t is of course a heaven-sent opportunity and I suppose I betrayed
something of my pleasure in my manner. My visitor said, "I am so glad you
feel this way about it; we have been meaning for some time to call on you,
but we were in doubt about how we should be received." Such moments are
humiliating to the librarian. Great heavens! Have we advertised,
discussed, talked and plastered our towns with publicity, only to learn at
last that the spokesman of a body of respectable men, asking legitimate
service, rather expects to be kicked downstairs than otherwise when he
approaches us? Is our publicity failing in quantity or in quality?

Whatever may be the matter, it is in response to demands like this that
the library must play its part in community education. Here as elsewhere
it is the foundrymen who are the important factors--their attitude, their
desires, their capabilities. Our function is that of the organ pipe--to
pick out the impulse, respond to it and give it volume and carrying power.
The community will educate itself whether we help or not. It is permeated
by lines of intelligence as the magnetic field is by lines of force.
Thrust in a bit of soft iron and the force-lines will change their
direction in order to pass through the iron. Thrust a book into the
community field, and its lines of intelligence will change direction in
order to take in the contents of the book. If we could map out the field
we should see great masses of lines sweeping through our public libraries.

All about us we see men who tell us that they despair of democracy; that
at any rate, whatever its advantages, democracy can never be "efficient."
Efficient for what? Efficiency is a relative quality, not absolute. A big
German howitzer would be about as inefficient a tool as could be imagined,
for serving an apple-pie. Beside, democracy is a goal; we have not reached
it yet; we shall never reach it if we decide that it is undesirable. The
path toward it is the path of Nature, which leads through conflicts,
survivals, and modifications. Part of it is the path of community
education, which I believe to be efficient in that it is leading on toward
a definite goal. Part of Nature is man, with his desires, hopes and
abilities. Some men, and many women, are librarians, in whom these desires
and hopes have definite aims and in whom the corresponding abilities are
more or less developed. We are all thus cogs in Nature's great scheme for
community educati