"Oh, I suppose he has been a bad boy now and then"

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I observed in your catalogue that all the cards on military science were as crisp and clean as could be, while those on sex were so thumbed as to be positively grubby, with the corners so curled up that they were already offering themselves to the next eager and smutty fingers that would reach for them, of which apparently there are not a few who go to this school. I particularly wish to draw to your attention that all these military books are readily available to the student - scarcely more than two or three in the whole lot bearing that little sign which means that the book is locked up in your Special Collections. Among the sex books almost every second or third card bore that mark, and many of those that didn't were either in French or German and thus may be safely left on the open shelves. It is as if your library were saying: 'Read these! Don't read those!' in spite of which your students were doing just the reverse. Then ask yourself this: have you ever seen a military book that was censored, or denied to youth. Have you ever seen a military book that had to resort to asterisks to cover up certain unprintable phrases? Or any military book that had to take refuge in Latin so that the less learned would not be exposed to shock? Do you know of a single book dealer who has ever had to go to court to defend himself on the charge of selling a military book? Perhaps in that great day when we really beat our swords into ploughshares, you librarians will put your military books in Special Collections and your sex books on the open shelves. All except the Marquis de Sade's works, that man's books will always be too shocking. I wouldn't want my children to attend a school where such books were readily accessible.