The open door through the library and the book has a pleasant sound. Yet probably the most surprising fact in actual experience is the helplessness of even intelligent people in using books. The address of Prof. Chamberlain, delivered before this association a year ago, did not overstate the case of the schools. But schools are beginning to meet the issue, and in time they will remedy the conditions for those who are fortunate enough to remain in schools. But always for us will remain that contingent who drop out of school, in days before the school can reach them with this gospel of the book. The school has lost them, and, if ever they find the open door through the book, it will be by chance, or because the library itself opens the door. It rests with us to proclaim our mission to them. Of course every good library has always taught those insistent ones who knocked at its doors. But the library has been a passive agent of this education, not an active one. A public library, in my judgment, should be equipped with the necessary apparatus to conduct this work systematically, to propagate its own use, to spread the gospel of the open door among the people whom it serves. If this seems a violent innovation, I beg you to consider it from the schoolmaster's point of view, as well as from the librarian's. Here is a great body of people in every community whom other agencies have taught to read, who depend upon reading to return service to the state and to promote their own welfare. On the other side, the library, with the admitted duty of furthering education through the book. Does it not rest with the library to teach persistently, systematically, and by every practicable means, how and where to find what to read? The means of doing this is another matter, but for the expediency of it, and the need of it, examine in any considerable community, the roster of the great correspondence schools, and reflect how many people are groping their way out of darkness toward the light. What people pay for, as they do for this instruction, they want; and what these learners get for their money, they should have for nothing in any public library. When we teach how and where to find what to read, the open door through the library and the book will have some meaning for every man, woman and child who can simply read. All the artificial barriers that stand between the reader and his book will go; the barrier in the book itself will largely be removed, and the library will reach through intelligent choice many of those who are counted down and out by the schools: the thoughtful man who has come to realize the possibilities of his work: the one who has waited long to find his aptitude; the timid; the hesitant; the shy and distrustful; the misunderstood; those who see the "dawn of a tomorrow." The procession is endless, and each has his human need, which runs the gamut from utility to the highest joys of life. We talk so much about