attention at the Twilight Park meeting as that involved in the proper coworking of the school and library. There seemed to be a general agreement that in spite of the notable progress made in the last decade toward making the library a practical factor in school work, so much still remains to be done and so much depends on its being done wisely and effectively that this now constitutes the most important and vital problem before the library profession. We believe this judgment to be correct. On its face it may seem as if it were a problem for the schoolman rather than for the librarian, a problem relating primarily to educational means and method; but the interest of the library is as vital as that of the school, not only because of the library's claim to be " an integral part of the system of public education," but because all our library progress depends on the way in which the habit of using books and libraries is taught and developed in school days. The part that the public library will play in adult education and culture in the years to come is being largely determined now by the part which libraries are made to fill in the life of the children in school.

But while agreeing fully with the sentiment of the meeting in this manner, we are disposed to deprecate somewhat the obvious tendency shown at the conference to treat the problem as one in which schoolmen were mainly at fault or one whose principal difficulties were due to the shortcomings of school authorities. It is quite possible that the fault in the matter does thus lie with the schools. Some of their most eminent representatives have been free to confess this and deplore it. It is also possible that library people, both in what they have said and done and in what they have left undone, are equally responsible. But we gain little or nothing by this process of apportioning or measuring out blame, however justly we may do it. If the library and the school are not working in harmony as they should, we librarians have but one duty or concern in the matter. It is weak and futile to complain that the school does not appreciate what we have to offer. It is worse than futile for us to wait in our attempts at a proper adjustment until the school has awakened to its need of proper library service. The live library never waits for appreciation from any part of the com

munity. It compels appreciation by demonstrating the worth of its service. Ignorance, inertia, neglect on the part of any group of people to be served, instead of being an excuse for inactivity by the library, constitute an additional call for action. In every community the school interest is one of the most important, perhaps the most important and absorbing of all public concerns. If that interest is in any way or for any cause detached from interest in the library, the situation is bad enough for the school but it is far worse for the library. No matter what the school may do or fail to do to remedy this situation, the library must recognize that its very life and all its future prospects depend on its winning and holding this interest.

Proper attitude and activities of library in relation to school. That this can be accomplished by efficient and progressive library methods, even where the alienation of school and library interests is most pronounced, has been conclusively demonstrated in recent years by many examples. These examples make it clear that while the schools may not be prepared to take the initiative in availing themselves of what the libraries have to offer, they are generally ready to give the libraries a full opportunity for proving their claims where these claims are properly and tactfully presented. The library may need to go more than half way, but why should it not be ready to go all the way if that be necessary for winning its proper place in the educational system of the community? In respect to all other groups of people, it adjusts itself to conditions and needs just as it finds them. Why should it hesitate to adopt this same principle and practice in its relation to this, the most important interest to be served in the whole community?

To the library that will consciously and definitely assume this attitude and purpose, there will be little difficulty in any community in establishing itself firmly in the interest and affection of the school people. Methods and means for accomplishing this are now so well established and appear so obvious to those who have given the matter study that they hardly need mention, but for the sake of the many who have thought little of their duty or privilege in this matter, we venture to point

out the following as simple and practical steps which many public libraries have taken and almost any library may take in making itself a factor in school work:

I Buying books with a direct view to the needs of the school. This does not mean buying the books that should be in the school library or the turning of the public library into a school library; but it does mean the generous supply of books relating directly to the interests aroused and developed in the school courses. In too many public libraries the school is hardly thought of when new books are to be bought. To guard against this, it might be well to have a representative of the school on the book committee of every village library.

2 Keeping constant watch of the school program so as to know each week what is going on there; and so arranging all material in the library bearing on this program as to make its use most inviting and convenient.

3 Making special rules in the interest of all school workers, giving them special privileges in the borrowing and holding of books which are to aid in their class work. In the larger libraries, a special room for their benefit may well be added to these privileges.

4 By means of bulletin boards in the school, keeping the students and teachers constantly informed as to what the library has for them of particular interest. Where subjects for special work, essays or debate have been assigned, the bulletin boards may thus tell what the library has in its books, periodicals and indexes on these subjects.

5 In almost every library, an attractive children's hour can be arranged whereby the love of good books and a corresponding stimulus to study may be given to young children.

6 By definite, formal instruction of classes in the use of the library, its methods and tools and in the use of reference books. This has now become a very general practice in the larger towns and has greatly enlarged the service of the library in school work. It can be applied wherever there is a library with even the simplest elements of organization.

7 Under the new law, adopted in this State in 1914, all these and many other methods of bringing the library into more fruitful relations with the schools may be promoted in

small villages by uniting in one qualified person the office of public librarian and school librarian.

The library and the adult. But in thus emphasizing the relations of the library to the school, we must not for a moment forget the specific and ultimate purpose for which the public library exists. That purpose is to bring to all the people of its community the help and enrichment of appropriate books. If we emphasize so strongly the service the library should render those in the school, it is not at all because in themselves they are more worthy of such service than others or more entitled to consideration, but because we are thus meeting the necessary condition for enabling the library to take its true place in the lives of men and women. The winning of the child to the library is a matter of such special concern only because it means the winning and holding of the adult. The public library is founded on the theory that education is not a thing to be wrought out and finished in a brief period of childhood or youth, but that it is a process that should go on as long as life lasts. Education in school is thus important only as it becomes a vital factor in this process of continuous education after school; and it is as an agency in this process that the public library fills its essential place in the community. How large and important that place is and how much larger it is destined to become are happily suggested in President Finley's fine address at the Twilight Park meeting which we print in another column. Librarians can hardly ask for a stronger indorsement of their work and propaganda than the following from the head of the State's system of public education:

The work of education progresses as long as life lasts. The education of the adult is as important as the education of the child. The library stands as an absolutely free institution in a way that the school is not and is especially adapted to the psychology of the adult seeking information. It seems to be naturally fitted beyond any other institution for this service. In cooperation with the efforts of the school, the library could undoubtedly develop a system of adult education which would be as adequate for the average adult at work, as the college course is adequate for the young man and young woman of greater leisure. If we can picture to ourselves a system of local libraries whose physical upkeep

is assured by local taxation, whose more general needs are met by liberal State policy and whose exceptional needs are furnished by a large central library, organized and socialized into an educational system closely affiliated with all other instruments for adult education and culture, we might have some idea of the possibilities of library development.

Popularizing poetry at the library. All our readers who are lovers of poetry and who desire to see it fill a larger place in education and life, will be grateful for the noble address given by Bliss Carman at the Twilight Park meeting which we publish in full in this issue. A more perfect model of an educational address we have never published, and librarians may well study it as an example of the fine form and high literary quality to which conference papers may attain.

But the paper has far more than a mere literary value. It presents a most convincing argument as to the need of poetry in any adequate system of education and culture, it shows how fundamental and universal this need is, it points out the causes which have led to the present neglect and disesteem in which it is held, and it outlines the part which libraries should have and may have in making great poetry "more available, more commonly appreciated and more universally potent in all lives." The main point of the paper is that poetry, in order to make its strongest appeal and convey its true essence, must be rendered in the human voice and not merely in the form of print; and that just as libraries are now making the great classics for children popular by means of the story hour, so great poems and dramas can be given a new vogue and popularity through the establishment in the libraries of regular poetry hours and the securing of skilled readers to make vocal their beauty and appeal. The suggestion seems so simple, sound and practical that we are sure there are many libraries which will proceed at once to put it into effect, and we shall not be surprised if in a few years the "poetry hour" for adults has become as common as the story hour" for children.

What a library charter involves. A word seems to be needed by many of the smaller

libraries as to the significance of a library charter and the obligations involved in it. A charter and the obligations involved in it. A mere voluntary association for carrying on library activities. Through its charter a library becomes a civic, organic body with specific legal rights and duties. Its charter gives it powers and privileges which no mere group of individuals can possess, and at the same time imposes upon it certain rules of procedure by which it is permanently and unconditionally bound. A charter is in the nature of a contract whereby a group of individuals desiring certain corporate rights and powers, solemnly pledges itself to the observance of specified conditions. In our present library system, this pledge is made to the State; and it should be noted that the State grants the charter only because it gives full credit to the good faith of those making the pledge. For any library, therefore, to be careless or negligent in the keeping of the terms of this contract, is not only to impair its own honor and standing, but to work an inevitable injury to the whole library cause; for every charter violated or disregarded by a local board tends to weaken that general assumption on which all our hopes for continued or increased support rests, the assumption that library boards may be trusted to keep the terms of their contract with the State.

We understand, of course, how far from any such conscious thought or intent the individual library is in its lapses in this matter. In most cases, we believe, the fault is due entirely to ignorance or misunderstanding as to what a charter is. By many it is regarded merely as a sign and certificate of proper establishment and the necessary condition of State aid. It is looked upon as a mere formality which must be complied with in order to get the enterprise started on its work. Having completed this formality, the trustees are now free to give themselves to the actual, practical problems of library maintenance and support. They have problems enough without wasting their thought and energies on fine points of business routine and technicalities of organization; and when a practical and obvious advantage can be gained by a disregard of what is looked upon as "red tape" and by proceeding directly to the desired end, this seems the part of wisdom. It is thus that the various ir