We have lately witnessed such a phenomenon in the sudden outbreak of the great European War.  Probably no person in the community as we librarians know it remained unaffected by this event.  In most it aroused some kind of a desire to know what was going on.  It was necessary that most of us should know a little more than we did of the differences in racial temperament and aim among the inhabitants of the warring nations, of such movements as Pan-Slavism and Pan-Germanism, of the recent political history of Europe, of modern military tactics and strategy, of international law, of geography, of the pronunciation of foreign placenames, of the chemistry of explosives—­of a thousand things regarding which we had hitherto lacked the impulse to inform ourselves.  This sort of thing is going on in a community every day, but here was a catastrophe setting in motion a mighty brain-wave that had twisted us all in one direction.  Notice now what a conspicuous role our public libraries play in phenomena of this kind.  In the first place, the news-paper and periodical press reflects at once the interest that has been aroused.  Where man’s unaided curiosity would suggest one question it adds a hundred others.  Problems that would otherwise seem simple enough now appear complex—­the whole mental interest is intensified.  At the same time there is an attempt to satisfy the questions thus raised.  The man who did not know about the Belgian treaty, or the possible use of submarines as commerce-destroyers, has all the issues put before him with at least an attempt to settle them.  This service of the press to community education would be attempted, but it would not be successfully rendered, without the aid of the public library, for it has come to pass that the library is now almost the only non-partisan institution that we possess; and community education, to be effective, must be non-partisan.  The press is almost necessarily biassed.  The man who is prejudiced prefers the paper or the magazine that will cater to his prejudices, inflame them, cause him to think that they are reasoned results instead of prejudices.  If he keeps away from the public library he may succeed in blinding himself; if he uses it he can hardly do so.  He will find there not only his own side but all the others; if he has the ordinary curiosity that is our mortal heritage he cannot help glancing at the opinions of others occasionally.  No man is really educated who does not at least know that another side exists to the question on which he has already made up his mind—­or had it made up for him.

Further, no one is content to stop with the ordinary periodical literature.  The flood of books inspired by this war is one of the most astonishing things about it.  Most libraries are struggling to keep up with it in some degree.  Very few of these books would be within the reach of most of us were it not for the library.