to our system they asked us why we did not build and
equip them faster; when we placed a few books on open shelves they
demanded that we treat our whole stock in the same way; when we set aside
a corner for the children they forced us to fit up a whole room and to
place such a room in every building, large or small. We have responded to
every such demand. Each response has cost money and the public has paid
the bill. Apparently librarians and public are equally satisfied. We
should not be astonished, for this merely shows that the library is
subject to the same laws and tendencies as all other things American.

Hence it comes about that whereas in a large library a century ago there
were simply stored books with no appliances to do anything but keep them
safe, we now find in library buildings all sorts of devices to facilitate
the quick and efficient use of the books both in the building and in the
readers' homes, together with other devices to stimulate a desire to use
books among those who have not yet felt it; to train children to use and
love books; to interest the public in things that will lead to the use of
books. This means that many of the things in a modern library seem to an
old-fashioned librarian and an old-fashioned reader like unwarranted
extensions or even usurpations. In our own Central building you will find
collections of postal cards and specimens of textile fabrics, an index to
current lectures, exhibitions and concerts, a public writing-room, with
free note-paper and envelopes, a class of young women studying to be
librarians, meeting places for all sorts of clubs and groups, civic,
educational, social, political and religious; a bindery in full operation,
a photographic copying-machine; lunch-rooms and rest-rooms for the staff;
a garage, with an automobile in it, a telephone switchboard, a paintshop,
a carpenter-shop, and a power-plant of considerable capacity. Not one of
these things I believe, would you have found in a large library fifty
years ago. And yet the citizens of St. Louis seem to be cheerful and are
not worrying over the future. We are eclectic, but we are choosing the
elements of our blend with some discretion and we have been able, so far,
to relate them all to books, to the mental activities that are stimulated
by books and that produce more books, to the training that instils into
the rising generation a love for books. The book is still at the
foundation of the library, even if its