This plan is practicable from the child’s earliest years. As soon as he learns to read we may begin to supplement it by reference to original documents. This means a library at the very beginning, and at high school age it means a large library. It need not all be in the school. In the smallest towns there are now respectable public collections; the school may confine itself to the subjects in its own curriculum. But whatever we do, let us not teach the child, with the implication of equal authority, that twice two is is four, that material bodies are composed of molecules, and that the Tories in the Revolution were all bad. Tell him that there are other aspects, if they exist, and as soon as he is able let him examine those aspects. He will be able far sooner than some of us are willing to admit. We librarians feel somewhat strongly on this matter because our own institutions possess by their very nature that form of neutrality that exposes both sides without advocating either. It seems to be assumed by some persons that neutrality means ignorance. Of course, ignorance is one method of insuring it. If a fairy story opens with the announcement that the King of Nowaria is at war with the Prince of Sumboddia, you cannot take sides until you know something about the quarrel. The trouble is that we do not live in fairyland. In my home city the school authorities have been trying to cultivate this kind of neutrality by cautioning principals not to discuss the European war with their pupils. What is the result? One of my branch librarians says in a recent report: “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.” With this I thoroughly agree. I am not sure that I do not prefer a thorough and bigoted partisanship to this neutrality of ignorance. Better than both is the opportunity for free investigation with enlightened guidance. The public library offers the opportunity for the fullest and freest contact with the minds of the world. We try to give guidance, also, as we can; but we have not the opportunities of you teachers. Guidance is your business and your high privilege; and if some of you have in the past guided as the jailer guides his prisoners--for a walk around the prison yard with ball and chain--let us be thankful that this oppressive view is giving place to the freer idea of a guide as a counselor and friend. Such guidance means intellectual freedom. Freedom means choice, and choice implies a collection from which to choose. This means a library and the school library is thus an indispensable tool in the hands of those teachers to whom education signifies neutral training, the arousing of neutral