one of our branch libraries; others have been grieved to see that
political ward meetings have taken place in them, and that some rather
radical political theories have been debated there. These persons forget
that a library never takes sides. It places on its shelves books on the
Civil War from the standpoint of both North and South, histories of the
great religious controversies by both Catholics and Protestants, ideas and
theories in science and philosophy from all sides and at all angles. It
may give room at one time to a young people's dancing-class and at another
to a meeting of persons who condemn dancing. Its walls may echo one day to
the praises of our tariff system and on another to fierce denunciations of
it.

These things are all legitimate and it is better that they should take
place in a library or a school building than in a saloon or even in a
grocery store. The influence of environment is gently pervasive. I may be
wrong, but I cannot help thinking that it is easier to be a gentleman in a
library, whether in social meeting or in political debate, than it is in
some other places. In one of our branches there meets a club of men who
would be termed anarchists by some people. The branch librarian assures me
that the brand of anarchism that they profess has grown perceptibly milder
since they have met in the library. It is getting to be literary,
academic, philosophic. Nourished in a saloon, with a little injudicious
repression, it might perhaps have borne fruit of bombs and dynamite.

In this catholicity I cannot help thinking that the library as an
educational institution is a step ahead of the school. Most teachers would
resent the imputation of partisanship on the part of the school, and yet
it is surely partisan--in some ways rightly and inevitably so. One cannot
well explain both sides of any question to a child of six and leave its
decision to his judgment. This is obvious; and yet I cannot help thinking