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 only at the outset of a course of training
but continuously thruout its duration. We speak of a student being "put
thru the mill," and we must not forget that a mill not only grinds and
stamps into shape but also sifts and selects. A finished product of a