It gives me great pleasure to attempt a brief answer to the question you suggest--"Is the fiction circulated by our public libraries helping to enlighten the people on social and economic problems?" I should be inclined to answer the question decidedly in the affirmative. In addition to the letters I receive from persons whose only access to modern fiction is through the public library, concerning my own work, I have, in the course of political campaigns, and in places in various parts of the country where I have made another sort of address, held many conversations with men and women in the audiences. These have interested me greatly. My own experience corroborates a fact to which I have heard several librarians attest (and it is to me the most hopeful phenomenon in our American life), that the American public--mainly through the libraries--is reading more widely and more intelligently than those who do not come into direct contact with a large portion of it guess. Four or five months ago I received a letter from a poor woman who lives on a farm near one of the larger towns of Massachusetts giving me a list of the books she had got from the library during the past year. She had read them all; and they included, in addition to two good biographies and Royce's "Loyalty," several of the best recent novels, both English and American, dealing seriously with the problems of modern life. And finally, the other day when I was in San Francisco, I had a long conversation with an ex-burglar who had served a term in the penitentiary, and who has reformed and has been for the last eight years making an honest living, on the subject of such novels as you mention. His comments on them were not only interesting but often valuable. His source was, of course, the public library. Hence, I am glad of this opportunity to pay my tribute to the librarian, and to express, as an American citizen, my appreciation of the work he is doing. Sincerely yours, WINSTON CHURCHILL. * * * * * Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. April 29, 1913. The public libraries have no better opportunity for effective service than that offered through generous and intelligent co-operation with the public schools and especially with the high schools and the highest grades of the grammar schools. Ideas and ideals gained through reading in childhood and youth effect the character more fundamentally and more permanently, and determine moral conduct for a longer time than ideas and ideals gained later. It should also be remembered that children have more time to read than men and women immersed in the strong current of adult life.