Page:The small library. A guide to the collection and care of books (IA smalllibraryguid00browiala).pdf/65



of the most important varieties of the Small Library which has remained practically undeveloped in the United Kingdom, is the School Library, which is sometimes looked upon as a plaything, sometimes as an unnecessary adjunct to educational work. In the United States great progress has been made in the co-ordination of school and municipal library work, but even in that land of unlimited resources, the school library is not such an intimate and useful factor in the life of the average scholar as it might be made. But there is a vast difference in the methods and aims of the two countries in all that concerns school libraries. In the United Kingdom we have a series of isolated, and more or less successful, experiments, which are not recognized by any central educational authority, and not, it must be admitted, directed towards any specific or well-defined end. In America, the school library movement is in touch with both the State and Federal authorities, while in many cases, the sympathies of the Municipal authorities are enlisted as well. The library 55