RURAL AMERICA 



Some states desire to emphasize the county as a unit and to 

 adapt all libraries organized under other laws to the county 

 system. Others make the township the predominating unit 

 and strive to bring library privileges to all the people of the 

 state through township extension. Finally, a number of states 

 make the municipality the library center and bend every effort 

 to reach as many of the people as possible from the town and 

 city. 



Recent experience reveals that, of the library laws thus far 

 enacted, the county law seems to provide best for the exten- 

 sion of library privileges to all the people. And a careful 

 study of library movements of the country indicates that if 

 all the people are to be reached in the matter of library serv- 

 ice, the county should be made the unit in library legislation. 

 States which emphasize the other library laws mentioned 

 are doing excellent work, but in none of these states is it 

 likely that all the people will enjoy library privileges to the 

 extent that would be possible under a county law. 



Andrew Carnegie has asked Dr. P. P. Claxton, United 

 States Commissioner of Education, to work out for him a 

 plan for the establishment of county libraries throughout the 

 country. So it is possible that the great library friend of the 

 people will, as the crowning act of his life, provide with 

 library privileges through the establishment of county libraries 

 all the people of Rural America who desire such institutions. 



It might be stated here by way of conclusion that a hasty 

 study of the library legislation of the country covering the 

 past twelve or fourteen years reveals several interesting facts : 



(1) A tendency to make state libraries more serviceable. 



(2) A gradual increase in the number of state library com- 



missions and in the appropriations for their work. 



(3) The passage of many measures that place on a more 



substantial basis hundreds of the libraries of the 

 country organized under county, township and 

 municipal library laws. 



(4) The gathering of greater and greater momentum from 



year to year of the rural extension library movement. 



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