The Wrangell sentinel., 1921-09-08
I. (. Ravens Tells of Public Library
 Advantages.
Appeals to Wrangell Boost CTS to Get Together. Form Clubs and Make Intellec- tual Opportunities.

will see dog trotting back and forth toting a stick.
 Go into the homes and business places and you will find humans just as busily engaged with bits of spotted cardboards or hopping about the floor, two by two. This is not intended as a criticism of cards, or dancing or stick-toting. As a pastime they are perfectly alright. Tote a stick, play cards or dance, just as you like, and be. tween them is not much choice. One will get you as far along the roadway of life as the others. But, when these things get such control of your lives that you have no time for any other or higher form of enjoyment, then it's time to sit up and take stock of your selves.
 What am 1 driving at? Simply this: You are all so deeply en- grossed in your stick totings that you are unable to see and take advantage of the one big chance that has come to you-the oppor- tunity to have library and read ing room in Wrangell.
 Juneau has given you that op- portunity by shipping you several hundred books. You simply placed those books in storage and went on with your stick -toting, and so far as l have been able to ascertain, the whole matter of starting a library has been al lowed to lapse into what Grover Cleveland once described as "a state of innocuous desuetude."
 To recount here the value of and enjoyment to be found in good books would be superfuous and an insult to your intelligence. You know and I know that real books have been a big factor, - 1 might almost say the biggest factor in our modern advance ment. They teach men to think and thinking, they dream, and their dreams come true in beau tiful traceries against the sky of fanes and spires and minarets; wonderful webs of steel that span the stream; in ships and motor cars; in wireless and sub- marines; in airplanes with their frames of tough Alaska spruce and innumerable other man. created wonders.
 You go down to the wharf with a great fanfare to greet some parsonage with a cheap passing notoriety and then turn down the opportunity to associate in chum- my intimacy with all the great men and women who have lived, loved and passed on since ever the world began.
 To those who, like myself, have already passed life's monday and are now slipping down through the afternoon toward eventide, these things are perhaps not so very important. But to those who are just facing the dawn or are still in the early morning hours they are very vital indeed.
 So far WrangelI has been a community unto itself and the things you have have been suffi- cient. But that day is passing. The development of your great resources is bound to bring here in increasing numbers each year people of greater and still greater mental ability. You know and 1 know that in the final analysis brain is the one thing that always brings the big success and you must realize that your young peo- pie unless better equipped. will be left behind in the race.
 Wrangell today is in appear. ance the super-city of Alaska and you can make that appearance a reality if you will.
 So far this article has been all criticism. Criticism without an accompanying constructive idea is seldom wise and often danger ous. Here is a constructive idea:
 You have a fine city hall that is so seldom used it actually looks lonesome. Fitted with shelves full of good books, with tables full of magazines and newspapers