Adjourned.
FOURTH GENERAL SESSION
(Thursday morning, June 26, 1913)
The PRESIDENT: We begin this morning the fourth session of this Thirty-fifth Annual Conference and I shall ask the chairman of the Committee on Library Administration to submit at this time his report.
(Dr. Bostwick here read the report.)
The PRESIDENT: You have heard the report of the Committee on Administration. This report embodies some recommendations which it seems to the Chair should be acted upon. Therefore the recommendation which suggests the appointment of a committee to undertake certain work will be referred to the Executive Board for their attention, as, in accordance with the terms of the Constitution, it devolves upon the Executive Board to name the committees. The report will be printed in the proceedings.
(This report is printed with other committee reports. See page [126].)
Mr. RANCK: Mr. President, there is just one item, about questionnaires, if I may have a moment to state it, that I think the committee has not referred to. It is a matter of some importance to us at our library. I think we answer, in the form of questions of one kind or other, not all from libraries however, about a thousand a year. I should like to insist on the importance, when a blank is sent out on which spaces are left for writing in the answers, that a duplicate be sent so that a library can keep a copy of the answers sent. Again and again we have to copy them because we feel it very important that we should know just exactly what we are sending out in that way. And if possible, in the printing of that report I should like to see the committee include that, if they are willing to accept the suggestion.
The PRESIDENT: The suggestion is a very good one.
The PRESIDENT: I feel like congratulating you this morning upon the program for this fourth session, the general theme being: "Children and young people; their conditions at home, in the school and in the library." No matter how splendid a structure may be reared nor how beautiful it may be, without an adequate foundation it is most insecure. We have learned to realize in library work that we must begin at the beginning if our work is to have any perpetuity or any permanent result. We feel that, splendid and admirable in every way as the work with the adults is, that that alone is not enough. That work invites, as it deserves, our respect and admiration, but in the work with children is centered our affection. And when I say this I do not mean to intimate for one moment that that work is enveloped in sentiment. I believe most firmly that the work with children is constructive work of the very highest order. If there are any in this audience who doubt that I am sure that after we shall have heard the papers of this morning the doubts will be dispelled. We shall have this work in three volumes this morning, the first volume comprising two chapters. The title of the first volume is The Education of Children and the Conservation of their Interests, and Chapter One will be contributed by Miss FAITH E. SMITH, of the Chicago public library, on