struct the people what to read and how to
read by supplying book lists and book exhibits, and by demonstrating
occasionally through the school or the church how books may be read to
get the most out of them. In the days before public libraries were
common in this country, library associations were formed to secure
good literature. Such associations are still useful in small
communities that find it impossible to sustain a public library, and
they serve as a medium for securing from the State a travelling
library, which has the special advantage of frequent substitution of
books. Or the school library may be the nucleus of a literary
collection for the whole community--advantageously so if the school
building is kept open as a community centre.

140. =Reading Circles and Musical Clubs.=--The value of the library
to the public consists, of course, not in the presence of books on the
shelves, but in their use. Such use is encouraged by the existence of
literary or art clubs and reading circles. They supply the twofold
want of companionship and culture. The proper basis of association is
similarity of interests. Local history or geology, nature study,
current public events in State or nation, art in some of its phases,
or the literature of a particular country or period, may be the
special consideration of a club or reading circle; in every case the
library is the laboratory of investigation. One of the conspicuously
successful organizations of the last thirty years, showing how
organization grows out of social need, is the Chautauqua movement.
Starting as an undertaking in Sunday-school extension by means of a
summer assembly and local reading circles, in which the study of
history, literature, and science was added to Bible study, the
movement has grown, until it is represented by a thousand summer
institutes, with numerous popular lectures and entertainments, and it
is one of the most useful educational agencies anywhere in the United
States.

Every community is interested in music. Music has a place on every
programme, whether of church, school, or public assembly. A musical
club is one of the effective types of organization for those who are
like-minded in country or town. There are two varieties of
organization, the first of persons who join for the pleasure that
comes from agreeable society, the second of those who enter the
organization for the musical culture to be obtained. Whether for
diversion or study, a mus