I know of no way in which a man may show his good citizenship or the reverse—­may either demonstrate his ability and willingness to live and work in community harness, or show that he is fit for nothing but individual wild life in the woods—­better than in his use of such a public institution as a library.  The man who cannot see that what he gets from such an institution must necessarily be obtained at the price of sacrifice—­that others in the community are also entitled to their share, and that sharing always means yielding—­that man has not yet learned the first lesson in the elements of civic virtue.  And when one sees a thousand citizens, each of whom would surely raise his voice in protest if the library were to waste public money by buying a thousand copies of the latest novel, yet find fault with the library because each cannot borrow it before all the others, one is tempted to wonder whether we really have here a thousand bad citizens or whether their early education in elementary arithmetic has been neglected.

Before the present era there were regulations in all institutions that seemed to be framed merely to exasperate—­to put the public in its place and chasten its spirit.  There are now no such rules in good libraries.  He who thinks there are may find that there is a difference of opinion between him and those whom he has set in charge of the library regarding what is arbitrary and what is necessary; but at any rate he will discover that the animating spirit of modern library authority is to give all an equal share in what it has to offer, and to restrain one man no more than is necessary to insure to his brother the measure of privilege to which all are equally entitled.

Another way in which the citizen, in his capacity of the library’s beneficiary, can aid it and improve its service is his treatment of its administrators.  Librarians are very human:  they react quickly and surely to praise or blame, deserved or undeserved.  Blame is what they chiefly get.  Sometimes they deserve it and sometimes not.  But the occasions on which some citizen steps in and says, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” are rare indeed.  The public servant has to interpret silence as praise; so sure is he that the least slip will be caught and condemned by a vigilant public.  No one can object to discriminating criticism; it is a potent aid to good administration.  Mere petulant fault-finding, however, especially if based on ignorance or misapprehension, does positive harm.  And a little discriminating praise, now and then, is a wonderful stimulant.  No service is possible without the men and women who render it; and the quality of service depends, more than we often realize, on the spirit and temper of a staff—­something that is powerfully affected, either for good or for evil, by public action and public response.