It is not very' often realized, even in-western countries, what a unique role the public library plays in the education of the masses. When one thinks of libraries, the British Museum or the Library of Congress is con-Juved up to present a work-shop Where pedants find the roots of things and after they have found them rarely know what to do with them, for roots are so often troublesome and—disconcerting things—like one's ancestral tree. But that very practical Scotsman, Andrew Carnegie, who founded and developed America's steel industry, knew that a little library, housed about a warm fire with a cheery atmosphere and lots of useful and en-terraining books, would serve the plain people more than all the erudition of the professor and the lecturer.' So he gave a very large part of his fortune for public libraries in all countries: he gave the buildings. and asked the community to support the libraries.
Some years ago, a lips movement was started in China but little seems to have happened to it or perhaps I have been remiss in following the progress of what is to me so keenly interesting because placing books on shelves in a library was my first job as a boy. It was during those days that T learned how fully satisfying a judiciously stocked library can-be to human beings of -all ages -andiof all Kinds of intellectual habits. But. libraries cost loads: of-money and
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.