ese were treasures not to be
shared by the many. The first change which came, therefore, as the
library was swept into the general intellectual current of time, was the
removal of restrictions on the use of books and their replacement by
devices intended to encourage and extend that use. A second step, and a
much more revolutionary one, has been to teach the community directly
the uses of books, and thus not merely to afford easy conditions for the
use of books on the part of those who want them, but to add a positive
force which will compel the books to go out in the community, there to
perform their present service and to create a demand for an increased
service in the future.

This change marks a fundamental departure of the library from its old
basis, and one which will affect it greatly, for good and perhaps for
ill. The movement toward freedom of administration was really concerned
with small matters, and left unaltered the central plan and purpose of
the library. But with the assumption of direct educational work for
children, for women, for men, the library has entered upon a new epoch
in its evolution. It has taken up duties whose performance will demand
greatly enlarged resources--of space and of money, of books and of
working staff. And what is of even greater importance, the purpose, the
point of view, of those who control the library, and the temper of the
administration, will change, and ought to change, under the pressure of
these new duties.

This positive and educational library work falls into two main
types--that for children, and that for adults--both men and women. It is
still in a tentative condition, in a formative and experimental period.
The results are still so few and recent that they do not admit any exact
formulation. They permit only general and suggestive statement.

Work for children is, in some ways, the easiest educational attempt of
the library, since it runs parallel to the work of the schools, and
those for whom the work is done are easily reached and easily guided.
Its function is, of course, in part to supplement the school. It would
be, however, a great misfortune if it were looked upon merely as a
supplement to the school, as a means of providing reading which the
school ought to buy, but cannot afford. Its purpose is rather to begin
in childhood, both for pleasure and for profit, a voluntary association
with books which lie wholly outside of the school program. It aims to
beg