Secretary of the Milwaukee Board of Education, and Secretary of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, Mr. Legler was already well versed in official service when chosen Librarian of the Chicago Public Library. He had declined several offers of important posts before that time, because the work he would give called for perfect freedom to work out the problems as he saw them. Wisconsin had given him this freedom. Chicago promised it—and kept her promise. There was sufficient prestige within the Chicago Public Library to warrant respect for, and liberal support of, its work, but the public estimate of this prestige was lacking. Other large cities possess this estimate in varying degree. Chicago—not its library—had fallen behind.
The effect of Mr. Legler's presence in Chicago has been most fortunate for all concerned. He took his place in public affairs naturally and effectively. The library's prestige grew in public recognition as the work of himself and his associates progressed. He gave all—and they accepted all, naturally and easily. But the giving and taking required all his bodily strength. He knew that an easier life was possible, but his humanity could not accept the easier form, and so the strength gave out.
But the spirit remains. Mr. Legler gave valuable contributions to historical investigation and to literary criticism, and he has published notable contributions to the elucidation of American forms of life. His contributions to library science and the art of books have been in part collected in the volume herewith presented. The main purpose in collecting them in the present form is to convey their purposes to the friends who like to remember the mind out of which they grew—and to perpetuate to others a memory of that burning zeal, that aspiring enthusiasm, that radical idealism, which animated Mr. Legler in choosing the library as the place where true humanism may be fostered and American enlightenment may flourish.
"Whatever began in the course of time—if of the Spirit of Truth and Love, it will be in time completed."
J. Christian Bay.
THE PROBLEM OF THE CITIES
