as we carry them on, and the self-education of
the community. I have emphasized the freedom of the library from bias. The
school is necessarily biassed--perhaps properly so. You remember the story
of the candidate for a district school who, when asked by an examining
committee-man whether the earth was round or flat, replied, "Well, some
says one and some t'other. I teach either round or flat, as the parents
wish."

Now, there are books that maintain the flatness of the earth, and they
properly find a place on the shelves of large public libraries. Those who
wish to compare the arguments pro and con are at liberty to do so. Even in
such a _res adjudicata_ as this the library takes no sides. But in spite
of the obliging school candidate, the school cannot proceed in this way.
The teaching of the child must be definite. And there are other subjects,
historical ones for instance, in which the school's attitude may be
determined by its location, its environment, its management. When it is a
public school and its controlling authority is really trying to give
impartial instruction there are some subjects that must simply be skipped,
leaving them to be covered by post-scholastic community education. This is
the school's limitation. Only the policy of caution is very apt to be
carried too far. Thus we find that in the school the immense educational
drive of the European War has not been utilized as it has in the community
at large. In some places the school authorities have erected a barrier
against it. So far as they are concerned the war has been non-existent.
This difference between the library and the school appears in such reports
as the following from a branch librarian:

"Throughout the autumn and most of the winter we found it absolutely
impossible to supply the demand for books about the war. Everything we had
on the subject or akin to it--books, magazines, pamphlets--were in
constant use. Books of travel and history about the warring countries
became popular--things that for years had been used but rarely became
suddenly vitally interesting.

"I have been greatly interested by the fact that the high school boys and
girls never ask for anything about the war. Not once during the winter
have I seen in one of them a spark of interest in the subject. It seems so
strange that it should be necessary to keep them officially ignorant of
this great war because the grandfather of one spoke French and of another
German."

A