field, an unsuspected field. Those of us who have had an opportunity to go about to the various institutions where the defectives and the dependents and other unfortunates are incarcerated have marvelled at the—shall we say ignorance, which has been at the bottom of the book work with these people. But scientific methods have been introduced and during the last few conferences we have had something of the promise which has now grown into fuller realization. I shall ask Miss JULIA A. ROBINSON, who has done strong, splendid work in Iowa in this connection, to present the next paper, on

Needy humanity divides itself into three classes, those whom it is said the Lord helps, those who will not and those who cannot help themselves. In no form of need, however, are we interested today save that of the book, nor with the willfully book needy.

For are not they served by the public libraries which go even into the highways and byways and wellnigh compel the uninterested to come to the feast freely offered to them? And though there are still rural districts not yet supplied with public or traveling libraries, many of them have the ability to provide themselves with books had they the desire.

But there are those, not always removed by space but far removed by condition from such privileges, because crime, weakness or misfortune has deprived them of their freedom and for the safety of society, their own restoration to health or their care and education they are detained behind closed doors. These are the morally, mentally and physically defective and the dependent upon the bounty of the state. With this class of helpless are we concerned, with their needs and with what is being done to bring to them the influence of books. Of their needs let me speak briefly while I define and locate the different classes, giving a few figures which perhaps may not be amiss in helping us to realize their numbers.

Of the moral defectives 113,579 have heard the grated doors of prison, penitentiary or reformatory close behind them, for some never to open. For others in a few years perhaps these doors will swing outward to freedom. Shall it be to useful citizenship, or to become a greater menace to society and again to be put behind the bars? Most of these are men who are employed during long working hours. There is much time for idle thoughts during those hours, in addition to evenings and Sundays spent alone in locked cells. Large is the opportunity here for the book in its threefold mission of recreation, instruction and inspiration to lives barren of pleasure and interest.

But these are not all. We must add 22,900 juvenile delinquents found in the state industrial and training schools of the United States, boys and girls whose steps have early found the downward path, in most cases, I believe, because of the influences into which life ushered them. But many of these are yet within the years of susceptibility and to the other upward influences with which it is now sought to surround them should be added the society of books which will bring wholesome pleasure while they present high standards and make right living attractive.

These numbers are exceeded by the mentally defective of whom 187,454, disturbed or confused, dazed or depressed, look through grated windows or sit in shadowed corners of the insane hospitals. To take their thoughts from themselves and direct them into healthful channels may mean a step toward mental healing and adjustment. This books will often do and to fail to furnish them may mean to omit a remedial influence in their treatment. Of the feebleminded, there are 20,199 in the institutions for that class of defectives. With them the task is not so encouraging, but a right to the pleasure of books is theirs and should not be withheld.

There are 61,423 to whom the printed page must speak for they hear no other voice, and 44,310 to whose touch the raised letters bring their message. Shut out from so much which others enjoy shall these be denied this means of recreation and instruction?

The charitable institutions shelter 268,656 dependents which include the old, the sick and the children in the state public schools, orphanages and homes. The former need books to cheer them in their fight for health and strength, or to while away the hours of waiting for their final summons. The children need them not only for the enjoyment which comes from childhood reading, but as a means of development of mind and character. I would lay especial emphasis on the importance of libraries in these and in the industrial and training schools. Useful as books are in the other institutions, there the help which they bring is but to the readers themselves. Here we have citizens in the making and the state has not only the opportunity of laying the foundations of character, but by laying them deep and broad and strong of receiving returns for their efforts in intelligent and useful citizens. To librarians I need not speak of the value of books in giving the education which makes for intelligence and the ideals which make for usefulness.

To meet these needs what do the institutional libraries offer? I shall not give you figures which at best would be inaccurate and incomplete, but such information as could be obtained showing the efforts which are being made to provide books and reading for defectives and dependents, the adequacy and suitability of the libraries and their use of modern library methods.

The list of states is incomplete, some failing to respond, others giving vague information, and an omission may not mean that nothing is being done along this line. What is given will serve to show the general trend of interest in the work.

California plans to serve the institutions through the county system of libraries, but just how this is to be done or whether any institutions have libraries or have received assistance was not stated.

Colorado reports libraries in all the state institutions, the best being that at the state penitentiary where the visitors' fees yield a considerable income which is used for books. In Georgia two institutions only have libraries, which are reported to be neither well selected, kept up to date nor administered according to modern methods.

The only information received from Idaho was that traveling libraries are sent to the industrial school.

In Illinois libraries are reported in the eighteen charitable and three penal institutions of the state, though not all are adequate or suitable in selection.

In Indiana several institutions receive annual library appropriations ranging from $1,000 down to $200. No institution is without a library though not all are organized or well selected or large enough for the needs of the institution. The library commission lends an organizer to assist in this work and in some cases the book selection and the affairs of the library are put into the hands of the commission. The librarian from the School for Feeble Minded Youth will attend the summer school.

In Iowa libraries exist in all of the fourteen state institutions; all are classified,organized and administered according to approved library methods. All except the penitentiaries have appropriations of $300 to $500 each for the purchase of books. In the penitentiaries the fund received from visitors' fees is used for this purpose. Reports are made each month to the Board of Control showing the reading done by classes in each institution. A trained librarian appointed by the Board of Control gives all her time to the institutional libraries, superintending the work, doing the book selection, supplying the technical knowledge, instructing the librarians and stimulating the reading.

In Kentucky the prisons and hospitals are under separate boards, neither of which has done much for the libraries in the institutions under their charge, but both have the matter under consideration and better things are looked for in the future. The prison libraries are represented as inadequate and unsuitable. One only has a fund for the purchase of books and that only $50. The only books in the Houses of Reform are the traveling libraries loaned by the library commission. Two state hospitals have very small libraries and no fund. One has about 800 volumes and an annual fund of $250.

The chairman of the Board of Control of State Institutions in Kansas writes that considerable interest is taken in providing suitable reading for the dependents and defectives of that state and that the institutions are urged to systematic work, but does not state whether all have libraries.

The Maine Insane Hospital has an endowment which yields an income of about $600 annually which is expended for books for the general library, periodicals and medical books. According to the chaplain of the Maine state prison "additions are made to that library from three sources, a few volumes by purchase, some by gifts from individuals, but mostly by gifts from the state library ofbooks no longer useful in the traveling libraries."

The Massachusetts prison commission reports libraries in substantially all the prisons. The larger ones are classified.

Michigan has a state appropriation for books. All the institutions have libraries of some kind, but none are classified or organized according to modern methods. The selections are made by the state librarian.

Minnesota has also an appropriation for books in the state institutions. The public library organizer from the Library Commission pays regular visits to the institutions, selects the books and supervises the work. Not all are classified and several need new books. The two asylums for incurable insane and the hospital for inebriates have only traveling libraries.

In Missouri five institutions have no libraries. Traveling libraries are sent to the insane hospitals. In the boys' training school the library is managed without system. If a boy wants a book the superintendent takes what may be at hand and gives it to him.

Nebraska has a state appropriation of $2,000 made directly to the Library Commission to be expended by them for the thirteen institutional libraries. This is used for books, supplies and periodicals except in two institutions which supply their own magazines. The institutions are asked to furnish cases only and some one to loan the books. Books are selected by the commission and prepared for circulation in the commission office.

In New Hampshire the legislature makes an appropriation for the libraries in the state prisons and state hospitals.

The February number of New York Libraries was made an institutional number and among other things contained reports from the institutional libraries of the state showing libraries in all but two or three institutions which are supplied by traveling libraries. The following editorial comment is made on these libraries: "Of the thirty-six institutions from whose libraries detailed reports are herewith presented, there are not more than two or three whose library conditions would be regarded as up to thestandard commonly expected and demanded for public libraries. For not one of them does the state provide a sufficient appropriation for the attainment of such a standard." The committee appointed by the State Library Association on libraries in the penal institutions in the state of New York in making their report recommend a change of title for the committee to include the charitable as well as the penal and reformatory institutions and a request that the legislature pass an act authorizing the appointment of a supervising librarian for the state institutions.

The libraries in many of the state institutions of North Carolina are reported so small and poorly cared for that they are practically useless. The School for the Blind has a separate library building called the Laura Bridgman Library and there is a good library in the School for the Deaf classified by the teachers. The value of this work is appreciated by the Board of Charities but there is a lack of funds.

The North Dakota Library Commission has recently been asked to assist in selecting books and organizing a library for the state penitentiary where a thousand dollars is to be expended. No libraries exist in the other state institutions.

The Oregon Library Commission reports libraries in all the state institutions except one just opened. All the institutions are located at Salem and receive direct assistance from the commission in organization and book selection and management of their libraries. Purchases are made from a general fund. All are reported adequate except one to be made so. Three are classified and the rest are to be.

Pennsylvania has libraries in all the state institutions but none are organized, classified or administered according to accepted library methods. The Library Commission takes the position (wisely it seems to me) that their part lies in stirring up the boards in charge of the institutions to active interest in these libraries, rather than themselves mixing in the affairs of another organization, though as yet little has been accomplished in that direction.

Tennessee has a library in the School for the Blind, the School for the Deaf and the state prison, but none in the insane hospitals. These are organized and classified to a limited extent only.

From the biennial report of the Texas Library Commission I quote the following: "Only a few of the institutions have libraries and as a rule these are small and without reference to the purpose they are to serve. Some have nominal librarians, but none trained and a library without a trained librarian is like a piano without a pianist, valuable, even expensive, but of little use or pleasure."

In Vermont an appropriation of $500 was made in 1910 and $200 is now appropriated annually. This is divided between the libraries in the State Prison, House of Correction, State Industrial School and Insane Hospital and is under the control of the Free Public Library Commission which purchases the books and oversees the cataloging. A card catalog of each institution is kept at the commission office. The State Prison also has a printed catalog.

Washington has a library of some kind in all its institutions, but in none is it a real factor. None are classified.

In Wisconsin no institution is wholly without a library. They are organized and classified in a limited way only. The commission assists to some extent in book selection.

From these reports we may draw the following conclusions: (1) Libraries of some kind exist in many state institutions. (2) Probably most of these libraries are only partially adequate, if not wholly inadequate and unsuitable. (3) Few are organized or administered according to the best methods, have proper rooms or a librarian in charge to render even their present collection useful. (4) In a few states only is there trained supervision or systematic library work undertaken in the institutions. (5) Where appropriations are made they are seldom sufficient to properly maintain the libraries.

The responsibility for this work lies (1) with the governing bodies, the Boards ofControl and other boards to whom is committed the care and welfare of the defectives and dependents of the state and the superintendents of the various institutions who are directly responsible for this care, and (2) with the librarians entrusted with library extension and the carrying of books to those who would otherwise be bookless, the state library commissions.

That the superintendents partially appreciate the value of the book is evidenced by library beginnings in many institutions and their readiness to co-operate in movements toward the improvement and increased usefulness of the libraries. But they are busy men with many departments on heart and mind and the boards are charged with many interests.

It is not surprising, therefore, that it is the librarians who have recognized the importance of these libraries and the fact that if they are to become a real force in the institutions the work must be given to some one whose business it shall be, who is trained for it, and who has the time to give it proper attention.

As few institutions are yet in a position to individually employ a trained librarian, the solution of the problem has seemed to be a joint or supervising librarian for all the institutions of a state or of a kind in a state.

Iowa through the influence of Miss Tyler and Mr. Brigham was the first to undertake this work and is still the only state in which institutional library work is done by a librarian working under the Board of Control and giving all her time to the institutions. The other states having institutional supervision are Indiana, Minnesota, where an officer from the commission gives part and Nebraska the whole of her time to the institutional libraries, and Oregon, Michigan and Vermont where the work seems to be done directly by the secretary.

If the Board of Control and the institutional heads are not affected by party changes the advantage, it seems to me, lies with the librarian employed by them, who goes into the institutions with authority from the board to do what needs to be done and not as a guest, who is sometimes unwelcome. The book selection can thus be better guarded and I believe books purchased with institution funds will be better cared for by both officers and inmates than those received by donation. Appropriations are also likely to be larger if made directly to each institution than if made in a lump sum to the commission.

The initiative, however, will undoubtedly lie with the library commission and the importance of institutional library work is such that should the boards fail to use their opportunity it may become the part of the library commission to at least inaugurate the work, which having begun they will probably be allowed to continue.

Before closing may I emphasize very briefly three important points in connection with institutional library work. I wish I might elaborate both these and the other points which I have touched so hurriedly, but time forbids.

1. If the libraries are to become a real factor for good in institutional work, the book selection must be differentiated to meet the needs of the different classes of readers, and great care used to exclude the harmful and include helpful books only. 2. To make these libraries most useful there should be suitable rooms, not only for the proper shelving of the books, but for use as reading rooms where the atmosphere of book lined walls may yield its helpful influence and prepare the way for public library use by the boys and girls at least when the opportunity shall come to them. 3. Though there may be a supervising librarian in the field, there should be a competent institutional librarian who shall not only do the routine work, but have sufficient knowledge of books and readers to be able to fit them together and sufficient time to do the work properly.

Thus shall these libraries, not only bring brightness and cheer to lives otherwise dull and colorless, for

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