Read before the National Association of Music Teachers and reprinted from the published Proceedings for 1918. TWO CARDINAL SINS 341 A MESSAGE TO BEGINNERS 357 LUCK IN THE LIBRARY 373 THE LIBRARY AS A MUSEUM 393 THE LIBRARY AND THE LOCALITY 409 INDEX 429 LIBRARY ESSAYS PAPERS RELATED TO THE WORK OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES PAINS AND PENALTIES IN LIBRARY WORK[1] In somewhat the same way as Irving makes Diedrich Knickerbocker begin his history of New York with the creation of the world, so we may open a discussion of this subject with a word on the theory of punishment. We all know that neither moral philosophers nor penologists are agreed in this matter. Do we inflict punishment to satisfy our eternal sense of justice, to prevent further wrong-doing on the part of the person punished, as an example to others, or to reform the delinquent? So far as the justicial theory goes, it is unnecessary here to discuss whether it is founded merely on the old savage feeling of revenge, which having done its part in ensuring punishment to the wrong-doer in the uncivilized past, should now be put aside. As a matter of fact the rule, “Let no guilty man escape,” is a very good one for practical purposes, whatever its theoretical implications. Why should it be necessary to proceed according to any one theory in administering punishment? Practically in the home, at school, and in the courtroom the simple administration of justice does very well for us, and when we go a little farther into the matter we see that each of the other elements enters into consideration. Certainly it is so in the library. Penalties for the infraction of our rules should be so inflicted that future wrong-doing both on the part of the culprit and on that of the remainder of the public becomes less likely than before. Whether we always do this in the most satisfactory way may be queried. Punishable acts committed in a library may be divided, according to the old ecclesiastical classification, into _mala prohibita_ and _mala in se_; in other words, into acts that are simply contrary to library regulations and those that are absolutely wrong. To steal a book is wrong anywhere and does not become so merely because the act is committed in a library; but the retention of a borrowed book for fifteen instead of fourteen days is not absolutely wrong, but simply contrary to library regulations.