This is essentially a teacher’s view. Listen now to that of a public librarian, Mr. John Cotton Dana, of Newark, New Jersey. He says: In our high schools we spend literally millions of dollars to equip laboratories, kitchens, carpenter shops, machine shops, and what not, to be used by a small part of the pupils for a small part of the short school day. This is partly because so to do is the fashion of the hour, partly also because the products of work in those shops, kitchens, and laboratories can be seen, touched, and handled, are real things even to the most unintelligent. For books, the essential tools of every form of acquisition, we spend, outside of textbooks, a few paltry thousands. The things a child makes we can see, and we are impressed by them; the knowledge he gains, the power of thought he acquires--these cannot be made visible and are not appreciated by the ignorant; they can only be certified to by the teacher and demonstrated by the student’s words and deeds as he goes through life. Mastery of print is mastery of world-knowledge. Our young people do not have it. Surely they should be led to acquire it, and where better than in the high schools? To aid them in this acquisition the high schools, should have ample collections of books, and these collections of books should become active teaching organisms through the ministrations of competent librarians. Of all teaching laboratories, there is one which is plainly of supreme importance--that of books. I trust that you are with me so far; for I am about to make a further advance that experience teaches me is very difficult, except for librarians. I am going to urge that your collection of books, when you have made it, be put in charge of one who has studied the methods of making the contents of books available to the reader--their shelving, physical preparation, classification, cataloguing; the ways in which to fit them to their users, to record their use, and to prevent their abuse. This means a trained librarian.