National Educational Association and the various associations for the
advancement of science, American, British and French, rather than that of
the Society of Civil Engineers, for instance, or the various learned
academies. Our body has thus greater general but less special influence,
just as on a question of general scientific policy a petition from the
American association might carry greater weight, whereas on a question of
engineering it would be incomparably inferior to an opinion of the civil
engineers. There is in this country, it is true, a general scientific body
of limited membership--the National Academy of Sciences, which speaks both
on general and special questions with expert authority. In the formation
of the American Library Institute it was sought to create some such
special body of librarians, but it is too soon to say whether or not that
expectation is to be fulfilled. The fact remains that in the American
Library Association we are committed to very nearly the broadest plan of
organization and work that is possible. We are united only by our
connection with library work or our interest in its success, and are thus
limited in our discussions and actions as a body to the most general
problems that may arise in this connection, leaving the special work to
our sections and affiliated societies, which are themselves somewhat
hampered by our size in the treatment of the particular subjects that come
before them, inasmuch as they are not separate groups whose freedom of
action no one can call in question.

In illustration of the limitations of a general body of the size and scope
of our Association, I may perhaps be allowed to adduce the recent
disagreement among librarians regarding the copyright question, or rather
regarding the proper course to be followed in connection with the
conference on that question called by the Librarian of Congress. It will
be remembered that this conference was semi-official and was due to the
desire of members of Congress to frame a bill that should be satisfactory