American librarians, who have had experience of administration of both libraries and schools by boards of education, are not in favour of vesting the control of libraries in the education authorities. “Too close an administrative connection ... has not been beneficial to the library ... it has generally been found that when the control of a public library is vested in a body created originally for another purpose it is regarded as of secondary importance and its development is retarded. It is better that the library should have its own board of trustees, and that the two institutions should co-operate in the freest manner. Such mutual aid is, of course, founded on the fact that the educational work of both school and library is carried on largely by means of books. That of the school is formal, compulsory, and limited in time; that of the library is informal, voluntary, and practically unlimited. It is greatly to the advantage of the scholar, and of those informal processes of training that are going on constantly during life whether he wills it or not, that he should form the habit of consulting and using books outside of the school. When books are thought of merely as school implements their use is naturally abandoned when school days are over.”[44] Similar views were submitted by the Library Association to the Adult Education Committee. Part of their resolution ran as follows:-- “The aim of the library as an education institution is best expressed in the formula ‘self-development in an atmosphere of freedom,’ as contrasted with the aim of the school, which is ‘training in an atmosphere of restraint or discipline’; in the school the teacher is dominant, but the pupil strikes out his own line in the library, which supplies the written material upon which the powers awakened and trained in the school can be exercised; furthermore, the contacts of the library with organized education cease where the educational machinery terminates; but the library continues as an educational force of national importance in its contacts with the whole social, political, and intellectual life of the community....”