The getting-together of public library and church has possibly been hampered in the past by an idea, common to both librarian and clergyman, that religious bodies and their work ought to be ignored by all public bodies, and that this is in some way a part of our American system of government and public administration. It is, of course, a feature of that administration to treat all religious bodies with absolute impartiality; but that does not involve ignoring their existence any more than treating all citizens with impartiality involves the ignoring of the individual. One way of being impartial, of course, is to turn one’s back equally upon all, but that is not the only way. One may treat one’s children alike by starving all of them equally, but our idea of impartial treatment would be better satisfied by an equality of adequate supplies. It is time that the public library and the Church stopt the starvation treatment and began to mete out to each other a supply of the aid and good-will that each has at its disposal. Each has its fight to make against the forces of darkness; neither is in a position to neglect an ally. THE FUTURE OF LIBRARY WORK When a railroad train is on its way, its future history depends on which way it is heading, on its speed, and on whether its direction and its speed will remain unchanged. With these premises, one may confidently predict that a train which left Chicago at a given hour on one day will reach New York at a given hour on the next. Of course, something may happen to slow the train, or to wreck it, or even to send it back to Chicago, in which cases our predictions will come to naught. This is what the weather man finds. His predictions are based on very similar data. Our weather conditions travel usually across the continent from west to east at a fairly uniform rate. If that rate is maintained, and the direction does not change, and nothing happens to dissipate or alter the conditions, we can predict their arrival at a given place with a fair degree of accuracy. Those who rail at the weather man’s mistakes are simply finding fault with our present inability to ascertain the causes that slow up storm centers, or swerve them in their course, or dissipate them. When we know these things, and know in addition what starts them, we can give up making forecasts and write out a pretty definite weather time-table--as definite and as little subject to change, at any rate, as those issued by the railroads.