and controls the old body (referring to colleges and universities) is that of the university 'made in Germany.' The older aims of liberalized personality and leading citizenship have been replaced by the purpose of research and professional training. While the university professor is not expressly forbidden to educate young men and women, if he knows how, his first and last duty is toward his subject."

The consideration of the Junior College forces the conclusion that the high school will be extended and that its possibilities of service in the cause of democracy are very great. The Junior College has become an integral part of the public school system of one of our great states and this action has fixed its status. It is identical with the high school in sources of revenue, organization, administration, and in methods of instruction, and is destined to become in truth the People's College. This honor has been frequently accorded to the high school, but without other warrant than the tremendous enrollment. The Junior College will round out a more adequate state system of public instruction and will afford either a cultural or a vocational education up to the time when the student needs to begin the advanced training for his chosen life work. The influence of the two higher grades in the school will bring the young people into closer touch with a broader education and will inspire and cause them to remain in school under ennobling influences. It has ever been so in the history of schools. To add a year or more will cause a larger body of students to stay in school until they have reached the end that is immediately before them. This will, in time, increase the number of persons who have enjoyed the advantages of a liberal education, and so will create an ever-increasing body of intelligent and thoughtful and loyal citizens.

The friendly and even cordial attitude of the great state universities and of some richly endowed universities in states now the acknowledged centre of American democracy, has been a factor of tremendous influence in furthering the cause of the Junior College. It could not have been what it is but for their fostering care. No blighting wind blows from them, but breezes that bring blessing

and good tidings. The great state endowments provided for education through the wisdom of the fathers are, it is now apprehended, to further democracy in education and not to preserve an entrenched, conservative aristocracy. Under the most advanced democratic conditions the Junior College fits into the scheme of things, and it has demonstrated its usefulness and its ability to serve. There is a vision in the minds of some that the future may hold for it a large field of usefulness. There will be no well founded claim that the students are undeveloped because they have missed some features of college life often much emphasized as beneficial to individuals. The emphasis will be placed upon the opportunities offered to citizens and upon the services rendered to the community. It will eventually be a powerful incentive and influence in the intellectual and moral life of any city which adopts it.

School Days When Vacation Time Was Near
Today my thoughts go flying back to when I was a boy,
In the country, free from all life's woe and care;

I am dreaming of the old school days, so full of youthful joy,
And in fancy once again I'm happy there.

As I hear the school-bell ringing I forget the city's roar,
And the morning song falls sweetly on my ear;

I can see the same young faces, as in fancy I live o'er
Those school days when vacation time was near.

As time went by we drifted with the endless tide of years,
Some were wed, while others journeyed far away;

And some crossed the vale of shadow to the land beyond all tears,
Where no lessons ever mar a happy day.

So, the dear old class is parted, but the school that held us all

Still is standing by the woodland cool and clear;

And the flame of love there started warms my heart as I recall
Those school days when vacation time was near.

I can see the master standing at the door,

I can hear the laughter ringing sweet and clear. Oh, how sweet 'twould be if Time could but restore Those school days when vacation time was near!

CHARLES HORACE MEIERS.

The Library and the Home

JOY E. MORGAN, NEW YORK LIBRARY SCHOOL, ALBANY, N. Y.

T

HEODORE ROOSEVELT once said: "After the church and the school, the free public library is the most effective influence for good in America. The moral, mental and material benefits to be derived from a carefully selected collection of good books, free for the use of all the people, cannot be overestimated. No community can afford to be without a library."

“It is neither fair nor right for the state to maintain a system of education which develops a love of knowledge and of reading, and then leave the community without the means of continuing in later youth the development begun in childhood," said Mr. E. A. Birge of Madison, Wis., in an address to the American Library Association.

In spite of statements like these from leaders of thought and action, the importance of the library in the educational economy of the nation is not yet generally recognized. Outside the larger cities, this failure to appreciate the library may be partly explained by the existence of a multitude of libraries which are too small really to give effective service, but which, nevertheless, for the people in their respective communities are the only known measure of what a library can do. The adoption of a larger unit of taxation and administration for library purposes will improve the situation. The county unit is solving the problem in California and promises to do so in other states. In several states the county is so little used for political purposes that some other arrangement will have to be found, e. g., the union of several towns or townships into one system. The enlarged program of the American Library Association should help create right ideals of library service and spread information about the most satisfactory types of organization.

When one speaks of a free public library he must think of books. For although such a library should be much more than a collection of books-so much more that one may almost say that the trained service which gets the books promptly to those who need them is more important to its success than the books themselves--the fact remains that without books there would not be a library.

By lending books to be read at home the public library helps to make the home atmosphere attractive. After the work of the day is done and its cares have been laid aside, there are the delights of reading aloud, the charm of sharing the new things of print. This process of sharing and developing interests and habits in common underlies all association and friendship. It also has a bearing on behavior. Just as the traditions of the family or tribe, told around the campfire, contributed much to the life of the primitive group, and supplied in their day the background for right conduct, so the books of today, by giving familiarity with our literature, our history, our ideals and aspirations, and an understanding of our increasingly complex political, social and industrial life, furnish the background for right conduct in modern society.

The public library stimulates the purchase of books for the home. It creates a demand for good books that saves the spending of much money for "bargain" books of such poor type and paper as to be a menace to the eyes of all who read them, for trashy books that soften the mind and impair the taste for right reading, and even for vicious books that undermine character itself. A public library in charge of a capable and active librarian makes people book wise. Trashy books have no chance in competition with better ones when people are book wise.

By the circulation of books on house-planning, building, and home decoration, impetus is given to the construction of improved houses. Prospective builders who could not afford to buy expensive books are thus able to have the very latest and best on their special lines. A house is such a permanent thing so difficult and expensive to alter that this help at just the right time is greatly worth while. No one can doubt that an attractive, well

planned house reacts favorably on the health, morals and emotional fiber of its occupants.

Books on cooking make a contribution to the well-being of the home that is not to be overlooked in these days when high prices and food substitutes have so profoundly modified all cooking practice as to make of it almost a new art within a generation.

Books also help-but why continue? Whatever improves human kind improves the home and there is no field of activity where books, carefully written, thoughtfully chosen and wisely administered, do not make a large contribution. Their aid in teaching children, their help in improving health and sanitation, their stimulation of industry through the spread of scientific knowledge, their guidance in business, their tendency to raise the whole level of the intellectual life of the community, all these things does a library do for us and more. The number of published books and journals is so vast that the job of getting them to the folks for whom they are meant is one requiring special training and experience. The public librarian of today must know not only the thousands of books on a hundred subjects that stream from a multitude of presses; he must also know intimately the life of the community in all its varied interests. With this knowledge combined with the love of humanity in his heart and a passion for service, he will make the library the true ally of the home, sharing with it the responsibility for creating and maintaining a sane, useful and happy people.