ENLIGHTENED CONTROL IN PLACE OF MANAGEMENT

And so you know that changes are impending because what was a body of scattered sentiment is now becoming a concentrated force, and so with sympathy and understanding comes control, for, in place of this control of enlightened and sovereign opinions, we have had in the field of politics as elsewhere, the reign of management, and management is compounded of these two things, secrecy plus concentration.

You cannot manage a nation, you cannot manage the people of a state, you cannot manage a great population, you can manage only some central force; what you do, therefore, if you want to manage in politics or anywhere else is to choose a great single force or single group of forces, and then find some man or men sagacious and secretive enough to manage the business without being discovered. And that has been done for a generation in the United States.

Now, the schoolhouse among other things is going to break that up. Is it not significant that this thing is being erected upon the foundation originally laid in America, where we saw from the first that the schoolhouse and the church were to be the pillars of the Republic? Is it not significant that as if by instinct we return to those sources of liberty undefiled which we find in the common meeting place, in the place owned by everybody, in the place where nobody can be excluded, in the place to which everybody comes as by right?

And so what we are doing is simply to open what was shut, to let the light come in upon places that were dark, to substitute for locked doors, open doors, for it does not make any difference how many or how few come in provided anybody who chooses may come in. So as soon as you have established that principle, you have openings, and these doors are open as if they were the flood gates of life.

FAITH IN PEOPLE JUSTIFIED

I do not wonder that men are exhibiting an increased confidence in the judgments of the people, because wherever you give the people a chance such as this movement has given them in the schoolhouse, they avail themselves of it. This is not a false people, this is not a people guided by blind impulses, this is a people who want to think, who want to think right, whose feelings are based upon justice, whose instincts are for fairness and for the light.

So what I see in this movement is a recovery of the constructive and creative genius of the American people, because the American

people as a people are so far different from others in being able to produce new things, to create new things out of old.

THIS MOVEMENT FUNDAMENTALLY AMERICAN

I have often thought that we overlook the fact that the real sources of strength in the community come from the bottom. Do you find society renewing itself from the top? Don't you find society renewing itself from the ranks of unknown men? Do you look to the leading families to go on leading you? Do you look to the ranks of the men already established in authority to contribute sons to lead the next generation? They may, sometimes they do, but you can't count on them; and what you are constantly depending on is the rise out of the ranks of unknown men, the discovery of men whom you had passed by, the sudden disclosure of capacity you had not dreamed of, the emergence of somebody from some place of which you had thought the least, of some man unanointed from on high, to do the thing that the generation calls for. Who would have looked to see Lincoln save a nation? Who that knew Lincoln when he was a lad and a youth and a young man but all the while there was springing up in him as if he were connected with the very soil itself, the sap of a nation, the vision of a great people, a sympathy so ingrained and intimate with the common run of men that he was like the People impersonated, sublimated, touched with genius. And it is to such sources that we must always look.

No man can calculate the courses of genius, no man can foretell the leadership of nations. And so we must see to it that the bottom is left open, we must see to it that the soil of the common feeling of the common consciousness is always fertile and unclogged, for there can be no fruit unless the roots touch the rich sources of life.

And it seems to me that the schoolhouses dotted here, there, and everywhere, over the great expanse of this nation, will some day prove to be the roots of that great tree of liberty which shall spread for the sustenance and protection of all mankind.

II.

WISCONSIN FREE LIBRARY COMMISSION

[From the Ninth Biennial Report of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, 1911-1912, pp. 3-6.]

It is a matter of some interest to the state that the Wisconsin Free Library Commission is under the state law engaged in a greater number of activities than any commission in the country. It is

the only commission which is the administrative body in control of a legislative reference department. It is also the only commission which conducts a library school. As the commission is now organized it is administered through four departments: one department engaged in establishing, organizing and maintaining public libraries, one conducting the traveling library work of the state, one an instructional department including the library school of the university which is still under the control of the commission, and the legislative reference department.

WHAT THE COMMISSION DOES

1. It helps establish, organize, and maintain public libraries. If a town is large enough to support a public library, the commission begins by furnishing a traveling library which costs the locality nothing. Then it sends speakers, puts articles in the paper, writes letters and does everything in its power to explain why a library will help the town and to line up the citizens behind a movement for a public library. It advises and counsels; it furnishes lists of books to be bought and tells how to buy them; it sends workers to help catalog the books and organize the library. When the town is ready for a new building, it makes suggestions as to plans, shows pictures of buildings elsewhere, meets with the library board and gives counsel and advice. If an application is to be made for a Carnegie gift, the details are often arranged by the commission. No matter how large or how old a library is, the commission keeps in touch with it, visits it periodically, sees that it is kept up to date, sends speakers to arouse interest, publishes lists of new books and material on new subjects, and assists in every way in making it an effective, aggressive, moral, social, educational, and utilitarian force in the community. During the biennial period the commission workers have made five hundred visits to libraries in the state, each visit extending from a few hours to several days.

2. The library commission makes librarians. Because there are not enough well trained librarians in the state of Wisconsin, the library commission six years ago established a library school to train librarians who might take charge of Wisconsin libraries. This school is now as big and, in its field, as good as any in the country. In its instruction it tends toward the practical rather than the theoretical. The instructors first show the students how to do things and then take them out to do these things in Wisconsin libraries, in Wisconsin towns, with Wisconsin people. So it occurs that while learning to work they do work for

Wisconsin libraries which it would cost the libraries of the state thousands of dollars to have done by others. The school has grown so that the legislature of 1909 suggested that the university ought to coöperate by appropriating funds to assist in running it. This the university now does, although the school is still under the control of the library commission.

The commission also conducts each year a summer session of six weeks. This session is primarily to help the librarians from the smaller Wisconsin towns whose salaries are not large enough to enable them to attend the full professional course.

This work is done by the instructional department of the library school.

3. The library commission loans books where there are no public libraries. During the last two years, the commission sent out 1,949 boxes of books to communities where without them there would be little or nothing to read. These traveling libraries are small collections of books which are sent in stout, hinged boxes by the state from one community to another. They circulate free of charge except the cost of transportation. The libraries, are made up of the best popular books for adults and children, in fiction, history, travel, biography, science and literature. They are intended for farming communities and small villages not enjoying public library privileges. The traveling library should be kept in the most centrally located and most easily accessible place that can be found. The local postoffice is usually the best place, but it may be placed in the general store, or a private residence, and should if possible be accessible continuously or at frequent intervals. The commission sends magazines and papers to lumbering camps. Wherever there is a group of men or women or boys or girls who wish to study any subject, the commission supplies not only a box of books upon the subject but a study outline as well. The commission sends out books printed in German for the good old German citizen who is too old to learn to read English; it sends Bohemian books for the Bohemian, Norwegian books for the Norwegian, Swedish books for the Swede, Polish books for the Polock, and Yiddish books for the good citizen who can read no other language.

The legis

4. The commission helps legislators legislate. lative reference library is administered by the free library commission. In it you can find all that you can find collected anywhere on law making subjects and much that can not be found elsewhere. This department has helped the lawmakers of Wisconsin to understand and to frame such measures as the railroad commission law, the public utilities act, the workmen's com

pensation law, the corrupt practice measures, and the industrial education law. The department, of course, puts into form not its own ideas but the ideas of the legislator. Back of each bill drafted is the written request of a member of the legislature, containing definite directions and duly signed. No draftsman is permitted to draw a bill without such a written request. 5. The library commission prepares and issues publications of value.

(1) The Wisconsin library bulletin. A bi-monthly periodical is issued by the commission as an economical way of communicating with the libraries and library officials of the state.

(2) Book lists. To inform librarians as to the material which should be placed in their libraries, the commission issues from time to time various carefully selected lists. Among those more recently issued are the following: (a) Suggestive list of children's books. A carefully compiled annotated list of about 500 titles, compiled by Helen T. Kennedy of the library school. (b) Sociological material free or easily obtainable. Two hundred and fiftysix titles of the best material upon sociological subjects constantly under discussion, such as conservation of natural resources, corrupt practice acts, etc. The American Library Association reissued this list for distribution outside of the state. (c) Farm bulletins. Lists of the best free bulletins on farm crops, the dairy herd, butter, cheese and milk, etc. (d) Social or economic conditions, recent fiction depicting. (e) Civic advance and improvement. A list of valuable material, much of which is obtainable without expense, issued because the city library as a municipal institution should assist the municipality in organized efforts for civic improvement. (f) The monetary question. A selected list relating to currency, banking, etc., with special reference to the Aldrich and other similar plans. (g) Books popular with young people, as indicated by voluntary vote. (h) The use of the library in the schools. (i) Selected list on peace. Compiled by the Wisconsin Library School, revised and approved by Lewis P. Lochner, of the staff of the World's Peace Foundation. (j) Anthologics. (k) Home economics. Free and inexpensive literature, prepared by Katherine Hahn, librarian of Stout Institute, Menomonie, Wisconsin. (1) General references on income tax, and special references to the Wisconsin law. (m) Simple technical books. The best and simplest books on various industries.

(3) Legislative reference library bulletins. In the past this department has issued for the use of the legislators 25 small pamphlet bulletins on legislative subjects, including bulletins on such subjects as: Accident insurance for workingmen; Blacklisting;