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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/33494-8.txt b/33494-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5041ee8 --- /dev/null +++ b/33494-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17700 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Library and Society, by Various, Edited +by Arthur Elmore Bostwick + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Library and Society + Reprints of Papers and Addresses + + +Author: Various + +Editor: Arthur Elmore Bostwick + +Release Date: August 22, 2010 [eBook #33494] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY*** + + +E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Christine D., and the +Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Classics of American Librarianship + +Edited by + +ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Ph. D. + +THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY + +Reprints of Papers and Addresses + +With Notes by ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Ph. D. + + + + + + + +New York +The H. W. Wilson Company +London: Grafton & Company +1920 + +Published, January, 1921 + + + + +PREFACE + + +It may be desirable to repeat here the warning that the word "classics" +in the title of this series is to be understood as meaning early and +standard expressions of ideas that have later developed into prominence. +The papers and addresses in this volume have been chosen especially with +this in view, and as they emphasize social relations an effort has been +made to include expressions from men of eminence whose names would not +probably occur to the student of library economy as having expressed an +opinion about the work of libraries or as having influenced it in any +permanent way. + +I desire to acknowledge the kindly assistance rendered in the selection +and grouping of the articles by Mrs. Gertrude Gilbert Drury, chief +instructor in the St. Louis Library School. It has been most valuable. + +The original suggestion of this volume, and of the character of its +contents, I owe to Dr. James I. Wyer, Jr., Director of the New York +State Library. + + ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PREFACE 5 + + THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY 13 + + GENERAL COMMUNITY RELATIONS 15 + + The Historical Evolution of the Free Public Library in + America and Its True Function in the Community; Dedication + Address at Sage Library. (_Library Journal_, 1884, + p. 40) 17 + MOSES COIT TYLER. + + The Library as a Field for Philanthropy. (Extract from + "The Best Fields for Philanthropy," _North American + Review_, December, 1889.) 33 + ANDREW CARNEGIE. + + The Idea of a Popular Library. ("Life, Letters, and Journals," + Vol. 2, 1851.) 49 + GEORGE TICKNOR. + + The Function of a Town Library. ("Protection of Majorities,") + 1875 55 + JOSIAH P. QUINCY. + + + The Free Public Library. (Extract from "Men and Women," + 1888.) 63 + THOMAS W. HIGGINSON. + + Two Fundamentals. (_Library Journal_, 1896, p. 446.) 67 + MARY SALOME CUTLER. + + What a Library Should Be, and What It Can Do. (_Public + Libraries_, 1899, p. 269.) 75 + MELVIL DEWEY + + The Public Library in American Life. (_Library Journal_, + 1905, p. 925.) 79 + HUGO MUNSTERBERG. + + Books and the Public Library; Dedication Address of Chelsea + Library. (_Library Journal_, 1886, p. 10.) 87 + JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. + + The Influence of Good Books; Dedication Address, Spencer + Library, Mass. (_Library Journal_, 1889, p. 380.) 101 + ROBERT COLLYER. + + Books and Life. (_Library Journal_, 1906, p. 203.) 109 + EDWARD ASAHEL BIRGE. + + Address at the Dedication of the Boston Public Library. + ("Orations and Speeches", Boston, 1859; Vol. III.) 127 + EDWARD EVERETT. + + Address at a Meeting in Favor of the New York Free Circulating + Library. (_Library Journal_, 1890, p. 107.) 139 + GROVER CLEVELAND. + + Addresses at the Opening of the Wadsworth Athenĉum Library, + Hartford, Conn. (_Library Journal_, 1893, p. 18.) 145 + CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. + CHARLES HOPKINS CLARK. + + Libraries as Leaven; Dedication address, Madison Public + Library. (_American Bibliopolist_, 1875, p. 189.) 149 + JAMES DAVIE BUTLER. + + The Free Public Library. (_American Magazine of Civics_, + 1895, p. 469.) 169 + HENRY HERVEY BARBER. + + + THE COMMUNITY'S SERVICE TO THE LIBRARY 183 + + The Relation of the State to the Public Library. (_Transactions + of the Second International Library Conference_, + London, 1898, p. 19.) 185 + MELVIL DEWEY. + + Methods of Securing the Interest of a Community. (_Library + Journal_, 1880, p. 245.) 193 + WILLIAM EATON FOSTER. + + + FINANCIAL SUPPORT 199 + + Free Libraries: An Argument against Public Support. + ("A Plea for Liberty," ed. by Thos. Mackay, 3rd ed., + London, 1894, p. 260.) 201 + M.D. O'BRIEN. + + Arguments for Public Support of Public Libraries: a Rejoinder + to the Foregoing. (_Library Journal_, 1891, p. 39, + Conference No.) 215 + WILLIAM EATON FOSTER. + + Public Libraries and the Public, with Special References to + San Francisco. (_Library Journal_, 1885, p. 223.) 231 + FREDERIC BEECHER PERKINS. + + The Levy of Library Tribute; Presidential Address to the + A.L.A. (_Library Journal_, 1895, Conference No., p. 1.) 243 + HENRY MUNSON UTLEY. + + + ALTERNATIVES TO TAX SUPPORT 251 + + If Not a Tax-Supported Library--What? (_Iowa Library + Quarterly_, April, 1903, p. 21.) 253 + ANONYMOUS. + + Cooperation Between Library and Community. (University + of New York, Home Education Bulletin 31, p. 131.) 257 + M. ANNA TARBELL. + + + BOARDS OF TRUSTEES 265 + + Library Work from the Trustees' Standpoint. (_Library Journal_, + 1890, Conference No., p. 23.) 267 + JOHN CALVIN LEARNED. + + Trustees of Free Public Libraries. (_Library Journal_, 1890, + Conference No., p. 19.) 271 + CHARLES CARROLL SOULE. + + Duties of Trustees and Their Relations to Libraries. (_Library + Journal_, 1890, Conference No., p. 24.) 279 + SAMUEL SWETT GREEN. + + + THE LIBRARY'S SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY 285 + + Some Popular Objections to Public Libraries. (_Library + Journal_, 1876, p. 45.) 287 + WILLIAM FREDERICK POOLE. + + How to Use a Library: Addresses at Pittsfield, Mass. (_Library + Journal_, 1884, p. 25.) 297 + JAMES MASCARENE HUBBARD. + + Adaptation of Libraries to Constituencies; World's Library + Congress, Chicago Exposition. (Education Bureau Report, + Chap. IX., Part II, p. 658, 1892-93.) 307 + SAMUEL SWETT GREEN. + + Relation of Free Public Libraries to the Community. (_North + American Review_, 1898, p. 660.) 315 + HERBERT PUTNAM. + + The Public Library: Its Uses to the Municipality. (_Library + Journal_, 1903, p. 293.) 329 + JOHN SHAW BILLINGS. + + The Library: a Plea for Its Recognition. (International + Congress of Arts and Science, St. Louis Exposition. + _Library Journal_, 1904, Conference No., p. 1.) 333 + FREDERICK MORGAN CRUNDEN. + + The Library as a Factor in Modern Civilization. (_Library + Journal_, 1906, Conference No., p. 18.) 343 + WILLIAM HERBERT PERRY FAUNCE. + + + THE PROVISION OF BOOKS 349 + + The Librarian and His Constituents. (_Library Journal_, + 1886, p. 229.) 351 + REUBEN BROOKS POOLE. + + The Usefulness of Libraries in Small Towns. (_Library + Journal_, 1883, p. 227.) 359 + THERESA HUBBELL WEST. + + Address at the Dedication of the University of Pennsylvania + Library. (_Library Journal_, 1891, p. 108.) 365 + TALCOTT WILLIAMS. + + + COLLECTION OF INFORMATION 379 + + Libraries As Bureaus of Information. (_Library Journal_, + 1896, p. 324.) 381 + SAMUEL SWETT GREEN. + + The Library Friend. (_Library Journal_, 1901, p. 197.) 387 + WINIFRED LOUISE TAYLOR. + + + CONTROL AND GUIDANCE OF READING 395 + + Probable Intellectual and Moral Outcome of the Rapid Increase + of Public Libraries. (_Library Journal_, 1885, p. + 234.) 397 + BRADFORD KINNEY PIERCE. + + Possibilities of Public Libraries in Manufacturing Communities. + (_Library Journal_, 1887, p. 395.) 401 + MINERVA AMANDA SANDERS. + + Presidential Address, Lake Placid Conference. (_Library + Journal_, 1894, Conference No., p. 1.) 411 + JOSEPH NELSON LARNED. + + The Library as an Inspirational Force. (_Public Libraries_, + 1899, p. 102.) 419 + SAM WALTER FOSS. + + The Use of the Public Library; Ryerson Library Dedication + Address. (_Library Journal_, 1904, p. 592.) 425 + JAMES BURRILL ANGELL. + + + COMMUNITY CENTER SERVICE 431 + + The Library as a Social Centre. (_Public Libraries_, 1906, + p. 5.) 433 + GRATIA ALTA COUNTRYMAN. + + The Library and the Social Centre. (_Wisconsin Library + Bulletin_, 1911, p. 84.) 439 + LUTIE EUGENIA STEARNS. + + Where Neighbors Meet. (From St. Louis Public Library + report, 1916-17.) 443 + MARGERY CLOSEY QUIGLEY. + + What of the Future? (_Library Journal_, 1897, Conference + No., p. 5.) 453 + FREDERICK MORGAN CRUNDEN. + + INDEX 459 + + + + +THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY + + + Recent progress in all directions--political, educational, + industrial, hygienic--has been marked by the growth and + strengthening of a social consciousness. It is this chiefly + that has differentiated the modern library from its + predecessors and has made prominent our present insistence + on the reader as well as the book, as a fundamental element + in what we are doing. At first evident only in a general and + somewhat vague recognition, by writers and speakers, of a + vital relation between libraries and the communities that + they serve, it later crystallized into definite discussions + of their reciprocal service--that of the community to the + library, consisting of financial, material and moral support + expressing itself partly in the appointment of adequate + boards of trustees and their proper backing, and that of the + library to the community, showing itself largely in the + provision of books, the collection of information, the + control and guidance of reading, and so-called + "community-centre" service. These facts have guided the + grouping and sequence of the papers and addresses that make + up the present volume. The authors, it will be noticed, + include more statesmen, publicists, and professional men, + and fewer librarians, than was the case with the two + previous volumes, thus reflecting the greater generality and + wider interest of the subject. + + + + +GENERAL COMMUNITY RELATIONS + + + In the following group have been included papers and + addresses largely by publicists or educators interested in + libraries from the general civic standpoint, and affected by + the general trend toward what has been termed here + "socialization." They have been loosely arranged in three + groups--general ideas on the field, function and + possibilities of the library, papers on books and their + uses, as affected or promoted by the library, and general + addresses, chiefly at the opening of library buildings. + Within these groups they are given in general in their + chronological order, although with some exceptions whose + purpose will be self evident. Through them all runs the + thread of consciousness that service to the community must + be the primary object of the library, although the breadth + and extent of that service, as it was destined later to grow + and develop is not generally realized and in some cases + doubtless would have been deprecated by the writers or + speakers, could they have foreseen it. But in all these + pronouncements we may clearly see the dawning light of a new + library day. + + + + + THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN + AMERICA AND ITS TRUE FUNCTION IN THE COMMUNITY + + + This comprehensive sketch, by Professor Tyler of Cornell + University, forms part of an address delivered at the + dedication of the Sage Library, at West Bay City, Michigan, + Jan. 16, 1884. + + Moses Coit Tyler was born in Griswold, Conn., Aug. 2, 1835 + and graduated at Yale in 1857. He was professor of English + at Michigan University in 1867-81 and from the latter year + to his death, Dec. 28, 1900, held the chair of American + History at Cornell. + + In this address, Prof. Tyler has added to his equipment as a + philosophical historian his personal knowledge and + experience of the service that a properly administered + collection of books may render to a community. + +Looking over the entire course of American society, from its rough and +hardy beginning, in the first years of the 17th century, I find six +distinct stages of development with reference to the possession and use +of books by the people. The first stage is that of private libraries; +the second is that of special institutional libraries, like those of +colleges and other learned corporations, and intended for a limited and +rather scholastic class in the community; the third is that of +association or joint stock libraries, _i.e._, libraries of a more +miscellaneous and general character, but for the use only of those whose +names are on the subscription list; the fourth is that of common school +libraries; the fifth is that of endowed libraries, _i.e._, public +libraries founded and sustained entirely by private endowment and thrown +open to the public without any cost whatever to the public; and finally, +the sixth is that of free public libraries created, it may be, by +private benefaction, but sustained in part at least at the public cost, +_i.e._, uniting the two elements of private help and public selfhelp, +and cherished by the public only as people will cherish that which costs +them something, and of which they have some sense of real ownership. + +But before proceeding to inspect these successive forms of library +evolution, the fact should be distinctly brought out as applicable to +them all, that the American people started on their career in this +country with an uncommon interest in books; and say what one will about +American philistinism and American devotion to the practical, this +people have always retained that ancient and primitive homage for books. +To an extent, I think, unapproached elsewhere, they are, and they always +have been, a bookish people. In some other nations there is, +undoubtedly, a larger leisurely class; and among persons of that class +there is a profounder and more extensive contact with books than is the +case with us. But while among most other nations, the craving for books +is the propensity of one class, with us it may be fairly described as +the propensity of all classes. A certain tincture of bookishness has +pervaded the American people from the beginning. Perhaps the most +decided quality of American civilization has been its effort to unite +the practical with the ideal; its passion for material results ennobled +by the intellectual and the spiritual; its fine reverence for +studiousness, even amid the persistent fury of dollar-hunting. + +And not only was this bookish trait visible in our colonial infancy but +it may be said to have had an ante-natal origin. The two Englishmen who +in the latter half of the 16th century did most to make possible the +birth of American civilization in the first half of the 17th, were Sir +Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh; and both were men possessed by +this large zest for ideas as well as for deeds; both were contemplative +men as well as active men. The last glimpse that any surviving mortal +had of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, before his ship went down in the sea, was +of that stern hero sitting calmly on the deck, with a book in his hand, +cheering his companions by telling them that heaven is as near by water +as by land; and the last labor of Sir Walter Raleigh, before his +judicial murder in the Tower, was to write one of the learnedest and +stateliest books to be met with in the literature of modern men. + +And this flavor of bookishness which belonged to these two great +pioneers and martyrs of American colonization, seems to have passed on +to the men who successfully executed the grand project in which they had +failed. When you run your eyes along the sturdy list of the great +colony-founders of the 17th century--the men who carried out the fierce +task of conveying English civilization across the Atlantic, and of +making it take root and live in this wild soil--Captain John Smith, and +William Bradford, and Winslow, and Robert Cushman, and the Winthrops, +and Dudley, and Hooker, and Davenport, and Roger Williams, and William +Penn, you will find them all, in some special sense, lovers of books, +collectors of books, readers of books, even writers of books. + +And what is true of the leaders of that great act of national +transmigration is true also of the men of less note who followed in it. +The first American immigrants were reading immigrants--immigrants who +brought in their hands not only axes and shovels, but books. Their +coming hither was due to the restlessness inflicted by the possession of +ideas. Books were to them a necessary part of the outfit for the voyage +and the settlement. And so rare and so precious were books in those days +that they were cherished as family treasures, and handed down as +heirlooms; nay, they were so dealt with in wills and in contracts as if +they rose almost to the dignity of real estate. In fact, in those days, +the possession of an unusual number of books, with the reputation of +using them, constituted a sort of patent of gentility, and seemed to +bridge the chasm between the most widely separated classes in society; +as when, in 1724, a young mechanic, named Benjamin Franklin, arriving in +New York on a sloop from Newport, is invited to the house of the +Governor of New York and is honored by him with a long and friendly +interview, for no other reason than that the captain of the sloop had +told the governor of a lad on his vessel who had with him "a great many +books." "The governor received me," says Franklin in his autobiography +"with great civility, showed me his library, which was a considerable +one, and we had a good deal of conversation relative to books and +authors. This was the second governor who had done me the honor to take +notice of me, and for a poor boy, like me, it was very pleasing." So I +think I am justified in saying that we started on our career as a people +with this underlying intellectual quality--a pretty general respect for +books, love for them, habit of using them; and this is the impelling +moral force which prompts to the several efforts which society has made +for providing itself with books. Now, the first stage in the process of +library evolution--and I have called it that of private libraries--was +the prevailing condition of the American colonies during the whole of +the 17th century and the first third of the 18th. This is the picture: +Everywhere books, but few, costly, portly, solemn, revered, read over +and over again; every respectable family, however poor, having at least +a few hereditary treasures in the form of books, as in that of silver +and choice furniture; and here and there up and down the colonies, an +occasional luminous spot, drawing to itself the wide-eyed wonder of the +surrounding inhabitants, the seat of a great private library, belonging +to some country gentleman, or clergyman, or publicist, like that of +Colonel William Bird, of Westover, or of the Reverend James Blair, of +Williamsburg, or of Dr. Cotton Mather, of Boston, or of James Logan, of +Philadelphia, or of Cadwallader Colden, of New York. + +This is the first stage of library evolution. And, of course, it has its +pleasant aspects; but surely there is here no adequate provision for the +intellectual wants of the entire community. Very few persons in any +community are rich enough to buy and own all the books they ought to +have access to; and the existence of great private libraries in a few +wealthy households can no more supply this general need of books than +the great private dinners which are given in the same households can +keep the entire community from going hungry. + +Accordingly, the second stage in the evolution of libraries is away +from mere private ownership and use, and is toward complete public +ownership and use; but it stops far this side of it; it is the stage of +special scholastic libraries, collected by colleges and other learned +corporations, and intended for the particular use of the learned +class--students, investigators, and specialists. The earliest library of +that sort ever formed in this country was begun at Harvard College in +1638; near the close of the 17th century, another was begun at William +and Mary College, and still another at Yale; thenceforward, and +especially during the past eighty years, such libraries have been +multiplying in the land, so that at the present moment there are more +than three hundred of them, and a few of them are now really vast +library collections. The value of these libraries--who can doubt? Yet +their direct value is only for a class; they are scholars' libraries, +not people's libraries. This will not suffice; society cannot rest +satisfied, and will not rest satisfied until everywhere good books for +all are placed within the reach of all. The complete popularization of +books is the goal. + +So we come to the third stage of library evolution--that of libraries +gathered and controlled by voluntary associations of people, _e.g._, +joint stock associations, but of course for the use only of those who +subscribe to them and share in the expense. + +Here we have a natural step forward; a goodly step; a step in the right +direction, but still not far enough. We shall all agree that this is the +strong and hearty modern method of doing difficult things--the method of +clubbing together to do something; it is self-reliant, social, +cooperative, mutually, helpful, What the individual cannot do alone a +club of individuals can do together. Thus the hardest and grandest +achievements of our time have been brought about--vast railroads, vast +manufacturing and commercial enterprises. And so men and women, who +could not singly get the books they wanted, have joined forces and have +got them by combination. + +It is a notable fact, however, that this third stage of library +evolution was not reached until more than a hundred years after the +first colonies had been settled. + +Many of you, doubtless, in wandering about Philadelphia--perhaps during +our great centennial visit to that city--may have noticed the venerable +building of the Philadelphia Library company, and in the walls of it an +old tablet with this inscription: "Be it remembered in honor of the +Philadelphia youth (then chiefly artificers) that, in 1731, they +cheerfully, at the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin, one of their number, +instituted the Philadelphia Library, which though small at first, is +become highly valuable and extensively useful, and which the walls of +this building are now destined to contain and preserve." Now, in +reality, that year 1731, when that first subscription library was +started in America, begins a new epoch in the intellectual life of the +American people, the epoch of systematic cooperation for the procurement +by the people of the great intellectual and spiritual boon of books. +Immense results have followed from that example set in 1731. Therefore, +let us stop a moment longer, and listen to Benjamin Franklin's own +account of the way in which he came to think of that capital project. +"At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania, there was not a good +bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. +Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from +England; the members of the Junto had each a few. We had left the +alehouse, where we first met, and hired a room to hold our club in. I +proposed that we should all of us bring our books to that room; where +they would not only be ready to consult in our conferences, but become a +common benefit, each of us being at liberty to borrow such as he wished +to read at home. This was accordingly done, and for some time contented +us. Finding the advantage of this little collection, I proposed to +render the benefit from the books more common by commencing a public +subscription library. I drew a sketch of the plan and rules that would +be necessary, and got a skilful conveyancer to put the whole in form of +articles of agreement to be subscribed; by which each subscriber engaged +to pay a certain sum down for the first purchase of the books and an +annual contribution for increasing them. So few were the readers at that +time in Philadelphia, and the majority of us so poor, that I was not +able with great industry to find more than fifty persons, mostly young +tradesmen, willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each and +ten shillings per annum. With this little fund we began. The books were +imported; the library was opened one day in the week for lending them to +the subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if +not duly returned. The institution soon manifested its utility, was +imitated by other towns and in other provinces. The libraries were +augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, +having no public amusements to divert their attention from study, became +better acquainted with books; and in a few years were observed by +strangers to be better instructed, and more intelligent, than people of +the same rank generally are in other countries." + +I think you will agree with me that this is a very striking bit of +testimony, too much so to permit us to hurry past it. Note these few +things about it. + +In the first place, that device of Franklin's, started in 1731--what +does it really signify in our history? It signifies this. It signifies a +new departure for mankind--the application of the democratic spirit to +the distribution of intellectual advantages. These things called +books--these bewitched and bewitching fabrics of paper and ink, which +somehow contain the accumulated thought of all nations and of all +centuries, and can communicate to us the noblest pleasures and the most +godlike powers--these potent things, in all the ages before, had been +accessible only to some few fortunate human beings--to a privileged +class--to rich men who wished them--to scholars who could win their way +to them--in short, to an aristocracy of intellectual privileges. But in +1731, by that modest device of Benjamin Franklin, the democratic +spirit--the modern humane spirit--the spirit which in its true nature is +a levelling spirit only in this grand sense that it levels upward and +not downward, and raises the general average of human intelligence and +felicity--this benign and mighty democratic spirit, I say, which was +then marching with gentle but invincible footsteps along all avenues and +pathways of modern life, and was laying its miraculous touch on church +and state, on kings and priests and peasants, on the laws and law-makers +and law-breakers, on all the old activities of society, on the old +adjustments of human relations, that spirit then began to touch this +relation also, the relation of man to the superb and royal realm of +books. And the first effect of that touch was what? It was enlargement, +liberalization, extension of intellectual opportunity for man simply as +man. Hitherto books had been the privilege of the privileged class. In +effect, Franklin says: They shall be so no more. In this year 1731 I set +agoing a device concerning books which shall abolish the privileged +class by making all classes privileged, and shall finally result in +placing the blessings of books within the reach of all. + +But, in the second place, in that year 1731, who was Franklin who did +all that, and who were the persons who helped to do it? He and they were +young men; obscure men, poor men, laboring men; mechanics and tradesmen +of the town where they lived; young men just getting a start in the +world. So this new era in the brain life of the American people had its +beginning with such as they were. Who of us, therefore, however modest +be our lot in life, has any right to say to himself, "I am not in +position to do anything for the advancement of my race"? Nay; my +brother, think of young Ben Franklin, the printer, and his 50 brother +mechanics; remember what they accomplished; and do not despair of being +useful in your time also. And in the third place, this movement came +from those young men associated together in a social debating club. It +was their experience in the actual discussion of the problems of human +thought which made them feel the need of books and suggested this great +measure for popularizing books: a fact which fits in well with Mr. +Sage's idea of blending the two things together here; of giving +perpetual house-room and hospitality to a debating club, here, in the +very midst of this library. And now the fourth point is, that the plan +started by Franklin and those other young mechanics in Philadelphia, in +1731, the plan of joint-stock library associations, worked so well there +that, as Franklin tells, it was taken up in other provinces. Naturally, +the new plan was adopted first in the towns where it was heard of +first--the towns nearest to Philadelphia. But before many years, the +news of it had travelled far, to the southward and the northward, and +whether consciously or unconsciously the model set up in Philadelphia, +was imitated, with more or less closeness, in scores of places far away. +One curious example springs up in South Carolina. It is in the +Georgetown district, then given to the growth of indigo. A number of the +planters came together and formed the Winyaw Indigo Society. Their chief +business was to have a pleasant time together and talk indigo; they paid +their initiation fees in indigo; they paid their annual dues in indigo; +and presently they found their treasury so full and overflowing with +indigo, that they resolved to devote their surplus in part to the +formation of the Indigo Society Library. Then, too, at about the same +time in Charleston, seventeen young men, of very limited means, desirous +of seeing the best and freshest English magazines, formed a club for +that purpose, and started with a fund of ten pounds sterling, not +venturing at first to hope to be able to purchase books also. Soon, +however, their plan grew and took in books; and from this small +beginning arose the great "Library Society" of Charleston, which has +ministered to the pleasure and benefit of the people of that place for +nearly a century and a half. + +But the Philadelphia plan travelled northward as well as southward. In +1747, at Newport, Rhode Island, was formed, also out of a discussion +club, the famous Redwood Library, which lives and flourishes still. In +1753 the Providence Library was started on the same general plan; in +1754, the New York Society Library; in 1760, the Social Library at +Salem, Massachusetts; in 1763, similar libraries at Lancaster and at +Portland, Maine; in 1753, a similar one at Hingham; and so on throughout +the country. + +One of the most curious of these joint-stock library associations was +one formed in 1751 in three parishes in the towns of York and Kittery, +Maine, and called the "Revolving Library." It was not a circulating +library--that being the name of a library from which the books circulate +singly and in units; but it was called a "revolving library" because the +entire library was to revolve, in bulk, on its own axes, in an orbit +including the parsonages of the three parishes embraced in the scheme. +And thus this library began to revolve from parsonage to parsonage more +than 130 years ago; and it has been revolving ever since, occasionally +encountering some queer experiences, as when, about 15 years ago, it was +found by the new pastor of Kittery Point in the garret of the parsonage, +"dumped down on the attic floor like a load of coal," the wife of the +former incumbent having had a prejudice against books for sanitary +reasons, "considering them unhealthy, and so being unwilling to have +them in any living room" where their presence might communicate diseases +to the family. + +This, of course, is a rather eccentric specimen of the class of +libraries now under view. A very good normal example of the class is +furnished us by the social library of Castine, Maine, organized in 1801; +and its articles of association I desire to read to you as exhibiting +the scope and spirit of this whole movement for supplying the public +with books through jointstock companies. The articles of association are +as follows: "It is proposed by the persons whose names are here +subjoined to establish a social library in this town. It is greatly to +be lamented that excellent abilities are not unfrequently doomed to +obscurity by reason of poverty; that the rich purchase almost everything +but books; and that reading has become so unfashionable an amusement in +what we are pleased to call this enlightened age and country. To remedy +these evils; to excite a fondness for books; to afford the most rational +and profitable amusement; to prevent idleness and immorality; and to +promote the diffusion of useful knowledge, piety, and virtue, at an +expense which small pecuniary abilities can afford, we are induced to +associate for the above purposes; and each agrees to pay for the number +of shares owned, and annexed to his name at $5 per share." + +The first public library in the north-west was established by an +association formed at Marietta, Ohio, in 1796. Then followed similar +libraries at Cincinnati, and at Ames, Athens County. The latter, which +was formed as early as 1802, had a curious origin. It was popularly +known as the "Coon-skin Library." The hardy pioneers of that township of +Ames met together, it seems, to consider the subject of roads; and, +having considered it, they proceeded to consider also the subject of +books--a fine illustration, I think, of the blending of the practical +and the ideal in the American character and in American civilization. +Here were these sturdy pioneers projecting a public library even before +they had got their public roads cut out and put in order. What is called +money hardly existed among them; but they knew how to shoot bears and to +catch coons and to take their skins, and these skins could be sent to +Boston and sold for cash, and the money invested in books. This +accordingly was done. The noted politician, Thomas Ewing, then a boy at +Ames, gives this account of the affair: "All my accumulated wealth, ten +coon-skins, went into the fund," the total amount of which proved to be +about $100. "Squire Sam Brown, of Sunday Creek, who was going to Boston, +was charged with the purchase. After an absence of many weeks, he +brought the books to Capt. Ben Brown's, in a sack on a pack-horse. I was +present at the untying of the sack and pouring out of the treasures. +There were about 60 volumes, I think, and well selected; the library of +the Vatican was nothing to it, and there never was a library better +read. This, with occasional additions, furnished me with reading while I +remained at home." + +That is the stuff of which strong men are made, and strong communities, +and mighty nations. And what was done at Marietta, and at Cincinnati, +and at Ames, was done in a multitude of other towns all over the +north-west. At Vincennes, Indiana, a library was started by similar +means in 1807; and one of the founders was Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison, the +hero of Tippecanoe and hard cider. That was the first public library +established in Indiana. + +So, too, in Michigan, far back in its territorial days, similar +libraries were formed, especially that of the Young Men's Society of +Detroit. But in Michigan, by far the greatest service in this direction +has been rendered more recently by the ladies, whose admirable library +associations in such towns as Ann Arbor, Flint, and Kalamazoo have done +much, especially during the past twenty years, for the literary +improvement and enjoyment of the people. + +But this third stage of library evolution, good and useful as it has +been during the past 150 years, has this defect: it does not offer books +freely to all who would like books; it is limited to those who +participate in its privileges by paying for them. + +Therefore society pushed forward into a fourth stage of evolution--one +still nearer to the grand object to be reached--the complete +popularization of books. This fourth stage was reached chiefly through a +new idea entering into the case, namely, the duty of the state to help +in providing books for the people who compose the state. The principle +is already admitted that the state must educate its citizens, and for +that purpose must sustain schools. For the same purpose, and on the same +principle, it must sustain libraries; for these are but an annex to +schools, and the books in them are only a part of the necessary +apparatus for public education. + +In this way was started the fourth plan, that of "district school +libraries," a plan which for a while was hailed with delight as a real +contribution to human progress and happiness; which was eagerly adopted +in this state and in many others; but which has, upon the whole, +resulted in failure. + +The State of New York has the honor of having started this plan, which +was first publicly advocated by Governor De Witt Clinton, in his message +for 1826. In 1838 General John A. Dix, then secretary of state, was +"charged with the execution of the law giving to the school districts +$55,000 a year to buy books for their libraries, and requiring them to +raise by taxation an equal amount for same purpose." The system was +received throughout the state with enthusiastic favor. In 1841 the +school libraries of the state reported the possession of 422,459 +volumes; in the following year, 200,000 volumes more; and in 1853 they +had reached the enormous number of 1,604,210 volumes. + +The plan as advocated in New York soon passed over into Massachusetts, +where it was taken up and advocated by Horace Mann, that noble-minded +and eloquent champion of popular enlightenment. Through his influence +the necessary law was passed in 1837, but the operation of the plan was +never very successful in that state, and after twelve years had resulted +in the accumulation of only 42,707 volumes. + +Michigan appears to have been abreast of Massachusetts in the adoption +of the plan of district school libraries, incorporating it into its +school law of 1837. + +After New York, Massachusetts, and Michigan, the several other states +which adopted this plan did so in the following order: Connecticut in +1839; Rhode Island and Iowa in 1840; Indiana in 1841; Maine in 1844; +Ohio in 1847; Wisconsin in 1848; Missouri in 1853; California and Oregon +in 1854; Illinois in 1855; Kansas and Virginia in 1870; New Jersey in +1871; Kentucky and Minnesota in 1873; and Colorado in 1876. + +These data will give you some idea of the wide extension of this fourth +stage in library evolution. Its merits are very great. Perhaps its +greatest merit is that it recognizes the true function of the public +library as a part of the system of public education, and therefore as +entitled to a share in public taxation. Moreover, it has undoubtedly +done a vast amount of good in placing the means of intellectual +improvement within the reach of millions of people of all ages; it has +stimulated the love of books and diffused knowledge and happiness. And +yet with all these merits, it has been a failure; and this is largely +due to just three defects in administration: + +1. Lack of care and wisdom in the selection of the books, resulting in +the acquisition of many volumes of trash and of profligacy. + +2. Lack of care as to the distribution and return of the books, +resulting in their rapid dispersion and disappearance. + +3. Lack of care in the preservation of the books that were not strayed +and stolen, resulting in their rapid deterioration. + +You have got to apply business principles to the handling of books, as +well as of any other material possessions. Libraries as well as sawmills +need to be dealt with according to common-sense and with efficiency. Now +upon the general failure of these libraries, let me quote for you a +little testimony. The superintendent of schools in New York State, in +1875, says: "The system has not worked well in this state.... The +libraries have fallen into disuse, and have become practically +valueless." [1 Pub. lib. of U.S., i. 41.] + +The superintendent for 1861 says that in "nearly every quarter of the +state," the libraries are "almost totally unused and rapidly +deteriorating." [2 Pub. Lib. of U.S. i. 40.] For 1862, the +superintendent gives a more detailed picture of the condition of the +school libraries. He finds them "mainly represented by a motley +collection of books, ranging from 'Headley's sacred mountains' to the +'Pirate's own book,' numbering in the aggregate a million and a half of +volumes, scattered among the various families, constituting a part of +the family library, or serving as toys for children in the nursery; ... +crowded into cupboards, thrown into cellars, stowed away in lofts, +exposed to the action of water, the sun, and of fire, or more frequently +locked away into darkness unrelieved and silence unbroken." [2 Pub. Lib. +of U.S. i. 40.] + +This graphic picture of the failure of the system in New York is perhaps +matched by a similar picture of its failure in Michigan, as drawn by our +superintendent of education in 1869: + +"The books were distributed to the districts by the town clerk to be +returned by the directors every third month for exchange. This would now +require more than 60,000 miles' travel per annum, at a positive expense +to the directors, certainly, of $100,000, to say nothing of more than +10,000 days' time. This was like putting two locomotives ahead of each +other to draw a hand-car. The result was the books were generally hidden +away in the clerks' offices, like monks in their cloister, and valueless +to the world. And what kind of books were they? Some good ones, +doubtless; but generally it was better to sow oats in the dust that +covered those books than to give them to the young to read. Every year, +soon after the taxes were collected, the state swarmed with pedlers, +with all the unsalable books of Eastern houses--the sensational novels +of all ages, tales of piracies, murders, and love intrigues--the +yellow-covered literature of the world." + +Finally, the superintendent for 1873 says: "The whole system seems to +have come into general disfavor; and is, more than any other feature of +our school system, the one of which we are least proud." + +Now we come to the fifth stage in the evolution of libraries--that of +libraries fully endowed by private generosity, and thrown open to the +public on such conditions as the founders have been pleased to indicate; +sometimes called patronymic libraries. Notable specimens of this class +of libraries are the Astor, Cooper, and Lenox Libraries, of New York, +and the Peabody Library, of Baltimore. The note of this species of +library is this: it is for the use of the public entirely without cost +to the public. In short, it is a library completely endowed, not only as +to the original expense of its erection and equipment, but absolutely +for all subsequent expense in its increase and administration. +Concerning this species of library, I have this to say: It is a noble +use to make of private wealth; it does immense good; but it is not the +best final form of library evolution. And for two reasons: first, the +man who will completely endow a free public library does not arise in +every community; whereas, every community needs a free public library. +And, second, the wholesomest kind of a gift is not that which does it +all for the community and requires no exertion or sacrifice on their +part; but that which gives the community a good generous start, but +still leaves something for the community to do for itself. In other +words, the healthiest sort of help, whether for one man or for ten +thousand, is that help which helps a man to help himself. + +And this brings us to the sixth and final form of library development. +It is the one which is the resultant of the two grand ideas; primarily, +the recognition of the free public library as an essential part of the +system of public education and therefore as a legitimate subject for +public taxation. This idea is essential to the most satisfactory form of +a public library--the public must invest something in it. But this idea +can adjust itself to that other noble one--private liberality in aid of +the public. + +And it is in this final and most consummate form, combining private +help with public selfhelp, that many of the most successful libraries in +this country have been organized; and yet it is only since 1848 that +such libraries have been possible. For it was in 1848 that the first +state in our Union, Massachusetts, passed an act authorizing a +municipality to tax itself for the support of a free public library. +Since then many other states have followed with similar legislation. So +that it is only within the past thirty-five years that this grand result +has been reached: the systematic popularization of books under the +direction of the municipality, partially at least at the public expense, +and often in combination with private benefaction. + +Now, it is this grand result that you have reached here in West Bay +City. The library which you to-day dedicate to the perpetual service of +the people, and which we may believe will continue as long as society +lasts here to do its serene and beneficient work for the instruction and +delight of innumerable generations of mankind--this library represents +the latest, and I think we may say the most perfect and the final term +in a process of library evolution, which has been going forward on this +continent for more than two hundred years, and has involved, as we have +seen, countless struggles and failures and sacrifices for the production +of this single result. + +Ladies and gentlemen, may I venture to express the hope that this study +which we have now made of the process--the slow, costly, laborious +process--by which this brilliant result has been made possible and easy +for you, in West Bay City, is something which will enhance even your +pleasure in the acquisition of this noble library as well as your +appreciation of the princely act of Mr. Sage in his creative relation to +it? + +I trust it may enhance also your feeling of responsibility for the +perpetual success of this library in the purposes for which it has been +formed. This library has been well organized; but the working of it will +depend upon you. It is on one side of it a business concern; and like +any other business concern it will go to wrack and ruin unless it is +conducted on sound business principles, accurate accounting, sharp +supervision, punctuality, system, order, promptitude, energy. + +But more than ordinary business qualities are needed to make this +library all that it should be. Recognize the true function of the free +public library; it is a part of a large system of public education. It +is but a co-ordinate department of that larger institution for public +education--the people's university--including the ward schools and the +high schools. Some of the fruitfullest and best work of those schools +will be done in this library. + +Then, too, the public library stands for the wholesome truth that +education is never finished and should not stop when one stops going to +school. The boy and the girl who graduate at the school do not desert +the library; they keep up and carry forward their intellectual training +by a post-graduate course in the public library, for the rest of their +lives. + +Furthermore, the free public library supplements the work of the free +public schools by reaching those whom the schools never reached at all, +or only reached very slightly. + +And that public library is never a complete success, in which is not +present in the officers a spirit of courtesy toward readers, of +sympathy, of cheerfulness, of patience, even of helpfulness. Don't +permit your library ever to be a dismal, bibliographical cave, in charge +of a dragon. Let it always be a bright and winsome place, hospitable to +all orderly people; a place where even those ill-informed about books +will not be made embarrassed, but encouraged. Let it be one of the most +attractive places in town; let it outshine in attractiveness the vulgar +and harmful attractions of the bar-room and the gambling den; let it +grow up into the best life of the community, a place resorted to by all, +loved by all, a blessing to all. + + + + +THE LIBRARY AS A FIELD FOR PHILANTHROPY + + + At a dinner given to Andrew Carnegie by the Authors' League + in New York, he said: "They say I am a philanthropist. I am + no such foolish fellow." Nevertheless, to the _North + American Review_ for December, 1889, he contributed an + article, entitled "The Best Fields for Philanthropy," in + which he gives the Library first place. It is of course + impossible to tell whether the title was his or a suggestion + of the editor. The extract printed here is interesting as + embodying Mr. Carnegie's gospel of "help by self-help," but + also as giving credit to Enoch Pratt of Baltimore as an + earlier exponent of it. + + Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, Nov. 25, + 1835. He was brought by his family to Pittsburgh, Pa. as a + boy of 13, and after working as a weaver's assistant and a + telegraph messenger boy, became an operator, rose to be head + of his division, made money by organizing a sleeping-car + company and after the Civil War became an ironmaster, + retiring in 1901 as a multi-millionaire. Much of his fortune + he gave to build libraries, almost always on the condition + that the municipality should assure them a stated support. + He died in New York, Aug. 11, 1919. + +The reception given to the first paper[1] upon this subject, to which +our lamented friend, the late editor and proprietor of this _Review_, +was pleased to give the first place in the June number, has been most +encouraging to its author, as it would surely have been to the editor +had he been spared, for he was most deeply interested in the subject. + +[1] "Wealth" by Andrew Carnegie. In the North American Review, June, +1889. + + * * * * * + +Before entering upon the question which you have proposed, it may be +advantageous to restate the positions taken in the former paper, for the +benefit of those who may not have read it, or who cannot conveniently +refer to it. It was assumed that the present laws of competition, +accumulation, and distribution are the best obtainable conditions; that +through these the race receives its most valuable fruits; and, +therefore, that they should be accepted and upheld. Under these it was +held that great wealth must inevitably flow into the hands of the few +exceptional managers of men. The question then arose, What should these +do with their surplus wealth? and the "Gospel of Wealth" contended that +surplus wealth should be considered as a sacred trust, to be +administered during the lives of its owners, by them as trustees, for +the best good of the community in which and from which it had been +acquired. + +It was pointed out that there were but three modes of disposing of +surplus wealth, and two of these were held to be improper. First, it was +held that to leave great fortunes to children did not prove true +affection for them or interest in their genuine good, regarded either as +individuals or as members of the state; that it was not the welfare of +the children, but the pride of the parents, which inspired enormous +legacies, and that, looking to the usual results of vast sums conferred +upon children, the thoughtful man must be forced to say, if the good of +the child only were considered: "I would as soon leave to my son a curse +as to leave to him the almighty dollar." + +The second mode open to men is to hoard their surplus wealth during +life, and leave it at death for public uses. It was pointed out that in +many cases these bequests become merely monuments of the testators' +folly; that the amount of real good done by posthumous gifts was +ridiculously disproportionate to the sums thus left. The recent decision +upon Mr. Tilden's will, which is said to have been drawn by the ablest +of lawyers, and the partial failure of Mr. Williamson's purposes in +regard to the great technical school which that millionaire intended to +establish in Philadelphia, are lessons indeed for the rich who only +bequeath. + +The aim of the first article was thus to lead up to the conclusion that +there is but one right mode of using enormous fortunes--namely, that the +possessors from time to time during their own lives so administer them +as to promote the permanent good of the communities from which they have +been gathered. It was held that public sentiment would soon say of one +who died possessed of millions of available wealth which he might have +administered: "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." + +The purpose of this article is to present some of the best methods of +performing this duty of administering surplus wealth for the good of the +people. The first requisite for a really good use of wealth by the +millionaire who has accepted the gospel which proclaims him only a +trustee of the surplus that comes to him, is to take care that the +purpose for which he spends it shall not have a degrading, pauperizing +tendency upon its recipients, and that his trust should be so +administered as to stimulate the best and most aspiring poor of the +community to further efforts for their own improvement. It is not the +irreclaimably destitute, shiftless, and worthless that it is truly +beneficial or truly benevolent to attempt to reach and improve. For +these there exists the refuge provided by the city or the state, where +they can be sheltered, fed, clothed, and kept in comfortable existence, +and--most important of all--where they can be isolated from the +well-doing and industrious poor, who are liable to be demoralized by +contact with these unfortunates. One man or woman who succeeds in living +comfortably by begging is more dangerous to society, and a greater +obstacle to the progress of humanity, than a score of wordy Socialists. +The individual administrator of surplus wealth has as his charge the +industrious and ambitious; not those who need everything done for them, +but those who, being most anxious and able to help themselves, deserve +and will be benefited by help from others and the extension of their +opportunities at the hands of the philanthropic rich. + +It is ever to be remembered that one of the chief obstacles which the +philanthropist meets in his efforts to do real and permanent good in +this world is the practice of indiscriminate giving; and the duty of the +millionaire is to resolve to cease giving to objects that are not proved +clearly to his satisfaction to be deserving. He must remember Mr. Rice's +belief, that nine hundred and fifty out of every thousand dollars +bestowed to-day upon so-called charity had better be thrown into the +sea. As far as my experience of the wealthy extends, it is unnecessary +to urge them to give of their superabundance in charity so-called. +Greater good for the race is to be achieved by inducing them to cease +impulsive and injurious giving. As a rule, the sins of millionaires in +this respect are not those of omission, but of commission, because they +will not take time to think, and chiefly because it is much easier to +give than to refuse. Those who have surplus wealth give millions every +year which produce more evil than good, and which really retard the +progress of the people, because most of the forms in vogue to-day for +benefiting mankind only tend to spread among the poor a spirit of +dependence upon alms, when what is essential for progress is that they +should be inspired to depend upon their own exertions. The miser +millionaire who hoards his wealth does less injury to society than the +careless millionaire who squanders his unwisely, even if he does so +under cover of the mantle of sacred charity. The man who gives to the +individual beggar commits a grave offence, but there are many societies +and institutions soliciting alms which it is none the less injurious to +the community to aid. These are as corrupting as individual beggars. +Plutarch's "Morals" contains this lesson: "A beggar asking an alms of a +Lacedaemonian, he said: 'Well, should I give thee anything, thou wilt be +the greater beggar, for he that first gave thee money made thee idle, +and is the cause of this base and dishonorable way of living.'" As I +know them, there are few millionaires, very few indeed, who are clear of +this sin of having made beggars. + +Bearing in mind these considerations, let us endeavor to present some of +the best uses to which a millionaire can devote the surplus of which he +should regard himself as only the trustee. + +_First_--Standing apart by itself there is the founding of a university +by men enormously rich, such men as must necessarily be few in any +country. Perhaps the greatest sum ever given by an individual for any +purpose is the gift of Senator Stanford, who undertakes to establish +upon the Pacific coast, where he amassed his enormous fortune, a +complete university, which is said to involve the expenditure of ten +millions of dollars, and upon which he may be expected to bestow twenty +millions of his surplus. He is to be envied. A thousand years hence some +orator, speaking his praise upon the then crowded shores of the Pacific, +may repeat Griffith's eulogy of Wolsey, "In bestowing he was most +princely: ever witness for him this great seat of learning." Here is a +noble use of wealth. + +We have many such institutions, Hopkins, Cornell, Packer, and others, +but most of these have only been bequeathed, and it is impossible to +extol any man greatly for simply leaving what he cannot take with him. +Cooper, and Pratt, and Stanford, and others of this class deserve credit +and the admiration of their fellows as much for the time and the +attention given during their lives, as for their expenditure, upon their +respective monuments. + +We cannot have the Pacific coast in mind without recalling another +important work of a different character which has recently been +established there, the Lick Observatory. If any millionaire be +interested in the ennobling study of astronomy,--and there should be and +would be such if they but gave the subject the slightest +attention,--here is an example which could well be followed, for the +progress made in astronomical instruments and appliances is so great and +continuous that every few years a new telescope might be judiciously +given to one of the observatories upon this continent, the last being +always the largest and the best, and certain to carry further and +further the knowledge of the universe and of our relation to it here +upon the earth. As one among many of the good deeds of the late Mr. +Thaw, of Pittsburg, his constant support of the observatory there may be +mentioned. This observatory enabled Professor Langley to make his +wonderful discoveries. The professor is now at the head of the +Smithsonian Institution, a worthy successor to Professor Henry. +Connected with him was Mr. Brashear, of Pittsburg, whose instruments are +in most of the principal observatories of the world. He was a common +millwright, but Mr. Thaw recognized his genius and was his main support +through trying days. This common workman has been made a professor by +one of the foremost scientific bodies of the world. In applying part of +his surplus in aiding these two now famous men, the millionaire Thaw did +a noble work. Their joint labors have brought great, and are destined to +bring still greater, credit upon their country in every scientific +centre throughout the world. + +It is reserved for very few to found universities, and, indeed, the use +for many, or perhaps any, new universities does not exist. More good is +henceforth to be accomplished by adding to and extending those in +existence. But in this department a wide field remains for the +millionaire as distinguished from the Croesus among milionaires. The +gifts to Yale University have been many, but there is plenty of room for +others. The School of Fine Arts, founded by Mr. Street, the Sheffield +Scientific School, endowed by Mr. Sheffield, and Professor Loomis's fund +for the observatory, are fine examples. Mrs. C.J. Osborne's building for +reading and recitation to be regarded with especial pleasure as being +the wise gift of a woman. Harvard University has not been forgotten; the +Peabody Museum, and the halls of Wells, Matthews, and Thayer may be +cited. Sever Hall is worthy of special mention, as showing what a genius +like Richardson could do with the small sum of a hundred thousand +dollars. The Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee, may be +mentioned as a true product of the gospel of wealth. It was established +by members of the Vanderbilt family during their lives--mark this vital +feature--during their lives; for nothing counts for much that is left by +a man at his death. Such funds are torn from him, not given by him. If +any millionaire is at a loss to know how to accomplish great and +indisputable good with his surplus, here is a field which can never be +fully occupied, for the wants of our universities increase with the +development of the country. + +_Second_--The result of my own study of the question, What is the best +gift which can be given to a community? is that a free library occupies +the first place, provided the community will accept and maintain it as a +public institution, as much a part of the city property as its public +schools, and, indeed, an adjunct to these. It is, no doubt, possible +that my own personal experience may have led me to value a free library +beyond all other forms of beneficence. When I was a boy in Pittsburg, +Colonel Anderson, of Allegheny,--a name I can never speak without +feelings of devotional gratitude,--opened his little library of four +hundred books to boys. Every Saturday afternoon he was in attendance +himself at his house to exchange books. No one but he who has felt it +can know the intense longing with which the arrival of Saturday was +awaited, that a new book might be had. My brother and Mr. Phipps, who +have been my principal business partners through life, shared with me +Colonel Anderson's precious generosity, and it was when revelling in +these treasures that I resolved, if ever wealth came to me, that it +should be used to establish free libraries, that other poor boys might +receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to +that noble man. + +Great Britain has been foremost in appreciating the value of free +libraries for its people. Parliament passed an act permitting towns and +cities to establish and maintain these as municipal institutions, and +whenever the people of any town or city voted to accept the provisions +of the act, the authorities were authorized to tax the community to the +extent of one penny in the pound valuation. Most of the towns already +have free libraries under this act. Many of these are the gifts of rich +men, whose funds have been used for the building, and in some cases for +the books also, the communities being required to maintain and to +develop the libraries; and to this feature I attribute most of their +usefulness. An endowed institution is liable to become the prey of a +clique. The public ceases to take interest, in it, or, rather, never +acquires interest in it. The rule has been violated which requires the +recipients to help themselves. Everything has been done for the +community instead of its being only helped to help itself. + +Many free libraries have been established in our country, but none that +I know of with such wisdom as the Pratt Library, of Baltimore. Mr. Pratt +presented to the city of Baltimore one million dollars, requiring it to +pay 5 per cent. per annum, amounting to fifty thousand dollars per year, +which is to be devoted to the maintenance and development of the library +and its branches. During the last year 430,217 books were distributed; +37,196 people of Baltimore are registered upon the books as readers; and +it is safe to say that 37,000 frequenters of the Pratt Library are of +more value to Baltimore, to the State, and to the country than all the +inert, lazy, and hopelessly-poor in the whole nation. And it may further +be safely said that, by placing within the reach of 37,000 aspiring +people books which they were anxious to obtain, Mr. Pratt has done more +for the genuine progress of the people than has been done by all the +contributions of all the millionaires and rich people to help those who +cannot help themselves. The one wise administrator of his surplus has +poured his fertilizing stream upon soil that was ready to receive it and +return a hundred-fold. The many squanderers have not only poured their +streams into sieves which never can be filled,--they have done worse; +they have poured them into stagnant sewers that breed the diseases which +afflict the body politic. And this is not all. The million dollars of +which Mr. Pratt has made so grand a use are something, but there is +something greater still. When the fifth branch library was opened in +Baltimore, the speaker said: + + "Whatever may have been done in these four years, it was his + pleasure to acknowledge that much, very much, was due to the + earnest interest, the wise councils, and the practical + suggestions of Mr. Pratt. He never seemed to feel that the + mere donation of great wealth for the benefit of his + fellow-citizens was all that would be asked of him, but he + wisely labored to make its application as comprehensive and + effective as possible. Thus he constantly lightened burdens + that were, at times, very heavy, brought good cheer and + bright sunshine when clouds flitted across the sky, and made + every officer and employee feel that good work was + appreciated, and loyal devotion to duty would receive hearty + commendation." + +This is the finest picture I have ever seen of any of the millionaire +class. As here depicted, Mr. Pratt is the ideal disciple of the "Gospel +of Wealth." We need have no fear that the mass of toilers will fail to +recognize in such as he their best leaders and their most invaluable +allies; for the problem of poverty and wealth, of employer and employed, +will be practically solved whenever the time of the few is given, and +their wealth is administered during their lives, for the best good of +that portion of the community which has not been burdened by the +responsibilities which attend the possession of wealth. We shall have no +antagonism between classes when that day comes, for the high and the +low, the rich and the poor, shall then indeed be brothers. + +No millionaire will go far wrong in his search for one of the best forms +for the use of his surplus who chooses to establish a free library in +any community that is willing to maintain and develop it. John Bright's +words should ring in his ear: "It is impossible for any man to bestow a +greater benefit upon a young man than to give him access to books in a +free library." Closely allied to the library, and, where possible, +attached to it, there should be rooms for an art gallery and museum, and +a hall for such lectures and instruction as are provided in the Cooper +Union. The traveller upon the Continent is surprised to find that every +town of importance has its art gallery and museum; these may be large or +small, but in any case each has a receptacle for the treasures of the +locality, which is constantly receiving valuable gifts and bequests. The +free library and art gallery of Birmingham are remarkable among these, +and every now and then a rich man adds to their value by presenting +books, fine pictures, or other works of art. All that our cities require +to begin with is a proper fireproof building. Their citizens who travel +will send to it rare and costly things from every quarter of the globe +they visit, while those who remain at home will give or bequeath to it +of their treasures. In this way these collections will grow until our +cities will ultimately be able to boast of permanent exhibitions from +which their own citizens will derive incalculable benefit, and which +they will be proud to show to visitors. In the Metropolitan Museum of +Art in this city we have made an excellent beginning. Here is another +avenue for the proper use of surplus wealth. + +_Third_--We have another most important department in which great sums +can be worthily used,--the founding or extension of hospitals, medical +colleges, laboratories, and other institutions connected with the +alleviation of human suffering, and especially with the prevention +rather than the cure of human ills. There is no danger of pauperizing a +community in giving for such purposes, because such institutions relieve +temporary ailments or shelter only those who are hopeless invalids. What +better gift than a hospital can be given to a community that is without +one?--the gift being conditioned upon its proper maintenance by the +community in its corporate capacity. If hospital accommodation already +exists, no better method for using surplus wealth can be found than in +making additions to it. The late Mr. Vanderbilt's gift of half a million +of dollars to the medical department of Columbia College for a chemical +laboratory was one of the wisest possible uses of wealth. It strikes at +the prevention of disease by penetrating into its causes. Several others +have established such laboratories, but the need for them is still +great. + +If there be a millionaire in the land who is at a loss what to do with +the surplus that has been committed to him as trustee, let him +investigate the good that is flowing from these chemical laboratories. +No medical college is complete without its laboratory. As with +universities, so with medical colleges; it is not new institutions that +are required, but additional means for the more thorough equipment of +those that exist. The forms that benefactions to these may wisely take +are numerous, but probably none is more useful than that adopted by Mr. +Osborne when he built a school for training female nurses at Bellevue +College. If from all gifts there flows one-half of the good that comes +from this wise use of a millionaire's surplus, the most exacting may +well be satisfied. Only those who have passed through a lingering and +dangerous illness can rate at their true value the care, skill, and +attendance of trained female nurses. Their employment as nurses has +enlarged the sphere and influence of woman. It is not to be wondered at +that a Senator of the United States and a physician distinguished in +this country for having received the highest distinctions abroad should +find their wives from this class. + +_Fourth_--In the very front rank of benefactions public parks should be +placed, always provided that the community undertakes to maintain, +beautify, and preserve inviolate the parks given to it. No more useful +or more beautiful monument can be left by any man than a park for the +city in which he was born or in which he has long lived, nor can the +community pay a more graceful tribute to the citizen who presents it +than to give his name to the gift. If a park be already provided, there +is still room for many judicious gifts in connection with it. Mr. +Phipps, of Allegheny, has given conservatories to the park there, which +are visited by many every day of the week, and crowded by thousands of +working people every Sunday, for, with rare wisdom, he has stipulated as +a condition of the gift that the conservatories shall be open on +Sundays. The result of his experiment has been so gratifying that he is +justified in adding to them from his surplus, as he is doing largely +this year. To any lover of flowers among the wealthy I commend a study +of what is possible for them to do in the light of Mr. Phipps's example; +and may they please note that Mr. Phipps is a wise as well as a liberal +giver, for he requires the city to maintain these conservatories, and +thus secures for them forever the public ownership, the public interest, +and the public criticism of their management. Had he undertaken to +manage and maintain them, it is probable that popular interest in the +gift would never have been awakened. + +The parks and pleasure-grounds of small towns throughout Europe are not +less surprising than their libraries, museums, and art galleries. We saw +nothing more pleasing during our recent travels than the hillside of +Bergen, in Norway. It has been converted into one of the most +picturesque of pleasure-grounds; fountains, cascades, water-falls, +delightful arbors, fine terraces, and statues adorn what was before a +barren mountain side. Here is a field worthy of study by the millionaire +who would confer a lasting benefit upon his fellows. Another beautiful +instance of the right use of wealth in the direction of making cities +more and more attractive we found in Dresden. The owner of the leading +paper there bequeathed its revenues forever to the city, to be used in +beautifying it. An art committee decides from time to time what new +artistic feature is to be introduced or what hideous feature is to be +changed, and as the revenues accrue they are expended in this direction. +Thus through the gift of this patriotic newspaper proprietor his native +city of Dresden is fast becoming one of the most artistic places of +residence in the whole world. A work having been completed, it devolves +upon the city to maintain it forever. May I be excused if I commend to +our millionaire newspaper proprietors the example of their colleague in +the capital of Saxony? + +Scarcely a city of any magnitude in the older countries is without many +structures and features of great beauty. Much has been spent upon +ornament, decoration, and architectural effect: we are still far behind +in these things upon this side of the Atlantic. Our Republic is great in +some things,--in material development unrivalled; but let us always +remember that in art and in the finer touches we have scarcely yet taken +a place. Had the exquisite memorial arch recently erected temporarily in +New York been shown in Dresden, the art committee there would probably +have been enabled, from the revenue of the newspaper given by its owner +for just such purposes, to order its permanent erection to adorn the +city forever. + +While the bestowal of a park upon a community as one of the best uses +for surplus wealth will be universally approved, in embracing such +additions to it as conservatories, or in advocating the building of +memorial arches and works of adornment, it is probable that many will +think we go too far, and consider these somewhat fanciful. The material +good to flow from them may not be so directly visible; but let not any +practical mind, intent only upon material good, depreciate the value of +wealth given for these or for kindred aesthetic purposes as being +useless as far as the mass of the people and their needs are concerned. +As with libraries and museums, so with these more distinctively artistic +works; these perform their great use when they reach the best of the +masses of the people. It is worth more to reach and touch the sentiment +for beauty in the naturally bright minds of this class than that those +incapable of being so touched should be pandered to. For what the +improver of the race must endeavor to do is to reach those who have the +divine spark ever so feebly developed, that it may be strengthened and +grow. For my part, I think Mr. Phipps put his money to better use in +giving the workingmen of Allegheny conservatories filled with beautiful +flowers, orchids, and aquatic plants, which they, with their wives and +children, can enjoy in their spare hours, and on which they can feed the +love for the beautiful, than if he had given his surplus money to +furnish them with bread, for those in health who cannot earn their bread +are scarcely worth considering by the individual giver; the care of such +being the duty of the state. The man who erects in a city a truly +artistic arch, statue, or fountain makes a wise use of his surplus. "Man +does not live by bread alone." + +_Fifth_--We have another good use for surplus wealth, in providing for +our cities halls suitable for meetings of all kinds, especially for +concerts of elevating music. Our cities are rarely provided with halls +for these purposes, being in this respect also very far behind European +cities. The Springer Hall, of Cincinnati, that valuable addition to the +city, was largely the gift of Mr. Springer, who was not content to +bequeath funds from his estate at death, but who gave during his life, +and, in addition, gave--what was equally important--his time and +business ability to insure the successful results which have been +achieved. The gift of a hall to any city lacking one is an excellent use +for surplus wealth for the good of a community. The reason why the +people have only one instructive and elevating, or even amusing, +entertainment when a dozen would be highly beneficial, is that the rent +of a hall, even when a suitable hall exists (which is rare), is so great +as to prevent managers from running the risk of financial failure. If +every city in our land owned a hall which could be given or rented for a +small sum for such gatherings as a committee or the mayor of the city +judged advantageous, the people could be furnished with proper lectures, +amusements, and concerts at an exceedingly small cost. The town halls of +European cities, many of which have organs, are of inestimable value to +the people, when utilized as they are in the manner suggested. Let no +one underrate the influence of entertainments of an elevating or even of +an amusing character, for these do much to make the lives of the people +happier and their natures better. If any millionaire born in a small +village, which has now become a great city, is prompted in the day of +his success to do something for his birthplace with part of his surplus, +his grateful remembrance cannot take a form more useful than that of a +public hall with an organ, provided the city agrees to maintain and use +it. + +_Sixth_--In another respect we are still much behind Europe. A form of +beneficence which is not uncommon there is providing swimming baths for +the people. The donors of these have been wise enough to require the +city benefited to maintain them at its own expense, and as proof of the +contention that everything should never be done for any one or for any +community, but that the recipients should invariably be called upon to +do part, it is significant that it is found essential for the popular +success of these healthful establishments to exact a nominal charge for +their use. In many cities, however, the school children are admitted +free at fixed hours upon certain days, different hours being fixed for +the boys and the girls to use the great swimming baths, hours or days +being also fixed for the use of these baths by ladies. In inland cities +the young of both sexes are thus taught to swim. Swimming clubs are +organized, and matches are frequent, at which medals and prizes are +given. The reports published by the various swimming baths throughout +Great Britain are filled with instances of lives saved because those who +fortunately escaped ship-wreck had been taught to swim in the baths, and +not a few instances are given in which the pupils of certain bathing +establishments have saved the lives of others. If any disciple of the +"Gospel of Wealth" gives his favorite city large swimming and private +baths (provided the municipality undertakes their management as a city +affair), he will never be called to account for an improper use of the +funds intrusted to him. + +_Seventh_--Churches as fields for the use of surplus wealth have +purposely been reserved until the last, because, these being sectarian, +every man will be governed by his own attachments; therefore gifts to +churches, it may be said, are not, in one sense, gifts to the community +at large, but to special classes. Nevertheless, every millionaire may +know of a district where the little cheap, uncomfortable, and altogether +unworthy wooden structure stands at the cross-roads, to which the whole +neighborhood gathers on Sunday, and which is the centre of social life +and source of neighborly feeling. The administrator of wealth has made a +good use of part of his surplus if he replaces that building with a +permanent structure of brick, stone, or granite, up the sides of which +the honeysuckle and columbine may climb, and from whose tower the +sweet-tolling bell may sound. The millionaire should not figure how +cheaply this structure can be built, but how perfect it can be made. If +he has the money, it should be made a gem, for the educating influence +of a pure and noble specimen of architecture, built, as the pyramids +were built, to stand for ages, is not to be measured by dollars. Every +farmer's home, heart, and mind in the district will be influenced by the +beauty and grandeur of the church. But having given the building, the +donor should stop there; the support of the church should be upon its +own people; there is not much genuine religion in the congregation or +much good to flow from the church which is not supported at home. + +Many other avenues for the wise expenditure of surplus wealth might be +indicated. I enumerate but a few--a very few--of the many fields which +are open, and only these in which great or considerable sums can be +judiciously used. It is not the privilege, however, of millionaires +alone to work for or aid measures which are certain to benefit the +community. Every one who has but a small surplus above his moderate +wants may share this privilege with his richer brothers, and those +without surplus can give at least part of their time, which is usually +as important as funds, and often more so. Some day, perhaps, with your +permission, I will endeavor to point out some fields and modes in which +these may perform well their part as trustees of wealth, or leisure, +according to the measure of their respective fortunes. + +It is not expected, neither is it desirable, that there should be a +general concurrence as to the best possible use of surplus wealth. For +different men and different localities there are different uses. What +commends itself more highly to the judgment of the administrator is the +best use for him, for his heart should be in the work. It is as +important in administering wealth as it is in any other branch of a +man's work that he should be enthusiastically devoted to it and feel +that in the field selected his work lies. + +Besides this, there is room and need for all kinds of wise benefactions +for the common weal. The man who builds a university, library, or +laboratory performs no more useful work than he who elects to devote +himself and his surplus means to the adornment of a park, the gathering +together of a collection of pictures for the public, or the building of +a memorial arch. These are all true laborers in the vineyard. The only +point required by the "Gospel of Wealth" is that the surplus which +accrues from time to time in the hands of man should be administered by +him in his own lifetime for that purpose which is seen by him, as +trustee, to be best for the good of the people. To leave at death what +he cannot take away, and place upon others the burden of the work which +it was his own duty to perform, is to do nothing worthy. This requires +no sacrifice, nor any sense of duty to his fellows. + +Time was when the words concerning the rich man entering heaven were +regarded as a hard saying. Today, when all questions are probed to the +bottom and the standards of faith received the most liberal +interpretations, the startling verse has been relegated to the rear, to +await the next kindly revision as one of those things which cannot be +quite understood, but which meanwhile--it is carefully to be +observed--are not to be understood literally. But is it so very +improbable that the next stage of thought is not to restore the doctrine +in all its pristine purity and force, as being in perfect harmony with +sound ideas upon the subject of wealth and poverty, the rich and the +poor, and the contrasts everywhere seen and deplored? In Christ's day, +it is evident, reformers were against the wealthy. It is none the less +evident that we are fast recurring to that position to-day; and there +will be nothing to surprise the student of sociological development if +society should soon approve the text which has caused so much anxiety: +"It is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich +man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Even if the needle were the small +casement at the gates, the words betoken serious difficulty for the +rich. It will be but a step for the theologian to take from the doctrine +that he who dies rich dies disgraced to that which brings upon the man +punishment or deprivation hereafter. + +The "Gospel of Wealth" but echoes Christ's words. It calls upon the +millionaire to sell all that he hath and give it in the highest and best +form to the poor, by administering his estate himself for the good of +his fellows, before he is called upon to lie down and rest upon the +bosom of Mother Earth. So doing, he will approach his end no longer the +ignoble hoarder of useless millions, poor, very poor indeed, in money, +but rich, very rich, twenty times a millionaire still, in the affection, +gratitude and admiration of his fellow-men, and--sweeter far--soothed +and sustained by the still small voice within, which, whispering, tells +him that, because he has lived, perhaps one small part of the great +world has been bettered just a little. This much is sure: against such +riches as these no bar will be found at the gates of Paradise. + + + + +THE IDEA OF A POPULAR LIBRARY + + The following seven papers give some fundamental ideas on + the functions of popular libraries. They are arranged in + chronological order, and, so grouped, span the gap between + 1851 and 1906, considerably more than half a century. The + first is interesting as presenting a discussion at the + inception of our first great public library, that of the + city of Boston, quoted from "The Life, Letters and Journals + of George Ticknor" (Boston, 1909). Ticknor's idea of a + popular library, given in a letter to Edward Everett, is + followed by Everett's answer. Some of the editor's comments + precede and conclude. Those interested may read on, in + Chapter XV, Vol. II of the "Life," and get a further idea of + Ticknor's zeal in promoting the Boston library and his + interest in making it as popular as possible, in distinction + to the idea of a library solely for scholars, upheld by John + Jacob Astor, in his New York gift of three years previous, + which Everett rather favored. + + George Ticknor was born in Boston, Aug. 1, 1791 and + graduated at Dartmouth in 1807. He was admitted to the bar + in 1813 but devoted his life chiefly to teaching and to + literature, serving as professor in Harvard in 1819-35. He + died in Boston, Jan. 26, 1871. A sketch of Everett appears + on page 127 of this volume. + + +The endowment of a great library in New York, given by Mr. John Jacob +Astor, at his death, in 1848, was much talked about; and men of forecast +began to say openly that, unless something of a like character were done +in Boston, the scientific and literary culture of this part of the +country would follow trade and capital to the metropolis, which was thus +taking the lead. Still, nothing effectual was done. Among the persons +with whom Mr. Ticknor had, of late years, most frequently talked of the +matter, Dr. Channing was dead, Mr. Abbott Lawrence had become Minister +to England, and Mr. Jonathan Phillips was growing too infirm to take +part in public affairs. The subject, however, kept its hold on Mr. +Ticknor's mind. + +His idea was that which he felt lay at the foundation of all our public +institutions, namely, that in order to form and maintain our character +as a great nation, the mass of the people must be intelligent enough to +manage their own government with wisdom; and he came, though not at +once, to the conclusion that a very free use of books, furnished by an +institution supported at the expense of the community, would be one of +the effective means for obtaining this result of general culture. + +He had reached this conclusion before he saw any probability of its +being practically carried out, as is proved by the following letter, +which he wrote to Mr. Everett, in the summer of 1851. A few months +before this date Mr. Everett had presented to the city--after offering +it in vain more than once--a collection of about a thousand volumes of +Public Documents, and books of similar character, accompanied by a +letter, urging the establishment of a public library. + + + To HON. EDWARD EVERETT. + + Bellows Falls, Vermont, July 14, 1851. + + MY DEAR EVERETT,--I have seen with much gratification from + time to time, within the last year, and particularly in your + last letter on the subject, that you interest yourself in + the establishment of a public library in Boston;--I mean a + library open to all the citizens, and from which all, under + proper restrictions, can take out books. Such, at least, I + understand to be your plan; and I have thought, more than + once, that I would talk with you about it, but accident has + prevented it. However, perhaps a letter is as good on all + accounts, and better as a distinct memorandum of what I + mean. + + It has seemed to me, for many years, that such a free + public library, if adapted to the wants of our people, would + be the crowning glory of our public schools. But I think it + important that it should be adapted to our peculiar + character; that is, that it should come in at the end of our + system of free instruction, and be fitted to continue and + increase the effects of that system by the self-culture that + results from reading. + + The great obstacle to this with us is not--as it is in + Prussia and elsewhere--a low condition of the mass of the + people, condemning them, as soon as they escape from school, + and often before it, to such severe labor, in order to + procure the coarsest means of physical subsistence, that + they have no leisure for intellectual culture, and soon lose + all taste for it. Our difficulty is, to furnish means + specially fitted to encourage a love for reading, to create + an appetite for it, which the schools often fail to do, and + then to adapt these means to its gratification. That an + appetite for reading can be very widely excited is plain, + from what the cheap publications of the last twenty years + have accomplished, gradually raising the taste from such + poor trash as the novels with which they began, up to the + excellent and valuable works of all sorts which now flood + the country, and are read by the middling classes + everywhere, and in New England, I think, even by a majority + of the people.[2] + + Now what seems to me to be wanted in Boston is, an apparatus + that shall carry this taste for reading as deep as possible + into society, assuming, what I believe to be true, that it + can be carried deeper in our society than in any other in + the world, because we are better fitted for it. To do this I + would establish a library which, in its _main_ department + and purpose, should differ from all free libraries yet + attempted; I mean one in which any popular books, tending to + moral and intellectual improvement, should be furnished in + such numbers of copies that many persons, if they desired + it, could be reading the same work at the same time; in + short, that not only the best books of all sorts, but the + pleasant literature of the day, should be made accessible to + the whole people at the only time when they care for it, + _i.e._ when it is fresh and new. I would, therefore, + continue to buy additional copies of any book of this class, + almost as long as they should continue to be asked for, and + thus, by following the popular taste,--unless it should + demand something injurious,--create a real appetite for + healthy general reading. This appetite, once formed, will + take care of itself. It will, in the great majority of + cases, demand better and better books; and can, I believe, + by a little judicious help, rather than by any direct + control or restraint, be carried much higher than is + generally thought possible. + +[2] Mr. Ticknor was much struck by the publication of a cheap edition +of Johns' Translation of Froissart, by the Harpers, of which he found +a copy in a small inn of a retired village of southern New York, in +1844; and he always watched the signs of popular taste, both in +publishers' lists and in the bookshelves of the houses which he +entered, in his summer journeys, or in his errands of business and +charity in the winter. + +After some details, of no present consequence, developing this idea, the +letter goes on:-- + + Nor would I, on this plan, neglect the establishment of a + department for consultation, and for all the common purposes + of public libraries, some of whose books, like + encyclopaedias and dictionaries, should never be lent out, + while others could be permitted to circulate; all on the + shelves being accessible for reference as many hours in the + day as possible, and always in the evening. This part of the + library, I should hope, would be much increased by donations + from public-spirited individuals, and individuals interested + in the progress of knowledge, while, I think, the public + treasury should provide for the more popular department. + + Intimations of the want of such public facilities for + reading are, I think, beginning to be given. In London I + notice advertisements of some of the larger circulating + libraries, that they purchase one and two hundred copies of + all new and popular works; and in Boston, I am told, some of + our own circulating libraries will purchase almost any new + book, if the person asking for it will agree to pay double + the usual fee for reading it; while in all, I think, + several, and sometimes many copies of new and popular works + are kept on hand for a time, and then sold, as the demand + for them dies away. + +Omitting other details, now of no importance, the letter ends as +follows:-- + + Several years ago I proposed to Mr. Abbott Lawrence to move + in favor of such a library in Boston; and, since that time, + I have occasionally suggested it to other persons. In every + case the idea has been well received; and the more I have + thought of it and talked about it, the more I have been + persuaded, that it is a plan easy to be reduced to practice, + and one that would be followed by valuable results. + + I wish, therefore, that you would consider it, and see what + objections there are to it. I have no purpose to do anything + more about it myself than to write you this letter, and + continue to speak of it, as I have done heretofore, to + persons who, like yourself, are interested in such matters. + But I should be well pleased to know how it strikes you. + +To this letter Mr. Everett replied as follows:-- + + + CAMBRIDGE, July 26, 1851. + + MY DEAR TICKNOR,--I duly received your letter of the 14th + from Bellows Falls, and read it with great interest. + + The extensive circulation of new and popular works is a + feature of a public library which I have not hitherto much + contemplated. It deserves to be well weighed, and I shall be + happy hereafter to confer with you on the subject. I cannot + deny that my views have, since my younger days, undergone + some change as to the practicability of freely loaning books + at home from large public libraries. Those who have been + connected with the administration of such libraries are apt + to get discouraged, by the loss and damage resulting from + the loan of books. My present impressions are in favor of + making the amplest provision in the library for the use of + books there. + + Your plan, however, is intended to apply only to a + particular class of books, and does not contemplate the + unrestrained circulation of those of which the loss could + not be easily replaced. + + That Boston must have a great public library, or yield to + New York in letters as well as in commerce, will, I think, + be made quite apparent in a few years. But on this and other + similar subjects I hope to have many opportunities of + conferring with you next winter. + +The difference of opinion, here made evident, as to the possibility or +safety of allowing books to circulate freely, was not removed by many +subsequent conversations, nor were the hopes of either of the gentlemen, +with regard to the establishment of a great library, raised even when, +in the early part of 1852, the mayor, Mr. Seaver, recommended that steps +be taken for such an object, and the Common Council, presided over by +Mr. James Lawrence, proposed that a board of trustees for such an +institution should be appointed. When, therefore, both Mr. Everett and +Mr. Ticknor--the latter greatly to his surprise--were invited to become +members of this board, they conferred together anew on the project; and, +although the mayor, on hearing Mr. Ticknor's views, was much pleased +with them, and urged him to take the place, yet he at one time +determined to decline the office, certainly unless the library were to +be open for the free circulation of most of its books, and unless it +were to be dedicated, in the first instance, rather to satisfying the +wants of the less favored classes of the community, than--like all +public libraries then in existence--to satisfying the wants of scholars, +men of science, and cultivated men generally. + + + + +THE FUNCTION OF A TOWN LIBRARY + + Nearly a quarter-century elapsed after Ticknor's letter, + just quoted, before the publication in book form of Josiah + P. Quincy's "Protection of Majorities and Other Essays" + (Boston, 1875), of which collection his paper on the + function of a town library forms a part. As stated in his + introduction, it appeared originally in _Old and New_, a + magazine already extinct when that introduction was penned. + + While asserting as strongly as Mr. Ticknor his belief in + making a library "popular," the writer denies that his + belief justifies the inclusion of fiction. His position + seems to be that, praiseworthy as much of it is, fiction + should not be supplied to the public from the public funds. + The present attitude, that this is a matter to be settled by + the public itself, is repudiated in set terms and with + somewhat picturesque illustrations, by Mr. Quincy. His + stalwart advocacy of the library as a supplement to the + school is what justifies the inclusion of his paper in this + collection. Those who desire to follow Mr. Quincy a little + farther may read the next paper in the above-named + collection entitled "The Abuse of Reading." + + Josiah Phillips Quincy was born in Boston, Nov. 28, 1829 + and graduated at Harvard in 1850, the son of the statesman + Josiah Quincy who was also president of Harvard. He was + admitted to the bar in 1854, but afterward engaged in + business and in farming, also writing freely on civic and + economic subjects. + +This is a one-sided paper. Something might be said on the other side; +but, as that is the popular side, it is likely to receive full justice. +In behalf of an unconverted minority, who should be represented through +the press, if nowhere else, I desire to register a dissent from the +prevailing opinion concerning the function of libraries sustained by the +taxation of towns and small municipalities. The importance of +stimulating thought upon subjects bearing ever so remotely upon our +fiscal requirements, I conceive to be far greater than may superficially +appear. For when the mass of our people clearly comprehend what +government should not be called upon to do for them, they will insist +upon its performing duties which are manifestly within its sphere of +action. Laboring men and women are to-day suffering from the +adulteration of their food and drink, and from a system of taxation +which oppresses them with weighty and unjust burdens. Their deliverance +can only come by dismissing legislators who are disciples of what may be +called the Todgers school of economy; that remarkable matron, as Dickens +tells us, caring little for the solid sustenance of her boarders, +provided "the gravy" was abundant and satisfactory. + +Upon what principle can the citizen, who thinks before he casts his +ballot, justify himself in voting increased taxes upon his neighbors for +the purpose of establishing a library? He must assume the necessity of +public schools, and then argue that he may vote for a library that will +supplement the elementary instruction which the town provides. And the +justification is ample. If our schools are so conducted as to awaken a +taste for knowledge and give a correct method in English reading, the +town library may represent the university brought to every man's door. +But suppose a large portion of the funds taken from tax-payers is +devoted to circulating ephemeral works of mere amusement. Is it not as +monstrous for me to vote to tax my neighbor to furnish the boys and +girls with "A Terrible Tribulation," or "Lady So-and-So's Struggle," as +it would be for the purpose of providing them with free tickets to +witness "Article 47" or "The Black Crook"? These romances and dramas (to +represent them in the most favorable point of view) are evanescent +productions, designed to meet the market demand for the intense and +spasmodic. Their claims to patronage from the public purse are precisely +similar. + +So far, the citizen has a right to object as a tax-payer. But, if he +were truly solicitous for the welfare of the community about him, the +protest might be far deeper. For the weak spot in our school system lies +just here: while claiming immense credit for giving most of our children +the ability to read, we show the profoundest indifference about what +they read. But this accomplishment of reading is a very doubtful good if +it goes no farther than to give a boy the satisfaction of perusing "The +Police Gazette," or introduces a girl to the immoralities of Mr. +Griffith Gaunt, and the adventures of a hundred other heroes of +characters even more questionable. By teaching our children to read, and +then setting them adrift in a sea of feverish literature which vitiates +the taste and enervates the character, we show an indifference about as +sensible as that of the old lady who thought it could not matter whether +her son had gone to the bosom of Abraham or Beelzebub, seeing that they +were both Scripture names. + +It is not difficult to conceive of communities, existing in Greenland +or elsewhere, which might legitimately tax the citizen to furnish his +neighbors with their novel-reading. But it can scarcely be disputed that +an increased facility for obtaining works of fiction is not the pressing +need of our country in this present year of grace. Dr. Isaac Ray, +perhaps our highest authority on morbid mental phenomena, concludes his +study on the effects of the prevalent romantic literature in these +words: "The specific doctrine I would inculcate is, that the excessive +indulgence in novel-reading, which is a characteristic of our times, is +chargeable with many of the mental irregularities that prevail among us +in a degree unknown at any former period." The late Dr. Forbes Winslow, +a physician of similar note in England, used still stronger language in +describing how fearfully and fatally suggestive to the minds of the +young are those artistically developed records of sin which form the +staple of the popular novel. In these days of disordered nerve centres, +and commissions to inquire into every thing, we neglect much valuable +information which lies upon the surface. It is well to bear in mind that +our eminent bibliographer, Mr. Spofford, has informed us that "masses of +novels and other ephemeral publications overload most of our popular +libraries"; and that our wisest physicians have agreed as to the +influence they exert. + +Of course these views will be met by a brusque statement that town +libraries must supply such books as people want, and that they demand +the current novels in unlimited quantities. But I repudiate the dismal +fallacy upon which such an argument is based. Plum-cake and champagne +would doubtless be demanded at a Sunday-school picnic, were these +delicacies placed upon the table; but, if the committee did not think it +necessary to supply them from the parish funds, is it certain that a +fair amount of cold beef and hasty-pudding would not be consumed in +their stead? And if a heartless man-government declined to furnish +Maggie and Mollie with "The Pirate's Penance" or "The Bride's Bigamy" +for their Sabbath reading, is it not possible that those fair voters of +the future might substitute Mrs. Fawcett's interesting illustrations of +political economy, or some outline of human physiology, their knowledge +of which would bless an unborn generation? + +I do not advocate the absurdity of a town library which should chiefly +consist of authors like Plato and Professor Peirce. No one can doubt +that the great majority of its volumes should be emphatically _popular_ +in their character. They should furnish intelligible and interesting +reading to the average graduate of the town schools. And there is no +lack of such works. The outlines of physical and social science have +been written by men of genius in simple and attractive style. History +and biography in the hands of their masters give a healthy stimulus to +the imagination, and tend to strengthen the character. The function of a +town library should be to supply reading improving and interesting, and +yet, in the best sense of the word, popular; and I maintain that this +can be done, without setting up a rival agency to the news-stand, the +book-club, and the weekly paper, for the circulation of the novels of +the day. + +There is a saying of Dr. Johnson, to the effect, that, if a boy be let +loose in a library, he is likely to give himself a very fair education. +But, in accepting this dictum, we must remember the sort of library the +doctor had in his mind. As known to him, it was based upon solid volumes +of systematized information. Besides these were the noblest poems of the +world, a very few great romances, and ponderous tomes of controversial +theology; good, healthy food, and much of it attractive to an unpampered +boy-appetite. + +But the range of a large library is by no means necessary to produce the +soundest educational results. Can it be doubted that familiar knowledge +of a small case of well-selected books--such, for instance, as the +modest stipend of a country clergyman easily collects--is better for boy +and girl than the liberty of devouring a thousand highly-flavored sweets +in the free library? At all events, a few old-fashioned people do not +question it. "A year ago," writes one of them, "Alice used to read +Irving and Spenser, and Tom was dipping into Gibbon and Shakespeare; +liking them well enough, yet preferring a game of base-ball to either, +as it was proper he should. But the town library was opened, and these +young people are found crouching over novels in out-of-the-way corners, +when they ought to be at play; or reading surreptitiously at night, when +they ought to be asleep." It is in vain to throw all the responsibility +upon parents. American parents are very busy, and somewhat careless. +Mrs. Fanny Firefly's highly-seasoned love-stories for girls, and Mr. +Samuel Sensation's boy-novels and spiced preparations of boned history, +are got up, like the port-wine drops of the confectioners, to tempt and +to sell. And they do their work. No one can examine the average boy and +girl of the period without being struck with their ignorance of the +great works of English literature which young people of a former +generation were accustomed to read with profit and delight. + +The function of a town library is to supplement the town schools; to +gratify the taste for knowledge which they should have imparted; and to +serve as an instrument for that self-education to which there is no +limit. But tax-payers are not bound to circulate twenty-seven thousand +novels against nineteen hundred volumes of biography and seventeen +hundred of history, according to the figures of one report; or to expend +two-thirds of the working force of their establishment in sending out +"novels and juveniles," according to the statement of another. In a +word, information, not excitement, should be imbibed from the atmosphere +of the town library. That prevailing infirmity of our time which seems +to substitute sensibility for morality should there find small +encouragement. But we shall never know what this institution might do +for a community, so long as the temptation of free novels is thrust in +the faces of all who enter. For it is not to be expected that our youth +fresh from school, moving among the countless agitations of American +life, will select reading that may require some mental exertion, so long +as mental excitement is offered them in unlimited amounts. + +I am well aware how much may be said for the story-tellers, and how many +people there are to say it; and, whenever there is danger of their being +unduly neglected, my voice shall be loudly raised in their behalf. But +one may allow the claims of the romances, from Scheherazade to Mrs. +Southworth, and yet maintain that the theory upon which the average town +library is run is faulty. There is no virtue in despising cakes and ale, +and the heat of ginger in the mouth may at times impart a wholesome glow +to the entire system. But it does not quite follow that it is the +function of American towns to supply these stimulants gratis, at the +expense of their tax-payers. While we consider the immense amount of +reading of a certain sort that a town library supplies, it is well to +remember that there are other sorts of reading it may possibly prevent. +For it may encourage reading precisely as prodigality encourages +industry. Luxury and profusion do indeed feed industry, and demoralize +it; but the industry which serves God by blessing man, they prevent from +being fed. I fear that in these days more noble capacities die of a +surfeit from too much poor reading, than starve from want of good books. +The valid defence of institutions working in the interest of State +education is this: they prevent a waste of power. When any one of them +can be shown to encourage waste of power, it needs looking after. In our +complex social condition, the real consequences of any government +interference extend far beyond its apparent consequences. An institution +may be very useful up to a certain point, and yet hurtful if allowed to +run its full course without restraining criticism. + +The managers of our smaller libraries are apt to be picked men, who +give unrequited labor and intelligence to their trust. But they are +chosen at town meetings,--and to a certain extent must carry out the +wishes of their electors. Upon this matter, as upon most others, it is +the duty of the thoughtful men and women to create a wholesome public +opinion. They must recognize the fact that the change from a few good +books to an unlimited supply of all sorts of books is by no means an +unmixed advantage to a community. While the results of town libraries, +taken in the aggregate, are undoubtedly good, it is our duty to consider +whether they ought not to be better. + + + + +THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY + + The public library had now passed the period of the merely + academic advocacy exemplified in the Ticknor letter of 1851. + It was an actual, functioning institution, and as such was + called upon to answer criticism and to justify its + existence. The atmosphere of apologetics begins to appear in + what its friends have to say about it. This is evident in + the extract from Col. Higginson's "Men and Women" (New York, + 1888) which immediately follows. The author's comparison of + the evolution of a library with that of a great railroad + system is perhaps the first hint of a comprehensive vision + of the library as something bigger than any individual town + or city institution and beyond it. + + Thomas Wentworth Higginson was born in Cambridge, Mass., + Dec. 22, 1823, and graduated at Harvard in 1841. He entered + the ministry in 1847 but retired in 1858 and served in the + Civil War. From that time until his death, May 9, 1911, he + devoted himself to literature, publishing a large number of + books. + + +Just as there is a good deal of anxiety wasted in regard to our free +public schools, especially on the part of those who have never entered +them, so there is some misplaced solicitude in regard to our libraries. +The free town or city library is one of the few things in our democratic +society that would have pleased the splenetic Carlyle, who mourned in +one of his early letters that every village in England had its jail, but +none its open library. It is a pity, therefore, when a man of high +standing and great influence writes of these institutions thus hastily +(I take the passage from a well-known literary journal): "Among the +forms of beneficence for which our own generation has been conspicuous +is the Free Library.... But it is, I apprehend, no exaggeration to say +that such well-meant generosity has _oftener than otherwise_ (the +italics are my own) been chilled and discouraged by its results. +Appreciative readers are few, the best books are largely let alone, and +the cost of the 'plant' and the taste which are put into it are often in +most painful contrast to the appreciation which they have received." +Now, while every count of this last sentence may be true indictment, it +is easy to show how little it sustains the verdict. "Appreciative +readers" are few in the most cultivated circles, if their appreciation +must be tested by "the best books" only. It is not easy even to know +what the best books are, if we may judge by the tiresome failures in +making out the list of them; and suppose that they were known, do we +find many clergymen or bishops who habitually read Plato, Ĉschylus, and +Dante, rather than "Ben-Hur" or "The lady or the tiger"? It does not +therefore follow that people are unworthy of public libraries because +"the best books are largely let alone"; the question is whether even the +second best may not be good reading. We have the medical authority of +Hippocrates for saying that the second best medicine may be better than +the best, if the patient likes it best. So in regard to the fine +buildings, the success of republican government happily does not depend +on how far our citizens appreciate the architecture of the Capitol at +Washington and the State House at Albany; and it is surely the same with +libraries. Grant a few over-fine library buildings, built to please some +private benefactor; grant a few mismanaged public libraries--though +where these buildings or these libraries are I do not myself know--does +the kindly writer of these lines mean to be understood as saying that +"oftener than otherwise" our free public libraries are failures? + +If he does, it can only be said that this remark adds another to the +innumerable illustrations of that invaluable remark of Coleridge that we +must take every man's testimony to the value of that which he does not +know. All experience shows how easy it is to construct an institution +out of one's own consciousness and then condemn it; we see this daily in +what is written of our public school system. In General Butler's brief +career as Governor of Massachusetts he made a severe attack upon the +Normal Art School in Boston, and cited a pathetic instance of a fallen +girl who undoubtedly (as he urged) received her first demoralization +from the study of the nude in that school. It turned out on +investigation that he himself had never entered the school, and that the +young girl herself made no such charges; that there never had been any +studying from nude models in the school; that she had attended it but a +month or two, and this in its early days, when it did not possess so +much as a plaster cast of a human foot or hand. No matter; the charge +was reiterated up to the very end of His Excellency's career in office, +and is believed by many worthy people of this day. It is equally easy to +bring general charges against public libraries, and equally hard to +remove their impression, however unjust and even cruel they may be. + +What are the facts? There has just been a great Librarians' Convention +assembled from all parts of the country, and keeping together for many +days. Did a single speaker at that Convention take the ground that +"oftener than otherwise" the benefactors of public libraries were +chilled and discouraged? On the contrary, it was reported that such +benefactors were never so active, and their benefactions were never so +large. The tone was not one of discouragement, but of buoyancy and hope. +Every one admitted the vastness of the educational engine created by the +free library system; every one had his own suggestion by way of +improvement or development, but every one expressed a cordial faith in +the community, and reported encouragement in all work well done. The +simple truth is that the creation of a system of such libraries is like +the creation of a great railway system; it must be an evolution, not a +creation outright. The wisest librarian in America fifty years ago had +no more conception of the free library system of to-day than had +Benjamin Franklin of our postal methods; nor can any one now foresee +what fifty years of development will do for either. + +The truth is that every step in any great organization brings out new +possibilities, new dangers, and new resources. Side by side with the +perils of free libraries--as of too much light reading, and the absence +of proper appreciation of the best things--there are evoked resources to +meet these dangers. + +Outside the library there come up the "association to promote study at +home," and the vast Chautauqua "reading circles"--all these being +essentially based on the free library system, and implying it for their +full development. Inside the library there grow up such methods as those +of Mr. S.S. Green, City Librarian of Worcester, Massachusetts, whose +ways of making such an institution useful to all sorts and conditions of +the people may take rank with Rowland Hill's improvements in postal +service, as to their results on democratic civilization. He has +succeeded in linking the library and the public schools so closely that +he and the teachers acting in concurrence, indirectly control the +reading of the whole generation that is growing up in that city. The +details must be sought in his reports--as, for instance, one from the +Library Journal of March, 1887, which is printed as a leaflet; but the +essential thing in managing libraries, as in managing schools, is to +have faith in the community in which one lives, and to believe that +people do, as the Scripture has it, "covet earnestly the best gifts," if +you will only show them how those best gifts are to be obtained. Put +into school and library methods one-half the organizing ability brought +to bear on railways and telegraphs, and we shall stand astonished at the +results within our reach. Those already attained, if fairly looked at, +are sufficient to encourage any one. The writer has at two different +times and in two different States been a director in these institutions. +Whenever he needed a little stimulus toward doing his duty it was his +custom to go and look over the rack containing the books lately brought +back by readers. With all necessary deduction for the love of fiction--a +love shared in these days by the wisest and best--the proportion of +sensible and useful reading was always such as to vindicate the immense +value of the free public libraries. + + + + +TWO FUNDAMENTALS + + Mary Salome Cutler, now Mrs. Milton Fairchild, is the first + librarian to be quoted in this symposium. A sketch of her + appears in Vol. II. of this series. In the paragraphs quoted + below which form part of a paper read by Miss Cutler, then + vice-director of the New York State Library School, before + the Pennsylvania Library Club and printed in _The Library + Journal_ (October, 1896), appears a definite recognition of + the social character of the library's task. Her two + fundamentals--organization and human feelings--are both + decided elements in its socialization. + + +In considering library interests we do well, I think, not to confine +ourselves to the limited range of library subjects. + +That mysterious thing which we call society is growing more complex, +every part more curiously intertwined with every other part, each human +life bearing some relation to every other human life. Whether he will or +no, it is literally true that "no man liveth to himself alone." If it +were possible, then, as a part of this organism to discover some of the +laws which govern the whole, we might come back to our special domain +with an application of the laws which would have the force of freshness. +I believe that we gain an insight into these controlling principles only +by yielding to the tendency of solidarity, by opening ourselves to +surrounding influences, by living the fullest life of which we are +capable. I think I have seen the workings of two of these laws which +have a close relation to each other. If I am right your experience will +confirm mine, and we can together make the application to what concerns +us most--the library interests of to-day. + +In any undertaking results depend directly, and often largely, upon the +perfection of organization. Organization implies a mind which can grasp +the undertaking as a whole, follow it out, each step in detail, estimate +the various factors, personal and impersonal, provide for unforeseen +contingencies, and furnish the faith, the will-power, the personal +magnetism, whatever you choose to call it, in such measure as is needed +to carry it through. Such a mind sees the end at the beginning, and +thinks of it as already done while to others it may seem far off and +even impossible. Such thought, often the work of one mind, sometimes the +result of cooperation, is behind every piece of accomplished work. Other +elements may doubtless be essential, but there can be no adequate +results without organization. And, making allowance for other elements, +the perfection of results depends upon the perfection of +organization.... + +For the reason of this tendency we have not far to seek. I believe it is +found in the scientific spirit of the age, which is surely pervading +every sphere of human thought and activity. The careful investigation of +facts, the deduction of the law from the phenomena, the distrust of +chance and the loyalty to the law deduced, all of which evidence the +scientific spirit, mark alike the great financier, diplomatist, +inventor, philanthropist. + +In some undertakings organization alone will suffice. For example, +making a machine, laying out a railroad, compiling a volume of +statistics. In others there must needs come in what I will call the +human element, the consideration of people, not in masses, but as +individuals, that matchless, indescribable quality which we call human +sympathy.... + +Illustrations might be multiplied in educational, religious, and +philanthropic efforts where we work for the masses, and forget that each +one of the mass is a human being with passions, sensibilities, +aspirations like our own. This interest in the human being as such, +which is a gift to some, can be cultivated, but it can never be +simulated. The counterfeit always rings false. Joined to a good memory +for names and faces, it gives a person a power which can hardly be +estimated.... + +It seems to me that these two principles apply with tremendous and +unusual force to the problems of the modern library. I will speak of the +public library alone because it has a wider reach and a closer touch on +life. + +We will review in imagination the library situation in this country. We +take up Mr. Flint's Statistics volume for 1893; we sum up 593 free +libraries in the New England states, 520 in New York, Pennsylvania, and +New Jersey, 285 in the Southern states, 758 in the Western states, a +total of 2156 free libraries. + +We recall our friends in the American Library Association, who +constitute with some marked exceptions, who prefer to work alone, the +high-water mark of the fraternity. As their names pass before us we take +a measure of the men and women. We think of their libraries which we may +have visited, or, better still, which we have used as readers. In some +few cases we know the influence of these libraries in the town or city. +Take it for all in all we find a body of hard-working men and women +translating into practice noble ideals. As a result, the library is +beginning to get a hold upon the community. But it is only a beginning +and, compared with the possibilities, only a prophecy of what may and +will be. Are not the failures in our work due to the lack of the best +organization and the true human touch? + +A librarian is appointed, let us say, to an important post. He has +doubtless had experience in library work. He comes on to consult with +the trustees. They vote to send him on a trip for getting ideas from +other libraries. He probably has on his hands a beautiful building illy +adapted to library work. He carries the plans with him, and spends most +of the time with other members of the craft, in choosing the least of +several evils in placing the reference-room, catalog, charging-desk, +etc. He secures two or three assistants with training, experience, or +both, and fills the minor places with local help chosen by examination +or by luck or by personal favor. He learns in a general way the +character of the town and selects books with that in view. If there are +certain manufacturing interests or a particular foreign population, he +makes large purchases in those lines. He decides on a system of +classification, of cataloging, and on a method of charging. The books +are rushed through the various processes, though all too slowly for an +impatient public. In a few months at the latest the big educational +plant begins to be utilized. + +The circulation surprises the most sanguine, the average of fiction +drops a little below the usual mark, good service is done at the +information or reference desk by the enthusiastic man or woman having it +in charge, work is begun with the schools, and a little fraction of +teachers make the children know books because they know books +themselves. The rest go through the motions. The bookworm fills his +corner, the chronic grumbler has his little say, the usual number of +prize questions are answered. The library becomes the very bread of life +to those who are ready to receive it, and gives refreshment and +suggestion and inspiration to many more. The profession approves. At the +next A.L.A. meeting Mr. ---- is brought forward more prominently, and +the wise ones say, "I always thought he was a rising man." + +But only 20 per cent. of the population ever set foot within the +library, and when a stranger asks the way within a block of the +building, a fairly intelligent-looking workman does not appear to know +there is such a thing as the public library. + +In looking over the proceedings of the library association for the 18 +years of its existence, we are struck by the evidences of industry and +earnestness. There are papers and discussions on libraries and schools, +access to the shelves, bookbinding, systems of classification, +cataloging rules. The keynote is cooperation in securing, with an +enthusiasm which amounts to missionary zeal, the best and most uniform +methods, with special reference to mechanical devices. The very motto +smacks of arithmetic and commerce. "The best reading for the largest +number at the least cost." All this is good and proper in its place. +Wise methods are essential to the best results. But we sought in vain +all along the years for the philosophic insight which should grasp the +higher motive of our profession and connect it with the great struggles +of our modern life. After the Columbus year in the clearer air of the +mountain-top, the word for which we were waiting came. I wish it were +possible to stop right here and give you the papers of Mr. Larned and +Mr. Brett, which were read at Lake Placid, as well as the discussion +which followed. I must content myself by quoting Mr. Larned's last +sentence: "Those of us who have faith in the future of democracy can +only hold our faith fast by believing that the knowledge of the learned, +the wisdom of the thoughtful, the conscience of the upright, will some +day be common enough to prevail, always, over every factious folly and +every mischievous movement that evil minds or ignorance can set astir. +When that blessed time of victory shall have come, there will be many to +share the glory of it; but none among them will rank rightly before +those who have led and inspired the work of the public libraries." + +This leads us to the first great need of the profession to-day, that the +librarian should be in the noblest sense a large, man, that he should +add to executive and business ability and technical knowledge a broad +and generous culture in Matthew Arnold's sense of the word, "An inward +spiritual activity, having for its character increased sweetness, +increased light, increased life, increased sympathy." He must be an +omnivorous reader, skimming many books, and knowing by instinct which +books and which chapters and sentences to read carefully. He must study +from books and in life the great industrial, social, and religious +questions which stir our age. He must be a scholar without pedantry, a +man of the world without indifference, a friend of the people without +sentimentality. + +There follows naturally the second necessity, that the librarian should +be a careful student of his own town. He should know its history and +topography, its social, political, business, literary, and +ecclesiastical life. To this end he should have a personal acquaintance +with the city officers, the party bosses, the labor leaders, members of +the board of trade, manufacturers, leading women in society, with the +clergy, with the school superintendent and the teachers, with those who +shape the charitable organizations, with reporters, policemen, and +reformers. + +To what end? Broadly that he may catch the spirit of the civic life and +relate the library to the whole as the organs to the body. Specifically, +that he may reach the entire population through the natural leaders, +that he may select books, establish branches, open up new avenues of +communication between the library and the people. + +The church may be aristocratic, industry, trade, and politics a war, +the public school like the drinking-fountain, though planned for the +many scorned by the few. I believe it is possible for a man with a broad +and sympathetic knowledge of our age and an intimate knowledge of his +own city, to make of the public library the one common meeting-place, +the real focus of democratic ideas. The church and the school will reach +this in the future, the library may achieve it to-day. + +There is a third difficulty, which is a very real and palpable one. The +librarian himself may have a fairly high ideal of the library which is +shared by perhaps one or two assistants. The bulk of the work in a +library with a large circulation is done by young persons of less +opportunity and training. Each has a distinct part of the work to do +with little idea of its relation to the whole. Unfortunately the +loan-desk, registration-desk, and reading-room are usually manned in +this way. I have often stood amazed at the delivery-desk of librarians +whose names represent all that is best in the library profession. I +would not be understood as depreciating the work of the lower assistants +in our libraries. I know well that this service, as a whole, represents +an amount of faithfulness and devotion which it ill becomes me to +undervalue. The responsibility lies with the head of the library and the +failure comes from lack of organization. The appointing power should be +practically in his hands. The man whom we have described above does not +need to seek this power. It comes to him. It is surely possible to +secure for the library service young men and women, boys and girls, of +fair intelligence, quick wits, responsive minds, and human sympathies. +The making of these units into an organism is the severest test of a +librarian's power. The ability of a general is not enough. He must +himself have the real human touch or he cannot call it forth from +others. There must be the promptness, the accuracy, the despatch which +marks military discipline; there must be also an intelligent conception +of the purpose of the library, a strong sense of personal responsibility +and of the dignity and beauty of the public service. It is sometimes +said that spirit of the library should be that of a merchant and his +well-trained clerks, anxious to please their customers. It should be +rather the fine spirit of a hostess with the daughters of the house +about her greeting her guests. + +There is a fourth failure which is perhaps the root difficulty. It is +the failure to make the most of time. The day opens. The man hastens to +his place and finds a score of voices calling him to as many different +tasks. He hastily begins the one which seems to call the loudest, and +has just begun to gather up the threads of thought when there is a +peremptory call in another direction. And so he is driven through the +day, not controlling, but controlled, and constantly lashed by the +thought of neglected duties. By dint of keeping at it all through the +day and often into the night much work is done. The man gets and +deserves the reputation of a hard-working man, deliberately sacrificing +health, ease, leisure, and the joys of a scholar's life for the public +good. + +Now this is the first and natural result of the enlarged conception of a +librarian's work. The man is dazed by the sense of responsibility and +almost crushed by the demands upon his time apparently separate and +conflicting. But this should be considered only the first process from +which the strong man will speedily evolve a wiser way. The fatal mistake +lies in considering this first stage inevitable and final. If a man +tarries here it argues limitation, not power. There certainly are men +who stand high in public life as well as those holding less prominent +positions, who accomplish an enormous amount of work with a sense of +freedom and an impression of leisure. As I have observed individual +cases, I am led to the conclusion that the explanation lies not in a +stronger physique, or a stronger intellect, but in a better organization +of work with reference to time. There is no need more imperative than +this for all of us who are proud to be called busy people. The trouble +is, we think we are too busy to stop and plan. Our philosophic error +lies in believing that the work must all be done to-day. Nature herself +should teach us that the best work cannot be done in a hurry. + +We may not hope in this generation to understand well the working of +that complex, mysterious thing which we call human society, but we may +at least so relate ourselves and our libraries to it that we may live, +move, and grow together. + + "Not unrelated, ununified, + But to each thought and thing allied, + Is perfect Nature's every part + Rooted in the mighty Heart." + + + + +WHAT A LIBRARY SHOULD BE AND WHAT IT CAN DO + + No one has done more to inspire library workers with the + feeling that what they are doing is worth while than Dr. + Melvil Dewey, pioneer in this country of the modern library + and of the socialized library spirit. A sketch of Dr. Dewey + will be found in Vol. I. of this series. The following is + from the stenographer's report of a brief talk at the + Atlanta Conference of the American Library Association, as + printed in _Public Libraries_ (Chicago, June, 1899). + + +Atlanta has been known long in this country as a southern city that +believes supremely that education pays, and as the revelation has come +late in this century of what the library is or should be, and what the +library can do, on this line I will say a few words to you tonight. + +We have had an illustration in the recent war with Spain that education +pays, in what it means to have the man behind the guns trained. We have +an illustration in Mr. Carnegie's work, whose name has been mentioned +here in his competition with the rest of the world, illustrating another +peculiar American feature that American education pays in dollars and +cents; but it is a more recent conception of the part the library has in +a system of public education. It took a thousand years to develop our +educational system from the university down; first the university as the +beginning of all education, and then we must have the colleges to +prepare for the universities, the academies and common schools to +prepare for the colleges, and it is only in our own generation that we +have come to understand that we must begin with the kindergarten and end +in our libraries. + +I am really pleased tonight that the Young men's association has done +this generous work, and that Atlanta is going to pay the money from the +taxes. It would be no advantage to this city if your schools were +provided for you without charge to the people. Those who study the +question from the low plane of dollars and cents, without regard to the +higher things in life, have learned that no investigation pays well. In +many a community men are giving liberally to the schools, and are +beginning to give liberally to the libraries, and they do it because +they know it makes everything more valuable--it makes their business +more prosperous. + +The library is going through the same process the public school went +through. Henry Barnard, of Connecticut, visited 27 different states and +spoke before them to urge upon them the system of public education, and +to provide a guidance for the children. + +It is true that the educated parents are more likely to have children +educated highly, but there is no question whatever that the great +majority of the men and women who are to shape the future of this +country will be born in the humblest homes, and we come back to the +problem of the general education of all the people as the best possible +advancement and the chiefest defense of the nation; it is the concern of +the state because it is the duty of the state, because it pays, and +because the state does not dare any longer to neglect it. Therefore I +call your attention to the fact that we are repeating in libraries +exactly the process of the school, and that there were meetings to urge +the acceptance of them. There are few who doubt the wisdom of donating +money to support the free library, and when the history of the time is +written it will be marked as the history of free libraries. + +Why is it that the people are taxing themselves erecting beautiful +buildings, buying books, paying salaries, printing catalogs, incurring +all these expenses, paying out an amount of money that a short time ago +would have been thought only a dream? It is a recognition of its +necessity and importance. We understand that it is a good thing. + +A broad conception at the end of the century of the work of the schools +is simply this, to teach the children to think accurately, with strength +and with speed. If it is in the school that they get their start, then +where do they get their education? Tell me from your own experience, was +it from the school that you got most of your ideas? We had an experiment +some time ago, when the teachers of New York made an elaborate +investigation as to the teaching of boys and girls. The thing that +influenced those boys and girls most was the books they read. What, +after all, is the supreme end of education? I state that we should teach +them to think with accuracy and with speed, but I doubt if there is one +who denies the supreme necessity of the building of character. That is +what is winning in the peaceful conflicts of commerce. If you care to +analyze how character is built, follow it back briefly. Character comes +from habits, and habits from actions repeated, and actions from a +motive, and a motive from reflection. What makes me reflect? What makes +you reflect? What is the cause? Isn't it something that you have read in +a book, a magazine, or a paper? So the genealogy is this: reading begets +reflection, reflection begets motive, motive begets action, and action +begets habit, and habit begets that supreme thing--character. So we have +come to recognize that if we are to accomplish the chief end that is +before the people, we must strive to control the reading for others. + +Reading sometimes carries downhill, as it often carries upward, and +there is no way that we can reach the people except through the free +library and with proper help from the people. + +What Atlanta wants to make out of her citizens is not to train privates, +but to train officers. If you go out on the streets you can find a +thousand men to do the work of a laborer, where you can find only a few +to do the work that will demand five or ten thousand dollars. The world +is looking for that class of men. It is the highest salaried man that is +the hardest to find. If you would buy a machine, there enters into it +the material that is in it; the process of manufacture throughout which +has transformed it, and then the approved fitness for performing its +functions. The same way with a man--the native that is manufactured; +then comes the experience which proves the fitness for his work; and you +pay the salary for these things. And by means of our schools and +libraries we must reach these girls and boys. + +Thomas Edison and other great men say that their whole lives are +governed from reading a single book. So the province of the library is +to amuse, to inform and inspire. We have the old proverbs, As free as +air; As free as water; but the new one that is important to the race is, +As free as knowledge. The people of this state cannot afford to have any +boy in Georgia who is anxious to know more, how to make his life more +valuable, who wants inspiration and is ready to read, and not furnish it +to him. Education is the chief concern of the American people, and the +states that have done most for their education have been the most +prosperous. + +It is the concern of the richest as to what should be done for the +poorest; you should provide free schools and free libraries, or the +failure to do so will react in your own lives. If you say that this +ideal is too high, that the library has important functions, but it does +not take its place as the equal of the schools, it is because you have +not studied this question in all its details. When you do, you will be +forced to the conclusion that while we must say that this is the +inspiration of a dreamer, remember that it is the devotion of noble +minds that never falters, but endures and waits for all it can find, and +what it cannot find, creates. + + + + +THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN AMERICAN LIFE + + As the last of this particular group of papers we reproduce + a view of our public library system by a foreigner who had + lived in this country long enough to appreciate it and who + was yet able to contrast it with the library systems of + European countries--Prof. Munsterberg of Harvard. + + Hugo Munsterberg was born in Danzig, Germany, June 1, 1863, + educated at Leipzig and Heidelberg, and after serving as + assistant professor at the University of Freiburg, became + professor of psychology at Harvard in 1892, where he served + until his death on Dec. 16, 1916. The subjoined extract is + from his book "The Americans" (New York, 1904). + + +The American's fondness for reading finds clearest expression in the +growth of libraries, and in few matters of civilization is America so +well fitted to teach the Old World a lesson. Europe has many large and +ancient collections of books, and Germany more than all the rest; but +they serve only one single purpose--that of scientific investigation; +they are the laboratories of research. They are chiefly lodged with the +great universities, and even the large municipal libraries are mostly +used by those who need material for productive labors, or wish to become +conversant with special topics. + +Exactly the same type of large library has grown up in America; and +here, too, it is chiefly the universities whose stock of books is at the +service of the scientific world. Besides these, there are special +libraries belonging to learned societies, state law libraries, special +libraries of government bureaus and of museums, and largest of all the +Library of Congress. The collection of such scientific books began at +the earliest colonial period, and at first under theological auspices. +The Calvinist Church, more than any other, inclined to the study of +books. As early as 1790 the catalog of Harvard College contained 350 +pages, of which 150 were taken up by theological works. Harvard has +to-day almost a million books, mostly in the department of literature, +philology, history, philosophy, and jurisprudence. There are, moreover, +in Boston the state library of law, with over a hundred thousand +volumes; the Athenaeum, with more than two hundred thousand books; the +large scientific library of the Institute of Technology, and many +others. Similarly, in other large cities, the university libraries are +the nucleus for scientific labors, and are surrounded by admirable +special libraries, particularly in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. +Then, too, the small academic towns, like Princeton, Ithaca, New Haven, +and others, have valuable collections of books, which in special +subjects are often unique. For many years the American university +libraries have been the chief purchasers of the special collections left +by deceased European professors. And it often happens, especially +through the gift of grateful alumni, that collections of the greatest +scientific value, which could not be duplicated, come into the +possession even of lesser institutions. + +In many departments of investigation, Washington takes the lead with +the large collection of the various scientific, economic, and technical +bureaus of the government. The best known of these is the unique medical +library of the War Department. Then there is the Library of Congress, +with many more than a million volumes, which today has an official right +to one copy of every book published in the United States, and so may +claim to be a national library. It is still not comparable to the +many-sided and complete collection of the British Museum; the national +library is one-sided, or at least shows striking gaps. Having started as +the Library of Congress, it has, aside from its one copy of every +American book and the books on natural science belonging to the +Smithsonian Institution, few books except those on politics, history, +political economy, and law. The lack of space for books, which existed +until a few years ago, made it seem inexpedient to spend money for +purposes other than the convenience of congressmen. But the American +people, in its love for books, has now erected such a building as the +world had never before seen devoted to the storing of books. The new +Congressional Library was opened in 1897, and since the stacks have +still room for several million volumes, the library will soon grow to an +all-round completeness like that at London. This Library has a specially +valuable collection of manuscripts and correspondences. + +All the collections of books which we have so far mentioned are +virtually like those of Germany. But since they mostly date from the +nineteenth century, the American libraries are more modern, and contain +less dead weight in the way of unused folios. Much more important is +their greatly superior accessibility. Their reading-rooms are more +comfortable and better lighted, their catalogs more convenient, library +hours longer, and, above all, books are more easily and quickly +delivered. Brooks Adams said recently, about the library at Washington +as a place for work, that this building is well-nigh perfect; it is +large, light, convenient, and well provided with attendants. In Paris +and London, one works in dusty, forbidding, and overcrowded rooms, while +here the reading-rooms are numerous, attractive, and comfortable. In the +National Library at Paris, one has to wait an hour for a book; in the +British Museum, half an hour, and in Washington, five minutes. This +rapid service, which makes such a great difference to the student, is +found everywhere in America; and everywhere the books are housed in +buildings which are palatial, although perhaps not so beautiful as the +Washington Library. + +Still, all these differences are unessential; in principle the academic +libraries are alike in the New and Old Worlds. The great difference +between Europe and America begins with the libraries which are not +learned, but which are designed to serve popular education. The American +public library which is not for science, but for education, is to the +European counterpart as the Pullman express train to the village +post-chaise. + +The scientific libraries of Boston, including that of Harvard +University, contain nearly two million printed works; but the largest +library of all is distinct from these. It is housed on Copley Square, in +a renaissance palace by the side of the Art Museum, and opposite the +most beautiful church in America. The staircase of yellow marble, the +wonderful wall-paintings, the fascinating arcade on the inner court and +the sunlit halls are indeed beautiful. And in and out, from early +morning till late evening, week-day and Sunday, move the people of +Boston. The stream of men divides in the lower vestibule. Some go to the +newspaper room, where several hundred daily newspapers, a dozen of them +German, hang on racks. Others wander to the magazine rooms, where the +weekly and monthly papers of the world are waiting to be read. Others +ascend to the upper stories, where Sargent's famous pictures of the +Prophets allure the lover of art, in order to look over more valuable +special editions and the art magazines, geographical charts, and musical +works. The largest stream of all goes to the second floor, partly into +the huge quiet reading-room, partly into the rotunda, which contains the +catalog, partly into the hall containing the famous frescoes of the Holy +Grail, where the books are given out. Here a million and a half books +are delivered every year to be taken home and read. And no one has to +wait; an apparatus carries the applicant's card with wonderful speed to +the stacks, and the desired book is sent back in automatic cars. Little +children meanwhile wander into the juvenile room, where they find the +best books for children. And everything invites even the least patient +reader to sit down quietly with some sort of a volume--everything is so +tempting, so convenient and comfortable, and so surpassingly beautiful. +And all this is free to the humblest working-man. + +And still, if the citizen of Massachusetts were to be asked of what +feature of the public libraries he is most proud, he would probably not +mention this magnificent palace in Boston, the capital of the state, but +rather the 350 free public libraries scattered through the smaller +cities and towns of this state, which is after all only one-third as +large as Bavaria. It is these many libraries which do the broadest work +for the people. Each little collection, wherever it is, is the center of +intellectual and moral enlightenment, and plants and nourishes the +desire for self-perfection. Of course, Massachusetts has done more in +this respect than any other ward in this respect. But there is no longer +any city of moderate size which has not a large public library, and +there is no state which does encourage in every possible way the +establishment of public libraries in every small community, giving +financial aid if it is necessary. + +Public libraries have become the favorite Christmas present of +philanthropists, and while the hospitals, universities, and museums, +have still no reason for complaint, the churches now find the +superfluous millions are less apt to go to gay church windows than to +well chosen book collections. In the year 1900 there existed more than +5383 public libraries having over a thousand volumes; of these 144 had +more than fifty thousand, and 54 had more than a hundred thousand +volumes. All together contained, according to the statistics of 1900 +more than forty-four million volumes and more than seven million +pamphlets; and the average growth was over 8 per cent. There are +probably to-day, therefore, fifteen million volumes more on the shelves. +The many thousand libraries which have fewer than 999 books are over and +above all this. + +The make-up of such public libraries may be seen from the sample catalog +gotten out by the Library Association a few years since, as a typical +collection of five thousand books. This catalog, which, with the +exception of the most important foreign classics, contains only books in +English, including, however, many translations, contains 227 general +reference books, 756 books on history, 635 on biography, 413 on travel, +355 on natural science, 694 on belles-lettres, 809 novels, 225 on art, +220 on religion, 424 on social science, 268 on technical subjects, etc. +The cost of this sample collection is $12,000. The proportions between +the several divisions are about the same in larger collections. In +smaller collections, belles-lettres have a somewhat greater share. The +general interest taken by the nation in this matter is shown by the fact +that the first edition of 20,000 copies of this sample catalog, of 600 +pages, was soon exhausted. + +The many-sidedness of this catalog points also to the manifold +functions of the public library. It is meant to raise the educational +level of the people, and this can be done in three ways: first, interest +may be stimulated along new lines; second, those who wish to perfect +themselves in their own subjects or in whatsoever special topics, may be +provided with technical literature; and third, the general desire for +literary entertainment may be satisfied by books of the best or at least +not of the worst sort. The directors of libraries see their duties to +lie in all three directions. The libraries guide the tastes and +interests of the general public, and try to replace the ordinary +servant-girl's novel with the best romance of the day and shallow +literature with works that are truly instructive. And no community is +quite content until its public library has become a sort of general +meeting-place and substitute for the saloon and the club. America is the +working-man's paradise, and attractive enough to the rich man; but the +ordinary man of the middle classes, who in Germany finds his chief +comfort in the Bierhalle would find little comfort in America if it were +not for the public library, which offers him a home. Thus the public +library has come to be a recognized instrument of culture along with the +public school; and in all American outposts the school teacher and +librarian are among the pioneers. + +The learned library cannot do this. To be sure, the university library +can help to spread information, and conversely the public library makes +room for thousands of volumes on all sorts of scientific topics. But the +emphasis is laid very differently in the two cases, and if it were not +so neither library would best fulfil its purpose. The extreme quiet of +the reference library and the bustle and stir of the public library do +not go together. In the one direction America has followed the dignified +traditions of Europe; in the other, it has opened new paths and +travelled on at a rapid pace. Every year discovers new ideas and plans, +new schemes for equipment and the selection of books, for cataloging, +and for otherwise gaining in utility. When, for instance, the library in +Providence commenced to post a complete list of books and writings +pertaining to the subject of every lecture that was given in the city, +it was the initiation of a great movement. The juvenile departments are +the product of recent years, and are constantly increasing in +popularity. There are even, in some cases, departments for blind +readers. The state commissions are new, and so also the travelling +libraries, which are carried from one village to another. + +The great schools for librarians are also new. The German librarian is +mostly a scholar; but the American believes that he has improved on the +European library systems, not so much by his ample financial resources +as by having broken with the academic custom, and having secured +librarians with a special library training. And since there are such +officials in many thousand libraries, and the great institutions create +a constant demand for such persons, the library schools, which offer +generally a three years' course, having been found very successful. + +Admittedly, all this technical apparatus is expensive; the Boston +library expends every year a quarter of a million dollars for +administrative expenses. But the American taxpayer supports this more +gladly than any other burden, knowing that the public library is the +best weapon against alcoholism and crime, against corruption and +discontent, and that the democratic country can flourish only when the +instinct of self-perfection as it exists in every American is thoroughly +satisfied. + + + + +BOOKS AND THE PUBLIC LIBRARY + + This paper and the two that follow it relate specifically to + reading as fostered by the public library and yet not + sufficiently to the provision of books to the public as a + definite library service to warrant postponing them to the + section relating to that branch of community service. They + have a somewhat academic or "literary flavor," and yet are + permeated not with the idea of "books for scholars" but with + that of "books for people"--the idea of reading as a + universal function--duty, pleasure and inspiration in + one--which is distinctly that of a socialized library. The + first paper is an address made by Lowell at the opening of + the new public library building at Chelsea, Mass., Dec. 22, + 1885. + + James Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 22, + 1819, and graduated at Harvard in 1838, succeeding + Longfellow as professor of Literature there in 1855. He + edited _The North American Review_ in 1863-72, served as + U.S. minister to Spain in 1877-80 and to Great Britain in + 1880-85. He died in Cambridge, Aug. 12, 1891. + + +"A few years ago my friend, Mr. Alexander Ireland, published a very +interesting volume which he called "The book-lover's euchiridion," the +handbook, that is to say, of those who love books. It was made up of +extracts from the writings of a great variety of distinguished men, +ancient and modern, in praise of books. It was a chorus of many voices +in many tongues, a hymn of gratitude and praise, full of such piety and +fervor as can be parelleled only in songs dedicated to the supreme +power, the supreme wisdom and the supreme love. Nay, there is a glow of +enthusiasm and sincerity in it which is often painfully wanting in those +other too commonly mechanical compositions. We feel at once that here it +is out of the fulness of the heart, yes, and of the head, too, that the +mouth speaketh. Here was none of that compulsory commonplace which is +wont to characterize those 'testimonials of celebrated authors,' by +means of which publishers sometimes strive to linger out the passages of +a hopeless book toward its _requiescat_ in oblivion. These utterances +which Mr. Ireland has gathered lovingly together are stamped with that +spontaneousness which is the mint mark of all sterling speech. It is +true that they are mostly, as is only natural, the utterances of +literary men, and there is a well-founded proverbial distrust of herring +that bear only the brand of the packer, and not that of the sworn +inspector. But to this objection a cynic might answer with the question, +'Are authors so prone, then, to praise the works of other people that we +are to doubt them when they do it un-asked?' Perhaps the wisest thing I +could have done to-night would have been to put upon the stand some of +the more weighty of this cloud of witnesses. But since your invitation +implied that I should myself say something, I will endeavor to set +before you a few of the commonplaces of the occasion, as they may be +modified by passing through my own mind, or by having made themselves +felt in my own experience. + +The greater part of Mr. Ireland's witnesses testify to the comfort and +consolation they owe to books, to the refuge they have found in them +from sorrow or misfortune, to their friendship, never estranged and +outliving all others. This testimony they volunteered. Had they been +asked, they would have borne evidence as willingly to the higher and +more general uses of books in their service to the commonwealth, as well +as to the individual man. Consider, for example, how a single page of +Burke may emancipate the young student of politics from narrow views and +merely contemporaneous judgments. Our English ancestors, with that +common-sense which is one of the most useful, though not one of the most +engaging, properties of the race, made a rhyming proverb, which says +that: + + "When land and goods are gone and spent, + Then learning is most excellent"; + +and this is true, so far as it goes, though it goes, perhaps, hardly +far enough. The law also calls only the earth and what is immovably +attached to it _real_ property, but I am of opinion that those only are +real possessions which abide with a man after he has been stripped of +those others falsely so called, and which alone save him from seeming +and from being the miserable forked radish to which the bitter scorn of +Lear degraded every child of Adam. The riches of scholarship, the +benignities of literature, defy fortune and outlive calamity. They are +beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As they cannot be inherited, +so they cannot be alienated. But they may be shared, they may be +distributed, and it is the object and office of a free public library to +perform these beneficial functions. + +"Books," says Wordsworth, "are a real world," and he was thinking, +doubtless, of such books as are not merely the triumphs of pure +intellect, however supreme, but of those in which intellect infused with +the sense of beauty aims rather to produce delight than conviction, or, +if conviction, then through intuition rather than formal logic, and, +leaving what Donne wisely calls + + "Unconscious things, matters of fact," + +to science and the understanding, seeks to give ideal expression to the +abiding realities of the spiritual world for which the outward and +visible world serves at best but as the husk and symbol. Am I wrong in +using the word _realities_?--wrong in insisting on the distinction +between the real and the actual? in assuming for the ideal an existence +as absolute and self-subsistent as that which appeals to our +senses--nay, so often cheats them in the matter of fact? How very small +a part of the world we truly live in is represented by what speaks to us +through the senses when compared with that vast realm of the mind which +is peopled by memory and imagination, and with such shining inhabitants! +These walls, these faces, what are they in comparison with the countless +images, the innumerable population which every one of us can summon up +to the tiny show-box of the brain, in material breadth scarce a span, +yet infinite as space and time? And in what, I pray, are those we +gravely call historical characters, of which each new historian strains +his neck to get a new and different view, in any sense more real than +the personages of fiction? Do not serious and earnest men discuss Hamlet +as they would Cromwell or Lincoln? Does Cĉsar, does Alaric, hold +existence by any other or stronger tenure than the Christian of Bunyan +or the Don Quixote of Cervantes or the Antigone of Sophocles? Is not the +history which is luminous because of an indwelling and perennial truth +to nature, because of that light which never was on land or sea, really +_more_ true, in the highest sense, than many a weary chronicle with +names, date, and place in which "an Amurath to Amurath succeeds"? Do we +know as much of any authentic Danish prince as of Hamlet? + +But to come back a little nearer to Chelsea and the occasion that has +called us together. The founders of New England, if sometimes, when they +found it needful, an impracticable, were always a practical people. +Their first care, no doubt, was for an adequate supply of powder, and +they encouraged the manufacture of musket bullets by enacting that they +should pass as currency at a farthing each--a coinage nearer to its +nominal value, and not heavier than some with which we are familiar. +Their second care was that "good learning should not perish from among +us," and to this end they at once established the Latin School in +Boston, and soon after the college at Cambridge. The nucleus of this +was, as you all know, the bequest in money by John Harvard. Hardly less +important, however, was the legacy of his library, a collection of good +books, inconsiderable measured by the standard of to-day, but very +considerable then as the possession of a private person. From that +little acorn what an oak has sprung, and from its acorn again what a +vocal forest, as old Howell would have called it--old Howell, whom I +love to cite, because his name gave their title to the 'Essays of Elia,' +and is borne with slight variation by one of the most delightful of +modern authors! It was, in my judgment, those two foundations, more than +anything else, which gave to New England character its bent and to +Boston that literary supremacy which, I am told, she is in danger of +losing, but which she will not lose till she and all the world lose +Holmes. + +The opening of a free public library, then, is a most important event +in the history of any town. A college training is an excellent thing; +but, after all, the better part of every man's education is that which +he gives himself, and it is for this that a good library should furnish +the opportunity and the means. I have sometimes thought that our public +schools undertook to teach too much, and that the older system, which +taught merely the three R's, and taught them well, leaving natural +selection to decide who should go farther, was the better. However this +may be, all that is primarily needful in order to use a library is the +ability to read. I say primarily, for there must also be the +inclination, and, after that, some guidance in reading well. Formerly +the duty of a librarian was considered too much that of a watchdog to +keep people as much as possible away from the books, and to hand these +over to his successor as little worn by use as he could. Librarians now, +it is pleasant to see, have a different notion of their trust, and are +in the habit of preparing for the direction of the inexperienced lists +of such books as they think best worth reading. Cataloging has also, +thanks in great measure to American librarians, become a science, and +catalogs, ceasing to be labyrinths without a clew, are furnished with +finger-posts at every turn. Subject catalogs again save the beginner a +vast deal of time and trouble, by supplying him for nothing with one at +least of the results of thorough scholarship, the knowing where to look +for what he wants. I do not mean by this that there is or can be any +short-cut to learning, but that there may be, and is, such a short-cut +to information that will make learning more easily accessible. + +But have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to read +means? That it is the key that admits us to the whole world of thought +and fancy and imagination; to the company of saint and sage, of the +wisest and the wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moment? That it +enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and +listen to the sweetest voices of all time? More than that, it +annihilates time and space for us; it revives for us without a miracle +the Age of Wonder, endowing us with the shoes of swiftness and the cap +of darkness, so that we walk invisible like fern seed and witness +unharmed the plague at Athens or Florence or London, accompanying Cĉsar +on his marches, or look in on Catiline in council with his +fellow-conspirators, or Guy Fawkes in the cellar of St. Stephen's. We +often hear of people who will descend to any servility, submit to any +insult, for the sake of getting themselves or their children into what +is euphemistically called good society. Did it ever occur to them that +there is a select society of all the centuries to which they and theirs +can be admitted for the asking--a society, too, which will not involve +them in ruinous expense and still more ruinous waste of time and health +and faculties? + +Southey tells us that, in his walk, one stormy day, he met an old +woman, to whom, by way of greeting, he made the rather obvious remark +that it was dreadful weather. She answered, philosophically, that, in +her opinion, '_any_ weather was better than none!' I should be half +inclined to say that any reading was better than none, allaying the +crudeness of the statement by the Yankee proverb, which tells us that, +though 'all deacons are good, there's odds in deacons.' Among books, +certainly there is much variety of company, ranging from the best to the +worst, from Plato to Zola, and the first lesson in reading well is that +which teaches us to distinguish between literature and merely printed +matter. The choice lies wholly with ourselves. We have the key put into +our hands; shall we unlock the pantry or the oratory? There is a +Wallachian legend which, like most of the figments of popular fancy, has +a moral in it. One Bakála, a good-for-nothing kind of fellow in his way, +having had the luck to offer a sacrifice especially well pleasing to +God, is taken up into heaven. He finds the Almighty sitting in something +like the best room of a Wallachian peasant's cottage--there is always +something profoundly pathetic in the homeliness of the popular +imagination, forced, like the princess in the fairy tale, to weave its +semblance of gold tissue out of straw. On being asked what reward he +desires for the good service he has done, Bakála, who had always +passionately longed to be the owner of a bagpipe, seeing a half wornout +one lying among some rubbish in a corner of the room, begs eagerly that +it may be bestowed on him. The Lord, with a smile of pity at the +meanness of his choice, grants him his boon, and Bakála goes back to +earth delighted with his prize. With an infinite possibility within his +reach, with the choice of wisdom, of power, of beauty at his tongue's +end, he asked according to his kind, and his sordid wish is answered +with a gift as sordid. Yes, there is a choice in books as in friends, +and the mind sinks or rises to the level of its habitual society, is +subdued, as Shakespeare says of the dyer's hand, to what it works in. +Cato's advice, _cum bonis ambula_, consort with the good, is quite as +true if we extend it to books, for they, too, insensibly give away their +own nature to the mind that converses with them. They either beckon +upward or drag down. And it is certainly true that the material of +thought reacts upon the thought itself. Shakespeare himself would have +been commonplace had he been paddocked in a thinly shaven vocabulary, +and Phidias, had he worked in wax, only a more inspired Mrs. Jarley. A +man is known, says the proverb, by the company he keeps, and not only +so, but made by it. Milton makes his fallen angels grow small to enter +the infernal council room, but the soul, which God meant to be the +spacious chamber where high thoughts and generous aspirations might +commune together, shrinks and narrows itself to the measure of the +meaner company that is wont to gather there, hatching conspiracies +against our better selves. We are apt to wonder at the scholarship of +the men of three centuries ago and at a certain dignity of phrase that +characterizes them. They were scholars because they did not read so many +things as we. They had fewer books, but these were of the best. Their +speech was noble, because they lunched with Plutarch and supped with +Plato. We spend as much time over print as they did, but instead of +communing with the choice thoughts of choice spirits, and unconsciously +acquiring the grand manner of that supreme society, we diligently inform +ourselves and cover the continent with a network of speaking wires to +inform us of such inspiring facts as that a horse belonging to Mr. Smith +ran away on Wednesday, seriously damaging a valuable carryall; that a +son of Mr. Brown swallowed a hickory nut on Thursday; and that a gravel +bank caved in and buried Mr. Robinson alive on Friday. Alas! it is we +ourselves that are getting buried alive under this avalanche of earthy +impertinences. It is we who, while we might each in his humble way be +helping our fellows into the right path, or adding one block to the +climbing spire of a fine soul, are willing to become mere sponges +saturated from the stagnant goosepond of village gossip. + +One is sometimes asked by young people to recommend a course of +reading. My advice would be that they should confine themselves to the +supreme books in whatever literature, or still better to choose some one +great author, and make themselves thoroughly familiar with him. For, as +all roads lead to Rome, so do they likewise lead away from it, and you +will find that, in order to understand perfectly and weigh exactly any +vital piece of literature, you will be gradually and pleasantly +persuaded to excursions and explorations of which you little dreamed +when you began, and will find yourselves scholars before you are aware. +For remember that there is nothing less profitable than scholarship for +the mere sake of scholarship, nor anything more wearisome in the +attainment. But the moment you have a definite aim attention is +quickened, the mother of memory, and all that you acquire groups and +arranges itself in an order that is lucid, because everywhere and always +it is in intelligent relation to a central object of constant and +growing interest. This method also forces upon us the necessity of +thinking, which is, after all, the highest result of all education. For +what we want is not learning, but knowledge--that is, the power to make +learning answer its true end as a quickener of intelligence and a +widener of our intellectual sympathies. I do not mean to say that every +one is fitted by nature or inclination for a definite course of study, +or indeed for serious study in any sense. I am quite willing that these +should 'browse in a library,' as Dr. Johnson called it, 'to their +hearts' content. It is, perhaps, the only way in which time may be +profitably wasted. But desultory reading will not make a "full man," as +Bacon understood it, of one who has not Johnson's memory, his power of +assimilation, and, above all, his comprehensive view of the relations of +things. "Read not," says Lord Bacon, in his "Essay of Studies," "to +contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find +talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be +tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and +digested--that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be +read, but not curiously (carefully), and some few to be read wholly and +with diligence and attention. _Some books also may be read by deputy._" +This is weighty and well said, and I would call your attention +especially to the wise words with which the passage closes. + +I have been speaking of such books as should be chosen for profitable +reading. A public library, of course, must be far wider in its scope. It +should contain something for all tastes, as well as the material for a +thorough grounding in all branches of knowledge. It should be rich in +books of reference, in encyclopĉdias, where one may learn without cost +of research what things are generally known. For it is far more useful +to know these than to know those that are _not_ generally known. Not to +know them is the defect of those half trained and therefore hasty men +who find a mare's nest on every branch of the tree of knowledge. A +library should contain ample stores of history, which, if it do not +always deserve the pompous title which Bolingbroke gave it, of +philosophy teaching by example, certainly teaches many things profitable +for us to know and lay to heart; teaches among other things how much of +the present is still held in mortmain by the past; teaches that, if +there be no controlling purpose, there is, at least, a sternly logical +sequence in human affairs, and that chance has but a trifling dominion +over them; teaches why things are and must be so and not otherwise; +teaches, perhaps, more than anything else, the value of personal +character as a chief factor in what used to be called destiny, for that +cause is strong which has not a multitude but one strong man behind it. +History is indeed mainly the biography of a few imperial men, and forces +home upon us the useful lesson how infinitesimally important our own +private affairs are to the universe in general. History is clarified +experience, and yet how little do men profit by it--nay, how should we +expect it of those who so seldom are taught anything by their own! +Delusions, especially economical delusions, seem the only things that +have any chance of an earthly immortality. I would have plenty of +biography. It is no insignificant fact that eminent men have always +loved their Plutarch, since example, whether for emulation or avoidance, +is never so poignant as when presented to us in a striking personality. +Autobiographies are also instructive reading to the student of human +nature, though generally written by men who were more interesting to +themselves than to their fellow-men. I have been told that Emerson and +George Eliot agreed in thinking Rousseau's "Confessions" the most +interesting book they had ever read. + +A public library should also have many and full shelves of political +economy, for the dismal science, as Carlyle called it, if it prove +nothing else, will go far toward proving that theory is the bird in the +bush, though she sing more sweetly than the nightingale, and that the +millennium will not hasten its coming in deference to the most +convincing string of resolutions that were ever unanimously adopted in +public meeting. It likewise induces in us a profound distrust of social +panaceas. + +I would have a public library abundant in translations of the best books +in all languages; for though no work of genius can be adequately +translated, because every word of it is permeated with what Milton calls +'the precious life blood of a master spirit,' which cannot be transfused +into the veins of the best translation, yet some acquaintance with +foreign and ancient literatures has the liberalizing effect of foreign +travel. He who travels by translation travels more hastily and +superficially, but brings home something that is worth having, +nevertheless. Translations properly used, by shortening the labor of +acquisition, add as many years to our lives as they subtract from the +processes of our education. + +In such a library the sciences should be fully represented, that men may +at least learn to know in what a marvellous museum they live, what a +wonder worker is giving them an exhibition daily for nothing. Nor let +art be forgotten in all its many forms, not as the antithesis of +science, but as her elder or fairer sister, whom we love all the more +that her usefulness cannot be demonstrated in dollars and cents. I +should be thankful if an every day laborer among us could have his mind +illumined, as those of Athens and of Florence had, with some image of +what is best in architecture, painting and sculpture to train his crude +perceptions and perhaps call out latent faculties. I should like to see +the works of Ruskin within the reach of every artisan among us. For I +hope some day that the delicacy of touch and accuracy of eye that have +made our mechanics in some departments the best in the world may give us +the same supremacy in works of wider range and more purely ideal scope. + +Voyages and travels I would also have, good store, especially the +earlier, when the world was fresh and unhackneyed and men saw things +invisible to the modern eye. They are fast sailing ships to waft away +from present trouble to the Fortunate Isles. + +To wash down the dryer morsels that every library must necessarily +offer at its board, let there be plenty of imaginative literature, and +let its range be not too narrow to stretch from Dante to the elder +Dumas. The world of the imagination is not the world of abstraction and +nonentity, as some conceive, but a world formed out of chaos by the +sense of the beauty that _is_ in man and the earth on which he dwells. +It is the realm of might be, our heaven of refuge from the shortcomings +and disillusions of life. It is, to quote Spenser, who knew it well, + + "The world's sweet inn from care and wearisome turmoil." + +Do we believe, then, that God gave us in mockery this splendid faculty +of sympathy with things that are a joy forever? For my part, I believe +that the love and study of works of imagination is of practical utility +in a country so profoundly material in its leading tendencies as ours. +The hunger after purely intellectual delights, the content with ideal +possessions, cannot but be good for us in maintaining a wholesome +balance of the character and of the faculties. I for one shall never be +persuaded, that Shakespeare left a less useful legacy to his countrymen +than Watt. We hold all the deepest, all the highest satisfactions of +life as tenants of imagination. Nature will keep up the supply of what +are called hard-headed people without our help, and, if it come to that, +there are other as good uses for heads as at the end of battering rams. + +I know that there are many excellent people who object to the reading of +novels as a waste of time, if not as otherwise harmful. But I think they +are trying to outwit nature, who is sure to prove cunninger than they. +Look at children. One boy shall want a chest of tools and one a book, +and of those who want books one shall ask for a botany, another for a +romance. They will be sure to get what they want, and we are doing a +grave wrong to their morals by driving them to do things on the sly, to +steal that food which their constitution craves and which is wholesome +for them, instead of having it freely and frankly given them as the +wisest possible diet. If we cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, +so neither can we hope to succeed with the opposite experiment. But we +may spoil the silk for its legitimate uses. I can conceive of no +healthier reading for a boy, or girl either, than Scott's novels or +Cooper's, to speak only of the dead. I have found them very good reading +at least for one young man, for one middle-aged man, and for one who is +growing old. No, no; banish the Antiquary, banish Leather Stocking, and +banish all the world! Let us not go about to make life duller than it +is. + +But I must shut the doors of my imaginary library, or I shall never +end. It is left for me to say a few words of fitting acknowledgment to +Mr. Fitz for his judicious and generous gift. It is always a pleasure to +me that I believe the custom of giving away money during their lifetime +(and there is nothing harder for most men to part with, except +prejudice) is more common with Americans than with any other people. It +is a still greater pleasure to see that the favorite direction of their +beneficence is toward the founding of colleges and libraries. My +observation has led me to believe that there is no country in which +wealth is so sensible of its obligations as our own. And, as most of our +rich men have risen from the ranks, may we not fairly attribute this +sympathy with their kind to the benign influence of democracy rightly +understood? My dear and honored friend, George William Curtis, told me +that he was sitting in front of the late Mr. Ezra Cornell in a +convention, where one of the speakers made a Latin quotation. Mr. +Cornell leaned forward and asked for a translation of it, which Mr. +Curtis gave him. Mr. Cornell thanked him, and added: "If I can help it, +no young man shall grow up in New York hereafter without the chance, at +least, of knowing what a Latin quotation means when he hears it." This +was the germ of Cornell University, and it found food for its roots in +that sympathy and thoughtfulness for others of which I just spoke. This +is the healthy side of that good nature which democracy tends to foster, +and which is so often harmful when it has its root in indolence or +indifference; especially harmful where our public affairs are concerned, +and where it is easiest, because there we are giving away what belongs +to other people. In this country it is as laudably easy to procure +signatures to a subscription paper as it is shamefully so to obtain them +for certificates of character and recommendations to office. And is not +this public spirit a natural evolution from that frame of mind in which +New England was colonized, and which found expression in these grave +words of Robinson and Brewster: "We are knit together as a body in a +most strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord, of the violation +of which we make great conscience, and by virtue whereof we hold +ourselves strictly tied to all care of each other's good, and of the +whole." Let us never forget the deep and solemn import of these words. +The problem before us is to make a whole of our many discordant parts, +many foreign elements, and I know of no way in which this can better be +done than by providing a common system of education and a common door of +access to the best books by which that education may be continued, +broadened, and made fruitful. For it is certain that, whatever we do or +leave undone, those discordant parts and foreign elements are to be, +whether we will or no, members of that body which Robinson and Brewster +had in mind, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, for good or ill. + +There is no way in which a man can build so secure and lasting a +monument for himself as in a public library. Upon that he may +confidently allow "Resurgam" to be carved, for through his good deed he +will rise again in the grateful remembrance and in the lifted and +broadened minds and fortified characters of generation after generation. +The pyramids may forget their builders, but memorials such as this have +longer memories. + +Mr. Fitz has done his part in providing your library with a dwelling. +It will be for the citizens of Chelsea to provide it with worthy +habitants. So shall they, too, have a share in the noble eulogy of the +ancient wise man: "The teachers shall shine as the firmament, and they +that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever." + + + + +THE INFLUENCE OF GOOD BOOKS + + The following paragraphs, which are from an address + delivered by Rev. Dr. Collyer at the opening of the Richard + Sugden Library at Spencer, Mass., are taken from a report in + _The Library Journal_ (September, 1889). The + autobiographical portions, perhaps, are little related to + the progress of libraries here in the United States, but + their interest is so great that more of them have been + included here than are strictly pertinent to our subject. + + Robert Collyer was born in Keighley, Yorkshire, Eng., Dec. + 8, 1823. He was apprenticed to a blacksmith as a boy of 14, + came to Shoemakertown, Pa., with his parents in 1850 and + followed there the trade of a hammermaker. Later he entered + the ministry of the Unitarian church and in 1860 founded + Unity church in Chicago. In 1879 he became pastor of the + Church of the Messiah in New York City, where he died in + 1912. + + +When Richard Sugden asked me to come to Spencer and say some word +which would fit this occasion, I wrote him by the next mail that I +should be ever so glad to come, and felt that it was a great honor to +receive such an invitation, and a great pleasure. Nor was the trouble of +much account--which touches us all who say Aye to such an invitation on +the impulse of the moment and then wonder how we shall make our promise +good. My old friend wanted me to come, and not another and better man, +and to say the word which was in my heart to-day, whatever this might +be; and this was enough, because I had read in the papers--what he was +far too modest to tell me, beyond the merest mention--about the gift of +Richard Sugden to his town, and so I said it makes no great matter what +any man may say, the thing he has done tells its own story, and tells it +more nobly than I could ever hope to do, more nobly and in this fashion +which shames my speech. For our words float away on the summer winds, to +be caught, it may be, and set in type and read by those who care for +such things, and then to die and be forgotten; but this your friend and +mine has done in Spencer will be eloquent with the silence which is +golden, and still tell its tale when we are all dead and dust who gather +here to-day. It is a poor and scant manhood which does not long now and +then to be remembered some little while after the grass grows green and +the daisies bloom on the grave. To have them speak of us at the +fire-side and in the workshop and the market, remembering what was +worthy in us and forgetting what was base, though there may be no more +to tell by comparison than Dr. Ripley told down in Concord, as he stood +by the dust of a man in his own town, and being sorely troubled to find +some real worth in the man's life he could dwell on for a moment, said, +"He was the best man I ever knew at a fire." I cannot even guess whether +Richard Sugden ever thought of this as one of the rewards which must +return to him for his gift to Spencer, and I love to think that to his +generous heart the work was its own reward. But I say, as we stand here +on this day of gift and dedication, that if this had been his sole +purpose, to be held in grateful remembrance of his fellow-townsmen and +their children through centuries of time, then he has taken out an +insurance that will stand good always and keep his memory green in the +town of Spencer. And not here alone, but far away across the sea in old +Yorkshire, where his home was in the old time before he came to this new +world to seek his fortune, and, far more and better than that, to earn +it honestly and well. The story will be told there long after to-day and +to-morrow, how one of the Sugdens who went out from among them gave this +gift, and then the kith and kin will hold up their heads and feel that +the fine old name has won still another patent of nobility. A poor youth +he was in the narrow, contracted, dear old land, where the poor were +held by a cruel bit. And a voice came to him, saying, "Get thee out from +thy kindred and thy father's house unto a land that I will tell thee +of"; and he followed the voice, as I did also, to the promised land; +carved out his fortune honest and fair, I say, but then could not be +content to enrich his own family alone, or, as so many do, to remember +his town in his will. He must build this noble structure, please God, in +his own lifetime, and convey it by free gift to you and yours forever; +and so the work is done, and so well done, to all seeming, that if you +care for the gift as your friend has cared for its creation, we may say, +as old Andrew Fairservice said of the cathedral in Glasgow, "Keep airn +and gunpooder aff it, and it will stand to the crack o'doom." + +My friend and yours is also an Englishman and a Yorkshireman, as you +know, by birth and breeding, as I am also, and I am the more glad and +proud of what he has done for that reason; because I still love old +England with a very tender love after these forty years of absence, as I +know he does also. But I have had to notice how very many of us who came +here from England to find a home in the American republic, and it may be +make their fortune, can find nothing so good in this new world as that +they left behind them, and no matter how much wealth they may win, they +do nothing as a rule for the town they live in, like this your friend +has done in Spencer. He could not be content to be a mere exile from +England, he must be a citizen of the United States and blend his life +with the life in this new world which has made him so much more of a man +than he ever could have been had he stayed on that hill-side in old +Yorkshire. This is the true home of his heart and life, here he won his +wealth and found ample room to grow to be the man you honor, and here is +one proof among many he has given in all these years, that while he was +born in England and is proud of it, though he may not say so, he was +born again in America, and does not love the old land less but the new +land more, as every man must who comes here to share your life, if he is +worth his salt. + +You will pardon me, I know, as you receive the gift, for this word in +praise of the giver, while he may find it hard to do so; but for that I +do not care, because in asking me to come here and say the word that was +in my heart he must run his risk and take it as it came to me, and +insisted on being said. Richard Sugden falls into line with our +home-born men far and wide, but especially in Massachusetts, who have +done or are ready to do some such thing as he has done now in +Spencer--building these public libraries in the towns where they live or +from which they went away to seek their fortune; public libraries, which +range with the schools and churches and the town halls; which are the +four-square defence of our life as citizens of the republic and of our +intelligence and virtue, when they are nobly maintained. They can do no +nobler thing. They are sure of their reward, also, if they want one, in +the grateful remembrance of their towns and cities, and open the way for +others again who wonder what they can do to the finest purpose; men who +have made their fortune and have not been struck by what we may call the +greenback paralysis, through which the hand that gets takes all the +strength from the hand that gives. What can we do better, they will say +in such a case, than this Richard Sugden has done for Spencer, and many +another man far and wide?--see to it that our town also shall have a +public library, which shall be its pride and joy, and make perfect so +far as we can the defence from ignorance and vice and crime; open a +fountain from which the waters of life may flow forever for those who +thirst for knowledge or whatever good books can give them? And, as I +have had to notice up among the mountains this summer how I would not +feel thirsty till I came to a clear, cool spring, but then would drink +to my heart's content, so such fountains as these will also create the +thirst they can so nobly allay, while still we keep on drinking in +answer to their perpetual invitation, as the years come and go. + +And now shall I tell you a very simple story touching my own life, +which will help to make good my thought of the worth of this you are +doing in Spencer through your free public library, and have been doing, +as I understand, these 30 years, which is in itself a great and singular +honor to your town, maintaining a free library and reading-room at your +own proper charges, for which your friend and fellow-citizen has built +this noble edifice, with some such feeling as he had in the old time who +built the temple that the ark of the covenant and the rod which budded +and the sacred books might have an abiding and splendid home. It was my +lot to be born as your friend was and mine, in a poor and small home, +with this thirst in my nature, as far back as I can remember, for +something to read. And I mind very well the first book I ever bought +with my own penny, the delectable history of Whittington and his Cat, +which cast such a spell over my imagination that when I went up Highgate +Hill over London the other summer, and saw the stone on which poor Dick +sat down to hear the bells ringing far below, which lured him back again +to fame and fortune, I found I was a small boy again reading my small +wonder-book, and the old stone divided the honors of a tender interest +with the red granite shaft set above the grave of the woman of finest +genius England has to her name, George Eliot, which is a few minutes' +walk away. + +There were a few books in our small cottage of three rooms, but these +were among the best in the English tongue, the Bible and Bunyan and +Goldsmith, with a few more I do not now remember, but these I read as +you drink at clear, cool springs. Then a man came along from over the +moors and brought Burns with him, and another brought Shakespeare. My +father borrowed these for me to read, and the world grew great and wide +and wonderful to me as I read them, while to this day I notice that I +care more for the history of England in Shakespeare's grand dramas than +I do for Hume and Froude and Macaulay, so great was the spell cast again +over my life. Then an old farmer came along with a couple of volumes, +and said, "Here, lad, I notice thou is fond o' good reading, and I think +thou will like to read these books." It was Irving's Sketch-Book and it +was Christmas day, and I was away from home then and lonesome, wanting +to be with my folks and to sit by the old fireside, but the magic wand +of Irving touched me and stole away all my tears. Still, as you may see, +this was only hand-to-mouth reading. I had never seen a public library, +but had heard of them and longed to find one somewhere, sometime, as, I +fear, I never had longed to find my way into heaven. Well, I heard of +one that had been started only three miles away, and so I went with my +heart in my mouth to see what I could find to read in the wonderful new +library. I can see the books now standing on the shelves in the small +upper room, and recall the old delight of my youth. I go into the Astor +Library now and then when I have time, rich in the lore of all the ages, +and have wandered through some of the finest in the world beside, but +that small room in Addingham is still the story of one's first love. +There were some 200 volumes, but here I was with all this wealth of +books at my command at about the cost of three days' work in a year. I +cannot tell you the story of that first grand passion and the delight of +it. I had found a library. I like that honest Dutchman, a fine old +scholar says, who told me that one page of Plato did him more good than +ten bumpers of wine, and that was the way I felt about those 200 +volumes. I had found out the unspeakable delight of drinking all my +heart could desire, and struck the matchless intoxication of noble and +wholesome books, that leave no headache or heartache when you are sober, +only it was a good while before I got sober. + +Then I came in due time to this new world and began to work again at the +anvil in Pennsylvania, my own proper business I expected to follow all +my life, and presently heard of a library in the small town of Hatboro, +six or seven miles away, six one way and seven the other. A fine old +farmer had found a long while ago that this was the noblest use he could +make of a good deal of his money, to build up a library away among the +rich green lands, and so there it was waiting for me with its treasure +of good books. I see them again as they stand on the shelves, and think +I could walk right in and lay my hands on those that won me most +potently and cast their spell again over my heart, though it is five and +thirty years since I was within the doors. I may mention Hawthorne among +them all as the author I found there for the first time who won my heart +for good and all, as we may say, and holds it still. Then I found a +great treasure in no long time in Philadelphia, that I could no more +exhaust than you can exhaust the spring we have been glancing at by +drinking, which dips down toward the deepness of the world. I was still +bound fast to the anvil, for this was our living, but there was my life, +so far as good books could make it, rich for me and noble in the great +library again seven miles away. So what matter about the hard day's work +at the anvil, while there was some new volume to read when the day's +work was done or old one to read with an ever new delight. My new book +or old one, with the sweet green lane in the summer time where I could +walk while the birds sang their mating song, and the fragrance of the +green things growing floated on the soft summer air, and the fireside in +winter with the good wife busy about the room, and the little ones +sleeping in their cribs, I look back to those times still and wonder +whether they were not the best I ever knew. I was reading some lines the +other day in an old English ballad written 300 years ago, and they told +the story of those times: + + "O for a booke, and a shadie nook, eyther indoore, or out, + With the green leaves whisp'ring overhede, or the streete cries all + about, + Where I maie reade, all at my ease, both of the New and Olde, + For a right good Booke, whereon to looke, was better to me than Golde." + +And so I touch the story of my own life for some poor evidence of what +good books can do for us and for the worth of what you have been doing +in Spencer all these years, and are made glad to day by this library +building which crowns the good endeavor; a place that will not shame but +will glorify your purpose and hold it to the noblest and best endeavors +you can make in the time to come, for such a shrine will be sure to draw +books to it always, worthy of its beauty and grace, and there will be +other men and women also to follow in the steps of Richard Sugden, and +bring to it costly works and rare and beautiful, worthy to be in the +palaces of kings while still you will see to it that the noble provision +of books for the general reading rests directly as it has done so long +on your own generous care. + +You have made this noble boon of good books easy and opulent for the +workingmen of Spencer. When I came to this new world and had not heard +as yet of that library among the green lands, but must have books on any +terms, and the terms were hard, and the good wife watching not the +dollars but the very cents because they must all be saved to furnish the +little home, I can well remember how I bought a book one day for half a +dollar, far too big to smuggle into the cottage, and hid it in the +bushes, watched my chances the next day, and got it in all safe and +sound; and some days after, when she caught me reading, and said, "Where +did you get that book, my dear?" I answered, "Why, I have had it for +some time"; and then she only said, "Indeed!" for she was patient with +me and good; and then, it was in what somebody calls our treacle moon. +The workingmen of Spencer fall on happy times. Here are books easy to +come at as the water you drink and the air you breathe and stores of +them which can never be exhausted. If it had come to pass thirty years +ago that some man delving in your wild hills had struck gold, and all +the eager manhood of New England had gone crazy to delve for gold where +Spencer stands, and had found it in mighty stores, I wonder whether that +would have been such a boon to Spencer and the world as this you have +done--establishing great industries and wholesome and good; beckoning +the working forces from far and wide to come here and take hold with you +on such terms as we can find nowhere else outside this new world. +Brother McGlynn, I remember, as we rode together to the funeral of Gen. +Grant, called out some half-dozen times, "God's world for the +workingman!" You did this who were the pioneers of the strong and +steadfast town, and then you said, We must have a free public library, +and pay the bills; we have got our churches started, and our schools, +and our place for town-meeting--the tap-root of the tree of liberty in +New England, a living tree, and no mere liberty-pole, and reaching down +200 years--now we must complete the walls of the city, which standeth +four-square, by a free public library, and so do what men may to +maintain a fair public virtue and intelligence within the lines of +Spencer; these men we employ shall have books to read of every kind any +man ought to read, and the ought shall be large and free and fair; and +so the thing was done. + +The thirty years have come and gone; the free public library has done +its noble and beautiful work. It is a new departure we touch to-day in +this ceremony of gift and acceptance. This library will grow always more +worthy the name your friend and neighbor has made for it from this time. +They say that in Scotland once a man sent for his minister and said, "If +I give £20,000 to the church do you think it will be reckoned in my +account when I get through down here?" And the minister said: "I do not +feel sure about that; but it is weel worth the experiment." I do feel +sure about this, and the worth of what you can do, to be placed to your +credit, not yonder but right here in the town of Spencer. There can be +no nobler investment, and but few as noble as this you have made these +thirty years for all who have the hunger and thirst in them good books +can satisfy; while still with poor Oliver in the story, we ask for more; +and they are not dead things, as Milton says, but contain a potency of +life as active as the soul from which they sprang: + + "Books are each a world; and those we know + Are a substantial world both pure and good; + Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, + Our pastime and our happiness will grow. + And books are yours + Within whose silent chambers treasure lies + Preserved from age to age; more precious far + Than that accumulated store of gold + And orient gems, which for a day of need + The Sultans hide deep in ancestral vaults. + These stores of truth you can unlock at will." + + + + +BOOKS AND LIFE + + The influence of books on the community has been used in + this address by Dean (now President) Birge as a basis for + discussing their reaction on special groups, especially + those differentiated by age and sex, and how far the library + should be guided by it and take advantage of it. It is + perhaps the best general treatment of the group features of + socialized library work by a speaker of authority, not a + professional librarian. + + Edward Asahel Birge was born at Troy, N.Y., Sept. 7, 1851, + graduated at Williams in 1873 and since 1875 has been a + member of the University of Wisconsin faculty, serving + successively as instructor in natural history, professor of + zoology, dean of the college of arts and sciences, acting + president, and finally in 1919, president of the University. + He has also served as a director of the Free Library at + Madison, and in 1906 was president of the Wisconsin Library + Association, before whom this address was delivered. + + +The aspect of the subject to which I would call your attention is the +often observed fact of the extent to which modern life in all of its +phases, is becoming based upon books. I say in all of its phases, for we +are concerned with the present extent of this relation between books and +life with its rapid increase, rather than with its existence. Ever since +the beginning of human society men have based their actions on the +teachings of experience. Part of these teachings each individual has +directly derived from his environment, and he has supplemented and +enlarged them by means of those coming from the remembered experience of +others, often belonging to an older generation. Later in history there +were added those teachings derived from books--from the recorded +experience of others. With that enlargement of the basis of human action +which comes from the remembered experience of others we, as librarians, +have nothing to do, and, indeed, there is little to say about it now +which could not have been said with equal propriety, one, two, or twenty +centuries ago. With books the case is different. The last century, the +last generation, the last decade--each has seen the transfer of the +basis of action from the oral to the printed word, which could be +paralleled by no other period of equal length in the history of +civilization. The story of this transfer from talk to print, from rule +of thumb to textbook, from tradition to school, from practise to +science, is long and intensely interesting. I can touch only a few +phases of it. + +First consider the lengthening of the school period for children. I do +not think it is possible accurately to compare the present length of +this period with that which existed a century or a half ago; nor would +such a comparison interest us. It is enough for our purpose to know that +years have been added to the school life of many thousands of the youth +of all classes. As a single illustration, consider the effect of the +high school, whose development into a large and popular institution, an +institution affecting great masses of the people, belongs almost wholly +to the period within the life of the generation now on the stage. A half +century ago the public high school was almost unknown and the private +academy reached very few persons. Only a generation ago the number of +students in secondary schools was hardly one-tenth of the present +number. The attendance on institutions of secondary grade has thus +increased five times as rapidly as the population. Within the past +fifteen years the attendance in the high schools of Milwaukee has more +than trebled, while only a little more than fifty per cent. has been +added to the population of the city. In Racine almost exactly the same +ratio holds, and so for many other cities of the United States, the +increase being least marked in New England cities, and greatest in the +cities of the West. + +The formative influence of the high school youth are far more +extensively and exclusively books than were those of his father or +grandfather, who probably began to learn his trade, or his business, at +about the age when his boy enters the high school, and who therefore, +during the period of adolescence, received his training from action +rather than from study, from oral rather than from printed experience. + +One may find to-day in the writings of many teachers jeremiads over the +shortness of the average school life of children. I would not contradict +their statistics and would join in their regrets, but the fact remains +that the most striking phenomenon in the life of the children of the +past thirty years is the extent to which their training has been +committed to the use of books and the rapid growth of the use of books +as the period has advanced. Few as the school years of the children now +are, those of any older generation have been fewer. This aspect of the +matter is the one that is of interest to us, and the school life of the +present, instead of arousing our regrets by its brevity, may well call +out our astonishment by its length, and demand the use of our best wits +to see the changes which have been caused in the life of the present and +to forecast those which in the future will flow from this fundamental +change in education. + +One of these correlated changes is already apparent--the extension of +the period of book learning for many thousands of persons into the +college and university course. + +In 1850 the total attendance on colleges in the United States was about +ten thousand. Half a century later, when the population of the country +had increased about three and one-third times, the college students had +increased in a tenfold ratio, or more than three times as rapidly as the +population. Even more significant is the growth of the number of college +students in more recent years. Since 1889 the number has more than +doubled, thus continuing in the latest years a ratio of growth with +reference to population quite as great as in earlier years. + +An equally significant, and quite as conspicuous change, is seen in the +growth of technical education. Thirty years ago, when I came to +Wisconsin, the university was graduating from two or three and a half +dozen engineers yearly, and these could not all find occupation in this +commonwealth, with a population then of more than a million people. Now +a hundred graduates go out at Commencement, while the population of the +state has little more than doubled, and while other engineering schools +of high rank have multiplied all around it. + +Nowadays the man of books, rather than the man of tradition is directing +the work of the world. In the copper mines of the north the +old-fashioned mine captain, who received his profession and his +traditions from his father, is disappearing and has almost vanished. His +place is taken by the graduate of a mining school, who interprets what +he sees, not by the light of the experience of his elders, communicated +to him orally, but by the far clearer light of the collective experience +of men embodied in books. + +When the capitalist now desires to explore for new iron mines he employs +not the old-fashioned prospector, but puts into the field a party of +young men often fresh from the geological laboratory. Thus science, +organized knowledge, book learning, is driving out with increasing +rapidity the picturesque figures of past times--times wholly past, +though only just behind us in years. That "bookish theoric," so detested +by Iago, is apparently firmly in control of affairs and has displaced +its predecessors and rivals. + +In countless other ways the same fact is shown. Half a century ago a +youth who desired to become a lawyer or a doctor entered the office of a +practitioner and learned his profession by practise and experience. Now +he goes to the school of law or medicine and gains his entrance to his +chosen calling by the way of books and laboratories. Even commerce and +trade, in which the rules of practical experience seem most firmly +entrenched, are shifting their basis to books, and schools of commerce +and trade schools are springing up on every hand to give youth a broader +foundation of knowledge than can be gained from practise. Still more +significant are the facts shown by the enormous development of +agricultural experiment stations, farmers' bulletins and farmers' +institutes. Agriculture, that calling which of all others is most +ancient and most conservative, is rapidly changing its basis from +tradition to books. Perhaps I ought not to say "most conservative," for +there is one calling which may better deserve the title--that of the +domestic industries practised by women. Yet even here a beginning of the +transfer, although a small one, has been made by schools of domestic +science. + +While this beginning is but small, and while the traditional professions +of women have not yet been greatly modified by books, the life of no +class of the community has been more profoundly affected by this general +change than has that of women. With the passing away of home industries +and with the great increase of wealth which the past century, or half +century, has seen, have come vastly increased opportunities to women for +leisure, for release from domestic duties, and for the prolongation of +school life. The statistics of high schools and colleges sufficiently +show the use which they are making of this leisure. Other facts are +equally obvious and significant as showing the transfer of the basis of +woman's life from domestic experience to books. The woman's club, I +suppose, may be said fairly to take the place of the sewing circle of +our mothers and grandmothers. The contrast even in the name is +significant, as marking the transfer of interest from the circle of +domestic experience to the wider domain of the recorded life of the +world, to the realm of books. + +Thus at whatever point we examine the life of the present, we find it +basing itself on books, both for action and enjoyment, and that in an +ever-increasing degree. This truth is peculiarly evident to you as +librarians, since the facts of your own profession and the rapid growth +of libraries and library work afford one of the latest phases of this +general movement. + +From 1875 to 1896 the number of libraries in the United States just +about doubled, increasing steadily, and adding, during this period, +about 2,000 libraries, or a little less than 100 per year. From 1896 to +1900, 1,350 libraries were added, or about 450 per year. From 1900 to +1903, 1,500 libraries were founded, or 500 per year. In the past ten +years the number of libraries must have doubled; a ratio growth at least +four times that of the population.... + +It is plain that the adjustment of the library to this movement of +men's minds towards books is the most important practical question for +all of us. Questions of management, of administration, of methods are +all of secondary importance beside this one--if, indeed they may be +called even secondary. For this change of base is a revolutionary +affair, not a mere matter of readjustment of detail, and it is no easy +task for the library to find itself in such a movement. Libraries are so +small a part of the national intellectual life, so small, in the mass, +for example, in comparison to the great universities, that their proper +influence and work are easily overlooked. There is sometimes danger that +they may be swept into currents guided by other forces rather than find +opportunity freely to contribute their own share to the movement. + +Let us turn then to the more practical side of the question, and ask how +the library is adjusting itself, in this changed relation of men, where +it has best succeeded, and where it still has most to do. Let us ask +where experience seems to promise successful solution of problems, and +where the problems are in that stage in which only doubtful success can +be expected from experiments, and final solution still lies far before +us. + +The library began as a place to keep books, permitting their use by the +public, but often under such restrictions as seem to indicate that this +service was granted "grudgingly and of necessity." Books and the high +life were in some obscure way correlated in the mind of the librarian, +and he too often seemed to feel that these were treasures not to be +shared by the many. The first change which came, therefore, as the +library was swept into the general intellectual current of time, was the +removal of restrictions on the use of books and their replacement by +devices intended to encourage and extend that use. A second step, and a +much more revolutionary one, has been to teach the community directly +the uses of books, and thus not merely to afford easy conditions for the +use of books on the part of those who want them, but to add a positive +force which will compel the books to go out in the community, there to +perform their present service and to create a demand for an increased +service in the future. + +This change marks a fundamental departure of the library from its old +basis, and one which will affect it greatly, for good and perhaps for +ill. The movement toward freedom of administration was really concerned +with small matters, and left unaltered the central plan and purpose of +the library. But with the assumption of direct educational work for +children, for women, for men, the library has entered upon a new epoch +in its evolution. It has taken up duties whose performance will demand +greatly enlarged resources--of space and of money, of books and of +working staff. And what is of even greater importance, the purpose, the +point of view, of those who control the library, and the temper of the +administration, will change, and ought to change, under the pressure of +these new duties. + +This positive and educational library work falls into two main +types--that for children, and that for adults--both men and women. It is +still in a tentative condition, in a formative and experimental period. +The results are still so few and recent that they do not admit any exact +formulation. They permit only general and suggestive statement. + +Work for children is, in some ways, the easiest educational attempt of +the library, since it runs parallel to the work of the schools, and +those for whom the work is done are easily reached and easily guided. +Its function is, of course, in part to supplement the school. It would +be, however, a great misfortune if it were looked upon merely as a +supplement to the school, as a means of providing reading which the +school ought to buy, but cannot afford. Its purpose is rather to begin +in childhood, both for pleasure and for profit, a voluntary association +with books which lie wholly outside of the school program. It aims to +begin the early formation of the habit of reading as distinguished from +study--a habit which will be permanent, instead of ending with the +period of formal instruction. It recognizes the fact that school life +must soon end, and that when the end comes, the important feature of the +child's intellectual condition is not so much the amount he has learned +as the temper and habit of his mind toward books. Has he merely learned +certain truths from books or are books open to him? It is of fundamental +importance to the community that the second alternative be secured. The +school libraries and children's librarians are, therefore, not to feel +that their duty is to supplement the school. That duty lies on a +different, and, in a way, a higher plane, in a more spiritual region. It +is their part to make the child a citizen of the world of books, and to +naturalize him so thoroughly that he will always remain a citizen. Thus +only can he share fully, not only in the high and permanent pleasures +that books afford, but also in that great movement of life toward books +which marks our time. + +From remarks which I have heard on various occasions, I believe this +extension of library service and library duties to youth has often been +misunderstood. Work with school children, whether done by the library +force as part of their duties, or by assistants especially engaged, has +seemed to many to be a somewhat unnecessary extension of the +library--something of a luxury. These added duties have often been +assumed by the libraries under special pleas, and for reasons temporary +in character. But in that wider view which I am trying to present, the +truth is recognized that the library is a permanent storehouse of books +for the community, to which the citizen of every class and age must +repair for knowledge not only interesting and useful but necessary to +the conduct of life. We recognize also that while the training of the +schools soon ceases for every individual, the service of the library +extends throughout life. We assert also that the possibilities of this +service must be taught to the members of the community from childhood, +and that the efficiency of the books will largely depend on the +efficiency with which this teaching is done. + +Especial care must be taken with children and youth toward the end of +the ordinary school periods--in the upper grades and in the high school. +Here it is that the transition to independent reading must come. The +children's room must not be merely an appendage to the kindergarten and +primary school, but the library must supply to youth of all ages not +only books, but inspiration in reading. The questions which arise in +work for children are many and often perplexing, but if these general +principles are accepted, they are, after all, questions of detail rather +than of principle. + +The library's influence over women has been the greatest in extent and +productive of the largest results; so much so that, in the opinion of +many critics of the public library, that institution is in danger of +becoming "feminized." I shall not attempt to discuss so large a subject +as that indicated by this fearful word, but it may not be unprofitable +to touch upon the causes which have given the work of the library for +women at once so great an extension and so great a success, as well as +some obvious limitations. I should place first among the causes, both +for the success and the limitation of this influence, the recent +acquisition by women of large opportunities for the intellectual life, +their natural conservatism, and their greatly increased leisure as +compared with men. That women read books, and read them in enormous +numbers, is granted, indeed asserted. That they read seriously I have +heard questioned and have always wondered at the doubt. It seems to me +rather that they never read in any way except seriously. How many +women--reading women, I mean--can put away an unfinished book without a +sense of guilt? How many can "browse about" in a library and enjoy doing +so? How many really like to read a dictionary or encyclopaedia without +ulterior designs upon an article for the women's club, or, at least, +without wanting to know something? These are all tests--unconscious, but +none the less excellent--of the real readers, of those to whom books are +alive and intimate friends. While I have no statistics at hand, I fear +that many women most devoted to libraries would fail to reach this +standard. The field of the intellectual life has been widely opened to +women so recently that they still feel a certain sense of duty along +with the privilege which is granted them in entering it, rather than a +complete sense of being at home there. The conservatism of women helps +this tendency to read seriously and for general purposes. The +traditional use of books as a means of culture appeals to their more +conservative mind as it does not to men. They are more easily induced to +read for reading's sake--they are willing to read the books one ought to +read. They are moved by considerations of mental improvement independent +of any result beyond the improvement itself. The library as a library +attracts them. Then, too, the amount of their reading and its character +is modified by the fact that women are so much more limited than men in +means to pass their leisure. Jerome K. Jerome (if correctly reported by +newspapers) recently pointed out that much so-called reading is no more +an intellectual process than is smoking a cigar, and that often we go to +books just as to the cigar, to pass the time and to prevent the +intrusion of disagreeable thoughts. Of course this is, and ought to be, +wholly true, and since with us the cigar is a masculine privilege, the +woman must take to books as the man takes to smoking, and even to +drinking. Speaking seriously, the library is to many women a relief from +care--the only distraction from the monotony of routine. It is a cheap +and easy thing to sneer at this use of books, but we who believe in the +friendship of books know that here lies one of the greatest blessings +they can give, as it is one of the greatest blessings of true +friendship. Nor do we wonder that the uncultivated, or the +half-cultivated, often choose their book friends from a class not +greatly above their own. + +On the other hand, women have hardly begun to use books on lines along +which we are seeking to get men to read--in directions connected with +their trade or profession. Domestic industries, so far as they are in +the hands of women, are still most wholly dependent upon tradition. They +are not exposed to competition. Failure or inefficiency does not put the +proprietor out of business. Their results are not measured in dollars +and cents. In a word, the whole line of motives which is forcing +masculine industries over to the basis of books is lacking in the chief +feminine occupations. We are now seeing only the feeble beginnings of +the attempt thus to transfer them from tradition to science. A long time +must pass, and social conditions greatly change, before the transfer is +made. Thus women are not forced from general to special lines of +reading, while they have greater motive for general reading than have +men. + +As a result, women are becoming, to a degree without example in the +past, the possessors and transmitters of the life of culture. I do not +believe that fewer men read good literature than formerly, but the +increase in masculine readers of this type has been so much less than +the increase in women readers that in comparison the number of men seems +to have shrunken greatly. Of course much of this reading by women for +culture is desultory and aimless, much is misdirected. But after all +deductions are made, it remains true that the knowledge of books seems +to be tending to become the possession of women rather than of men. It +has always belonged to a certain class of men--not a very large part of +the community--and it is still theirs; but its extension to other +classes has been along female lines rather than male, and its +transmission to the next generation seems only too likely to depend in a +large measure upon the female line. College statistics at present show +the same facts. Language, literature, and art are the chosen studies of +women. Men turn rather to science, economics, or politics--subjects +which, they suppose, bear directly on future plans for life. These great +subjects whose main purpose in education is the uplifting of the mind, +the widening of the mental horizon without direct reference to any +specific line of life--these appeal far more strongly to women than to +men, and their influence, in a rapidly increasing degree, will reach the +next generation through the mother rather than through the father. It +would be a pessimistic view which would say that modern society is +coming to depend on the mothers for the accumulation and transmission of +culture, while retaining in the male line the function of accumulating +and transmitting wealth, though much could be said for the thesis and a +very plausible argument could be constructed for it. + +If all this is true, it is inevitable that women should use libraries +far more than men. It is equally inevitable that in this large use much +should be trivial, much customary, much misdirected and unwise. Nature +has no means of reaching success except by the rule of natural +selection--the old-fashioned plan of "cut-and-try," and this means much +failure along the road of advance. We who see the work of the library +from our daily experience know how much it is contributing of culture, +how much of happiness, to the life of women, and through them to that of +the community. + +But men--why do they not use the library, say the critics, and what +shall the library do to increase its use by men? You have all read the +vigorous article that the _Independent_ published on this subject last +summer, which, with much of error, contains a good deal of truth in a +stimulating form. It presents a subject which must have a somewhat +larger treatment. + +It ought first to be said that in this and other articles on the topic +the terms _women_ and _men_ are by no means similarly used. The writers +are not concerned about men at large--the husbands and brothers of the +women who are said to visit the library--the women of comparative +leisure, who are seeking information on art, literature, or ancestry, +who are trying to get up a paper for the club, or who visit the library +for recreation. It is the plumber, the machinist, the grocer, whose +absence they deplore, and to whom they think the library ought to give +help. Not only so, but it is the plumber, rather than as a man, whose +presence is desired and who is to be aided. The library, says the +_Independent_ in effect, ought to teach the plumber how to "plumb"; +ought to furnish him with information which his boss is unable to give. +But this is a new function for libraries, however useful it may be, and +a function which libraries do not attempt for women. Dressmakers do not +(I speak under correction, but I think I am right) expect to secure at a +library a knowledge of how to fit a difficult customer, any more than do +tailors. Yet this sort of thing, we are told, the library ought to do +for men; and we are told in a tone which implies that here is an obvious +duty which only wilful ignorance can overlook. + +It ought rather to be recognized that in undertaking this work the +public library is entering a new and almost unexplored field of effort, +and also that it is trying to extend its influence to classes of the +community which it has not hitherto reached, and along lines of +knowledge which it has never seriously attempted to follow. In such a +work there must be many experiments and many failures, and the positive +results will be small for a long time.... + +The problem for the library, as regards men, is therefore twofold: 1. +Can men be induced to visit the library for general purposes, to use it +in ways similar to those for which women come to it? 2. How can the +wage-earners and handicraftsmen be induced to visit the library and use +its books for their practical advantage? + +Let us first consider the general question: Can we reach the men? The +women come to the libraries, say the critics, in shoals and droves, for +all sorts of intellectual purposes, good and bad. You catch the +children, they say, in school, when they cannot get away, and indeed are +glad of relief from lessons; but the men--can you reach them and affect +their lives? In reply we must say at once and frankly that no such large +volume of success with men is possible as has been the case with women. +The public library came to women at the precise moment when increased +education disposed them to use it, and increased leisure gave them the +opportunity. It fills a space in their lives which would be otherwise +void. But the present time is one of decreased leisure and increased +intensity of work for all classes of men. Perhaps I ought to except from +this statement the wage-earner, who as eight hour laws and customs come +into force will have more time for reading than the man of almost any +other class in the community. This movement toward lessened hours of +labor is more effective where libraries are best organized and therefore +presents an opportunity for the extension of library influence, both +general and special. The opportunity must be improved, yet neither the +wage-earner nor the business man will be easy to reach; neither has been +among the active patrons of the library in the past. Their lives are +already full, both with business and pleasure, and if the library is to +reach them, it must attract them on lines which appeal to them more +strongly than business or present pleasure. It must reach needs which +they know and feel to be real. + +I do not believe that men of the present generation will come to +libraries in great numbers for the purposes that attract women. We might +as well admit that they will not substitute the novel for the cigar, the +printed story for the companionship of the club. They will not read good +books because they ought to do so, and the number who will read them +because they like to do so is unfortunately not great. Men have not thus +acted since the world began, and man-like, they will not do so now, even +though such conduct on their part would help our library statistics very +greatly. Nor will any great number of them read in order to enlarge the +basis of life, for, in spite of the greatness of the movement toward +books, it affects at first hand only a few people in the community. The +mass of workmen, now and always, will get their knowledge from tradition +or at second hand. It will be the unusual man who will get his ideas +from books at first hand and thus improve his work and that of his +fellows. + +The problem is then to reach these few, and through them the community; +and this brings us to the second phase of the question. I do not find +that the problem has been solved; perhaps it is too recent. But +libraries have been attempting its solution by various methods and with +varying success. + +The first and most successful attempt is that of the large libraries, +like that of Pittsburgh and the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn, which +maintain a technical library for the men--a library adequately housed in +its own rooms and administered by a special librarian. These technical +libraries for working men succeed in their aim of reaching many of the +class for which they are established. They offer not merely an +opportunity for reading, but that guidance in the use of books which all +classes of the community need, if they are to use books for a serious +purpose. They show us that success in this line of effort may be reached +if the library has an income sufficient to enable it to undertake the +task on a large scale. + +This condition is, however, not that of most of the libraries which are +represented here. Our incomes are none too large for the work which we +must necessarily do for the general public. Such libraries must +ordinarily content themselves with offering to men opportunities for +reading without special guidance in the use of books. This work has been +attempted in a good many of the smaller libraries. They attempt to +provide masculine conditions for reading and reading material which will +appeal to men. The first includes a well-furnished, comfortable room for +men, where a man can come in his working clothes without feeling he is +out of place; smoking may be allowed or not--both plans are tried +without great difference in apparent result. The masculine reading +comprises newspapers and magazines; good books of literature which can +be left in the room (paper bound copies suggested); most important of +all are trade journals; if possible, files of the recent volumes of +these journals, selected according to the industries of each town; and +the most readable and most recent reference books on similar subjects. +In a word, a room is furnished with reading which will appeal to the +classes of men who do not ordinarily use libraries and who are not +greatly interested in literature. + +This plan is good one and ought to be tried, but I believe the +conditions are exceptional under which it will reach large numbers of +men. Inertia and habit will keep most of them away from the library. +They will see the daily papers at their wonted places of resort, and the +room, necessarily lacking in much of the freedom of the club, will fail +to attract very many of them. They will not form the habit of visiting +it, even though they might enjoy it if the habit were formed. It must +also be remembered that increasing numbers of the manufacturing concerns +are providing their employees with reading of this kind, and thus +limiting the use of the city library. + +In some libraries the attempt to reach men has gone still further and +has led to an inclusion of attractions which are ordinarily regarded as +outside the work of a library. They have attempted to combine to some +degree the privileges of a club with that of the public library. The +Stevens Point Library has a club room, equipped with billiard tables, +cards, etc., as well as with technical journals and similar books. This, +the librarian reports, is very successful in attracting boys, many of +whom learn to use the library. Men, however, do not come in large +numbers, as they do not care to use a place frequented by boys, and in +which smoking is not permitted. At Wausaukee a special room with games +and where lunch is served has been established at the library as a means +of furnishing a sort of club room for lumber men who come to the +village, especially on Sunday, and who have no other place of resort, +except the saloon. How far such methods are advisable as a part of +library work is a question which will often be asked during the coming +years and which only experience can answer. At present such enterprises +have not gone beyond the stage of early experiment. + +Summing up the result, I would frankly confess that the reports which I +have received are not numerous enough for a positive judgment, yet it is +my impression that where there is an income large enough to provide a +special librarian and a public large enough to warrant the expense, this +movement for special libraries for men is likely to succeed. It seems +also to be true that where the library provides the men with the +opportunity for reading only, and does not furnish guidance for readers, +no very large use is made of technical books and there is no greatly +increased use of the library in general. How to guide the reading seems, +therefore, to be the central factor in the solution of the problem. + +In a small town a special librarian is impossible, for financial +reasons, but there, as well as in large cities, lectures can be given +which deal with practical subjects and the aid to their knowledge which +the library affords. Many cities are giving such courses of lectures, +notably perhaps New York, and with considerable effect on the use of the +public library. I have no statistics regarding such lectures from the +various cities, but undoubtedly this method offers the easiest plan for +extending the use of the library in smaller cities and towns. I say the +_easiest_, and it will not be difficult to secure good lectures on +literature, history, or art, but lectures on the practical subjects are +much more difficult to obtain, since it is hard to secure lecturers who +know more about the trades than do the craftsmen who constitute the +audience. + +If these movements are to succeed, they must not be attempted in an +amateurish way. They must be well planned and well executed--planned and +executed with careful reference to the wants of the men of the +community. Above all, they must be persistently carried out with full +vigor year after year, even though results are apparently small. Their +purpose must be steadfastly maintained and the methods of execution +continually readjusted, as success or failure indicates. It is no light +or easy thing to change the habits of half the adult members of the +community--to cultivate the reading habit in those who have reached +maturity without acquiring it--and the work which the library proposes +for itself involves such a task. + +If men are to be reached at all it must be on a business basis, not on +that of occasional effort. Nor must the missionary spirit prevail, for +men, as a rule, do not wish to be reformed or to be helped. They must +find in the library a place which appeals to their sense of comfort and +which gives them things that they want, or, like other sensible people, +they will not use it. + +One word in closing this topic, and that in emphasis of what I have +already said. It is easier to keep a boy reading as he grows up than to +catch him again as a man after the library has lost him. Take a lesson +from the church. The boy who graduates from Sunday-school rarely returns +for a post-graduate course. In the wise administration of the work for +children and youth lies the main hope not of reaching, but keeping men +in the library. + +But it should be definitely understood that this enlargement of library +work which the times are forcing upon us means increasing expense, more +room, more books--which must be more frequently renewed--and a larger +library staff. It means the attempt to do efficiently several lines of +intellectual work for the public instead of purveying literature for +those who desire it. This new work the library can readily accomplish, +but not with the staff which was sufficient for the old duties. Any +library can provide, for example, the list of desiderata mentioned in +the _Independent's_ article, which could easily be extended. They can +all be furnished by the library as the public wants them and will pay +for them. They cannot be, and ought not to be, supplied by an already +overworked library staff of two or three persons. + +The library, therefore, should not enter upon these duties blindly or +ignorantly. It is a great task which is thus undertaken--to educate the +community to use books and to guide it in that use. Although small +beginnings are possible, the work will inevitably grow on our hands just +as that of the schools and colleges has done, and for similar reasons. +But whatever difficulties lie in the way of their performance, it is +plain that the library must assume these new duties. With many +experiments, with many failures, with many partial successes, the +library will extend its teachings, its conscious influences, until they +touch the life of the community at every point. + +In this rambling talk I have discussed library work as it looks forward +to new problems, and have devoted only a word, and that perhaps a rather +disparaging one, to the traditional use of the library. I would not +leave the subject in this way. For the traditional use of books remains +and will remain the center of library work and the main source of its +best influences. The problem of the library to-day, looked at from +within and not from without, and in relation to other agencies, is +essentially that which confronts the university. Both institutions once +stood for culture and for culture exclusively. Both are now challenged +by the spirit of the newer time and are called upon to justify +themselves as public utilities. This they must do, and that in full +measure, but there is a real danger that both, in the multiplicity of +the new duties thus forced upon them, may forget the weighty words, +"these ought ye to do and not leave the other undone." For, after all, +the highest public utility which the library offers, or can offer, is +the opportunity to cultivate the friendship of books. This utility is +none the less precious because it is intangible. Indeed, it is the +unique privilege of the library among municipal enterprises that it can +provide a service which aids the higher life of the citizen so directly +and so purely. In the spirituality of this function, the library stands +second only to the highest institutions of pure learning, and to the +church. + +No new undertaking, no extension of work, no plea of necessity can +warrant or justify any loss of power on this highest level. The problem +is not to discover how to sacrifice as little as possible of the old +spirit to the new duties, but to learn how through the new duties we may +make more wide-spread and more potent for good that oldest and best +inheritance from the past--the love of books. + +"The people's university," the library has been called, but it would be +as great a pity if the librarian so understood this term as to believe +that people came to the library only to learn, as it would be if any +went there who could not learn what they sought. That university which +is a place to study rather than a place to live is missing its best +possibilities, and in a similar way the library ought to be, first and +always, a place to read rather than a place to study. I would not go so +far as to say that I want to find it a place to "loaf," though I might +be provoked into saying so; but certainly it must be a place where I can +"invite my soul"--such a place as the world gives me elsewhere only in +the church or in the silence of nature. Trade journals and technical +works are of great use; books for women's clubs are good things; the +children's room is a necessity; but these of themselves no more make a +library than a kitchen, dining room and bedroom make a home. Out of such +utilities as these you may get a boarding house, but nothing better; the +family makes it a home. Those are wholly wrong who believe that standard +books are so cheap that anyone can buy them, and therefore the library +could conceivably get on without them. Without the best literature you +might get a very useful institution, no doubt, but not a library, for in +a library the great works of the great authors are the soul and theirs +is the spirit which enables the library not merely to contribute to the +advance of the community toward prosperity and intelligence, but also, +in some degree, to touch its higher life to finer issues. + + + + +THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY + +AN ADDRESS AT ITS DEDICATION + + This and the four addresses that follow it have little in + common except that all were delivered at the opening + exercises of libraries. Everett's address at the opening of + the Boston Public Library appropriately heads the group. The + reader will look in it in vain for any reflection of the + conservative opinions expressed in the letter to George + Ticknor printed on page 53 of this volume, unless perhaps in + the total absence of anything radical. It is typical oratory + of the day--ponderously graceful, if that is not a + contradiction in terms. + + Edward Everett was born in Dorchester, Mass., April 11, + 1794. He graduated at Harvard in 1811 and served there as + professor of Greek in 1819-25. He was a member of Congress + in 1825-35, governor of Massachusetts in 1836-40, minister + to Great Britain in 1841-45, president of Harvard, 1846-49, + U.S. secretary of state in 1852-53, and U.S. senator in + 1853-54. He died in Boston, Jan. 15, 1865. His reputation as + a scholarly orator was very high. + + +MR. MAYOR:-- + +In behalf of the Trustees of the City Library, I receive with extreme +pleasure the keys which you have placed in my hands. The completion of +the noble building, which the city government now confides to our care, +is an event to which the Trustees have looked forward with the greatest +interest, and which they now contemplate with the highest satisfaction. +They deem themselves especially honored in their connection with an +institution, for whose use this stately and commodious edifice has been +erected, and which they doubt not is destined to be instrumental of the +highest good to the community, and to reflect lasting credit upon the +liberality, public and private, with which it has been founded and +endowed. + +The city of Boston, owing to peculiar circumstances in its growth and +history, has been at all times, as I think, beyond most cities in the +world, the object of an affectionate attachment on the part of its +inhabitants; a feeling entitled to respect and productive of good, even +if it may sometimes seem to strangers over-partial in its +manifestations. It is not merely its commanding natural situation, the +triple hills on which it is enthroned, its magnificent bay and harbor, +and the group of islands and islets that sparkle like emeralds on their +surface; not merely this most admirable common, which opens before our +windows, delightful even at this season of the year, and affording us in +summer, in its noble malls and shady walks, all that the country can +boast of cool and beautiful and salubrious, transported to the heart of +the city, "the poor man's pleasure-ground," as it has been well called, +though a king might envy it;--nor the environs of our city of surpassing +loveliness, which enclose it on every side in kindly embrace; it is not +solely nor principally these natural attractions which endear Boston to +its citizens. Nor is it exclusively the proud and grateful memories of +the past,--of the high-souled fathers and mothers of the land, venerable +in their self-denying virtues, majestic in the austere simplicity of +their manners, conscientious in their errors, who, with amazing +sacrifices and hardships never to be described, sought out new homes in +the wilderness, and transmitted to us delights and blessings which it +was not given to themselves to enjoy;--of those who in succeeding +generations deserved well of their country,--the pioneers of the +Revolution, the men of the stamp act age, whose own words and acts are +stamped on the pages of history, in characters never to be effaced;--of +those who, when the decisive hour came, stood forth in that immortal +HALL, the champions of their country's rights, while it scarcely yet +deserved the name of a country; it is not exclusively these proud and +grateful associations, which attach the dutiful Bostonian to the city of +his birth or adoption. + +No, Mr. Mayor, it is not exclusively these, much as they contribute to +strengthen the sentiment. It has its origin, in no small degree, in the +personal relation in which Boston places herself to her children; in the +parental interest which she cherishes in their welfare, which leads her +to take them by the hand almost from the cradle,--to train them up in +the ascending series of her excellent free schools; watching over them +as a fond father watches over the objects of his love and hope; in a +word, to confer upon them a first-rate school education at the public +expense. Often have I attempted, but with very partial success, both in +this country and in Europe, to persuade inquiring friends from the +countries and places where no such well-organized system of public +education prevails, that our free schools do really afford to the entire +population means of elementary education, of which the wealthiest +citizen is glad to avail himself. + +And now, Mr. Mayor, the enlightened counsels of the city government are +about to give new strength to those ties of gratitude and affection, +which bind the hearts of the children of Boston to their beloved city. +Hitherto the system of public education, excellent as it is and wisely +supported by a princely expenditure, does but commence the work of +instruction and carry it to a certain point; well advanced, indeed, but +far short of the goal. It prepares our young men for college, for the +counting-room, for the office of the engineer, the _studio_ of the +artist, the shop of the artisan, the laboratory of the chemist, or +whatever field of employment they may be destined to enter, but there it +leaves them, without further provision for the culture of the mind. It +disciplines the faculties and forms a taste for the acquisition of +knowledge, on the part of our young men and women, but it provides no +means for their exercise and gratification. It gives them the elementary +education requisite for their future callings, but withholds all +facilities of access to those boundless stores of recorded knowledge, in +every department, by which alone that elementary education can be +completed and made effectual for the active duties of life. + +But to-day our honored city carries on and perfects her work. The +trustees, from their first annual report to the present time, have never +failed to recommend a first class public library, such as that, sir, for +whose accommodation you destine this noble building, as the completion +of the great system of public education. Its object is to give to the +entire population, not merely to the curious student, but to the +inquisitive member of either of the professions, to the intelligent +merchant, mechanic, machinist, engineer, artist or artisan, in short, to +all of every age and of either sex, who desire to investigate any +subject, either of utility or taste, those advantages which, without +such an ample public collection, must necessarily be monopolized by the +proprietors of large private libraries, or those who by courtesy have +the use of them; nay, to put within the reach of the entire community +advantages of this kind, far beyond those which can be afforded by the +largest and best provided private libraries. + +The trustees are anxious that the institution, whose prosperity they +have so much at heart, should continue to be viewed in this light; as +one more added to the school-houses of the city, at which Boston boys +and girls, when they have outgrown the other schools, will come to carry +on the education which has been there commenced; where Boston men and +women, "children of a larger growth," may come to acquire that +additional knowledge which is requisite for the most successful +discharge of the duties of the various callings of society,--which +opens, in its pursuit, the purest sources of happiness,--and which, +without reference to utility, contributes so materially to the grace and +ornament of life. + +I am aware that there is still floating about in the community a vague +prejudice against what is called book-learning. One sometimes hears +doubts expressed of the utility of public libraries; opinions that +they are rather ornamental than necessary or useful; and the fact that +our time-honored city, never indifferent to the mental improvement of +her children, has existed more than two centuries without one, is a +sufficient proof, that, until within a very few years, their +importance has not been practically felt. There is perhaps even now a +disposition to claim some superiority for what is called practical +knowledge--knowledge gained by observation and experience (which most +certainly the trustees would not disparage), and a kind of +satisfaction felt in holding up the example of self-taught men, in +supposed contradistinction from those who have got their knowledge +from books. No name perhaps is so frequently mentioned for this +purpose as that of Franklin, who, because he had scarce any school +education and never went to college, has been hastily set down as a +brilliant example to show the inutility of book-learning. It has been +quoted to me in this way, and to show that libraries are of no use, +within three days. + +Now, Mr. Mayor, I need not tell you that there never was a greater +mistake in point of fact. A thirst for books, which he spared no pains +to allay, is the first marked trait disclosed in the character of +Franklin; his success throughout the early period of his life can be +directly traced to the use he made of them; and his very first important +movement for the benefit of his fellow-men was to found a public +library, which still flourishes;--one of the most considerable in the +country. Franklin not a book-man! whoever labors under that delusion, +shows that somebody else is not a book-man, at least so far as concerns +the biography of our illustrious townsman. We happen to have a little +information on that subject, in a book written by Franklin himself. He +there gives a very different account of himself, and I would ask any one +who entertains the idea to which I am alluding, at what period of +Franklin's career he supposes this taste for books began to be +manifested by him; how soon he ceased to be a self-formed man? Perhaps +after he had struggled through the years of his youthful poverty, +escaped to Philadelphia, set up in business as a printer, and begun to +have a little money in his pocket. I need not tell you, sir, that it was +earlier than that. Was it, then, while he was the clever apprentice to +his brother, the editor of a journal, and wrote articles for its columns +in a disguised hand, and tucked them under the office door, enjoying the +exquisite delight of being ordered to set up his own anonymous articles; +was it then, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, that this fondness for +reading, under the stimulus of boyish authorship, disclosed itself? +Earlier than that. Well, then, at the grammar-school and Master +Brownwell's writing-school, which he attended from eight to ten (for +there are boys who show a fondness for reading, even at that tender +age); was little Benjamin's taste for books developed while yet at +school? Earlier than that. Hear his own words, which you will permit me +to read from that exquisite piece of autobiography to which I have +already alluded: "From my INFANCY I was _passionately_ fond of reading, +and all the money that came into my hands was laid out in purchasing +books. I was very fond of voyages. My first acquisition was Bunyan's +works, in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me +to buy R. Burton's _Historical Collections_. They were small chapman's +books and cheap, forty volumes in all. My father's little library +consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read. I +have often regretted [and this is a sentence that might be inscribed on +the lofty cornice of this noble hall] that at a time when I had such a +thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way.... +There was among them Plutarch's Lives, which I read abundantly, and I +still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of +Defoe's, called an _Essay on Projects_, and another of Dr. Mather's, +called an _Essay to do Good_, which"--did what, sir? For I am now going +to give you, in Franklin's own words (they carry with them the +justification of every dollar expended in raising these walls), the +original secret of his illustrious career--what was the effect produced +by reading these two little books of Defoe and Cotton Mather? "they +perhaps gave me a turn of thinking, which had an influence on some of +the principal future events of my life." Yes, sir, in the reading of +those books was the acorn that sprouted into that magnificent oak; there +was the fountain-drop which a fairy might have sipped from a buttercup, +from which has flowed the Missouri and the Mississippi,--the broad, deep +river of Franklin's fame, winding its way through the lapse of ages, and +destined to flow on, till it shall be ingulfed in the ocean of eternity. + +From his "infancy," sir, "passionately fond of reading," nay, with the +appetite of a vulture, with the digestion of an ostrich, attacking the +great folios of polemic divinity in his father's library. Not a dull +boy, either; not a precocious little bookworm; fond of play; doesn't +dislike a little mischief; sometimes, as he tells us, "led the other +boys into scrapes;" but in his intervals of play, in his leisure +moments, up in the lonely garret when the rest of the family were +asleep, holding converse in his childhood with the grave old +non-conformists, Howe and Owen and Flavel and Baxter,--communing with +the austerest lords of thought; the demigods of puritanism. + +Franklin not a book-man? Why, he goes on to tell us that it was "this +bookish inclination which at length determined his father to make him a +printer," against his own inclination, which was for the sea; and when +he had thus by constraint become a printer, his great consolation was, +as he says, that "I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with +the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small +one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my +chamber reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was +borrowed in the evening and was to be returned in the morning, lest it +should be found missing." + +Then he made the acquaintance of Mr. Matthew Adams, an ingenious, +sensible man, "who had a pretty collection of books." He frequented the +printing-office, took notice of the bright little apprentice, and "very +kindly proposed to lend me such books as I chose to read." Having taken +to a vegetable diet at the age of sixteen, he persuaded his brother to +allow him in cash half the price of his board,--lived upon potatoes and +hasty pudding,--soon found that he could save half even of that little +allowance (which could not have exceeded two-and-six-pence a week, +lawful money), and this poor little economy "was an additional fund for +buying books." What would the poor, underfed boy, who was glad to buy +books on the savings of his potato diet, have said could he have had +free access to a hall like this, stored as it soon will be with its +priceless treasures? + +Further, sir, while working as a journeyman in England, he says, "I +made the acquaintance of one William Wilcox, a bookseller, whose shop +was next door. He had an immense collection of second-hand +books."--(Somewhat, I suppose, like our friend Burnham, in +Cornhill.)--"Circulating libraries were not then in use, but we agreed +that on certain reasonable terms, which I have now forgotten, I might +take, read, and return any of his works. This I esteemed a great +advantage, and I made as much use of it as I could." + +Finally, sir, as I have already said, Franklin's first important +movement for the good of his fellow-men was the foundation of the public +library in Philadelphia. At his instance, the members of a little club +to which he belonged, tradesmen and mechanics of narrow means, threw +into common stock the few books which belonged to them. A subscription +was then obtained from fifty young men, principally tradesmen, of two +pounds each, and ten shillings _per annum_, and with this little fund +they began. "The books were imported, the library was opened one day in +the week for lending them to the subscribers, on their promissory notes +to pay double the value if not duly returned." "This was the mother," +says Franklin, "of all the North American subscription libraries, now so +numerous. It has become a great thing itself, and continually goes on +increasing. These libraries have improved the general conversation of +the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as +most gentlemen from other countries, and, perhaps, have contributed in +some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in +defence of their privileges." + +Those are the words of Franklin, Mr. Mayor, which I read from his own +book. Our excellent friend the President of the Commissioners (Hon. R.C. +Winthrop) has justly felicitated himself on having been the first person +publicly to raise his voice in this noble hall. He must be a happier man +than I who can speak an earlier or an abler word than his on any +occasion; but I claim the credit of having read from the first book +opened in this hall;--and what is more, sir, I mean to have the +satisfaction of presenting the first volume given to the library, since +this building came into the care of the Trustees. In your presence, Mr. +Mayor, and that of this vast assembly on this first of January, 1858, I +offer this copy of Franklin's Autobiography in Sparks's edition, as a +New Year's gift to the Boston Public Library. Nay, sir, I am going to do +more, and make the first, and perhaps the last, motion ever made in this +hall; and that is, that every person present, of his own accord, if of +age,--with the consent of parent or guardian, if a minor,--man, woman, +boy, or girl, be requested, on going home, to select one good book, and +in memory of the poor boy, who half-fed himself to gratify his taste for +reading, present it as a New-Year's gift to the Boston Public Library. I +make you that motion, Mr. Mayor, and I call upon all present to give me +their voices: especially I ask the cooperation of the fairer and better +part of creation. If nowhere else, woman's rights shall be respected in +this hall, while I have anything to do with it. I pray you, Mr. Mayor, +put the question, and then I'll finish my speech. + + His Honor the Mayor then rose and stated the question, which + was seconded by Mr. Winthrop. The mayor particularly called + on the ladies to vote, and a unanimous and emphatic aye + resounded through the vast hall. The negative was then + called and no response made. His Honor, amidst great + cheering and laughter, pronounced it a unanimous vote. Mr. + Everett resumed-- + +No, sir, if there is one lesson more than another directly deducible +from the life of Franklin, it is the close connection of a thoroughly +practical and useful life and career with books, libraries, and reading. +If there is a thing on earth which would have gladdened his heart could +he have anticipated it, it would be the knowledge that his native city, +in two generations after his death, would found a library like this, to +give to the rising generation and to the lovers of knowledge of every +age that access to books, of which he so much felt the want. And could +it be granted to him, even now, to return to his native city, which +dwelt in his affections to the close of his life, his first visit would +be to the centre of the ancient burial-ground, where in after-life he +dutifully placed a marble slab on the graves of his parents; his second +visit would be to the spot in Milk street where he was born; his third +to the corner of Union street and Hanover street, where he passed his +childhood, in a house still standing; his fourth visit would be to the +site of the free grammar school-house, where, as he says in his will, he +received "his first instruction in literature," and which is now adorned +with a statue which a grateful posterity has dedicated to his memory; +and his last and longest would be to this noble hall, where you are +making provision for an ample supply of that reading of which, "from his +_infancy_ he was _passionately_ fond." The trustees have done what they +could to connect some reference to Franklin with an institution which +would have been the object of his warmest affections, by providing that +every Franklin medal boy shall be entitled to its privileges; and +inasmuch as the accumulating fund which he bequeathed to the city, and +which now exceeds seventy thousand dollars, has proved almost wholly +unavailing for the primary object of the bequest, it deserves +consideration whether, when it has reached a sufficient magnitude, as it +will before the end of this century, the interest of the fund, if it can +be legally done, might not advantageously be appropriated, as a +permanent endowment for the support of the library. + +I have not proposed at this time, sir, on the part of the trustees, to +make a formal speech; I have preferred to let Benjamin Franklin speak +for us. This day belongs of right to the commissioners for building the +library, ably represented as they are, by our distinguished friend their +president, who has done such ample justice to the subject; and to you, +Mr. Mayor, as the organ of the city government, whom I cannot but +congratulate on closing your official career,--in all respects so +honorable to yourself and so acceptable to your fellow-citizens,--by an +act, I am sure, most grateful to your own feelings and most auspicious +of the public good. It is not yet the time for the trustees to speak. A +more fitting opportunity may hereafter present itself, when the books +shall be placed on the shelves, the catalogue printed, and the library +opened for public use. Occasion may then, perhaps, with propriety be +taken, to illustrate the importance and utility of such an institution; +to do justice to the liberality on the part of the city government and +the individual benefactors by which it has been founded, endowed, and +sustained; and especially to the generosity of our greatest benefactor +and esteemed fellow-countryman, Mr. Bates, whose letters announcing his +first munificent donation of fifty thousand dollars, alluding to his own +early want of access to books, assign that as the moving cause which +prompted his liberality. It will be the pleasing duty of those who may +then be intrusted with the administration of the library, to pay a +fitting tribute to so much public and private bounty. + +In the mean time, sir, we must throw ourselves on the patience and +considerateness of the city council and the community. Not much short of +sixty thousand volumes are to be brought together from four different +places of temporary deposit, and assigned to their final resting-places +in this hall and the circulating library below. Here they are to be +arranged on the shelves, the cards and slips which pertain to them, far +more numerous than the volumes themselves, reduced to alphabetical +order; a separate catalogue of each alcove prepared; and a comprehensive +catalogue of the whole collection, without which it will be little +better than an unmanageable mass, prepared and printed. Every thing +which could be done beforehand, has been anticipated; but much of the +work was of necessity reserved till the books should be placed on the +shelves. In the interval, and while this labor is going on, the library +in Mason street will be left in possession of the books most in request +for daily circulation, and will be closed at last only when it becomes +absolutely necessary that they also should be removed to the new +building. + +But it is time for me to conclude. The shades of evening are falling +around us; those cressets which lend us their mild and tasteful +illumination will soon be extinguished; and the first day of the +New-Year, rich in the happy prospects we now inaugurate, will come to a +close. May the blessing of Heaven give effect to its brightest +anticipations. A few more days,--a few more years,--will follow their +appointed round, and we, who now exchange our congratulations on this +magnificent New-Year's gift of our city fathers, shall have passed from +the scene; but firm in the faith that the growth of knowledge is the +growth of sound principles and pure morals, let us not doubt, that, by +the liberality of the city government and of our generous benefactors at +home and abroad, a light will be kindled and go forth from these walls, +now dedicated to the use of the FREE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY, which will +guide our children and our children's children in the path of +intelligence and virtue, till the sun himself shall fall from the +heavens. + + + + +THE NEW YORK FREE CIRCULATING LIBRARY + +ADDRESS IN ITS FAVOR AT A PUBLIC MEETING + + President Cleveland made this address on March 6, 1890, + while a resident of New York City in the interval between + his two presidential terms, at a meeting, at Chickering + Hall, called for the purpose of directing attention to the + work of the struggling Free Circulating Library and if + possible to raise funds for its support, which was only + partially insured by the City. Owing to increase in both + public and private contributions this library was enabled to + make rapid growth in the years immediately following until + in 1901, when it was merged in the Circulation Department of + the New York Public Library, it was operating eleven + branches with a circulation of over 600,000. This + institution was the pioneer of the popular, as distinguished + from the scholarly, library idea in New York. + + [Stephen] Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, N.J., + March 18, 1837, the fifth son of a Presbyterian clergyman. + He received a common-school education and after his father's + death went in 1855 to live with an uncle in Buffalo, N.Y. He + was admitted to the bar there in 1859, was assistant + district attorney in 1863-66, sheriff in 1871-74 and mayor + in 1882. In the latter year he was elected Governor of New + York and in 1884 President of the United States. He was an + unsuccessful candidate for re-election in 1888, but was + elected again in 1892. He died in Princeton, N.J., where he + had resided since his last presidential term, on June 24, + 1908. + +The words I shall speak on this occasion I intend rather as a pledge of +my adherance to the cause in which you are enlisted than an attempt to +say anything new or instructive. I gladly join with the enthusiasm of a +new convert in the felicitations of those who have done noble and +effective work in the establishment and maintenance in our city of a +free circulating library, and it seems to me they have abundant cause +for congratulation in review of the good which has already been +accomplished through their efforts and in the contemplation of the +further usefulness which awaits their continued endeavor. + +In every enlightened country the value of popular education is fully +recognized, not only as a direct benefit to its recipients, but as an +element of strength and safety in organized society. Considered in these +aspects it should nowhere be better appreciated than in this land of +free institutions consecrated to the welfare and happiness of its +citizens, and deriving its sanction and its power from the people. Here +the character of the people is inevitably impressed upon the government, +and here our public life can no more be higher and purer than the life +of the people, than a stream can rise above its fountain or be purer +than the spring in which it has its source. + +That we have not failed to realize these conditions is demonstrated by +the establishment of free public schools on every side, where children +are not only invited but often obliged to submit themselves to such +instruction as will better their situation in life and fit them to take +part intelligently in the conduct of the government. + +Thus, in our schools the young are taught to read, and in this manner +the seed is sown, from which we expect a profitable return to the state, +when its beneficiaries shall repay the educational advances made to them +by an intelligent and patriotic performance of their social and +political duties. + +And yet if we are to create good citizenship, which is the object of +popular education, and if we are to insure to the country the full +benefit of public instruction, we can by no means consider the work as +completely done in the schoolroom. While the young gathered there are +fitting themselves to assume in the future their political obligations, +there are others upon whom these obligations already rest, and who now +have the welfare and safety of the country in their keeping. Our work is +badly done if these are neglected. They have passed the school age, and +have perhaps availed themselves of free instruction; but they, as well +as those still in the school, should, nevertheless, have within their +reach the means of further mental improvement and the opportunity of +gaining that additional knowledge and information which can only be +secured by access to useful and instructive books. + +The husbandman who expects to gain a profitable return from his +orchards, not only carefully tends and cultivates the young trees in his +nurseries as they grow to maturity but he generously enriches and cares +for those in bearing and upon which he must rely for ripened fruit. + +Teaching the children of our land to read is but the first step in the +scheme of creating good citizens by means of free instruction. We teach +the young to read so that both as children and as men and women they may +read. Our teaching must lead to the habit and the desire of reading to +be useful; and only as this result is reached can the work in our free +schools be logically supplemented and made valuable. + +Therefore, the same wise policy and intent which open the doors of our +free schools to our young, also suggest the completion of the plan thus +entered upon by placing books in the hands of those who in our schools +have been taught to read. + +A man or woman who never reads and is abandoned to unthinking torpor, or +who allows the entire mental life to be bounded by the narrow lines of +the daily recurring routine of effort for mere existence, cannot escape +a condition of barrenness of mind, which not only causes the decay of +individual contentment and happiness, but which fails to yield to the +state its justly expected return of usefulness in valuable service and +wholesome political action. + +Another branch of this question should not be overlooked. It is not +only of great importance that our youth and our men and women should +have the ability, the desire, and the opportunity to read, but the kind +of books they read is no less important. Without guidance and without +the invitation and encouragement to read publications which will improve +as well as interest, there is danger that our people will have in their +hands books whose influence and tendency are of a negative sort, if not +positively bad and mischievous. Like other good things, the ability and +opportunity to read may be so used as to defeat their beneficient +purposes. + +The boy who greedily devours the vicious tales of imaginary daring and +blood-curdling adventure which in these days are far too accessible to +the young will have his brain filled with notions of life and standards +of manliness which, if they do not make him a menace to peace and good +order, will certainly not tend to make him a useful member of society. + +The man who devotes himself to the flash literature now much too common +will, instead of increasing his value as a citizen, almost surely +degenerate in his ideas of public duty and grow dull in appreciation of +the obligations he owes his country. + +In both these cases there will be a loss to the state. There is danger +also that a positive and aggressive injury to the community will result, +and such readers will certainly suffer deprivation to the happiness and +contentment which are the fruits of improving study and well-regulated +thought. + +So, too, the young woman who seeks recreation and entertainment in +reading silly and frivolous books, often of doubtful moral tendency, is +herself in the way of becoming frivolous and silly, if not of weak +morality. If she escapes this latter condition, she is certain to become +utterly unfitted to bear patiently the burden of self-support or to +assume the sacred duties of wife and mother. + +Contemplating these truths, no one can doubt the importance of securing +for those who read, as far as it is in our power, facilities for the +study and reading of such books as will instruct and innocently +entertain, and which will at the same time improve and correct the +tastes and habits. + +There is another thought somewhat in advance of those already suggested, +which should not pass unnoticed. + +As an outgrowth of the inventive and progressive spirit of our people, +we have among us legions of men, and women, too, who restlessly desire +to increase their knowledge of the new forces and agencies which at this +time are being constantly dragged from their lurking-places and +subjected to the use of man. Those earnest inquirers should all be given +a chance and have put within their reach such books as will guide and +inspire their efforts. If by this means the country shall gain to itself +a new inventor or be the patron of endeavor which shall add new elements +to the sum of human happiness and comfort, its intervention will be well +repaid. + +These considerations, and the fact that many among us having the ability +and inclination to read are unable to furnish themselves with profitable +and wholesome books amply justify the beneficient mission of our Free +Circulating Library. Its plan and operation, so exactly adjusted to meet +a situation which cannot safely be ignored and to wants which ought not +to be neglected, establish its claim upon the encouragement and +reasonable aid of the public authorities and commend it most fully to +the support and generosity of private benefaction. + +The development which this good work has already reached in our city has +exhibited the broad field yet remaining untouched and the inadequacy of +present operations. It has brought to view also instances of noble +individual philanthropy and disinterested private effort and +contribution. + +But it certainly seems that the time and money directed towards this +object are confined to a circle of persons far too narrow, and that the +public encouragement and aid have been greatly disproportioned to +private endeavor. + +The city of New York has never shown herself willing to be behind other +cities in such work as is done by our Free Circulating Library, and +while her people are much engrossed in business activity and enterprise +they have never yet turned away from a cause once demonstrated to them +to be so worthy and useful as this. + +The demonstration is at hand. Let it be pressed upon our fellow +citizens, and let them be shown the practical operation of the project +you have in hand and the good it has accomplished, and the further good +of which it is capable through their increased liberality, and it will +be strange if they fail to respond generously to your appeal to put the +city of New York in the front rank of the cities which have recognized +the usefulness of the free circulating libraries. + + + + +THE WADSWORTH ATHENAEUM + +ADDRESSES AT THE OPENING OF ITS LIBRARY IN HARTFORD, CONN., JAN. 2, +1893. + + These addresses, by Charles Dudley Warner and Charles H. + Clark, are reprinted from brief abstracts given in _The + Library Journal_ of January, 1893. + + Charles Dudley Warner was born in Plainfield, Mass., Sept. + 12, 1829 and graduated at Hamilton College in 1851. He + practised law in Chicago in 1856-60 and in 1861 became + managing editor of the Hartford, Conn., _Press_. In 1867 on + its consolidation with the _Courant_, he became co-editor. + He was made associate editor of _Harper's Magazine_ in 1884, + and died at Hartford, Oct. 20, 1900. He was widely popular + as an essayist, first gaining favorable notice by his "My + Summer in a Garden." + + +This building and its contents are contributory to the excellence and +enjoyment of life exactly as Bushnall Park is--not merely that it is a +place of rest and recreation, but it is a training in beauty, in the +appreciation of nobleness, and in the public and private refinement. +Culture is a plant of rather slow growth. I suppose there never was such +a change wrought, almost instantaneously, in a people as was wrought in +the American people by the opening and exhibition of the Philadelphia +Centennial of 1876. Its effect was at once apparent everywhere. But +knowledge precedes culture, culture being, after all, but another name +for educational taste. + +Now this institution is simply a means for the culture of the city of +Hartford, in all ways, because literature and art--not taken externally, +but absorbed as a part of our lives, not only of knowledge, but of +experience--are the things that make life worth living. + +No one can speak too highly of the offices of a great library. It was +one of our great essayists, you remember, who said that the +monastery--speaking of it with reference to its books--was the ark that +floated down over the tempest and darkness of the middle ages, in order +to carry classic learning to the fifteenth century. They were +repositories of learning. That is the old idea. And for a long +time--almost to our day--that was the notion of the library. It was a +place to put something away. It was not even like a market for the sale +of provisions or eggs; indeed, if they were eggs the librarians thought +it their duty to sit on them, with the idea that they might hatch out +other books. That was a noble thing to do. But much better than that is +to scatter these books abroad among the people, so that we shall not +have reproduction--an egg for an egg--but that these books will so +revivify the life that we shall have books new, that express the actual +conditions and that appeal to the human life as it is. This is the +modern idea of the library. This great collection, which is not to be +secluded, is to be carried and even forced upon the people, so that it +shall enter into and become a part of their daily lives. + +You remember, perhaps, what Milton says about the books, in that +noblest of noble defences of unlicensed printing, that "they are not +dead things. As good almost," he says, "kill a man as you kill a good +book. Who kills a man, kills a reasonable being, made in God's image. +Who destroys a good book destroys reason itself, kills the image of God +as it were, in the eye. Many a man," he goes on to say, "lives a burden +to the earth, but a good book is the precious life blood of a master +spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life; so +that if we slay a good book we would slay immortality rather than a +life." + + Charles Hopkins Clark, who immediately followed Mr. Warner, + was at this time editor in chief of _The Hartford Courant_, + of which Mr. Warner was co-editor. Mr. Clark was born in + Hartford April 1, 1848, graduated at Yale, and joined the + _Courant_ staff in 1871, becoming editor in 1890. + + +One of the earliest sins of my youth, or rather one of the earliest that +is burnt into my memory, was committed in the library of what was then +the Young Men's Institute. I spoke out loud! The rebuke that I received +sent me down the stairs overwhelmed with a sense of the enormity of my +crime, yet more than sustained by joy to think that I had escaped the +utter annihilation with which my reprimand was freighted. And I can say +that the awe with which I used to enter that chamber of silence, and the +fear with which I regarded the librarian were the common property of all +the young people of that somewhat remote period. But long since we found +out that the old librarian was one of the gentlest and most inoffensive +men, and that we had misunderstood him as completely as he had +misunderstood us. + +But I have no such gloomy recollection, nor to be honest, have I any +recollection at all of the Wadsworth Athenaeum gallery, because, like +everybody else who then lived in Hartford, I never went in there. The +door was often open and the only sentinel on guard had no more +formidable weapon than a pair of knitting-needles. But no one ever +crossed that threshold. The simple legend, traced on a placard at the +door, "Admission Ten Cents," did the business, or rather, to be more +elegant as well as accurate, prevented any business being done. The +people who came up the stone steps read the notice and turned off to the +left to the library or to the right to the Historical Society, where +entrance was free. I say free, but freedom must have its limits if we +are to have safety, so the tin sign on the outside of the door gave +notice to the always unwelcome boy that he could not go in until he +reached the mature age of twelve years. That was one of the things that +I wanted to grow to full manhood for. + +And I well remember my first visit there. As I walked slowly up the +stairs I wondered what venerable monument of patriotic achievement, what +new inspiration to love for our noble State whose history is such a +priceless treasure, what vision of heroic self-sacrifice in her behalf +would first burst upon my eager eyes when I should look around the hall. +I looked and lo! there in a glass jar stood the chaste but familiar +figure of Charles Hosmer's night-blooming cereus--the modest pioneer of +the canned-fruit industry in this community. + +I have made this brief review in order to suggest to you the state of +innocuous desuetude in which for more or less time the various miscalled +interests in this building had been lying for lack of any interest at +all. The library had a limited and dwindling clientage. The Athenaeum +was deserted. The Historical Society, with no funds and few friends, was +exhibiting a collection of animal, vegetable, and mineral curiosities, +while its real treasures of history and truth were by lock and key shut +off from the very public for whom they were collected and preserved. +Look at that picture, then look at this which greets us here to day. + +In these elegant and spacious buildings the whole public of Hartford is +welcome, without money and without price. The circulating library will +furnish every home with books, and Miss Hewins, who has devoted her life +to this town, is always ready to help the younger readers. The Library +of Reference, monument alike to Mr. Watkinson's liberality and Dr. +Trumbull's rare judgment and life-long devoted service as a librarian, +offers free to all students the authorities on every branch of +knowledge. The Historical Society, with improved facilities, has been +able to adopt a more liberal policy, and is widening its claim upon +public interest, and so increasing its usefulness, and, thanks largely +to the women of Hartford, the Art Gallery and Art School are ready to +spread their refining and wholesome influence all through this +community. + + + + +LIBRARIES AS LEAVEN + + This address was delivered at the inauguration of the Free + Public Library, Madison, Wis., by Prof. James D. Butler. + + James Davie Butler was born in Rutland, Vt., March 15, 1815, + and was graduated at Middlebury College, Vt., in 1836. He + entered the Congregational ministry, and held the chairs of + ancient languages in Wabash College, 1854-58 and the + University of Wisconsin, 1858-67, after which he devoted + himself to lecturing and writing until his death in Madison + in 1905. + + +My subject is "Libraries as Leaven," or the relation of libraries to the +increased diffusion of knowledge. + +What is a Library? It is the knowledge of all brought within the reach +of each one. It is an expanded encyclopĉdia, or the books which are, or +ought to be, consulted in compiling a perfect encyclopĉdia. + +Human knowledge--and hence the books in which it is treasured up--is +divided by some authors into forty departments. I have their names here +all written down--but I dare not read them. You would give no more +quarter to such a catalogue than the lover gave to the mercantile +inventory of his sweetheart's charms, when itemized as "two lips +indifferent red," "two gray eyes with lids to them," and so on. + +But all these forty classes of knowledge ought to be represented in a +library, and the more largely the better. They should also mingle there +in due proportion, "parts into parts reciprocally shot, and all so +forming a harmonious whole." "If the whole body were an eye, where were +the hearing?" + +I once lived in a town of a thousand families, where, through a legacy, +one copy of some single author was annually presented to each family. +But, with the same money, a thousand different works might have been +every year purchased, and all kept accessible by all the families. The +result would have been a feast as appetizing to all palates as the +miraculous manna which the rabbins tell us tasted to each Jew like that +particular dainty which he loved best. + +It is no objection to a library that no man will ever read it through. +No man will read through his dictionary, and time is not long enough for +a man to read all the words in the daily _Tribune_. Nor will any +customer exhaust a store. Yet he demands an assortment from which to +select the little that he needs. In every library most authors, bound up +in congenial calf, sleep soundly in their own sheets. Yet the dust of +dead men's bones, at the touch of genius, comes forth in a new life. How +much that is best in Macaulay and in Buckle is extracted from +bibliothecal rubbish--or reading which had never been read. Hence even +Samson could not say to the jaw-bone of an ass: "I have no need of you." +The wise thank God for fools. They get their living out of them, and +mostly out of the greatest fools. In truth, no library is large enough. +Guizot and Michelet complain of inability to consult certain books, even +in that Parisian library, where books are as plenty as water in the +deluge, and the shelves would reach from here to Milwaukee. + +A library should be a cosmos; but it is a chaos till arrangement, +catalogues and librarians bring us at once the volume we desire, and +which, without them, would be as hard to fish up as the Atlantic cable +lost in mid-ocean. + + "Thus warlike arms in magazines we place, + All ranged in order and disposed with grace: + Not thus alone the curious eye to please, + But to be _found_, when need requires, with ease." + +In some libraries, however, books are arranged on a system which seems +borrowed from Spanish hospitals, where patients are arranged according +to religious creeds, rather than bodily complaints. Every library has +more volumes than I can master; but no library though it be the conflux +of all civilizations, has so many volumes as I may need to consult. + +Chief Justice Story used to assert that no American could test the +accuracy of Gibbon without crossing the Atlantic. Such an assertion +would now, perhaps, be extravagant, yet many of Gibbon's references are +still hard to trace in America. One instance may be worth notice. Our +approaching national centenary leads us to curiosity in reference to the +secular feasts of the Romans. In Gibbon's account of the most famous +among them, a thousand years from the founding of Rome, the main +authority quoted is Zosimus. But the history of Zosimus you will seek in +vain throughout Madison libraries. You will not find his name in the +public collections of Chicago, or Cincinnati, or St. Louis, or San +Francisco. It is unlikely that any single copy of Zosimus has yet +penetrated west of our Atlantic slope. + +But how dare I thus speak about Zosimus? How is it possible for me to +know whether his history can, or cannot, be discovered, either on the +Pacific shore, or in the Mississippi valley? I know it, thanks to the +Library of Our Historical Society, and specifically to its goodly array +of bibliothecal catalogues. + +Why will not our Centenary Women's Club buy our Free Library a Zosimus? + +Free libraries, especially those maintained by public taxation, were +scarcely known before the last half of the nineteenth century. If in an +antiquarian mood, I could indeed bring forth curious details concerning +half a hundred in continental Europe, some of them running back several +centuries, but I forbear. The earliest British library law, similar to +ours in Wisconsin, dates from 1850. The earliest in Massachusetts--and I +suppose in America--was approved May 24, 1851. The first library opened +in consequence of this law was in New Bedford, March 3, 1853. The +grandest triumph under the Massachusetts law is in Boston. The free +library there stands to-day surpassed in volumes by only three or four +American libraries--say the Astor, Congress, and Harvard--while in +arrangement, architecture, and equipment it is pronounced by the most +enlightened foreigners unsurpassed by any library in the world. + +Our legislature in 1872 empowered the mayors and councils in towns and +cities to lay an annual tax of one mill on a dollar of the assessed +valuation, for establishing and maintaining free libraries. This law +will bear good fruit. Yet it is a step backward from the act of 1859. +That act created a library fund by setting apart for that purpose +one-tenth of the school-fund income, and imposing a tax of one-tenth of +a mill on all property. The sum of $88,784.78 had been thus accumulated +when the war of 1861 broke out,--and the money was used for military +purposes. It ought to be refunded by the State, or United States, and +expended for its original object. The great superiority of the law of +1859 lies in its extending to rural districts,--and so leaving no hamlet +unvisited--while the maxim of the present law is, "Coals to Newcastle, +owls to Athens, apples to Alcinous. He that hath--to him shall be +given." It gives a library to Madison, where 40,000 volumes were already +within reach, but nothing at all to five and twenty other places in Dane +County, whose need of books is ten times greater. But libraries bring +forth after their kind, and free libraries, we may hope, will become +co-extensive with free schools. + +Madison, to-day, in opening to all her sons and daughters a Free +Library, has outstripped every other municipality in the State. It is a +noble preëminence, and will do her honor to the end of the world. + +The Madison Free Library, it may be reasonably hoped, will approximate +to the bibliothecal ideal. It starts with an inheritance of 3,308 +volumes, accumulated during a score of years by the Madison Institute. +Its revenue is considerable, and it will grow in even pace with the +growth of the city. Nothing but Adam and Minerva was ever born of full +stature. The tax now assessed for it would impoverish no man till after +the lapse of thrice three thousand years. It was limited to less than a +third of what the law allows because we make the entering edge of a +wedge thin, and would learn wisdom from Satan who never makes his +temptations so bad at the beginning as at the end. Is is only the first +step that costs. The Free Library will be ready for windfalls, and so +surely as history repeats itself, they will pour cornucopias into its +lap. Of the million volumes in the British Museum, two out of every five +were gifts. No wonder. Book-gatherers abhor the breaking up of their +collections as we do the dissolution of the Union, or as abolitionists +did the snapping of family ties by slave-traders. Lest what they have +joined together shall be put asunder, they rejoice to lay up their +treasures in an institution which shall never die. Accordingly, in +tracing the origin of one hundred and eighty libraries in continental +Europe, it has been discovered that all of them, except sixteen, were +presented to the municipalities by book-lovers. + +Experience this side the Atlantic is thus far equally encouraging. I +will notice a single specimen. The Boston Free Library is mainly +contributed by individuals. One thousand volumes were given by Everett; +2,300 by Bowditch; 11,360 by Theodore Parker; 26,000 by Joshua Bates; +11,899 by the Old South Church, and those of greater rarity than any +other equal number of volumes. Then Ticknor and Prescott bestowed the +best Spanish library ever gathered by private men, and Wheelwright one +scarcely inferior, relating to South America. Of pecuniary benefactions, +I will only mention $10,000 from Lawrence, $30,000 from Phillips, and +$50,000 from Bates. But legacies to the Free Library have become so +common that we may confidently expect that, if any Bostonian shall die +and bequeath it nothing, the courts will decide the neglect of the +Library to be conclusive proof of insanity, and so will nullify his +will! On the whole, we cannot be too sanguine concerning the prospective +progress of our book-feast for the million. + +But a library, however perfect, and though freely open to all the world, +may be a light shining in a darkness which comprehendeth it not. Many +years ago, I was a student in such a library at Rome. It was larger than +any one in America at that time, and offered the best of all its stores +daily to everybody, and that without charge. Yet it was well-nigh a +solitude. The reason was obvious. My walk thither was through a gauntlet +of beggar-boys, and I once took with me an Italian primer, and cried out +that I would give something to any boy who could read. I held it up +before nineteen in succession, but no one could spell out a line. They +had eschewed not only writing as tempting to forgery, but reading also +as a black art. Had they been giants they could,--like the barbarians +who sacked Rome,--ruin, but not relish, the nectared sweets of books. To +them the collective wisdom of the world was as sunshine to the blind, or +as smoke in the nursery riddle,--"roomful, houseful, can't catch a +handful!" + + "Or like gospel pearls which pigs neglect + When pigs have that opportunity." + +But in regard to _our_ Free Library, I have better hopes, and beg your +leave to show _what use_, in my judgment, will be made of it. It will be +resorted to for _amusement_. Some will flit through it in the spirit of +the Viennese, who turn their central cathedral into a thoroughfare on +promenades and business walks. But such visitors will learn something in +glancing at the backs of books. Books, as well as men, have a +physiognomy. Here, as elsewhere, the admirers of Shakespeare will take +out his plays, return them with the leaves uncut, and then insist that +booksellers be instructed if Mr. Shakespeare writes any new book, to +forward it without further orders. Many will have no eyes except for the +volumes of _fiction_, and sometimes will rather run through these than +read them. Novels are a sort of cake, which, if eaten alone, is prone to +make mental dyspeptics. Yet most novel-readers will gain some profit +from our library. Some of them will here acquire a facility in reading +which for lack of practice has hitherto been unknown to them. No one has +really learned to read, until he has read to learn. Their interest in +stories will beguile the toil of becoming _ready_ readers, and their +range of reading will naturally widen. But if it does not, they may +learn much. Every good fiction is _true_, if not to particular fact yet +to general principles, to natural scenery, to human nature, to the ways +of human life, manners, customs, the very age and body of the time. Even +Tom Moore declares that "his chief work of fiction is founded on a long +and labourious collection of facts." Again, when worn out by work, when +care-crazed, and nerves are unstrung, who has not found in fiction--the +balm of hurt minds--a recreation, a city of refuge, a restorative. + + "Cups that cheer but not inebriate?" + +In this way our free library will be a new pleasure, and the founder of +it deserves the reward offered by the Sicilian tyrant, for such an +invention. Work was never so monotonous as now; accordingly, play ought +to be more than ever amusing. The Kilkenny cats, who devoured each other +all but the tails, left one orphan kitten which began to eat up itself, +but catching sight of a mouse was diverted from suicide. There is among +us more than one disconsolate kitten now destroying himself, who will in +our free feast of fiction espy a mouse which will reconcile him to life, +and save him from himself. The rationale of this solace is indicated +after a forcible, though rather a homely fashion, in the Chinese saying: +"A dog chasing game does not mind the fleas which he _barks_ at while he +lies in his kennel." "The labour we delight in physics pain." + +Again, in all great works of fiction the purpose is, while not +o'erstepping the modesty of nature, to show virtue her own feature, and +scorn her own image. Who can count the admirers of Scott and Dickens +that have learned from their portraitures moral lessons so well as never +to forget them;--to loathe the mean and aspire to the noble;--to shun +evil and cleave to good--in spite of temptations to one and from the +other? + +But, after all, our book-treasury will only now and then bestow its best +gifts on those who resort to it merely for pleasure. To most visitors of +this class it must remain no more than a telescope to a child, something +to play with rather than to look through. Accordingly, they no more +exhaust the capacities of books than the Irish made full proof of +potatoes while they cooked only the balls and left the tubers to rot in +the ground. + +But the Free Library will be resorted to for _instruction_. Few will +always hold the amusing button so close to their eyes that it will hide +the instructive sun. From the start it will be superior to every private +collection in the city, and its superiority will increase. Accordingly, +professional men will come thither to inform themselves either each in +his own specialty, or sallying on excursions from their home fields. +Besides the time-honoured and traditional three professions, editors and +teachers will be there, learning how to answer the hard questions of +pupils and subscribers. Each of these professionals will more or less +make known what he learns. The bibliothecal odor will be as plain upon +them as a certain other odor is upon those who emerge from the +smoking-car or saloon. "Dispensing native perfumes they whisper whence +they stole those balmy spoils." But the bibliothecal leaven will leaven +the community more _directly_. + +God has set geniuses as great lights in the firmament to give light and +delight as well on the earth. The circuit of such suns is unto the ends +of the heaven, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. More and +more pervasive is their influence, like the spring-time, which leaves no +corner of the land untouched. In a library every man will recognize some +supreme author transfiguring whatever he touches,--crystallizing into +diamonds by wit, turning to gold with poetry, and glorifying as with +tongues of angels by eloquence, and whom he hence worships as Scotchmen +do Burns and as all the world does Shakespeare. Less and less do men +entertain angels unawares, more and more are they ashamed to know the +world's books only by name. Nobody now asks concerning Paradise Lost, +"What does it prove?" + +Moreover, the Free Library will be patronized by the people in quest of +answers to multitudinous questions. Newspapers, whether in its +reading-room or out of it, will rouse in many directions a curiosity +they cannot satisfy, and so will urge to the library. There is a story +that an Englishman in a London library, after looking through an atlas, +said to a friend, "Help me find _Umbrage_ on the map! I read in my +gazette that the French have taken _Umbrage_. What a good-for-nothing +minister is ours--to leave _Umbrage_ so poorly defended that the French +could take it." That John Bull discovered in the library either +_umbrage_, or what was better for him--his own ignorance and the way to +remove it, "taking umbrage" against himself. His gazette probably +brought the same earnest inquirer to the library for _history_ as well +as for geography. A daily paper, which is the history of the world for +one day, leads backward, as a stream carries our thoughts to its +fountain. Whoever repairs to a library with one historical query will be +likely to repeat his visit, since newspapers, in the light of history, +will become more significant as the last chapter in a novel is more +interesting to those who have read the previous chapters, and so often +leads one back to them. Again, discussions are always arising, not +merely in formal debates, but as we sit in the house and walk by the +way. Some carry them on by assertions and counter-assertions--a strong +will and a strong won't--equally positive and ignorant, discussing and +sometimes leaving off the _dis_, till like Milton's devils they find no +end, in wandering mazes lost. Too often "It comes to pass that a +terrible oath, with a swaggering accent twanged off, gives an opinion +more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned it." Others +back up their opinions by _wagers_, in spite of a lurking feeling that + + "Bets are the blockhead's argument,-- + The only logic he can vent, + His minor and his major.-- + + 'Tis to confess your head a worse + Investigator than your purse, + To reason with a wager." + +But where standard books are at hand, investigation will often either +take the place of disputation, or bring strife to a speedy end. + +Let us hope those here seeking props for their arguments will never be +those jealous lovers of books who cannot use them without using them up, +or who spirit them away for themselves alone. Such abductors have +sometimes infested the libraries in the Capitol. Their thefts can be +justified only by that casuistry which holds stealing the relics of +saints for a pious fraud. But in truth the more holy the saint, the more +heinous the sacrilege of what Hood calls _Book_-aneering. + +Moreover, every _lecture_ delivered in the city will send some +investigators to the library, that they may confute, or confirm, or +amplify its teachings. A lecture that pops will not be as surely +_popular_ as formerly, if the library shall evince that what is true in +it is not new, and that what is new is not true, or that the speaker +draws on imaginations for facts and on facts for imaginations. + +Every meeting of our Women's Centennial Club will start inquiries which +cannot be answered without recourse to the library. + +It is certain that books of _travel_ will here be largely consulted. +Some of us purpose to go abroad. Such will read beforehand in order to +add a precious seeing to their eyes. They would dislike to have their +experiences those of a lady who when asked what she saw in Rome answered +"dirt," or of the London barber who at the coronation of Napoleon +remembered nothing except that the Emperor was well shaved, or of the +Bostonian fresh from the West who, when called on for his opinion of +Madison, said it would be a pretty fair Massachusetts village if it were +not spoiled by so many fresh water ponds around it. Others among us have +travelled already, and we shall be studious in the library that we may +ascertain what we ought to have seen--but did not, or the meaning of +what we did see, but which was Greek to us. The Shah of Persia noted in +his journal that of all the fine things in Europe the finest to his mind +was a show of wax work. His library would teach him better, and would +not laugh at him, as we do. A Vermont friend of mine, after his trip to +London, when asked whether he saw Westminster Abbey, confessed that he +did not, but added that Westminster Abbey was out of town at the time of +his visit. If he had free course in our library he would hardly excuse +himself in that way again. Soon after crossing the Mississippi at +Burlington, I heard a New York merchant, bound for California, +remarking: "How much geography one learns in travelling. Here is +Burlington. I always thought it in Illinois, but now I find it is in +Missouri." Library-reading may by this time have added insight to his +sight, and convicted him of the blunder which I suffered to pass +uncorrected, though we chatted 100 miles together. There are others of +us who, on hearing a traveller's tales, are curious to examine how far +we, like the old prophet, should count the way-faring man a fool, and +how far he uses his license to lie. Hence they will read that they may +make up their minds whether all MARK TWAIN'S caricatures have the ring +of truth. + +A German table d'hote of twenty courses will surfeit a careless diner +before it is half over, and yet fail to afford him either what he likes +best or what he should like best. Hence it compels guests to a careful +choice what they will partake of and what refuse of the blessing there +is no room to receive in its fulness. A similar influence will be +exerted by the free library where we fall into the embarassment of +riches. We shall be driven to select from its bill of fare, that is the +catalogue, that fraction which we can enjoy most and which will profit +us most. + + "Taste after taste upheld by kindliest change." + +Some persons, when they survey a library and perceive that they can +never read the hundredth part of its volumes, will be attracted to those +works which teach "what to read," or open a panoramic outlook on the +diversified regions of the bookish world. + + "Of all the best of man's best knowledges, + The contents, indexes and title-pages, + Through all past, present, and succeeding ages." + +Unless we thus liberalize our views we are likely to vegetate, like the +rhubarb pie plant, under a barrel, and see the world only through its +bunghole. Ignorant of bibliographical guides and hence at a loss how to +estimate books, the steward of a British nobleman sold as rubbish all +volumes in the library which lacked _covers_. One of those thus disposed +of, and bought by a pedlar for nine pence, proved to be the very +earliest issue of the British press, snapped up by the British museum +for £80, and could not now be bought for ten times that sum. In regard +to the _intrinsic_ value of books blunders more egregious are daily +made. Libraries were never so needful as now, for libraries and life +never lay so close to one another as now. Our familiar sights lead to +interest in recondite knowledge. Photography, gas, the locomotive, +kerosene, yes, every match that lights it, provokes questions in +chemistry, or philosophy, which not every library can answer. No one can +gaze at the dome of our Capitol without naturally falling into +architectural inquiries which draw him through a world of books that +expose the nakedness of his ignorance, yet never put him to open shame. +But the truth is too palpable to dwell on that in our day life touches +libraries at every point. + +In all libraries there are readers whose emblem is dead fish who follow +the stream, but thanks to various accidents, some of this class, ceasing +to be passive recipients, begin to investigate as active seekers. They +at once rise to a higher mental plane. The contrast between active +seekers and passive recipients is analogous to that between the +mountaineers and the maritime aborigines of California. The mountaineers +lived on grizzly bears--food which it was impossible to seize without +tasking their energies to the utmost. But tasking trains. The maritimes +lived on salmon, which were so abundant and so tame that they could be +caught by fishers who lay basking in the sun. But basking enervates. +Naturally enough no Indians are superior to the mountaineers who are +active seekers, nor yet inferior to the maritimes, who are passive +recipients. What investigators seek they will not find at once; they may +never find it. But they are sure to discover something better, so that +they will say with LESSING, in the library at Wolfenbuttel, "Were God to +hold truth in one hand and search in the other, and give me my choice, I +would say: Give me seeking without finding, rather than finding without +seeking!" + + "All things that are, + Are with more spirit chased than enjoyed." + Courtship once over, the novel ends. + +In the library where LESSING was made librarian--not that he might serve +the library, but that the library might serve him--I took in my hand +with reverence the inkstand out of which he distilled the essence of a +thousand books, and reformed German literature as radically as LUTHER +had reformed German religion. + +All truths being inter-dependent, every road will lead to the end of the +world, and so while studying one subject a man becomes interested in +others, and his range of inquiry expands. When he kindles one dry stick, +many green ones will catch, and his brightest blazes are lit up by +unexpected sparks. One quickly learns to love hunting, and before +working up many topics, he forms an investigating habit which will +perpetuate itself. Thus while seeking an oyster, he finds a pearl, like +SAUL who sought asses and found a kingdom. Henceforth he reads more by +subjects, each a cord to string pearls on, than by volumes, for he feels +that, + + "Unless to some particular end designed, + Reading is but a specious trifling of the mind, + And then, like ill-digested food, + To humors turns and not to blood." + +But less and less of that sort is his reading, though it range through +all time, and tax all the world. Such an inquirer will live longer than +METHUSELAH, for he will have more thoughts, yet he will wish each of his +minutes was a millenary. He will read with an appetite growing as long +as he lives; indeed reading will help him to live longer. A thousand +such readers feel what one has spoken out, saying: + +"In a library I was thrown, instead of worse society, into the company +of poets, philosophers and sages--to me good angels and ministers of +grace. From these silent instructors who often do more than fathers for +our interests, from these delightful associates I learned something of +the divine and more of the human religion. They were my interpreters in +the House Beautiful of God, and my guides among the Delectable Mountains +of Nature, + + Blessing be with them and eternal praise, + Who gave me nobler loves and nobler cares." + +Pre-eminently to the _young_ will the myriad-minded library be an oracle +in perplexities. They have been better trained in public schools than we +of the last generation were. They have broken ground in more various +studies, and their curiosity has been stimulated concerning more +questions. Each question, each study puts in their hand a new _key_ to +the locks which shut up libraries. Singers love to sing, and it is joy +for the just to do justice, so will our youth rejoice to use in the +library the skill they have acquired in school as naturally as when they +get jack knives they take to whittling. The public schools then find in +free libraries their fitting supplement, and complement. Schools without +libraries feed a prisoner with salted viands and then tantalize his +thirst with pitchers and bottles, all empty. The free school and the +free library will join hands like husband and wife in a well-matched +marriage. + + "He is the half-part of a blessed man, + Left to be finished by such as she; + And she a fair divided excellence, + Whose fulness of perfection lies in him; + But two such silver currents when they join, + Do glorify the banks that bind them in. + +Each befits the other, as ALEXANDER said concerning the finest poem and +the most costly casket in the world when he enshrined the Iliad in the +Persian box of gold and gems. Both are lotteries where tickets cost +nothing and everybody may draw all the prizes. + +In addition to this, the free library will be to some nothing less than +an _inspiration_. _To some_--I wish I could say _to all_, but alas, it +is only an "elect few" whom the library can inspire. Spectacles are +invaluable,--but only to those who have eyes. One Sultan never wore a +shirt that had not every word of the Koran written on it yet absorbed +little piety. AARON'S excuse for making only a golden calf was, that the +Jews did not bring him gold enough to make an ox. The cherubim who know +most can never equal the seraphim who love most. An ugly and stupid man, +walking with a lady on each arm, boasts that he is between wit and +beauty, but may not imbibe one particle of either. + +To some, however, a free library will make up for the lack of a liberal +education. More than that. It will furnish such an education every jot +and tittle of it, and that, in some sense, better than was ever bestowed +in a college, because acquired in the face of greater difficulties. +Libraries have often vouchsafed this priceless boon. That in Salem did +to BOWDITCH, the mathematician, in the last century, and to WHIPPLE, the +essayist, in this. The Edinburgh library made HUME an historian. Another +was inspiration to COBBETT. So was that of the Erfurt convent to LUTHER. +"It had purchased," says his biographer, "at heavy cost, several Latin +Bibles just printed for the first time in the neighboring city of Mainz. +When he first opened one of these tomes his eyes fell on the story of +HANNAH and SAMUEL. "O, God," he murmured, "could I have one of these +books I would seek no other worldly treasure." A great revolution then +took place in his soul. His happiest hours were in the library. +Concerning such a scholar-- + + "We cannot say: ''Tis pity + He lacks instructions,' for he seems a master + To most that teach." + +The influence of ancient Libraries on classical writers is manifest from +their quotations. PLUTARCH'S have been traced to 250 authors. PLINY'S to +2,000 works. Classical Libraries preserved in Constantinople, so long as +studied, made there a Goshen of light in the Dark Ages, and when carried +to Italy proved a Promethean spark to kindle occidental culture anew. It +is well known that inventions are oftenest struck out in the Patent +Office, the grand store-house of inventions. In the world of mind, as +well as of matter, new ideas are suggested where old ideas most +congregate, or are most communed with. According to CHAUCER, + + "Out of old fields, as man saith, + Cometh all the new corn from year to year, + And out of old books, in good faith, + Cometh all the new science that men lear." + +The idea of writing the "Life of COLUMBUS" first darted into the mind +of IRVING, when, in Madrid, he found himself surrounded by an unrivaled +magazine of materials made ready to his hand, and for which the world +had been ransacked. Thus the sight of means to make good books makes +good books made. + +Not only those volumes which compose the body of literature, but those +finer essences which form its soul,--the literature of power,--stamped +in Nature's mint of ecstasy--are marked all over with proofs of +familiarity with the best that had been achieved,--each in its own +department. Nobody has hesitated thus to affirm concerning VIRGIL, +DANTE, TASSO, MILTON. But it is commonly said that SHAKESPEARE was +_ignorant_. The truth is that no ignorant man, no ordinary, scholar can +understand his allusions, historical, romantic, classical, or those to +art, science, nationalities, customs--or even his words. He could get +more from a Library in a day than most men in a life-time, but he needed +it still. + +In speaking of SHAKESPEARE, I mean the man who wrote the Plays reputed +his, no matter whether that author was BACON, or JOHN SMITH, or even our +townsman GEORGE B. + +We ought to say that SHAKESPEARE was a universal man,--because he was +heir of all ages,--and his was universal knowledge, a knowledge which +neither can we fathom nor could he find without a library. + +His peculiarity was ability to discern the immortal part of books, or to +stamp what were otherwise perishable with his own immortality. Whoever +can do much without tools, can do more with them. Accordingly men do +their broken weapons rather use than their bare hands. Whoever can do +much without a library, can do more with a library. DAVID did much with +a sling, but more with better arms, and builded an armory on which there +hung a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. + +If then there be among us any one person endued with any spark of +Shakespearian or other genius he will find it kindling to a flame +through contact in this library with similar celestial fires. To such a +"meeting soul!" as MILTON calls it,--the library will prove a better +bonanza than has been prospected in our States of silver and gold. +Though having nothing he shall possess all things,--infinite riches in a +little room. + +Thus our Free Library will amuse, and instruct, and inspire. Over its +entrance I seem to read as on the front of the oldest in the world, the +inscription, "The healing of the soul," or the words of FRANKLIN to his +namesake town, "I give you books instead of a bell, sense rather than +sound." Let it have free course for a generation, calling to culture as +ceaselessly as a standing army calls to war, and this community will say +with SENECA, "Leisure without books and letters is mental death and +burial." + +The first public library in Ohio--just two years younger than the +State--was founded in Ames. It was bought by hunters who threw together +a lot of raccoon skins, sent them in a sleigh by one of their number to +Boston and there bartered them for books. They soon hunted Greek as +zealously as game, and while Ames remained a hamlet ten of them, or +their children, were among the early graduates of the State University. + +The influences of a library are _cumulative_, and sometimes become +manifest only after a long lapse of ages. The cuniform library of +Assyrian bricks, dating from pre-historic periods, burned up, buried and +forgotten just now emerges from its grave speaking in a voice heard +round the world, and no less authoritative than a second book of +Genesis. From its shelves more centuries look down upon us than upon +NAPOLEON at the Pyramids. + +Libraries are hemmed in by no lines of State, nation, race, language, +religion or century. Their field is the world. But ours is the +cosmopolitan age, and we are pre-eminently the cosmopolitan people. More +than any other people, then must we feel the need of libraries, which +are, of all institutions, the most cosmopolitan. Hence they will benefit +us most. + +Considerations like these demonstrate that free libraries tend to +_equality_ and _fraternity_. They are free lunches, crying to all: "Cut, +and come again!" As we all have equal rights at the polls and in court, +so have we in the free library. In church we each secure a blessing in +proportion to our capacity; so can we in the library. In both blessed +are they who hunger and thirst, for they shall be filled. In public +schools all can enjoy the best of teaching without money and without +price; so can they in the free library. Free libraries will create an +aristocracy--one open to talent and toil, but to nothing else; the +aristocracy of knowledge. Where street cars have been introduced, half +the private carriages are soon given up, so the establishment of free +libraries will lead many to refrain from large domestic collections as +superfluous, and to the transfer of many a private library to the public +shelves, where they will not only do more good, but will be better cared +for, better arranged, and more accessible than they now are even to +their owners. One millionaire as we walked into his library, said with a +sigh: "See how many gaps there are in my shelves! Five hundred of my +books are missing, lent and lost." "Lost!" cried I, half in joke, "say +rather found! lost to you, but found each by some one who will make the +most of them. Would to heaven these 5,000 were lost in the same way, +lost by you who have no time nor care for them, found by those who have +both. Nobody could steal them from you, but at most only from moths and +worms, dust and mould." Rich men who have bought libraries as luxuries +will learn that the way to save them is to lose them, and that their +books serve them best when deposited in free libraries. + +Many varieties of _sham_ equality result from outside pressure. In +Venetian gondolas all awnings are required to be black that no one may +outshine his neighbor. Under the first republic the French proscribed +all titles but citizen, and citizeness, which they gave to everybody. +Communists would make all men's shares in property equal. Endeavors of +this sort not only fail, but prove suicidal like the impetuous Irishman, +insisting that one man is as good as another, and _a great dey better +too_. The influence of Free Libraries, however is toward genuine and not +merely visible equality. Thanks to them the most expensive luxury of the +rich becomes the daily food of the poor, and the tree of knowledge no +more bears forbidden fruit. A volume which I can draw out of a library +at will is worth as much to me as if I owned it. In fact, though my +private library is not small, the books I read are more often borrowed +than my own. + +If I take out books from a library, I am doubly spurred to to make their +contents my own, because those books must be returned more promptly than +to the friend who neither exacts fines nor yet even notes in a book what +book we borrow. + +FRANKLIN tells us that "he often sat up reading, the greater part of +the night, when a book borrowed (he means _stolen_) from booksellers in +the evening, was to be returned in the morning lest it should be found +missing." In proportion as men make full proof of books, they become +alike _inside_, in real communion with great authors, in information, +taste, mental capacity, mastery of speech,--accomplishments which cannot +be lost, and which render each one more equal and congenial with his +fellows. Men will still differ by God, not by man. What then is the Free +Library less than the key stone in our Republican arch? + +When we would show attention to strangers, it has been a Madison custom +to take them into our cemetery. That grave yard is well worth showing. +But in time to come I trust we shall rather exhibit our Libraries, and +say; "These are our jewels." Not tombs, but living shrines that on the +living still work miracles,--the shrines where all the relics of the +saints full of true virtue are preserved, where the dead live and the +dumb speak--the dead sceptered sovereigns who still rule our spirits +from their urns. This sun of our intellectual worlds is + + "Made porous to receive + And drink the liquid light, firm to retain + Its gathered beams, great palace now of light, + Hither as to a fountain countless stars + Repairing in their golden urns draw light." + +Let us rejoice in it all glorious within, even as our Capitol and +University parks are without. + +A library,--the assembled souls of all men deem most wise, the only men +who speak loud enough for posterity to hear;--reminds me of that fresco +by RAPHAEL, which I admired most of all his Vatican masterpieces, +popularly styled "The School of Athens," and which I hope to see hung up +as the genius of our library hall, as I have seen it in many. In some +one of the fifty-two figures glowing with life in that picture, every +variety of culture has a representative. You see there the practical +man, like FRANKLIN'S Poor Richard, in Diogenes rough and ready by his +tub. Archimedes is drawing a diagram in the sand. On the broad steps of +a temple stand Ptolemy, with the terrestrial and Hipparchus with the +celestial globe. No sage is without a docile retinue. SOCRATES, with sly +humor, is humbling the self-sufficient ALCIBIADES that he may rouse him +to loftier aspirations. PYTHAGORAS is writing among disciples, one of +whom holds his musical scale, while above all, and in the midst of the +temple, appear ARISTOTLE, father of natural philosophy, pointing down to +the earth, and PLATO, the father of spiritual philosophy with hand +uplifted toward heaven, man as it were feeling for God. The culture +proffered in such a School of Athens, as RAPHAEL painted--and as an +ideal free library is to my mind, has its fittest emblem in the miracle +of architecture, the dome,--which is well said to unite clustered arches +and pillars and radiate in equal expansion towards every quarter of the +earth, while with every convergent curve it soars heavenward, buried in +air, and looking to the stars. + + "Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime." + + + + +THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY + + This section, devoted to the general relations of the + library and society, which opened with a historical account + by Prof. Moses Coit Tyler, may appropriately close with + another of similar tenor, contributed eleven years later to + _The American Magazine of Civics_ (New York, May, 1895) by + Prof. Henry H. Barber. It covers some of the same ground but + gives results to a later date, while it is still only + introductory to the social development of more recent years. + + Henry Hervey Barber was born in Warwick, Mass., Dec. 30, + 1835, graduated at Meadville Theological Seminary in 1861 + and after holding several Unitarian pastorates was professor + of philosophy and theology there from 1884 to 1904. He was + also editor of the Unitarian Review from 1875 to 1884. He + died about 1915. + + +No public institution has made greater progress during the last few +years or grown more rapidly in public interest and favor than the free +public library. The building of a magnificent structure in Chicago, +together with the excellent Newberry free reference library, and in +cooperation with the fast growing library of the Chicago University, +will make perhaps the most superb public provision for free literary +culture ever furnished by any municipality. Boston has lately +transferred its more than half a million volumes to the new and noble +public library building on the Back Bay. The newspapers of this last +week tell us that in New York Mr. Tilden is after all not to be finally +counted out; but that the two millions rescued from his estate by the +high sense of honor of one of his heirs is to be joined with the +invaluable Astor Library, and the choice Lennox Reference Library, and +all made free and available to the public--a property valued in the +aggregate at eight million dollars. These events, together with the +recent founding of the Carnegie free libraries in Pittsburg and +Allegheny, the not very remote establishment of the Enoch Pratt Free +Library in Baltimore, and the addition by Mr. Henry C. Lea to the +splendid Ridgway foundation in Philadelphia, constitute a series of +brilliant triumphs for the free public library, unparalleled in the +history of educational institutions, and seldom equalled, I must think, +in the intellectual progress of civilization. + +Nor do these metropolitan successes indicate, after all, the most +essential advance. The frequency with which private beneficence is +coming to the aid of public enterprise in smaller cities and country +towns, for the establishment and increase of these libraries; the recent +notable instances of stimulative auxiliary legislation; and the growth +of intelligent interest in new and widely scattered sections of the +civilized world, are equally significant, and perhaps even more widely +beneficent. It is the era of the free public library; and it is of +special interest to us to see that our community and our commonwealth +are moving in accord with this tide of new feeling and enterprise +concerning it. + +Of special interest, I say, to us as Pennsylvanians; for we are glad to +remember that it is here that the first impulse was given to the +foundation of the system of circulating libraries, the development of +which is the free public library in England and America. Benjamin +Franklin, after considerable effort, founded in 1732 the Philadelphia +Library Company, the "mother," as he himself calls it, "of all the +subscription libraries in North America." + +This library which Franklin started for the advantage of himself and his +fifty young business associates, in the early time, when, as he says, +"there was not a good bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the +southward of Boston," and when most of the books had to be imported from +England, was followed soon by the establishment of more ambitious +similar libraries in Newport (1747) and Hartford (1774); and later in +many other places in England and this country. These were called public +libraries, though books could only be taken out by subscribers. +Probably, however, as in Philadelphia, the librarian could "permit any +civil gentlemen to peruse the books of the library in the library room." + +But it was in the formation of many so-called "Social Libraries" in the +smaller cities and country towns of New England and the Middle States, +early in the present century, that the foundations of the free municipal +library were laid. These subscription libraries, in their growth and in +their decay, no less than in the appetite for books they developed, +created a demand and at length a necessity for public provision for what +had come to be one of the prime intellectual needs of many communities. + +Meantime in Scotland, in 1816, Samuel Brown of Haddington, following in +part the methods of London booksellers, established a system of free +itinerating libraries, loaning without cost selections of fifty books in +each package to villages and neighborhoods that would engage to +circulate and take proper care of them. At the end of two years each +loan was called in, and another of different works sent in its place. +This scheme was for many years highly successful, and doubtless highly +useful; but seems to have failed soon after the death of its projector +and inspirer in 1839. The system had the earnest sanction of Lord +Brougham, and about 1825 was taken up in some parts of England; and, in +a modified form, has had a great success in Melbourne and its +neighborhood, in Australia. Stanley Jevons, whose article on the +rationale of free public libraries in his "Methods of Social Reform" is +one of the most interesting and valuable contributions to the literature +of this subject, commends it as the best form of extending free public +libraries in the rural portions of Great Britain, and he estimates that +there ought to be three thousand such literary itinerants in England and +Wales. + +This system was copied in this country in the School District Libraries +which were started in the state of New York in 1835, and a few years +afterward were in successful operation in Massachusetts and other New +England states, and in Michigan and Ohio at least, among states further +west. At first every school district raising thirty dollars the first +year and ten dollars thereafter, by tax or subscription, was assisted by +the state--I cite the Massachusetts statute--to a like sum; and a small +but choice selection of books sent to it for free circulation within the +district. A little later Massachusetts, at least, removed this +condition; and supplied every school district with such a library. These +libraries after remaining in use for a while, and generally being +thoroughly read, were exchanged among the districts. New books were thus +continually coming to new readers. This movement was earnestly forwarded +by that pioneer among American educators, Horace Mann, and during the +period of my boyhood was a godsend to the young people of New England. I +want to bless the memory of Samuel Brown, Father Page (a pioneer of the +system in New York), and Horace Mann for the gleams of literary light +thus cast across the bookless darkness of New England rural homes forty +to fifty years ago. This highly economical missionary agency of general +intelligence passed away in New England with the incoming of the more +satisfactory town system of free libraries. The cause of its decadence +elsewhere is not clear, but it has lately had a remarkable resurrection +in New York, as we soon shall see. + +The first free town library in America, or the world, supported by +municipal taxation, was established by the efforts of Abiel Abbot, D.D., +in Peterboro, New Hampshire, in 1833. A decayed social library and an +operatives' library, and perhaps some other small collections, were thus +gathered under the shelter of the town; and took on new life from its +fostering care, and the small annual appropriation for new books which +is the breath of life to all libraries. Here, as always, it was _a man_ +that inspired the advance movement and carried it on to successful +fulfilment. + +In 1849, New Hampshire passed a general law enabling towns and cities to +maintain free libraries by taxation; and in 1851 Massachusetts, which +had granted Boston in 1847 the right to establish such a library, passed +a similar general enabling act. Several other states followed almost +immediately, and nearly every northern and northwestern state, except +Pennsylvania, has since adopted the measure. In 1893, twenty states had +enacted similar statutes; and, in all, more than seven hundred free +libraries have been established under them. They have increased--as +might naturally have been expected--most rapidly in the portions of the +country where other library agencies, and where an efficient public +school system, have been longest and most efficiently at work. Thus, of +the seven hundred libraries, more than three hundred are in +Massachusetts (according to the returns of the Public Library Commission +for 1894), or 1,233 volumes for every thousand of population; in New +Hampshire something over one hundred (in 1894), or 464 volumes per +thousand of inhabitants. + +Great Britain has kept nearly equal pace with our foremost states in +free library legislation. A general enabling act to establish and +support free libraries for the people from municipal rates was passed by +Parliament in 1850, and accepted with great energy and enthusiasm by +many of the northern towns and cities. Eighty-six free libraries, not +including branches, had been opened before 1880; but, as in this +country, the conservatism of the southern portions of the country has +prevented their general establishment. For similar reasons only the +province of Ontario has made any considerable movement in this direction +in the Dominion of Canada. + +This hasty historical sketch would be very incomplete without some +account of the recent legislation, in several states, for the assistance +of the smaller towns and villages in the establishment and increase of +public libraries. This legislation has already had marvelous results. +Massachusetts, in 1890, appropriated one hundred dollars to any town +that would raise by taxation, or appropriate from the dog tax, or +otherwise raise, at least fifty dollars (or if its valuation was less +than one million dollars it should raise twenty-five dollars, or if less +than $250,000 it should raise at least fifteen dollars); and should +agree to take care of the books, and furnish the agency of distribution. +The sums granted by the state are in the hands of a board of +commissioners appointed by the governor (with the advice and consent of +the council); and so far these commissioners--librarians and +others--have been eminent citizens, serving without salaries, and having +only $500 in their hands annually for clerk hire and traveling expenses. +The commission is also required to give advice and information to +librarians and others concerning selection of books, cataloguing, and +administration; and to select and forward the books granted by the +state. + +Now for results. The commission has thus aided in establishing, in four +years, more than sixty free public libraries in small towns (out of one +hundred and four not thus supplied) and its action has shamed a few +larger towns into establishing them; so that now only two and three +fourths per cent of the population of the state, in forty-four small +towns, were in January, 1894, without their advantages. And this has +been accomplished with an entire expense to the commonwealth of less +than ten thousand dollars. _Per contra_, more than half a million +dollars were given by individuals in a single year for similar purposes +within the state. Certainly, this has been a most economical and +effective public outlay; free, too, from all suspicion of any one's +fattening by political jobbery. + +The record of New Hampshire is even more remarkable. This state passed a +law in 1891, similar to the one outlined above, and over eighty towns +accepted its provisions, and established free libraries within a +twelvemonth after it came in force. We are glad to read that the states +of Maine, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania are moving in the direction of a +measure that has proved so effective in its operation, and that must be +so widely beneficent. + +The state of New York has adopted another system to stimulate the +development of the free library. Her enabling act of many years ago +produced, as we have seen, comparatively small results; and in 1892 a +law was passed authorizing the Regents of the University of New York to +lend for a limited time--usually six months--selections of books from +the duplicate department of the state library, or from books purchased +for the purpose, to any public library in the state; or, where none +exists, to twenty-five petitioners in any town or village of the state. +A fee of five dollars is required, to cover cost of transportation, +catalogue, etc., for a loan of one hundred volumes, and a smaller sum +(three dollars) for a loan of fifty volumes. This plan, it will be seen, +is a revival of the old school district method; and of that instituted +by Samuel Brown in Scotland, and the later one found successful in +Australia. The antipodes have a fashion lately of suggesting valuable +object-lessons for social legislation. In small communities it has the +advantage of making books do manifold duty, and of meeting the wants of +varied communities and occupations. By judicious and varied selection, +clubs, classes, schools, and reading circles may be aided in special +courses and investigations. At the end of twenty months one hundred and +twenty-five of these free loan libraries had been sent out by the New +York Board of Regents; of which nearly one half (44) went to communities +without public libraries, the remainder going to libraries already +established (22), to university extension centers (18), and to academy +libraries open to the public (22). Eleven thousand nine hundred volumes +were thus made accessible to the public, with a total circulation of not +far from 25,000 volumes and 9,000 readers. This system, which seems even +more economical than the Massachusetts one, has greatly promoted +interest in good reading, and led to the establishment of several local +public libraries. The system is very elastic and is easily adapted to +the rapidly growing demands for its privileges. As a pioneer method, or +as auxiliary to municipal libraries, it promises excellent results. + +After this historical survey it would hardly seem necessary to dwell +upon the arguments in behalf of the free public library. "There is +probably no mode of expending public money," says Stanley Jevons, "which +gives a more extraordinary and immediate return in utility and innocent +enjoyment." He affirms that in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and +some other great towns in England, as in similar communities in this +country, where such libraries have existed for years, there is but one +opinion about them. "They are classed with town-halls, police courts, +prisons, and poorhouses as necessary adjuncts of our stage of +civilization." A more natural, and certainly more cheerful, collocation +would class them with free schools, museums, and public parks, as Jevons +himself afterwards suggests. "The main _raison d'être_ of free public +libraries, as indeed of public museums, art galleries, parks, halls, +public clocks, and many other kinds of public works, is the enormous +increase of utility which is thereby acquired for the community at a +trifling cost." He proceeds to illustrate by several instances what he +calls "the remarkable multiplication of utility" in the case of free +lending libraries by several instances. Every book, in the first year of +the Birmingham Free Library, was issued on an average seventeen times, +and the periodical literature turned over fifty times. In Leeds, every +book was used eighteen times. In larger libraries and in later use, of +course, the figures are less, averaging from three to ten times, the +whole cost of each issue averaging only from two to five cents. Similar +statistics may be found in the _Forum_ article already referred to in +regard to the manifold use of books furnished in New York. + +The comfort and moral economy of a cheerful, well-lighted reading-room, +too, is overwhelmingly illustrated. Mr. Jevons found that in Manchester +all persons of suitable age visited the free libraries on an average +thirteen times a year, of whom three fourths came to read in the +reading-rooms. Such a refuge from the perils of the saloon and the +street is an immense benefaction in any neighborhood. + +The relative cheapness of securing this means of general culture and +enjoyment, this efficient antidote to vice and ignorance, is strikingly +shown by comparing its cost with other items of governmental +expenditure, and the statistics of national luxuries and vices. The +eighty-six free libraries in the large cities of Great Britain cost not +more than half a million dollars per year--one fifth the cost of a first +class ironclad. The statistics I have given show that the cost of the +two war vessels just voted by Congress might be abundantly sufficient to +insure the organization on the Massachusetts plan of a free library in +every village and country town of the United States, not now accessible +to such a library. The expenditure for drink, for horse-racing, or even +for tobacco, for a single year, would royally equip and endow a public +library for every thousand people now without such privileges. As +post-office savings banks are, wherever established, a mighty engine for +teaching thrift, as public parks are an incalculable source of health +and enjoyment in our cities, so the public library, "the free literary +park," as Jevons calls it, is a most effective agency for the promotion +of culture and civilization. + +In the year 1851, George Ticknor, the distinguished author of the +"History of Spanish Literature" and a benefactor of the Boston Public +Library, wrote to Edward Everett: "I would establish a library which +differs from all free libraries yet attempted; I mean one in which any +popular books tending to moral and intellectual improvement shall be +furnished in such numbers that many persons can be reading the same book +at the same time; in short, that not only the best books of all sorts, +but the pleasant literature of the day, shall be made accessible to the +whole people when they most care for it--that is, when it is fresh and +new. I would thus by following the popular taste--unless it should +demand something injurious--create a real appetite for healthy reading. +This appetite once formed will take care of itself. It will in a great +majority of cases demand better and better books." + +Mr. Everett's conservatism doubted the wisdom of these principles for +the foundation of a library: but they are essentially those which have +proved sound in the free library system of England and New England, of +Australia and the Northwestern cities. In the light of fifty years' +experience, indeed, Everett's skepticism reads like Governor Berkeley's +report on education in Virginia, in which he thanked God that there were +no free schools in Virginia and hoped that there would be none for a +hundred years. The communities in which libraries, approaching George +Ticknor's ideal, have been longest established, would do without paved +streets or electric lights sooner than without these libraries, and they +support them by taxation as cheerfully as the public schools. Indeed, +the free library in not a few communities is reckoned an invaluable and +indispensable adjunct of the public school, the very crown of the system +of popular education. Such librarians as Green of Worcester, +Massachusetts, and Whitney of Watertown, and Hosmer of Minneapolis, keep +in touch with the work of the schools, and apprize the various classes +of pupils of new books especially valuable for their work. More than +this, they have regard to the needs of the various clubs, trades, and +professions, and keep their members aware of valuable books in their +special departments. But perhaps the most helpful service of all is +rendered by capable librarians in the constant advice given to +inexperienced readers, and the frequent bulletins sent out to stimulate +the interest and instruct the intelligence of the community. It is of +special interest to note that the demand for good reading has been +greatly increased wherever the public library has been administered in +this way. Indeed, booksellers and proprietary libraries have come to +favor the opening of the free library as largely increasing the demand +for their books. + +It is not strange that with this large and various capacity of social +service, the free library should be rapidly growing in public favor; nor +that private munificence should frequently come to the municipal +provision. There is no public object for which so generous gifts are +often made. In the year 1893, for instance, five hundred thousand +dollars were contributed to public libraries and the erection of library +buildings in Massachusetts alone. "There has been ready perception," +says Fletcher in his "Public Libraries in America," "of the truth that +one's memory cannot better be perpetuated than by association with an +institution so popular and at the same time so elevating and refining as +the public library. Memorial libraries are therefore very abundant, and +as expense has not been spared in the erection of such memorials, many +of our towns, even the smaller ones, are ornamented by library buildings +which are gems of architecture.... The fact remains, with all its +significance, that about the public library cluster naturally the +affections and the interest of the community. In its endowment, on the +one hand by private beneficence, and on the other by public taxation, is +illustrated that collaboration of the rich and the poor in the pursuit +of the highest ends which has in it the promise, and perhaps the +potency, of the solution of vexing social questions." + +The remembrance that these statements are only locally accepted, and +that large portions of England and the United States have hardly moved +toward the establishment of public libraries, may prompt a consideration +of certain objections which are still sometimes urged. Civilization +accepts its most benignant and effective agencies of progress only under +protest; and it is not, therefore, wholly inexplicable that fifty years +of unmixed and increasing success should have left some excellent and +otherwise intelligent people unconvinced of the beneficence of the free +public library. A friend of mine was enthusiastically setting forth the +advantages of such libraries, and their rapid multiplication and growing +service in New England, at the dinner table of one of the most +distinguished, philosophic, and progressive of contemporary Englishmen; +and was not a little surprised to be cut short with the decided comment, +"I do not believe in it." The Englishman's fastidious preference for +high fences and compartment railway carriages pervades all his +intellectual conceptions also; and makes him impervious even to Stanley +Jevons's overwhelming demonstration of the moral, social, and economic +utility of the free public library; impervious even to the appeal that +ignorance and narrow intellectual opportunity must be supposed to make +upon enlightened philanthropy. + +Mr. Herbert Spencer and the individualists oppose to the public +library, supported by taxation, their wellworn declamation about the +injustice of making one man pay for another man's culture and amusement; +and urge the dictum of _laissez faire_ in civilization and government. +But as the post-office and the public school have survived their +onslaughts we may not feel compelled to surrender the advantages of the +free library. For, as with the school, it is easy to show that mental +health and light are as primary interests of the community as material; +and that it is precisely because those most deficient are least sensible +of their defect that society must seek to remedy it. Mr. Spencer's +analogy between hunger for food and hunger for knowledge is utterly +fallacious. The physical appetite may be trusted to seek vigorously its +own supply; the intellectual appetite has most to be aroused where +intellectual starvation is most imminent; and it grows only by what it +feeds on. Men usually value most, indeed, what they work or pay for; but +it is precisely those who do not value good books at all who need to be +tempted and trained to their appreciation. And it is just the children +of those whose parents will not, or cannot, provide them wholesome +reading, that society cannot afford to let go wholly unprovided. + +The smallest fee here proves an effective bar, as the experience of all +subscription libraries proves. When the Springfield (Mass.) library was +made free, its circulation was trebled the first year--though the fee +had been only one dollar--and in a few years rose six or seven fold. +"The Mercantile Library of Peoria, Ill.," says Mr. Crunden, "turned over +to the city and made free, notes an increase in ten years, of members +from two hundred and seventy-five to four thousand five hundred, and of +issues from fifteen thousand to ninety thousand." So always. If the +dollar fee were removed from the circulation of the books of our +Meadville City Library, for instance, within five years they would go +into fifteen hundred families instead of less than three hundred, as +now; and the added twelve hundred families would be the very ones where +the books would be of highest service. And, perhaps, more beneficent +still would be the influence upon the vastly larger number who would +frequent the library, and grow intelligent through the multiplied use of +its reading facilities, and the help of its valuable reference +department. The reaction upon the general intelligence of the community +would make itself felt in the increasing intelligence of its working men +and the higher standard of life this would bring among them. In short, +it would insure economic progress. + +Besides the economic advantages, and much more important, the influence +of a well-furnished free library would tell in the training of citizens. +The discussion of economic and social questions, eager and often bitter +as it is, would become less crude and partisan in the knowledge of the +best books and magazine articles upon the topics involved. The reading +of history, biography, and travels would exert a broadening, +enlightening, and often inspiring influence. To make wholesome +literature more accessible than dime novels would save many boys and +girls from ruin, rouse many dormant intellects to higher life, and +supply effective rivals to the saloons and other low resorts. +Philanthropy and religion alike demand the wide opening of such an +"effectual door" to the opportunities of the higher life. + +It is sometimes objected that the records of all public libraries show +that the lightest literature is most read, that fiction constitutes one +half or three fourths of the books circulated. But besides the obvious +consideration that only wholesome fiction finds place in all +well-appointed public libraries, Horace Greeley's view has much to +commend it, viz.: that all pure reading, however light, tends to develop +a taste for more vigorous and instructive literature. Besides, it may +well be urged that fiction is not only the current form of literary art, +but also the effective vehicle of current social theories, +philanthropies, and reforms; and that much of the most earnest thinking +and serious moral purpose of this age is embodied in it. Under such +intelligent and careful selection as the public opinion of the community +may provide for, the public library will furnish a healthful substitute +and corrective for the unappointed and vagrant reading of that large +section of young people most in need of guidance. + +I have left myself but a moment to suggest one or two practical +questions that may need consideration in the establishment of a new +system of free public libraries in communities or a commonwealth. Next +to thorough discussion of their proved beneficence, an efficient +enabling act is certainly the first desideratum, in any state still +without it, so that towns and cities may tax themselves for this +purpose. And it is most important that this act be not so narrowly +limited that communities shall be unable to attempt anything worth +while. Better wait five years, or ten years, more for the statute that +will enable our communities to put themselves in line with the most +advanced in the country in this respect, than to enact a starveling and +ineffective statute that shall + + "Keep the word of promise in our ear, + And break it to our hope," + +as has already sometimes happened. The public appropriation is so +limited by penny-wise legislation in a number of states as to discourage +all action, and kill all interest in the matter. + +In the same way, it is to be hoped that these states will accompany +their enabling acts by auxiliary legislation similar to that in +Massachusetts and New Hampshire; or, perhaps still better, patterned +upon that of New York. It is difficult to decide upon the comparative +advantages of these two systems. That of Massachusetts seems to me +better for permanent results; but that of New York seems likely to be +more immediately effective in stirring the sluggish interest of +indifferent communities. Both are wonderfully economical in money, and +both have great effectiveness when worked by the intelligent interest of +even a few enthusiastic friends of the free library movement in any +community. It would seem that even a governor who thinks five million +people cannot afford $25,000 for the "Birds of Pennsylvania" might +consent to spend a fifth of that sum per year to begin a work that would +not end, if once well begun, without putting a new and most effective +agency of social culture and even economic progress within the reach of +every boy and girl in the state. + +The machinery through which to plan and begin this great and hopeful +experiment should be carefully considered. Massachusetts's unsalaried +commission of eminent citizens, New York's Board of University Regents, +alike insure that in those commonwealths the work will be carried on +under the most hopeful and efficient conditions. Some such unpartisan +and public-spirited agency is absolutely demanded for the success of the +movement in a state that has to begin it _de novo_; and the _personnel_ +of the agency is the most important point in any legislation initiating +it. + +There is also a difference of opinion as to whether school boards, or +boards specially constituted for the purpose, should have charge of +public libraries. My opinion is decidedly in favor of the latter; for +while school boards would bring the library, as is most desirable, into +closer relation with the public schools, an independent board, chosen, +perhaps, by the school board in connection with the city council, as +sometimes in Massachusetts, would be likely to bring more ability, +independence, and careful consideration to the affairs of the library, +and to separate it more completely from injurious partisan and personal +politics. + + + + +THE COMMUNITY'S SERVICE TO THE LIBRARY + + The Public Library, like the Public School, is the creature + of the community, which owes it provision for keeping it in + condition to render the service for which it was created. + This duty of course, includes adequate financial support but + does not end here. Among the most important adjuncts to such + support are the aid that can be given by enlightened public + opinion and by organized groups in the maintenance of + liberal and helpful policies, and the appointment of a + governing board equally conscious of its responsibilities + and its limitations. + + + + +THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY + + This statement of first principles was made by Melvil Dewey + at the Second International Library Conference, held in + London, July 13-16, 1897, and is reprinted from the + Transactions and Proceedings of the Conference (London, + 1898). In reading this address, it must be kept in mind that + it was made to Englishmen, whose conception of the functions + of a public library were then, as now, much more + conservative than ours. A sketch of Dr. Dewey will be found + in Vol. I. of this series. + + +We have been listening to an admirable account of the development of the +library movement from earliest times to the present day, and I venture +to believe that when the history of the age in which we live is written, +and is looked back upon by those who shall come after, it will be known +distinctively as the "Library Age." + +Libraries of one sort or another have existed from the beginning of +human history, and we are now well into the fifth century since the +invention of printing; so that it would seem as if there had been +abundant time for library development. But so great an institution as +the modern library is of slow growth. It has taken a thousand years to +develop our school system from university down to kindergarten. The +public library is much more rapidly going through corresponding stages +in order to come to its own. The original library was a reservoir, +getting in and keeping safely, a storehouse for posterity. That was and +is a great function, for which I have profound respect. Then, after many +centuries, came another library epoch, for which we all feel still +greater respect. The cistern was made a fountain; giving out was seen to +be more important than getting in. The library is no longer merely a +passive receptacle, but becomes an aggressive educational force in every +community. The reservoir will not become a stagnant pool, for, in its +branches and deliveries, the public library has mains and pipes laid +through every street, and reaching almost to the door of every +householder. And we live now not in the age of the reservoir, but in the +age of the fountain. In our zeal and admiration, however, we are apt to +forget that there is yet another and even more important stage to reach. +In my own city, some time ago, we spent half a million dollars in +providing an ample supply of water. But we found that we had really +opened convenient communication with the cemetery by water, for the +quality of the new and abundant beverage was such that our death-rate +steadily rose. The burning question became qualitative, not +quantitative, and we are now spending our money on efficient filtration. +Of course no library intends to circulate injurious books, but equally +no town intends to distribute harmful water. We are concerned more with +the results than with the intention. The mortality tables make plain the +physical defect, but alas! science has as yet devised no instruments +delicate enough to record the greater danger to the individual and the +State from poison in the great current, which has come to be a mighty +flood, of modern reading matter. The most hopeful, and perhaps the only +practicable, method of guarding against this serious danger is through +the public library, which must now in the last days of this eventful +century recognise the gravity of the new responsibility which it cannot +shirk. Before another audience I might dwell at length on what this +problem of selection means, but the representative librarians of the +world will understand my claim that, wonderful as was the development +from the cistern to the fountain, its importance is overshadowed by this +great question of excluding the pernicious, which I sum up in the word +filtration. This is the great problem of the modern library, and its +solution must depend largely on the State. + +It is often said that the modern periodicals and newspapers are our +greatest danger; but this, of course, is true only of the sensational +and other objectionable types. I yield to none in my high appreciation +of what the best kind of newspaper may do in its capacity as the +strongest ally of the public library and of the public school. I am +confident that early in the next century such journals will be +recognised as a distinct part of our educational machinery, but I am +equally clear that the worst journals, conducted merely as money-making +enterprises, and catering to the worst instead of to the best elements +of both society and individuals, are the most potent factors for evil, +and the greatest enemy which the ideal librarian has to combat in +carrying forward his best work. They leave their habitual readers with +neither time nor taste for anything above their own low plane. The mind +will inevitably rise or fall to the level of its habitual reading, and +we apostles and missionaries of the book have no more disheartening +outlook than on the readers whose literary atmosphere is limited to the +modern sensational newspapers. But the apologists for such reading say +that the history of their own times is of more importance to them than +any other history; should they not, therefore, become as familiar as +possible with it? But when a man, on account of "pressure of business," +never looks inside any good book, yet has time to read everything in the +newspapers, he is--well, specialising too much in "history." How many +men and women there are, who, from year's end to year's end, read +nothing but the so-called history of their own times, and who can tell +you nothing better than which dog won the last fight! It is a good thing +to know the history of our own times; so is a pinch of salt a good thing +on one's breakfast potato, but it is not necessary to drink a barrel of +sea water each morning in order to get it. + +It is highly desirable that I should know the geology and topography of +my own State, but I can learn all that is worth knowing without creeping +on hands and knees with nose close to the ground over the barnyards and +dump heaps of our commonwealth, under the vain delusion that I am +exhaustively studying its geology. We must join this battle squarely. +The eternal conflict of good and the best with bad and the worst is on. +The librarian must be the librarian militant before he can be the +librarian triumphant. At the end of another century, when a conference +like this is held, our descendants will look back with wonder to find +that we have so long been satisfied to leave the control of the +all-pervading, all-influencing newspaper in the hands of people who have +behind them no motive better than the "almighty dollar." The solution of +our difficulties lies in recognition by the State that public libraries +are not only good things, but that they are an absolutely necessary part +of our educational system. We started with the university, but found +that we had to put under it the college. Then we went a step further, +and had the academy and high school to prepare for the college; the +primary and grammar schools to prepare for the high school; and now we +have the kindergarten under the primary school. I am not giving a +chronology, but simply pointing out that during these centuries +educators have constantly been facing the question of adequate provision +for meeting completely the public wants. We have at last reached step by +step from the university to the nursery, and have provided a series of +schools covering the entire field. Yet, with all this, we have not +attained the full system of education that we ought to attain, and every +thoughtful person is now asking, "What next?" + +Huxley has well said that a system of education which in the early years +trains boys and girls to read and then makes no provision for what they +shall read during all the rest of their lives, would be as senseless as +to teach our children the expert use of the knife, fork, and spoon, and +then make no provision for their daily food. The whole history of +education has been a series of broadening conceptions. I can recall no +case in which the ideal has narrowed, but step by step we have come to a +general recognition that education is for poor as well as rich, for +plebeian as well as prince, for black and white, for native and +foreigner, for brilliant or backward, for women as well as men, for +deaf, dumb, and blind, and all defectives and delinquents, who in the +old conception were left without the pale. It is almost within our +memory that we have come to substantial agreement that the State owes an +elementary education to every boy and girl born within its limits, not +alone as a right to the child, but as a matter of safety and practical +wisdom on the part of the State; and this broader conception is followed +closely by a second and still broader one, that every boy and girl is +entitled not only to an elementary, but to something also of higher +education. I have met no competent student of this subject who dares +deny that hereafter the State must recognize that education is not alone +for the young, for limited courses, in schools which take all the time +of their pupils, but that it must regard adults as well; and not alone +for short courses, but all through life--not in our recognised teaching +institutions alone, but in that study outside of office or working hours +that may be carried on at home. I may sum it up in the one sentence, +"Higher education, for adults, at home, through life." + +In this home education, which must hereafter be recognised side by side +with school education, the library is the great central agent round +which study clubs, reading circles, extension teaching, museums, and the +other allied agencies must cluster. A statesman solicitous for the +future welfare of his country will find his most fruitful field in +protecting and guiding the reading of the people. It is what a man reads +that shapes his future, which depends, not at once upon the rostrum and +the pulpit, but on the book and the newspaper. In education we recognise +that the supreme end is the building of character, but many of us have +never thought clearly how directly this character-building rests upon +the public library. It is reading that begets reflection, reflection +begets motive, motive begets action, and action begets habit, and habit +begets character; and who here dares question this, that it is not the +air nor the water, nor yet the "roast beef of Old England," not its +history nor traditions nor laws nor geographic location, but +_character_, that has made the Anglo-Saxons, England and her daughters +across the seas, the most wonderful people of the earth. It is not +brawn, but brain. The dogs and horses might have the physical qualities, +but it is the mind and soul, and those elements of true greatness which +can best be instilled into a people through the reading of good and +great books, that have made a race of which we are justly all so proud. +One of the wisest of Frenchmen said of the Franco-Prussian War, when the +needle-gun was suggested as the explanation of German victory, "No; it +was not the needle-gun, nor the German soldier who held it, nor yet the +German schoolmaster who trained the soldier, but it was the German +university that made the schoolmaster." + +"Knowledge is power," and it is knowledge that has made England and +America great. Think of the men who read the poorest newspapers, but +know nothing of our best books. Can the State afford to make other +things free, and not make free true and useful knowledge as preserved in +books? Can the State recognize the necessity for free schools, and fail +to provide free access to the best reading in all realms of knowledge? + +"Free as air," was the old-time strongest expression. Then men learned +how absolutely essential to physical well-being was abundance of water, +and our language records in its favourite expression, "free as water," +the meaning of the untold millions that civilization has spent to supply +all people freely with this essential. We are learning the greater +lesson about the necessity of free knowledge more slowly, because +intellectual and spiritual things are not so readily discerned by our +mortal eyes, and it takes more time to read even those messages that God +has written very large for those who have eyes to see; but the time is +not far distant, mark my words, when our speech will again record the +general acceptance of a great truth in the common phrase, as "free as +knowledge." We should make the public understand the relation of the +school system to the library system; that the library is not merely a +collection of books, or a storehouse, but an aggressive and active +source of education, side by side with the free schools. If the issue +came--but, thank God, it never will--between giving up either the +library or the free school, I am not sure that I would not choose for +the welfare of the country the public library rather than the school. +This may sound strange from one who has given his life to education, but +I believe that even without our schools nearly every boy and girl would +somehow learn to read; and when I soberly consider the influence on +lives and characters and on the State, it seems probable that, +infinitely valuable as is the work of our free schools, it would be +exceeded by what could be done by a system of free public libraries, +reaching every boy and girl and man and woman in the community, and so +administered as to provide each freely from childhood to the grave with +the best reading in every field of interest and activity. + +The State, whatever it may or may not do, should recognise the library +as being as essential to public welfare as is the school, and it should +give it as careful protection from dangers without and within as it +gives to institutions like banks and insurance companies. The State +should protect the library against unjust laws, improper interference, +or pernicious influence of any kind from without. It should guard it +also against misconduct, incapacity, or neglect on the part of its +trustees, officers, or employees. Beside the direct appropriations for +its support, it should grant the most liberal powers for holding +property given by individuals for the public benefit, and, above all, +should grant entire exemption from taxation. To tax a free public +library for doing its beneficent work is theorising gone mad. It is as +absurd as for a missionary to refuse admission to his preaching, or for +the manager of a theatre in which a fire has just started to shut out +every fireman till he had presented the conventional coupon for a +reserved seat. The example first set by my own State (New York) in the +statute which I had the honour of drawing ought to be followed +universally. We created a public libraries department, to devote its +entire attention to advancing the best interests of public libraries. It +would take the entire morning to sketch to you the various forms of +beneficent work which we have found practicable. We help to establish +new libraries, reorganise old ones, revise methods, select books, lend +single books or entire libraries, grant books or money up to $200 yearly +to any library raising an equal sum from local sources, and, by means of +correspondence, personal inspection, and steady work in a dozen +directions, help every community to get the greatest practical good from +the labour and money given to its free library. We have now about five +hundred travelling libraries moving about in all parts of the State. The +public library is rapidly becoming universal. For the Government not to +recognise it in its own organisation is as absurd as it would be to have +a standing army and no war department, or schools dotted all about the +state and no department of education. Time forbids more than the mere +naming of what is needed, but the first great step in summing up the +relation of the State to public libraries is the establishment of a +public libraries department, in charge of a strong man who appreciates +the almost limitless opportunities for usefulness which this new field +affords. + +Our discussions this morning took such a turn that you could almost +hear behind them, like the recurring motive of one of Wagner's operas, +the question, "Who shall be greatest among librarians?" In our State +Library School I give each year a course of five lectures on the +qualifications of a librarian, and point out under a half-hundred +different heads the things we should demand in an ideal librarian; but +when we have covered the whole field of scholarship and technical +knowledge and training, we must confess that overshadowing all are the +qualities of the man. To my thinking, a great librarian must have a +clear head, a strong hand, and, above all, a great heart. He must have a +head as clear as the master in diplomacy; a hand as strong as he who +quells the raging mob, or leads great armies on to victory; and a heart +as great as he who, to save others, will, if need be, lay down his life. +Such shall be greatest among librarians; and, when I look into the +future, I am inclined to think that most of the men who will achieve +this greatness will be women. + +It is well to hold up high ideals, but it would be a sad mistake to +underrate the services of the noble men and women who in some, perhaps +many, respects fall far short of the standards we lay down, and yet who +have done, and are doing well, much of the world's best work. Let us +dwell on what has been well done, not on what has been omitted or on +what might have been done by other men in other circumstances. + +I remember, some twenty-five years ago, reading in George Eliot's +_Romola_ these words, which we should remember when thinking of any +great librarian who of necessity fails in some respects to meet all our +ideals: "It was the fashion of old, when an ox was led out for sacrifice +to Jupiter, to chalk the dark spots and give the offering a false show +of unblemished whiteness. Let us fling away the chalk, and boldly say +the victim was spotted; but it was not therefore in vain that his mighty +heart was laid on the altar of men's highest hopes." + + + + +METHODS OF SECURING THE INTEREST OF A COMMUNITY + + This paper by Wm. E. Foster, Librarian of the Providence + Library, appears in the double number of _The Library + Journal_ for September-October, 1880. Written forty years + ago it is more advanced from the standpoint of + socialization, especially as regards group-action, than some + pronouncements that one might hear to-day. A sketch of Mr. + Foster appears in Vol. I. of this series. + + +This mainly resolves itself into a consideration of direct and indirect +methods. The one attempts only to supply the public with what it wants; +the other, striving after the truest improvement of the readers, in time +secures, with the growth of intelligent appreciation, an interest even +more active, and vastly more permanent, than the other. No library may +safely disregard either class of methods, and their proper adjustment is +a point which may very profitably engage much of the librarian's +attention. + +It is true that the first of these is not likely to escape his +attention. "What the public wants" is a consideration which will meet +him frequently, from one end of the year to the other. No one needs to +be told, for instance, that the public wants to be amused. Doubtless the +class of books described as "humorous" would constitute, to a large body +of readers in any one of our cities, the true ideal of a collection of +books. The taste for imaginative literature begins early and lasts long, +with a large number of readers. "Something new" is a phrase whose +attractiveness is not far from universal. Still further, if it is a +question between a "true account," which deals with stirring adventures, +and another "true account," whose pages are devoted to an impassive +statement of scientific facts, there is not much question which will +find the most readers among the general public. "What the public wants," +then, as regards the choice of books, while it certainly does not +indicate a high degree of enlightenment, has perhaps the merit of being +true to nature. + +There are certain points of administration, also, in which the interest +of the public is concerned. It is in favor of having the library as near +its place of residence as possible; and here, unfortunately, "the +public" is a plural personage which cannot all be suited at once. It is +in favor of that method of obtaining the privileges of the library which +requires the least trouble and inconvenience on its part, and seldom +sees the need of a careful verification of the applicant's identity. It +is in favor of the fewest restrictions on access to the books, and on +the time for keeping them. It is in favor, decidedly, of that "charging +system" which will deliver the book soonest. It is in favor of finding +the library open on all days and at all hours, sometimes even not +regarding the specified hours announced as worthy of consideration. In +short, while it is by no means difficult to persuade the public of the +reasonableness of a particular restriction, yet its first thought is +undeniably largely influenced by selfish considerations. + +Nor is the larger part of the public any more fond of bestowing deep and +painstaking thought upon the books which it reads, and of carrying the +mind systematically through a complicated mental process. It is not +improbable that some readers would be glad of some method of using books +which should save them the trouble of any mental process. And, while +these readers are so much averse to any troublesome efforts toward +improvement on their own part, it would be scarcely reasonable to look +for any very intelligent supervision by them of the reading of their +children, or of the pupils in the schools. Here, again, what the public +wants is "the royal road"--some "short and easy method." + +That library, then, which would awaken and develop a lively interest +among its readers in the miscellaneous public, cannot certainly complain +of a lack of methods by which to secure such interest. It may include in +its selection of books a suitable percentage of fiction, and humorous +works. It may infuse "new blood" into the library by frequent and +regular purchase of the latest publications. It may add largely to the +department of voyages and travels, of books copiously illustrated,--of +popular literature, in short. It may place its main building in the +center of population, and establish branches for the accommodation of +outlying localities. It may recognize the desirableness of "the least +red tape" in registering readers, of open book-shelves, of expeditious +serving of readers, and long periods of time for the use of the library +and the retention of books. It may furnish its readers with explanations +and directions for obtaining and using the books which shall require the +least difficulty in understanding and applying them. It may, and it +should, recognize the value of all these principles, and the library +which fails to act on them does so at its peril. Yet these points do not +comprise all that demand attention; and the effectiveness of even these +is due to the limits which are set to them. A certain amount of fiction +is well enough, but to enlarge this department at the expense of all +others would clearly defeat the library's purpose. Diminution of +restrictions in the use of books is certainly agreeable to the public, +but the removal of all restrictions would result in such a loss of books +as would soon work its own cure. + +The question, "What does the public want?" is not the only, nor, in +fact, the chief question to be borne in mind in the conduct of a +library. One has only to keep his eyes open to see how suggestive as to +methods is this other question: "Of what service may the library be?" +And it is safe to say that one who has not given the subject attention +will be surprised to find at how many points a collection of books, and +the thought there contained, touch human life. Here is a machine-shop +with its hundred or more workmen, many of whom are anxious to study some +mechanical work. The library has such works, and is glad to supply them. +Here again is a society of natural history, whose members are +systematically studying some department of natural science. To them, +also, the library willingly offers its resources in that department. +With no less willingness it offers its cooperation to those who are +following a course of public lectures on some topic of political science +or of art, to a college class studying topically some epoch of history +or period of literature; or to a public-school teacher, with a class in +geography; or a parent desiring some suitable reading for a child. Or, +with no specified class of persons in view, it seeks to make its +collection generally available, by regular references to its resources +on matters of current and universal interest. + +Much more effective, however, than the best of such attempts at reaching +classes of readers will be the aid rendered to individual readers. Not +general and indefinite, but specific and direct assistance, is here +given, and, although at first this kind of work might seem to be +impracticable in a large library, yet one who tries it will be +interested to see how far such individual methods may be introduced. The +librarian almost mechanically learns "to pigeon-hole" in his mind the +peculiar tastes and lines of reading of single readers, and, when the +occasion presents itself, can bring to their notice books and articles +which they are glad to obtain. More than one librarian makes it a +regular practice, in adding new books to the library or in collecting +material bearing upon some one topic, to drop a postal to this and that +reader who, he knows, will be glad of just this information. The more +the conducting of a library can be made an individual matter, bringing +particular books to the notice of particular readers, the more effective +it becomes. + +It remains to consider what may be called the "general effect" of such +individual efforts, continued from one year to another. They will +certainly result in giving the public a large amount of assistance. +Being exerted in connection with the whole community, they cannot fail +to leave an influence, like the school, the church, or the +newspaper,--an influence moreover, which, if wisely directed, and +intelligently shaped, will make the public library idea appreciably felt +in the civilization of the country. + +Nor can it fail to have a reflex influence in securing the interest of +the public. If methods of the former class were able, by their direct +agency, to accomplish practical results, even more significant and more +permanent are those reached indirectly by this method. No class of +people will be so truly attached to the institution, by active interest, +as those who feel that they have been personally aided and improved +through its agency. The former methods are directly adapted to secure +popularity, the latter to win gratitude; and if it should ever become +necessary to choose one of these, at the expense of the other, there can +be little room for hesitation. The growth of public sentiment in +communities like Boston and Worcester, where public libraries have been +administered on these principles, and with these ends in view, for a +series of years, is very instructive. Public sentiment, like confidence, +is "a plant of slow growth"; but experience shows that when the +conviction has once thoroughly penetrated a community that an +institution like this is sincerely aiming to serve the public, a hold on +its sympathy and interest has been acquired not easily to be shaken. It +should be the aim of each librarian to make the usefulness of his +institution so manifest that the public will as soon think of dispensing +with the post-office as with the library. + + + + +FINANCIAL SUPPORT + + The justification for taxing the members of a community to + support a Public Library, although rarely questioned to-day + was argued with heat in former times. Earlier, there was the + same difference of opinion with regard to the public + schools. In order to obtain the argument in opposition, in + its best form, we have had to draw from a British source, + which we consider it proper to quote here because it + elicited a reply from an American librarian which will + immediately follow: + + + + +FREE LIBRARIES + +(AN ARGUMENT AGAINST PUBLIC SUPPORT) + + This paper, by M.D. O'Brien, forms Chapter IX of the + compilation of essays entitled "A Plea for Liberty" edited + by Thomas Mackay (3rd ed. London, 1894). The sub-title of + the book, "an argument against socialism and socialistic + legislation," gives its viewpoint. There is a formidable + introduction by Herbert Spencer in which he condemns even + the extremely limited state support given at that time to + general education in England as a "tyrannical system tamely + submitted to by people who fancy themselves free." Mr. + Spencer ends by asserting that the end, if this sort of + thing is to go on, "must be a society like that of ancient + Peru, dreadful to contemplate, in which the mass of the + people, elaborately regimented in groups, ... were + superintended in their private lives as well as in their + industries and toiled hopelessly for the support of the + governmental organization." + + +A Free Library may be defined as the socialists' continuation school. +While State education is manufacturing readers for books, +State-supported libraries are providing books for readers. The two +functions are logically related. If you may take your education out of +your neighbour's earnings, surely you may get your literature in the +same manner. Literary dependency has the same justification as +educational dependency; and, no doubt, habituation to the one helps to +develop a strong desire for the other. A portion of our population has +by legislation acquired the right to supply itself with necessaries and +luxuries at the cost of the rates. The art of earning such things for +themselves has been rendered superfluous. Progress therefore halts +because this all-important instinct has fallen into disuse. At a point +the rates will bear no more, and those who depend on them for their +pleasures are doomed to disappointment. The identity of principle +exemplified alike by compulsory education and compulsory libraries, +logically involves the justification or condemnation of both; and, let +us disguise the unpleasant truth in as many sounding phrases as we +please, the fact remains that the carrying out of this socialistic +principle means pauperism pure and simple. Have we forgotten the evils +that resulted from the application of this principle under the old poor +law? or do we imagine that when an evil changes its outward appearance +it changes its inner essence also? The harm done to the national +character by a policy of this nature varies in intensity in proportion +to the necessity of the want supplied. If the thing supplied at public +cost is really necessary and eagerly accepted by the people, it becomes +more readily a potent cause of dependency, and a heavy and at length an +insupportable charge on the ratepayers. This was the experience of the +old poor law. The cost of national education is fast approaching to the +same state of things, and the problem will one day have to be faced: +'How is the burden of the cost of education to be returned to the +shoulders of those who are responsible for it?' In this paper we are +concerned with a smaller question. A very inconsiderable section of the +people really want the Free Library; the question at the polls is +generally treated with apathy, and only a very small proportion of the +ratepayers record their votes one way or the other. As a matter of fact +the Free Library is forced upon the public by a number of doctrinaire +believers in the superhuman value of a mere literary education. It is +not a popular want. The vast majority of people have still a greater +faith in the training which results from practical contact with the real +facts of life, and still only regard book-learning as a useful +supplement, easily obtainable by those who really desire it and are +likely to profit by it. + +The history of the Education Acts is very analogous. The literary +classes became alarmed at the ignorance of the poor, and instead of +allowing the efforts of philanthropists, aided by the growing +appreciation of education amongst the labouring class--already giving +great promise of providing a true and voluntary remedy for the supposed +evil--to work out a system of education on natural and healthy lines of +spontaneous evolution, a course which would have added dignity and +stability to the domestic life of the parents and given a real and +technical system of education to the children--instead of this, the +hasty politician rushed forward crying. 'The people do not want +education, so we must compel them.' The compulsory and demoralizing +character of the means reacts on the otherwise advantageous nature of +the end, and the result is a mind-destroying system of cram for the +children; summons, fines, and police for the parents. This is how the +politician makes education a lovely and desirable thing. It is almost +impossible to over-estimate the evils resulting from the State not +allowing teachers and parents to adjust the educational arrangements so +as to meet the felt requirements of the case. This communal despotism +strikes at the very foundation of personal virtue, viz. the home, the +instrument by which nature lifts human character above the non-moral +sensuousness of the animal world. Let us never forget that the human +mind is made up of lower and higher elements, and that the removal of +personal duties--the practice-ground of the virtues--favours the +development of the lower factors of character at the expense of the +higher, of weeds at the expense of flowers. + +What else can possibly result from the carrying out of a principle which +means the public feeding, clothing, and lodging of children under +official superintendence and control? Will it be contended that State +officers can know better than parents what is really needed for +children? Yet this is what our Free Educationalists are leading us to. +The system which robs the parent of one of the noblest motives to +effort--the desire to give a good education to his children--which +weakens the sense of duty and takes away a wholesome stimulus to the +mental and moral faculties, is only the beginning of an evil that +menaces civilization and threatens to swallow up all natural +distinctions and relationships in a low and promiscuous communism. This +bribe of parental irresponsibility--this patent method of shirking +duties--which the politician offers us in exchange for our manhood, is a +scheme for encouraging the race to cast itself forth into the moral +darkness of a world where the parents are all childless and the children +all orphans. + +The Free Library, however, has not yet reached the same degree of +compulsion as the Free School. A majority of the local public must vote +for it before it can be established; or rather, we should say, there +must be a majority favourable to it amongst _those who do take the +trouble to record their votes_: usually only a very small proportion of +the electorate think it worth while to cross the street in order to pay +a visit to the poll. When the Library is established, its real +popularity is to be measured by the fact that its books are borrowed by +only about one per cent. of the population. We make bold to say that if +it ever becomes popular, it will be an extremely mischievous +institution. As yet it is merely a plaything for a number of +well-meaning busybodies, and an occasional convenience to a few +middle-class readers. The limited amount generally spent upon it +prevents it from doing anything more than minister to the sensational +indulgences of a very limited section of the reading public. If the +working classes of the country ever really become students, it will be +impossible to supply them with adequate store of books from the rates: +if this is attempted, it can only be at a time when books will be but a +small item in the expenditure which a dominant State Socialism seeks to +lay on the public purse. On the one hand will stand a class whose only +plan for satisfying their wants is the imposition of a new tax, and on +the other a harried remnant of ratepayers, both soon to be overwhelmed +by the near approach of national bankruptcy. + +Want is the spring of human effort. Self-discipline, self-control, +self-reliance, are the habits which grow in men who are allowed to act +for themselves. The meddlesome forestalling of individual effort, which +is being carried into mischievous excess, is going far to bind our +poorer classes for another century of dependence. + +Let us run, as rapidly as possible, through a few of the pleas set up +by the advocates of this form of municipal socialism. Good books, it is +said, are out of the reach of the working man. Whether this is true as +regards books we shall see, but obviously it would be easy to make out a +much stronger case for many other forms of amusement which are far more +popular with the million than books; yet no one seriously proposes that +the amusements of the poorer classes can _all_ be supported by the +rates. But a glance down the lists of some of our publishers will show +any one that the statement is not true--is the very reverse of truth. +When books like 'Pilgrim's Progress,' 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' +'Rasselas,' 'Paul and Virginia,' Byron's 'Childe Harold,' 'Lady of the +Lake,' 'Marmion,' and others, can be purchased from Messrs. Dicks at +twopence each; when all Scott's novels can be obtained from the same +publishers for threepence per story; when, from the same source, any of +Shakespere's plays can be got for a penny each, it will not do to say +that the best kind of literature is unpurchasable by a class that spends +millions a year on alcohol, as well as thousands on tobacco and other +luxuries. Three or four pence, which even comparatively poor people +think nothing now-a-days of spending on an ounce of tobacco or a pipe, +will buy enough of the best literature to last an ordinary reader at +least a week or a fortnight. And when the book is read, there is the +pleasure to be derived from lending or giving it to a friend, and of +accepting the loan or gift of his in return; a custom that largely +obtains in country districts where no socialistic collection of unjustly +gotten books exists to hinder the development of personal thrift or +poison the springs of spontaneous generosity. Lying on the table where +this is written is a list of the works published in Cassell's National +Library. How some of the old book-lovers who are gone--who lived in the +days when the purchase of a good book involved some personal +sacrifice--would have appreciated this valuable library! Here are 208 of +the world's best books, each one of which contains some 200 pages of +clear readable type. The published price is threepence each; but a +discount of twenty-five per cent. is allowed when four or five or more +are purchased. It would be a waste of space to give the entire list; but +a few typical examples may be taken. Here are the Essays of Lord +Macaulay; here are works by Plutarch, Herodotus, Plato, Xenophon, +Lucian, Fénelon, Voltaire, Boccaccio, Gothe, and Lessing--in English, of +course. Here is Walton's 'Complete Angler,' Goldsmith's 'Plays,' Bacon's +'Wisdom of the Ancients' and 'Essays.' Here are works by Burke, Swift, +Steele and Addison, Milton, Johnson, Pope, Sydney Smith, Coleridge, +Dickens, Landor, Fielding, Keats, Shelley, Defoe, Dryden, Carlyle, +Locke, Bolingbroke, Shakespere, and many others. All Shakespere's plays +are here complete, and each play is accompanied by the poem, story, or +previous play on which it is founded. Here, for example, is the last of +the series as yet published, 'All's Well that Ends Well'; it contains a +translation of the story of Giletta of Narbona from Painter's 'Palace of +Pleasure'; it is worth threepence to a student, if only for showing the +difference between raw material and finished product. Hundreds of new +novels, including some of those of Thackeray, Kingsley, Dickens, Lytton, +and other well-known authors, are to be obtained in most places for +4-1/2_d._, and their secondhand price is less still. Considering the +marvellous cheapness of good books, it is difficult to understand how +any one can either blackmail his neighbour for them, or encourage +working-men to do so. If a man will not deduct a few coppers now and +then from his outlay in other luxuries to purchase literature, he cannot +want literature very badly; if he does not value books sufficiently well +to buy them with his own earnings he does not deserve to have them +bought for him with other people's earnings. That poor women and others, +who are often the sole support of a large family of children, should +have their hard earnings confiscated to maintain readers--many of them +well-to-do--in gratuitous literature, is an injustice not to be +palliated by all the hollow cant about culture and education so freely +indulged in at the present time. Some time ago there was a discussion on +'the sacrifice of education to examination.' There is another question +quite as serious--the sacrifice of justice to so-called education. + +Let us next consider the educational value of this institution. + +It is hardly necessary for us to say that we have no objection, either +for ourselves or for our neighbours, to novel-reading. On the contrary, +we regard it as a legitimate form of recreation. All we argue is that it +is not a luxury which should be paid for out of the rates. Now, to +listen to the advocates of Free Libraries one would imagine that these +institutions were only frequented by students, and that the books +borrowed were for the most part of a profound and scholarly character. +But the very reverse of this is the case. The committee of the Blackpool +Free Library, in their Report for the year 1887-8, say:--'Works of +fiction and light literature enjoy the greatest degree of popularity, +each book circulating eleven times in the year, while _the more +instructive books in the other classes circulate only once during the +same period_.' According to this Report, out of a total average daily +issue of 150 volumes, 137 are works of fiction and light literature. The +average issue of history, which is the next largest item, is only 9 per +diem. + +No wonder is it, after such results as this, that the Committee should +express the opinion 'that the rich stores of biography, history, +travels, and works of science and art which have been added in recent +years are deserving of greater attention than has hitherto been given to +them.' + +Although the nominal and frequently exceeded limit is now one penny in +the pound, there is no knowing how soon it may be raised. Already one of +the members of the Library Association of the United Kingdom, a body +composed to a considerable extent of librarians whose bureaucratic +instincts naturally impel them to push their business by all possible +means, has awarded a prize of ten guineas for a draft Library Bill, +which, among other things, permits a twopenny instead of a penny rate. +'But,' says the _Daily News_ of Oct. 4th, 1889, 'the feeling appeared to +be unanimous that it would be _unwise_ to put this forward as a part of +the Association's programme, as it would enormously increase the +opposition to the adoption of the Act in new localities.' No regard for +the ratepayers' pockets holds them back; but only a fear of injuring +business by frightening the bird whose feathers are to be plucked. Were +it not for this the Bill would be pushed forward, and those ratepayers +who have voted for the adoption of the Act in the belief that no more +than one penny can be levied, would have the rate suddenly doubled over +their heads without knowing it. Perhaps, after all, it would serve them +right. + +The intervention of this Association in the conduct of the agitation for +Free Libraries is instructive, and points to the fact that if we admit +the principle that the wants of the poorer classes generally are to be +supplied from the rates, it is not the poorer classes themselves who are +allowed to say what form the gift shall take. On the contrary the law is +manipulated by a number of amiable enthusiasts who succeed in foisting +their own fad on the public charges. If the working classes were allowed +to choose the application of _1d._ or _2d._ in the pound it would not go +to Free Libraries. + +The enormous amount of light reading indulged in by the frequenters of +Free Libraries leads us to expect that these places are largely used by +well-to-do and other idlers. And this is exactly what we find. Free +Libraries are perfect 'god-sends' to the town loafer, who finds himself +housed and amused at the public expense, and may lounge away his time +among the intellectual luxuries which his neighbours are taxed to +provide for him. Says Mr. Mullins, the Birmingham librarian, 'No +delicacy seemed to deter the poor tramp from using, not only the +news-room, but the best seats in the reference library _for a snooze_. +Already the Committee had to complain of the use of the room for +_betting_, and for the transaction of various businesses, and the +exhibition of samples, writing out of orders, and other pursuits more +suited to the commercial room of an hotel.' And referring to another +Free Library, the same authority continues:--'In the Picton Room of the +Liverpool Library, alcoves were once provided with small tables, on +which were pens, ink, &c., but it was found that pupils were received in +them by tutors, and much private letter-writing was done therein; so +that when a respectable thief took away £20 worth of books they were +closed. + +After the nonsense usually indulged in by the officials of literary +pauperism such candour as this is positively refreshing. It is seldom +the high priest allows us to look behind the curtain in this fashion. As +a rule, the admission is much less direct, and can only be gathered from +a careful analysis of the statistics. According to the Bristol Report +for last year, there were 416,418 borrowers during the twelve months +preceding December 31, 1889: of these 148,992 are described as having +'no occupation.' The Report of the Atkinson Free Library of Southport +informs us that out of the 1283 new borrowers who joined the library +last year, 536 are written down as of 'no occupation.' At the same town, +in the years 1887-8, there were 641 who, according to the report, were +without any occupation, out of a total of 1481. According to the annual +Report of the Leamington Free Public Library for 1888-9, 187 made a +return 'no occupation,' out of a total of 282 applicants. In the +Yarmouth Report for the same year, out of a total of 3085 new borrowers, +1044 are described as of 'no occupation'; the report for the previous +year states the proportion as follows:--Total of borrowers, 2813; 'no +occupation,' 1078; in the year before that the total was--3401; 'no +occupation,' 1368. + +Some reports give a fuller analysis of the different classes of people +who use the libraries to which they refer. In the Wigan Report for last +year we are told that 13,336 people made use of the reference library in +that town during 1888-9. The largest items of this amount are given as +follows:--Solicitors, 1214; clergy, 903; clerks and book-keepers, 1521; +colliers, 961; schoolmasters and teachers, 801; architects and +surveyors, 418; engineers, 490; enginemen, 438. At Newcastle-on-Tyne, +last year, there were 11,620 persons used the reference library, and +only 3949 of these were of 'no occupation.' Yet, notwithstanding the +numerical weakness of the latter, they managed to consult nearly half +the books that were consulted during that year. The total number +consulted was 36,100; and 16,800 were used by people who had 'no +occupation.' And this is legislation for the Working Classes! + +There is little doubt that at least forty-nine out of every fifty +working-men have no interest whatever in these institutions. For one +penny they can buy their favourite newspaper, which can be carried in +the pocket and read at any time; whereas if they wanted to see a paper +at a Free Library they would generally have to wait half an hour or an +hour in a stuffy room, without being allowed to speak during the time. +The following sensible remarks are from the pen of one who has risen to +an honourable position from a very humble beginning without the aid of +either Free Libraries or Free Schools:-- + + Not long ago a conference of working men was held at Salford + to consider the question of rational amusement, when, in + reply to a series of questions, it was stated that Free + Libraries were not the places for poor, hard-working men, + who had social wants which such libraries could not gratify. + It was argued that people who went to work from six in the + morning till six at night did not want to travel a mile or + so to a Free Library. Music, gymnastics, smoking and + conversation rooms, and other things were suggested, but in + summing up the majority of replies, it appeared that + amusement rather than intellectual improvement, or even + reading, was what was most wanted by men after a hard day's + toil. This appears to have been realised in the erection, + according to Mr. Besant's conception, of the Palace of + Delight in the east end of London. + +The truth is that a Free Library favours one special section of the +community--the book-readers--at the expense of all the rest. The +injustice of such an institution is conspicuously apparent when it is +remembered that temperaments and tastes are as various as faces. If one +man may have his hobby paid for by his neighbours, why not all? Are +theatre-goers, lovers of cricket, bicyclists, amateurs of music, and +others to have their earnings confiscated, and their capacities for +indulging in their own special hobbies curtailed, merely to satisfy +gluttons of gratuitous novel-reading? A love of books is a great source +of pleasure to many, but it is a crazy fancy to suppose that it should +be so to all. If logic had anything to do with the matter we might +expect to hear proposals for compelling the attendance of working men at +the Free Library. But surely in this nineteenth century men might be +trusted to choose their own amusements, and might mutually refrain from +charging the cost thereof to their neighbours' account. This pandering +to selfishness is bad for all parties, and doubly so to the class it is +specially intended to benefit. + +The following imaginary dialogue will perhaps serve to show the inherent +injustice of literary socialism. + +_A_ and _B_ earn _1s._ each by carrying luggage. Says _A_ to _B_: 'I am +in favour of circulating books by means of a subscription library; from +this _1s._ I therefore propose to deduct _1d._ in order to compass my +desire. There is my friend _C_, who is of the same opinion as myself, +and he is willing to subscribe his quota to the scheme. We hope you will +be willing to subscribe your mite, but if not, we intend to force you to +do so, for, as you know, all private interests must give way to the +public good.' + +'Perhaps so,' replies _B_,'but then, you see, I have my own opinions on +the subject, and I do not believe that your method of supplying +literature is the best method. Of course I may be wrong, but then I am +logically entitled to the same freedom of thought and action as you +yourself are. If you are entitled to have your views about a "Free" +Library and to act upon them, I am equally entitled to the same liberty, +so long as I don't interfere with you. I don't compel you to pay for my +church, my theatre, or my club; why should you compel me to pay for your +library? For my own part I don't want other people to keep me in +literature, and I don't want to keep other people. I refuse therefore to +pay the subscription.' + +'Very well,' rejoins _A_, 'if that is the case I shall proceed to make +you pay; and as I happen to represent a numerical majority the task will +be an easy one.' + +'But are we not man and man,' says _B_,'and have not I the same right to +spend my earnings in my own way as you have to spend yours in your way? +Why should I be compelled to spend as you spend? Don't you see that you +are claiming more for yourself than you are allowing to me, and are +supplementing your own liberty by robbing me of mine? Is this the way +you promote the public good? Is this your boasted free library? I tell +you it is founded upon theft and upon the violation of the most sacred +thing in this world--the liberty of your fellow man. It is the +embodiment of a gross injustice, and only realises the selfish purpose +of a cowardly and dishonest majority.' + +'We have heard all this before,' replies _A_, 'but such considerations +must all give way before the public good. We are stronger than you are, +and we have decided once and for all that you shall pay for a "Free" +Library; don't make unnecessary resistance, or we shall have to proceed +to extremities.' + +And, after all, the so-called Free Library is not really free--only so +in name. If the penny or twopenny rate gave even the shabbiest +accommodation to anything like a fair proportion of its compulsory +subscribers, there would not be standing room, and the ordinary +subscription libraries would disappear. According to Mr. Thos. +Greenwood, who in his book on 'Free Libraries' has given a table of the +daily average number of visitors at the different Free Libraries +distributed up and down the country, there is only one per cent., on an +average, of visitors per day of the population of the town to which the +library belongs accommodated for a rate of one penny in the +pound,--sometimes more, sometimes less;--but the general proportion is +about one per cent. Now what do these facts mean? If it costs one penny +in the pound to acommodate so few, what would it cost for a fair +proportion to receive anything like a share that would be worth having? +Even now it is a frequent occurrence for a reader to wait for months +before he can get the novel he wants. Says Mr. George Easter, the +Norwich librarian:--'Novels most read are those by Ainsworth, +_Ballantyne_, _Besant_, _Braddon_, _Collins_, _Craik_, Dickens, Fenn, +Grant, _Haggard_, _Henty_, _C. Kingsley_, _Kingston_, _Edna Lyall_, +Macdonald, Marryat, Oliphant, Payn, Reade, Reid, Verne, Warner, _Wood_, +_Worboise_, and _Young_; of those underlined (in italics) the works are +nearly always out.' The fact is, the Free Library means that the many +shall work and pay and the few lounge and enjoy; theoretically it is +free to all, but practically it can only be used by a few. + +While there is such a run on novels, solid works are at a discount. At +Newcastle-on-Tyne during 1880-81 we find that 2100 volumes of Miss +Braddon's novels were issued (of course some would be issued many times +over, as the whole set comprised only thirty-six volumes), while Bain's +'Mental and Moral Science' was lent out only twelve times in the year. +There were 1320 volumes issued of Grant's novels, and fifteen issues of +Butler's 'Analogy of Religion'; 4056 volumes of Lever's novels were +issued, while Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' circulated four times; +4901 volumes of Lytton's novels were issued, while Locke 'On the +Understanding' went eight times. Mill's 'Logic' stands at fourteen +issues as against Scott's novels, 3300; Spencer's 'Synthetic Philosophy' +(8 vols.) had forty-three issues of separate volumes; Dickens' novels +had 6810; Macaulay's 'History of England' (10 vols.) had sixty-four +issues of separate volumes. Ouida's novels had 1020; Darwin's 'Origin of +Species' (2 vols.) had thirty-six issues; Wood's novels, 1481. Mill's +'Political Economy' had eleven issues; Worboise's novels, 1964. Smith's +'Wealth of Nations' (2 vols.) had fourteen issues; Collins' novels, +1368. + +'No worse than in other libraries,' it may be said; 'knowledge is at a +discount: sensation at a premium everywhere!' Perfectly true; but are +people to be taxed to give facilities for this? Novel reading in +moderation is good: the endowment of novel reading by the rates is +bad--that is our contention. And when it is remembered that any book +requiring serious study cannot be galloped through, like a novel, in the +week or fourteen days allowed for use, it becomes at once evident that +this gratuitous lending system is only adapted for the circulation of +sensation, and not for the acquirement of real knowledge. And this is +the sort of thing people allow themselves to be rated and taxed for! +This is progressive legislation, and its opponents are backward and +illiberal! + +Free Libraries are typical examples of the compulsory cooperation +everywhere gaining ground in this country. Like all State socialism they +are the negation of that liberty which is the goal of human progress. +Every successful opposition to them is therefore a stroke for human +advancement. This mendacious appeal to the numerical majority to force a +demoralising and pauperising institution upon the minority, is an +attempt to revive, in municipal legislation, a form of coercion we have +outgrown in religious matters. At the present time there is a majority +of Protestants in this country who, if they wished, could use their +numerical strength to compel forced subscription from a minority of +Catholics, for the support of those religious institutions which are +regarded by their advocates as of quite equal importance to a Free +Library. Yet this is not done; and why? Because in matters of religion +we have learnt that liberty is better than force. In political and +social questions this terrible lesson has yet to be learned. We deceive +ourselves when we imagine that the struggle for personal liberty is +over--probably the fiercest part has yet to arise. The tyranny of the +few over the many is past, that of the many over the few is to come. The +temptation for power--whether of one man or a million men--to take the +short cut, and attempt by recourse to a forcing process to produce that +which can only come as the result of the slow and steady growth of ages +of free action, is so great that probably centuries will elapse before +experience will have made men proof against it. But, however long the +conflict, the ultimate issue cannot be doubted. That indispensable +condition of all human progress--liberty--cannot be permanently +suppressed by the arbitrary dictates of majorities, however potent. When +the socialistic legislation of to-day has been tried, it will be found, +in the bitter experience of the future, that for a few temporary, often +imaginary, advantages we have sacrificed that personal freedom and +initiative without which even the longest life is but a stale and empty +mockery. + + + + +ARGUMENTS FOR PUBLIC SUPPORT OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES + + A rejoinder to the preceding paper was made by William E. + Foster, of the Providence Public Library, before the + American Library Association at its conference held in San + Francisco, Cal., in 1891. It may be considered as giving the + normal American view as contrasted with the + ultra-conservative attitude of Mr. O'Brien. A sketch of Mr. + Foster appears in Vol. I. of this series. + + +The rise of the public library system both in this country and Great +Britain, during the past half-century, has been almost coincident with +the very noteworthy reexamination of every phase of social economy now +so powerfully influencing the thought of the world. In this discussion +the contributions of Kaufmann, of Fawcett, of Graham, of Jevons, and +above all, of Herbert Spencer, have been more than influential--they +have been almost epoch-making--and whatever view one may hold in regard +to the social question, in its various phases, one cannot fail to +acknowledge the deep debt which we owe to these profound thinkers. + +No book, from Mr. Spencer's point of view, which has appeared within +recent years, is worthy of a wider reading than the volume entitled "A +plea for liberty; an argument against socialism and socialistic +legislation," which appeared about the beginning of the present year. In +it thirteen writers, whose point of view is very nearly identical, have +discussed in successive chapters such topics as postal communications, +electric communication, investment, improvement of workingmen's homes, +free libraries, education, and other subjects, in their relation to the +question, "What action shall the State take in regard to them?" The +underlying purpose of the book is thus expressed in the words of Mr. +Mackay, the editor of the volume:--"If the view set out in this volume +is at all correct, it is very necessary that men should abandon the +policy of indifference, and that they should do something to enlarge the +atmosphere of liberty. This is to be accomplished not by reckless and +revolutionary methods, but rather by a resolute resistance to new +encroachment and by patient and statesmanlike endeavor to remove +wherever practicable the restraints of regulation, and to give full play +over a larger area to the creative forces of liberty, for liberty is the +condition precedent to all solution of human difficulty." Surely this is +a statement of the case which must powerfully appeal to all thinking +men, and lead them to reexamine, at least, the principles on which State +support of the various institutions referred to is based. + +In such a spirit, a reexamination of the argument for public support of +public libraries must be regarded as entirely germane to the objects +which the American Library Association has at heart. In such a spirit +the present paper proposes to weigh once more the principles which +underlie our American library system, and the considerations brought +forward by Mr. O'Brien in the chapter devoted to "Free libraries" in the +volume referred to. + +The half-century of discussion of "socialism and socialistic +legislation" already referred to has made few things so clear as the +fact that the arguments employed on any subject--social subjects in +particular--are weakened in almost the exact ratio in which they are +allowed to be tinged by passion and excited feeling. It must therefore +be regarded as unfortunate that Mr. O'Brien's chapter suffers most +emphatically from comparison with the generally high level of calm and +unimpassioned argument, characterizing the larger portion of the book. +Whether this is to be explained on the basis of the apocryphal legal +maxim, "When you have no case, abuse your opponent," or whether Mr. +O'Brien entered the lists fresh from some too recent participation in a +personal contest over the question, we do not undertake to inquire. The +fact remains that not only do the writers of the other chapters of the +book appear from a careful reading to state their arguments more +effectively, but that the reader is also impressed with the fact that +they have a case which admits of more effective argument. + +Let us glance in succession at the points which Mr. O'Brien has aimed +to make. They may be grouped in general under two heads; first, those +which relate to the injury (in Mr. O'Brien's view) inflicted on the +individual user of a free library from having it aided by public +support, and second, those which relate to the tax-payer's grievance (in +Mr. O'Brien's view) in helping to support it. The former is of course +the side of the question most germane to the general purpose of the +book, and it is therefore an occasion for surprise to notice that in Mr. +O'Brien's enumeration of arguments those coming under the other class +outnumber it in the ratio of six to one. First of all, to use Mr. +O'Brien's own language "the argument that if readers were left to pay +for their own books, not only would books be more valued, but the moral +discipline involved in the small personal sacrifice incurred by saving +for such a purpose would do infinitely more good than any amount of +culture obtained at other people's expense." And he takes occasion to +suggest that "possibly the advocates of literary pauperism will see +little force in" this argument. Possibly; we are not familiar with the +train of reasoning which leads to an advocacy of "literary pauperism." +For ourselves, we have been accustomed, long before the appearance of +Mr. O'Brien's chapter, to attach exceptional importance to the principle +which he has here indicated, somewhat awkwardly, to be sure. There can +be no doubt that the appreciation of any object is in almost the exact +ratio of the effort expended to procure it. This is why teachers and +librarians--in American communities, at least--have so often had +occasion to rejoice at seeing a taste not only for reading, but for +owning books inspired in a young man or woman by access to a noble +collection of books for the use of the public. For "owning books," we +say; but the limits of a collection so owned are too soon reached in the +case of even the best-endowed pockets of individual readers. Were the +intelligent teacher who takes an interest in the reading and +intellectual growth of the pupils, from the various walks in life +represented in our schools, to find a pupil whose interest in pursuing +further some lines of thought therein suggested, extended no further +than to the books at home on his own book-shelf, we cannot doubt that it +would give occasion to question the efficacy of the teaching imparted. +Mr. O'Brien's objection to the enjoyment of these reservoirs of +enlightenment, by a portion of the community, where the community as a +whole is responsible for their support, is as if a man should be told +that he would do well not to walk abroad at night by the light of the +public street lamps, but rather enjoy the light kindled in his own +house. The latter is certainly important, but not even Mr. O'Brien's +reasoning is likely to persuade us that it precludes the former. Mr. +O'Brien, in the second place, deeply feels for the reader who, in being +brought in contact with the benefits of the library, is, he thinks, +subjected to a wrong system of education. To quote his language: "Just +at the time when a child is beginning to form his tastes, just at the +period when the daily habituation to the simple duties of farm life +would lay the foundation both of sound health and practical knowledge, +he is taken out of the parent's control, and subjected to a +mind-destroying, cramming process, which excludes practical knowledge +and creates a dislike for all serious study." One is compelled on +reading this extraordinary deliverance to cast one's eye to the heading +at the top of the page, "Free Libraries," and ask what this formidable +indictment--not one count in which has any bearing on libraries--can +mean in this connection. The only conclusion possible is that it was +written with a view to appearing in some other chapter of the book. + +But Mr. O'Brien's concern is manifested also for the taxpayer, who +unites in the public support of the library. If we understand him +correctly, his contention is that the enormity of this tax consists +largely in the reprehensible nature--as represented in his pages--of the +institution itself. For from this short chapter one gradually frames a +picture of the free library as a place which tramps frequent for +sleeping off the effects of dissipation; as a place used by commercial +travellers for exhibiting their samples; as a place from which in one +instance "a respectable thief took away £20 worth of books"; as a place +used in an almost exclusive degree for reading fiction; as a place where +the time prescribed for keeping books makes 'serious study' impossible;" +and, more serious than all the rest, as a place which, he says, "favors +one special section of the community at the expense of all the rest." +Let us do Mr. O'Brien the justice to add that for the first three of +these counts he gives "chapter and verse" for his charges, quoting, +namely, from various (English) library reports. No one will therefore +wish to dispute his well-fortified statement that in such and such an +instance an unseemly incident occurred. But even a child can assuredly +see the difference between a statement of an isolated occurrence and an +inference that it is a necessarily characteristic and inherent quality +of the institution in question. Were this latter true, then we might +well cry out for abolishing our churches, sidewalks, and railway +stations, for in them these very same three things respectively are +known at some time to have been done. In the last three of these counts, +however, we have only Mr. O'Brien's assertions as the basis, and we are +obliged to add also that even these are found to be conflicting. On one +page his language shows that he is pained that a certain percentage of +readers in the libraries named should prefer to call for works of +fiction. Can it be that he has forgotten this, when on another page he +cites it as a grievance that "it is a frequent occurrence for a reader +to wait for months before he can get the novel he wants"! On page 333, +after quoting, from the annual report of one of the English libraries, +the statement as to the use of works of fiction, nothing but a resort to +italics can sufficiently emphasize his lamentation that "the more +instructive books in the other classes circulate only once during the +same period." Mr. O'Brien is not the only observer who has failed always +to observe, when commenting upon percentages of fiction, that "any book +requiring serious study cannot be galloped through, like a novel, in the +week or fourteen days allowed for use," yet who would have believed that +"out of his own mouth" would he be so completely answered, for this +remark, as well as the one which it answers, is found in his decidedly +interesting chapter (p. 348). But here it is evident that the bearing of +the two upon each other was not in his mind in writing it, for his +purpose in the sentence last quoted was plainly to make it appear that +the customary regulations of public libraries were such as to render +"serious study" impossible. + +The limitation of "a week or fourteen days" for a book of the kind +which he here indicates--he instances by name Kant's "Critique of pure +reason" and Smith's "Wealth of nations"--is practically unknown in +American public libraries. In most of those known to the present writer +a book of this kind can be charged in the first instance for fourteen +days and then renewed, making twenty-eight days in all, and in still +others for a longer period. It can then, after being returned to the +library--to give any other reader who may need it a chance at it--be +taken out again after remaining on the shelves twenty-four hours, for +another twenty-eight days' use by the same reader. The annual report of +an American library which lies before us contains a case in point. +Speaking of Bryce's "American Commonwealth," it states: "Of this, seven +copies were added in succession." It names 101 as the total of the +issues of this work during the year; but considering the truth expressed +in Mr. O'Brien's own very just words, that "any book requiring serious +study cannot be galloped through, like a novel," the statement is added +that "such a record, for a book like this, constantly in the hands of +readers, may be contrasted with the more than ten times greater number +of times that some work of fiction might be read through, returned and +taken out again, requiring but a part of a day's attention." In fact, +101 is very likely to be the total number of issues possible in the case +of seven copies of this book, while 700 would probably fall far short of +the total possible issues of the same number of copies of a story like +"The Wreck of the Grosvenor." Again, Mr. O'Brien not only tells us that +"a free library favors one special section of the community" at the +expense of all the rest, but throughout his chapter recurs again and +again to the case of the "workingman." On page 330, for instance, we are +solemnly told: "If the workingman cannot come by his books honestly, let +him wait until he can." This is indeed somewhat summary, particularly +when, being interpreted, it is found to mean, Let there be no free +libraries supported by the public. And yet, on page 344, with no less +certainty, we are assured that "there is little doubt that at least +forty-nine out of every fifty workingmen have no interest whatever in +these institutions." + +Where the deliverances from one and the same source are so +contradictory, the impartial inquirer will doubtless feel like looking +for some other source of information. From the materials accessible to +the present writer in regard to American libraries--and the new edition +of Mr. Greenwood's "Public libraries" appears to tell the same tale in +regard to Great Britain--the interest of workingmen in the opportunities +afforded by public libraries is everywhere emphatically shown; but he +who sets out with the purpose of showing that there is any one exclusive +class to whom the public library is of service and to no other--be that +class workingmen, or students, or manufacturers, or scientists--will +find the facts singularly obstinate and unresponsive to his purpose. The +truth is--Mr. O'Brien's confident assertion to the contrary--that there +is no more "universal" and non-partisan institution than a public +library. This is undoubtedly the highest among its several claims to +public support. Few among the objects to which the public funds have +been appropriated, in American cities, have met with so hearty and +unquestioning approval as the public parks, and it is right that it +should be so. Yet there are whole classes in every community who not +only never do enjoy the public parks, but never care to enjoy them. Even +the public schools are for a certain fraction of the population +only--the younger portion. In contrast with both of these, the public +library extends its resources to the children and the adults alike. +Perhaps, however, the fundamentally important question of universality, +in the sense of non-partisanship, is one which is seldom appreciated in +its full force, as applied to a public library. An independent position, +one entirely free from bias, a non-partisan attitude, in fact, is an +ideal repeatedly set before the conductors of a school or a newspaper. +In both these cases, however, there is too often an element of practical +difficulty in carrying these praiseworthy intentions into practice, +which is almost completely wanting in the case of a public library. The +policy of the latter, is, in its very essence, catholic. It places on +its shelves the volumes which represent, not one side, but both, or +rather all sides of any subject on which the sentiment of the public +divides; and thus, whether the user be Democrat or Republican, +protectionist or freetrader, Catholic or Protestant, the aspect which +this collection of books presents to him is no less free and +uncircumscribed than the illimitable aid. + +Again, it is important that the relation of a public library to the +question of entertainment should be clearly understood. Entertainment is +not an element totally foreign to the purposes of a public library--the +same kind of public benefit accrues in this case as in the case of +public parks--but in the light of the infinitely more important +functions which it renders, this must of necessity occupy a subordinate +place. The primary function of a library is to render a service, to +supply a need, to respond to a demand. In this respect its value to the +community is of the same description as the postal system, the bank at +which one may cash a check, or the reservoir from which one may "turn +on" a supply of water. + +One of the points which Mr. O'Brien aims to make, and which proceeds +from a manifest confusion of thought, can be appropriately noticed here. +His contention is that a public library is for the "class" who may be +designated "book-readers," that these form but a small percentage of any +community, and that therefore it is obviously wrong that the library +should receive public support. This is ingenious, as is also his +eloquent, though somewhat contemptuous setting of their supposed special +needs over against those of others. "Are theatre-goers, lovers of +cricket, bicyclists, amateurs of music, and others to have their +earnings confiscated," merely that the "book-reader" may gratify his +peculiar craving? Like many other ingenious theories, however, it leaves +out of account certain fundamentally important bearings of the subject. +There can be no doubt that in any community "the book-reader" is not +synonymous with the entire population. Some of the population are +children in arms; some have never learned to read; the sight of some who +have learned has failed; others again are too fully occupied to find +time for it; others find their inclination drawn more strongly in other +directions; others still have more or less to do with reading, yet are +not, in the strict sense, "book-readers." Yet we shall err very widely +if we lose sight of the fact that even those who do not personally +perform the role of the "book-reader" do nevertheless benefit by the +existence of the library, by proxy. The young child is read to, by his +mother; or is cared for by her, by methods learned through her use of +books. The busy "captain of industry," whose large profits are due to a +skillful application of scientific principles, may find his own time so +closely occupied by details of administration that, personally, he +seldom opens the treatises which bear upon the subject, but he expects +to keep abreast of the ever unfolding science, by the consultation not +only of such works as private ownership may provide, but the more nearly +complete collection in a great public library. + +This principle of "community of interest" and interdependence has an +even wider bearing; for it applies not only to the family and the +business firm, but to the community as a whole. A public library +report now before the writer contains several instances of this kind. +Speaking of the systematic efforts made to build up an approximately +complete collection of works on industrial and decorative subjects, +the report states that in this way "the library is gradually becoming +the possessor of a scientifically selected set of volumes and plates +which cannot fail to leave a distinct impress on the character of the +work done in the various industries of the city." Another portion of +the same report illustrates the direct service rendered by such an +institution to the interests of the municipality. To quote the +language there used, "Instances of the last named, both striking and +tangible, are of by no means exceptional occurrence, sometimes an +application of this kind being presented from more than one city +official on the same day," the foregoing having reference to the city +in question. "A well-authenticated instance," it continues, "in one of +the largest cities of the country, of the saving of a sum of many +thousand dollars, in the matter of a contract, due to the opportunity +for consulting the requisite data comprised in works of authority in +the public library of that city, is but an indication of the +possibilities of a public library." + +It is fitting that where funds are to be appropriated, collected by +taxes levied on the tax-paying population, there should be possible so +tangible a presentation as the above, of the direct relation of the +institution supported, to the question of "profit and loss," as +affecting those who are taxed. And yet it is well to remember that it is +as true now as twenty centuries ago, that "man does not live by bread +alone;" and that the public support of the institutions referred to can +be justified by other arguments than that of the material interests just +cited. + +No aspect of the library's operation is more full of interest than +that which takes account of its uplifting influence. The analogy between +its service and that of the postal system has been noticed; but it has a +no less real analogy to the work of the school, the pulpit, or the +press--yet without the propagandist principle which so often attaches to +these latter--namely, in the principle of growth or advance. In the +earlier portion of this paper a little space was devoted to showing that +in the nature of the case the number of copies of any work of fiction +used in the course of a year would immensely out-number those which +could possibly be read in the more solid departments of reading. Even +were the constituency of the library confined to a selected few, to +whose minds the higher class of reading was congenial, this would be the +case. Nor should we forget that the ground of distinction between a +"public" library and any other, as the library of a scientific society, +a debating society, a theological school or a teachers' club, is that +its constituency _is_ not thus limited to a selected class but is broad +as humanity itself, with all its enormous inequalities of condition, +taste, and mental growth. Like a mirror, therefore, the recorded +classified circulation reflects this variety. Even with this apparently +almost unmanageable unevenness, appreciable improvement in standards of +reading is by no means an unknown experience. There lies before the +writer, for instance, a library report which is able to make such a +statement as this: "The fiction percentages of the seven successive +years, beginning with 1883 and ending with 1889, show an uninterrupted +decline, as follows: 70+, 66+, 62+, 61+, 58+, 56+." But it must be +remembered also that figures such as these, though they may tell a part, +and a very gratifying part, of the advances which individual readers +have been helped to make, fall very far short of expressing the whole. +It would be entirely possible for individual after individual thus to +advance from good to better, and from better to best, and yet the +figures which express the aggregate use of the year remain stationary +(or even retrograde), because the constituency of a public library +(particularly in a large city) is all the time being reenforced by new +readers. And these new readers comprise both those who are children in +age and those who are children in mental growth, who begin at the foot. +When, therefore, there is anything more than a preserving of a uniform +level--as in the noteworthy figures above quoted--it stands for a very +striking advance indeed, on the part of a very large portion of the +community. Probably every librarian in charge of a public library in a +large city has had an opportunity of observing these advances in +innumerable individual instances. And this class of results, while +distinctly following the "order of nature," does not by any means come +about through a view of library administration which regards either +books, readers, or librarian as inert masses. Much of it is the result +of individual interest expressed by the librarian in some reader, whose +mind receives an awakening impulse. + +More than one well authenticated instance exists of an individual +beginning life as a newsboy or an elevator-boy, and through his use of a +public library finding his intellectual powers unfolding until he has +entered one of the learned professions. The relation of the library +system to the school system opens an almost boundless field of thought, +and it is a fact of deep significance that the profound principle +involved in it, after having engaged the attention of English and +American libraries for years, has been recognized in the educational +steps recently taken by the government of Japan, where the two systems +are placed on a plane of equality. In the experience of one of the +American libraries already referred to, almost the chief hope of the +library for the future is placed upon "a class of readers," every year +largely increasing in numbers, who comprise the "graduates from the +various institutions of learning" in the city, and whose "lines of study +and reading" "may be characterized as a carrying forward of those +impulses in the direction of right reading which were received in school +and college." The library has a no less direct relation to the needs and +ambitions of those who have received the invaluable training of "the +practical duties of the world," to use Mr. O'Brien's phrase, and it +responds with equal readiness to these. There is concentrated in the +contemptuous phrase, "book-learning," a popular judgment of condemnation +which is for the most part just, on the spurious variety of knowledge +which knows the expression of certain principles in books, but knows +nothing of their practical embodiment in the life and work of this +world. We are glad to observe that Mr. O'Brien's antipathy to this +pseudo-knowledge is almost as profound as our own, but his expression of +it seems singularly out of place in a philippic against public +libraries; for one will seek far before finding an institution more +perfectly suited to be a corrective of such a tendency than the modern +public library. Does any one claim that the public school system +sometimes has an unfortunate tendency to repress individuality and turn +out a set of pupils of uniform mould? If so, the public library supplies +a means of supplementing and complementing this uniformity by its +infinite variety and universality, and it is continually doing this, +indeed. Does any one regret that the school system at its best reaches +but a fraction of the population and that fraction for but a few short +years of their life, and that in too many instances there is a tendency +on the part of even these few, educated in the schools, to conceive of +their education as "finished," and allow the fabric to become hopelessly +ravelled? If so, the public library stands to these members of the +community in an almost ideal relation, not only fulfilling very +perfectly Mr. Carlyle's characterization of a "collection of books" as +"the people's university," but in the peculiarly wide range shown in the +demands made upon it, almost as properly rendering it the people's +workshop, or laboratory. + +The same library report which has several times been cited printed +several years since a record of the inquiries made on specific subjects +during a single month, which throws significant light upon this subject. +Another report of the same library declares that "few can adequately +conceive to what extent the inquiries made at the library have become +specialized, and require trained facility and research" on the part of +the library staff. The library thus becomes a laboratory, in which the +reader gains not only the specific information, but the method. + +An observation of popular movements in their relation to political or +economic principles reveals few facts so plainly as that an almost +insuperable narrowness of view is, in much the greater number of +instances, the barrier to advance in those questions decided mainly by +the popular voice. Why then should any one wish to perpetuate the +conditions which make this possible? In Mr. O'Brien's view the +workingman,--and we ought not to forget how large a percentage of the +community this word "workingman" represents, both in England and +America,--will be a fortunate man when the contents of free libraries +are no longer rendered everywhere accessible to him by public support, +for then the workingmen "for one 'penny' can buy their favorite +newspaper, which can be carried in the pocket and read at any time"! It +is well nigh incredible that an ideal such as this should be looked +forward to by thinking men. Whatever may be the fact in regard to the +workingmen of Great Britain,--and Mr. O'Brien of course knows them +better than we do,--it may confidently be asserted that the American +workingman would strike no such false note. Mr. Lowell in one of his +admirable orations quotes from a Wallachian legend of a peasant who was +"taken up into heaven" and offered his choice among the objects to be +seen there. He chose a half worn-out bagpipe, and with this returned to +the earth. "With an infinite possibility within his reach, with the +choice of wisdom, of power, of beauty, at his tongue's end, he asked +according to his kind, and his sordid wish is answered with a gift as +sordid." The newspaper is well enough in its way,--even a "penny +newspaper,"--but to condemn whole masses of the population to limit +themselves to this, is to incur the condemnation of Mr. Lowell's fine +scorn when, in another portion of the oration just referred to, he says: +"It is we who, while we might each in his humble way be helping our +fellows into the right path, or adding one block to the climbing spire +of a fine soul, are willing to become mere sponges saturated from the +stagnant goose-pond of village gossip." It is more. It is to help +develop a community from whom in the end every spark of uplifting +influence shall have vanished. Does any one say that this is a result +impossible of attainment by any people? The scientifically true, yet +brutally summary record given by the distinguished European savant, +Elisée Reclus, of a certain European stock which has found and occupied +virgin soil in the South of Africa, is a sufficient answer. "In +general," he says, "the Boers despise everything that does not +contribute directly to the material prosperity of the family group. They +ignore music, the arts, literature, all refining influence, and find +little pleasure in anything," except solid amassing of wealth. + +A few additional points remain to be noted. It is an entirely pertinent +question whether every public library in England and America improves +its high privilege, uses to the full the peculiar opportunities open to +it, places itself in close communication with the public school system, +with the university extension movement, and with the influences +continually at work in industrial and artistic development. And we need +not hesitate to answer in the negative. Yet the significant fact is, +that everywhere the tendency is in this direction with a stronger and +stronger momentum. The advance made in this country, within the last +decade even, in this direction, is among the most striking phenomena of +the time; and no less striking is the almost overwhelming percentage of +the body of librarians in this country whose entrance upon the work from +a deep-seated love for it, rather than as furnishing a means of +livelihood, supplies one of the strongest guarantees against the +invasion of the perfunctory spirit in the future. Again, it is equally +pertinent to ask whether, granted that the benefits of such an +institution as the public library are unquestioned, dependence may not +be placed on funds entirely unconnected with those of the public, for +its support. It would ill become the citizen of a country where private +munificence has accomplished so much in channels of public spirit, to +overlook these noble memorials of enlightened private action. Yet it +remains true, nevertheless, that were dependence to be placed on these +alone, a map of the country on which public libraries should be dotted +down would show as partial and inadequate a supply furnished to the +community, as the very instructive "annual rainfall map" published by +the government shows in the matter of rain. What we are accustomed, in +the eastern portion of this country, to consider the rain--in its +universal beneficent service and in its indispensableness--that also is +to be associated with the "reservoirs" comprised in these public +collections of books. For, after all, valuable as are the books +themselves, even in their material aspect, as pieces of handiwork, still +more in the specific items of information and admonition contained in +them, yet in the deeper view these are but symbols of their real +significance and service. To place one's self in communication with them +as contained in these libraries, is to bring ourselves in contact with +the stored-up thought of the world thus far. We have just adverted to +the fundamental bearing which this has upon the deeper or spiritual side +of man's life. But the two-sided character of these collections of books +follows us even here, for their indispensableness in the material point +of view is almost as striking, and this, not only whether we consider +the statesman planning measures of public weal, while neglecting to +inform himself of the recorded conditions which necessarily must +determine such measures; or whether it be the inventor spending long +years of his too brief life in perfecting a machine which his +consultation of the recorded patent would have shown him some one else +had anticipated him in thinking out; or whether it be the day laborer +submitting without an effort to violations of his rights, which a single +glance at the recorded statutes would have shown him he had a remedy +for. + +How like all this is to the supposed state of things which one of the +most suggestive writers of our day has thus expressed: "Our early +voyagers are dead: not a plank remains of the old ships that first +essayed unknown waters; the sea retains no track; and were it not for +the history of these voyages contained in charts, in chronicles, in +hoarded lore of all kinds, each voyager, though he were to start with +all the aids of advanced civilization," would be in the helpless +position of the earliest voyager. + +Once more, each reader of the strongly written book which we have been +considering should ask the question for himself, whether all of the +various propositions maintained therein necessarily stand or fall +together. Because the compiler has chosen to bracket together two such +headings as "Free libraries" and "The state and electrical +distribution," it certainly does not follow that the argument which +carries conviction in the one case must in the other also. We shall not +be suspected of having our judgment in this regard swayed by the natural +weakness with which, to use Mr. O'Brien's illustration, the shoemaker is +inclined to think that "there is nothing like leather," if we suggest, +what the public at large in this country is very plainly persuaded of, +that, for one person who has appreciated the need for public action in +the latter case there are thousands in the former. The writer lives in a +city in which for more than eleven years the public library was +administered by funds not in the least degree derived from municipal +appropriations. Yet the character of its service to the public had so +widely impressed itself upon the community that, largely from sources +outside of the library board, a movement arose for recognizing the +closeness of the relation, by public support. A report by a committee of +the city government, recommending this course, significantly declares: +"Your committee are unanimously of the opinion that this public library, +already existing in the city, is a useful and a necessary adjunct to the +educational system sustained by the city in its public schools, and +properly appeals to the treasury for an appropriation towards its +support." After eleven years' opportunity for observation and +comparison, such a judgment as this has the merit of deliberation and +conviction. + +It is true that by far the greater part of the considerations which +lead the present writer to find Mr. O'Brien's view untenable are drawn +from observation and experience of conditions existing in this country. +Yet it is to be noted that his position is also contested, so far as +Great Britain is concerned, by an article in the March number of The +Library (of London), which shows, not only that our English cousins are +fully able to take care of themselves, but also that on many of the +questions of fact, about which his arguments turn, he is painfully wide +of the mark. Few students of social conditions have left so noteworthy +an impress on contemporary thought as the late William Stanley Jevons. +Of the free public library he held a view radically opposed to that of +Mr. O'Brien, believing it to be "an engine for operating upon" the +community, in ways at once protective and ennobling. As to the +universality of its beneficent service, he was equally convinced, +declaring not only that "free libraries are engines for creating the +habit and power of enjoying high-class literature, and thus carrying +forward the work of civilization which is commenced in the primary +school," but also that they are "classed with town halls, police courts, +prisons, and poor-houses, as necessary adjuncts of our stage of +civilization." The experience of one community or one nation is +repeatedly serviceable to another; but, after all, it is the local +conditions which must finally determine in any case. Even if a different +conclusion were to be reached in this matter in Great Britain, it would +still remain true that for us in America it is one of the highest duties +of self-preservation to keep alive the uplifting influences represented +in the public support of these institutions. The future of this country, +even more than its past, will be irrevocably committed to the democratic +principle in government. As is the people--in the widest sense of the +word--so will be the national life and character. In the future, even +more than in the past, crudity, narrowness, well-meaning ignorance, and +low standards of taste and ethics will, unless met with corrective +tendencies, color our national life. The public school and the public +library--"instruments equal in power to the Dionysiac theatre, and +vastly greater in their range of power," to quote the language of one of +the most thoughtful of our men of letters--will stand more and more, in +our American communities, as such corrective tendencies. + + + + +PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THE PUBLIC + + One of the first clear statements of the Public Library as a + business enterprise, involving certain amounts invested by a + city with the expectation of certain definite returns. The + paper refers particularly to the San Francisco Public + Library, of which the author, Frederic Beecher Perkins, was + then librarian but its conclusions are general, and hold + good to-day. It was read at the Lake George Conference of + the American Library Association, in September, 1885. + + Frederic Beecher Perkins was born in Hartford, Conn., Sept. + 27, 1828, a grandson of Lyman Beecher. He left Yale in + sophomore year to study law and was admitted to the bar in + 1851, but graduated at the State Normal School in 1852 and + devoted himself to literary and educational work. In 1880-87 + he was librarian of the San Francisco Public Library. He + died in Morristown, N.J., Jan. 27, 1899. He was the father + of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. + + +There are in the United States about 5,000 public libraries of 300 +volumes or more. Returns of their present conditions are very imperfect, +and must therefore be summed in the following crude way:-- + + Annual cost much more than $1,500,000 + The books in them are many more than 13,000,000 + Books added yearly are many more than 500,000 + Books used yearly are many more than 10,000,000 + +These institutions, therefore, represent a large money investment, and +a very extensive and active educational agency. Not all of them by any +means are "free public libraries,"--_i.e._, libraries supported by taxes +or endowments for the use of all. But a considerable portion of them +are. It may now be justly said that no town of importance is respectably +complete without a free public library any more than any town whatever +without a school. + +The San Francisco Free Public Library was founded in 1879, and was +advancing with creditable speed towards a size and usefulness +corresponding to the position of San Francisco, among American cities, +until the present city government suddenly cut down its annual +appropriation to bare running expenses, leaving no allowance for buying +new books, or even for replacing old ones worn out. + +This library is not a collection of mummies of deceased learning, which +will be no drier in a thousand years than they are now. It has thus far +consisted of live books for live people. But a library of this +practically useful kind, if it stops buying new books, quickly becomes +dead stock,--unattractive, obsolete, useless. In _belles-lettres_, +literature, history, mechanic arts, engineering, applied science, all +alike, it is equally indispensable to have the new books. The +photographer, the druggist, the electrician, the machinist, the +manufacturing chemist, as much as or more than the reader of novels, +poetry, travels, or history, want this year's discoveries, for last +year's are already obsolete. Next year it will not be Mr. Blaine's book +that will be most called for,--that will be a year old,--but General +Grant's book. But a thousand examples would not make the case clearer. +This prohibition of new books, perhaps on pretence of economy, would be +the natural first step of shrewd opponents intending to close the +library entirely as soon as the books are dead enough. It is girdling +the tree now, so as to destroy it more early next year. It is understood +that at least two prominent members of the present city government +(Supervisor Pond and Auditor Strother) are distinctly opposed to the +library, and to free public libraries, on principle. It is not known +that any member of it is a particularly energetic friend of the +institution. The library staff is small in number (seven boys and eight +adults); the salaries (omitting the librarian's) exceptionally scanty, +and even this small patronage and expenditure is wholly controlled by +the Board of Trustees, and wholly out of reach of the Board of +Supervisors. When this is remembered it is easy to understand both the +probable firmness of any opposition, and the probable lukewarmness of +any friendship to the library in the latter body. This is perfectly +natural. All governing bodies try to keep and increase their authority +over persons and payments. They never let go of them when they can help +it. And, accordingly, the Supervisors insisted on controlling all the +expenditure and management of the library, until a decision of the +Supreme Court of the State forced the control out of their hands. + +Whether the actual closing of the library is intended or not, the +obvious first step towards it has been taken, and its closing will +follow in due season, if the policy is continued. If the voters of San +Francisco choose to have it so, there is no more to be said, for it is +their library. Probably they could lawfully divide up the books among +themselves, and so close out the enterprise. The dividend, now, would be +not far from one volume to each household in the city. But, if they wish +the library to continue, this early notice is due them. + +Further: the custom here, in respect to the contents of municipal public +documents, prevents such discussions of library questions as are usual +in the annual reports of other city libraries; so that, if a view of +principles and practices in and about such institutions as a class, and +of their application in this instance, is to be laid before the public +at all, it must be submitted, as in this paper, unofficially. + +The following table shows the financial, and some of the literary, +relations between public libraries and cities in San Francisco, in four +other large cities, and in six small cities. The cases were taken +promiscuously as they came to hand, of the latest dates available, but +all are within a few years. New York has no free public library; +movements to establish one there have repeatedly been contemplated, but +have been abandoned, because the men who could have set up the library +would not encounter the practical certainty of its becoming one more +corruptionist engine in the hands of the city rulers. Philadelphia has +none, for reasons not known to the present writer, but, very likely, the +same as in New York. St. Louis has none now, although its excellent +Public School Library may, very likely, become one. New Orleans has +none, apparently, because it doesn't want any. Louisville has none, +because the devil cannot set up a true church; the enormous lottery +swindle which was worked off there a few years ago was ostensibly to +establish and endow one, but where did the money go? + + Assessed Being, + Population Value in Whole Gives its of + Cities (1880) Millions City Library whole + (1880) Tax tax + + Boston 362,000 $613 $7,261,741 $120,000 1/60 + Chicago 503,000 118 3,776,451 54,330 1/75 + Cincinnati 255,139 169 1/3 4,070,225 49,016 1/82 + Lynn 38,274 22 1/2 332,481 5,730 1/58 + Milwaukee 115,587 55 3/4 902,537 17,697 1/51 + New Bedford 26,875 25 3/4 390,208 5,148 1/76 + Newburyport 13,537 7 1/2 105,686 1,661 1/64 + Springfield, Mass. 33,340 29 1/2 307,434 8,231 1/37 + Taunton 21,213 15 3/4 213,912 5,195 1/41 + Worcester 58,291 39 1/2 557,193 14,860 1/38 + San Francisco 233,959 225 2,252,000 18,000 1/125 + + Vols. Being And per + Vols. per Circulation per $1.00 Volumes + Cities in soul per year soul of added + Library (about) (about) salaries yearly + + Boston 438,594 1 1/5 1,056,906 3 14 16,478 + Chicago 111,621 1/5+ 664,867 1 1/3 23 1/4 5,280 + Cincinnati 153,870 3/5+ 730,544 3 26 1/6 4,120 + Lynn 32,006 4/5 90,330 2 1/3 36 1,264 + Milwaukee 24,481 1/5 83,052 3/4 16 2,778 + New Bedford 45,000 1 4/5 71,798 3 ... 2,448 + Newburyport 17,828 1 1/3 ... ... ... 441 + Springfield, Mass. 48,832 1 1/2 57,152 1 3/4 14 3/4 1,797 + Taunton 21,197 1 58,920 2 9/10 31 1/2 1,971 + Worcester 61,204 1+ 194,321 3 1/3 26 6/7 3,105 + San Francisco 62,647 1/4+ 326,000 1 1/4 36 [3]3,883 + +[TN: Table split for text version] + +[3] Next year NONE except gifts. + +The six small cities tabulated are all in Massachusetts, because the +latest and fullest reports came to hand from them. + +Of various comparisons which could be formulated from the above figures, +the following are the most pertinent now:-- + +(1) Of the five large cities listed, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, and +Milwaukee give from one fifty-first part to one eighty-second part of +their tax levies for their libraries; San Francisco, one one-hundred and +twenty-fifth part. + +(2) Of the actual sums so set apart by these cities, Boston, with half +as many more people, gives nearly seven times as much; Chicago, with +twice as many, gives three times as much; Cincinnati, with one-tenth +more gives two and two-thirds times as much; Milwaukee, with one-half as +many, gives nearly as much ($300 less). + +(3) Accordingly, San Francisco would expend every year for its library, +if it were as liberal as Boston, about $84,000; if as liberal as +Chicago, $27,000; and so on. + +(4) The actual comparative size of their libraries is: Boston seven +times as large as San Francisco; Chicago nearly twice; Cincinnati twice +and a half; Milwaukee only is smaller, being somewhat more than +one-third as large. + +(5) The rate of increase is: from 16,478 volumes a year at Boston, to +2,778 at Milwaukee; and in San Francisco, for the coming year none (for +the loss in worn-out volumes will more than equal any probable total of +gifts), none at all. + +(6) The number of volumes circulated in a year for each dollar of +salaries paid is in San Francisco more than twice as great as in Boston +or Milwaukee, and decidedly larger than in Chicago or Cincinnati. It may +be added, although the figures are not in this table, that a much more +striking evidence of the stringent economy of the library administration +here is the fact that there is paid at the Boston Public Library in +salaries, in the cataloging department alone, without allowing anything +for printing, nearly as much as the whole of this year's library +appropriation by the city of San Francisco. + +(7) Similar comparisons with the six smaller cities listed would give +results generally similar, but showing a still more liberal rate per +head and dollar of expenditure for libraries. + +In addition to this exposition of comparative parsimony a feature of it +should be remembered which might easily escape notice: that, while the +money for running expenses is all gone at the end of the year, nearly +all of the allowance above running expenses remains represented by +valuable property. Thus, if the year's allowance for this library had +been $28,000, instead of $18,000, it would not have cost a cent more to +run the library and at the year's end about $10,000 worth of books would +remain added to the permanent property of the city. + +Another result of this policy is to prevent printing any catalogue of +the recent additions to the library; so that there is practically no +access, and there will, for the present, continue to be none, even for +the public who own the books, to all additions to this library since +June, 1884, being several thousand titles. It is needless to point out +that if there were to be the hypothesis of an unfriendly purpose +entertained against the library, that purpose would be served as +directly by suppressing the names of books in the library as by +preventing the addition of new ones, or by the replacing of those worn +out. + +These brief statements sufficiently show what our city is doing, and +what other cities are doing, for or against public libraries. It is not +within the scope of this paper to inquire after the real reason for the +stop put to the progress of the San Francisco Free Public Library. One +hypothesis is, that, instead of any unfriendly intention against the +library itself, the step was taken to help in persuading the public that +the "dollar limit" to the rate of city taxation is too low, and that our +citizens must submit to a higher rate. As the money saved is only +$6,000, the economy is not great in itself, being about one +four-hundredth part of the city tax levy. If the proposed effect was +expected to be produced by continuously annoying and dissatisfying the +citizens there is more reason in the scheme; for the library is +frequented by more than a thousand persons daily; between 26,000 and +27,000 cards have been issued to authorize the home use of books; and +there are always at any given moment from 5,900 to 6,000 volumes from +the library in use in as many homes all over the city. To inconvenience +and disoblige so large a constituency as this may naturally produce some +effect. This paper need not attempt to decide whether that effect would +naturally be approval or disapproval of the treatment of the library, +enthusiasm in favor of, or against, the proposed increase of taxation, +unpopularity or popularity of the institution itself, or of those whose +action so effectually cripples its usefulness. Nor will it discuss the +still larger question of the "dollar limit" itself,[4] however +decisively important all these inquiries are for the future of the +library, and however interesting and clear the arguments and conclusions +on those subjects may be. But what it may properly do is, to state, +without any pretence of novelty, but simply in order to refresh the +public memory, the chief heads of a doctrine of her public libraries +from a practical point of view. + +First (to limit the discussion). What a free public library is _not_ +for. + +It is not for a nursery; a lunch-room; a bed-room; a place for meeting a +girl in a corner and talking to her; a conversation-room of any kind; a +free dispensary of stationery, envelopes, and letter-writing; a free +range for loiterers; a campaigning field for mendicants, or for +displaying advertisements; a haunt for loafers and criminals. Indeed, +not to specify with inelegant distinctness, a free public library, like +any other similarly commodious place of free public resort, would, if +permitted, be used for any purpose whatever, no matter how private or +how vicious, which could be served there more conveniently than by going +to one's own home, or than by having any home at all. It would be so +used systematically, constantly, and to a degree of intolerable +nuisance; and its purification from such uses, if they have been set up, +will be met with clamor, abuse, and with any degree and kind of even +violent resistance which may be thought safe, or likely to succeed. Let +it not be supposed that this is an imaginary picture. It is in every +point taken from actual and numerous instances, and could be illustrated +by a sufficiently ridiculous series of single adventures, by any +librarian of large experience. Open public premises for some of the +purposes above specified might conceivably be properly supplied by the +public. What is here affirmed is, that public libraries are not at +present proper for them. + +[4] San Francisco is at present taxed on a precise scale of one dollar +to the hundred dollars of value, and on an annual total valuation of +$200,000,000, which is, however, in practice somewhat, but not +largely, exceeded. + +Second. What such a library _is_ for. + +Its first object is to supply books to persons wishing to improve their +knowledge of their occupations. Such books as Nicholson's, Burns', +Riddell's, Tredgold's, Dwyer's, Waring's, Holly's, and others, on +practical architecture, building, or departments of them; the numerous +collections of plans and details of domestic and other architecture; +Masury's house-painting; Kittredge's metal-worker's pattern-book; +Percy's, Phillips', and other books on metallurgy and mining; Dussance, +Piesse, and others on soap-making, perfumery, and other branches of +applied chemistry; Lock on sugar-refining; many manuals of brewing and +distilling; Noad, Hospitalier, Preece, etc., on applications of +electricity; Burgh's, Roper's, and other hand-books and more advanced +works on steam engineering generally, locomotives, marine engines, etc.; +Gaskell's, Hill's, and other business manuals; hand-books of +correspondence, book-keeping, phonography; in short, text-books, both +elementary and advanced, in all sorts of commercial and industrial +occupations, are of the first importance in a free public library, and +are constantly and eagerly used in this one. The study of such books +puts money directly into the student's pocket, promotes his success in +life, and the prosperity of the city. A good and active public library +raises the value of every piece of real estate in the city, by thus +making the city more profitable (in dollars) to live in; because it +enables the intelligent and studious to earn more. + +Second in importance is the supply of books to those who wish to acquire +or pursue an education, or to complete or continue a knowledge of +general literature; and, third, the accommodation of students working +out special lines of research. + +Fourth. Such is the more solid usefulness of a public library. The rest +of its distributing work, whatever its intrinsic usefulness, is at least +as indispensable, and is always numerically the most popular. This is +the supply of light literature to readers for rest or amusement. Whether +books of this class constitute one-half the library or (as in this one) +one-tenth of it, it may be depended on that from one-half to four-fifths +of all the reading done will be done from that part. The justification +of the supply of such books by a free public library is, that it is +important also, if not likewise, to afford mental relaxation, as it is +to feed mental effort; that even light reading is a very important +improvement over and safe-guard from street life and saloon life; that +such books introduce to a more useful class of books by forming the +habit of reading; and that the public, who pay for the library, choose +to have books of this sort as much as, if not even rather more than, the +more useful sort. + +Fifth. There is another department of usefulness for public libraries, +quite unknown until within a few years, which makes them actual and +vital members of the public-school system, and additionally justifies +the term "People's Universities," which has often been applied to them. +This is the arrangement at the library of courses of illustrative study +and reading for teachers or pupils, or both. A series of such books as +relate to one or another part of the school course is laid out at the +library; the teachers, and perhaps sometimes one of the higher classes, +examine them along with the librarian, and such information as they +afford is used to fill out and illustrate the outline in the school-book +for the fuller information of the pupils. + +This practice is perhaps easiest in history and geography. It is easy to +see how a capable teacher could intensify the interest and enrich the +minds of a class about the geography of the East Indian archipelago, by +introducing them to the vivid narrative and abundant illustrations of +Wallace's most entertaining and instructive book on that region. How, +for instance, Palgrave's "Year in Arabia," Palmer's "Desert of the +Exodus," Lady Duff Gordon's "Letters from Egypt," O'Donovan's "Merv +Oasis," Atkinson's and Kennan's books on Siberia, Huc's "Travels in +Tartary and in China," and hundreds of other books, each for its +locality, all over the world, could be used to give a child clear +notions and strong impressions of savage or civilized landscapes and +people. It is not too much to say that the study of geography in the +public schools of San Francisco, illustrated as it could easily be from +books of travel now in the public library, could be made from beginning +to end as fascinating as any romance, while it would store the +children's minds with a kind and quantity of distinct knowledge about +the earth and its people as much beyond the results of ordinary +geographical study as gold is better than mud. It would be easy to +furnish similar specifications for the study of history, of natural +science, and other branches. This is no mere speculation. This system of +instruction is regularly practised by Mr. Green, of the Worcester Free +Library (the originator and pioneer in it); by Mr. Poole at Chicago, and +elsewhere, and with complete success. Besides its immediate result in +vivifying and enriching the pupil's minds, this method affords a +training in habits of reading of the very best kind, by teaching +research, the habit of selecting books, and the practice of comparative +thinking. + +To sum up: A free public library-- + +1. As to manners--is a parlor, not a bar-room; a place where not only +working men and business men, but ladies and young girls can safely and +conveniently come and abide. While not expressly a school of manners and +morals, it is much and closely concerned in maintaining a high standard +in both. + +2. As to objects--is to furnish good books, not bad ones; to satisfy +within this limit all demands on it as far as may be; and in particular +to be progressive; that is, to supply for intelligent readers what they +most require,--the _new_ good books. + +3. As to method--should keep the books in the best possible condition +for the longest possible term of use, and should not allow them to be +scattered, lost, abused, mutilated, or stolen. + +Lastly. It is needless to add, under these heads, any of the numerous +technical details which crowd the work of an active library; but this +exposition would be inexcusably imperfect without a reference to the +absolute indispensableness of proper quarters in order to successful +library administration. Only the merest reference need now be made to +the professional immorality of notorious localities close around this +library in its present place. Something more may be said of the +unbusinesslike payment by the city of a heavy insurance on $50,000 worth +of its property, which must be paid, because the library is in the same +building with a theatre. Theatres burn down on an average once in +seventeen years; and a theatre risk, although not absolutely uninsurable +like a gunpowder mill, is what insurance men call "extra hazardous;" so +that not only is the insurance rate high, but the destruction by fire of +the library (in its present location) may be looked upon as certain, the +only question being, How soon? + +A difficulty less obvious and less dangerous, but still a source of +constant friction and annoyance, is the present arrangement of the +library as one collection, with but one place for delivering books. In a +small library, with a small business, this difficulty becomes nothing; +but in one as large and as energetically active as this it is a serious +disadvantage. Such a library imperatively requires division into two +libraries or sections, one to contain all books deliverable without +discrimination; the other, all books calling for special care and +precaution of any kind. The receipt and delivery desks of these two +sections should be separate, and before and behind them there should be +plenty of room. In the present library, which is in one large undivided +hall, the space is insufficient, both for the public and for the library +staff; and books of the two classes above described are intermingled all +over the shelves. The result is, crowding, interruption, delay, error, +confusion, and dissatisfaction. Very many books might be trusted with a +studious mechanic or a literary student which it would be a folly to +deliver into the hands of a small boy or girl. Many other extremely +desirable objects would be gained by the occupancy of properly arranged +library quarters; but of these only two need be mentioned here; separate +quarters could be provided for students who need special facilities and +assistance, and there could be such arrangements that ladies using the +library need not crowd and struggle about among impatient children and +miscellaneous masculine strangers. + + + + +THE LEVY OF LIBRARY TRIBUTE + + The above title was constructed by the editor from a + sentence in the presidential address of Henry M. Utley + before the American Library Association at its Denver + conference of 1895. President Utley himself gave it no + title, but it is an examination of the claims of the library + to public support, with a conclusion that those claims are + justified only by regarding the library as an educational + institution, using this term in its broadest sense. + + Henry Munson Utley was born at Plymouth, Mich., Aug. 5, + 1836. He served on the staff of the Detroit _Free Press_ in + 1861-66, was city editor of the _Post_ and _Post-Tribune_ + until 1881, and then, after holding the secretaryship of the + Detroit Board of Education, became in 1885 librarian of the + Public Library, in which post he served until his death on + Feb. 16, 1917, becoming librarian emeritus in 1913. + + +We are met for the seventeenth Conference of the American Library +Association in the Capital city of the Centennial State. It is a +pleasing co-incidence that the Association and the State celebrate the +same natal year. Within the memory of some of us the whole region of +which this city is now the metropolis was a wilderness. The century was +fairly begun when Lieut. Pike led his little band to the sources of the +Arkansas and made his futile attempt to scale the lofty peak which now +bears his name. Forty years later came the explorations of Fremont, and +then fifteen years elapsed before the tide of immigration set in. The +desert of that day has been converted into prosperous farms. Thriving +towns have sprung up in the mountain fastnesses, at the gateway to which +sits this Queen City of the plains, displaying all the evidences of +wealth, culture, and refinement to be found in the proud cities to the +eastward. + +This rapid and wonderful transformation has been the work of human hands +guided by intelligent brains and an indomitable spirit of pluck and +perseverance. We are accustomed to think of this combination as purely +American. In many of its characteristics it certainly is so. And in no +respect more distinctively so than in the cause in which we are most +interested. Not all the older commonwealths, even on this side of the +Atlantic, have yet accepted the theory that the education of the citizen +is the concern of the state. But in all this newer portion of our +country this doctrine has been incorporated into the fundamental law. +The ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory northwest of +the Ohio river declared that for obvious reasons schools and the means +of education shall be forever encouraged. The twenty states now +organized within this and the subsequently acquired territory to the +westward have all accepted to the fullest extent the doctrine of the +ordinance. They have not only carried it into practical effect by +general laws providing for free public schools for children, for +universities and institutions of higher learning for the education of +youth, but have also provided for the establishment and maintenance of +free public libraries at the general expense and for the common use of +all the people. + +Let us consider very briefly the theory upon which the state assumes to +levy tribute upon the property of individuals to provide means for +maintaining libraries. By what right does the state tax the man of +wealth to put miscellaneous books into the hands of the man who pays no +tax? + +So far as primary education is concerned, the basis seems clear. The +free state which depends for its very existence upon the intelligence of +the masses of its citizens must, as a measure of self-defense, provide +the facilities by which all may become intelligent. Self-preservation is +the supremest natural law. Whatever has a right to exist has a right to +do that which is necessary to preserve its existence. The free state +which rests on the suffrage of its citizens is bound in duty to itself +to see to it that popular education, which is essential to its +perpetuity, is universal. Ignorant men are not competent to take care of +themselves and their households, still less to direct the destinies of +an empire. The state has, therefore, the right, not only to provide the +means of education, but to compel education. Laws are in force which +require certain attendance upon the schools. These rest on the theory +that the interest of the state in the education of the individual +surpasses that of the individual, and therefore, the state cannot, in +justice to itself, treat education purely as a matter of individual +concern. + +It is a notorious fact that the average person does not perceive the +importance of self-cultivation. As the vineyard left to itself is soon +choked out with weeds and chapparall, so man if left to himself lapses +naturally into his primitive condition. The state cannot leave him to +himself, but must interpose to make it certain that he acquires the best +degree of information which his natural abilities and the time not +necessary to his self-support shall permit. Neither can the state leave +the matter of providing facilities and inducements to education to +private enterprise, nor to the church, which has been the foremost of +all organizations to appreciate its importance. While the state +recognizes these agencies and accepts them as satisfactory, so far as +they go, it nevertheless fully equips schools of its own, in pursuance +of its inherent right and duty, which cannot be relinquished to any +other agency. + +The extent to which the state shall go in the matter of educating its +citizens has been the subject of much discussion. There are those who +maintain that as the education of the individual proceeds his concern in +his own development increases, until finally, if his education proceeds +far enough, his concern in his own development surpasses that of the +state, and he must thenceforth be left to equip himself entirely at his +own expense. If that point is marked by the line between primary and +secondary, or between secondary and higher education, there is where the +state is in duty bound to stop. The extent of the interest of the +community as compared with that of the individual is held to grow less +and less and finally to disappear as he advances. + +But the better judgment of our time repudiates this theory, and holds +apparently that there is no limit to the concern of the state in the +mental progress of the individual. Ian Maclaren in his touching story of +"Domsie" quotes John Knox as saying: "Ilka scholar is something added to +the riches of the commonwealth." It can probably be demonstrated by the +rules of accounts that as a business investment the state is wisely +spending money in the education of the people. The cost is more than +returned to it in the material development which an enlightened +citizenship ensures. If we contrast our own country, where education is +free, with some older countries where it is yet held to be a matter of +minor concern, or if we contrast some of the states of this republic +with others of corresponding age, we shall see at a glance a wide +difference in material resources and prosperity. In one the industrial +arts are far advanced, there is intellectual activity, the average +citizen is well clothed, well housed, and enjoys many luxuries; in the +other, the methods and life of a past century prevail and poverty and +ill-living are the rule. This, if not the highest motive, is an +incidental one of considerable importance for doing at the common +expense that which is for the common good. + +But the maintenance of the public library is not based on the +communistic idea. A former president of this association, speaking at +the Lake George Conference, said: "The socialists and communists are all +friends of the library, for we give them the books they want, and they +hold that it is not only the duty of the government to educate the +people, but to furnish them with reading. If the library ever shall have +enemies they will be the rich, who do not enjoy being taxed for the +benefit of the public, and have libraries of their own. Its defenders +will be men of broad views, scholarly people, and behind them, with +votes, the middle and poorer classes." + +While it may be true, in a certain sense, that socialists and +communists approve the public library because it appears to give them +something which they desire at the public cost, that scheme, on its true +ground, is as far removed as possible from any such theory of +maintenance by the state. The essential principle of communism is that +the members of the community shall hold their property in common for the +common use and benefit. This principle flourished in the village +community in which each individual was allotted his certain proportion +of the lands owned in common. There are at this day a sporadic few who +advocate government ownership of railroads, and some would even include +all the great instrumentalities of commerce and production. But the +rational majority hold that the state of society is best which makes the +individual a free and independent member of the community. His ambitions +and energies are best stimulated by his opportunities to prosper for +himself. Civilization and enlightenment are advanced by the efforts of +the master spirits of the race. The only demand which the individual can +justly make on the community, with its government as the common agent of +all, is that it shall not merely protect him in his rights as a free and +independent citizen, but that it shall assure him the opportunities for +the fullest exercise of his talents, and shall also, as a measure of +common interest, provide the facilities for his very highest mental +equipment. In this latter service of the state there is nothing whatever +of the communistic idea. + +The public library is not a public charity. There may be some who regard +it as in the nature of a free soup-house which caters to the appetite +for mental pabulum more or less wholesome. Most communities make some +provision for those who are mentally or physically unfitted to care for +themselves and who have no estate nor natural relations upon whom they +can rely for support. So the state builds and maintains hospitals and +almshouses. This it does simply as a duty of humanity. The instincts of +the race and the teachings of an enlightened civilization assure us that +a universal brotherhood makes all human creatures kin. As individuals we +owe a certain duty to all other individuals, and as organized society we +must see to it that the welfare of all is conserved. But there is no +duty of kindness or good-will which requires the furnishing of reading +matter for the use of the whole community. + +The public library is not provided for the mere intellectual enjoyment +of the citizens. The municipal corporation uses public funds to buy and +beautify parks and boulevards. The purpose of these is to promote the +public health and comfort, and incidentally to cultivate the aesthetic +sense. The state has a direct interest in the health of its citizens. It +must rely on their physical strength for defense in time of peril or +invasion. Therefore it must have a care that their physical welfare is +promoted. Wholesome food, gentle exercise, a cheerful and contented +mind, have much to do with soundness of body, and so food-inspection and +open-air recreation are justified at the common expense. + +Art-museums and public concerts are sometimes maintained out of the +general treasury. The only basis on which this expense can be justified +is that their purpose is educational. The welfare of the state depends +not alone on the ability of its citizens to merely read and write and +solve problems in simple arithmetic. Our nature is many-sided and its +full and perfect development must be sought in many directions. The +aesthetic is not less real than the practical. The finer qualities of +the mind have weightly influence upon national progress and destiny. The +state has a right to do for its citizens the things which will best +serve its ultimate interests. + +Universities and higher institutions of learning maintained at public +cost now train those who have the means and opportunities to take +advantage of their curricula for the most advanced degrees, and through +their post-graduate courses offer facilities for spending the good part +of a lifetime in the immediate pursuit of knowledge. But in the nature +of things the number of those who can give time to these higher courses +is limited. The argument has sometimes been employed against high +schools and universities that they are maintained at great cost for the +use of a comparatively trifling portion of the community. Statistics are +quoted to show that of the whole number of children in the primary +grades less than 25 per cent. go through the grammar grades, and that of +the small number who enter the high school grades hardly one in ten +finishes them, while of these but an infinitesimal number go on to and +through the university. + +It is not due to lack of capacity wholly, or lack of interest, that so +many students fall by the wayside, but mainly to the fact that their +services are necessary in the productive channels of business. Yet, in +spite of the comparatively few who are able to take advantage of them, +the state considers it a duty to foster, and the community cheerfully +bears the burden of maintaining, the higher institutions of learning, +because the benefits which they confer are easily recognized. To +compensate in some degree those who are not able to pursue in organized +institutions studies untimely stopped by the necessities of active life, +the community provides the free library. This is the people's +university, close to the door of every citizen, in which all who have +the inclination and energy to do so may pursue through their whole lives +the studies which most interest them. + +The function of the public library is purely and wholly educational. In +this case the term is to be construed in its most comprehensive sense. +It does not merely include development of the intellect; it involves all +the varied human relations. We owe duties to our Maker, to ourselves, to +those who are dependent upon us, to our neighbors, to society, and to +the state. In all these delicate and intricate relations we must be +taught, and as the world advances, our civilization becomes more complex +and our relations more involved, the character and quality of our +education becomes the more important. The school and the college have +merely laid the foundation. If they have done their full duty they have +done little more than set the student on the high road. The sequel rests +with himself. The public library puts into his hands books, which +contain the combined wisdom and experience of all who have gone before, +and wherein are preserved the best thoughts of the best men and women of +all time. They who pass judgment upon what shall and what shall not be +admitted to the shelves of a public library must bear in mind that, +strictly construing the function of the library to be educational, there +is yet very wide latitude in respect to the things which people may +safely and wisely learn. + +In this aspect of the case, those who are charged with the management +and control of libraries have imposed upon them a very grave +responsibility. They are not merely the custodians of the books which +the public purse has bought; they are commissioned to guide in the path +of highest progress. In this light, the function of the librarian +assumes the halo of a holy office. He who discharges it earnestly and +faithfully may do much to help forward the enlightenment of his +generation. + +The sum of the whole statement, briefly, is this: There is no limit to +the concern of the free state in the education of its citizens. It is as +much bound to provide libraries in which the adult may continue his +studies as it is to maintain schools in which as a child he may begin +them. The day is not distant when this duly will be universally +recognized in this country. In most of the states compulsory education +laws prevail. In at least one, every town is required by law to +establish and maintain a free public library. In this respect, New +Hampshire is only leading the way in which others will shortly follow. + +Then organized society can truthfully say to the individual, in the +language of Professor Hoffman in his "Sphere of the State": "We have +done what we could to develop and strengthen all your powers. We have +taught you to the best of our ability to know yourself and to understand +your relations to your fellows. Now, so long as you conduct yourself as +a child of the day and not of the night, all the rights and privileges +of the brotherhood are yours. But if you choose to walk in the darkness +rather than in the light, if you trample under foot our laws, if you +raise your hand against every man, let the curse of your wrong doing +fall upon your own head, not on ours." + + + + +ALTERNATIVES TO TAX-SUPPORT + + + In the case of a public library, that is, of one intended to + be used by all the members of the community, as + distinguished from a subscription library, alternatives to + public support have usually been in the nature of expedients + to tide matters over until the library could be turned over + to the municipality. The next two papers are early + discussions of some of these alternatives. + + + + +IF NOT A TAX-SUPPORTED LIBRARY, WHAT? + + The following paper contributed anonymously to _The Iowa + Library Quarterly_ (Des Moines, April, 1903) tells how local + library associations have been formed in that state, in + small towns where public support, for the moment, has been + deemed impossible or inadvisable. + + +The fact that a majority of the states of the Union have by legal +enactment provided for free public libraries supported by tax indicates +the general acceptance of the belief that such an institution is for the +public good and its support as an educational institution is as +desirable as the support of the public schools. + +More and more has it come to be recognized that if the ideals and +aspirations of youth are to be aroused and directed early in life by the +reading of inspiring books, the state may well foster this institution +which provides such literature. + +The Code of Iowa provides that towns and cities shall have power to +provide for the foundation and maintenance of a free public library by +voting upon the question, "Shall a free public library be established" +at a general or special election, and further providing that a tax not +exceeding two mills on the dollar of the taxable valuation of such city +or town may be levied for its support. This places the library on a firm +footing as a public educational institution, even though its income from +the tax may be small. + +There are, however, some towns in the state that find it impossible or +unwise at present to secure this support of the library by a tax and +hence they ask, "If not a free public library supported by tax, what +shall we attempt?" This inquiry is practical. The desire is earnest in +many places to support a library by some other means than a tax until +such time as sentiment will be strong enough to vote favorably upon it, +hence the best method of conducting it needs to be considered. + +The beginning of such a work must be made by a few, earnest people who +thoroughly believe in the need of a public collection of books, not +alone for the value it will be to them personally, but what it may do +for the many who are unable to own books for themselves. Club women are +often the most active factors in inaugurating such a movement and +sometimes the Woman's Club alone espouses the cause of the library and +provides for the purchase of books and the running expenses of the +library. It would seem, however, after observation of various efforts, +more or less successful, along this line, that it is much better to +secure the cooperation of all clubs and other organizations in the town, +thus disarming any outside criticism or antagonism from those outside +the one club. + +A library association, which includes all persons in the town who are +desirous of having a public library, seems to be the better form for the +organization to take, though a city federation of clubs has proven a +successful agency in many towns. The difficulty of providing funds for +conducting such a library on an absolutely free basis is evident, but to +make membership in the association, with the payment of an annual +membership fee, the condition of borrowing is to bar from the use of the +books the people who need them most. + +In organizing a library association it will be necessary to decide what +the policy is to be in this respect. Shall the library be solely for +those who join the association and pay this fee, or shall this be an +altruistic movement for the betterment of the town, making the use of +the books free to all? If the latter plan is decided upon it will be +necessary to provide by subscription of citizens or by entertainments +and otherwise, a larger fund for the support of the library, and such an +undertaking should be well considered for it often becomes burdensome. + +If an association is formed with an annual membership fee which entitles +the member to the use of the books, those who feel unable to pay this +annual fee may be loaned books upon the payment of a small fee for the +loan of a single book. + +The reading room feature is of great importance and whatever plan may +be adopted regarding the loan of the books for home use there is no +reason why the use of the reading room, the periodicals and the books in +the room should not be absolutely free to all who will come there to use +them. To make the reading room the brightest and most attractive spot in +town for the boys who are inclined to be on the street of evenings is a +possibility for any library association, if a few earnest women will +give time and effort toward this end. + +The actual expenses incurred in such a venture are room rent, furniture, +heat, light, services of a librarian and the purchase of books and +periodicals, but a systematic effort to interest the people of the town +often results in the donation of the use of a room and the other +necessities. It is not desirable to solicit donation of books. The +random inclination of people to pass on to the public library books they +do not care for on their own library shelves is damaging to the library +receiving them. In another column the report of the Audubon Club +mentions this point. The books should be selected with the greatest +care. + +The most important feature of such an enterprise is to have some one in +charge of the room who shall be suited to the work,--a woman of culture +and character, of pleasing manners and one who loves children and +delights in aiding readers. Such a librarian gives an "atmosphere" to +the whole undertaking. + +In many towns club women and others who are interested have volunteered +to serve as librarians, without compensation, and if a head librarian is +selected to whom these volunteer workers shall report and who is +responsible for the work, this arrangement seems a good one until such +time as funds will permit of the employment of a paid librarian. + +At Audubon, Exira, Glenwood, Guthrie Center, Laurens, Leon, Tama and +other places in the state, the women are most courageously carrying on +this work, with the hope that the town will eventually take the +responsibility off their shoulders by voting a tax to support the +library. + +If any attempt has been made to vote a municipal tax and it has failed, +or if there seems to be little sentiment in favor of the measure, there +is no need to feel disheartened. A beginning may be made by securing a +travelling library of 50 volumes from the Library Commission at Des +Moines, without other cost than transportation, and these books, may be +exchanged for a similar collection every 3 months, thus making 200 +volumes accessible during the year. + +This collection with the few books the local association is able to buy +and a few good magazines should make it possible to open the room for +reading and the issue of books two afternoons and evenings each +week--preferably Wednesday and Saturday. + +The small beginning will gather to itself strength if the workers are +persistent; the collection of books will increase, sentiment will grow +more favorable and eventually the movement will be popular. + +In making such a beginning the Iowa Library Commission should be called +upon for the use of the traveling library, form of constitution and +by-laws, book lists and other printed matter, and the secretary will be +glad to render any assistance possible in forwarding such an enterprise +in any town in the state. + + + + +CO-OPERATION BETWEEN LIBRARY AND COMMUNITY + + A paper that originally appeared in _The Springfield + Republican_, Dec. 1, 1899, and was reprinted in Home + Education Bulletin No. 31 of the University of the State of + New York. The author, Miss M. Anna Tarbell of Brimfield, + Mass. + + +The use of the word cooperation in connection with the public library +implies that the library is not simply a collection of books, that it is +not a passive institution, a repository of treasure, but an active +institution reaching out to bestow benefits. The library spirit means +not only cooperating with all uplifting forces in the community, but +creating and stimulating such forces. The library spirit seeks to carry +brightness into gray and toilworn lives, to give broad vision in place +of the narrow and distorted view, to awaken generous sympathies and +noble thoughts in place of sordid desires and petty interests. Imbued +with this spirit, the librarian will be a lover of humankind, +sympathetic, earnest, self-sacrificing, a true missionary, enthusiastic +withal and eager to seize upon ways and means by which the library may +more and more be made to enrich human life. But however abundant in +resources the library, and however zealous and efficient the librarian, +there is a limit to the work that can be accomplished on the library +side for the promotion of intellectual life and general culture. There +needs to be a larger and more intelligent demand on the community side +for the supply which the library offers. To stimulate this demand there +is needed the cooperation of those people and those institutions in the +community that possess special opportunities for increasing the use and +influence of the library, or in any way making human life wiser, better +and happier. This cooperation may be both direct and indirect, since all +culture influences are by nature cooperative with that of the library. I +shall dwell specially on the need of stimulating cooperation on the side +of the community, for the reason that the library has already taken the +initiative, and because library privileges are so abundant in +Massachusetts, so freely offered and eagerly extended, without a +proportionate response to these privileges on the part of the public. + +While dwelling most upon the importance of its educational influences, I +would not underrate the province of the library in providing +entertainment and recreation, which have their culture value. But the +following are impressive words from the editor of the New England +magazine in its current number: "Education in a democracy is so +fundamental that education may almost be looked upon as another way of +spelling democracy." "We are to consider more carefully the educational +function of everything which affects the mind of the people: the church, +the newspaper, the library, the platform." + +Considering cooperation with the library on the part of individuals, we +naturally think first of those who are connected with the library by +virtue of their office, namely, the library trustees. The trustees have +special opportunities for increasing the use and usefulness of the +library on account of their acquaintance with, and influence upon, the +library on one hand, and their daily intercourse with the public on the +other. There has so far come to my notice such assistance by the +trustees as inviting people, specially newcomers, to the library, +carrying books to outlying schools, personal assistance in the library +and collecting historical material for preservation in the library. It +is true that the literal requirements of the office of library trustee +are only those of a conservative nature, just as the duties of the +librarian were formerly considered to be those of the careful custodian, +but as the library spirit gains ground and the conception of the library +as an active mission grows, we may look forward to the day when every +town will be sure of having six or nine persons, as the case may be, not +only engaged in improving the character of the library, but in promoting +its increased and more effective use, a standing committee for the +culture interests of the town. This cooperation will be promoted by +trustees attending the meetings of library clubs, joining the clubs and +assisting them, as well as by giving the librarian every encouragement +to do so, such as granting leave of absence and possibly paying +expenses. The _Library journal_ and _Public libraries_ should be on the +subscription list of every library, and trustees as well as librarian +need to keep informed of progress in the library world. + +There are other people in every town who would be willing to assist in +the work of the library, or help people to get books or encourage more +and better reading if asked to do so by the librarian. To seek out such +persons, then, is the duty and opportunity of the librarian in this work +of cooperation. Suggestions regarding "Volunteer aids in library work" +are admirably given in the report of the state library commission for +this year in the bound volume, _Public libraries of Massachusetts_, and +should be read by librarians and trustees and shown to all patrons of +the library who are available for assistance. + +Surely the home should cooperate with the library by the example of the +reading habit, and by the direction of the reading of the children; +while it would be an excellent thing for parents to pursue lines of +reading that would keep them in touch with the children's studies. As it +is, I fear librarians will bear out the recent statement of a school +supervisor that "The home is not even inclined to supervise the +children's reading, and, the selection of books being left largely to +themselves, many boys and girls read books not proper for them to read." + +The church, the school and the library are institutions which naturally +constitute a triple alliance. Cooperation between the library and the +schools, which has received so much consideration and is being so +rapidly developed, I need not dwell upon. But there is need for +increased cooperation between the church and the library. This +cooperation should be both direct and indirect. Ministers should feel a +responsibility for the intellectual, as well as spiritual, welfare of +the people. They should show that intelligence and breadth of mind make +a better and more efficient Christian, and that the church will become a +greater power if its members read and think. The minister has had +special privileges for his own culture, and he has peculiar +opportunities for recommending books, guiding library taste, and +directly increasing the use of the library. There should be some kind of +study club connected with every church, and those young people who have +finished their school course should be taught their moral obligation to +cultivate their God-given mental powers and grow in intelligence and +wisdom. + +To advance the special interests of the church along intellectual +lines, the library should be provided with books that will improve +Sunday school work, aid in the study of the Bible, and the growth of +intelligence on religious subjects. It should be provided with up to +date histories of Bible times in the light of archeological discoveries, +with works of modern reverent scholarship concerning the Bible, and +books which record the development of religious thought. Much excellent +study is being done by members of the women's missionary societies. It +is very desirable that these women cooperate with the librarian in the +selection of standard works revealing conditions in the countries +studied. + +Among organizations, women's clubs have probably done the most to assist +library interests. This is especially true in some of the western +states, notably in Wisconsin. Literary and other study clubs which +prevail in New England are certainly in their nature cooperative with +the library, while they might be of more direct assistance to it. The +library, of course, should give these societies all possible +encouragement and help. The clubs will react favorably on the library in +creating a demand for books which will improve the character of the +accessions to the library. Where a study club does not exist, the +librarian should help to form one. It is possible that there is a +tendency to exclusiveness in women's literary clubs. If the number limit +keeps out those desirous of joining, or those who need encouragement in +literary interest, a branch club for their benefit should be formed. +Besides working for their own improvement, the members of study clubs +should have a missionary spirit and should feel a responsibility for the +intellectual welfare of the town. A woman's literary club is capable of +being a strong ally of the public library. + +The newly developing local history societies and the public library are +naturally allied, and promise to be of increasing mutual benefit. The +library should buy town histories and books needed by the historical +society, while the latter will contribute to the library records, maps +and published memorials. Further, the historical society, by sustaining +lectures in which the principles of colonial development are illustrated +by local annals, should develop a perception and interest which will be +manifested in a demand for volumes of history now lying dusty on the +library shelves. + +The grange is another organization whose objects affiliate it with the +library, since the grange movement is an important culture movement. +There is opportunity for more active cooperation between the library and +the grange. The grange, and also the farmers' clubs, should be asked to +recommend the best works upon agriculture, while the lecturer of the +grange and the committee of the farmers' clubs should confer in advance +with the librarian as to material needed in carrying out their literary +programs. More than one other organization might be mentioned which +would help the library and be helped by it through increased +cooperation, thereby extending the influence of both. It is the sense of +obligation and responsibility that needs to grow. + +The public press is an agency which certainly ought to be a firm ally of +the public library, cooperating with it directly and indirectly. +Newspapers should be ever ready to give space to any matter that will +bring the library to the attention of the public, and they should also +keep the public informed of progress in library interests. Deeper than +this, the press should constantly exemplify and teach culture ideals, +the true mission of journalism. + +The hope of stimulating greater cooperation between the community and +the public library seems to me to lie largely in the library club or, +better, library association, movement. First, local library clubs should +increase in number, becoming more truly local, thus exerting a stronger +influence upon the libraries in the section represented and coming into +closer relation with the community. The membership should include people +who are neither librarians nor trustees, but whose sense of +responsibility will be awakened as their interest is increased. The +district represented should not be so large as to prevent meetings being +frequently held in the same vicinity. These local clubs should be in +close relation with the state club or association, and the state library +commission. The local clubs will do the actual close work, while having +the support, advice and assistance of the state club and state +commission. The local clubs will give information as to conditions and +needs, and will be agencies for the application of progressive ideas. +The study of conditions, of what may be called the environment of +libraries, comes within the province of library-club work. The study of +the conditions and needs of the small towns and rural communities is of +leading importance. From what other source except from the library +movement with a greater development of its possibilities is help for +those towns to come? The initiative in personal effort to give +advantages for want of which some of the small towns are suffering has +been taken by the women's education association in the loan of their +traveling libraries accompanied by personal visits and the study of +conditions and needs. + +But there is another want besides that of books in the small villages +and towns. There is needed not only the printed page, but the speaking +voice, the influence of personality through lectures. A story from +experience will illustrate this need. A few years ago there was held in +our town an exhibition of antiquities which awakened intense interest on +the part of old and young. This interest made a good opportunity for the +study of colonial history, which a few of us carried on. Certain books +not in our library were needed, although the library is a good one and +well equipped in American history. Our want came to the knowledge of +Miss Chandler, chairman of the library committee of the woman's +education association, and out of this grew, another year, a special +library lent to us upon American history which formed a valuable +supplement to the works contained in our library in that department. At +both times, when we had the exhibition and when we received the +traveling library (which we still possess, having bought the books) I +realized the opportunity and need of lectures. What a strong combination +the group would have made--the exhibition, the working library, a +lecture course. This would have been in reality an adaptation of the +idea of university extension, which I believe could be developed by the +library club movement. Each town would have its standing library +committee composed of members of the local library club, and several +towns in the district represented by the club would form a convenient +circuit. But if this scheme, which I believe to be feasible, can not be +immediately developed or applied, there should be no delay on the part +of those interested in library work in Massachusetts in considering some +plan of promoting popular education, the leading object today of library +work, through lectures of some kind, if not sustained courses having +continuity of subject. + +Two difficulties meet this need of lectures in the smaller and poorer +towns and in many villages, that of the expense of securing the best +talent (and nothing short of excellent ability will serve), and that of +knowing where to find available speakers. The last difficulty can be met +by organizing a committee who will search out those who can be secured +to speak under the auspices of the libraries of the small towns. A plan +for bringing the expense within the means of the people of those towns +might also be developed. One source of help might be found in the +increase of the powers of the state library commission. In Wisconsin the +efficiency and powers of the state commission have been extended by the +passage of a bill through the legislature increasing the appropriation +awarded the commission and adding to its duties. The commission is +empowered to hold library institutes in various parts of the state, and +to encourage the growth of study clubs connected with the traveling +libraries. To carry out the duties of the commission, among which is +mentioned "to aid in building up a better system of popular education," +the additional sum of $3500 is awarded to the commission. Why should not +Massachusetts aid in building up a better system of popular education by +helping to provide speakers for the smaller villages and towns where +needed, thus supplementing and aiding the work of the public libraries? +It is possible that a beginning could be made through the establishment +of library institutes. If it should be considered wise to establish +library institutes in this state, as important a feature of them as +instruction in library matters would be lectures for the public on +literary and educational subjects of a popular nature. The first step to +be taken is for a committee representing the three existing library +clubs and the Massachusetts library commission to consider what plans +are most feasible, not only for the improvement of library work, but +also for increasing the intelligent and effective use of the library by +creating new ideals of popular education in the community, and thus +bring about cooperation in its deepest sense. + + + + +BOARDS OF TRUSTEES + + + A board of trustees, or of directors or commissioners, is + the representative of the community in its control of the + library and in the formal service rendered by the community + to the library. The relationship was familiar in other + public institutions at the time that public libraries began + to be established, and its duties, responsibilities and + limitations in this instance were regarded as being the same + as in others. They were therefore not widely discussed, and + the work of library trusteeship is still too little + systematized. + + The Trustees' Section of the A.L.A., founded in order that + Library trustees might gather yearly to discuss their + peculiar problems, has always been scantily attended. The + Indiana Trustees Association is the only prosperous body of + the kind in the United States, but its success might well + prove suggestive to library trustees in other states. The + three following papers were all read at a single library + conference in 1890, which may show that there was then some + degree of awakening to the necessity for discussing this + phase of library administration. + + + + +LIBRARY WORK FROM THE TRUSTEES' STANDPOINT + + A few first principles by the president of the Board of what + was at that time the St. Louis Public School Library, since + 1893 the St. Louis Public Library. The Rev. Mr. Learned read + this paper at the Fabyan's Conference of the American + Library Association, in 1890. + + John Calvin Learned was born in Dublin, N.H., Aug. 7, 1834. + He engaged in teaching, went to Missouri in 1856 and in 1859 + entered Harvard Divinity School. After graduation he was + pastor of a Unitarian church in Exeter, N.H., and in 1870 + took charge of the newly-organized Church of the Unity in + St. Louis where he remained until his death, Dec. 8, 1893. + He was a member of the Board of Managers of the Public + School Library from 1884 to 1892 and its president for half + that period. + + +An old play has it that "trustees are not to be trifled with" and, as +they are not only allowed but invited to come among the librarians to +assert their rights and their authority, why should they not do it +vigorously? Did they not originate the librarian? "Shall the thing +formed say to him that formed it, 'Why hast thou made me thus?'" + +Yet to assume such creative power must load us down with +responsibilities--greater, I fear, than some of us have joyfully +accepted. In fact, do not trustees incline, as a rule, to throw too much +of the burden of library administration upon the librarian? If the +incumbent of this office is fairly willing and capable, is he not +suffered to do pretty much as he pleases, except it may be with regard +to such large measures as the construction of buildings and the +management of investments? + +Proportioned to the authority of trustees, however, is their +responsibility. To whom much is given, of them much is required. And the +position of the better sort of trustee valuable to the best work of the +librarian, is not that sinecure seat sometimes depicted. He must +constantly stand as the able and ready advisor of the librarian, and for +the honor and defence of the library. He will be made the court of +ultimate appeal in many matters, both practical and curious. He will +receive letters from all sorts of people, some with gifts in their +hands, and some with complaints on their lips; some seeking favors, +possible and impossible. Col. Higginson's humorous way, recently, of +introducing Phillips Brooks as the man whom nobody in the Cambridge +library could find out the height of, until at last the inquiry was +brought to him as trustee to answer, may illustrate the point. + +Lately an article in one of the English reviews treats of the "Perils of +Trustees." And while no statute makes us responsible,--as innocent +parties were held to be under British law, in the failure of the Glasgow +Bank,--yet the library trustee carries risks, both moral and financial, +and the place should be offered to none who will not give it a +_bonafide_ service. There is no room for a mere figure-head or +ornamental name on a working library board. Every member of a directory, +rightly organized, should take his share in the administration, and have +some knowledge of what goes on in the library world. + +It is true there have been instances where some ambitious and +irrepressible spirit has exceeded his official duties and privileges; +has been disposed to dictate the whole policy of the library, reducing +the librarian's office to that of a mere secretary. I knew a director in +a large library who resigned because he could not buy the books and +write all the reports. He hungered for more to do. But I have known more +than one to keep himself as far away from the board as possible, after +one or two sessions of three or four hours each, in the necessary +deliberations of the book committee. + +Edward Everett Hale says that the great essential for the directors or +trustees of any institution is, that they "keep their end in sight," as +Dr. Watt's hymn reads. If it is an institution to help old women, or +save poor children, or find situations for the idle, does it really do +it? Or is it so taken up with the mechanism of the concern, so absorbed +and happy over methods and details, that it loses sight of the object? +This is especially to be considered in the management of a public +library. What is the library for? Is it accomplishing its work? Is it +doing its utmost to promote the virtue, refinement, and intelligence of +the community? + +A library may be likened to a bank where literary reserves are kept. It +is organized to promote the circulation of a sound literary currency. +The directors must see to it that, though there may be counterfeit and +worthless money in the vaults, the cashier or librarian must pay over +the counter for general circulation such only as will maintain the +institution's standard of credit and confidence in the community. The +gold basis must be maintained, and no "wild-cat" bills pass out through +the window. + +It grows increasingly evident that very few libraries in the world can +indulge in the luxury or licence of buying all books written. The +ambition to supply any man with any work he calls for must therefore be +held in check. Thus it becomes increasingly important that much care and +deliberation be exercised in the choice of books to be bought, whether +to complete deficient departments or for the daily circulation. The +purchase of poor books makes a market for poor authorship. Hereafter, +less than ever should libraries be the dumping place for indiscreet +publishers, for questionable or incompetent authors. The public library +exists for civilization, that is, for moral ends. It is the record and +history of civilization, as well as the ally of progress. It is the +"friend and helper of all those who seek to live in the spirit." For +this reason, therefore, the character of the books in a library is of +more importance than mere numbers; and the value of a library to the +community may be imperfectly shown by the statistics of circulation. No +aim can be higher, however, than having a good library, to make its +resources known, and to multiply readers in the remotest and obscurest +parts of our towns and cities. + + + + +Trustees of Free Public Libraries + + In introducing this topic, Mr. C.C. Soule, who spoke as a + trustee of the Brookline Public Library, said that he had + found little or nothing about it in existing library + literature, and that his paper had been shown to a + considerable number of both trustees and librarians and + modified in accordance with their views. His analysis of the + subject is somewhat closer than President Learned's. + + Charles Carroll Soule was born in Boston June 25, 1842 and + graduated at Harvard in 1862. After serving in the Civil + War, which he left as a captain of Massachusetts volunteers + he became a publisher and after 1889 was president of the + Boston Book Co. He was an active member of the American + Library Association. He died at his home in Brookline, Jan. + 7, 1913 + + +This paper considers the constitution of elective boards of trustees of +free public libraries, intrusted with the appointment of librarians and +full control of their libraries. + +The subject can be naturally treated under the following heads: Size of +the board; term of office; qualifications for the position; duties; +individual and collective; organization; and relations with the +librarian. + + +1. SIZE OF THE BOARD + +The weight of opinion seems to be in favor of small boards; and in +small towns, where the duties are light, three trustees will usually +work more harmoniously and effectively than a larger number. But in +large towns and cities a more numerous board has two advantages--there +is more chance of securing among its members one or two men who are +exceptionally active, intelligent, judicious, and interested in library +science; and the board may be more thoroughly representative of +different sections of the town and different elements in the population. + + +2. TERM OF OFFICE + +The usual and undoubtedly the best composition of a board of library +trustees is to divide it into groups, one group going out of office each +year. This provision secures stability by preventing sudden changes of +the whole board by intrigue or popular caprice, and is intended to allow +opportunity for gradual change whenever it is needed. + +But does this provision alone insure sufficient change to prevent +stagnation? The position of trustee of a library is so pleasant and +honorable, that the incumbent may wish to retain it indefinitely. The +men selected as trustees may be personally so worthy and popular that +their townsmen are reluctant to retire them compulsorily, even when the +feeling is prevalent that others might serve more acceptably. To effect +a change under such circumstances requires an effort approaching +revolution, with danger of that discord and bad feeling which are so +unfortunate in library management. + +Would it not be wise, in view of this possible danger, to follow the +example of the graduates of Harvard College in electing overseers, and +provide by law that no trustee shall hold office for more than (say) +three successive terms of three years, or nine years in all? While a +library might thus lose occasionally an active and efficient trustee +(who could still be reëlected after being only a year out of office), +would it not gain much more than it could lose, in keeping that close +contact with popular needs and with new ideas, which is so healthy and +stimulating in the management of all public institutions? + + +3. QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE POSITION + +The ideal qualifications for a trustee of a public library (a fair +education and love of books being taken for granted) might be summarized +somewhat thus:-- + +Sound character; good judgement and common-sense; public spirit; +capacity for work; literary taste; representative fitness. + +Men of character and position in the community are usually selected as +trustees; but it may be assumed somewhat too confidently that, because a +man has been prominent in political or business or social circles, he +will make a good trustee. It is a mistake to put in such a position any +man who has outlived his public spirit and energy. + +Library taste is placed low on this list of qualifications, because in +any administrative position, even in connection with a library, capacity +and willingness to work, united with common-sense and a fair education, +are much more useful than a taste for literature without the practical +qualities. And of the different grades of literary taste, general +culture and a wide range of reading are generally more serviceable to a +public library than the knowledge of the scholar or the specialist. + +In selecting men of prominence for trustees, there is danger of +excluding too rigidly the younger men who might contribute to the +strength and efficiency of the board. There is so much activity and +progress in the library work of this generation, that the adage "Old men +for counsel, young men for action" is not wholly inapplicable to the +choice of trustees, whose work requires counsel and action in nearly +equal degrees. + +With a large board it would seem wise to select members with some +reference to representation of different sections of the town, and +different occupations, interests, or nationalities among the +inhabitants. This tends to prevent dissatisfaction, and to adapt the +purchase of books and the general policy of the library to the needs of +the whole community, rather than to the wishes of special classes. + +Neither politics nor religious opinion should of course enter into the +choice of library trustees, except so far as it is unwise to constitute +a board exclusively from one party or one denomination. + + +4. DUTIES, INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE + +As an individual, the trustee of a public library ought to realize that +he holds a high and sacred trust from the people; that he has been +elected to preserve and extend the privileges and benefits afforded by +the library in its modern development as "The People's University"; that +library science is not to be comprehended by intuition, but can be +learned only by intelligent observation and study; and that he has no +right to accept or hold the position unless he can take a lively +interest in the library, be constant in attendance at meetings and +diligent in committee work, keep himself informed of the current library +ideas by reading every number of the _Library journal_, and, if +possible, by visiting other libraries than his own, and watch keenly the +tastes and requirements of the constituency he represents. + +The collective duties of the board includes the care of investments and +funds, the careful and economical supervision of expenditures, the +determination of the policy of the library toward the public and in its +interior administration, the general direction of the choice and +purchase of books, the selection of the librarian and his assistants, +constant and critical observation of their work, occasional reckoning up +of work done and progress made, comparison of results with those reached +in other libraries, as a confirmation of merits and a corrective for +errors, and such active work of detail as will assist the librarian in +performing his duties. + + +5. ORGANIZATION + +A large board ordinarily transacts business through a chairman, a +secretary, a treasurer, and one or more committees. + +The chairman has few active duties, but the position requires judgment +in appointing committees, and tact in conducting meetings. The place is +perhaps the highest public honor in small towns, and is usually and +properly given to some trustee eminent for character and public +services. + +In Mr. Perkins's article, "How to make Town Libraries Successful," in +the "Government Report of 1876 on Public Libraries," it is suggested +that the librarian should act as secretary to the board of trustees; +but, aside from the fact he usually has more than enough work to do in +his own department, is it not at least doubtful whether an official, +whose conduct may at any time be a proper subject for confidential +discussion before the board, should serve as their secretary, and so be +obliged to be present throughout all meetings? The duties of a secretary +may properly provide occupation for some member of the board. + +The treasurer, if he holds funds in his hands, should always be put +under bond. No matter how trustworthy he may be, it is a sound principal +that no official should handle public money without giving bond. His +successor may not be so careful or so honest, and, unless the precedent +is established while the danger of loss seems small, it will be +difficult and invidious to insist upon a bond when occasion may require +it. If no trustee is willing to accept the position of treasurer with +bond, it is usually possible to leave the library funds in the hands of +the already bonded town treasurer, and draw on them as needed to pay +bills. + +As to committees, it is better to have as many as can actively be +employed, in order to enlist the cooperation or advice of every trustee. +In large boards, even with small libraries, four standing committees can +find occupation; namely, executive, book, finance, and progress. + +The executive committee can take charge of the daily work of the +library, of purchases, and of the care of the building. They should be +efficient men, with prompt business habits, with an active interest in +the library, with leisure to attend to their duties during library +hours, and with sufficient discretion to sift and formulate business to +be presented at the meetings of the trustees. While discharging their +executive duties promptly and thoroughly, they ought to be careful not +to assume too much of the power and responsibility which properly belong +to the full board, whose will they are appointed to execute. + +[In very large libraries, these duties of an executive committee are +sometimes subdivided among additional committees on building and +grounds, on purchase of supplies, on reading-room and so on, as +different departments increase in importance.] + +Inasmuch as the range of reading, the literary taste, and the critical +faculty, which qualify a man to select books for popular use, are not +necessarily united with executive ability, it will often be best to +intrust the choice of books to a book committee, selected for that +purpose alone. This is a sufficiently important duty to occupy all the +spare time of a committee, even where the initiative is taken by the +librarian, and appeal on doubtful points is made to the full board. + +The duties of a finance committee are often confined to a perfunctory +and occasional examination of accounts, but they may be made very +important. To make and watch investments, to provide that money on +deposit shall always draw the best interest, to see that purchases of +books and supplies are made on the most favorable terms, to keep close +watch on all the controllable expenditures, to examine and verify bills, +and to audit carefully the treasurer's accounts, will give full +employment to a good committee of business men. + +In addition to these obviously useful committees, there is another,--a +"Committee on Library Progress"--which often serves to increase the +activity and efficiency of the library. Constituted from among the +younger or more active men, and from those trustees who can find +opportunity for visiting other libraries, such a committee can do good +work in watching the experiments made elsewhere; in placing before the +board information in regard to improved methods of library work; in +comparing the library with other libraries similarly situated; and in +encouraging their own librarian, if he be progressive, or in stimulating +him, if too conservative. In short such a committee, if both active and +wise, could keep even the smallest town library in the full tide of +modern progress. + +It will be best not to leave too much discretion or power permanently to +any committee, but to require all committees to report their acts and +plans frequently for the approval or criticism of the full board. + + +6. RELATIONS WITH THE LIBRARIAN + +The relations of the trustees with the librarian will vary greatly +according to circumstances. Some general principals may be suggested, +subject always to "the exceptions which prove the rule." + +First of all, it should be borne in mind that the trustees are the +responsible managers of the library, and that so far as they chose to +act, the librarian is only their agent, bound in honor to carry out +their wishes promptly, thoroughly, and cheerfully. + +If they are fortunate enough, however, to have a first-class librarian, +with superior ability, training, knowledge, energy, wisdom, and tact, +the trustees ought to leave the management of the library practically to +him, working only to lighten his labors and strengthen his hands. + +But if--as sometimes may happen--the librarian has human limitations, +and while strong in some directions is weak in others, it is the part of +the trustees to try to supplement, without impeding, his abilities. If, +after ascertaining his limitations, they decide that he is the best +librarian that they can get, under the circumstances of the case they +should note in what lines he needs help, and select for committees the +trustees best fitted to do the part of library work which he cannot +satisfactorily perform. + +If, however, the librarian has executive ability, it will be wise for +the trustees to let him control the selection, management, and dismissal +of all his assistants; if he has good judgement and what may be called +"the librarian's faculty," it will be wise to let him arrange the +methods and details of library work; if he has literary taste, it will +be especially wise to allow him at least the initiative in the choice +and purchase of books, for he has (or ought to have) constant contact +with the public and an intelligent knowledge of their wants. + +Although it may not be considered best for the librarian to act as their +secretary, the trustees should take him into their confidence, consult +him freely, and invite his presence during some part of each board +meeting and of all committee meetings where his advice might be of +service. The librarian can properly reciprocate by allowing the board +and the committees frequent opportunities for private conference and +"executive session," unembarrassed by his presence. + +In brief, while the trustees cannot forget that they control both +library and librarian, they should remember that the librarian is chosen +to be their expert advisor and their executive officer, and, so long as +he fills these positions satisfactorily, they ought not to hamper or +interfere with, so much as to assist and sustain him by their actions. + +The relations of an active librarian with an active board of trustees +demand discretion and consideration on both sides. But if the librarian +is sensible, and not too sensitive, and the trustees are reasonably +harmonious and judicious, the cooperation herein outlined may be carried +out with success. + + + + +THE DUTIES OF TRUSTEES AND THEIR RELATIONS TO LIBRARIANS + + Although Mr. S.S. Green says that he has prepared this paper + "from the standpoint of a librarian," he is competent to + speak from that of a trustee also, for he served as both, + having been a trustee of the Worcester Public Library for + some time when he was chosen its librarian. A sketch of + Samuel Swett Green will be found in Vol I. of this series. + + +In the symposium in which we are now engaged, I understand that I am to +consider the subject which we are talking about from the standpoint of a +librarian. + +The position can be stated in a few words. + +A librarian should be regarded as holding relations to his trustees +similar to those held by the agent of a factory or the cashier of a bank +to the governing board of the factory or bank. + +Some cashiers and some agents have more power than others. The power +conferred depends upon the knowledge, training, experience, industry, +enterprise, good judgment, and ability of persons holding such +positions. + +If the board of trustees of a library is more competent to manage its +affairs than the librarian, and if it is ready to give the time that is +necessary to the discharge of the duties of management, it has a perfect +right to do so, and the librarian need then only be a clerk. + +So, too, if on any board of directors there is one man of leisure who +has especial qualifications for conducting the affairs of a library, the +board may delegate to him the performance of the more intellectual +portions of the work of the librarian. + +Even, however, in such cases as those the individuality of the +librarian should be considered, because, although his position may be +very humble, yet he can do better work if allowed to work in his own +way, rather than in accordance with the provisions of rules laid down by +others which he is required to strictly observe. + +When a librarian is accomplished, it will be found wise for a board of +trustees or directors to ascertain his views on most subjects before +acting, and it will generally appear manifest that it is well to give +very careful consideration to those views. + +A board which encourages its librarian to initiate measures, will +administer its trust more satisfactorily than it can if it reduces him +to the position of a mere executive officer, who is only to carry out +the plans which it has formed. + +I should say that the wisest course for a board of trustees to pursue is +to let a good librarian do pretty much as he thinks best, only keeping a +watchful eye on him for the purpose of seeing that things are not going +wrong under his conduct of affairs. It is better, generally speaking, +for a board to change its librarian than to undertake to manage matters, +unless its members are willing to give much time and thought on the +subject. + +Mr. Greenough, at that time the President of the Board of Trustees of +the Boston Public Library, said to me, just after Mr. Windsor gave up +his position of Superintendent of that library, that he wished in his +successor the qualities of a librarian (using that designation in a +restricted sense) and not those of a superintendent, and that the title +of the new officer would be librarian and not superintendent. + +Mr. Greenough had had a long connection with the Boston Public Library +as a trustee and as President of the Board of Trustees, and felt that he +knew, better than any person whose services the library was likely to +secure, how to conduct its affairs. + +Judge Chamberlain, Mr. Windsor's successor, accepted the situation and +stated in an early report, in substance, that the duty of a librarian is +merely to carry out the wishes of the board of trustees. + +But Mr. Greenough became disabled after a while, and Judge Chamberlain +gained experience; and I venture to say, during the latter portion of +the short time which he was connected with the Boston Public Library, he +found that in the long run a librarian must take upon himself the lion's +share in the entire management of a library. Now that Judge Chamberlain +has resigned his place, the Trustees of the Boston Public Library are +understood to be looking around for an accomplished superintendent. + +The ideal executive head of a large public library--let me say it +emphatically--should have the qualifications of both librarian and +superintendent. Perhaps, in the case of some of the largest libraries, +it is well to have both a superintendent and a librarian; but when such +a distribution of duties becomes desirable, it is certain that the +superintendent should have something of the spirit of a librarian, and +as much of his technical knowledge as possible, and that the librarian +should be often consulted in regard to questions of management, and +have, himself, no mean qualifications as an executive officer. + +A good librarian should be allowed to make experiments (observing, of +course, reasonable limits), without consulting the board of trustees, +with the purpose of satisfying himself as to the desirability and +feasibility of adopting new methods, and of obtaining evidence that will +enable the board to form intelligent opinions in regard to the value of +changes recommended by him. + +Experiments may often be undertaken, with good prospect of success, by +persons familiar with kinds of work which a board of trustees, +acquainted with such kinds of work, would not care to try, but which, +nevertheless, it is very important should be tried. + +A librarian should have the appointment of his assistants in his own +hands, and should himself consult heads of departments in the choice of +persons to serve under them. + +He should be allowed to buy such books as are needed between meetings of +library committees and boards of trustees, just as a trusted cashier is +permitted to loan money to a bank's customer between meetings of its +board of directors. Both the librarian and the cashier should, of +course, give an account of such proceedings to the committee or board +over him at the meeting next after the transactions. + +Generally speaking, a competent librarian should be allowed large +freedom, and held responsible for wisdom in management. + +On the other hand, the board of trustees should insist upon the +observance by the librarian of such forms as have been adopted as +safe-guards. + +While it should allow much liberty to its executive officer, it should +also see to it that he keeps the machinery, by which work is done, in +order; so that, if in the exercise of a careful oversight, it shall +become advisable at any time for it to resume the power conferred on the +librarian, it may be able to do it promptly. + +Trustees and directors may render services of the greatest value to +libraries and librarians. + +Not long ago I had upon my board of directors an influential member, who +used to say regularly at the first meeting, after new men came on it, +"Gentlemen, our only duty is to support the librarian." + +That is saying too much, certainly. It is, however, the duty of a board +of trustees to second heartily a librarian in his efforts to make his +administration energetic, useful, and progressive, and to do all that it +can to secure patient and generous consideration by town and city +governments, and by citizens, of all wise measures which he may adopt. + +Trustees are very influential in working individually to obtain for a +library the support in money which is needed. + +They can be of great service in showing their appreciation of good work +done by the librarian, by word and act. + +It is almost too much to expect of a board of trustees that it should +look out to see to it that a librarian receive a proper salary, and that +his compensation be increased as his services grow in value, without +being reminded that the remuneration is inadequate by a communication +from that officer. Still it is very desirable that, when a communication +is made, it should be sympathetically considered, and that members of +the board should point out to one another the excellence of the services +rendered by the librarian instead of expecting him to enlarge upon their +value himself. + +It should be understood, also, that it is a librarian's duty to state +fully the worth of the services of his assistants, and seek adequate +compensation for them. + +A board of trustees can do much, and should always do as much as +possible, to keep the interests of a library and of a librarian from +being sacrificed to supposed exigencies of politics. + +In some portions of the country the appointment and removal of +librarians for political reasons has become a scandal. + +A board of trustees owes it to its librarian to protect him from the +vagaries of impracticable men who may by some chance become members of +the board. + +For example, it should quietly vote down unwise propositions, as they +are made by fussy or narrow men; by those persons who, while they are +self-confident, are also ignorant; by men who are so constituted as +always to oppose or hold back, or go ahead recklessly; and by such +persons as wish to have a hand in doing everything which it is the duty +of the librarian to do, and yet are unwilling to give any time or +thought to the conduct of affairs. + +There is a tendency in many boards of trustees, when a single member is +urgent in opposition to some measure proposed by a librarian, and the +other members have no positive opinions regarding the matter, to yield +to the objector. + +Such oppositions may afford a proper excuse for the delay, but should +not be allowed to become permanently efficacious in preventing the +execution of a project, without the librarian has been given ample +opportunities, for explaining the grounds of his recommendation. The +librarian should always be treated as a cooperator, and not as an +unintelligent servant. It would always be unwise in him to press the +adoption of measures until their wisdom is generally recognized by the +trustees. Still his reasons for advising action should be ascertained +and duly considered. + +A board of trustees will always do well to have the librarian present at +its regular meetings. His knowledge and experience will be found of +value. + +His plans will be the better understood. He, too, by being present will +not only comprehend better than in any other way the wishes of the board +of trustees (and its members), but, that which is of great importance +will catch the spirit which animates it, and become aware of the general +principles which it desires should underlie the administration of the +institution. + +Trustees should bear in mind that unnecessary delays are to be avoided, +and that, in order to keep the members of a community in a contented +frame of mind, their wants must not only be supplied, but supplied +promptly. + +Trustees should remember that it is important to give librarians and +some of their assistants time in which to aid users of libraries, +instead of keeping every attendant constantly employed about routine +work. + +Trustees should guard themselves against the notion that library work +is easy, and that it is only the occupations which they are usually +engaged in, in which employment is wearing and hard. + +It must not be supposed, from anything which I have said, that the +position of a director or trustee of a library is, in the opinion of +librarians, a sinecure. + +Our idea is far from this, as will be seen if the remarks already made +are carefully considered. + +It should be said in conclusion, that one of the most important duties +of trustees is to look around among libraries in different towns and +cities, to read library reports and accounts of meetings of librarians, +with the purpose of finding out whether they are getting as much and as +good service from librarians in the communities whose interests they +have to look after, as citizens are obtaining in places where libraries +and their management have attained a high standard of excellence. + +With the same end in view, they should see to it that librarians are +provided with the current issues of the best library journals and with a +collection of the best bibliographical works. + +They should also put themselves, and insist upon librarians putting +themselves, into vital relations with other libraries, and with the +whole body of librarians. + +Librarians should never forget that the real authority in a library +rests with the board of trustees, or fail to render immediate and +cordial submission to its directions. + +They should also seek and accept with gratitude all practical +suggestions that may be made to them by trustees or other persons. + +When any members of the board of trustees are specialists, they should +be urged to give the library the benefit of their special knowledge, by +proposing for purchase lists of books known to them to be of particular +value. + +I wish to add to what I have written, the statement that I have always +been very fortunate in having over me a body of directors of unusually +good judgment, and of the kindest disposition toward me. + +In fact, the remarks which I have made regarding the duties of trustees +have been suggested to me by observation of the happy results which have +followed the administration of the affairs of my own library, by a board +of directors who have governed themselves by rules almost identical with +those which I have recommended for use by boards of trustees and +directors generally. + + + + +THE LIBRARY'S SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY + + + This division of the subject is that which has been most + discussed, and its subject matter is that in which most + progress has been made. It is creditable to libraries that + what they do for the public has extended and developed to a + marvelously greater degree than what the public does for + them. Whether it is equally creditable to the public "is + another story." The first seven papers reproduced bear on + the subject of library service in a somewhat general manner + and are arranged chronologically. + + + + +SOME POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO PUBLIC LIBRARIES + + This is probably the first treatment of the subject in this + country, and is the leading article in the second number of + _The American Library Journal_, as it was then called. The + writer, William F. Poole was at the time librarian of the + Chicago Public Library. He mentioned objections only to + explain them away. It will be noted that none of them would + be described at present as "popular," and that only the + third is now much heard. + + William Frederick Poole was born in Salem, Mass., 1821, and + graduated at Yale in 1849, where as librarian of the + Linonian and Brothers Library he founded Poole's Index to + Periodical Literature, by which his name is chiefly + remembered. He was librarian of the Chicago Public Library + in 1873-87, and at his death, March 1, 1894, he was + librarian of the Newberry Library, Chicago, whose building + he designed on the departmental system, of which he was an + earnest advocate. He was the second president of the + American Library Association, serving in 1885-87. + + +In this paper I shall use the term "public libraries" as meaning free +municipal libraries organized under State laws and supported by general +taxation. This definition will exclude from our notice a large number of +libraries established on other foundations, some of them richly endowed +and partially accessible to the public. + +The rapid increase in the number and importance of public libraries, +both in this country and in England, is perhaps the most marked feature +of educational development during the past twenty-five years; for within +that brief period the first of them was opened to the public. + +My subject, as announced in the programme, requires me to speak of +popular objections; yet I must confess that popular appreciation of +these institutions, where they have been established, would have +furnished a more attractive theme. As their foundation involves +taxation, that prolific source of political controversy, it is somewhat +remarkable that in the eleven States of our Union where public-library +statutes have been enacted, so little public discussion has occurred, +and so few objections have been offered. I have heard of no instance +where such a bill was proposed in a State legislature and was defeated. +That all the Northern States, where general education and the +common-school system are established, have not by legislation provided +also for the public library--the natural ally and supplement of that +system--is doubtless owing to the fact that the people have not asked +for such legislation. The unanimity of the vote by which towns have +accepted taxation for the support of public libraries is significant. +The Commissioner of Education at Washington recently made inquiries on +this point, and received replies from 37 towns and cities. In 32 of +these the vote was unanimous; in 5 there was a divided sentiment, but +the vote was 1730 in favor to 515 against taxation. The vote of the +rate-payers in some English towns and cities where free libraries have +been established was as follows: + + Ayes. Noes. + + Manchester 3962 40 + Winchester 337 13 + Bolton 662 55 + Cambridge 873 78 + Oxford 596 72 + Sheffield 838 232 + Kidderminster 108 11 + Blackburn 1700 2 + Dundee, no dissentient. + +By the latest statistics of the Bureau of Education, it appears that +there are 188 public libraries in eleven of the United States. Of these +five are Eastern States--Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts +and Connecticut; five are Western States--Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, +Wisconsin, and Iowa: and one is a Southern State--Texas. Eight of these +States have passed public-library statutes within the past ten years. In +the number of libraries the States rank as follows: Massachusetts, 127; +Illinois, 14; New Hampshire, 13; Ohio, 9; Maine, 8; Vermont, +Connecticut, and Wisconsin, 4 each; Indiana, 3; Iowa and Texas, 1 each. +In the number of volumes they rank as follows (in round numbers): +Massachusetts, 920,000; Ohio, 144,000; Illinois, 77,000; New Hampshire, +52,000; Maine, 34,000; Indiana, 26,000; Vermont, 16,000; Connecticut, +15,000; Texas, 10,000; Wisconsin, 6000; Iowa, 1000. The aggregate number +of volumes in these libraries is 1,300,000, and their annual aggregate +circulation is 4,735,000 volumes. It is noticeable that no one of these +libraries is in New York, Pennsylvania, or any of the Middle States. The +representatives from those States in this Conference may be able to +account for this hiatus in the statistics of the Bureau of Education. + +In this brief sketch of the statistics of our American public libraries +we have not found much evidence of popular objections to their inception +and organization. In England, however, where the questions of national +schools, secular schools, and parochial schools are still mooted, the +idea of levying a general tax for the support of a library free to all, +and furnished with books adapted to the capacities of all classes, was +not in harmony with the traditions and public policy of that people. In +1848, the same year that the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the +suggestion of Josiah Quincy, Mayor of Boston, passed an act authorizing +the city of Boston to maintain a public library, Mr. William Ewart, +member of Parliament, moved in the House of Commons for a committee of +inquiry respecting libraries. Such a committee was raised, and Mr. Ewart +was appointed chairman. Much evidence was taken; a report was made; and +in February, 1850, a bill was introduced into the House of Commons +enabling town councils to establish public libraries and museums. "Our +younger brethren, the people of the United States," says the report, +"have already anticipated us in the formation of libraries entirely open +to the public." The bill proposed limited the rate of taxation to one +halfpenny in the pound; required the affirmative vote of two thirds of +the rate-payers; restricted its operation to towns which had at least +ten thousand inhabitants; and provided that the money so raised should +be expended only in building and contingent expenses. This bill, meagre +indeed compared with the later enactments of Parliament, met persistent +opposition from the conservative benches. An ex-Chancellor of the +Exchequer objected because it did not give sufficient powers to form a +library; and he should object to it more strongly if it did. Who was to +select the books? Was every publication that issued from the press to be +procured? or was there to be a censorship introduced? Another member +claimed that the bill would enable a few persons to tax the general body +of rate-payers for their own benefit, and the library would degenerate +into a political club. Col. Sibthorp thought that, however excellent +food for the mind might be, food for the body was more needed by the +people. "I do not like reading at all," he said, "and hated it when I +was at Oxford." Lord John Manners said he could not support the bill, +because it would impose an additional tax upon the agricultural +interest. Mr. Spooner feared these institutions might be converted into +normal schools of agitation. Sir Roundell Palmer--since the Lord +Chancellor of England--was most apprehensive that the moment the +compulsory principle was introduced, a positive check would be imposed +upon the voluntary, self-supporting desire which existed among the +people. A division being taken on the bill, there were 118 ayes and 101 +noes. The bill passed the House of Commons in July, and the House of +Lords, without opposition, in August, 1850. + +The Manchester, Liverpool, and Bolton free libraries were immediately +organized under this act, the cost of the books being defrayed by public +subscription. In 1853 similar legislation was extended to Scotland and +Ireland. In July, 1855, the new libraries having gone into operation +with the most encouraging results, a new and more liberal library act +was passed, by a vote of three to one, which raised the rate of taxation +from a halfpenny to a penny in the pound, and allowed the income to be +expended for books. Its provisions were made to include towns, boroughs, +parishes, and districts having a population of 5000 inhabitants, and +permitted two adjoining parishes, having an aggregate population of five +thousand, to unite in the establishment of a library. + +In 1866 the library act was again improved by removing the limit of +population required, and reducing the two-thirds vote on the acceptance +of the library tax to a bare majority vote. Provision was also made for +cases in which the overseers of parishes refused or neglected to call a +meeting of the rate-payers to vote on the question. Any ten rate-payers +could secure the calling of such a meeting, and the vote there taken was +made binding and legal. + +The English free-library system is now so firmly established that it +will not be changed except to expand and enlarge it. Its chief +supporters are the middle classes, and artisans and laborers, who, with +their families, are its most numerous patrons. + +The recent extension of suffrage in England has strengthened the system. +No candidate for official position who opposed it could hope for +success. It has been found that free libraries have not degenerated into +political clubs and schools of agitation. No trouble has arisen in the +selection of books, and no censorship of the press was required. It was +at first supposed that all books relating to religion and politics--the +subjects on which people quarrel most--must be excluded. The experiment +of including these books was tried in the Manchester and Liverpool +libraries, where the books were purchased by private subscription, and +no controversy arising therefrom, all apprehension of evil from this +cause was allayed. Parliament doubled the rate of taxation, and +permitted the purchase of books from the public funds. The adoption of +the compulsory system has not imposed a check on the voluntary and +self-supporting desire of possessing books which existed among the +people. It has strengthened that desire; and ample proof of this +statement could be furnished if the prescribed limits of this paper +would permit. + +It is singular that objections to public libraries have come mainly from +men--as we have seen from the debate in the British Parliament--who are +educated, and in general matters of public welfare are intelligent above +their fellows. These objections, however, were uttered before the +persons making them had given the subject any attention, and hence they +were disqualified from entertaining an opinion. + +Nearly all the objections to public libraries which have been expressed +in this country--and these appear more frequently in private +conversation than in the public prints--may be classed under three +heads: + +1. The universal dread of taxation. Libraries cost money. In every city +and town of the land there is a feeling that the present rate of +taxation is all that the property and business of the place will bear. +This feeling existed before the taxes were one half their present rates. +There is a generous rivalry among our cities and towns in the +maintenance of good schools; and localities which furnish the best +facilities for education are regarded as the most desirable places for +residence. Viewed simply as a matter of public economy, no city can +afford to dispense with its educational system, or to permit it to +degenerate. The public library also should be maintained as the +supplement of the public school, carrying forward the education of the +people from the point where the public school leaves it. + +2. There are certain theoretical objections offered to the establishment +and maintenance of public libraries. One is that the library tax bears +unequally upon the people. Some persons do not care to read books, and +others prefer to pay for their own reading. The same objection is quite +as valid against any system of public education. To lay the burden of +education uniformly upon property, and to tax the owner who has no +children, or, having children, prefers to educate them at private +schools, is another glaring instance of inequality. No taxation for the +maintenance of public health, the introduction of water and gas, the +construction of roads, bridges, and sewers, bears equally upon every +member of the community. If perfect equality in the distribution of +these burdens were a necessity, an organized municipality would be an +impossibility. + +Perhaps the most popular objection to public libraries is the one urged +by the few disciples of Herbert Spencer--that government has no +legitimate function except the protection of person and property, as the +original compact of society is simply for the purpose of protection. All +else is paternal, pertains to the commune, and tends to perpetual +antagonism. The government may support a police, courts of justice, +prisons, penitentiaries, and similar institutions, and can do nothing +else. + +How are the people under this theory to be educated? The reply is +explicit: Unless they will educate themselves, they are not to be +educated. How is the public health to be maintained? It is not to be +maintained by any interference of government. Who is to build bridges +and sewers and lay out public parks? Nobody. Imagine, if it be possible, +a community where such a Utopian theory was carried out. Such a +government fortunately does not, and never did, exist on the face of the +globe. The "general welfare"--which includes protection--is expressly +stated in the preamble of the national constitution to be the purpose of +our government, and the same expression is found in nearly all the state +constitutions. What ever the people desire, and whatever will, in their +judgment, conduce to the general welfare, is a legitimate subject for +governmental action. "The only orthodox object of the institution of +government," says Mr. Jefferson, "is to secure the greatest degree of +happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it." +Herbert Spencer wrote his "Social Statics" before the British Parliament +passed an act for the support of public libraries. Mr. Ewart's bill was +then before Parliament; and Mr. Spencer, in that work, took occasion to +fling a sneer at it. In the preface of his American edition, written in +1864, he states, without remodelling the text, that "the work does not +accurately represent his present opinions." + +3. The third and last class of objections to public libraries to which +I shall direct your attention relates to the kind and quality of books +circulated. These objections, which are usually made by educated and +scholarly persons, are based on an entire misconception of the facts in +the case. The objectors do not divest themselves of the old idea that +libraries are established for the exclusive benefit of scholars; whereas +the purpose of these is to furnish reading for all classes in the +community. On no other principle would a general tax for their support +be justifiable. The masses of a community have very little of literary +and scholarly culture. They need more of this culture, and the purpose +of the library is to develop and increase it. This is done by placing in +their hands such books as they can read with pleasure and appreciate, +and by stimulating them to acquire the _habit_ of reading. We must first +interest the reader before we can educate him; and, to this end, must +commence at his own standard of intelligence. The scholar, in his pride +of intellect, forgets the progressive steps he took in his own mental +development--the stories read to him in the nursery, the boy's book of +adventure in which he revelled with delight, and the sentimental novel +over which he shed tears in his youth. Our objector supposes that the +masses will read books of his standard if they were not supplied with +the books to which he objects; but he is mistaken. Shut up to this +choice, they will read no books. When the habit of reading is once +acquired, the reader's taste, and hence the quality of his reading, +progressively improve. + +The standard histories, technical works of science, and even +Shakespeare's plays and Milton's "Paradise Lost," are sealed books to a +larger portion of every community than are willing to acknowledge the +fact. "When a Boy," said John Quincy Adams, "I attempted ten times to +read Milton's 'Paradise Lost.' I was mortified, even to the shedding of +tears, that I could not conceive what it was that my father and mother +so much admired in that book. I smoked tobacco and read Milton at the +same time, and for the same motive: to find out what was the recondite +charm in them that gave my father so much pleasure. After making myself +sick four or five times with smoking, I mastered that accomplishment; +but I did not master Milton. I was nearly thirty years of age when I +first read 'Paradise Lost' with delight and astonishment." + +If our objectors mourn over the standard of books which are read by the +public, they may be consoled by the fact that, as a rule, people read +books better than themselves, and hence are benefited by reading. A book +of a lower intellectual or moral standard than the reader's is thrown +aside in disgust, to be picked up and read by a person still lower in +the scale of mental and moral development. + +I do not lament, or join in the clamor sometimes raised, over the +statistics of prose fiction circulated at public libraries. Why this +lamentation over one specific form of fiction? The writers of such prose +fiction as is found in our libraries were as eminent and worthy men and +women as the writers of poetical fiction, dramatic fiction, or, I might +add, the fiction which passes in the world as history and biography. +History professes to relate actual events, biography to describe actual +lives, and science to unfold and explain natural laws and physical +phenomena. Fiction treats these and other subjects, mental, moral, +sentimental, and divine, from an ideal or artistic standpoint; and the +great mass of readers prefer to take their knowledge in this form. More +is known to-day of the history and traditions of Scotland, and of the +social customs of London, from the novels of Sir Walter Scott and +Charles Dickens than from all the histories of those localities. Fiction +is the art element in literature, and the most enduring monuments of +genius in the literature of any people are works of the imagination. + +It is said that there is much poor fiction, and the statement is true. +So there are many poor pictures and poor statues, wretched chromos and +more wretched plaster casts. That these productions find purchasers is +evidence that there are persons whose ideal standard of excellence is +even below these feeble efforts, and they are educated thereby. + +But there are novels, we are told, which are immoral and positively +debasing. So there are immoral paintings and indecent plastic objects. +The act of photography, I am told, is debased to the lowest purposes. +Nobody would think of objecting to art because it can be and is +degraded. The librarian who should allow an immoral novel in his library +for circulation would be as culpable as the manager of a picture gallery +who should hang an indecent picture on his walls. + +Young people, again, we are told, read too many novels. So they eat too +much, play too much, go too often to the lake to bathe, remain too long +in the water, and do too much of everything in which they take special +delight. The remedy is not to deprive children of these pleasures, but +that parents and guardians should regulate them. I have never met a +person of much literary culture who would not confess that at some +period in his life, usually in his youth, he had read novels +excessively. His special interest in them suddenly ceased. He found +himself with a confirmed habit of reading, an awakened imagination, a +full vocabulary, and a taste for other and higher classes of literature. +A novel was read occasionally in later life, as recreation in the midst +of professional or technical studies. My observation addressed to this +point, and extending over a library experience of thirty years, has +confirmed me in the belief that there is in the mental development of +every person who later attains to literary culture a limited period when +he craves novel-reading, and perhaps reads novels to excess; but from +which, if the desire be gratified, he passes safely out into broader +fields of study, and this craving never returns to him in its original +form. + +Again, and finally, we are told that the reading of fiction should be +discouraged because it is not _true_. What department of literature is +true? Is it history? Whose history of the United States, for instance, +is the true history? Is it Bancroft's? Mr. Bancroft for forty years has +been changing the plates of his work to an extent that in pages we can +scarcely recognize the original text, and lately he has revised the +whole in the new Centennial edition. The accurate student of specialties +in American history will talk to you by the hour of mis-statements and +errors found in this new issue. Whose history of the reigns of Henry +VIII. and of Queen Elizabeth is the true one? Is it Hume's, Turner's, +Lingard's, or Froude's? "Do not read to me history," said a sick +monarch, "that I know is a lie. Read to me something that is true." Is +biography true? Which of the score of lives of Mary Queen of Scots is +the true biography? Is theology true? Whose is the true body of +divinity? Is science true? Why was it necessary to rewrite all the +science in the eighth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, for the +ninth edition? Homer's Iliad, Dante's Divine Comedy, Shakespeare's +Hamlet and Othello, do not require to be rewritten every ten or twenty +years. The Vicar of Wakefield, Ivanhoe, and Robinson Crusoe have held +and will hold their own from generation to generation without revision, +because they are _ideally true_ pictures of human life and human nature. +Shall we say that in literature and science there is nothing true but +fiction and the pure mathematics? + +In the public libraries which are growing up in our land, fully four +fifths of the money appropriated for books is spent in works adapted to +the wants of scholars. In the larger libraries the proportion is even +greater. It is hardly becoming for scholars, who enjoy the lion's share, +to object to the small proportional expenditure for books adapted to the +wants of the masses who bear the burden of taxation. + +Mr. Edward Edwards, of the Manchester Library, speaking, in 1859, of +novels and romances--which he circulated more freely than is done in any +American library--remarked as follows: "It may be truthfully said that +at no previous period in the history of English literature has prose +fiction been made, in so great a degree as of late years, the vehicle of +the best thoughts of some of the best thinkers. Nor, taking it as a +whole, was it ever before characterized by so much general purity of +tone or loftiness of purpose." + + + + +HOW TO USE A LIBRARY + + The substance of two addresses made at Pittsfield, Mass., + and printed in _The Library Journal_ for February, 1884. Mr. + Hubbard's advice with regard to children's reading was + followed long ago by specialization in work with children. + That with regard to adult fiction remains unheeded. Some + day, possibly we shall have "adults' librarians" and + training for "work with adults." + + James Mascarene Hubbard was born in Boston in 1836. He was + made assistant librarian of the Boston Public Library in + 1884 and also reorganized the Berkshire Athenaeum of + Pittsfield, Mass., in the same year. + + +Among all the pictures of Abraham Lincoln none perhaps are more +interesting than two which represent scenes at the beginning and at the +end of his life. In the first, a lad of thirteen or fourteen, he is +reading by the light of a fire in his father's log hut. In the second, +he is reading the Bible to his sons in a room in the White House. This +Bible, which lies before the President in the latter picture, with a +catechism and a spelling-book, were the only books in that frontier +cabin when he learned to read. Though his father could neither read nor +write, yet he took the greatest interest in getting books for his son, +so that when he was eighteen his library consisted of the Bible, +Pilgrim's Progress, Ĉsop's Fables, Weem's and Ramsay's Lives of +Washington, a Life of Clay, the Autobiography of Franklin, and a copy of +Plutarch. It is note-worthy that the one which influenced him the most +strongly, after the Bible, was the Life of Washington. At the very +crisis of his career, when on his way to the national capital to take +the leading part in crushing out the rebellion, he reverted to those +early days, and recalled the burning thoughts which filled his mind +while reading of the sufferings and sacrifices endured for the sake of +freedom by the great patriot leader and his followers. + +Lincoln's experience was, of course, no solitary one, but it doubtless +had a great effect when it became generally known. It filled many men's +imaginations with pictures of obscure lads with latent powers for noble +deeds in danger of being stunted or wholly destroyed for want of proper +nourishment, and they gave freely and generously that these "village +Hampdens," these hearts "pregnant with sacred fire," might not live +useless and ignoble lives for want of books alone. Hence to-day a large +section of our country is dotted over with libraries, in which the +collective wisdom and experience of the world, as it were, are gathered +for the use especially of the youth of the nation. + +But, as is inevitable with the blessing of abundance, has come its +danger also. Lincoln's naturally great intellectual powers were +strengthened by their being at first exercised upon a few subjects. The +possession of a book being an era in his early life from its rarity, he +read and re-read each one which he got, so as almost to learn it by +heart before he read another. So the vivid impressions received from the +lives of Washington and the other great heroes of history ran no risk of +being dissipated before they could have their full effect upon his mind +and heart. This, however, is our danger in this day of public libraries +and cheap literature, that the mental strength of our youth will be +weakened through the too much reading of a multitude of books. As the +waters of a brook when confined to a narrow channel may have power +enough to set in motion a thousand spindles, but if suffered to spread +over the ground are not able to turn a child's toy wheel, so with the +powers of the mind. When directed to a few objects they may be capable +of the greatest and most beneficent results, but when allowed to exhaust +themselves upon a multitude they are in danger of becoming sterile and +unfruitful. With Lincoln then, and with many a frontier and backwoods +boy now, the question was and is, How shall I get a book? With a greater +number to-day, however, the more important question is, Which book shall +I choose? + +Before attempting to aid any one to answer this question for himself, +let me briefly advert to the fact that there are two kinds of reading +for each of us, and two corresponding uses, therefore, of the +library--the reading for amusement and the reading for profit. In regard +to the former, I can say but a word, as it is a subject by itself. And +that word is, let this reading be the best possible, and do not let it +occupy too much of your spare time. Books read simply for amusement have +on most a greater power to elevate or degrade than any others, and more +care should be taken in selecting them than in the choice of those to be +read for instruction. Read then, and put into the hands of the young the +best fiction, and shun those writers, whatever their power or their +popularity, who reproduce in their books the slang and vulgar speech of +the streets and paint realistic scenes of vice and crime. + +The answer to the question, How or what shall I read? must necessarily +be as varied as the tastes, the talents, and the circumstances of +readers vary. The general aim, however, should be the same in all. We +should read in order to do well whatever we have to do in life. Now this +implies something more than the reading simply to increase one's +knowledge--certainly a worthy aim, but not the highest. The field of +knowledge is so broad and the time for reading so short that we must +necessarily choose those subjects, the knowledge of which will make us +better fitted for our work in life. And the mere seeking for knowledge, +which is the sole end of much reading, does not imply, but may even +prevent the attaining that higher end, the cultivation of our nobler +powers, as the imagination and the sympathies, and the gaining the power +of appreciating what is highest and best in literature and life. For +instance, one may be conscious of a total lack of a love for any great +writer. To him Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, and their peers are +but names. Now it may be that the best use to which such an one can put +a library is to make at least the attempt to understand and enjoy some +great author. It will be no easy task, but one needing and worthy the +hardest study. To take, as an illustration of one method, a lesser poet, +read carefully and thoughtfully Matthew Arnold's introduction to his +edition of the selected poems of Wordsworth. Whenever he refers to a +poem, read it before going farther and re-read it until the thought of +the poet as indicated by the commentator is reasonably clear. Then read +in the same manner what Coleridge, Shairp, F.W. Robertson, or any other +good critic has written upon Wordsworth. And, above all, sometimes read +the poems as nearly as possible in the same circumstances under which +they were written--in the forest, by the brook-side, in the solitudes of +the mountains, or on a bridge in the heart of a great city. If this fail +to awaken an interest in Wordsworth, try some other author in a similar +way, and it is impossible that of all who have stirred men's hearts +through the ages, no one can be found to arouse your sympathies. And +when the right author is at length found, you live on a higher plane +than before. This great poet, philosopher, or dramatist has become your +friend and familiar companion--a gain far greater than the acquirement +of any mere book knowledge. + +The greater part of another person's life may be spent in sordid +surroundings, with companions and in an occupation tending to depress +and degrade the better nature. I can easily conceive that it might be +the highest duty of such an one to remain ignorant of much useful +knowledge in order to quicken the imagination, to enlarge the tastes, +and heighten the enjoyments. So that when the day's work is done, he may +exchange the sordid companions, suggestive only of mean thoughts and low +aims, for intercourse with men of purest and noblest nature--men, too, +it may be, who have lived, thought, and written under circumstances as +depressing as those in which he lives and works. So there may be some +one who regretfully feels that in Nature there is nothing which gives to +him, as to others, the keenest pleasure, refreshing him when wearied, +encouraging him when downcast. Who sees nothing in the skies save signs +of the coming storm, nothing in the trees or flowers, the rivers or the +hills, save something relating to his material comfort or discomfort. +The best use to which this man could put a library and his reading hours +might be to study the works of the great interpreters of nature, as +White of Selborne, Ruskin, or Emerson. And if they should open his eyes +so that he can look "through Nature up to Nature's God," his gain is +immeasurable. + +Now, in neither of these instances is the increase of knowledge the aim +set before the reader, but the development of some dwarfed faculty whose +growth is necessary to the leading of a noble life. But where the +increase of knowledge is the direct end sought, the value of the +knowledge in itself must not be that alone which decides one in the +choice of books, or incites him to reading, but the use to which it can +and ought to be put. An employer of labor, for instance, one who is +immediately responsible for the welfare of a large number of workmen, +cannot, with any true conception of his duty as a master, devote his +time for reading to acquiring a knowledge of history, science, or +literature, if he know nothing of the principles underlying the +relations of capital to labor, if he is ignorant of the dangers, the +temptations, the needs and rights of his workpeople. However +well-informed on other subjects, he has read to far less advantage than +if his books had been chosen with a direct purpose to fit him to do his +duty as a master. So many a parent ought, for a time at least, to read +with a view wholly to prepare himself for the wise moral and mental +training of his children. And on the other hand a man should read the +history of his country, not merely that he may not blush from conscious +ignorance of it, but that, knowing what his heritage of freedom cost to +obtain, he may also come to the conviction that it is not his to enjoy +simply, but it is a sacred trust to be accounted for, however humble his +position. It could not be more humble than Lincoln's, and yet none can +doubt that to the spirit in which he read American history was largely +due his future fitness for the great work which God gave him to do. + +To what highest and most profitable use can I put my reading? is the +question then which each one should ask himself, and according as the +answer is, so should the choice be made. It may be that one will read +that he may understand better his duties and privileges as a citizen; +another, that he may be a just master, or an intelligent and faithful +workman; still another, that she may be a wise parent; while a fourth +may have the strong conviction that everything else should be laid aside +for the study of one of the masterpieces of the world's literature, that +he may develop his higher faculties and become a man thinking lofty +thoughts and capable of noble deeds. + +But there is a very large class of readers, especially of a public +library, to whom what I have just said will be of but little use. And as +it is upon them that the choice of books has the greatest influence for +good or evil, it is to speak of their interests that I turn with the +deepest solicitude. This class may be subdivided into two classes--the +children of intelligent parents who are capable of directing their +reading, and those children who have none to guide them in their choice. +As regards the former, one of the greatest dangers of the public +library, in my opinion, is that many parents throw off all +responsibility as to the books their children read upon those who have +charge of the library. A generation ago, all the books, as a rule, which +the young read were bought especially for them by their parents or +friends, with more or less care in the selection. Of course under these +circumstances they had a general knowledge of what their children read. +Now a great many parents neither know, nor do they apparently seem to +care to know, what books fall into their children's hands, so long as +they are from the public library, which is supposed to be a guarantee +for their fitness for young readers. Without entering here upon the +important question as to what books should or should not be put in a +public library, it is enough to say that no intelligent parent, with a +right idea of his duty toward his children, can properly lay this +responsibility upon persons, however carefully chosen or however +faithful in the discharge of their duties. The capacity of children for +receiving good or bad impressions from books differs, as their features +and forms vary. The same story might prove harmless to one boy and give +a moral twist to another's mind from which he might never recover. One +girl might receive from a book a hundred evil suggestions, hopelessly +depraving her imagination, while upon another it might not leave a +single evil trace. Now, it is not possible for the most scrupulous +librarian to discriminate between these two, and refuse the book to the +one and freely give it to the other. And therefore no library with a +large and miscellaneous collection of stories and novels can be safe for +children freely to use except under the careful supervision of their +parents. The only safeguard of which I know is for parents to read much +with their children, to interest themselves in their books, and to talk +with them about them. Those stories, for instance, against which there +has been such an outcry of late years, would have but small power to +hurt that boy to whom a father had taken the pains to point out the +absurdities, the unrealities, the false ideas and aims of which they are +accused. + +But in our cities and large towns there can be no doubt that the +greater number of the younger readers of a public library belong to the +second of the two classes referred to--those who have none to guide them +in the choice of their books. The most of these come, of course, simply +for amusement, without a thought of any better use of the library. But a +few come with other and higher aims. Some, with no specially strong +tastes or more than ordinary capacities, merely wish to read that which +will cultivate their minds and increase their knowledge, or will be +profitable to them in their work. A very few there are, however, in +every large town, with intellects of no mean order and strong ambitions, +who turn to the library instinctively for that which will satisfy the +cravings of their intellects and the promptings of their ambitions. A +youth with the instincts of a Lincoln or a Webster comes to read the +history of his country. Another, with the latent powers of a Nasmyth, a +Stevenson, or an Arkwright, wants the books which will give full play to +his inventive faculties. Another finds a strange and irresistible +attraction in natural phenomena, in the habits of plants and animals, in +the formation of the rocks and the hills, in the aspects of the skies +and the movements of the stars. Now, it will depend very much upon the +first choice of their books, and the subsequent direction of their +reading, whether they will become men useful to the communities in which +they live and add substantial material to the sum of human knowledge, as +statesmen, inventors, naturalists, or astronomers. The danger is that, +for lack of proper guidance and restraint, they will dissipate their +mental energies and lose sight of all high aims by too much and too +vague reading. If the public library is to be in fact, what it is in +theory, an educating power second only to the church and the school, and +supplementing the work of both, there must be some method devised by +which such readers as these may be helped to choose the right books. +Without such aid, given continually and systematically, the library +fails in the principal end for which it was founded--the elevation and +instruction of the people. We might as well turn our children into a +school-house, fully furnished with books and apparatus, but with only a +janitor to see that no injury is done to them, and expect the children +to make a wise use of their opportunities, to take up and pursue the +proper studies without the aid of a master, as to give children the free +range of a great library and expect them undirected to make a wise use +of its advantages as a means of education. It is, therefore, in my +opinion, a most pernicious error to encourage young people, of the lower +classes especially, to come to a library, and to give them poor stories +in the mistaken belief that, the taste for reading being developed, they +will naturally and surely rise from these to better books. Such a belief +is contrary to all our experience of human nature. With careful guidance +and restraint a boy may be brought from the Dime novel to read Scott and +Macaulay. But without this restraint and guidance, where one will rise, +a hundred, a thousand rather, will remain at the level from which they +started, or more naturally sink to still lower depths. + +The question is, Can anything be done to help the young who throng our +public libraries to read well and wisely? Shall these boys and girls, +with their unknown powers both for good and evil, be left to grope +helplessly amid these treasures of wisdom and knowledge which our +libraries contain, or shall the attempt at least be made to give them a +kindly and intelligent guidance? This work, of such incalculable +importance, I hasten to say, is already well done to a certain extent by +a few librarians in the country. But it is a work which requires time, +patience, tact, an insight into character, and a very varied and +extensive knowledge. It is evident that the librarians who combine these +requisites are few in number. It is a work which cannot be done by them +as a class. Nor can it be done by the ordinary catalogues, however +skilfully prepared. For it is evident that there needs to be some +personal knowledge of each reader's capacities in order to help him +intelligently and profitably. Nor is it something which the +school-teachers, willing though many of them are, can do, except in a +limited degree, as many of those who need help are not school-children. +There are, however, a few persons in every town fitted by their +education and their circumstances in life for this work, and it is to +them we must finally appeal. + +The most practical plan, presenting on the whole the fewest +difficulties, seems to be the following: Let those persons who are +willing to make the attempt to give this instruction in reading choose +each a subject, as general History, the History of the United States, +Science, Travels, Biography, Fiction, or Children's stories, and see +what their public library contains on these subjects. In due time notice +could be given that all persons wishing help in the choice of books in +any of these subjects could be aided by applying to the librarian. He +would refer the inquirer to that person who has chosen this subject, who +will naturally endeavor to find out something of the character, +circumstances, and abilities of the applicant before selecting the books +best fitted in his or her opinion for him to read. No doubt, at first, +there would be few to apply, and mistakes would be made from lack of +experience. But, if only one reader was substantially aided, if only one +bright youth was rescued from the danger of dissipating his energies by +aimless or depraving reading, all the labor would be amply rewarded, to +say nothing of the benefit which the guide himself, in preparing for his +work, would receive. I do not believe, however, that the applicants for +guidance would be few, when it was known among the work-people of our +mills, our shops and stores, among the poor, that every one coming to +the library asking for aid would find some one ready, as it were, to +take him by the hand, and lead him from book to book, so long as he +needed help. I am confident that it would be an invaluable service if +some one or two persons should take the pains to become acquainted with +the character of the books for the children and the novels contained in +a library. There are many parents who feel instinctively the truth of +the words of F.W. Robertson, that "a man's character and mind are +moulded for good or evil far more by the forms of imagination which +surround his childhood than by any subsequent scientific training." Many +an anxious but ignorant parent who sees in her boys and girls a craving +for books, at which she rejoices with trembling, would turn with +heart-felt gratitude--I speak with the fullest confidence, because I +speak from experience--to one who would give them advice as to the books +which their children might safely read and those which they should shun. + +It is only by some such means as this that the public library can be +made a real educating power for the masses. In far too many places, now, +it is simply a place where children can get story-books at the public +expense. This cannot long continue, and I believe that the greater part +of the libraries which continue to do this work without an effort to +fulfil their higher mission, will surely and inevitably die, as the +District School and Agricultural libraries died fifty years ago. The +responsibility rests with the people of each place where there is a +public library, as to which of two ends shall be reached. It may be +merely a means for furnishing amusement for an hour, or it may be a +central beacon from whence the rays of light shall stream into every +house. + + + + +ADAPTATION OF LIBRARIES TO CONSTITUENCIES + + Prepared by Samuel S. Green, then librarian of the + Worcester, Mass. Public Library and a member of the State + Library Commission, for the World's Library Congress held at + the Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893) and printed in the + government report thereon. The "adaptation" favored by Mr. + Green consists in weeding out unfitting books. Melvil Dewey, + as editor of this volume of papers, tells us in a foot-note + that in the discussion of Mr. Green's paper, this process + was not generally approved except as the first step in a + transfer to other libraries. President Eliot's suggestion of + reservoir libraries for storage is a later stage, in the + same line of thought. A sketch of Mr. Green appears in Vol. + I. of this series. + + NOTE.--With this paper should be read those pages of the + Chicago discussions in which it was pointed out by leading + librarians that to weed out safely would require much costly + expert service; that the most hurtful criticism would be + attacks after inevitable cases where some one would greatly + wish a book that had been withdrawn as useless; that the + printed catalogs already circulated would be made + untrustworthy by parting with any volume included; that what + one wise and learned man would throw out as trash, another + equally wise and learned would consider specially valuable + because of differing personal equations. In short, that + however excellent in theory, it was perhaps the most + difficult thing in librarianship to put successfully in + practice. + + While few favored "weeding out" simply to gain room by + getting rid of books little wanted, many believe in + transferring to other libraries which have a distinctly + greater need of them.--M.D. + +A resident of a Massachusetts town to which the Commonwealth was about +to give $100 worth of books came to secure my influence as a member of +the State free public library commission to have a large part of the +$100 spent for rare and expensive books on Massachusetts history. As a +large and valuable library made up principally of books of that class +was soon to be given to another small town in the same county, it would +have been manifestly unwise to grant this request. It seems unwise also +to place a students' library in a small town where there are few who +will use it. It would be better to give the library to a flourishing +institution at a county seat, on condition that it shall be open for +free consultation by all residents of the county, and that, under proper +rules, books may be lent from it to inhabitants of smaller towns for use +at home. + +In this way the library would be so placed that most persons wishing to +make investigations would have the books near home, and the +comparatively few investigators in the smaller towns, such as the man in +the town first mentioned, would also have their interests provided for. + +The trustees of the Thomas Crane Public Library at Quincy, Mass., have +concluded, utilizing the experience of many years, that a working +library of 15,000 volumes is sufficient to supply the general wants of +the 20,000 residents of the city. It is proposed not to let the library +grow beyond 20,000 volumes while the wants of the city remain what they +are, and when it exceeds that number of volumes to cut it down by taking +out books that never have been needed in a popular library like that in +Quincy or that have become useless. It having become evident that an +addition would presently have to be made to the building if the recent +rate of increase should continue, it seemed best to the trustees to +begin at once to reduce the size of the library. They proceeded, under +the able leadership of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, to remove from the +library large numbers of Government documents, unnecessary duplicates, +books of an outgrown ephemeral interest, and those unsuited to the +locality. Twenty-one hundred and forty-five volumes were removed +immediately. The Quincy library, by adopting this course, relieves +itself from very considerable prospective expenses and secures money to +use in increasing its usefulness. + +Part of the plan is to keep the printed catalogs of the small library up +to date and to scatter copies of them widely throughout the city by +selling them at a nominal price. It is always expensive to prepare and +print a good catalog; it is very expensive to issue new editions +frequently. Still, if a popular library is to do its work well it must +introduce its constituents to its books by means of frequent revised +editions of a good, printed catalog. + +The Thomas Crane Library has been famous for the excellence of its +annotated catalog and for lists of books on special subjects for the use +of school children. It proposes in future to use more money than in the +past in making, printing, and keeping up to date good catalogs, and, in +order to make it practicable to do so, to keep down the number of +volumes in the library, thus reducing the expenses of cataloging, and +also to save money in housing its books. That is to say, it is acting on +the well-established principle that a small library well cataloged, if +at all adapted in the number of its volumes to the size of a town, is of +incalculably greater advantage to its constituency than one many times +larger but poorly equipped with catalogs. + +It is a distinctive feature of the Quincy plan not to make the library a +special reference library. That city is very near Boston and Cambridge, +which it is well known are richly supplied with large general and +numerous special libraries. + +When a man appears in Quincy who wishes to make a minute inquiry on some +special subject, it is proposed to refer him to the great libraries in +the neighboring cities, and to confine the efforts of the trustees of +the Quincy library to supplying the general wants of its constituency. +Here, then, is a bold attempt at adapting a library to its constituency. +Shall it be seconded? + +Many will hold it unwise to discuss such a subject publicly. Remembering +many ill-judged efforts at economy by ignorant, uneducated, or +parsimonious men in town meetings and on library boards, they will +pronounce it hurtful to libraries to point out to such men that some +library experts consider it well to keep down expenses for cataloging +and housing books by weeding out libraries. Perhaps they are right. +Whether they are so or not, however, their objection is too late. The +matter now under consideration is undergoing public discussion, and it +is important that men having special knowledge of library matters should +contribute now the results of their experience. Unreasonable men in town +meetings and in boards of trustees must be answered, and reasonable men +and women need to understand thoroughly the subject in order that their +answers may be discriminating and wise. + +Once, when the Librarian of Congress asked that an addition be made to +the library rooms, a member is said to have urged that instead of +enlarging the Capitol, the library should be weeded out. Such a plan +would be regarded generally as exceedingly foolish. + +There must be in many parts of this broad land large and growing +libraries which will aim to gather very large general and special +collections not limited to books of intrinsic merit. Such libraries will +have to get many books of little value in themselves to enable students +to study subjects historically. It would indeed be very silly to weed +out the Congressional Library. Somewhere there should be accessible (and +where better than in that library?) every book, pamphlet, and map +published in the United States. The Congressional Library should be a +great national library like the Bibliothèque Nationale and the British +Museum. + +The Quincy plan would not work well even in a place the size of +Worcester, Mass., with a population of only 90,000 or 95,000, and but 44 +miles from Boston, for it is a center of important educational +institutions and of inquirers, and therefore needs large reference +libraries. Cambridge, though very much nearer Boston than Quincy, +becomes, because of Harvard University, a center where there must be a +large library. It is too great an inconvenience for Harvard professors +and students to rely, except for book rarities, on libraries even so +near as those in Boston. + +On the other hand, consider the John Adams Library at Quincy. It was +collected by President John Adams in Europe and America, and undoubtedly +contains many valuable books. But is it in place in Quincy? It was +formerly kept in the Adams Academy, but not proving useful there, it was +transferred to the Thomas Crane Public Library, where it now is. Mr. +Charles Francis Adams recently said that he only knew of this John Adams +Library having been consulted once in forty years, and that then he was +himself the consulter. It is more convenient for Mr. Adams to make his +many researches in the great libraries in Boston and Cambridge than in +Quincy, and his opinion is that this library should be given to the +Boston Public Library, where it would be of great value in supplementing +the collections, and would be readily accessible to the class of +students who would use it. Perhaps, however, Quincy would be unwilling +to give up this library, which marks its connection with a very +distinguished man. While it is a distinctive feature of the Quincy plan +not to make the public library a special reference library, its success +depends on having large reference libraries near at hand. In one respect +it encourages making the library a special library, namely, on local +interests and history. As to the saving in expense possible under the +Quincy plan, while money is saved which would ordinarily be used in +housing books and in other ways, increased expenditure, it should be +remembered, is contemplated in frequent issues of improved catalogs. As +I shall soon show, the plan, if well carried out, requires other +expenditures. + +There are many small libraries which do not need weeding. If a library +needs weeding, as many undoubtedly do, will it be weeded out wisely? + +Broad-minded intelligence is needful for this kind of work, as well as +education and experience in library work. An expert is as much needed in +this work of weeding out as in selecting books for a library at its +start. Great harm might result from injudicious discarding. + +Another objection likely to be made to the Quincy plan is that it would +often be difficult to decide how large a library is needed in a town or +city, and that this difficulty would be magnified in a growing town. +Still, if a thing is desirable it should be done in spite of +difficulties. Foresight must be exercised and generous provision made +for the probable growth of towns, and the number of volumes changed as +changes in the size of population or other considerations demand. +Supposing a mistake has been made, the weeding has been made with the +accessibility in view of large and special libraries in towns and cities +near by. Those towns and cities will still remain near to the town which +has grown unexpectedly large; their libraries will still be accessible +for reference. The difference between the old state of things and the +new is likely to be that the books will be used more under changed +circumstances than formerly. + +But how provide under the Quincy plan for students who can not afford +time and money to frequent the large libraries even in towns or cities +near by; and supposing this number of special inquirers becomes +considerable, can you hope that they will receive a cordial welcome and +sympathetic assistance in large neighboring libraries? Dangers here +hinted at must be guarded against. Librarians and trustees should be on +the lookout for inquirers and help them to get at the books needed. + +It is proposed to help them by preparing and issuing often improved +printed catalogs. Personal assistance would also evidently be needed +under the new plan. In some cases it would be necessary to buy books. In +others the investigator might be introduced to the officers of the +library, or by some influential person to the officers of a large +neighboring library with reference to his being allowed to borrow if he +could not use books on the premises. The same thing might perhaps be +better accomplished by a loan from the large to the small library. The +small library might have to pay for this privilege. It might be +desirable, if an investigator had leisure but not money, for the small +library to pay his car fare to the town where the library to be +consulted is situated. + +Large libraries as now constituted are very obliging, and continually +extend courtesies to smaller institutions. The people of Worcester, for +example, every week, and sometimes oftener, have books borrowed for +their use from the Surgeon-General's library, Washington, from Harvard, +the Boston Athenĉum, Columbia, Yale, and other libraries. Many +institutions are already extending gratuitously such privileges. + +Supposing it were to become the custom of small libraries to send books +and pamphlets which they can get, but do not need, to large neighboring +libraries where they would be useful. Such action would lead to an +exchange of various civilities. Then, too, as the desirability of having +large libraries help smaller ones by loans of books becomes more and +more obvious, will not persons of means give money to the former to +enable them to do this kind of work for small towns generally or for +particular towns in which they may be specially interested? + +Mr. Adams's advice to libraries is, not to accumulate books +promiscuously, but to practice a systematic differentiation in +collecting. Books which cumber the shelves of one library may be of the +greatest value in another. The public documents only of its own town and +State, and a few of the national documents relating to matters of +general interest, are in place in the library of a small town. But all +public documents have come to be of the greatest service in large +libraries and in libraries connected with important educational +institutions. Even those which seem driest, because exclusively of +statistics, are much in demand in colleges where students of history and +political economy are required to examine original sources. + +Mr. Charles A. Cutter said several years ago, regarding the proper +disposition of pamphlets, that local pamphlets should be given to local +libraries, professional or scientific pamphlets to special libraries, +miscellaneous and all sorts of pamphlets to larger general libraries. +This is excellent advice. + +Even large general libraries practice differentiation, many of them +excluding professional books and leaving special libraries in their +neighborhood to accumulate them. A State library may properly make a +specialty of public documents, and perhaps law books, and pay little +attention to accumulating other books. A general subscription library +with a constituency mainly of people of leisure may find it more useful +to collect books in belles-lettres, biography, history, travel, etc., +than to buy many dealing with industrial subjects. But a public library +in a great manufacturing town, or a special library for architects and +engineers, must specialize on technical books. + +It is not proposed to destroy books taken out of libraries where they +are not needed, but to place them within reach of those most needing +them, either through other libraries or auction rooms or secondhand +bookstores. No countenance would be given to such a proceeding as that +of the administrators of the estate of the well-known collector of old +books, Mr. T.O.P.H. Burnham, who are said to have sent a ton or more of +material from his stock to the paper mill.[5] + +The people of Worcester act more wisely. They empty their attics into +the rooms of the American Antiquarian Society or those of the local +Society of Antiquity. Housekeepers there, too, dispose similarly of such +books as turn up in spring cleaning and are found to be in the way. An +extensive system of exchange is in operation under the auspices of the +former society, and books and pamphlets sent to the rooms of either +society, find their way to persons and libraries where they are needed, +and the two antiquarian societies enrich their collections by the +exchanges made. + +[5] It is conceivable that after a lifetime of buying whole attics of +rejected books and preserving those which no one would buy at any +price, out of an immense stock there might be a ton of duplicate +schoolbooks, incomplete volumes, and other books and pamphlets which +could not even be given away to any library; since the large libraries +would have copies and the smaller ones would not esteem them worth +shelf room.--M.D. + +Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson recently stated that a trustee of the +Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, told him that he spent a considerable part +of his time in refusing gifts offered to the museum. This trustee is +probably wise in declining gifts. There are many books and pamphlets +offered to libraries which they would not find useful. These should be +accepted only on condition that they may be placed wherever they will be +most valuable. + +Differentiation is specially desirable in the smallest libraries. When +but little money is available for buying books the small amount should +be spent with closest regard to actual needs of the constituency. Not +infrequently intelligent entertainment and elementary instruction will +be the principles that should guide in selecting books for small +libraries. With intelligent cooperation several small neighboring towns +might adopt to advantage the suggestion that each of them spend a few +dollars a year on a specialty, such as botany, geology, zoology; every +town taking a different specialty and all lending to one another. + +This paper favors in the main the selection of books with special +reference to the actual existing needs of the users of the library. Such +an institution as the flourishing public library of Providence, R.I., +might properly, if allowable for any library in cities of moderate size, +add to its general work some specialty of limited interest. Mr. Foster, +its librarian, has recently stated, however, that he thinks that +notwithstanding the reputation which the famous Harris collection of +poetry gives to the library throughout the country, it is the best for +that library to devote itself almost exclusively to supplying the +general needs of Providence. + +In conclusion, it may be stated that Mr. Adams does not claim that the +plan of weeding out libraries adopted at Quincy has never been thought +of before. He was not indebted to any book for the idea, but it had +occurred to other persons before. Action upon it had always been +recommended. Mr. Adams has taken the bull by the horns. He has put the +plan in execution and to a considerable extent has systematized it. He +has also called attention to it and made it a living subject for +discussion. + + + + +RELATION OF FREE PUBLIC LIBRARIES TO THE COMMUNITY + + Presentations of Library questions to the general reading + public from authoritative sources are exceptionally hard to + find, even at the present day. The one reprinted below was + contributed to _The North American Review_ for June, 1898, + by Herbert Putnam, then librarian of the Boston Public + Library. + + Herbert Putnam was born in New York, Sept. 20, 1861, the + youngest son of the founder of the publishing house. He + graduated at Harvard in 1883 and studied law. He served as + librarian in Minneapolis, first of the Atheneum and then of + the Public Library in 1884-91, meanwhile being admitted to + the bar in 1886. He practised law in Boston in 1892-95, but + in the latter year became librarian of the Boston Public + Library, serving until appointed in 1899 Librarian of + Congress. His administration has been marked by the + development of this institution along the line of service of + a national library. During the great war he was Director of + Library War Service. + + +Free libraries have existed for less than a half a century. Their +establishment assumed that books are beneficial: but it involved also +the assertion that it is the proper function of government to supply +books to such of its citizens as may require them at the expense of the +community as a whole. + +Libraries of this special type do not yet form the major portion of the +institutions supplying books on a large scale to groups of persons. +Under the head of "Public, Society and School Libraries," these +institutions in the United States aggregate 8,000 in number, with +35,000,000 volumes, with $34,000,000 invested in buildings, with +$17,000,000 of endowments, and with over $6,000,000 of annual income. Of +these the free public libraries supported by general taxation number +less than 2,000, with 10,000,00 volumes, and with less than $3,500,000 +of annual income. They are, however, increasing with disproportionate +and amazing rapidity. In Massachusetts, but 10 of the 353 cities and +towns, but three-fourths of one per cent. of the inhabitants now lack +them. One hundred and ten library buildings there have been the gift of +individuals. No form of private memorial is now more popular; no form of +municipal expenditure meets with readier assent. Nor are the initiative +and the expenditure left wholly to local enterprises. The Commonwealth +itself takes part: extending, through a State Commission, State aid in +the form of books and continuing counsel. And Massachusetts is but one +of eight States maintaining such commissions. New York State, in its +system of traveling libraries, has gone further still in supplementing +initial aid with a continuing supply of books, and even photographs and +lantern slides, purchased by the State and distributed through the +Regents of the State University from Albany to the remotest hamlet. + +The first stage of all such legislation is an enabling act--authorizing +the establishment of a library by the local authorities; the next is an +act encouraging such establishment by bounties; and New Hampshire has +reached a third by a law actually mandatory, requiring the local +authorities to establish free libraries in proportion to their means and +the population to be served. This seems to mark the high-water mark of +confidence in the utility of these institutions. It indicates that free +public libraries are to be ranked with the common schools, as +institutions indispensable to good citizenship, whose establishment the +State for its own protection must require. + +So the movement has progressed, until now these 2,000 public +libraries combined are sending out each year over 30 million books, to +do their work for good or ill in the homes of the United States. The +entire 2,000 result from one conviction and a uniform purpose. Yet +among them there is every variety in scope and in organization. There +is the hamlet library of a hundred volumes, open for a couple of hours +each week in some farm house, under a volunteer custodian, maintained +by the town, but enlisting private contribution through bazaars and +sociables--sending out its books by the local provision dealer to its +remote and scattered constituents. There is the library of the great +city, with elaborate equipment and complex organization to meet a vast +and complex need. Such a library as you may find at Chicago; a city +which, though it has two great endowed reference libraries, still +considers its million and a half people entitled to a municipal +library, with a two million dollar building, studded with costly +mosaics, and aided by forty branches and stations in bringing the +books nearer each home. Or such a library as exists at Boston; +organized as a City Department, under Trustees appointed by the Mayor, +maintained, like the schools, or the police, or the fire department, +by general taxation; with a central building which has cost the city +two and one-half million dollars, with ten branch libraries and +seventeen delivery stations scattered through the city and reached +daily by its delivery wagons; with 700,000 books; and accommodations +for over 2,000 readers at one time; including in its equipment such +special departments as a bindery and a printing office; requiring for +its administration over 250 employes, and for its maintenance each +year a quarter of a million dollars, in addition to the proceeds of +endowments; and representing in its buildings, books and equipment an +investment of over five millions of dollars, the interest on which, at +four per cent., to the expenditure for maintenance, is equivalent to +an annual burden of $450,000 for its creation and support. + +When this function was first proposed for a municipality, the argument +used was that in this country books had come to be the principal +instruments of education; that the community was already supporting a +public school system; that this system brought a youth to the threshold +of education and there left him; that it qualified him to use books, but +did nothing to put books within his reach; and finally that it was of +"paramount importance that the means of general information should be so +diffused that the largest possible number of persons should be induced +to read and understand questions going down to the very foundation of +social order, which are constantly presenting themselves, and which we, +as a people, are constantly required to decide, and do decide, either +ignorantly or wisely." + +A glance at the libraries now in operation in the United States shows +that the ends proposed for them fall far short of the service which they +actually perform. They begin with the child before he leaves school; +while he is still in his elementary studies they furnish to him books +which stir his imagination, and bring the teaching of the text books +into relation with the art and with life. They thus help to render more +vivid the formal studies pursued; but they also prepare the child to +become an intelligent constituent hereafter. This work cannot begin too +early, for four-fifths of the children pass out into active life without +reaching the high schools. It need not be deferred, for now the number +is almost countless of books that touch with imagination and charm of +style even the most elementary subjects; and the library can add +illustrations which through the eye convey an impression of the largest +subjects in the most elemental way. + +If the library begins with the citizen earlier than was foreseen, it is +prepared to accompany him further than was thought necessary. It +responds not only to the needs of the general reader, but also to those +of the student and even, to the extent of its means, to those of the +scholar engaged in special research. The maintenance of universities at +the common expense is familiar in the West; it is less so in the East. +And there is still contention that institutions for highly specialized +instruction should not be charged upon the community as a whole. But no +one has questioned the propriety of charging upon the community the +support of a library whose leading purpose may be the encouragement of +the higher scholarship. + +Finally, to the services just above described the public library has +added another: the supply of books for proposes purely recreative. This +service, if anticipated, was certainly not explicitly argued for; nor +was it implied in Edward Everett's prediction that the public library +would prove the "intellectual common" of the community. The common that +Mr. Everett had in mind was a pasturage, not a baseball ground, or +lover's walk, or a loafing place for tramps. + +But as regards certain of the books customarily supplied, the ordinary +public library of to-day is furnishing recreation rather than +instruction. In fact, if we look at the history of free public libraries +in this country, we find that the one point of practice on which they +have been criticised is the supply of merely recreative literature. The +protest has come from thoughtful persons, and it means something, +lightly as it has been waved aside. + +The excuse that used to be given for the supply of inferior books was +that they would entice to the use of the better books. There was to be +reached a mass of persons of inferior taste and imperfect education. +These persons must be introduced gradually to an acquaintance with the +better class of reading through the medium of the familiar. And, at all +events, it was better that they should read something than not read at +all. + +I am not quite so confident of the regenerating virtue of mere printed +matter as such; and I am confident that the reading of a book inferior +in style and taste debases taste, and that the book which sets forth, +even with power, a false view of society does harm to the reader, and is +so far an injury to the community of which he is part. But even granting +the premises, the conclusion is doubtful. We do not deliberately furnish +poor art at public expense because there is a portion of the public +which cannot appreciate the better. Nor when the best is offered, +without apology, does the uncultured public in fact complain that it is +too "advanced." Thousands of "ordinary" people come to see and enjoy the +Abbey and Chavannes and Sargent decorations in the Boston Public +Library. No one has yet complained that the paintings are too advanced +for him. The best of art is not too good for the least of men, provided +he can be influenced at all. Nor are the best of books too good for him, +provided he can be influenced, and provided they are permitted, as are +the pictures to make their appeal directly. They must not be secluded +behind catalogs and formal paraphernalia. The practice which admitted +the scholar to the shelves, and limited the general reader to the +catalogues, gave the best opportunity to him who least needed it. The +modern practice sets before the reader least familiar with good _titles_ +a selection of good _books_. It places them on open shelves where he can +handle them without formality. The result is almost invariably, that he +is attracted to a book in advance of his previous tastes. Perhaps a +chance paragraph appeals to some experience or ambition, or an +illustration stirs his imagination. The books themselves draw him +outside of his previous limitations. + +In the place, therefore, of books inferior in quality, the more modern +public library seeks to attract by the freest possible access to books +of the best quality. Not that this practice is universal. But the +opinion and tendency are in this safe direction. + +However, quality assumed, the general question as to the reading of +recreative literature remains. What shall we say of the fact that sixty +per cent. of the circulation of the free public libraries still consists +of fiction? + +In the first place, that this percentage takes no account of reference +use, which is almost wholly of serious literature; second, that as to +home use the ratio in circulation of fiction to serious literature does +not represent a similar ratio of trivial to serious service. Fiction is +the small coin of literature. It must circulate more rapidly to +represent the same volume of real business done. A volume of fiction may +be issued, returned and reissued three times while a biography or +history or work of science is issued once. It will then count +seventy-five per cent. in the circulation. But the serious book has +during the entire period been out in the hands of the reader; and the +service which it has performed--the period of attention which it has +occupied--equals that of the novel in its three issues. And, finally, +there is to be considered the influence of the best fiction toward +general culture (if the library is not merely to inform but also to +cultivate)--in broadening the sympathies, giving a larger tolerance, a +kindlier humanity, a more intelligent helpfulness; in affording the rest +that is in itself an equipment for work, and the distraction that may +save from impulse to evil. + +However, the amount of fiction circulated in proportion to the total +work of the library is on the average steadily decreasing. At the same +time the quality is improving; in part through critical selection, in +part as a happy result of the fact that the inferior novels are also, as +a rule, inferior books, so poorly manufactured that libraries cannot +afford to buy them. + +But there is standard fiction and current fiction; and it is the current +fiction that constitutes by itself a special problem still perplexing. +It is a problem that concerns not the uneducated child, nor the +illiterate adult; it is caused by the people of intelligent education +who are avid to read the latest novel by Mr. X. or Mrs. Y. while it is +still the latest novel by Mr. X. or Mrs. Y. It is being talked about at +dinner or afternoon tea. Well-informed people are reading it; to read it +is a social necessity. + +The reason that presses the public library to supply promptly every +most recent book in the domain of scientific literature is apparent +enough. Such literature contributes facts which are the data for action. +But novels in general belong to the literature of power. Their purpose +is not to furnish information but to give pleasure. Literature of this +sort adds no new fact, nor is it superseded, nor does it lose any of its +value by lapse of time. To assume that it does would be to assume that +beauty of form could become obsolete. This is not so in painting, in +sculpture, in architecture; why should it be so in prose fiction, in +poetry, in the drama? Was there, in fact, an aesthetic value in the +Canterbury Tales in 1380, in Hamlet in 1602, in Ivanhoe in 1819, that is +not to be found in them in 1898? + +But a large portion of latter day fiction is fiction with a purpose; +another way of saying that it is a work of art composed for the +dissemination of doctrine. This element promotes it at once to the +dignity of a treatise; a new view of politics, a new criticism of social +conditions, a new creed! Here is something that concerns the student of +sociology. And surely his needs are worthy of prompt response. + +In fact, his needs and the general curiosity do get prompt response, and +the new novels are freely bought. How freely I have recently sought to +ascertain. I asked of some seventy libraries their yearly expenditure +for current fiction in proportion to their total expenditure for books. +The returns show an average of from ten to fifteen per cent. In one case +the amount reached fifty per cent., in others it fell as low as two per +cent. The ratio for fiction in general is much higher on the average; +but fiction in general includes Scott and Thackeray and other standards, +an ample supply of which would not usually be questioned. At Providence +and Worcester, two of the most active and popular of public libraries, +the purchases of fiction, current and standard, formed last year but +seven and eleven per cent., respectively, of the entire expenditure for +books. + +At Boston there were selected but 178 titles of current fiction (out of +nearly 600 read and considered). But some dozen copies were bought of +each title, so that the entire purchases reached 2,300 volumes and cost +about $2,300. This was about six and a half per cent. on a total +expenditure for books of $34,000. At St. Louis the practise is to buy +but two copies out of the general funds to be circulated free. Nearly a +hundred more are added which are rented out and thus pay for themselves. + +The statistics do not seem to show that the initial expenditure for +current fiction is very alarming. But the purchase price of these books +is but a fraction of the expense of handling them. They cannot be +supplied in adequate quantities; for while the frenzy of curiosity +persists, an adequate supply is beyond the resources of any library. But +since the attempt to supply is futile the pretense is injurious. The +presence of the titles in the catalogues misleads the reader into a +multitude of applications which are a heavy expense to the library +without benefit to him. And the acquisition of the single book means to +the library the expense of handling a hundred applications for it which +are futile to one that can be honored. In this sense a current novel +involves perhaps a hundred times the expense of any other book in being +supplied to but the same number of readers. + +The British museum acquires the new novels as published; but it +withholds them from the readers until five years after their date of +publication. It is my personal belief that a one year limitation of this +sort adopted by our free libraries generally would relieve them of +anxiety and expense and their readers of inconvenience and delusion. + +But as regards current light literature in general it is worth while to +consider whether the responsibility of public libraries has not been +modified by the growth and diffusion of the newspaper and periodical +press. In 1850, when the free public library was started, the number of +newspapers and periodicals published in the United States was about +2,500; now it is nearly 20,000. The total annual issues have increased +from 400 million to over 4-1/2 billion copies. + +The ordinary daily of 1850 contained perhaps a single column of literary +matter. To-day it contains, for the same price, seven columns. In 1850 +it gave no space to fiction; now it offers Kipling, Howells, Stockton, +Bret Harte, Anthony Hope, Crockett, Bourget and many others of the best +of the contemporary writers of fiction. + +Then there are the cheap magazines, which tender a half dozen stories +for the price of a cigar or a bodkin. There are, also, the cheap +"libraries," which have flooded the United States with engaging +literature available to almost any purse. + +In short, conditions have altered. A vast mass of light literature is +now cheaply accessible to the individual which formerly could be +acquired only painfully or at great expense. Why then should the public +libraries struggle to supply it in book form at the public expense? + +But as to a certain percentage of current light literature there is an +embarrassment that I have not touched. It is the embarrassment of making +selection without giving offense. All cannot be bought. A choice must be +made. With reference to standard literature authoritative judgement is +not difficult to obtain. But here there has been no lapse of time to +balance opinion. An anticipatory estimate must be attempted and +attempted by the library itself. + +Now, if the library decide against the book it is very likely held to +blame for "dictating" to its readers. "It is one thing," says a journal +commenting on an adverse decision, "it is one thing to consider this +novel pernicious, but it is another and more serious thing for the +foremost library in the country maintained at public expense, to deny to +a large and respectable portion of the public an opportunity to judge +for itself whether the work of a man of (this author's) calibre is +pernicious or not." + +The author in this case was, of course, not Mr. X., but rather Mr. A., +an already known quantity. + +So a library is not to be permitted to apply a judgement of its own! It +is not protected by the fact that this judgment coincides with the +judgment of professional critics--so far at least as these may be +ascertained. The author may have turned perverse and written a book +distinctly bad. Yet this book is to be bought and supplied to enable +each member of the public to form a judgment of his own upon it. And it +is to be so bought out of public funds entrusted to the library for +educational purposes. Censorship has to us an ugly sound; but does the +library act as censor when it declares a book beyond its province? Does +it dictate what the people shall read when it says, "We decline to buy +this book for you with public funds"? + +This is a question which is far larger than the selection or rejection +of a novel or two. It involves the whole question of authority, and it +concerns not merely the extremes, but the varying degrees of worth in +literature. Most departments of educational work are founded upon +principles, cautiously ascertained, and systematically adhered to. Their +consistent maintenance upon principle is the easier because each other +such department deals with a special constituency, limited either in age +or perhaps in sex, or at least in purpose, and one which accepts as +authoritative the system provided for it. The free public library, +however, has to satisfy a constituency practically unlimited, including +every age of both sexes, whose intellectual need ranges from that of the +most illiterate to that of the most highly accomplished, whose education +in books ranges from that of the person who has never entered a library +to that of the scholar whose life has been a perpetual training in the +use of the library; the assertive classes, the bashful classes. And if +toward this vast and heterogeneous constituency it seeks to assume the +position of an educator, it finds that its authority is one which the +constituents themselves are unanimously unwilling to concede. Each +constituent deems himself not a beneficiary accepting some service, but +a proprietor demanding it. Now, within each community there are persons +who would have every kind of printed matter published. If, therefore, a +public library exists simply to respond to the demands of its readers, +we must have, instead of an educational system devised by experts and +administered with reference to general principles, a system fluctuating +with each eccentric requirement of individuals, indefinite in number, +various in taste and culture, inexpert, except as each may be competent +to judge his own need, incapable of expression in the aggregate, and as +individuals without responsibility for the general results. + +If, on the other hand, an authority is to be vested in the library, what +limits shall it set upon itself, upon what principles of discrimination +shall it proceed, in what directions may it expediently control? I but +state the problem. I shall not endeavor to answer it. But it is one of +the most important involved in the relation of the public library to the +community. + +From such questions an ordinary educational institution stands aloof. It +is content to represent the judgment of the majority in matters of +morality and to inculate the lesson of tried truths as against untried +fancies in matters of opinion affecting the social order. It thus throws +its influence in favor of the established order of things. But its +right, nay, its duty, to do this is unquestioned. Nor is it regarded as +disparaging the opinion which it does not teach. + +But a public library is not so exempt. In addition to the doctrine +which is accepted, it is held to have a duty to the opinion which is +struggling for recognition. As to minority opinion, it is not so much a +university as a forum. Nay, it is to give every advantage to minority +opinion, for--in our resentment of intolerance--minority opinion is not +merely tolerated, it is pampered. + +Now, it is not for libraries or librarians to act as censors and +denounce this or that publication. Yet it is to be remembered that a +library which circulates a book helps to promulgate the doctrine which +the book contains. And if public libraries circulate books which teach +restless, irreverent or revolutionary doctrines, they offer us the +incongruity of a municipality aiding in the propagation of ideas which +are subversive of social order. + +On the other hand, if there is to be exclusion on such grounds, where is +the line of exclusion to be drawn? Shall we say at doctrines which, if +carried into action, would be criminal under the law? Would the public +rest content with this? + +Moreover, the principle of exclusion accepted, who is to apply it? Whose +judgment shall determine whether the particular book does or does not +offend? Shall the library determine? But will it not then be "dictating" +to its readers? Will it not be unduly discriminating against a certain +class of opinion when it has undertaken to represent impartially all +shades of opinion? Will it not offend the remonstrant against the +existing order of things who has a grievance, and, therefore, a right to +be heard; and the defender of the existing order of things who must know +the opinion in order to combat it; and the student of sociology whose +curiosity reaches all extremes and regards them simply as phenomena upon +which he is entitled to be informed? + +I believe that it will. And yet I do not see how the library can escape +exercising judgment. For there is no other responsible authority which +can be brought to exercise it. We must then expect numerous decisions +which will offend a portion of the community. They will usually be on +the conservative side--of exclusion. And it is for those who believe +that a public library should be a conservative influence in the +community to see that it has the authority and is protected in its +exercise. + +Not that in respect of the violent books there is great injury in +present conditions. In the public libraries of to-day there exists no +doubt material sufficiently anarchic to upset society, if it could have +its will upon society. The fact is, that though there is plenty in +literature that is incendiary, there is little in our community that is +inflammable. + +The good that the libraries do is obvious and acknowledged. They +represent the accumulated experience of mankind brought to our service. +They are the custodians of whatever is most worthy of preservation in +our own life and literature. They are the natural depositories of what +we have of memorial and of records; the original entries of legislation +and of achievement. They must render history available; they must +adequately exhibit science; they may help to refine by the best examples +in each art, and in this they may also contribute to the industrial life +of the community by educating the artisan into an artist, his craft into +an art. And through record and description of processes and inventions +they may contribute to the foundations of great industries. They touch +the community as a whole as perhaps does no other single organized +agency for good. They offer to the shyest ignorance equality with the +most confident scholarship, and demand no formal preliminary which might +abash ignorance. + +They have a profound duty--not generally appreciated--to help render +homogeneous the very heterogeneous elements of our population. Thirty +per cent. of it has come to us from an alien life and alien +institutions. One-third of the people in our six leading cities are of +foreign birth; seventy-one per cent. were either born abroad or born of +foreign parentage. In the assimilation of this foreign element no single +agency is perhaps so potent as our public libraries. + +The public libraries deem themselves the allies of formal educational +processes; but also the direct educators of that part of the community +not subject to the formal processes. It is this latter responsibility +which has led them to attempt a broader service than the mere supply of +books. A book is not the only nor necessarily the most effective vehicle +for conveying knowledge. There are illustrations which more directly +convey an impression, and often as fully state a fact. And photographs +and process reproductions are now part of the equipment of a public +library almost as conventional as books. Within the past year 10,000 +such have been added to the collections of the Boston Public Library; +not as works of art (they are for the most part cheap silver prints and +the Art Museum is but a hundred feet distant); nor merely as aids to the +study of the fine arts and the useful arts, but also as convenient +auxiliaries to the study of history, of literature and institutions. And +they are used by individuals and by classes not as a substitute for the +text, but as helping to render vivid the lesson of the text. + +With these go lectures in exposition. Every building of importance +recently designed for the uses of a public library includes an art +gallery and a lecture hall. What an immense augmentation of function +this implies! It implies that the library is no longer merely an +aggregate of books, each passive within rigid limits; but that it is an +active agent having under its control material which is kept plastic and +which it moulds into incredibly varied shapes to suit incredibly varied +needs. + +The experience of the Boston Public Library shows that in the case of +books each increase of facilities creates an increased demand. The +trustees of 1852 boasted that they were providing for as many as fifty +readers at a time; the trustees of 1887 thought themselves venturesome +in providing for 500 readers at a time; and within a month after the new +building was opened it was forced to accommodate over 700 at a time. +Every week over 30,000 persons enter the Central Library building, and +every year 1,200,000 volumes are drawn for home use by the 65,000 +card-holders. Yet these figures represent still but a portion of the +persons reached and the work to be done. Nor can facilities for +distribution keep pace with the need. For a city of a half million +people spread over an area of forty square miles adequate library +facilities cannot ever be provided. A municipality which even +approximates the adequate in providing buildings, equipment, +administration and general literature at the public expense must still +look to private gift for the specialized material necessary to a great +reference collection. That the Boston Public Library is next to the +British Museum in Shakespeariana is, to be sure, the result of a special +expenditure by the city. But the larger part of its special collections +which have given it distinction as a great scholars' library, has come +from private gift; the Ticknor collection of Spanish literature, the +Bowditch collection of mathematics, the Chamberlain collection of +autographs, the Brown collection of music and many others. And a city +which erects for its public library a building which is monumental is +putting forward the most attractive invitation to private gift. The +gifts which have come to Boston as the direct result of the new building +have already reached a twelfth of its cost. + +With proper organization and a liberal co-operation between municipal +and private effort the opportunities for service are almost limitless. +The risk is the greater of attempts at service either legally +inappropriate or practically inexpedient, and the risk is not lessened +by a popular appreciation which is more enthusiastic than it is apt to +be discriminating. There is, therefore, the greater need of +discrimination on the part of the library itself and of an authority +which will protect its exercise. This authority can be conferred only by +intelligent public opinion on the part of those who are capable of +appreciating constitutional limitations. + + + + +THE PUBLIC LIBRARY: ITS USES TO THE MUNICIPALITY + + Written for the National Municipal League and printed in + _The Library Journal_ for June, 1903, eight years after the + author, Dr. John S. Billings, had begun his service as + director of the New York Public Library; largely a defence + of libraries against certain objections. The statement of + the part played by "sentiment" in popular institutions, and + its justification, are striking and true. + + John Shaw Billings was born in Switzerland County, Ind., in + 1839, graduated from Miami University in 1857, studied + medicine and after serving as a surgeon in the Civil War, + was assigned to the Surgeon General's Office in Washington, + of whose library he compiled the 16-volume Index Catalogue. + After service in Johns Hopkins and Pennsylvania Universities + he was chosen in 1895 director of the newly established New + York Public Library, where he served until his death in + 1913, planning and supervising the construction of its + central building. + + +The great majority of cities of 25,000 inhabitants and upward in the +United States have public libraries of some sort, and the same is true +of many of the smaller cities. Many of these libraries have been founded +on gifts of individuals, some have developed from subscription +libraries, but the majority are now supported mainly or entirely by +funds appropriated by the city government. A considerable number are +still in the formative stage, this being true of those for which +buildings are being erected from funds provided by Mr. Carnegie and for +several hundred others for which he will probably provide buildings in +the near future. + +There may be excessive and unjustifiable taxation for the support of a +public library--the amount which the city can afford for this purpose +should be carefully considered in connection with its needs for a pure +water supply and good sewage disposal, for means of communication, for +the care of the sick poor and for public schools. Each case must be +judged by itself; the only general rule I have to suggest is that in the +department of education the claims of the public library for support are +more important than those of municipal college or high school. The +people who have no taxable property, and who therefore often erroneously +suppose that they contribute nothing toward the payment of the taxes, +are usually quite willing to have a higher tax rate imposed for the +purpose of securing for themselves and their families free library +facilities--although in exceptional cases religious or sociological +opinions may lead them to oppose it. + +A considerable number of taxpayers on the other hand, are more or less +reluctant to have their assessments increased for this purpose, and +their arguments should be considered and met. They are: + +1. That they should not be taxed for things they do not want and never +use. + +2. That furnishing free books tends to pauperize the community and to +discourage the purchase of books for home use. + +3. That there is no evidence that free public libraries improve the +community materially or morally. + +4. That the greater part of the books used are works of fiction and that +these are injurious to the readers. + +5. That most of the arguments used in favor of free public libraries are +merely sentimental and emotional. + +The first of these reasons would apply also to taxes for public schools, +street paving, sewerage, and many other items of municipal expenditure +and has no weight. + +With regard to the second argument it is not a sufficient reply to say +that every one pays through the taxes, for this would apply equally well +to free lodging houses, free lunchrooms and soup kitchens, free fuel, +etc., all of which it generally believed tend to pauperize a city, +except in great and special emergencies. The proper answer is that the +free public library is an important and, indeed, necessary part of the +system of free education which is required to secure intelligent +citizens in our form of popular government, and that while in a few very +exceptional cases free schools and free libraries may tend to +improvidence or indolence or even to certain forms of crime, these rare +cases are of no importance in comparison with the benefits which +education confers upon the immense majority of the community and with +the fact that without free schools and libraries a large part of the +people will not be sufficiently educated to be useful citizens. + +With the regard to the third count, the public library, again, may be +considered together with the public school. While it is difficult to +trace to either specific instances of material or moral improvement, it +is certain that the general diffusion of intelligence which both +certainly effect does result beneficially in these directions. +Communities with flourishing free schools and libraries are usually more +prosperous and better than those without such facilities, and, while +there is doubtless room here for a confusion of cause and effect, it is +probable that there is both action and reaction. Prosperity calls for +increased facilities for education and these in turn tend to make the +community more prosperous. + +That the majority of books withdrawn from public libraries are works of +fiction cannot be denied. Many librarians are wont to deplore this fact, +and most libraries endeavor in one way or another to decrease the +percentage of fiction in their circulation. + +The proportion of recreative reading in a public library is necessarily +large. In like manner, the greater proportion of those who visit a +zoological or botanical garden do so for amusement. Yet the information +that they secure in so doing is none the less valuable and both are +certainly educational institutions. So if in the public library a large +number of its users get their history, their travel and their biography +through the medium of recreative readings we should not complain. Were +it otherwise these readers would probably lack altogether the +information that they now certainly acquire. + +Taking up the final count in the indictment, it is doubtless true that +sentimental and emotional considerations have had much to do with +library development. They have furnished the initial motive power, as +they have for free schools, for the origin and progress of democratic +government, and for most of the advances of civilization. They often +precede deliberate, conscious reasoning and judgment, yet they are often +themselves the result of an unconscious reasoning process producing +action of the will in advance of deliberate judgment. Sometimes they are +pure reflexes, like winking when the eye is threatened by a blow. The +free public library can neither be established nor maintained usefully +without their aid, but their methods--or want of method--must be +carefully guided to produce good results. + +The sentiment that we ought to establish institutions for the diffusion +of knowledge is the expression of a real economic need and should be +directed and encouraged and not suppressed. Logic is a useful steering +apparatus, but a very poor motive power. + + + + +THE LIBRARY: A PLEA FOR ITS RECOGNITION + + Delivered by Frederick M. Crunden before the Library Section + of the International Congress of Arts and Science, held in + connection with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. + Louis in 1904, closes with a summary of the public library's + functions that remains measurably true to-day, although, of + course, it could now be somewhat expanded. + + A sketch of Mr. Crunden appears in Vol. I. + + +The Louisiana Purchase Exposition is an epitome of the life and activity +of the world--from the naked Negrito to the grande dame with her +elaborate Paris costume, from the rude wigwam of the red Indian to the +World's Fair palace filled with the finest furniture, rugs and +tapestries, sculpture and painting, and decorations that the highest +taste and finest technique can produce--from the monotonous din of the +savage tom-tom to the uplifting and enthralling strains of a great +symphony orchestra--from fire by friction, the first step of man beyond +the beast, to the grand electric illumination that makes of these +grounds and buildings the most beautiful art-created spectacle that ever +met the human eye. And to all this magnificent appeal to the senses are +superadded the marvels of modern science and its applications--the +wonders of the telescope, the microscope and the spectroscope, the +telegraph, in its latest wireless extension, the electric motor and +electric light, the telephone and the phonograph, the Roentgen ray and +the new-found radium. + +And now after this vision of wondrous beauty, this triumph of the grand +arts of architecture and sculpture and landscape--of all the arts, fine +and useful--has for six months enraptured the senses of people from all +quarters of the globe, the learned men of the world have gathered here +to set forth and discuss the fundamental principals that underlie the +sciences, their correlations and the methods of their application to the +arts of life--to summarize the progress of the past, to discuss the +condition of the present and attempt, perhaps, a forecast of the future. + +In the scheme of classification, our subject appears in the last +department that concerns itself with man's purely mundane affairs, and +is the last section in that department. It thus appears properly as a +climax and summary of the arts and sciences intelligible to man in his +present stage of existence; and if the problem of the future life is +ever solved this side of the grave, the knowledge conserved and +disseminated by the library will be the starting-point and the +inspiration of the advance, as it has been of all progress since the art +of written speech was invented. "The library is the reservoir of the +common social life of the race. It is at once the accumulator and the +transmitter of social energy." Without the library the highest social +culture is impossible; and a most moderate degree could be achieved by +very few. + +Under the main division, "Social Culture," the library is one of the +five sections in the Department of Education. In education are summed up +all the achievements of the past and the possibilities of the future. In +the words of Wendell Phillips, "Education is the one thing worthy the +deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man." "Education," exclaims +Mazzini, "and my whole doctrine is included and summed up in this grand +word." It is practically a truism that Jules Simon utters when he says +"Le peuple qui a les meilleures écoles est le premier peuple; s'il ne +l'est pas aujourd'hui il le sera demain." + +Under this Department of Education, with its grades, the School, the +College and the University, the Library is assigned the last section. It +belongs there in chronological order of development as an active factor +in popular instruction and enlightenment; and, furthermore, the +presentation of its claims and functions comes naturally after those of +the other factors in education, because it is an essential coadjutor and +supplement to each and all. It is a summary and a climax. There have +always been libraries, and they have always been a factor in education; +but the public, free, tax-supported library is but just half a century +old, and could hardly be considered out of the long clothes of infancy +till the year 1876; while its general acceptance as an essential +supplement to the public school and a co-ordinate factor with the +college and university may be considered the accomplishment of the last +decade. There are still teachers who look on general reading as an +interference with school work and an extra burden on their shoulders. + +We start, then, with the axiomatic proposition that all human progress +depends on education; and no elaborate demonstration is necessary to +show that the library is an essential factor in every grade of +education. + +Higher education, certainly, cannot dispense with the library. The +well-known dictum of Carlyle, "The true university of modern times is a +collection of books," was accepted as a striking statement of a man with +rhetorical habit, without, perhaps, a realization of its full +significance. It has been recently expanded into a more express and +specific tribute to the importance of the library in university +education. In an address delivered in St. Louis and afterwards published +in the _North American Review_, President Harper said: + +"The place occupied by libraries and laboratories in the educational +work of to-day, as compared with that of the past, is one of commanding +importance. Indeed, the library and the laboratory have already +practically revolutionized the methods of higher education. In the +really modern institution, the chief building is the library. It is the +center of institutional activity.... That factor of college work, the +library, fifty years ago almost unknown, to-day already the center of +the institution's intellectual activity, half a century hence, with its +sister, the laboratory, almost equally unknown fifty years ago, will +have absorbed all else and will have become the institution itself." + +As to the value of the library in elementary education Doctor Harris +says: + +"What there is good in our American system points towards the +preparation of the pupil for the independent study of the book by +himself. It points towards acquiring the ability of self-education by +means of the library." + +I might quote similar utterances from many other eminent educators as to +the value--the necessity--of the library in early education; but I can +think of no stronger summing-up of the subject, nor from higher +authority, than this statement from President Eliot: + +"From the total training during childhood there should result in the +child a taste for interesting and improving reading, which should direct +and inspire its subsequent intellectual life. That schooling which +results in this taste for good reading, however unsystematic or +eccentric the schooling may have been, has achieved a main end of +elementary education; and that schooling which does not result in +implanting this permanent taste has failed.... The uplifting of the +democratic masses depends on this implanting at school of the taste for +good reading." + +To persons who have given little thought to educational questions these +utterances will have the weight that attaches to the highest authority; +but we need no university president or national commissioner to tell us +these facts. We have learned them from our own experience; and, +enlightened as we now are, it seems to us strange that question could +ever have been raised as to the essential character of the library in +elementary education. Yet there are some of us, I am sure, who can +recall painful consequences from putting into practice an educational +theory not generally accepted by the pedagogues of our childhood days. + +We know that higher education is impossible without a library, for the +library is the storehouse of the world's knowledge, the record of +humanity's achievements, the history of mankind's trials and sorrows and +sufferings, of its victories and defeats and of its gradual progress +upwards in spite of frequent fluctuation and failure. In this chronicle +of the past lie lessons for the present and the future; from the lives +of storied heroes comes the inspiration that leads the race onward and +upward. A university without a library would of necessity have a very +small and weak faculty--only the few professors who could be induced to +go where the most important instrumentality of their work was lacking: +the university that has an adequate library includes in its faculty the +professors of all other universities and all the great teachers of all +countries and ages. + +But is it worth while to consider a university without a library? Can +there be such an institution? + +In higher education, then, the library is a necessity. In elementary +and secondary education it is no less essential, if the most is to be +made of the few years that the average child spends in school and if he +is to be started on a path of self-culture. On this point Stanley Jevons +says: + +"In omitting that small expenditure in a universal system of libraries +which would enable young men and women to keep up the three R's and +continue their education, we spend £97 and stingily decline the £3 +really needed to make the rest of the £100 effective." + +At the International Library Conference in London, in 1897, one of the +most distinguished American librarians, who has been an administrator in +a large educational field outside of the library, expressed his view of +the supreme importance of the library in a scheme of popular education +by saying that if he had to choose between the public school and the +public library--if he could have only one--(though the alternative is +one that never will or can be presented), he would keep the library and +let the school go. For, he argued, every child would learn to read +somehow; and, with a free library that actively sought him, he would be +better off than if he had a school to teach him to read, but no books to +read after he had learned. But however divergent might be opinions +regarding this impossible alternative, there is no doubt that the public +library, with enlarged functions and activities, has at least equal +potentialities with the school. Whether the formal instruction of the +school or the broader education of the library is of greater value, +depends on what is the chief aim. If it is merely to make breadwinners, +the school may be the more useful, though in this, too, the library is +an efficient coadjutor; but if our purpose is to make men and women, +citizens of a progressive nation, active members of an aspiring society, +the library may fairly claim at least equal rank with the school. For +the school wields its direct influence over the average child but a few +years; the library is an active influence through life. + +Again, more than ninety-five children out of every hundred leave school +before they are sufficiently mature to comprehend those studies which +open their eyes to the universe, which bear upon their relations to +their fellow-men, upon their duties as citizens of a state, as members +of organized society. These are the studies that deal with the most +important problems that mankind has to solve. They cannot be taught to +children; they cannot be taught--dogmatically--at all. They involve the +consideration of burning questions, subjects of bitter controversy--the +world-old battle between conservatism and innovation which, as Emerson +says, "is the subject of civil history." They cannot be taught by any +teacher, they cannot be taught by any text-book or by any one book. +Their adequate consideration calls for the reading of many books--books +of the present and the future as well as the past. The electrician who +allows himself to be guided by the treatises of twenty years ago would +have no standing; neither has the economist or sociologist who has not +kept up with the literature of the last thirty years--or the last three +years. It would be of no particular advantage for all of us to be +electricians. We can safely trust that field to experts; but it is +extremely desirable that every man should comprehend the great issues of +economics and politics. The school cannot even PRESENT the important +problems of sociology; the university cannot adequately do so without +the library. On no other subject is the wide reading that Matthew Arnold +enjoins so necessary. And no other subject is of such momentous +importance to mankind; for the betterment of social conditions is a +necessary forerunner and foundation of moral and religious progress. And +that cannot be true religion which does not lead to social betterment. +In that noblest aspiration ever put into the mouth and mind and heart +(too often, alas, only the mouth!) of man we are taught to pray not that +we may be transplanted to a better world, but that God's kingdom may +come and His will be done in this world. + +We are not likely to abate our eagerness in the pursuit of knowledge of +physical science, for the zeal of the scientist is stimulated by the +spur of commercialism; and, though it seems impossible, the twentieth +century may bring forth as wonderful discoveries and inventions as the +nineteenth. But, to take the advance just now most sought, can any one +raise the question as to which would be of greater benefit to St. Louis, +to reach Chicago in an hour by airship or to take six or ten hours for +the trip and find there--and everywhere--a contented body of workmen +supplying us with the necessities of life and a set of managers carrying +on the transportation system that we already have on equal terms to all +people? What the world's progress most needs is "evening up." The +advancing column presents a very ragged front, with physical science and +its applications so far ahead that they have almost lost sight of social +science in the rear. It would be no great disadvantage to the world--to +the progress of mankind as a whole--if the swift-footed legion of +applied science would merely mark time for a period, while attention +should be given to a better organization of the vast human army. The +objective point would be reached as soon, for a nation is like a railway +train; it can go no faster than its hindmost car. But this is not likely +to happen at present. Applied science has every stimulus from within and +without, every reward intrinsic and extrinsic; while progress in the +social and political sciences must carry the dead weight of the inertia +of conservatism and also meet the active and intense opposition of +vested interests, which have ever the single purpose of preserving the +status quo, no matter how unjust or maleficent. + +The solution of these all-important problems cannot be found in the +school, where immature minds are taught merely how to use the tools of +knowledge; these questions cannot be settled by the small number of +university students; they must be solved by the education of the masses, +by instilling in them in their early school years a desire for knowledge +and a love for good reading, which will lead them to continue their +education by means of the library. The education of the mass of the +voters who determine the character of a democratic government, must not +be left to the party organ or the stump speaker. The great social and +political questions should be studied and pondered in the quiet of the +closet and not decided, without previous thought, amid the hurrahs of +the hustings. + +To make the public library realize fully its possibilities as the +People's University calls for more than the opportunity which every +public library now offers; it requires active effort to reach out and +bring the people to the library by the fullest co-operation with the +school and by means of attractive lecture courses, which shall stimulate +reading and guide it in profitable channels. But the beginning of this +work--the inculcation of a taste for good reading--lies with the school, +with the library's co-operation, especially during the years from six to +ten or twelve, those years when nearly all the children come under the +school's influence and when the habit of reading can be most easily +formed. + +If charged with placing undue stress upon the value of the library, I +might urge its comparative newness and its consequent lack of +recognition; and, as an evidence of the latter, I might point to the +fact that in this great educational exposition, while one vast palace is +given up to exhibits of the school, the library has with difficulty +secured a part of a room in the Missouri State Building for an exhibit +of its activities in the great work of education, in which, as I am +trying to show, its potentialities are as great as those of the school. +As our Board of Directors said, in its appeal to the exposition +Directors for a separate library building: + + "The library, besides being the most efficient and most + economical agency for popular education, represents all the + fair will have to show. It stands for the sum total of human + knowledge. It is the instrumentality through which knowledge + has been conserved and cumulated. Only through the library + can civilization continue to advance.... Books are the most + potent factors in progress. Without books we should have had + no powerful locomotives to show, no wireless telegraphy, no + wonder-making machinery, no beautiful buildings, no + impressive statuary, no paintings to arouse wonder and yield + delight--no World's Fair to draw distinguished scientists + and educators from all over the world." + +By way of introduction to the comprehensive addresses of the two +distinguished delegates who have travelled four or five thousand miles +to lay before this Section, and, through publication, before the world, +the past history and the present problems of the library, it has seemed +to me appropriate that, as chairman, I should present a brief plea for +the consideration of the library as one of the greatest factors in human +progress. It has existed, though not in its present form or with its +present functions, from the dawn of recorded civilization. It is itself +the record of civilization; and without it there can be no records and +no civilization. It is the repository, the custodian, the preserver of +all the arts and sciences and the principal means of disseminating all +knowledge. With the school and the church it forms the tripod necessary +to the stable equilibrium of society. Let me briefly summarize the +functions of the public library. + +1. It doubles the value of the public school instruction, on which is +expended more than ten times the cost of the library. + +2. It enables the children who leave school at an early age (an +overwhelming majority) to continue their education while earning their +living. It provides for the education of the adults who have lacked or +failed to utilize early opportunities. This is of special importance in +a country like the United States, where one of the greatest political +problems is the assimilation of a vast influx of ignorant foreigners of +all races and languages. + +3. It supplies books and periodicals needed for the instruction of +artisans, mechanics, manufacturers, engineers, and all others whose work +requires technical knowledge[6]--all persons on whom depends the +industrial progress of the community. + +4. It furnishes information and inspiration to ministers, teachers, +journalists, authors, physicians, legislators--all persons on whose work +depend the intellectual, moral, sanitary, political and religious +welfare and advancement of the people. + +5. It is the stimulus and the reliance of the literary and study clubs, +which, especially among the women, have done much not only for +individual self-culture but also for civic enlightenment and social +betterment. This represents its numerous post-graduate courses, which +are taken by constantly increasing numbers. + +6. It has philosophers and theologians to explain and expound and to +exhort those who are willing to listen; but, far better, it has poets +and dramatists and novelists--who compel a hearing and impress on heart +as well as mind the fundamental truths of morality and religion. + +7. It is also a school of manners, which have been well defined as minor +morals. The child learns by example and by the silent influence of his +surroundings; and every visit to a library is a lesson in propriety and +refinement. The roughest boy or the rudest man cannot fail to be +impressed by the library atmosphere and by that courtesy which is the +chief element in the "library spirit." + +8. It imparts, as the school cannot, knowledge of one's self, and of +one's relations to one's fellow-man, and thus prepares the individual +for citizenship and fellowship in organized society and leads him to be +an active force in social advancement. + +9. It elevates the standard of general intelligence throughout the +community, on which depends its material prosperity as well as its moral +and political well-being. + +[6] The information furnished by a book in the Cincinnati Public +Library once saved that city a quarter of a million dollars. This in +numerous instances, but on a smaller scale, is a part of the everyday +work of the library. + +10. But not last, if an exhaustive list were aimed at--nor least it +supplies a universal and urgent craving of human nature by affording to +all entertainment of the highest and purest character, substituting this +for the coarse, debasing, demoralizing, amusements which would otherwise +be sought and found. Further, it brings relief and strength to many a +suffering body and cheer and solace to many a sorrowing heart. It is +instruction and inspiration to the young, comfort and consolation to the +old, recreation and companionship to all ages and conditions. + +I close as I began: + +Education is the greatest concern of mankind; it is the foundation of +all human progress. The library is an essential factor in all grades of +education; and it is the agent plenipotentiary in the betterment of +society and the culture and cheer of the human soul. "The highest gift +of education is not the mastery of sciences, but noble living, generous +character, the spiritual delight that comes from familiarity with the +loftiest ideals of the human mind, the spiritual power that saves each +generation from the intoxication of its own success." + + + + +THE LIBRARY AS A FACTOR IN MODERN CIVILIZATION + + Read by President Faunce of Brown University, at the + Narragansett Pier Conference of the American Library + Association in 1906. Elaborates the library's three gifts to + the nation--"knowledge, perspective and ideals." + + William Herbert Perry Faunce was born in Worcester, Mass., + Jan. 15, 1859, graduated at Brown University in 1880, + entered the Baptist ministry, and after holding several + pastorates became in 1899 president of his alma mater. He is + known as an effective writer and speaker, especially on + religion and education. + + +We have long been accustomed to speak of three great factors in modern +civilization--the school, the church, and the home. Must we, in view of +such a significant meeting as this, add a fourth factor--the library? +The modern library has in some places become a true school; in other +places it has radiated something of the refinement for which we once +looked to the home, and something of the idealism which is a peculiar +gift of the church. The library is vastly more than a collection of +books: it is a social, civilizing, moralizing force. We expect to find +the library building in every city and town as much as to find the spire +of the church or the flag of the schoolhouse. The visitor to Boston +to-day finds the public library as commanding a pile as Trinity Church, +and far more imposing than any schoolhouse. The visitor to New York +finds the new public library building climbing into a mass and dignity +as great as that of any cathedral. No smallest village is now complete +without its library, and when some future Goldsmith shall sing the +praise of another "Deserted village," he will point out not only with +the "noisy mansion" of the school-master, not only the church adorned +with the meek and unaffected grace of the rural pastor, but the loaded +shelves, the catalogs and reference lists, the chairs and tables, and +the zeal unaffected, though not always meek, of the modern librarian. + +These libraries have sprung into being throughout the land without +specific legislation and without deliberate propaganda. The church +missionary societies of the country have adopted the avowed policy of +planting a church in every community, and appointing superintendents of +missions to see that this is done. Every state in the Union has its laws +for the establishment and maintenance of schools. But these multiplying +libraries have come into being without enactment of law or the preaching +of the crusade. They have spread from sea to sea by a happy contagion, +they have become a noble American epidemic. The great inarticulate +thirst for knowledge has demanded satisfaction, and created its own +supply. Our wisest directors of public sentiment and philanthropic +endeavor have realized that through the library may come a charity that +does not pauperize, a help that induces self-help, light to irradiate +the dark places of civilization, inspiration for every calling, and +access and power to every worthy institution and noble cause. What then +is the specific function of this new and powerful institution in modern +life? What is the contribution of the library to modern civilization? + +The library makes to the nation three gifts: the gift of knowledge, the +gift of perspective, the gift of ideals. Putting the matter in another +way, we may say it gives us facts, relations, values. + +The library is primarily to conserve and disseminate knowledge. Indeed, +the old conception of the library was purely that of a place of storage +for written or printed material. No one thought of taking out a book +from a mediaeval library any more than of removing a statue or painting +from an art gallery. And still to-day the function of the library as a +storehouse is most important. Modern democracy holds that knowledge is +not for a few bright minds of each generation, not for an intellectual +elite; but all that is knowable is to be made accessible to all that +desire to know. If we allow knowledge to come only to a chosen few of +each generation, how can we know that we have chosen the right ones to +receive it? The genius that might turn the stream of history may be born +in the lowliest cabin on the prairie, or in the darkest tenement of the +great city. There may not be a village Hampden in every village, but +there may be an Edison, a Fulton, an Eli Whitney, an Andrew Carnegie, a +Carl Schurz in any village in America. Only when we make knowledge +accessible to all shall we know what minds and hearts are among us. + +But we must discriminate. The books which no longer convey knowledge, +which state theories no longer held, and propound as facts things no +longer believed; in other words, antiquated books of knowledge should be +sharply separated from books abreast of modern thinking. Those books +which have ceased to be of any use to mankind (except for antiquarian +purposes) or which never were of any use to mankind--and their name is +legion--have their place in a museum, but not in an working library. In +an arsenal we keep only weapons now serviceable in actual war, and +relegate flint-locks, catapults, and bows and arrows to the museum. No +arsenal in the world would be large enough to accommodate weapons for a +modern regiment mingled with all the weapons of all past generations. It +is time for some one to say frankly that there is no inherent sanctity +in paper and printer's ink. It may have been true in Milton's day that a +book was usually the precious life-blood of a master spirit; but to-day +a book is often the product of the least erected spirit that fell. An +almanac put forth to advertise some nostrum, or a novel prepared purely +as a piece of merchandise, does not acquire dignity or value simply +because bound in leather and placed on the shelf with "Paradise Lost." + +We must apply to our libraries some higher standard than that of size. +We never estimate the Uffizzi or the Louvre by the number of paintings +they contain, yet we continue to grade modern libraries by the number of +volumes groaning on dust-covered shelves. A library of five thousand +well selected books may be of far more service than one of one hundred +thousand composed largely of books outgrown and forgotten. Our public +libraries must distinguish sharply between the library and the museum, +to the advantage of both. + +Secondly: Perspective. The library aims to show us facts in their large +and permanent relations. There is no virtue in mere knowledge of facts +(any more than in vast numbers of volumes). Most facts are not worth +knowing, still less worth preserving. Doubtless the letter "p" occurs a +certain definite number of times in "Idylls of the King," and it may be +that some deluded mortal in prison or asylum has ascertained that +number; but we do not care to know that fact or have any one else know +it. The exact number of grains in some ant-hill is doubtless +discoverable, but only a lunatic would care for the discovery. Most +facts in nature and in history are in our present stage of development +without value. Only when these facts are collected, classified, seen in +relation, and translated into truth do they become of value to men. + +For this reason the library must encourage, slow, patient, thoughtful +reading. We have long been told that a taste for reading is worth ten +thousand a year. Whether this is true or not depends altogether on what +sort of reading is referred to. The habit of letting the mind lie +passive while some scribbler plays upon it is not worth ten thousand a +year. The habit of letting the mind become a waste basket for sensation +and scandal is not worth ten thousand a year. The habit of reading as a +substitute for thinking is worth nothing, but is sheer damage to mental +fibre. The university library is even more important than the university +laboratory. In the laboratory we verify the theory which is far more +likely to be discovered in the library. The new discovery is a new +combination of old ideas, and such mental combination comes to us more +easily when we are dealing with thoughts than with things. + +Our students need to use books not only as tools, but as friends. In the +old days, when the reading of college students was far more promiscuous +than to-day, they were accustomed to regard books almost as personal +acquaintances, and there was a genuine exchange of reaction of writer +and reader. Such reading was indeed very desultory, but, as our +professor of English literature is accustomed to say, "it was immensely +fattening." Now, on the other hand, the college student goes to the +library with a list of references, using many books, but becoming really +acquainted with none. He opens one work at volume 2, page 193, another +at volume 4, page 315, and, having extracted the precise bit of +information he desires, has no further use for the author in question. +This modern method of reading is far more accurate and definite than the +older method, and is obviously effective in securing results. But it +must be supplemented by the "browsing" of former days, by the large +horizons which come from being set free in the companionship of great +minds. + +Thirdly: Ideals. Our libraries must not be only storehouses of +knowledge, but reservoirs of power. The great books of all time give us +contact with inspiring personalities, shining examples, with the great +leaders of men. The trophies of Themistocles will not suffer us to +sleep. When such books come into many a shut-in life, to many a boyhood, +cabined and confined, the limitations of the farm and factory are +forgotten, the mind expands to a kinship with past and future, and the +reader in some village library may become the prophet of the new +century, and the leader of the modern world. + +More than that: the literature of power creates the climate in which we +live. It shapes our ideals of success, of power, of beauty, of goodness. +Fiction and poetry, if they thus create aspiration and give us +standards, may be more useful than all encyclopedias or text-books, for +they deal with the sources and the goal of all human action. + + + + +THE PROVISION OF BOOKS + + + The seven addresses or papers just preceding relate to the + general services of the library to the community. The twelve + that now follow analyze this into four types of special + service, as already suggested--the provision of books, the + collection of information, the control and guidance of + reading and community-centre service. The next three papers + treat of the provision of books. + + + + +THE LIBRARIAN AND HIS CONSTITUENTS + + That the choice of books is the most important of the + librarian's duties and that "his best effort" should be + given to it, is the thought of an institutional librarian, + R.B. Poole of the New York Y.M.C.A. This view should + interest those who think that administrative problems and + socialization are elbowing the books into the background. + + Reuben Brooks Poole was born in Rockport, Mass., in 1834, + and graduated at Brown University in 1857. After serving as + a teacher he became librarian of the Y.M.C.A. library in New + York City, where he remained until his death on April 6, + 1895. He was president of his state library association in + 1894. + + +By constituents is not meant political constituents. It is unfortunate +for any librarian when he holds his office in a public library as a +political favor, and library appointments should be as far removed as +possible from all party influences. A public library, like any other +public property, is susceptible of being used as a tool, and may easily +degenerate into a political job, unless specially protected by its +charter. New York city has one such library. The library exists for the +librarians; its constituents--not readers--are of the school of +politics. The example, it is to be hoped, is a unique one in our +country. + +A brief retrospect of the libraries and librarians of the past may help +us to more fully comprehend the situation of the librarian and his +constituents of to-day. + +The monk represented the librarian of the Middle Ages. He was not by +profession a librarian, and yet the valuable service he rendered to +literature entitles him to the name. He was at once chorister, master of +ceremonies, transcriber, illuminator, and collector. Professedly the +monk was a religious ascetic. He retired from the world to devote +himself to religion, to a life of self-denial. His language was the +Latin; the books or manuscripts that surrounded him were works of the +Fathers, books of devotion, service-books, and the classics. These were +just in keeping with his life and thoughts. A congenial occupation was +thus opened to him. The hours of the cloister were made shorter as the +monk duplicated and reduplicated some dainty missal, or some commentary +of Augustine, or painted a miniature of the Virgin or of the apostles. + +However much we may differ in opinion as to the service rendered to +religion by the monasteries of the Middle Ages, as librarians we have a +fellow-feeling with these toiling monks, and are grateful to them for +the service they have rendered the libraries of to-day by their +preservation of works that otherwise would have been destroyed. There is +nothing in the book-making arts of to-day to compare with the artistic +skill displayed in the illuminations and miniature-painting which enrich +and beautify the manuscripts of those times. + +The monastic libraries were small, and the readers few. Books were +loaned from monastery to monastery. They were distributed once a year, +at the Lenten season. As each borrower returned his book he was +catechised as to its contents, if the examination was satisfactory he +was allowed another book for the coming year; if not, he must take his +old book again. + +One not a member of the order of St. Benedict, or an _attaché_ of Cluny +or Canterbury, could procure the coveted treasure, sometimes, by +pledging to return with the manuscript borrowed a full transcription. + +Library economy in these ages was very simple. Catalogues were little +more than inventories, and no discordant notes were chanted, in duets or +solos, over systems of classification. The absolute or fixed system of +shelving was in vogue, the books being held in their places by chains. +The survival of this feature exists in the attachments of the modern +city directory. + +But, not to linger longer in cloisters or abbeys, we come to the age of +printing and to the foundation of the modern libraries of Europe; the +treasures in the monastic libraries contributing to form their vast +collections. + +The monk's occupation as a librarian was gone, and he was succeeded by +the collector, the keeper, the scholar. In the centuries immediately +succeeding the invention of printing there was a growing diffusion of +knowledge by means of libraries. We smile at the restrictions imposed, +and look upon them as so many fetters on the intellect. It is, however, +to be borne in mind that at this time books were costly and rare, and on +this account were guarded with great jealousy. + +When the Bodleian library was founded it was stipulated by law that +under no pretence should any book be lent to any one, no matter what his +station. A Fellow of Corpus Christi College could not enter the sacred +alcoves alone, and he was under oath not to remove a book. The books +were there for use, there can be no question; and in the Bodleian, to +which we have just referred, a person could have six books at a time to +consult, and the library was open for six hours during the day. + +About 1650 Humphrey Chetham bequeathed £1,000 for a public library in +Manchester, England. He was a firm adherent of the fixed location. "My +mind and will is," he says, "that care be taken that none of said books +be taken out of the said library at any time, and that the said books be +fixed or chained." After specifying certain religious books, and +annotations on the Bible, he adds, "and other books proper for the +common people." It was two hundred years after this, in this last half +century, before the Public Libraries Act was introduced into the English +Parliament; and from this period we may date a new era, both in England +and in this country, in the dissemination of books and improved library +methods. The last decade, commencing with the formation of the A.L.A. +and the beginning of our second century as a nation, has witnessed +results hitherto unachieved in library economy. It is not necessary to +enlarge here upon the work that has been accomplished. The important +thing to note is that the librarian of to-day should be _en rapport_ +with all that pertains to his profession. He should acquaint himself +with schemes of classification, and elect from them that which is best +adapted for the purposes of his own library. He should adopt the best +system for charging, acquaint himself with the most approved library +appliances. Whether he adopt the classed catalogue, the dictionary, the +alphabeto-classed, or any other form, let it be one that shall be +abreast of the progress that has been made in this department of library +science. The librarian can scarcely keep pace with his fellow-librarians +unless he receives the right hand of fellowship of the American Library +Association, and is a reader of the _Library journal_ or the _Library +notes_, just launched and designed to cruise along the coast into the +smaller ports. The advantages which the librarian receives from these +sources will qualify him better for his profession, but the greater +advantage will accrue to his readers: knowledge will be made more +available, and a bright, cheerful atmosphere will pervade the alcoves of +his store-house. + +The librarian of to-day is developing to the full the utilitarian +principle. He is practical,--practical in his library management, +practical in his choice of books. His constituency is either a +particular class or the great public. To supply the masses with reading, +and to make books helpful in all the vocations of life, is the +librarian's aim. It is just here that we need to emulate our +predecessors, the monks and the collectors and bookworms of the +sixteenth and succeeding centuries. + +He must have the spirit of the collector, the animus of the scholar. He +must not forget that he is an antiquarian in his zeal for utility. His +constituency is not confined to the present; he is building for +posterity as well. His library will live after him. He therefore needs +to be a wise master-builder. + +If the choice of books is in the librarian's hands, or if he occupies an +important position in connection with the selection, his best effort +should be given to this department. The responsibility is not small. He +will find it more difficult often to reject than to select. He must +consult the wants of his readers; but there is a limit to that. +Everything that is in print may be called for, but that is no reason why +it should be honored with a place in a library. The librarian's personal +equation is not to be the standard, but the foundation principles of +morality, truth, and sound sense must guide him. No quarter should be +given to books of doubtful morality. Fiction now finds a place in most +libraries open to any extent to the public, and this class of books +forms so large a part of the circulation of many libraries that it is +becoming a question of no small importance as to how far public funds +should be expended for such books as afford little else than pastime. A +public library is a public educator. It is not a sluice into which every +publisher may dump his entire wares; as educators, librarians and +managing boards have the right to maintain the purity of their +collections, and to protect them from inundations of worthless books. + +The librarian should be alert to supply his readers with all they +require that will be helpful, as we have said; but, more than this, he +should lead them. He may do so by procuring works of standard worth, new +and old, that represent the best thought in any department of literature +or science. + +Unless he has something of the spirit of the collector very much will +elude his grasp, and be, perhaps, utterly lost to his library. There are +the limited editions, now so limited in number; the privately printed +book; the first numbers of periodicals; the first reports of societies; +local histories and genealogies; memorial volumes, and the like,--works +whose value is enhanced by time. + +A librarian, to be successful, must be a lover of books. The novice, in +applying for a librarianship, often puts it down as one of his cardinal +qualifications that he is fond of reading. To the active, toiling worker +this is not suggestive of business. A love of books very naturally +suggests a taste for reading, except when bibliomania is in the blood. A +true friend of books is not such because his collection embraces +Elzevirs and Aldines, or because they are in Grolier or Bedford +bindings, or printed on Whatman or Holland paper,--these are matters of +just pride,--but because the army of silent authors, marshalled under +his leadership, will diffuse light and knowledge wherever they go. The +librarian imbued with this spirit, if he finds time to read, will +reflect what he has read. It is to be feared that the librarian who +reads in these times is the exception; and yet there can be no question +that, if he could have each day an hour or two for reading,--time enough +to acquaint himself with the thought of the times, and occasionally +commune with the authors of the past,--his efficiency would be greatly +enlarged, and his readers would have a supplemental catalogue in him, +corresponding, to some extent, to the good work contemplated by our +Cooperative Committee. + +There are in every library very many books that are what we might term, +to use a mercantile phrase, dead stock. From the very necessities of the +case there must be many books that will be called for only at great +intervals, while others never have a friendly consultation. But, aside +from these, libraries will often have works of great practical value +that are standing idle, because it is not generally known that the +library possesses them. There may be a choice lot of works on +electricity, a rare collection on ceramics, a fine selection of +engravings, representative works in the various industrial arts; the +call for them not being popular and large, they might be brought to the +notice of a larger constituency by calling the attention of certain +readers to them, or by sending a polite invitation to some manufacturing +firms, to some professional electricians, or to art schools and +scientific schools. + +Periodicals, before the days of Poole's Index, were sealed books. +Libraries have been wonderfully expanded where this index is used. +Further cooperation in this direction, as planned by the Cooperative +Committee, should receive hearty encouragement. The books of a library +may be further enlarged in their use by publishing, on the library +bulletin, the works in the library that illustrate important events, +after the admirable plan initiated by Mr. Foster, of Providence. + +If the librarian has not the time at his command to read he has rare +opportunities for reading character; and to be on good terms with his +varied constituency he will have to be like St. Paul,--all things to all +men. He must be polite, accommodating, possess his soul in patience, and +be unselfish in his devotion to his readers. Generally, his contact with +his constituency will be pleasant and agreeable, but he will have to +deal with certain typical characters that will vex and fret him. + +There is the rummager, who snarls at all catalogues, and wants the +freedom of the library, not for studious research, but to gratify his +bookish propensity. "Five minutes with authors" is his watchword. + +The crank, who has been defined as a person with an idea, without brains +to carry it out, is a frequenter of libraries. His inquiries are for +what the library does not possess. This affords him a text for lecturing +the librarian and the managers. If the librarian's sentiments are not in +accord with that idea of his he threatens to expose him in the +newspapers. + +The curiosity-hunter is another representative reader. He is brother to +the rummager, but he does not despise catalogues. They exhibit the +oddities of the library, at least the odd titles, such as Luther's +"Vagabonds and Beggars," "The Foundling Hospital for Wit," or "The +History of the Tread-mill." He passes quickly from one to the other, +gleaning here and there till curiosity is satiated. + +Another reader helps the librarian materially in his statistics; if he +calls for one book he calls for an armful. The subject he is +investigating may require all the light the library can focus upon it; +but he disposes of his armful so quickly that the query is, by what +alchemy knowledge is appropriated so rapidly. It must be put to the +credit of this age. + +The intelligent tramp is another _habitué_ of libraries. He is sometimes +a desultory reader, sometimes he is a specialist, and he investigates +with a profound air the most difficult problems; but that is as far as +he goes. He is constitutionally lazy. He has some love for literature +and science, but a far more appreciative love of leisure. He does +nothing, produces nothing. + +Then there are walking encyclopĉdias. You cannot name any author or work +that they have not an acquaintance with. They can talk glibly on any +subject; they absorb like sponges, but they give out nothing. They have +a passion for reading; but they either do not, or will not, make their +knowledge available to others. The colored man who not long since +applied to me for something on the toothache, as he was to deliver a +lecture upon this interesting topic, was not of this non-productive +class. If his monograph has been published it will be a good book for +close classification. + +The librarian who feels the obligations of his position realizes that +his influence as an educator is far-reaching, telling effectively upon +the community in which he lives, and destined to extend far down the +years to come. It becomes him, therefore, to fully equip himself for his +work, and to give to his constituents the results of his ripest +experience and his most unselfish attention. + + + + +THE USEFULNESS OF LIBRARIES IN SMALL TOWNS + + A few books in a small town may exert as much influence as + many books in a large one; and the personal influence of + their custodian and administrator may count for more. An + early statement placing emphasis on this fact by Miss West + of the Milwaukee Public Library (now Mrs. Henry L. + Elmendorf) appears in the subjoined paper read at the + Buffalo Conference of the American Library Association in + 1883. + + Theresa West Elmendorf, who as the writer of this paper was + Theresa Hubbell West, was born at Pardieville, Wis., Nov. 1, + 1855, educated in Milwaukee and served on the staff of the + public library of that city, being deputy librarian in + 1880-92 and librarian in 1892-96. In that year she married + Henry L. Elmendorf, then librarian of the Buffalo Public + Library, and since his death in 1906 she has been + vice-librarian there. In 1911 she was chosen president of + the American Library Association--the first woman to hold + this office. + + +There is still, as in the days when the story of the "wicked and +slothful servant," who contemptuously hid his one talent in a napkin, +was told, something discouraging in the sight of incomparably greater +opportunities than our own in the hands of another. + +The librarian of a small town or village may not cherish the envy of +the man in the parable in his heart, and yet feel a certain depression, +a sense that the small things he is striving--perhaps with all his +might--to accomplish amount to very little, as he listens to plans for +the construction of a building which will commodiously and conveniently +house two millions of books; as he ponders over a printed scheme which +will intelligently order upon the shelves a hundred thousand volumes, +and is yet so flexible, so elastic, that this number may be indefinitely +increased with no confusion, no necessity for rearrangement; as he sees +a method of charging which has been slowly evolved to meet the +ever-varying, ever-increasing needs of a circulation whose daily issues +are counted by thousands. + +Possibly this feeling has something to do with the small representation +in this Association of the hundreds of lesser libraries which are +scattered through the land. Whether it has, or not, the fact of this +meagre representation remains, and remains to be regretted. That such a +state of things is to be deprecated by the society goes without saying. +Every new member, in one way or another, brings an added power and +influence, which is by no means always to be measured by the size of the +library which he represents, or the active part he bears in the +deliberations. He may even be utterly silent, and yet an actual force; +for no speaker fails to feel the inspiration which radiates from an +attentive and enthusiastic listener. In ordinary society the +accomplishment of being "a good listener" is one of the most enduring of +charms. It does not lose its power among librarians. The prosperity of a +paper as truly as a jest's "lies in the ear of him that hears it, never +in the tongue of him that makes it." + +To ask these unattached librarians, if perhaps an echo may reach them, +to consider whether their isolation from their profession is not only a +deprivation to themselves which they can illy afford, but a retarding of +the progress of the true library spirit as well, and to suggest a +thought which may possibly prove a stimulus to counteract the +discouragement and depression before spoken of, is all that I have even +hoped to accomplish in the few words which have, somewhat too +ambitiously, been called a paper on "The usefulness of libraries in +small towns." + +In regard to the interest and profit of these meetings to the lesser +libraries, I have heard it asserted, and it is, I think, true, that the +papers and discussions were almost exclusively directed to the +consideration of the aims, methods, and needs of great libraries. If the +fact needs explanation, or justification, an ample one is found in the +register of the names of the composing members, with their positions. +That there would be a ready and cordial response to any general call for +the discussion of topics specially pertinent to small libraries is not +to be doubted. Over the editorial columns of one of our most-used +periodicals runs the legend, "Every man is a debtor to his profession." +It was a most wise choice of mottoes by our friend, the editor and +publisher, for in no profession is it more true than in our own. The +constant missionary work which Boston and Chicago, and indeed every +library of any repute in the country, has done and is doing, is proof +enough that the obligation is appreciated. If the smaller libraries want +the discussion of simpler, less technical methods, they have, probably, +but to ask. + +It may be objected that the great obviously includes the small, and +that plans and methods which are good and suitable for the former need +but to be reproduced in miniature for the latter. It is true, that, in +many departments, the accident of size makes little or no difference in +library economy; but in the administration of affairs, in the machinery +of running, the director of a municipal library has many and +accumulating cares, of which his less burdened rural brother need never +feel the weight. Prof. John Fiske, some years ago, at the time when he +was assistant librarian of Harvard University, very graphically +described a portion of the perplexing duties which fall to the lot of +even a university librarian, striving to correct the erroneous but too +prevalent notion that such a position is a sinecure. He confined himself +to an enumeration and description of the duties which are essentially +professional, the multiplicity of details of the ordering, classifying, +and cataloging of books. In this direction there is a difference only in +amount between the greater and the less. But, in addition to all that +Prof. Fiske described, a city librarian must needs oversee as well the +thousand and one minutiae which go to make up the sum of a day's work in +a circulating library. He must provide for the accurate identification +and registration of his borrowers,--no light task when they number tens +of thousands of the floating population of a western city, which has +more active duties for her police than the following up of delinquent +patrons of the public library. He must see to it that the thousands of +books which flow over his counters are unerringly charged, and that +tardy borrowers are warned of their remissness. These are but a few of +the numberless details, many of which are trivial in the extreme, but +which all go toward the making up of such a day's work as "none but he +that feels it knows." As a machine increases in complications a +constantly greater percentage of power is consumed in overcoming +friction. This attention to the routine of daily work, which forms much +of the severest, because least satisfying, work which a librarian does, +may be compared to the friction of machinery; and just in the proportion +that the power of his mind and the strength of his body are taxed in +this direction, by just so much are they reduced for other duties, the +importance of which is specially prominent in the minds not only of the +profession, but of the public as well,--an actual knowledge of the books +which the library buys, and the exertion of an active personal influence +in raising the standard of literature which is drawn from the library. + +It is precisely in this line of personal influence that there seem to me +to be special encouragements to the librarians of small towns, that +here, notwithstanding their limited resources, they have peculiar +opportunities for attaining an almost ideal standard of excellence in +the quality of their work. + +It would be unjust to say that a city librarian actually works harder +than his country brother. The duties of the former are mainly those of +guiding, overseeing, and correcting the work of others. The latter, with +his own hands and brain, does most of the work himself. It is as if the +one were architect solely, and the other not only architect, but mason +and carpenter as well. One of the severest trials of the lot of a city +librarian, in the West at least, is that he must work through many +assistants who are not only utterly lacking in any real love or +enthusiasm for their work, but who are many times illy-educated as well. +The remedy for this state of affairs is not likely to be found until our +boards of trustees take for their careful consideration the reply of a +certain irate domestic to her remonstrating mistress: "You can't expect +a good cook and all the Christian virtues for two dollars a week!" If +the necessities of the work do not require the employment of more than +one, two, or, at most, three assistants, the subtle electric current of +the librarian's own enthusiasm may suffer the subdivision without being +utterly dissipated. He can actually do much of the work himself. He +comes into contact with his clientage, which is not so large but that he +may hope to become personally acquainted with many of them, and, +learning their tastes and needs, easily become their trusted friend and +guide. His catalog, too, is his own work, and it is perhaps safe to say +that no one ever properly appreciates a catalog but its maker. Certainly +no one else ever handles it with equal ease and intelligence. + +I am afraid the catalog has never been made, and never will be, over +which the ignorant and indolent will not be perplexed and deceived; and, +after all is said, it is to the ignorant to whom the gospel of the +public library is specially sent. If the cataloger himself is constantly +at hand to explain intricacies, to supplement deficiencies, with his own +perfect knowledge of his library, to answer even foolish and stumbling +questioners patiently and intelligently, he may make the puzzling way of +finding and getting a book so plain that "The wayfaring man, though a +fool, need not err therein." + +That this personal influence, when exerted, bears fruit, and that right +soon, has been proved again and again. The following is from the last +report of one of the largest libraries in the country: "The increasing +public interest in the more scholarly books of the Library, and the +large accession of visitors to the reference tables, are to be +attributed partly to the Saturday-morning classes which have been +conducted at the Library for the past four months." If such work makes +so immediate and appreciable an impression upon a circulation which is +numbered by hundreds of thousands, is there not a hopeful outlook, +indeed, for small workers? + +One has said that "A library is, after all, very much what its +librarian makes it." There are too many conflicting individualities at +work in a municipal library to make this, to any considerable extent, +true; but in a small town or village the personal equation of the +librarian may easily become the exponent of the power of the library. + + + + +ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF +PENNSYLVANIA + + Dr. Talcott Williams, the orator of this occasion, Feb. 7, + 1891, was at that time a journalist in Philadelphia. He has + always been a welcome writer and speaker on literary themes. + + Talcott Williams was born in Abeih, Turkey, July 20, 1849, + the son of an American missionary. He graduated at Amherst + in 1873 and in that year entered journalism, becoming later + an editorial writer on several large dailies until 1912 when + he was made director of the School of Journalism of Columbia + University, New York City. + + +For the first and for the last time, the voices of men are heard in +this place, dedicated to the more eloquent silence of books. Nowhere is +man more and men less than in the library. In the presence of books +individual learning pales. The scholar dies; the library lives. Yet only +in part. In this bookish age, we fondly impute immortality to books. +Nothing could be more false. Few books have the power of an endless +life. Against these books of power stand a great multitude of books of +use, which perish with the using. The vast mass of books, like the +thoughts in our daily lives, sink into the background of the +recollection of the race and furnish the soil from which fresh growths +spring. Few there are who have written books of power. Not a score in +all. Poets for the most part. High priests forever after the order of +humanity, whose flaming message burns from age to age in the great tree +of human existence, consuming and unconsumed. These books of power which +live that humanity may not die, and books of use that die that others +may live, divide literature between them. They constitute the warp and +woof out of which the university weaves the higher education. In its +last analysis a liberal training is the mastery of books of use and a +glad yielding to the mastery of books of power. + +Controversy over the classics, wrangling over Greek, vain jangling over +required and elective courses--these are details. Direct contact between +the growing minds of each generation and the great minds of the +race--this is essential. We smile at the space given Confucius in +Chinese education; the Koran in Mohammedan schools; but this is only a +perversion of the sound instinct which everywhere puts the young to +school to the teachers of the race. Unless your education does this, it +stands where the electric telegraph did before its wires were +grounded--its batteries and instruments, its poles and wires useless +until they were in direct contact with the elemental source of electric +energy in the earth itself. So-called and mis-called practical systems +of education, _realschulen_, which omit these eternal realities of the +race, find when they have stuffed their pupils with the facts of the day +that they are still insulated from the thinkers of all time. Fortunately +for us and for our education, these books of power exist in more than +one language and are accessible through more than one channel of +learning. Thanks to the matchless translation of the Bible, one +incomparable group of books of power is taught in every Sunday-school, +though I doubt if this will be held sufficient reason for neglecting +their study in every university. Greek holds another group. But it is +the pitiful pedant's plea to urge their study because Greek is +difficult. It is not because Greek is Greek, but because Homer is Homer +that Chapman "spake out loud and bold" of the solitary text-book which +has held its own for 2500 years, and links, as may it forever link, this +university with the school of Athens. + + "Yet still your Homer, living, lasting, reigning, + And proves how truth builds in poets feigning." + +It is because these books of power hold the truth that makes men free, +working thoughts that perish never, that they live when the tongues in +which they speak are dead. Books of power which transmit the spiritual +life of the race keep the self-same spirit through all the +transmigrations of speech. The scriptures of the race, no less than the +scriptures of religion, enjoy a pentecostal gift of tongues, and are +heard by every man in his own language. Where such books are few in +number, which a shelf or two will hold, there is a liberal education, +and no elective course which permits their exclusion offers intellectual +salvation. Some such books every race has found in its own literature as +it reached the full stature of universal humanity, as our own +English-speaking race, well-nigh within this generation, has discovered +in adding Shakespeare to our general schooling. By the production of +such books of power nations are justly measured. This is the wisdom +which keepeth a city from destruction. The ship of state, however +weighted with worldly wealth, moves a trackless keel through the waters +of history unless some poet wings its course with "the proud, full sail +of his great verse." We have all heard to-day from one whose lifelong +devotion has raised him to the foremost rank of scholarship. + + "Weave a circle around him thrice + And close your eyes with holy dread, + For he on honey-dew hath fed + And drunk the milk of Paradise." + +The study of such books is possible without any aid or apparatus +whatever; so near is the diviner of letters to every one of us. But the +first office which the library discharges in a university is in +providing the limitless and manifold interpretation which the ages have +builded about these great books of power. Better than all other books as +are the books of power when read without study, they are infinitely +bettered by all study. The literature of interpretation is only second +in value to the literature of inspiration. The study even of books of +power tends to become scholastic, narrow, provincial, letterwise, and +spiritually dead, unless it is quickened and corrected by the fruits of +the entire field of critical science. For lack of this more than one +sacred book has met a fate which makes one feel, as well kill a book as +give it a good name. Even in the teaching of books of power--which of +all teaching needs but a soul and the book to awake eternity--the +scholar is saved from himself by the library. He learns that with all +the inspired prophets of the race no scripture is of private +interpretation, that only time unlocks the weaving of these deeper +oracles of humanity, because they spake not of themselves, but for the +spirit of man. Nor need we fear that they will be smothered by their +interpretation. The mountains bear easily the weight of forests they +uprear, and at the last and highest, no tree ascends above the snow-line +of eternal thought. + +But such ascents are as little the normal work of the university as of +the road-builder. Its course lies chiefly along the broad highways of +learning. Not books of power, but books of use, which sum first general, +and then special and professional knowledge, occupy the greater portion +of its time, just as the most saintly of mortals devotes more of his +days to earning his living than to saving his soul. If the study of +books of power is rendered more valuable by a library, the adequate +teaching of books of use without one is impossible. Every text-book is a +compromise between what is known and what can be taught. Two classes, I +know, the publishers and the public, cherish the belief that there are +text-books which sum current knowledge on this subject and that; but +there are none. Every text-book is out of date the day after it goes to +the printer, and the day before it gave out, not what is known, but the +view of what is known then in vogue. It measures the advancing tides of +learning by a gauge itself incessantly changing. We love to speak of +authorities and standards. We delude ourselves. The whole field of +letters and of learning is in a perpetual flux, whose only complete +record is the library. We know that in science discovery succeeds +discovery. There is nothing certain about a scientific book except that +it will be wrong in five or ten years. Only now and then does some +law-giver in science, some Newton or Darwin, descend the mount of +discovery, bearing eternal and lasting laws of nature, writ by Nature's +God. But in literature we dream of permanent reputation. Here, too, +"Every century gives the last the lie." All the lesser priests of +letters stand at shrines like that of Nemi and the Golden Bough, + + "Beneath Aricia's trees, + Where the ghastly priest doeth reign, + The priest who slew the slayer + And shall himself be slain," + +Every new book enters the arena about to die. The friendly verdict but +deters fate; it does not avert it. The lesser criticism of letters must +be done anew for every crop of readers, and in fifteen or twenty years +most essays are left behind. The procession of novels passes almost as +rapidly. Few are read for thirty years, no English novels have held a +popular place for past half a century, and a decade before the centenary +of Waverly it begins to be whispered that Scott is no longer read by the +young. Every generation must have its own translations of the classics, +or reprints of those which have been forgotten. Morals, philosophy, and +religion must be rewritten for it. Even histories, which linger a little +longer on the stage than all the rest, yield to inexorable change. It is +barely a century since Gibbon launched his mighty fleet, freighted with +the fall of empire. It has long ridden the seas, but I think we are all +well aware that its masts are already low on the horizon. No one author, +no one work, can longer satisfy the world for the story of ten centuries +of the race. For most of us these changes do not exist. Unconsciously we +go on down the stream with the favorites of our youth and forget that +both are growing old together. If literature is to be taught as it is, +and not as it seems, to take one pregnant illustration, true of all +studies, teacher and taught must have instant and vital access to that +great body of books to which in every subject a text-book is but a rude +and makeshift guide. The present can only be understood by the past, and +both are needed to prophesy of the future. When this library has been +enlarged to the utmost bounds of our anticipation, it will still have +its limits to the specialists--joints in its armor of learning. Even at +the British Museum I was told and discovered that no man is long at work +without wanting some book with which it is unprovided. + +But if teaching requires this great array, much more does the wider +work of the college professor. To look upon him as set only to teach, to +hear recitations, is as narrow and barren a view of his work as to think +of the farmer as only occupied in feeding his calves. If a university is +in the highest sense to be a teaching body, it must cultivate knowledge +as well as pupils. Its professors must do more than harvest the learning +and teach the discoveries of other discoverers. They must produce and +discover. The spirit of genius bloweth where it listeth, but those books +of use which play their part in giving each generation its critical +standards, its histories, and the results of research are born only in +full libraries. If a university is deficient in them, the lack is apt to +be in that laboratory of learning, its library. Unless a university is +producing these, it is teaching only its matriculates when it ought to +be teaching the public. + +Much may be done, much accomplished, in the university without the +library. Professional schools may multiply and grow, for in these men of +professional learning supply the lack of books. It is even possible to +carry on much research and produce valuable results along any narrow +rising line of discovery in some science, which, like the coral, has but +its growing edge alive, and for the rest is dead and under water. But if +a university is to fill the whole round and play part in society, it +must enjoy, employ, and extend the organized memory of man as +represented in a great library. As the chief value of this lies, not in +any view of its mere bulk and size, but in its relation to the +recollection of the race, so the work of the university pivots on its +ability to make vital the study of books of power, without which all +learning and letters and science are but a vain show. Better, a thousand +times better, the solitary study which brings men face to face with the +spirit of man in these great movements than any university study which +dwarfs to routine or degrades to mere rote these great works. For the +object of all our study is not knowledge, but wisdom, and we move to +dwindling ends if we search out all the secrets of matter and forget the +secrets of the spirit. The great round of studies which make up the +university, its libraries and laboratories, the accumulation of the past +and the discovery of the future, these are each and all but the +scaffolding by which the race rises to those conceptions of the Divine +and the spiritual uttered and summed in its books of power. Listening to +their teaching we may even learn that the ascent of man is more +important than his descent, his future of more consequence than his +origin--that it is his birth, and not his death, which is a sleep and a +forgetting. + +But books of use and books of power--the indiscriminate eulogy of books +and reading has ceased to be possible even at the opening of a building +dedicated to both. Their criticism has begun. Books are no longer the +unique property of the scholar. We all buy books. Most of us read them. +Many of you write them. The use of books is the one side of learning on +which we all claim an opinion. Yet owned, read, written, or wholly laid +aside in a busy life, the use of books, which each of us knows, is +individual and personal. Standing to-day in the home of a collection +which, we trust, is to be one of the larger libraries of learning, +landmark, and lighthouse at once, recording the past and lighting the +pathless future, this individual and personal use is inevitable before +us, cramping and limiting our conception of the relations, the aims, and +the ends of a great library. Its very beginnings about us raise a doubt +as to the wisdom of these endless accumulations of print. The peril of +the mere aggregate was, perhaps, never plainer than in these days, when +the great glacier of democracy slides on, making high places low and low +high--one would be glad to believe, preparing the pathway of a new +lordship of learning, but one is fain to fear making easy the track and +broad the road for an evil over-lordship of mediocrity in learning and +in literature. Our own democracy we are assured, has ceased to read +anything but fiction, and demands this, not book-meal, but piece-meal, +in monthly, weekly, or even daily doses. + +The vast book-stack of the modern library, in which volumes lose their +individuality as completely as urns in a columbarium, and like them but +too often hold naught but dead and forgotten dust, is far removed from +the still air of delightful studies which we associate with our own +loved libraries. "I seldom go there," says Emerson of the University +Library he used, "without renewing my conviction that the best of it all +is already within the four walls of my study at home." The ablest of +American editors recently urged in the most brilliant of American +newspapers that the Library of Congress should be reduced to a sound +working collection of 50,000 volumes, and the rest of its treasures +dissipated or stored. I have myself heard the suggestion in regard to +this library, and from one of academic connection, that its future +usefulness would be increased if its future bulk were restricted. +Whether we listen to the philosopher, the editor, or the university +trustee; whatever fanned and winnowed opinions we apply to the great +threshing floor on whose round the feet of the ages slowly tread out the +wheat from the chaff in the garnered harvest of human thought, the +remnant will be small--measured by high thought or narrow utility. The +mere mass of our libraries already overtaxes our utmost ability to +classify, to catalogue, and to administer. As we watch their bulk grow, +on whatever side of the great altar of learning we worship, our fears +increase that these heaped offerings will stifle the sacred fire. This +weighty weapon of letters forged by generations, this mighty armor and +panoply of learning on whose myriad rivets so many hammers have rung, +has outgrown the individual, and we begin to doubt its ultimate value to +society. + +Thus men ever err in their early thought on the new duties and fresh +responsibilities created for men by associate man. In the field of +organized life the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. +The body is more than an aggregate of cells. The soul wiser than all its +faculties. A nation more puissant than any census of its citizens. Man +more than men. The secret of this supremacy over the sterile synthesis +of sense, the root and germ mastery over the mere mechanics of life, and +the bald and barren arithmetic of existence, lies in the capacity to +know the present and to remember the past--in consciousness, out of +which conscience grows, and in memory, Mnemosyne, mother of all the +Muses and parent of all learning. Rightly in all history do we measure +the value of every human society to Humanity by its power to awake to +its own existence and be aware of its own past. This is the + + --"mystery in the soul of state + Which hath an operation more divine + Than breath or pen can give expression to--" + +This exalts the microscopic municipalities of Greece. This abases the +dumb millions of Asia. Our own articulate millions, deficient in much, +have done most for the world, not by material development, but by +demonstrating that 62,000,000 spread over a continent can enjoy a +consciousness as constant, continuous, and complete as the handful of +citizens in the market-place of a Greek city, less in population that +the ward in which we stand, smaller in area than the open spaces about +this University. This general capacity to think as one and remember as a +whole differences modern societies from all the past, save that of +Greece. This has brought the awakening of nations in this century, a +mightier resurrection with power than the awakening of men in the +sixteenth century. With the future awakening of man the work will be +complete. Until it is, national consciousness and national memory, +creating conscious national life, are the determining conditions of +human progress. The problem which Greece solved by making its +communities small, the modern world triumphantly meets by making them +large and live. It secures this through the newspaper, the print of the +present, which sets at one in consciousness vast masses of men which are +set apart in space. For generations separated in time, the library, the +print of the past, preserves for society the sacred oracles of memory. +Misunderstood, misappreciated, placed in opposition, treated as +antagonists, the editor assuring us that the newspaper has superseded +the printed book, the librarian hesitating to cumber his shelves with +the fugitive issues of the newspaper, these twin and vital organs in +society still supplement and correlate each other. + +The newspaper is the library of the moment, the library is the newspaper +of all time. We open a newspaper to learn what we are as a nation. We +enter a library to learn what we were. The revelations of neither are +altogether satisfactory. We object to the library because it does not +tell enough of the past. Too often we object to the newspaper because it +tells too much of the present. The faults and shortcomings of the past, +however plainly told, rouse no unpleasant sense of responsibility. In +our own individual experience we have each of us had our private and +personal quarrel with consciousness and memory for setting in too clear +a light the sins and duties, the lacks and demands of the past and +passing day. The revelation is no pleasanter when consciousness, memory +and responsibility are social and national. Yet it is only by accepting +both a complete social consciousness and a complete social memory that a +society can be created whose ultimate end is the highest development of +each of its individuals, whose service is the highest duty of all its +members. Lavish margin of error in the newspaper too often leads us by +some slain truth to ask with the soldier at Philippi: + + "Messenger of error-- + Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men + The things they are not?--" + +But like Cassius, the truth is self-slain and dies among its friends. +It still remains true that the newspaper is oftener challenged for +telling what is unpleasant than for recording what is untrue, and the +refined and cultured soul, which objects to the newspaper because it +reeks with the ill news of society for whose ills no man can avoid his +just share of responsibility, but imitate the Pharaoh, who slew the +messengers of evil and sunk in wilful ignorance to an ignoble grave. + +The nation which lives by the newspaper will lose touch with the past. +The nation which lives in the library will want knowledge of the +present. We know all too much as Americans of the peril of thinking by +the newspapers. German thought has run in the seclusive channel of the +academic library to the lack and loss of civic consciousness. Germany +was the last of modern states to act as a people. We were the first, the +balance and connection between the newspaper and the library, news and +liberal letters, the reporter and the professor, cuts up by the roots +the frequent conception of the library as a place occult, withheld, +untrod; shut apart from practical ends, the grant of society to the +scholar--useful to letters, useless to life. This "idol of the +market-place" falls to pieces confronted by the facts of social +structure. As well might the brain be held silent, the voice of memory +dumb, the light of consciousness in darkness by the side of the brute +mechanical forces of the body; silence, seclusion, separation from the +active life of society, these may be for the exchange and the +market-place, the railroad and the factory, vast, dumb mechanic +processes which perish in producing, but not for the library--not here, +not here. These walls ring with war. They sound with the conflicts of +the race. Here, rather than in any arsenal is heard + + --"the infinite fierce chorus, + The cries of agony, the endless groan, + Which, through the ages that have gone before us, + In long reverberations reach our own." + +Thus much for the library in organized society. Long since have we +known of books as the counsellors and comforters of men. To us all they +have been teachers, to each of us companions. That great majority, +greater in wisdom no less than in number, in which by the iron decrees +of fate so many are called and so few are chosen to lasting immortality, +holds all of whom living the world was not worthy, but of whom dead it +slowly seeks to be. Here and here alone in all shapes and forms, we +build the sepulchres of the prophets whom our fathers crucified and here +doubtless our children will build the sepulchres of those who in our day +are despised and afflicted of men for the truth's sake. In joy and in +grief, in life and in death some book supports, sustains, and soothes +each of us, and in this library the very light has been trained to teach +us at every window and door that we might enter it to pass within the +presence of the mighty dead, to enjoy the companionship of that great +company no man can number of wise men made perfect by time. + +But to the seeing eye and the hearing ear, awake and attentive to all +that a library is, not for men but for man, not for individuals but for +the race, a greater than Solomon is here, and a mightier shape fills +these halls and looks down from these shelves than all the trooped and +illustrious dead. These books, shelf on shelf, these volumes, which fit +subject by subject into the storied arch of human knowledge, resting one +side on metaphysics and the other on history, the science of mind and +the science of man, seem existent human memory. The complete library +would round and fill the record of the race. At best, we have but a +beggarly fragment. If a single copy of each of the 13,000,000 volumes +which dropped from the press in 450 years were by some glad miracle +multiplying knowledge gathered in one place, human memory would be +unbroken for this short span of its long stay on the globe. Of +13,000,000 but 1,000,000 rest in the largest library on earth in +Bloomsbury Square, and not a half are gathered in all known libraries. +But such as it is, large or small complete or incomplete, a great +library to its capacity gives, as this has begun to do, the only measure +we have of the recollection of the race. Here we stand face to face not +with men or nations, race or people, but with man. Blindly our humanity +still struggles to shape its thought, dumb, inarticulate, unconscious, +travelling in darkness and laboring in pain, century by century, and +generation by generation, in the slow pilgrimage toward the conscious +and consecration before it. The thunder of its power who shall know? Who +shall sound its depths or scale its heights? Who shall know it in all +its compass and sound, measure the confines thereof or prophesy its far +final coming? These are all hid in the inscrutable decrees of God from +the sight of men, but here, here and in places like this there rises +before us like an exhalation of the past in these volumes, in this +library, the majestic and visible memory of man. + +Rightly here, as in that larger treasure house in London, have we +gathered museum and library under the same roof. These shapeless +fragments worked by the early cunning of savage man, these inscribed +marbles and sculptured slabs, these tablets and relics of another and a +distant life, these all, each in its place, play their part in the +recorded memory of the race. Out of every fragment from every book +shines this Ancient of Days, who before Abraham was and after us shall +be. Who and what are we, creatures of a day, toilers of an hour, to be +measuring by our experience the metes and bounds in the manifestations +of his mighty memory. Rather let our labor be given to render complete +and to transmit unbroken our share in this great heritage by preserving +the universal printed record of the life about us. The librarian falling +far short of the honor and amplitude of his office, standing between the +living past and the slowly dying life of the present, now and then +apologizes for saving every empty volume, because none but prescient +omniscience can tell which of 10,000 titles will be demanded by some +solitary reader a century hence. How petty the plea, how narrow the +argument, how infinitesimal the claims of this distant reader who after +all may never appear! But how simple, how sufficient, how adequate +becomes the reason for the preservation of every volume when we remember +that it, too, is a part of this vast image of human memory seated by the +slow river of time, more vocal than that of Memnon, older and younger, +and with every fresh sunburst of genius breaking into fresh song! + +In high reason has our own Historical Society gathered every volume +which fell in this State and city from the press of the last century. +Only thus can the span of human memory be set forth without a single +forgetful flaw. If the like effort is made here to fill a like +responsibility for the passing moment to the future, it is possible that +the Historical Society of another century will not find it necessary to +pay $700 for an almanac which might once have been had for a penny, and +yet how grievous the gap in the continuous and social memory of this our +city if the solitary copy left of Bradford's Almanac, the first product +of our press, had not found a secure resting-place. + +A great library, therefore, does not merely transmit the memory of the +past; it is daily providing memory for the future, safe preserved +"against the wreckful siege of battering days." For the individual no +worse hap can fall than loss of memory. All other powers may remain. +This lost, all are worthless. Stripped of memory, the soul has no future +and no past, naught save an infructuose now. Nor less, the race. The +destruction of the Alexandrian Library, whether with Abulfaraj we +attribute it to the intelligent Moslem, or with Gibbon to the ignorant +monk, was not the loss of so many books and parchments. It was the +paralysis of a great lobe of human memory, fatal lesion had fallen on +the localized organ of recollection in the brain of humanity. If we had +the 200 plays of Aeschylus, the 160 of Sophocles, the last books of +Livy, the missing annals of Tacitus, which this library held, the +stature of these writers would not be increased. Like the greater peaks +of every chain they already rise as they recede. It is only the +foot-hill that needs bulk. These, and lost books like them, would fill +for us the full measures of classic memory. As library after library +perished and book after book shared the fate of those fathered by +Ptolemy, the wreck and loss of human memory went on. The ages that we +call dark lacked not in men of action. Those ages of faith had their men +of thought matching any before or after. They laid for us the +foundations of a civil liberty more indestructible than that of Rome. +The piers of that great arch of law along which our rights daily travel +in safety were built by them. Their architecture and their sculpture +equals any. Their knowledge of the earth, as a whole, was immeasureably +in advance of classic conception. They furnished in Dante one of the two +or three poets for all time, and in the Roman Church they gave the race +a creation and conception of whose future it would be a rash man who +ventured to say that it was destined to be less than its past, imperial +as its history has been. These ages were dark, not from lack of light +and of leading, but from lack of memory. The ages had lost touch of the +elbow in their march through the dark defile of time. The Renaissance +was less the revival of human knowledge than the recovery of human +memory. Age was joined again to age in the unbroken sequence of +continuous recollection, and Greece laid her hands to transmit an +Apostolic succession of memory on the bowed and studious head of the +modern world. + +To play its part in transmitting and preserving human memory this +library is tonight opened and dedicated. Our Library Committee, and you, +sir, its head, who have shown us that whole libraries of comment may be +condensed into a volume by your magic alembic, providing for criticism a +new instrument of precision akin to the measurements and the analysis of +the exact science--you, sir, in the loving care you have given this +building, have not been providing a retreat for scholars; you have built +and fashioned here another refuge and stronghold, fortified + + "Against confounding Age's cruel knife + That he shall never cut from memory." + +The architect of this building has not wrought in mere brick and stone; +he has added to those shrines and centres of human memory to which its +treasures gravitate for their security and convenience. This university, +in receiving this building from its Finance Committee, which has raised +its cost, and whose head first suggested its erection, is placed in a +position where it can discharge not only the first duty of a university, +to which it has always been true, of thinking for the community, but the +second, which is like unto it, of remembering for society. + + + + +COLLECTION OF INFORMATION + + + One of the functions of the modern library is that of a huge + cyclopedia, kept continually up to date by the acquisition + of new material--books, periodicals, prints, pamphlets, + clippings, publicity matter and manuscripts. It is the + cyclopedia on cards long advocated by Dr. Dewey, except that + the cards are in its catalogue and do not contain the + information directly but serve only as keys to it. In this + kind of service the library is for the moment getting away + from books and nearer to the worker, whether at home, in + school or laboratory, or in commerce and industry. + + + + +LIBRARIES AS BUREAUS OF INFORMATION + + Early material on this ancient function of libraries, so + widely extended and developed of late, is hard to find. Only + two papers are given here. The first, by Samuel S. Green, is + part of an address delivered at the dedication of the Haston + Free Public Library Building in North Brookfield, Mass., + printed in _The Library Journal_ for July, 1896. A sketch of + Mr. Green appears in Vol. I. of this series. + + +The ideal library is one which invites everybody who has a question to +ask, which books contain answers to, to come to the library and put his +question, with the assurance that he will be kindly received, his +question sympathetically considered, and every effort made to find the +answer desired. + +I cannot better illustrate what I mean by saying that libraries should +be bureaus of information than by giving instances of inquiries recently +made in the library under my charge and explaining how those inquiries +were met. I will select questions which were answered by sending out of +town for books, and thus illustrate in addition the fact that libraries +administered on advanced principles help one another. + +A man came to me not long since and asked by what means he could +dissolve a certain gum which he mentioned. I had the United States +Dispensatory brought. The man did not find the answer wished for in that +work, but did find a reference to a volume of the _Pharmaceutical +Journal_. We did not have a set of that periodical; so I said that I +would send away to borrow the desired volume. I sent to the librarian of +the medical library in Boylston place, Boston, for it. He sent it to me +immediately by express. That volume contained some of the information +desired by the inquirer, but not all that he wanted. There was another +volume of the same periodical which he thought would contain the facts +which he was in search of. I sent for that, promising to return both +volumes at once. The second volume was immediately received. That +contained just what was wanted. + +By doing work like this a librarian may do much to add to the prosperity +of the industries of a town. + +Another man came to me to inquire whether we had a catalog of a certain +southern society which purported to do hospital work. + +I found that we had no catalog of the society named. It appeared that +the applicant for information had been asked to contract to do $4000 +worth of work for a society of the name mentioned and wished to learn +something about its standing. I told him that if I were in his place I +should write to a gentleman in Washington, whose name I gave him, who +knows all about medical institutions and hospitals throughout the +country, to ask him about the society; I offered to write, myself, as +the applicant felt timid about writing. + +I did write and soon had the answer that the correspondent would advise +the Worcester man to be very cautious about entering into a contract, +for he knew nothing about the existence of such a society. I hope that I +helped to save a Worcester business man from loss on this occasion. + +Again, a boy who came into Worcester to school called at the library to +ask me what I could tell his brother about a school for instruction in +tanning leather in Freiberg, Saxony. Did it receive Americans? what was +the cost of attending its sessions? what was its curriculum? etc., were +questions asked. + +I had no pamphlet to give the required information, but suggested that +the Commissioner of Education at Washington be written to, to find out +what information could be found in the library of his office. I found +that it would be necessary for me to write the letter; so I wrote it. +Soon the answer came giving the information desired and stating the +address of the school. The answer was passed over to the applicant, with +the suggestion that if further information were desired he should write +to the officers of the school. + +I remember doing much to start in her studies a resident of Worcester +who has since become a distinguished Russian scholar, by helping her to +get a Russian-German dictionary from abroad and by borrowing Russian +books for her to read from Harvard College Library. + +Three students of the Chinese language have received assistance at my +library, one a missionary at home on leave, the other two students under +the late Chinese professor of Harvard University, from dictionaries and +other books borrowed for their use. + +I have had occasion to hunt up books in the language of the Exquimaux +for the use of an investigator in Worcester. I could not find the books +in the libraries of Harvard University or Columbia College, and tried +the libraries of other centres of learning without success, when I +remembered that Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, the well-known Indian scholar +and historical student, had brought together a fine collection of +philological works in the Watkinson Library at Hartford, Connecticut. +The librarian of that library wrote me after a few days, saying that he +had the books and would send them at once. He apologized for not +despatching them before, saying that the library did not allow books to +be taken out. He had waited to consult the president. The president had +said that they must set aside the rule if Mr. Green and the library in +Worcester wanted the books, for it was evident that they were needed for +some important purpose. We got the books and they were used in the +preparation of a learned paper. + +Now, for closing illustrations, let me show you how libraries at great +distances help one another. I will choose the relations of the library +in Worcester to the Public Library of Denver, Colorado. Mr. Dana, the +librarian of that library, sent to me to borrow one of the publications +of the Browning Society of London. It was sent to him by registered mail +and returned, safely, in the same way. + +Next he wanted, for some student of mining, an extract from one of the +volumes of the _Comptes Rendus_ of the French Academy. The extract was +copied from the volume and sent to him. There has since occurred the +following transaction. A gentleman in Chicago had written to Mr. Dana, +in Denver, to ask him whether he knew of a translation of the report of +a government railroad commission in Holland which had recently been +engaged in considering what kinds of paint are best to use in preserving +iron, and whether he could tell him where to find the results of certain +experiments which had been made in one of the bureaus of the U.S. Navy +Department. Mr. Dana passed along the question to me, knowing that I had +often to answer questions of that kind. In order to find an answer to +the first question, I at once set a young man at work looking at the +indexes of the late volumes of the _Railroad and Engineering Journal_, +and soon an important article was unearthed giving the results of the +investigations of the Dutch commission. This piece of information was +sent to Denver. I then wrote to Mr. Henry C. Baird, the Philadelphia +publisher, to see if he knew of the publication of a translation of the +report. He wrote back that he did not know of the publication of such a +translation, but that there was a long article on paints useful in the +preservation of iron in one of the most recently issued volumes of +Spons's "Receipts." He promised, however, to make further inquiries. So +he went to the rooms of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences and +inquired there what gentleman in the city was most likely to have the +information sought for. He was referred to some one connected with the +Pennsylvania Railroad Co., who told him that he was not aware that the +report had been translated, but referred the inquirer to an elaborate +article extending through several numbers of the well-known periodical, +_Iron_. Mr. Baird transmitted the information he had got to me and I +sent it and other pieces of information gained since my last letter to +the library of Denver. The information sent to Denver was sent to +Chicago. So by the aid of two far separated librarians a person in +Chicago, an intermediate city, distant from the homes of both, received +information which he desired through Denver, Worcester, and +Philadelphia. For an answer to his second question, this inquirer from +Chicago was referred to the Navy Department at Washington. + +A clergyman in Colorado Springs, and this is a final illustration, +applied to the librarian of the same public Library in Denver for an old +book by Goldwin Smith. He referred him to me. I knew him, having met him +on my way to California. To my surprise I found we did not own the book. +So I wrote to Mr. Winsor, the Librarian of Harvard University, and told +him that the applicant could be trusted and would make good use of the +information afforded him, and that he needed the book in preparing a +course of lectures which he was to give at once at Colorado College in +Colorado Springs. Then I asked Mr. Winsor if he felt at liberty to lend +the book. The next thing I heard in regard to the matter, a letter came +from the gentleman in Colorado Springs thanking me for the aid rendered, +and saying that Mr. Winsor had sent the book and that it had reached him +just in time to use in preparing a lecture. The library in the United +States which was earliest in the field in doing the work of lending to +other libraries systematically and on a large scale, in so far as I +know, was that of the Surgeon-General's Office in Washington, long +administered so intelligently and with so keen an eye for usefulness by +Dr. John S. Billings. + +Now, how can libraries in towns of the size of North Brookfield become +bureaus of information? + +Let them approach as nearly as they can to the ideal of seeing to it +that everybody needing information gets it. + +The first thing to do is to let it be understood that a library desires +to have inquirers come to it for information, and that its librarian is +ready to take time to find out whether the library contains books which +will give the information desired. + +If it does not have the needed books, the librarian tries to think where +they can be had. Does anybody in town own them? If not, can they be had +from a library in a neighboring town? + +If these resources are not adequate, then let the librarian send to the +nearest large centre to borrow books from the library there to answer +the questions asked. Worcester would be the natural centre for North +Brookfield to send to. + +Individuals should not send to Worcester, but the librarian, having +exhausted resources at hand, should send for the books, the library +agreeing, of course, to make good damage and loss and pay the cost of +carriage. An out-of-town librarian does not know the individual users of +a library in a smaller town, but the librarian in that town does know +his constituency and for whom it is safe to borrow books. Libraries +should lend to one another, but the work of lending should be +systematic. + +As a member of the Free Public Library Commission of Massachusetts, I +wish to say that the commission likes to come into close contact with +the libraries of the state, and that the smaller libraries may from time +to time find it helpful to put questions to its chairman at the state +house in Boston, in person, through a representative, or by letter, +about library administration. + +People are breaking away from their leaders to-day. There is an +immense amount of crude thought and imperfect information in every +community. I verily believe that not least among the instrumentalities +by which thought may be matured and knowledge completed are public +libraries when administered as bureaus of information by accomplished +and earnest librarians, who will act as sympathetic friends and advisers +to inquirers and help them to look at all sides of questions and form +well-grounded judgments. + + + + +THE LIBRARY FRIEND + + Not all the information required of the Public Library is + asked by those engaged in laboratory research or by experts + in commerce and industry. Much of it is homely stuff, + greatly desired and more or less easy to find. Much of it + can be given offhand by the capable reference assistant, who + thereby becomes what the writer of this article calls a + "library friend" to her neighborhood. + + Miss Winifred Louise Taylor was born in Freeport, Ill., Feb. + 24, 1846. In 1874 she organized the first circulating + library in Freeport and acted as librarian for twelve years. + It was eventually incorporated in the Freeport Public + Library. In 1900-01, Miss Taylor was in charge of the + information desk at the Pratt Institute Free Library, + Brooklyn. For many years she gave much of her time to work + in the prisons, and in 1914 she published "The Man Behind + the Bars," describing some of this work. + + +"The library friend" is the term that seems best to apply to that +member of the modern library's staff whose work is a development of the +service ordinarily rendered through the "information desk." +Information-desk service as usually conceived, it is not; for the +library friend deals with the tendencies, tastes, and aspirations of +readers as much as if not more than with the definite question and +answer respecting facts. The office indeed may be regarded as finding +its first expression in the circulating libraries maintained by +subscription in many of the smaller cities twenty-five years and more +ago, when the free public library of to-day was comparatively rare. In +those libraries every subscriber knew the librarian, and the librarian +was personally acquainted with every book on the shelves. To bring the +books and readers into congenial relationship was the business and +usually the pleasure of the librarian. The personal element was the +heart from which the circulation of the books radiated--if the presiding +personality lacked vitality and enthusiasm the library was a failure. + +With the era of the democratic free libraries, with their more rapid +growth, with their doors open to men, women and children of all classes, +the human element, the personal relation of librarian to the reader +suffered a gradual eclipse, until, in some libraries more perfectly +developed on the technical side, the personal equation vanished +altogether. The library became a great machine, into which a number was +dropped, and out of which a book was dropped like corn from the hopper. +We all know how formidable this mechanism is to those unaccustomed to +modern library methods. To the uninitiated the card catalog is an +abomination, an unsolved problem, a delusion and a snare. The boy who is +interested in athletics, fumbling over the card catalog in Micawber-like +fashion, hits upon the title "Morning and evening exercises"; he +straight away hands in the number thinking he has found a prize. It is +discouraging and depressing when the machine shoots out to him a volume +of devotional compilations. He has tried his luck and it has failed, and +as he was reminded only last week that a book cannot be exchanged the +same day on which it is drawn out he retires with "Morning and evening +exercises," a sadder, but not a wiser boy. It is in accord, therefore, +with the process of library evolution that a closer personal relation +between reader and librarian should be developed through some such +medium as is here outlined under the designation "the library friend." + +One of the library problems just now is this: given on the one side +100,000 books and on the other 50,000 people. How is each individual to +be brought into contact with the particular book that he wants? Where +open shelves are practicable a great advantage--to the discriminating +reader, an inestimable advantage, is gained; but the majority of +librarians have not room to throw any department open to the public; and +even among open shelves the person whose judgment of books is wholly +untrained often misses what he is looking for. + +The assistance given by the reference room is invaluable. There no one +goes away unsatisfied; but the reference room reaches only those in +pursuit of a definite subject. Beyond its range is the drifting, aimless +reader, the searcher after something he knows not what. The dull, the +diffident, the beginners in the use of libraries, those who read purely +for amusement and those who want the new books--new spelled with a +capital n and book with a small b--old persons, those whose eyesight is +defective and whose glasses strike the card catalog at the wrong angle, +foreigners who use English with difficulty and diffidence--all these +gather together in the delivery room at once, and efficient as the +assistant may be--and sometimes they effect miracles--it is impossible +for them to give the different individuals the help each one needs. In +the libraries where the human element is most withdrawn the case of +these people is hard. + +To bring the personal relation again into the library and to develop it +with the growth of the needs of the public, with this end in view, a +number of libraries have introduced the information desk. By common +consent, perhaps in the eternal fitness of things, this position so far +seems to have been relegated to woman. + +"She is a reading lady, and far gone in the pleasures of friendship." +So wrote Sir Roger De Coverley of the object of his affections, and no +one could more felicitously describe two of the qualifications for the +one presiding at the information desk. A reading lady she must be; and +it is no less important that she be far gone in friendship for the +public. To study their needs; to be receptive as wax to their impress, +and responsive with heart and soul as well as with mind. This all around +sympathetic power is the fundamental requisite of true service in this +position. She may be a person of many words or of few; a good listener +she must be. Success depends less upon temperament or gifts than upon an +attitude of inward receptivity and outgoing friendliness--the attitude +that radiates a home-like atmosphere and insensibly sets the stranger at +ease. Emerson quaintly described certain faces as "decorated with +invitation." This style of decoration will be permanently in fashion in +this position if the invitation from the heart is a magnet strong enough +to draw within its circle those who are in need of help. It is most +necessary, also, that a certain poise be preserved. To be ready but not +over anxious to assist; to be responsive but not intrusive; to be +suggestive but never insistent; to recommend books without forcing one's +own literary tastes or standards upon others; while helping new comers, +to seek to make them independent in their use of the library instead of +leading them to rely on some one else to do the work and use all the +judgement for them, all this requires a nice adjustment of balances. And +it is well to have on hand the tact which is the art of lessening social +friction, and the sense of humor so invaluable as a lubricator in human +relations. When any one comes to the information desk with a grievance, +irritated, if not angry, to be met with simple good nature, and not to +be taken too seriously, and yet to find instant readiness to adjust the +cause of annoyance if possible, soon dissipates the feeling of +antagonism or injury. Such encounters ought not to tax one's patience. +They sometimes turn out to be rather interesting. + +Nor need stupidity tax one's patience. What more pathetic than the +isolation of one who is slow to perceive and to grasp? It is a terrible +handicap. To rescue the dull from their dullness should be the first +impulse, and shallow is the sympathy that does not reach out to such +instinctively. It is not enough to be able also to unlock the resources +of the individual. + +People come to libraries from all sorts of homes. To the man or woman +living in the midst of ugly and sordid surroundings, where the days are +crowded with drudgery, the weekly visit to the library becomes a social +event; it is a lift into a fresh atmosphere, into another plane of life. +A passing greeting from the information desk gives a sense of welcome +and of relationship to the reading public. Five or ten minutes of +cordial contact, a brief conversation with one unrelated to their world +of worries, is a refreshing experience. To be recognized as a thinking, +reading being, with opinions about books, instead of a human machine for +cooking, scrubbing and sewing, or money-getting, puts new life into one. + +But this social side of the work of the information desk must rest on +the solid foundation of practical qualifications. One must possess the +knowledge of a wide range of books, the power of concentration on the +one person or the one subject in hand, and the mental alertness that +perceives when another person is waiting. The more perfect the +understanding of the system of classification of the books and of all +the technical side of library work, the more effective will be the +service at the information desk. There the resources of the library +should be at command, and should be reached rapidly and accurately. When +any imaginable or unimaginable question may be asked at any moment, from +"May I use your pencil?" up through the whole range of history, art, +literature, politics, science or religion, one must know the ground +thoroughly in order to meet these demands. Topics requiring special +research are passed on to the reference room, but the inquirer should be +put on the right track when he wants but a single book from the delivery +room. + +The new-comer must be instructed in intelligent use of the catalogs and +helped towards self-reliance from the start. The young people must be +assisted in making out their first lists, and these lists should +represent a variety of authors, in order that the author who pleases can +be followed up independently through the card catalogs. A well selected +first list for boys or girls should place at their command a range of +50, 60, or 100 books. It is surprising how few writers are known to the +average boy or girl who comes to the public library for fiction. The +field of the boy is often bounded by Alger, Ellis, Optic, and Henty, +while the girls may know only Sophie May and Miss Olcott. Beyond are +unknown seas. One of the early developments at the information desk will +be carefully-selected lists of books for boys and girls. They grow under +one's hand as the young people in turn recommend additions. This sense +of co-operation wins the confidence of those who are quick to suspect +and ward off any lurking desire for their improvement on the part of the +library. Notwithstanding that the starting point must always be the +taste and inclination of the reader, it is a simple matter to keep the +pressure in the right direction. Carefully-selected fiction lists for +older readers also meet a want. Such lists do not include the works of +the standard, voluminous writers known to every one. Into them are +gathered some of the old favorites of a generation ago, or later novels +which may have happened to miss fame and yet possess an abiding charm +and the indispensable element of interest. There are hundreds of such +books, perennially delightful, novels just now submerged under the +continually rising tide of new fiction. It is a piece of pure good +fortune for the reader who turns in despair from the pursuit of "David +Harum," "Eben Holden," or "Janice Meredith," to find a fresh range of +unheard-of novels of equal or more than equal interest. This enlargement +of their circle of congenial authors is welcomed with every grateful +appreciation. A list of good short stories is another resource, and one +of cheerful books for invalids; stories that are neither morbid nor +tragic. Young working men who can come to the library only at evening +are glad of assistance in selecting books related to their work and they +are quick to respond to any evidence of sympathetic interest in their +pursuit. Young girls employed during the day who wish to make up for the +lack of opportunities in school are eager and grateful for advice in +outlining courses of reading and study; those studying music are glad of +guidance into the more interesting pathways of musical literature, or it +may be the amateur in some branch of art who reveals a cherished +ambition in the hope of obtaining help in this direction, and +delightfully friendly relations spring into being while these various +lists are under way. + +Often the chance encounter, the mere passing remark, brings the happy +inspiration as to just the right books, as when one catches a glimpse of +a deep enthusiasm for nature surviving in the breast of a man through +fifty years spent between city walls. To introduce him to Richard +Jeffries, most intense, nearest to nature's spirit, and least known of +nature's lovers, is to enrich the remaining years of this man's life. + +All who go to the library go as seekers. Some are seeking merely +entertainment, others are searching for knowledge, but many are +struggling with the deep problems that beset us all, perhaps in moral or +spiritual darkness, and looking only for light. If one's heart is with +the people, nothing so quickens perception as sympathy. One notes the +trend of the reading of the individual, and often what he is seeking is +intuitively divined. Perhaps the simple remark, "If you can tell me just +what you want I may be able to find it for you," results in a frank +statement of the difficulty, or an outburst of sudden confidence is +given from the impulse that makes it often easier to confide in a +stranger than in a relative. And it counts for a good deal just then if +the one at the information desk knows what writer has felt and thought +most deeply and has written most clearly and helpfully on that subject. +Few are the needs of the human heart or mind that are really beyond the +reach of help from books--books in which we find the reflection of our +every mood, the expression in our inmost aspiration, the conservation of +the feeling, the experience and the wisdom of the race. + + + + +CONTROL AND GUIDANCE OF READING + + + Border regions are those of greatest interest, for they are + regions of contact and therefore places where things happen. + This is a border region between the field of the librarian + and that of the teacher. Its activities are the sole + justification for the name "library teacher" bestowed upon + assistants in many of the homelier city districts. Here the + librarian must tread warily. He can not push or pull; he + must effect what he desires by making it attractive to the + reader. In the five following papers this function is + somewhat elaborated--a very modern phase of library work and + one most nearly concerned with its socialization. + + + + +PROBABLE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL OUTCOME OF THE RAPID INCREASE OF PUBLIC +LIBRARIES + + A paper by Rev. Dr. Pierce, then editor of _Zion's Herald_, + a Methodist publication, read at the Lake George Conference + of the American Library Association in 1885. Notably free + from the caution and hesitancy then often appearing in the + public utterances of the clergy regarding popular libraries, + and full of belief that their power of guidance would make + them "powerful elements of culture." + + Bradford Kinney Pierce was born in Royalton, Vt., February + 3, 1819, and graduated at Wesleyan University in 1841. + Entering the Methodist Episcopal ministry, he was also + occupied for many years as teacher and editor, being agent + of the Sunday School Union in 1845-56, editing _Zion's + Herald_ in 1872-88 and then serving as librarian of the Free + Library at Newton, Mass., in addition to his other duties, + until his death, April 19, 1889. He has been called "the + Nestor of New England Methodism." + + +The free public library is now becoming the favorite posthumous +beneficiary of our men of wealth. Heretofore it has hardly been esteemed +respectable in the vicinity of Boston for a man of fortune to die +without leaving a generous bequest to Harvard College or to the +Massachusetts General Hospital. The city and town library is now +beginning to share liberally in these testamentary benefactions. The +college requires too considerable a sum in our days to be often +adequately endowed by the estate of one patron, but the library can be +established and be quite amply appointed by the accumulation of one +public-spirited citizen, and be made to become his most-honored and +permanent memorial. Every town of any size in our New England and +Northern States either has, or will soon have, one of these people's +universities, through the individual gift of a generous citizen, or by +public establishment. + +This general gathering of large bodies of books in all our principal +towns, opened freely to all ages, can but produce a manifest influence +for good or evil in the community. The familiar and forcible response to +the objection made to the establishment of so many small colleges in the +land, rather than securing their consecration and abundant endowment and +appointment in a few centres, is that the "fresh-water institution," so +called, brings the opportunities for a liberal culture near to thousands +who could not otherwise be prompted to make the incident sacrifices to +secure an advanced education. The immediate presence itself of the +institution is an inspiration to study. So the presence of the numerous +libraries, with their wide-open doors to all, and their attractive +shelves, becomes a powerful incitement to those who otherwise would +hardly think of seeking enjoyment or profit in reading. The statistics +of these city and town libraries fully confirm this _à-priori_ +presumption as to their influence in awakening and cultivating an +interest in books among all classes. And this influence of books upon a +reading community is very powerful. It is more subtle than human +companionship. The latter strongly affects and moulds the character; but +books reach us at lower depths. They inspire us more profoundly; they +touch our whole being, intellect, heart, and executive purpose; they +imperceptibly create or modify our ethical standards; they become our +models of life and conduct; they lay hold of our highest and most sacred +sentiments and color our views of the life beyond. + +It can but be, where the circulation of these volumes reaches nearly +all our families and enters into the thoughts and emotions of every day +of the year, that manifest results for the better or the worse will +follow. Many thoughtful persons have been honestly anxious in reference +to the result of the experiment. The public press has sent out its +serious forebodings from the pens of those who have taken depressing +views of the matter, and alarming tracts have been published, giving +painful criticisms upon the contents of certain libraries, the nature of +special volumes found upon their shelves, and the amount of circulation +of works of fiction of not the most elevating, or even wholesome, +character. To all this we answer that these criticisms, whether well +founded or not, have not been without their influence in calling +attention to the most intelligent of our institutions. Their officers +are cultured gentlemen and ladies, clearly apprehending the relation of +the library to the intellectual and moral development of the community +and its true office in administering to the improvement, as well as +enjoyment, of its patrons. It is more and more becoming an educating +rather than a simply entertaining institution. It is every day becoming +more widely recognized that it is not intended to be a competitor with +the circulating library, but rather an antagonist, winning the patrons +of the latter to the reading and study of a higher order of literature. +While the majority of library managers do not take the extreme view that +has been strongly advocated by some quite intelligent library trustees, +that the public funds should not be used for the purchase of fiction, +which may be considered an intellectual luxury, but only for improving +and educating literature, they do seek to carefully sift the lighter +issues of the press, securing the best and the purest of this character. +They also study at the same time, through their accomplished officers +and assistants, in the use of the local press, through the cooperation +of the teachers of the schools and the leaders of public opinion, with +the aid of parents, to awaken especially in the minds of the young +people a taste for regular and substantial courses of reading in the +various departments of science, history, and _belles-lettres_. The +success that has attended these efforts is full of encouragement. Our +superintendents and librarians do not simply remain at their desks, or +stand behind their tables to respond to the call for books, but make +themselves felt in the community, aiding in the investigations of +students, assisting in the search for authorities, facts, and +illustrations, suggesting plans for interesting the youthful readers in +scientific or literary studies, and calling attention to the rich +accumulations upon the library shelves. The annual reports of these +institutions are constantly showing improvement in the character of the +reading in their several communities,--a gradual decrease in the lighter +works, and an increase in the call for books of art and science, of +travel and biography, of poetry and philosophy. A significant falling +off in the number of books taken from the library, in many places, is +noticed, while the patronage of the library is manifestly increased. The +works that are now selected are substantial, requiring thought and time +in reading. They cannot be hurried over in a day like the light novel, +and hence the decrease in the number of volumes read is a most +gratifying evidence of improvement in the quality of the reading. + +The free library is becoming the effectual antagonist, also, of the +superficial news and story papers. Their "name is legion." They assault +the eye with their staring illustrations, and tempt the reader by their +cheapness. Especially at the close of the week, supplies of this trash, +with periodical sheets of a little higher order, but still superficial, +have been heretofore laid in for the hours of respite from labor on the +Sabbath. This light, disconnected, desultory reading, carried on through +all the unoccupied hours of the week, while it secures a smattering of +information, can but be of a very vicious intellectual tendency, not to +speak of its moral influence. The free library and its reading-room +offer without expense the perusal of the best periodical literature in +the land, and permit and tempt their patrons to secure, for the +unemployed hours of the approaching Sabbath, works of deep interest and +of an improving character. + +We are confident that this multiplication of well-selected and +constantly growing collections of standard and current literature is +full of promise of good, and, as generally managed among us, is attended +with small and easily corrected evils. It is inspiring the establishment +of literary and scientific clubs, awakening the ambition and inventive +powers of our mechanics, encouraging a liberal and cultivating course of +reading among our school students, and affording an immeasurable amount +of pure and refining enjoyment throughout the community. We look upon it +as one of the significant and powerful elements of a higher and general +culture among the people, and prophetic of far greater and better fruits +in the future. + + + + +POSSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN MANUFACTURING COMMUNITIES + + "A love of reading as a keynote to broader culture," and how + the librarian may guide reading by stimulating that love--a + paper by Mrs. Sanders of the Pawtucket Public Library (long + lovingly known among librarians as "Mawtucket of + Pawtucket"). + + Minerva Amanda Sanders was born in Providence, R.I., Feb. 1, + 1837. About 1876 she became librarian of the subscription + library in Pawtucket, R.I., organized in 1852, which + preceded the present free library; and when about six months + later it was turned over to the town, she continued in + charge, serving until her death, March 20, 1912. Mrs. + Sanders did notable pioneer work in her profession, + especially in the adoption of free access to books and in + work with children. This paper was read at the Thousand + Islands Conference of the American Library Association in + 1887. + + +Sir John Herschel, in an address to the working people of Windsor and +Eton upon the occasion of opening a public library for their use in +1839, said:-- + +"If I were to pray for a taste, which should stand me in stead under +every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and +cheerfulness to me through life, and as a shield against its ills +however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a +taste for reading. + +"Give a man this taste and a means of gratifying it, and you can hardly +fail of making a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands a +most perverse selection of books. + +"You place him in contact with the best society in every period of +history; with the wisest, the wittiest, with the tenderest, the bravest, +and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. + +"You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The +world has been created for him. It is hardly possible but the character +should take a higher and better tone from the constant habit of +associating in thought with a class of thinkers, to say the least of it, +above the average of humanity. + +"It is morally impossible but that the manners should take a tinge of +good breeding and civilization from having constantly before one's eyes +the way in which the best-bred and the best-informed men have talked and +conducted themselves in their intercourse with each other. + +"There is a gentle but perfectly irresistible coercion in a habit of +reading well directed, over the whole tenor of a man's character and +conduct, which is not the less effectual because it is really the last +thing he dreams of. + +"It cannot, in short, be better summed up than in these few words: It +civilizes the conduct of men, and suffers them not to remain +barbarians." + +Recognizing this love of reading as the keynote to broader culture and a +higher standard of morals, one by one, during the last half-century, +libraries have been thrown open to the public that were before only +accessible to the scholar (and often grudgingly even to him) and new +libraries established, till, in every community, a free public library +is as much a necessity to-day as its churches or its schools. + +Even in the troublous days of the Revolution our forefathers were +awaking to this demand, for in 1776 there were 29 "partially public +libraries in the colonies"; in 1800 there were 49; in 1876 the number +had increased to over 3,000; while to-day we number between 5,000 and +6,000 public libraries, comprising a total of over 20,000,000 volumes. + +The influence of a public library is contingent upon many +circumstances--its community, its finances, and largely upon its +management. Possibilities which may be developed in one library, in +another remain unnoticed; while something of equal importance is made of +incalculable benefit to its own community. Thus, though working on a +general principle, each library independently works out the problem of +the greatest good to the greatest number of its own patrons. Happily, +therefore, there is no cause for the rivalry and jealousies that disturb +the harmony of so many fraternities. + +It is my pleasure and privilege to live in a manufacturing community; to +watch the development of practical ideas; to follow the progress of +mechanical improvement, and witness with pride their results, for the +distinctive feature of Pawtucket is the variety of its industries. + +We remember with pride our parentage and the honor due to it; but surely +when Samuel Slater, after a weary time of toil and discouragement, +perfected the first power machinery for cotton spinning in this country, +and with a pardonable pride saw it in successful operation in the first +bona fide cotton mill in the United States, which still stands in the +centre of our city--(I speak with authority though I am fully aware that +this is a case parallel to the "Seven Grecian cities striving for Homer +dead.")--When, as I said, this was accomplished in 1791, there was no +power of the imagination that could have foreseen the change from the +little mill village on the Blackstone River, with its few hundred +inhabitants, to the present city of 25,000, 13,000 of whom are engaged +in industrial pursuits, its 70 schools, its 600 manufacturing +establishments, embracing the greatest variety of industries. + +But Pawtucket is only one of many thriving manufacturing communities. + +Waltham, Mass., the adoptive parent of the American Watch Co., which had +in 1865 a population of but 7,000, now numbers over 16,000, with not +less than 7,000 employés, 2,500 of whom alone are employed by the +American Watch Co. + +Lowell, Mass., according to the census of 1883, had a population of +66,000, one third of whom were employed in its 300 manufactories. + +Manchester, N.H., with a population of 40,000, employs 15,000 persons in +its 102 manufactories. + +And so I might go on enumerating special statistics, but these are +simply representative communities. It is sufficient for my purpose to +say that there are in the United States about 254,000 manufacturing +establishments, employing nearly 3,000,000 persons, at an average wage +of $1.15 per working day. + +It is to this great class that we look for much of the prosperity of +our country; for we find that the value of the product of the +manufactures of the United States for the last ten years was +$5,400,000,000. + +It is also an important factor in our government, for the pride and +principle of our country is "Vox populi, vox Dei." + +In these days when skilled labor is at a premium, when issues are +constantly arising requiring the best legislative ability, and the +demand for both is far greater than the supply, how are we to meet it? +The reply comes from far and near, "Educate the people." Yes, educate +the people! for they are very ready to be educated, many of them +striving with a self-denial known only to themselves to give to their +children the education that was denied them; our schools of to-day are +showing good work from the sons and daughters of these parents, and its +influence is blessing their homes. + +But many are denied that privilege, and cannot afford to spare their +children's wages for even the three months covering the compulsory law +of education. + +At the average wage a private library though small is unattainable; a +newspaper may be a luxury indulged in. Where, then, is the royal road to +learning? We do not hesitate to say the free public library is that +long-sought highway. Then open wide the doors; let us stock our shelves +with the best mechanical and scientific works; see that each craft is +especially represented; supply the works on the leading questions of the +day, also works pertaining to the civil government. In this we must not +be partisan; these subjects must be considered in all their bearings, +and in the broadest manner. + +The biographies of working men who have attained honor by their +practical worth and perserverance either in mechanical, civil, or +military service must have a prominent place; history and travel will +receive their share of attention; while we will not forget that the +working man and woman must have some amusement and recreation, and that +"strong meat" is not always desirable; our fiction department must be +supplied with all that is bright, fresh, inspiring, and helpful, but +nothing that will create a craving for greater stimulant, or tend in the +least degree to weaken the moral character; for the office of a public +library is to develop to its fullest capacity the best powers of a +community. The extent of such development must depend largely upon the +manner of its use. + +Believing that the first entrance into a library should bring with it +that most delightful sensation, the companionship of books, we have at +our own library, contrary to the custom which now obtains, thrown open +our shelves to the public, with the title and name of author plainly +printed on each volume so that literally "he who runs may read." + +An old man said to me a few days since: "I get little time for reading +now, but I love to come in and look at the books; they bring to mind +many a thing that I read long ago, and I carry it with me all the day +through; 'tis an education just to be with them." You say, How can this +be done without loss of books? + +Ten years of experience has taught us that there is a point of honor in +these working people in this regard, with which we must come in contact +to fully appreciate; we have lost no more books with our open system +than other libraries with their closed shelves. + +Understanding fully the value of a catalogue, especially a closely +classified one, to the scholar; to an uneducated man it is a labyrinth +through which he gropes till in despair he either lays it aside or +appeals for help. What is a catalogue to a man who asks for "a book on +birds," and when we direct an attendant to give him a certain work on +ornithology, quickly replies, "'Tis not that I want; 'tis a book on +birds;" or the girl who wants an "adequate book" to furbish up her +society manners. Not one in ten persons comes to a library with a +definite object. + +Roaming at will among the books, the sight of Blaikie's "How to get +strong" has been the first step toward the recovery of health otherwise +lost; John B. Gough's "Darkness and daylight" has brought in the same +way happiness to a wretched household; while Andrew Carnegie's +"Triumphant Democracy" has awakened in more than one citizen an interest +and pride in his native or adopted country heretofore unknown. + +There are the contents of the shelves to select from; no fear of any one +leaving the library without a book; whereas, after presenting from the +catalogue a list of books to be returned as "not in," he either "hasn't +time," or "will make no further trouble," and passes out unsatisfied. + +I have already said that a possibility in one community may be +impracticable in another; with us this open system has proved an +unqualified success. + +A community of this class is not aggressive; on the contrary they are +in a library rather shy. They should be met with prompt service, and the +courtesy of the drawing-room. Make them welcome as they enter the +library; it is their own; help them to cultivate a personal pride in it; +ascertain their tastes, (many of them will surprise us), and call their +attention to such works as will gratify them, gradually leading them to +higher standards when it is necessary. + +If they are seeking special subjects and need our help, let us exhaust +our references. To "give to him that asketh" and "the Lord loveth a +cheerful giver" should be a librarian's watchword. + +What does it matter if half of the pleasures, and all of the ills of our +patrons be poured into our ears? It only brings us nearer to them, and +shows us how to be more helpful, and widens the influence of our work. + +'Tis a wise community that enables its trustees to give to their +librarian sufficient clerical assistance to allow him to mingle with the +people, to learn their habits and tastes, to direct their reading +(especially of the young), and to assist them in their researches; for +we all know that peculiarly inherent weakness of human nature, to seek +for information from the highest source, and to be better satisfied, +even though the same help may be rendered us by a subordinate. + +The reading-room in connection with a public library may be made an +important agent in the education of a community, especially of its young +men and children. + +After a day of hard work, what are the homes to which many of these +young men return? The accommodations of a cheap boarding-house, which +means a room generally occupied by two or more, with barely furniture +for necessity to say nothing of comfort. + +What inducement has he to spend his evenings at home? Where, then, will +he go? Into the street, to drift into the place offering the most +attraction for the least money; alas! too often at the bitter cost of +misery to himself and sorrow for his friends hereafter. + +This, then is our work, to make our reading-rooms so attractive that +they will be drawn hither. Have them well lighted, well heated and +ventilated, supplied with the daily papers of our own and other cities, +also the current magazines. We cannot afford to be niggardly in this +work. Let us supply our tables with illustrated mechanical and art +works, also the best literature of the day. The more freedom that we can +give, the better the results. The young man will pass in and out at his +pleasure, spending an hour or two with whatever pleases him best, till +the reading-room largely takes the place of home, and reading becomes a +part of his daily existence, the beneficent effect of which he will +carry through life. + +There are lying on our tables week after week by actual count 600 +papers, magazines, and books, from "Baby Days" to "The Cathedrals of the +World," free to the public. This has ceased to be an experiment, for +during the ten years our losses have not amounted to $10; and there are +days when nearly if not quite 500 persons sit at our tables. + +The greater possibilities, however, are with our children, the future +parents and guardians of our commonwealth. What are we doing for them as +public libraries, as educators? Working hand in hand with the schools +faithfully and well, as shown by the valuable and interesting reports +published in the Library journal, without which we would know as little +of the library work outside our own as we would know of the outside +world without our newspaper. Long may it live! + +Does our responsibility rest here? What of the multitude of waifs worse +than homeless, without restraining or guiding influence, to be thrown +into the community to swell the numbers of paupers and criminals, many +of whom, yes, the majority of whom, have the same gentle instincts and +latent ability as our own little ones so tenderly nurtured. + +We may say this is the work of charitable institutions and humane +societies; not so; this is essentially our work. We call ourselves +educators, and have the honor to be recognized as such; the work of a +public library is to teach, to elevate, to ennoble, there is no limit to +its possible influence. + +Must we wait, then, until our children (for they are all ours as a +community) are fourteen years of age or upwards before we begin to teach +them the first principles of right living, of mental growth, of love to +their neighbor? + +We maintain that we cannot begin too early, and that this is a part of +library work from which we get the greatest percentage of reward. Again +I ask, What are we doing for these children, the future pride or +dishonor of our communities? + +Brockton, Mass., has a reading-room to which children are admitted, and +which they are encouraged to visit, so well patronized that it will soon +double its seating capacity. + +Waltham, Mass., has taken a step in the right direction. The trustees of +the public library have supplied two tables in their waiting room with +Wide awake and St. Nicholas for the children. + +Lowell, Mass., admits children during the day, and supplies them with +juvenile magazines. Manchester, N.H., admits children to the +reading-room; but unfortunately, from various causes, they are unable to +offer the necessary attractions, and few visit it. + +Newport, R.I., can only furnish St. Nicholas for want of money, but +children may come and go at their pleasure. + +Olneyville, R.I., is offering every inducement that their means will +allow to draw children to their reading-room; and to interest and +instruct them seems to be the object of those in charge. + +Willimantic, Conn., admits children at the age of 12 years. + +Somerville, Mass., supplies juvenile magazines, and has no limit to age. + +Springfield, Mass., also admits children at all ages. + +The Boston Public Library, the parent of the public libraries of New +England, true to its paternal instinct, begins to exert its influence +over the children at the earliest years. + +There are doubtless others from whom we would be glad to hear, but I +confess that, after visiting and inquiring among public libraries +concerning this work, I became disheartened and ceased investigation, +for the popular verdict seems to be "Children and Dogs not allowed." + +With our experience in this work with the children since the opening of +our library in 1876, and knowing the possibilities only waiting for +development, I am emboldened to speak earnestly. + +Let us gather the children in; give "milk for babies," in the +illustrated books which they may understand though they cannot read; +juvenile magazines and literature of a healthy nature to counteract the +pernicious trash that is flooding our communities. + +It is only necessary to refer you to the specimens of flash literature +which our boys have relinquished to us, with pale faces and trembling +hands, after reading from the scrapbook here on exhibition the cuttings +from the newspapers of the day showing the bad influence of the dime +novel. It tells its own story far better than I can tell it, and the one +in whose mind this great remedial agent originated is daily blest in +seeing the good results of his experiment. + +Help the children to begin early to understand that even they are of use +in a community; awaken their pride and ambition in the right direction, +and their future is assured. + +If there are those who doubt the practicability of this work, and, like +Hosea Bigelow, would + + "Give more for one live bobolink + Than a square mile of larks in printer's ink," + +come and see our "Flower Band," numbering 200 children, gathered from +the little girls and boys who frequent our library and reading-room, +from five years of age to fourteen; from the little fellow who brings +three wilted daisies, or a rose without a stem, to the dainty miss with +a bouquet from the greenhouse. + +Their badges signify a pledge to bring flowers once a week (if +possible), and to respond to a call to distribute them in any place +where they will add a bit of brightness to a shadowed household; also to +seek out such homes and report them. Several names have been already +stricken from our list, of those who have died leaving a blessing for +these little missionaries. + +The influence of this work upon the children and the community cannot be +told. It must be seen to be appreciated. + +I have endeavored to show that upon the influence of the public library +working in harmony with the spirit of the churches and the schools, with +the single object of the highest welfare of the people, depends much of +the prosperity, morality, and culture of our industrial communities--I +might also say of our country; but when we consider that there are less +than 6,000 public libraries in the United States, are we not tempted to +say in the words of old, "What are they among so many?" + +But let us remember that the same spirit that gave power to feed the +multitude from the "five loaves and fishes" still lives in the hearts of +men to animate them to good works, as shown by Messrs. Ames, Hail, +Pratt, Carnegie, Osterhout, Newberry, and a host of others whose names +are yet to be engraved as public benefactors on the tablets of public +libraries. + +May God speed the work! + + + + +PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS OF JOSEPH N. LARNED + + The need of stronger forces in popular education--the + failure of the press--the library's opportunity, as it + appeared to a scholarly librarian of the so-called "old + school" in 1894. + + Joseph Nelson Larned was born in Chatham, Ontario, May 11, + 1836, and was educated in the public schools of Buffalo, + N.Y. He served on the editorial staff of the Buffalo + _Express_ in 1859-72, was superintendent of education in + Buffalo in 1872-73 and superintendent of the Buffalo Library + from 1877 until it became the Public Library in 1897, after + which he devoted himself to literature until his death in + 1913. His best known work is his History for Ready Reference + and Topical Reading. He was president of the A.L.A. in + 1893-94. + + +It was my misfortune to be absent from the meeting at which you did me +the honor to elect me to this place, and I had no opportunity, either to +give my advice against that action, or to thank you for the distinction +with which it clothes me. The advice I would have given is now belated; +but my thanks have lost no warmth by the delay, and I pray you to accept +them with belief in their sincerity. At the same time I shall venture to +draw from the circumstances a certain claim upon your generosity. If it +happens to me to be tripped in some of these tangles of procedure which, +in such meetings as this, await the stumbling feet of an untrained +presiding officer, be good enough to remember the warning I would have +given you if I had had the opportunity. + +We are gathered for the sixteenth meeting of the American Library +Association, in the eighteenth year of its existence. Our league of the +libraries is young; its history is unpretentious; but it is the history +of a movement of higher importance to the world that many others that +have marched with trumpets, and drums. Eighteen years ago, the +conception of the Library militant, of the Library as a moving force in +the world, of the Librarian as a missionary of literature, was one which +a few men only had grasped; but with which those few had already begun +the doing of a revolutionary work. To-day such ideals are being realized +in most corners of the American republic. The last generation, and the +generations before the last, were satisfied with the school as an agent +of popular education. In our time we have brought the library to the +help of the school, and the world is just opening its eyes to perceive +the enormous value of the reinforcement that is gained from this new +power. + +And the discovery has come none too soon; for a desperate need of more +and stronger forces in the work of popular education is pressing on us. +If we reflect on the social conditions of the present day, and review a +little the working of the ferments in civilized society during a few +years last past, we shall marvel, I think, at the timeliness of the +movement which brings the public library, just now, to the front of +action among the instruments and agencies of popular education. It is +our fortune, good or ill as we may regard it, to be unmistakably passing +through one of the greater crisies of human history. In the last +century, modern democracy got its political footing in the world. Its +birth was older, and it had been cradled in divers nursing places, +Swiss, Dutch, English, and New English; but last century it stepped into +political history as the actor of the leading part; as the sovereign of +the future, mounting his throne. From the moment it came on the stage, +all wise men knew that its need above every other need was education. +They made haste, in our country, to build school-houses and to set the +school-master at work; seeing plainly that all they might hope for and +strive for in the future would depend on the intelligence that could be +put into the brain of this omnipotent sovereign who had risen to rule +the world. + +Well, the schools and the school-masters served their purpose +reasonably well for a reason. Democracy was fairly equipped with a +spelling-book and a quill-pen for the duties and responsibilities of a +simple, slowly-moving time. The mass of its members, the every-day +people of the farm and the shop, read the pamphlets and the weekly +gazettes of their day, and were gently drawn, with unconfused minds, +into one or the other of two straightly opposed political parties which +sought their votes. If they lacked knowledge, there was a certain +ingenuousness in their character which paid respect to the opinions of +men who had more. If blundering in politics occurred, it was blundering +leadership, for the most part, and more easily corrected than perversity +in the ranks. So the reign of democracy was successful enough while +society kept the simpler state. + +But that simpler state is gone. We who are beyond middle age may say +that we have seen it disappear. We have witnessed a miraculous +transformation of the earth and of the people who dwell on it. We have +seen the passing of Aladdin, who rubbed his magical electric lamp as he +went calling Afreets from the air to be the common servants of man. A +change has been wrought within fifty years that is measureless, not only +in itself, but in its effects on the human race. The people who whisper +in each other's ears across a continent; who know at noon-time in +Nebraska what happened in the morning at Samarcand; the people to whom a +hundred leagues are neighborhood, and a thousand but easy distance; for +whom there is little mystery left on the face of the earth, nor anything +hidden from their eyes; these people of our day are not in the likeness +of the men and women who ambled horseback or rode in coaches from town +to town, and who were content with a weekly mail. The fitting and +furniture of mind that would make a safe member of society and a good +citizen out of the man of small horizons, who lived the narrower life of +a generation or two ago, are perilously scant for these times. + +It is true that all the wonderful quickening of life which has occurred +carries something of education in itself, and that men learn by living +under the conditions of the present day; but the learning caught in that +way is of the dangerous kind. It is the delusive knowledge of the +surface of things; the deceitful lore which breeds mischievous beliefs +and makes them fanatical. It goes but a little way, if at all, toward +the saving of society, as against the unrest, the discontent, the +desire, which torment such an age of revolution as ours. + +And the threatening fact is this: that ignorant opinions have acquired +at the present day a capacity for harm enormously increased over that of +the elder times. They share the magnified potency that is given to all +things, good or ill, by the science of the modern man. Its million +tongues are lent to them for propagation; but that is a matter of small +seriousness compared with the boundless ease of combination which it +offers to them at the same time. It is in that appalling facility of +alliance and organization, which present conditions have given to men +and women of every class and character, for every kind of aim and +purpose, that the greatest peril of society lies in our day. A peril, +that is to say, so long as society has no assurance that the leagues and +confederacies formed within its bosom will be prevailingly well +instructed and intelligently controlled. + +As a serious danger this is something quite new. It has come upon us +within recent years. I can remember a state of things in which it was +difficult for a man in common life to join himself with other men, much +beyond his own neighborhood, in any effectual way, excepting as he did +it on the lines of an old political party or an older church. But, +to-day, leagues, unions, federations, associations, orders, rings, form +themselves among the restless, unstable elements of the time as clouds +are formed in the atmosphere, and with kindred lightning flashes and +mutterings of thunder. Any boldly ignorant inventor of a new economical +theory or a new political doctrine, or a new cornerstone for the fabric +of society, can set on foot a movement from Maine to California, between +two equinoxes, if he handles his invention with dexterity. This is what +invests popular ignorance with terrors which never appeared in it +before, and it is this which has brought the real, responsible test of +democracy, social and political, on our time and on us. + +Democracy, in fact, has remained considerably, hitherto, an unworked +theory of society, even in communities which have supposed themselves to +be democratically constituted. It has remained so through want of +conditions that would give a clear sound to the individual voice and +free play to the individual will. Those conditions are now arriving in +the world, and the democratic régime is consequently perfecting itself, +not politically alone, but economically, and in all the social relations +of mankind. + +So it is not exaggeration to say that we have come to a situation in +which society must fight for its life against popular ignorance. The old +agencies of education are inadequate, when the best has been made of +them. The common school does not go far enough, and cannot. Its chief +function is to prepare a soil in the young mind for the after +seed-planting which will produce fruits of intelligence. Unsupplemented, +it is well-nigh barren of true educational results. The higher schools +and colleges reach too small a number to count for much in a problem +which concerns the teaching of the universal millions. What agency, +then, is there, that will prepare the democracy of the present and the +future for its tremendous responsibilities? + +Some may say, the newspaper press: and I would rejoice if we could +accept that reply. For the press is an educating power that might +transform the civilization of the world as swiftly in mind and morals as +steam and electricity have transformed its material aspects. There is +nothing conceivable in the way of light and leading for mankind which a +conscientious and cultivated newspaper press might not do within a +single generation. But a press of that character and that effect seems +possible only under circumstances of disinterestedness which are not +likely to exist. The publication of a newspaper may sometimes be +undertaken as a duty, but not often. As a rule it is a business, like +any other, with the mercenary objects of business; and as a rule, too, +the gain sought is more readily and more certainly found by pandering to +popular ignorance than by striving against it. A few newspapers can +secure a clientage which they please best by dignity, by cleanness, by +sober truthfulness, and by thoughtful intelligence, in their columns; +but the many are tempted always, not merely to stoop to low tastes and +vulgar sentiments, but to cultivate them; because there is gravitation +in the moral as well as the physical world, and culture in the downward +way is easier than the upward. + +The vulgarizing of the news press has been a late and rapid process, +nearly coincident in cause and event with the evolution of this modern +democracy which it makes more problematical. We need not be very old to +have seen the beginnings: the first skimming of the rich daily news of +the world for the scum and froth of it; the first invention of that +disgusting brew, from public sewers and private drains, with which the +popular newspapers of the day feed morbid appetites. We can recall the +very routes by which it was carried from city to city, and taken up by +journal after journal, as they discovered a latent, un-developed taste +for such ferments of literature in the communities around them. The +taste was latent, potential; it did not exist as a fact; it was not +conscious of itself; it made no demands. The newspapers deliberately +sought it out, delved for it, brought it to the surface, fed it, +stimulated it, made it what it is to-day, an appetite as diseased and as +shamefully pandered to as the appetite for intoxicating drams. + +And, so far as I can perceive, this action and reaction between what is +ignorant and vulgar in the public and what is mercenary and unscrupulous +in the press will go on until popular education from other sources puts +an end to it. For it is the saving fact that there are other sources; +and foremost among them are the public libraries. If it has been our +privilege to see, and for some in our circle to bear a part in, the +beginnings of the active educational work of the libraries, I am +persuaded that it is only the beginnings we have witnessed as yet. I am +persuaded that the public library of the future will transcend our +dreams in its penetrating influence. Consider for a moment what it is, +and what it offers to the energies of education which a desperate +necessity is awakening and organizing in the world! It is a store, a +reservoir, of the new knowledge of the latest day and the ripened wisdom +of the long past. To carry into the memory and into the thought of all +the people who surround it, in a town, even some little part of what it +holds of instructed reasoning and instructed feeling, would be to +civilize that community beyond the highest experience of civilization +that mankind has yet attained to. There is nothing that stands equally +beside it as a possible agent of common culture. It is the one fountain +of intellectual life which cannot be exhausted; which need not be +channeled for any fortunate few; which can be generously led to the +filling of every cup, of every capacity, for old or young. There is +little in it to tempt the befouling hand of the politician, and it +offers no gain to the mercantile adventurer. For those who serve it on +behalf of the public there are few allurments of money or fame. Its vast +powers for good are so little exposed to seduction or corruption that it +seems to give promises for the future which are safer and surer than any +others that society can build hopes upon. + +In this view, those who serve the public libraries have a great +responsibility laid on them. They hold in their hands what would give to +civilization an ideal refinement if it could be distributed and +communicated to all. As we know very well, that is impossible. There is +a part of mankind, in every community, which never will feel, never can +be made to feel, the gentle attractiveness and influence of books. The +fact is one not to be disputed or ignored. At the same time it is a fact +to be treated practically as though it did not exist. It is our business +to assume that the mission of good books, books of knowledge, books of +thought, books of inspiration, books of right feeling, books of +wholesome imagination, can be pushed to every hearth, and to every child +and parent who sits by it. And it is our business to labor unsparingly +toward the making of that assumption good, without reckoning any +fraction of hopelessness in it. + +That is the business to which we are appointed in this world. Let us be +careful that we do not misconceive it in one most important particular! +It is not the mission of _books_ that we are charged with, but the +mission of _good books_. And there lies a delicate, difficult, very +grave duty in that discrimination. To judge books with adequate +knowledge and sufficient hospitality of mind; to exercise a just choice +among them without offensive censorship; to defend his shelves against +the endless siege of vulgar literature, and yet not waste his strength +in the resistance--these are really the crucial demands made on every +librarian. + +For the first condition of successful work is a good tool; and our tools +are not _books_, but _good books_. These given, then follow those +demands on us which we sometimes discuss as though they came first of +all: the demands, that is, for a perfected apparatus in the working +library, for a tireless energy in its motive forces, and for a large +intelligence in the directing of them. + +Not many years ago, our missionary undertakings from the library seemed +to be bounded by its own walls. The improving, annotating, and +popularizing of catalogues; the printing and distributing of bulletins +and reference lists; the surrounding of readers and seekers in a library +with willing help and competent suggestion; these labors seemed, only a +few years ago, to include almost everything that the librarian most +zealous as a missionary could do. But see what doors have been opening +in the last few years, and what illimitable fields of labor now invite +him! Through one, the great army of the teachers in the common schools +is coming into co-operation with him. Through another, he steps into the +movement of university extension, and finds in every one of its servants +a true apostle of the library mission of good books. From a third, he +spreads his beneficient snares about a city in branches and delivery +stations; and by a fourth he sends "traveling libraries" to the ends of +his State. + +The arena of our work is large enough already to make claims on every +faculty and power we can bring to it; and yet our plainest duty is to +enlarge it still. I think we may be sure that there are portals yet to +open, agents yet to enlist, alliances yet to enter, conquests yet to +make. And in the end--what? + +Those of us who have faith in the future of democracy can only hold our +faith fast by believing that the knowledge of the learned, the wisdom of +the thoughtful, the conscience of the upright, will some day be common +enough to prevail, always, over every factious folly and every +mischievous movement that evil minds of ignorance can set astir. When +that blessed time of victory shall have come, there will be many to +share the glory of it; but none among them will rank rightly before +those who have led and inspired the work of the public libraries. + + + + +THE LIBRARY AS AN INSPIRATIONAL FORCE + + What a librarian may do to direct the attention of his + readers to the really great writers and thinkers--a plea for + original work and for innovation in the library--a note + frequently heard in 1920, but new in 1899 when Mr. Foss, + librarian and popular poet, sounded it in _Public Libraries_ + for March. + + Sam Walter Foss was born in Canadia, N.H., June 19, 1858, + graduated at Brown University in 1882 and served on the + editorial staff of various papers. In 1895 he left that of + the _Boston Globe_ and from 1898 to his death, Feb. 26, + 1911, he was librarian of the Somerville, Mass., Public + Library. He published several volumes of popular verse. + + +A library has no especial reason for self-felicitation simply because it +distributes a large number of books. In fact, it is possible for it to +give out a very large number of books and do more harm than good. The +test question to ask is: Is it grinding out a product of enlightened and +symmetrical men and women? Is it transforming the community into +intellectual, thoughtful, better equipped, more roundly developed +citizens? Is it making life any ampler, is it making men any manlier, is +it making the world any better? If there is any library that cannot +answer these questions affirmatively, its librarians are doddering their +lives away in useless activity, and receiving a salary without rendering +any real service in return. The activities of such a library are useless +contortions, and the taxpayers have a right to protest its further +existence. + +What can a librarian do to make his library an inspirational force? In +the first place he must be as accessible as a turnpike road. It seems to +me that he can do more good by talking to people than in any other way. +To do this, of course, it is a prerequisite that he should know +something. I have no faith in the miserable heresy that a librarian who +reads is lost. A librarian who does not read would better not be found +in the first place. A librarian who does not read is simply a stable +keeper for books. He may see to it that they are well blanketed, +groomed, and put in the proper stalls, and that the various implements +about his stable are kept in good order; but such a librarian will never +be mistaken for an intellectual giant in his community. Let him know the +books he handles so that he can talk with schoolgirls about Sophie May +and Virginia Townsend, and with boys about Henty and Brooks and Knox and +Butterworth. Let him be able to discuss Herbert Spencer and David Harum +with equal zest, and know something about Kant and a good deal about +Kipling, and venerate Marcus Aurelius, and not despise Mark Twain. His +mind should be a live coal in its love for books, and then nestle up to +other minds and let them get ignited also. + +But it may be said that a librarian hasn't the time for such extensive +reading. Did you ever know a boy who couldn't find time to play? One +always finds time to do the thing he loves to do; and a man who has a +genuine love for reading will find time for it even in a library. + +One of the greatest longings that any soul can have is a longing for +some one to talk with who is interested in identical subjects. + +A librarian, through personal intercourse, can become a powerfully +educative influence in his community, and start intellectual impulses +that will not subside during his lifetime, but go on widening and +blessing indefinitely. Let him become the father confessor of minds in +his town or city; the priest of the intellect, to whom all men shall +bring all their mental problems, all their dubious enigmas of the brain. +He will not be able to solve all their puzzles or untie all their knots; +but perhaps he will be able to hold the candle for a little while, while +they struggle with the knots themselves. Let him always hold the candle, +and talk pleasantly while he is holding it. + +This matter of being pleasant in a library is really the first and +great commandment. There should be an air of welcome inside that is +pleasanter than the sunshine outdoors. The deathlike stillness and +tomblike hush, the sepulchral gloom, the graveyard silence that +sometimes prevails in libraries, should not be encouraged. Make people +feel at home. The library here can learn a good lesson from the barroom. +There are no signs up in a barroom intimating that loud talking is not +allowed, nobody walks on tiptoes, everybody is welcomed heartily and +encouraged to stay, and men find a sympathetic friendliness there who +find it nowhere else. John Wesley said we should not allow the devil to +monopolize all the good tunes. The library should not allow the barroom +to monopolize all the spirit of human friendliness and good cheer. I am +sincerely glad that the old type of librarian is passing out--a man so +dignified that children were afraid of him, whose face was so long that +his chin dragged on the floor. We want human men with blood in them in a +library; men who like men and love children; men who can make themselves +agreeable to men, women, children, and dogs. Let us make life as +pleasant in a library as a mother's twilight hour with her children, and +we shall raise up great families for the afterdays, who shall look back +upon us as their intellectual parents, and rise up after we are gone and +call our memories blessed. + +There are three classes of books--books that give pleasure, books that +give information, and books that give inspiration. The first class has +its thousands of readers, the second its hundreds, and the third its +tens. It is a good thing to read books for pleasure--it is the most +innocent kind of drunkenness I know about; but that reading books merely +for pleasure may develop into a kind of intellectual dissipation is +something that we know from experience; for who is there of us who has +not sinned? But reading books merely for pleasure is something we should +outgrow in childhood, just as we do stilts and marbles and the game of +tag. It is a better thing to read books for information. It is one of +the healthiest joys of the normal mind to be forever learning something; +forever learning and forever coming to the knowledge of the truth. It is +the best thing, however, to read books for inspiration. And this is a +class of readers into which many of the frequenters of the public +libraries never graduate. Ah! the pity of it! Books that lift us out of +ourselves and the fogs and fumes and dust of our little treadmill +routines into the ampler ether of loftier altitudes--into the grandeurs +of life! Emerson and Shakespeare and Wordsworth and Whitman--do men love +such as these and remain little men? No, this is the meat from which +giants are grown; here is the food for souls. Now it seems to me it is +the duty of the good librarian, one who believes in the august nature of +his profession, to lead up his readers by all devices within his power, +by imperceptible gradations, through the books that please and the books +that inform, to the books that inspire. And the librarian who drops a +boy before he learns to love John Milton has only brought him half his +journey, and has dropped him before he has reached the destination to +which his fare was paid. + +Why do not people read the best books? One reason is they never see +them. It is a librarian's business to keep them in sight, his next +business is to read them himself, and his next business is to talk about +them whenever he can get an audience of fifty, or five, or one; to write +about them in his monthly bulletins and let every man know he can get +them, and welcome, by stretching out his hand. We all know how Tom +Sawyer got his fence painted. He made all the boys in his neighborhood +believe that fence painting was great fun. The librarian should make all +the boys in his neighborhood believe that reading the best books is +genuine pleasure. They can be brought to an appreciation of this +pleasure as one is brought to the height of a tableland of a great +continent, by gradations so gradual that they seem to be walking on a +flat surface. + +I believe that the great destiny of the public library is as yet but +faintly foreseen. The plain truth is that the library has not tried yet +to do its best. It has opened it doors and let people come in, if they +so desire, or if they happen to be passing that way. No successful +auctioneer does business according to any such method. On the contrary +he lifts up his voice to all it may concern, and to all that do not care +that there are about to be great bargains at his place. The business man +who opens his store and then forever holds his peace has his solitude +very infrequently interrupted by customers. The church that has no +missionary spirit is as tepid as the old church of Laodicea. The +schoolmaster whose pupils absent themselves too frequently collects his +daily audience, even if he has to call in the services of the truant +officer. All this is written with something of the same wisdom. I do not +believe it should always wait for people to come to it; it should go to +the people. Every family in every city or town where there is a library +should be offered a library card, or as many cards as it has adult +members. Sometimes there is so much red tape prerequisite to obtaining a +library card that a bashful man does not dare to make the attempt. Let +us not shut the people off from the books that they have paid for by a +barbed wire fence of red tape. Let every man or woman, yes, or child, +too, that is old enough, be personally canvassed and offered a library +card. Then sell him a catalog at cost price, or better still, at less +than cost, and tell him how to use it. Ah, but our trustees will say, +this will cost something. Yes, it will cost something, but it will be a +tremendously profitable investment, and pay immense dividends later on +in a more intelligent citizenship and wiser and happier men. + +From all this I wish it might be inferred that no librarian can be too +great for his position. It is not easy for him to have too much +knowledge, too much tact, too much consecration to his work, too exalted +an estimate of his possibilities. He should not have a mind with a +flange on it, so that it forever runs on the small rail along the dusty +roadbeds of routine. Let him originate, let him innovate, let him blaze +his path with the pioneers--let him think. + + + + +THE USE OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY + + Part of an address by President Angell of the University of + Michigan--educator, diplomat and statesman--at the + dedication of the Ryerson Library Building in Grand Rapids, + Mich., Oct. 8, 1904. To advise a reader, Pres. Angell + thinks, one must know something of his personal aptitudes. + General advice about "good reading" is seldom of great + service. A modern note by a great man. + + James Burrill Angell was born in Scituate, R.I., Jan. 7, + 1829, graduated at Brown University, and after studying + abroad, became eminent as an educator, holding first a + professorship in his alma mater and then serving + successively as president of the Universities of Vermont and + Michigan. He was U.S. minister to China in 1880-81 and + served on important international commissions. His works on + international law and on education are standard. He died on + April 1, 1916. + + +Now that your benefactor has so nobly done his part, it remains for the +city to see that the library is maintained and managed in an effective +manner. It would not only be an act of ingratitude, but it would be a +mockery, if in such an edifice as this we should not find a good and +growing and well administered library. There is no more important +commission in your city than the commission charged with the care of +your library. Let us hope that they will always be chosen with special +regard to their fitness for their official duty and without regard to +their party affiliations. + +Especially is wisdom needed in the selection of your books. It is not +so difficult to choose books for the cultivated and scholarly readers. +But in a city library you must provide for all your population. +Particular care should be had to procure books attractive and useful to +your artisans and mechanics and common laborers. They should be led to +feel that this is the place where they can most profitably spend a spare +hour and can find something to bring new brightness into their +monotonous lives. The efforts which you have already initiated to make +the library serviceable to the pupils in your schools must now be +redoubled. The teachers and the library authorities must always contrive +to cooperate heartily. The multiplication of libraries in this country +has already elevated the work of the librarian to the dignity of a +distinct profession. And no profession promises to be more useful. In +addition to the proper organization and care of the library, the +influence which a competent librarian can wield in his guidance of the +reading and studies of the young is seldom outweighed by that of the +teacher or the preacher. In no manner can a generous appropriation of +funds for the support of a library be more wisely expended than in +securing a competent librarian. + +Judging by my own experience and by my observation of others, I doubt +whether the guide books which have been written to tell one what works +to read have been of great service. The simple reason why they are not +very helpful is that to advise one what to read, you should know +something of his aptitudes and taste and something of his plans of life. +General advice is a shot in the air. It may hit nothing. + +But a competent person may give helpful counsels to the young +concerning useful methods of reading whatever one does read, and may +indeed specify what are some of the best books on certain topics. A good +librarian, if leisure enough is left him, may attract and help willing +auditors by occasional lectures or informal talks on how to read in a +library. But personal suggestions, to meet particular needs, are the +most fruitful of good. And just here the school teachers, if competent +to advise, can be of the utmost service. In no way can the library be +made so valuable as by the hearty and systematic co-operation of the +librarian and the teachers. It would be very useful if they could from +time to time meet to confer upon the best methods of securing harmonious +action. For it is the generation now coming on to the stage who are +chiefly to profit by the use of this library. It is through them that +the city is to receive its chief benefit. To incite them to read, to +train them to right habits of reading, to inspire them with high ideals +of what one should seek and love in reading, should be the aspiration of +parents and teachers, if this library is to yield its largest harvest of +good. + +Like all good things, this library may to some persons bring no good; it +may even be made an instrument of harm. It may bring no good, because it +may be utterly neglected. No doubt there are many families who have +never drawn a book from its shelves. It may bring no good, it may even +cause intellectual, not to say moral injury, if it is misused. It is +possible to choose from any great library such passages from works and +to peruse them in such a spirit as to gratify and stimulate prurient +desires, or if one does not descend to so unworthy and shameful an act, +one may read in such a manner as to be guilty of intellectual +dissipation. What we may call the desultory readers are exposed to this +danger. They pick up whatever book or magazine comes first to hand, +provided they are sure that it makes no tax upon their mental powers. +They spend their time dawdling over a chapter of this book, then over a +chapter of that, as men of the town now join this gay companion for an +hour and then another for the next hour for frivolous talk and +profitless gossip, and so wander aimless through the day without any +fruitage to show for their time. They lose the power, if they ever had +it, of consecutive study and thought and discourse on any theme +whatever. + +I do not mean to intimate that we should never come to this library to +read for pleasure and entertainment. One of the great and proper uses of +books is to refresh and amuse us in our hours of weariness and +depression. Like the society of our choicest friends, they may wisely be +sought for the sole purpose of diverting our minds from the flood of +cares and troubles which come in upon all of us. The library may well be + + "The world's sweet inn from care and wearisome turmoil." + +Or in our happy and merry moods we may seek congenial company in the +creations of Cervantes and Moliere and Shakespeare and Dickens and Mark +Twain. Reading for pastime is a commendable occupation, if wisely +followed. Lowell in his paradoxical style tells us that what Dr. Johnson +called browsing in a library is the only way in which time can be +profitably wasted. But to browse profitably one should have an appetite +only for what has some merit. I have known lads born with a literary +instinct as unerring as that of the bee for finding honey, to have the +free run of a large library and come out with a wonderful range of good +learning. Such instances show the unwisdom of having the same rules to +guide every one in his reading. In such cases as those just cited, the +example and taste of the parents often determine the success of the +experiment. The books they talk about fondly at table and quote from +freely and appositely are likely to arrest the attention of the child. +Therefore we may say that the home as truly as the school may largely +determine what advantage shall be gained in this library. Parents who +for their children's sake are careful what guests they admit to their +house and what companionships they counsel the children to form may well +consider what reading comes under their roof and what literary tastes +they encourage in their household. + +In these days when reviews and magazines and school histories of +literature abound, there seems ground for one caution to youthful +readers. It is, not to be content with reading about great books and +great men, but to study the works themselves of great men. Many of the +outlines of English literature, for example, which pupils in school are +required to study, contain dates and names and brief descriptions of +masterpieces, and from the nature of the case can contain little else. +But cramming the memory with these is not learning the literature. +Reading, mastering, and learning to appreciate and love the great works +of a great author is better than to learn the dry facts in the lives of +a score of authors. So our magazines and reviews treat us to criticism +sometimes wise, sometimes unwise, of many authors. But all these are of +little value until the works themselves of the authors have been +studied. With the works the biographies of the authors should be read in +order to appreciate the conditions under which the works were produced. +But far better is it to gain a thorough acquaintance with one great +writer's life and works than to learn a few fragmentary facts at second +hand about the lives and writings of many. + +One of the most difficult questions to settle in these days in the +selection of books for a library or in directing the reading of the +young is, how large shall be the proportion of fiction in a library or +in the reading of any one. Just now we are flooded with fiction, +stretching from the short story of the magazine to the two-volume novel. +I observe that nearly two-thirds of the volumes drawn from this library +in 1901-02 are classed under the two heads of juvenile fiction and +fiction. And I suppose the experience of other popular libraries is +similar to yours. This shows at least that there is a great craving for +fiction. That craving a library like this must to a fair degree strive +to meet. Nor need we regret that there is a strong desire for sterling +works of fiction. They stimulate and nourish the imagination. They give +us vivid pictures of life. They portray for us the working of human +passions. They give a reality to history. Sometimes they cultivate a +taste for reading in those who would otherwise be inclined to read +little, and so lead them to other branches of literature. But, on the +other hand, I think it must be confessed that a great deal of the +fiction which is deluging the market is the veriest trash, or worse than +trash. Much of it is positively bad in its influence. It awakens morbid +passions. It deals in most exaggerated representations of life. It is +vicious in style. + +It is a most delicate task for the authorities of a library like this to +draw the line between the works of fiction which should be and those +which should not be found on its shelves. As to the individual reader, +the best we can do is to elevate his taste as rapidly as we can by +placing in his hands fiction attractive at once in its matter and in its +style. We must hope that with the cultivation of taste to which our best +schools aspire, we can rear a generation which will prefer the best +things in literature to the inferior. That is the reason why the +teachers of languages and literature in our schools should be not mere +linguists, but persons of refined literary taste, who will imbue their +pupils with a love for the truest and highest in every literature which +they can read. + +I would like to commend to my young friends who desire to profit by +the use of this library the habit of reading with some system and of +making brief notes upon the contents of the books they read. If, for +instance, you are studying the history of some period, ascertain what +works you need to study and finish such parts of them as concern your +theme. Do not feel obliged to read the whole of a large treatise, but +select such chapters as touch on the subject in hand, and omit the rest +for the time. Young students often get swamped and lose their way in +Serbonian bogs of learning, when they need to explore only a simple and +plain pathway to a specific destination. Have a purpose and a plan and +adhere to it in spite of alluring temptations to turn aside into +attractive fields that are remote from your subject. If in a note book +you will on finishing a work jot down the points of importance in the +volume and the references to the page or chapter, you will frequently +find it of the greatest service to run over these notes and refresh your +memory. If you are disposed to add some words of comment or criticism on +the book, that practice also will make you a more attractive reader, and +will make an interesting record for you to consult. + + + + +COMMUNITY CENTER SERVICE + + + This is the newest phase of library work and the most + convincing evidence of its socialization. There is little in + print about its early stages; its classics are still in the + making. We quote only three papers here. + + + + +THE LIBRARY AS A SOCIAL CENTRE + + The opening address at the Red Wing meeting of the Minnesota + Library Association, Oct. 12, 1905, by Miss Countryman, + librarian of the Minneapolis Public Library. The "public," + Miss Countryman thinks, "is no indefinite, intangible + somebody; it is just 'we'"--the statement of library + socialization in a nutshell. + + Gratia Alta Countryman was born at Hastings, Minn., in + November, 1866, and graduated, with the B.S. degree, at the + University of Minnesota in 1889. In that same year she + entered the service of the Minneapolis Public Library, and + she was assistant librarian at the resignation of Dr. James + K. Hosmer in 1904, succeeding him as librarian. + + +During these latter days of enormous library activity, we have been +conscientiously examining the functions of a library; we have been +trying all sorts of methods to popularize it, to advertise it. We have +asked for and listened to the criticism of outsiders, and by the light +thrown upon it through this prism have separated our work into its +elemental parts and seen its various hues. + +We used to erect a library as an altar to the gods of learning; now, to +use Mr. Dana's words, we erect it as an altar to the "gods of good +fellowship, joy and learning." So you see, our ideals are constantly +rising, our horizons ever broadening, and our work continually +increasing, both in extent and in depth. We might well have considered +our hands fairly full to have dealt alone with this god of learning, but +we find ourselves embracing the opportunity for additional service to +the gods of good fellowship and joy. + +It might do us good to consider tonight what we are doing for the cause +of learning, what the library has done to increase serious reading and +study, and how it may further the educational work of the world. This +question is ever present with us, and can stand any amount of +discussion. But it is the gods of good fellowship and joy that we are +discussing tonight, the library not as a center of learning but as a +social center. + +We are dealing with a small crowd of people whom we call "our public." +Who are the public? Why, you and I, and my family, and others just like +us. They want just the same things that we do, and to be accommodated in +just the same way that we do. The public is no indefinite, intangible +somebody, it is just "we." + +We talk about the people being hungry for books and information. Have +you found it so? Then why do we have free libraries and free schools? +People are willing to sacrifice for something that they are very hungry +for. Do you hunger and thirst to read Homer and Shakespeare, and Emerson +and Arnold, and good histories and literature? Do you, when you are +tired after a day's work, take home a scientific work or a treatise on +civics? No, you are just a little sample of the public, and you think +you need to read a pleasant, entertaining, restful book. You aren't +hungry for information, and, as a matter of fact, the person who +delights in study and has a fine taste for the best in literature has +one of the "gifts extremely rare." Most of us are practical, everyday, +working people, with a very limited time for reading, and this public +whom we serve is just like us. A few of them will love to read the best, +many of them will want information at intervals, a large proportion want +recreative reading, and the vast majority use the library not at all. +Now the former, who want and love the library, you need not be troubled +about. They will naturally come to the library, and you will find +pleasure in serving them. But these latter classes who either come for +pleasure or come not at all must be drawn and held through the social +instincts, and through their desire for pleasure. Every human being must +have social life. We seek company and companionship with whom we can +find mutual pleasure. We may find it in friendly gatherings, social +clubs, or music or conversation or games, but social pleasure of some +sort is sought by all of us, great and small, in town and country alike. +In the city there is usually plenty of opportunity--I might almost say +that there is a surfeit--and one must pick and choose. But in the towns +and villages it is often different; good amusement and profitable +pleasures are not always to be had, and being social beings, the social +craving is satisfied with whatever means may be at hand. Young people +especially can not isolate themselves, or live unto themselves. Just +where is the library going to stand in this matter? Is there anything +which we can do to satisfy these natural desires and to enter more +vitally into the lives of the people? This is the question to take home +and think about. + +As individuals, we are coming to have an enormous interest in other +human lives, there is a sense of social obligation upon us; we have come +to know that personal righteousness is not all that is required of us, +but that we must help to realize the social righteousness. The library +has the duty of being all things to all men. It is no longer simply a +repository of books, it is exactly what Mr. Carnegie calls it, the +cradle of democracy, filled with the democratic spirit, and it +endeavors, as far as circumstances permit, to minister to all the needs +of the community in which it dwells. The library stands for progress, +the progress of its town, and this does not mean increasing the material +prosperity of the people, though that may follow, but it chiefly means +the raising of the moral, social and intellectual standards of all its +people, and helping men and women to be more effective in every way. The +library does not exist for one side only of the life of the people, but +for every side, and if it fails to provide for those who seek amusement, +it shirks a duty and renounces a privilege. The sooner we unveil the +"gods of joy and good fellowship" in our library the better; the sooner +we make the library a centre for all the activities among us that make +for social efficiency the better. + +Of course there are natural limitations to the kind of work which a +library can do, and in helping to further the spirit of good fellowship +and to furnish pleasure, we must keep within such limits as are +consistent with the spirit of a library. The library can appeal to +people in other ways than by books alone, as we shall consider later, +yet as books are our chief tools, it is natural to think first of giving +pleasure by that method. One of our chiefest ways of late years has been +through the children's room. The children get book instruction and +supplementary reading and enforced book interests, all of which are +needed for their development, in the schoolroom. But in the children's +room at the library furnished especially for them, with low tables, +picture books and low shelves containing fairy stories and all their +favorite authors, they settle down to satisfy their own especial +individual tastes. Then there is the story hour, of which we shall hear +to-morrow. Many of the children have never learned the pleasure of +reading. They do not belong to cultured homes and the presence of books. +Many of them never heard a Mother Goose jingle or a nonsense verse, and +a book is an unlearned delight. But what child, even of this kind, does +not love to hear stories, and listening breathlessly, would not come +again and again. Somehow it seems as if we could not discharge our +social obligation until we had gone into the by-ways and hedges and +gathered in these scraps of society, and taught them the pleasures of a +book. The children, once acquainted with the library, will always count +it among their friends, and it will forever remain a social centre to +them. + +We grown ups are not so different from the children; we, too, like a +story, and we, too, want to read the things that cheer and entertain us. +We agreed a moment ago that we, as well as our public, were liable to +leave the serious books for the infrequent study hour and to spend our +leisure evenings with the fascinating novel. Well, I do not know of any +better way to give amusement and pleasure than to furnish the people +with the books they want, in which they can be interested and absorbed. +The "cares that infest the day" will fold their wings better under the +spell of a good story than any other way. I think we need not be +frightened when libraries are accused of being only fiction +distributors, for it is a library's function to amuse as well as to +instruct, and if people will seek amusement through the library, so much +the better for the people. It is natural that the people should feel a +curiosity about the newest book and want to read what other people are +talking about. This adds also to pleasant social intercourse, and gives +people a common subject of conversation. Fiction is bound to be more and +more an interpretation of life by which we see the motives and the +currents in other souls. We need not be afraid to supply good, wholesome +fiction and to use it in establishing social relations with our people, +so that the adults as well as the children shall feel a real pleasure in +coming to the library. + +Many of our libraries are now housed in beautiful buildings, in which +case, the building as well as the books becomes a means of social +influence. If there is need of a home for social intercourse and +amusement, the library may legitimately attempt to furnish such a home +within its walls. If there are social or study clubs, organized labor +guilds or missionary societies, or any other organizations, encourage +them to meet at the library, find out what they need, let them find out +that the library is their cooperative partner. And so with the schools +and industries, of which I have not time to speak. The whole building at +all times should be managed in the broadest spirit of hospitality; the +atmosphere should be as gracious, kindly and sympathetic as one's own +home. Then do away with all unnecessary restrictions, take down all the +bars, and try to put face to face our friends the books and our friends +the people. Introduce them cordially, then stand aside and let them make +each other's blessed acquaintance. + +Some have tried smoking rooms, had boy's club rooms and games, and many +have tried simply to make the rooms homelike and cheery, and all of +their experience is valuable to us. + +It may be that no one of the plans used by other libraries may fit your +case, for it is not necessarily good for you because some one else has +used it successfully. But with any plan do not expect immediate results, +for almost everything that succeeds permanently has a slow, gradual +development; that which flashes up quickly usually dies down suddenly. +Be willing to work out a good plan if you have one, and be willing to +study your people and all of their interests before you shape your +plans. + + + + +THE LIBRARY AND THE SOCIAL CENTRE + + By a great expert in library field-work as done by one of + our most active library commissions. Miss Lutie E. Stearns, + of whom a sketch will be found in Vol. I. of this series, is + now a lecturer at large, but at the writing of this paper, + which is reprinted from _The Wisconsin Library Bulletin_ for + May, 1911, she was in the service of the Library Commission + of that state. + + +It is coming to be an axiom in library economy that "the worth of a book +is in its use." For this reason, librarians everywhere are devoting +themselves to what is called "library extension" through the building of +branches, and the establishment of deposit stations in schools, +factories, stores, club-houses, police stations, fire-engine houses, +etc. Experience has shown that where no efforts are made along the line +of library extension only 10 per cent. or at the most 20 per cent. of +the people are reached in any given community. If we wish to have +wholesome literature become "the burden of the common thought" we must +place good books within easy reach of all. Libraries should be quick to +realize that the social centre offers a most excellent opportunity to +reach those that might not otherwise take the time to avail themselves +of library privileges. The free public library should therefore be made +an important part of social centre work through active and sympathetic +cooperation. + +Where libraries can afford proper facilities, there is no reason why +the library building should not serve as the social centre for the +community, as this institution differs from the schoolhouse, in cities +where parochial schools exist, in being neutral on the religious +question and therefore acceptable to all denominations. Wherever the +social centre may be, whether in library building or schoolhouse, strong +emphasis should be placed on the use of books. A special librarian, of +peculiar fitness, should be appointed either by the library or the +social centre authorities. This man or woman should be earnestly +altruistic in his or her desire to fit the right book to the right +person at the right time. It may be that this will mean the issuance of +a primer in English to an adult Slav who has recently arrived in this +country, or it may be the loan of a novel more wholesome in tone though +just as sentimental as one by Bertha M. Clay, the author requested. +Again, the leader of the boy gang may be persuaded to give up the +reading of the lurid "nickel library" in favor of Custer and Grinnell's +truthful Indian experiences. Such selection involves a wide range of +books in the social centre library, from well-bound and attractive +editions of the classics down to the latest, most wholesome novel. The +boys that frequent the gymnasium may be won by Barbour's latest football +story. The raffia worker should find interest in Priestman's +Handicrafts. An up-to-date and authoritative encyclopedia, a good +dictionary, a World almanac, and other popular reference books should be +supplied and instruction given in their use. Debating material should be +sought and every inducement offered for individual research. + +Those who cannot afford to take correspondence courses in the various +trades and crafts should find material in the social centre library for +self-education. James Russell Lowell has said that the best part of +every man's education is that which he gives himself, and it is for this +that the library at the social centre should furnish the opportunity and +the means. Again, there should be books of a cheerful sort for tired +workers so that, as in William Morris's Earthly Paradise, they may + + "Forget six counties overhung with smoke, + Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke." + +Wholesome novels should be found in plenty for both men and women, +together with books that inspire with courage for life's daily round, +such as Hugh Black's Work, Gannett's Blessed be drudgery, Hyde's Art of +optimism, Emerson's Character and heroism, and Wagner's Courage. Each +book in the library's collection should serve one or all three +purposes--to inform, to inspire, or to refresh. + +The rules for the issuance of books should be made as simple as +possible. Borrowers should not be restricted to one book at a time if +more can be used; that is, a novel should be loaned with a book for +study. No guarantee should be required except the borrower's signature. + +A reading room should be made an attractive feature in connection with +the issuance of books. The library and reading room should be well +lighted and heated, and order and quiet should be insisted upon. The +reading table should be supplied with an abundance of the best of the +popular magazines. The Technical World, Popular mechanics, Amateur work, +and the Scientific American, will be found to be strong magnets for +attracting the interest of the boys and young men. The World's work, +Collier's weekly, and the American magazine, are the three great +exponents of optimism in our national life which should find a place on +the reading room tables, as should McClure's, Everybody's, Hampton's, +Scribner's, Harper's, Century, and the Atlantic. In the small towns the +local paper and one or two of the near-by metropolitan dailies should +also be taken. + +Attractive libraries and reading rooms make less attractive the +seductions of other places. George Eliot said long ago, "Important as it +is to direct the industries of men, it is not so important as to wisely +direct their leisure." It is indeed true, as a critic of our national +life has said, that "The use of a nation's leisure is the test of its +civilization." To win people to a love of good literature, to bring back +the old days of reading and meditation, are two of the great problems +that confront the present-day librarian. In the words of one earnest +library worker, "The modern library movement is a movement to increase +by every possible means the accessibility of books, to stimulate their +reading and to create a demand for the best. Its motive is helpfulness; +its scope, instruction and recreation; its purpose, the enlightenment of +all; its aspiration, still greater usefulness." + + + + +WHERE NEIGHBORS MEET + + Extracts from a special report on the social work of the St. + Louis Public Library made in 1917 by Margery Quigley, then + librarian of its Divoll Branch. + + Margery Closey Quigley was born in Los Angeles, Cal., Sept. + 16, 1886, and graduated from Vassar College. She entered the + service of the St. Louis Public Library in February, 1909, + studied at the New York State Library School in 1914-15, and + in August, 1918, became librarian of the Free Library in + Endicott, N.Y. + + +The experience of the St. Louis Public Library goes to prove that no +matter what the neighborhood may be, and however well-supplied it +already is with meeting places, there is always room for the library +auditorium and club rooms without subtracting in any way from the +business of the other agencies. In fact, they seem to increase each +other's use. + +Of our six branch buildings, one is located in the heart of the older +ghetto, one in Carondelet, two in purely residential neighborhoods, one +at the Soulard civic center, where nine or ten European languages are +represented, and the sixth in the older German section of the north +side, near the river. + +About each branch is the full quota of meeting places required by any +given neighborhood--moving-picture houses, community halls to let for +dances and entertainments, churches, saloons, Turnvereins, settlements, +club houses, running the gamut from "lid clubs" to the Artists' Guild, +Masonic temples and public schools, which are now managed on the +community-center plan. Several of the branches have all these within a +radius of five or six blocks, and still they must show the +"standing-room-only" sign to many of the clubs that apply for the use of +the library halls. + +The remarkable feature of this wider use of the library is that in +spite of the increase of meetings, there has been no spirit of +competition. Between the community halls and the library, for example, +there has been no rivalry for statistics of use. Cabanne branch, in the +heart of perfectly equipped institutions which foster all sorts of +clubs, shows more than 52 meetings a month during the last nine months, +while our report of 1907 said of this branch: "There has been an average +of nearly six meetings a month in the building." + +Neighborhood clubs meet in the halls which best suit their purposes, and +no agency seeks to move any one of them to a different roof. In the +Crunden Branch neighborhood, the Socialists meet in a synagogue and a +Yiddish church meets in the library. + +The city recreation department reports that the library's work and the +department's community work at the Patrick Henry School and on the +playgrounds, far from duplicating one another are supplementary. + +In giving the free use of its meeting-rooms to any reputable group of +persons, the St. Louis Public Library acts upon two principles which it +cannot emphasize strongly enough. They are the same on which it buys its +books; first, that the library stands for no propaganda but seeks to +house all opinions, and second, that it makes no obvious attempt to +reform or "uplift." + +Although the books it buys must meet a certain standard in style and +content, the day is past when library assistants seek to force down +readers' throats books which "will be good" for them. In the same way, +the meeting which it shelters must meet the standards of the community; +but the Library has ceased to initiate or direct clubs and meetings, +cultural or otherwise. + +Community work can be successful only when it embodies the spontaneous +expression of the neighborhood's own demand, whether it is from +children, or women, or men. A chain of suffrage groups was successful, +if numbers were an indication, in one neighborhood and a failure in +another--from the same cause. In a neighborhood of illiterate foreign +women with large families, one suffragist lecturer on the common law of +England was greeted by an audience consisting of one deaf old lady and +fifty Jewish children under twelve, who had heard that candy was to be +given away. + +Many of the meetings that wither and die are conceived in the finest +spirit of service. If they aim to interest the whole neighborhood, +irrespective of cliques and prejudices, they almost always fail--if, as +we Americans are supposed to do, we figure failure and success in terms +of quantity. Utopian schemes cannot long survive to-day, housed or not +in the scholarly and friendly surroundings of the library. A united +Ukraine cannot absorb the attention of its supporters half as +continuously as the possibility of a new job in Ford's factory, and a +"decent dancing club" cannot always endure in the face of profits to be +made from a river excursion. + +Probably of all municipal institutions, the library, while maintaining +its dignified and quiet atmosphere, may become the least formal and most +neighborly. It is a library truism that a librarian can tell from +repeated experiences just when a borrower is calling at the library to +announce her engagement or to proclaim that his new job has been +secured. Countless other bits of everyday news are exchanged over the +desk with real profit to the library and to the visitor. We feel in St. +Louis that the so-called wider use of the plant is only a tangible +expression of this same friendly relationship, justified on the one hand +by its economy and on the other, and to a far larger extent, by its +contribution to the community's legitimate social life. + +Very fortunately for the tax-payer, and for the average reader, the +public library does not look upon its branches as intellectual clinics +for the poor. Like the public schools, its problem is to serve "all the +children of all the people," and consequently in localities other than +those where foreigners live, the same sort of branch building is +erected, with an auditorium open under the same regulations and used to +meet the needs of the particular neighborhood. The so-called "middle +class" has as fair a chance and as "good a time" in the library +auditoriums as the foreign poor. + +When there are public meetings at the Carondelet library, speakers from +other parts of the city invariably come late. They begin their addresses +with long apologies, saying that they have never been in the +neighborhood before, and did not know where to find the library. They +always seem amazed at the size and beauty of the building, and comment +particularly on the pleasant club-rooms. One West End woman could not +say enough in praise of everything, repeating continually, "and all this +down here!" + +Practically this same comment is made again and again in the main +library, and in the other branches throughout the city. "All this down +here," is equally true of seven auditoriums, each with a seating +capacity of 200, and of club rooms and offices to the number of fifteen. +In these halls were held, during the past year, practically as large a +number of meetings as our equipment will permit. Omitting the meetings +at Crunden and Soulard, practically all are held by the average sort of +person--average financially, socially and intellectually. The very +absence of the feeling that the club must make money, or must at least +pay expenses, probably accounts for the long list of small clubs and +board meetings which could almost as easily meet in the homes of +members. + +There are those who think that no one uses the auditoriums except very +wealthy club-women, who set up Christmas trees for the poor. There is no +more truth in this than there would be in saying that all the +inhabitants of St. Louis are either immigrants or millionaires. In the +total number of meetings at the library, what Ida Tarbell has termed +"the shirtwaist crowd," is far in the majority. At practically every +branch, the Simon-pure woman's clubs form at least fifteen per cent. of +all the meetings. At the Cabanne branch, about fifty per cent. are made +up of women. The Barr Branch Mothers' Circle, The Queen Hedwig Polish +Women, and the Carondelet Women's Club are three names out of a list +running almost to a hundred. + +The masculine of "shirtwaist crowd" is "shirtsleeves crowd"; and this is +equally well represented upon the schedules of all the branches. Miss +Griggs, of the Barr Branch, writes: + +"We seem now to have a number of new meetings that are held for +discussion--but not many for study--casual, one-meeting-only affairs. +For instance, the Royal Arcanum met to discuss what could be done about +the increased rates. All the premiums were raised and those for older +men raised far out of reason, so all the older members had a meeting +down here, to discuss what action they could take. I am glad people come +casually that way--and feel that we are open for something beside the +regular study meetings. They sit around very informally, smoke, come in +and out down stairs and do not have any very formal session. + +"In common with the other branches, Barr has had political meetings. +Some have been held just before elections and have been quite warm. On +one occasion, the library was made a buzzing community center by a +series of bombs that were set off in the street. Other and quieter +meetings have been held by party committees, judges of elections and the +like. The State Socialist party has twice held its conventions here, and +each time the session lasted for four days. The meetings were opened +with hymns, and the delegates had all-day sessions, from 9:00 a.m. to +9:00 p.m. I think most of the partisan leaders feel that they are a +little handicapped when they meet in the library--still, they come back +occasionally. + +"There are coming to be more purely social meetings of younger grade +pupils. In some cases, these children are not organized, but merely +claim to be in order to get the halls. In other cases, relatives who +come with them to make application are frank to confess that they want +the hall to avoid inconvenience at home, especially the protracted +house-cleanings which are the pre-requisite at most home parties. One +mother said that the last time there was a birthday party in her house, +the man who lived upstairs, after rapping repeatedly on the floor to +stop the children's noise, came down and said, that 'the party would +simply have to bust up.' She wanted to hold this party in the library, +because her husband had such a bad temper, that she was sure he would +murder the man if such a thing happened again, and, of course, it +_would_ happen again, for no children's party would ever be quiet enough +to suit the man upstairs. + +"Adult clubs as a whole ask very little of us beyond the occasional use +of the telephone, and they often come and go without our being conscious +of them. This is especially true of day-time meetings. It must be +admitted, that in addition to those who are very friendly and those who +do not make either criticism or appreciation articulate, there are some +who break the monotony of the librarian's existence by thinking 'they +owns the place,' to quote the janitor. The younger social meetings need +considerable attention, too. They overflow upstairs, are always noisy +and sometimes not as agreeable as they should be. A member of a new club +of girls said, 'I guess we rented this building for the evening--we can +make as much noise as we please.'" + +Within certain limits, particularly the powder-cans and lead pencils of +the staff, we want the clubs to think that they do own the place. The +surest proof that the St. Louis plan works, is to have the scions of our +democracy feel that they are getting their money's worth from the +institution that their taxes support. + +A group of young socialists was formed too late in the season to secure +a regular meeting night. They finally decided that they would have to be +satisfied with meeting, for the winter, at K----'s--a delicatessen store +a few blocks away. K----'s has an advertisement every week in the Jewish +Record, inviting men to come and read the papers there and make use of +the free meeting-room. Like all Jewish delicatessens, this shop contains +everything that any patron is willing to buy, and in addition, +elaborates the coffee-house idea into any shape that circumstances may +suggest. When the young men said individually on later occasions that +they were not contented at the delicatessen, they always added, "It's +because we feel so at home at the library; because we've always gotten +books out there." The next winter their application was handed in +several months in advance. + +In a neighborhood where conditions are the exact antithesis of +Crunden's, the same feeling exists. Miss Pretlow was talking one evening +to a young man who belonged to a group giving a dancing party at Cabanne +Library. She said that she could not but remark how well-dressed and +well bred and altogether prosperous the dancers were. They very +evidently could have met in any one of a number of large homes or could +have paid for one of the best halls in the city; so she said to the +young man, "How is it you do not rent Blank's Hall, but use the Library +instead? I know it can't be the difference in cost that influences you." +The young man answered in very evident astonishment: "Why, we like this +place; we all grew up in this Library." + +When adolescents of both sexes meet together, their meetings are purely +for a good time. Their behavior is extremely immature from the social +side; either very wooden or very uncontrolled. This is the period when +the librarian must insist upon strict chaperonage, and it is also the +period when resentment of discipline, or even of suggestion, runs high. +They would no more follow the advice of the Librarian in the matter of +invitations, introduction of wall-flowers and how a dance is to be "run +off" generally, than they would copy her taste in dress, which they +invariably consider very "old-maidy." The standards to which social +clubs adhere rigidly are those observed in places of commercialized +amusement. One group of boys met to teach each other dancing, where the +girls would not see them. As it was a case of the blind leading the +blind, a volunteer who had been teaching folk-dancing to the girls all +winter, offered her services. After one trial she was _persona non +grata_, because she wouldn't let them "rag." + +Some of the dances are quite grim. One will not hear a note of laughter +all the evening. Five or six girls will often come together. Those who +know boys will dance with them, and between dances will not make the +slightest effort to introduce their friends to possible partners. The +friends, instead of resenting this inactivity, often sit all the evening +on the side lines watching and chewing gum, apparently perfectly +satisfied. + +At the opposite pole is the wild desire for "rough house." In the early +stages of auditorium work and before these days of H.C.L., pieces of +cake have occasionally gone flying across the hall. + +As soon as branch libraries recognized these facts, and it was very +soon, the application for dances became fewer and of better quality. +Leavings from other club rooms no longer apply, and disgruntled alumni +associations in schools have ceased to contemplate a move to the nearest +branch library. + +No effort has been made to advertise the club rooms, beyond these +statements of the branch librarians in passing, except the exhibiting of +the rooms themselves to visitors who "stop in to show our library to +cousin Sarah, from Davenport," or Illinois, or Oklahoma, as the case may +be. Word-of-mouth publicity accounts for the gradual steady growth in +the use of the rooms. One of the many examples began with a stenographer +who sewed, "in secret," as she said, at noon in the club room. She was +embroidering an engagement present for one of the girls in her office. +Needless to say, she scattered information about the rooms, and the +rules governing them, wherever any one would listen. Eventually a Sunday +School class, to which her cousin belonged, gave a St. Patrick's Day +party in the library. As an indirect result, a School Patron's +Association now holds five or six meetings each Spring, to make +preparations for its annual picnic. So the ball of publicity rolls along +of its own momentum. + +At branch libraries, the auditorium and study rooms are as a rule +closely connected architecturally with the reading rooms, and club +members usually pass through the main part of the library to reach the +meetings. One or two at least from each group stop to chat with the +workers, or to read. At Crunden the assistants say that whenever a +Yiddish meeting is to begin at nine, the men come at eight and read. +Then there are the isolated individuals from the club who stumble on the +resources of the library quite by accident, and later grow +communicative. Occasionally some one rushes up stairs to borrow the +telephone book, and when, after an unsuccessful quest, he is offered the +city directory by the librarian, he finds it hard to realize that any +library can contain a book as useful as that. One man who saw a magazine +lying on the desk while he was asking to be directed to the auditorium, +said, "I had no idea the library handled magazines." + +Libraries try as faithfully to reach every one as if they were +commercial enterprises, but there will always be a certain number of +persons who have never been in a library building, not to speak of +knowing the location of the nearest branch and realizing its resources. +A Harvard graduate said he had walked past a branch every day for a year +and had thought it was a branch post-office. If there were no other +arguments in favor of adding auditoriums to the library's list of +activities, there is this: that they introduce to the library large +groups of people who have had no connection with it before. The horse at +least has been led to the water. + +If clubs meet regularly, there is always a small proportion who make +meeting-night their library night. They consequently read and want to +calculate all fines with reference to the night of the last meeting. I +once heard one young woman telling another how she finally had her +reading "doped out into a system," by beginning on her seven-day book +just as soon as she reached home after the meeting, and using the +fourteen-day book only on the street cars. + +With the establishment of libraries in small towns and rural +communities, there is at present a tendency to make social centers out +of library buildings, even at the sacrifice of the books, rather than to +establish libraries in connection with social activities. This is also +true in those cities where "field-houses" in parks are well developed. +Without holding a brief for either school, we may properly emphasize +three principles. The first is that a librarian holds her position by +virtue of being a librarian, and that her duty and training require her +full time for the purpose for which she is employed--the fitting of the +proper book to the individual. The second is that if the community needs +to have the social center stressed more than the books, a social worker +must direct the center and the librarian must contribute in a +subordinate capacity to make the center a success. For example, the St. +Louis Public Library has equipped a room with books and is furnishing an +attendant at a colored social center in a church building at Garrison +and Lucas Avenues, but it does not thereby put forward any claim to +control and stimulate the social activities of the neighborhood. The +third principle is that if the library plant is already in operation, it +is a waste to exclude neighborhood groups from rooms not being used +directly for the reading and circulation of books, inasmuch as overhead +expenses continue. + + + + +WHAT OF THE FUTURE? + + A forecast, not of library progress alone, but of + civilization itself, by one who declares himself "a + simple-minded visionary optimist." It is of the warp and + woof of visions like this that the fabric of a better world + is woven. Frederick Morgan Crunden, who delivered this + address at the public session of the Philadelphia Conference + of the American Library Association, 1897, was not, it is + true, the technical founder of the St. Louis Public Library, + but in his thirty-year administration of it, he originated + and kept in motion the forces that have given it the + position that it now holds in the community. These forces + and their results were both social, and his address forms a + fitting conclusion to this compilation of material on "The + Library and Society." A sketch of Mr. Crunden appears in + Vol. I of this series. + + +The present Victorian jubilee has naturally brought out a fresh group of +reminiscences comparing conditions at the beginning of the reign with +those now existing. The most striking contrast between the two periods +lies in the advances made in the material comforts of life--improvements +in lighting and heating, in locomotion and intercommunication. The +progress of applied science has been so rapid that some of its most +notable achievements have come within the memory of young persons still +at school. Telephonic conversation between New York and St. Louis is +only a thing of yesterday; aerial navigation is evidently near at hand; +and already daring scientists speak hopefully of electric communication +with the planets. + +But it is not only in this line that the world has advanced. To note +great changes in social customs, we need not go back to the last +century. Sir Algernon West in a recent magazine article refers to the +matter-of-course manner in which his chief was in the habit of +announcing to the head clerk that he would not be at the office the +following day, as he was to dine out that evening. As an indication of +the social changes brought about in his lifetime, he quotes this +significant sentence of Mr. Charles Villiers: "In his young days," said +Mr. Villiers, "every young man, even if he was busy, pretended to be +idle; now every young man, even if he is idle, pretends to be busy." +There is great import in this. When every member of society is usefully +employed, our social problems will be well on the way to solution. + +To note progress in another direction we need not turn back to the acts +of the 14th century, which made it a crime to give or receive more than +the wretched wage fixed by law. At the beginning of the Victorian era +boys and girls as young as six years worked in mines and factories +longer hours than are now required of strong men; and the masses of +people were compelled to pay an artificially high price for their bread, +in order to increase the unearned wealth of the few. + +And in our own country we need not go back to the Salem witchcraft or +the persecution of the Quakers. There are still eye-witnesses to tell us +that men and women in this "land of the free," were lawfully sold like +cattle or flogged to death at the will of their owners. It was a few +months after Queen Victoria's accession to the throne that Elijah Parish +Lovejoy was killed for daring to say that human slavery was wrong--for +advocating, not forcible abolition, but gradual emancipation as "the +free, voluntary act of the master, performed from a conviction of its +propriety." For maintaining his right to express his opinions on this or +any other public question, he was driven from place to place and finally +shot down in cold blood. In the city where 60 years ago he fell, a +martyr to the cause of free speech, a stately monument--one of the most +imposing in the country--was the other day dedicated to his memory. No +American better deserves a monument. No leader in the Revolution or the +Civil War was a greater hero. In my opinion, the unquestioned courage of +the great Union commander is dwarfed and paled by the simple heroism of +this young preacher-editor, who gave his life to a greater cause than +even the preservation of the Union. Yet for some years after his death, +in many cities of this country, it would have been hazardous for a man +to utter his eulogy. + +Here, then, is a marked advance. But we have not yet obtained entire +freedom of speech on live topics. Was it not as late as last year that +we hear of two librarians holding opposite political views, whose +positions were rendered insecure by an unfortunate misadjustment of +longitudes and political opinions? And not many miles from here a score +of good, earnest men were jailed for advocating, disinterestedly, and at +considerable self-sacrifice, a method of taxation that did not meet the +approval of the city authorities. Still we have made great progress +toward a broad tolerance. We not only permit the practice of all +religious forms, but we even allow a man to deny himself the +consolations of religion in any form if he chooses to do so. + +In science, at least, there is absolute freedom of thought and +expression. One may publish arguments to prove that the world is five +thousand, or five hundred million years old, and no one will molest or +denounce him; or he may announce a new theory of the universe with our +moon as the stationary centre, and no state or church will +anathematize him or compel him to recant. It is not till he enters the +field of politics, i.e., the discussion of economic and sociological +questions with a view to immediate practical results, that the +advocate of new ideas reaches the danger-point. Here he finds vested +interests--self-styled "vested rights," but as often vested wrongs--on +guard and alert to repel intrusion and resist inquiry. These summon to +their aid the legions of unreasoning conservatism; and the innovator +is made to feel the truth of the saying that there is no pain so keen +as the pain of a new idea--from which, therefore, mankind has always +shrunk, as a child shrinks from the surgeon's knife. We have passed +the period of rack and stake; but social and business ostracism are +pretty effective, while occasionally there are suggestions of +tar-buckets or bullets. For the most part, however, we content +ourselves with denouncing the proposer of any marked departure from +existing political or sociological conditions as a "socialist," a +"communist," and an "anarchist," using these terms indiscriminately as +abusive epithets without any definite knowledge of their meaning. From +the beginning of time every social advance--and until recently every +forward step in science or religion has been regarded as menacing the +very foundations of society. The Reform Act of 1832, which simply took +the first step towards correcting the grossest political abuses, was +looked upon by the Duke of Wellington and other good men as +threatening the very existence of the kingdom. The condition of +affairs then existing, they considered, if not the best possible, at +any rate vastly better than the political chaos that would be sure to +result from change. Speaking on this blind conservative opposition to +the Reform Bill, Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, said: + +"All the resistance to these natural changes can effect is to derange +their operation, and make them act violently and mischievously instead +of healthfully, or at least harmlessly. The old state of things is gone +past recall, and all the efforts of all the tories cannot save it; but +they may by their folly, as they did in France, get us a wild democracy +or a military despotism in the room of it, instead of letting it change +quietly into what it is, merely a new modification of the old state. One +would think that people who talk against change were literally as well +as metaphorically blind, and really did not see that everything in +themselves and around them is changing every hour by the necessary law +of its being. + +"There is nothing so revolutionary, because there is nothing so +unnatural and so convulsive to society, as the strain to keep things +fixed, when all the world is, by the very law of its creation, in +eternal progress; and the cause of all the evils of the world may be +traced to that natural but most deadly error of human indolence and +corruption--that our business is to preserve and not to improve." + +In his retrospect of the Victorian reign, in the June Review of Reviews, +W.T. Stead says: "It is to the stoutest conservatives of our time almost +inconceivable that rational beings could ever have defended the system +that prevailed in Britain sixty years ago." + +I am no more assured of the rising of to-morrow's sun than I am that to +the stoutest conservatives of 1950, it will appear "almost inconceivable +that rational beings could ever have defended the system" that prevails +in America to-day. They will, however, resist further progress as +doggedly as do the conservatives of to-day, even while these see plainly +how absurd was the attitude of their predecessors of sixty years ago. +Your genuine conservative ever holds doggedly to things as they are. He +clings tenaciously--and vainly. He belongs to a party whose defeat all +history teaches is foredoomed. Now he stands for the divine right of +kings; and notwithstanding he is a man of irreproachable character and +able, moreover, to show that he is much less autocratic than most of his +predecessors, he loses his crown and his head. Again, he stands for the +parent country's unlimited power of taxation, and he forfeits his most +flourishing colonies. At another period he urges long sufferance as a +justification for continuing--even extending--the crime of slavery, and +he meets defeat amid slaughter and devastation. No repetition of the +lesson will ever teach him to consider what is abstractly right--what +ought to be without reference to what is. + +But the conservative has to be, in accordance with the law of nature, so +poetically announced in the song of Willis in Iolanthe: + + "That every boy and every gal + That's born into this world alive, + Is either a little Liberal, + Or else a little Conservative!" + +Or, as Emerson's prose expresses it-- + +"The two parties which divide the state--the party of conservatism and +that of innovation--are very old and have disputed the possession of the +world ever since it was made. This quarrel is the subject of civil +history. The conservative party established the reverend hierarchies and +monarchies of the most ancient world. The battle of patrician and +plebeian, of parent state and colony, of old usage and accommodation to +new facts, of the rich and the poor, reappears in all countries and +times.... + +"There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, +joined with a certain superiority in its fact. It affirms because it +holds. Its fingers clutch the fact, and it will not open its eyes to see +a better fact. The castle which conservatism is set to defend is the +actual state of things, good or bad. The project of innovation is the +best possible state of things. Of course conservatism always has the +worst of the argument, is always apologizing, pleading a necessity, +pleading that to change would be to deteriorate. It must saddle itself +with the mountainous load of the violence and the vice of society, must +deny the possibility of good, deny ideas, and suspect and stone the +prophets; while innovation is always in the right, triumphant, +attacking, and sure of final success." + +But though doomed to defeat, conservatism is not to be denounced or +condemned. It is not without its uses. It often keeps us from following +untried paths that open out alluring but end in thickets or quagmires. A +brake is sometimes as necessary to safety as motive power is to +progress. But the usual tendency of conservatism is to keep the brakes +on all the time, causing either stagnation, retrogression, or a +smash-up. The real revolutionist is the rock-ribbed conservative. It is +the boulder blocking the onward flow of the stream that causes the eddy +and the whirlpool. + +Those who think on this subject and who really desire the improvement of +society--unfortunately a very small class--are divided over the question +whether mankind shall progress by the path of individualism or by that +of collectivism. Extremists assure us that these paths go in opposite +directions, or traverse each other at right angles. The truth is they +run parallel; and we have been travelling both, now advancing more on +one and then on the other, towards the ultimate goal of humanity--the +perfection of society through the elevation of the individual, the +perfection of the individual through the improvement of society. Each +helps the other; neither can be independent of the other. It often +happens that organized society cannot await the slow process of +individual perfection. It must accelerate the operation by changing +standards and ideals. There is no telling how long it would have +required to convince each individual slave-owner of the wrong of human +slavery, or each individual mine and factory owner of the wickedness of +child-labor. Society had to take the matter in hand and force individual +development--in one case by law, in the other by the sword. Many +thoughtful persons are raising the question whether society has not more +work of this kind ahead of it. There can be no individual perfection or +progress under certain social conditions. Ceremonious politeness was not +to be expected among the victims of the Black Hole of Calcutta. +Starvation has often led to cannibalism among men who would shrink with +horror from the thought of it under ordinary conditions. Society can +create conditions favorable or unfavorable to the improvement of the +individual. + +The inevitable outcome of the struggle between individualism and +collectivism is the triumph of each in its own proper field. + +A line drawn from the past to the present shows the trend of the future. +We find this embodying two distinct, and apparently contradictory, +tendencies--one towards greater individual freedom, the other towards a +constant extension of the principle of cooperation, or collectivism. +That is, organized society leaves ever greater freedom to the individual +in all those things that concern only him, while at the same time it +extends farther and farther its supervision and performance of those +things that pertain to the welfare of all, and which society can do for +the individual better than he can do for himself. A man may kiss his +wife on Sunday without scandal or fear of prosecution; and he may dress +in any manner he pleases within the bounds of convention, which is still +an unreasoning tyrant. He is generally glad to avail himself of the more +convenient water-supply provided by the community; but he may, if he +wishes, have a well in his yard, until, with the growth of the city, +this becomes a menace to his neighbors' health; then it must be closed. +He may still mould his own tallow candles and use no other light if he +prefers; but cooperation among consumers supplies him with a much +superior illuminant; and when this cooperation is extended to embrace +all the citizens--i.e., when gas or electricity is furnished by the +municipality, the cost is reduced, and he becomes a partner in the +profits. + +Of the benefits of municipal cooperation we had a signal illustration in +the introduction of municipal sprinkling in St. Louis. Formerly, the +occupant of a fifty-foot lot paid a private contractor from $6 to $12 a +season, while he suffered from the dust blown from his neighbors' +frontage and from unsprinkled streets all over the city. Now the owner +of a fifty-foot lot pays about $1 a year and enjoys sprinkled streets +throughout the whole city. Municipal cooperation in libraries brings the +same kind of benefits. The average well-to-do reader, instead of a +five-dollar subscription fee, pays a dollar tax; and for that not only +he and his family, but also the families of his neighbors, have access +to a superior library. And it is almost as necessary for your comfort +that your neighbor's children have access to a library as for your own. + +While social evolution tends to relieve the individual of the +compulsion of law, and also to lessen the pressure of public opinion, in +those affairs that pertain only to his own life, correlatively his +action is more and more restricted in so far as it affects his neighbors +and society in general--though here, too, law and custom tend more and +more to individual freedom. It was once regarded as a public scandal not +to go to church; and 50 years ago in St. Louis Unitarians were shunned +as suspicious characters. But pari passu with the growth of individual +liberty has grown the recognition of the duty of society to see that all +persons have equal liberty--to protect the weak against the strong. +Nothing in Victoria's reign has done more for the progress of England +than the series of acts that have been passed to curb the greed of mine +and factory owners, to prevent them from coining the muscle and manhood +of Britain into gold--in a way that, at one period, threatened to +exhaust the vitality of the race--to kill the goose that lays the golden +eggs. + +The whole history of mankind is a continuous struggle of the weak and +ignorant many to secure the rights withheld from them by the superior +strength and cunning of the few. The oppression and injustice of the +past are apparent to all; but many of us, like the conservative +antagonists of Cobden and Bright, fail to see anything seriously wrong +in the present; and, like them, we fear change. But it is the part of +wise men to welcome change as the natural order of the universe--to see +that it is a change for the better. + +It does not by any means follow that every new idea is a good one, that +every proposed change would be an improvement. But as progress is the +law of the universe, it rests with the old order to show why it should +be continued. Wisdom, therefore, urges us to give careful consideration +to new ideas, however contrary they may be to prevalent opinions, +bearing in mind the frequent lesson of history that "the stone which the +builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner," and +approaching all questions in the spirit of St. Paul's injunction: "Prove +all things; hold fast that which is good." For all political and social +problems, which are the burning questions of to-day, there is, it seems +to me, a simple test in Herbert Spencer's "first principle": "Every man +may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with +the possession of like liberty by every other man." Legislation that +does not square with the self-evident truth and justice of this dictum +is bad legislation, and must prove maleficent to the nation, state, or +city that enacts it. I need not offer any modern instances. + +Reasoning in reverse order, i.e., from effect to cause, we may be sure +that when we see in a country abounding in natural resources, as ours +is, inhabited by the most intelligent, energetic, and resourceful people +the world has ever seen--when we see in such a country millions of +willing workers in enforced idleness; when, to account for the idleness +and its attendant want and destitution, we are offered the absurdity of +"over-production" of the very things for which millions are suffering; +when we see men and women who toil not revelling in luxury, while others +who labor sixteen hours a day are barely able to keep body and soul +together, we may know absolutely, without further investigation, that +there is something fundamentally wrong in our social organization. + +This is not the time or place to point out these wrongs specifically, or +to advance, even in the most general terms, what, after much thought, I +believe to be the remedies. I merely urge the thoughtful study of social +problems without bias or prejudice. This state of openmindedness is not +easy to achieve. We think that we think our own thoughts; but as Tarde, +the French psychologist, says: "What the individual hypnotizer is to his +sleeping and abnormally plastic subject, such, almost precisely, is +society to the waking and normally plastic man."[7] + +On the solution of social problems, Ibsen says: "There is only one thing +that avails--to revolutionize people's minds." This was a difficult task +about so plain a matter as the Copernican system, which was opposed by +the combined learning and piety of Europe. How much more difficult must +it be when the change affects the every-day life of every individual? As +Nitti says: "Had the propositions of Euclid affected economic interests +they would still appear doubtful hypotheses of arduous solution." + +[7] "As, then, in philosophy the first step is to begin by doubting +everything, so, in social philosophy, the first step is to throw aside +all supposed absolute rights."--JEVONS. + +The public library is destined to play an important part, to exercise +an incalculable influence in the solution of the social problems of +to-day, and through this on the future of the nation and the race. The +wisdom needed for this task is not to be obtained from schools or +colleges, but from the higher education of mature minds--the masses of +the people--which the public library alone can give. The preparation for +this higher education of the masses devolves on the schools and +colleges. Their curricula should be so arranged as to arouse "historic +consciousness" in the youngest child, to awaken social consciousness, +and to provide for its continuous development by starting every boy and +girl on a career of self-culture--by matriculating every child in the +People's University, the Public Library. In affairs that concern society +as a whole, it is better to trust the well-informed common-sense of the +people than the learning of the schoolmen. + +It is not knowledge of mathematics or physics, or Greek and Latin, or +modern languages; it is not the study--academic study--of history, or +philosophy, or even political economy, that will solve the great social +problems that now confront us. These will help in various degrees, +directly or indirectly, some more, some less, some, perhaps, not at all. +A knowledge of the general course of history is essential; some +acquaintance with philosophy is useful; dogmatic theology serves only to +confuse, but the true religion that lies in a vital acceptance of +Christ's two commandments as a summary of the law and the prophets--that +is the greatest aid of all. Such, however, is the influence of +established order on men's minds that no investigation will avail +without a determination to take nothing for granted, to re-examine what +have been considered basic principles, to accept no postulates that do +not square with reason and justice. This cannot be done by confining our +reading to the accepted standards of a generation or a century ago. We +must keep abreast of the thought of the time; we must keep our eyes and +ears, and still more our minds, open; we must scorn no aids to +enlightenment; but we must do our own thinking; we must consider the +idea, not the source from which it came, remembering that good may come +out of Nazareth; we must live up to the motto; "Truth for authority, not +authority for truth," and we must "lend a hand." + +My faith in the efficacy of the education offered by the public library +is not without foundation. In more than one case I have seen a course of +lectures or the reading of a single book lead to a course of reading in +economics and sociology, which has entirely changed points of view. New +ideals, higher standards, have made new men with higher lines of action. +Their natures have not been changed, but their visions have been +clarified. + +One of the stock arguments which conservatism always brings out to give +a final quietus to any proposal for social reform, is--"Oh, that's +impossible; you'd have to change human nature!" This mental attitude, +which, I am sorry to say, is the prevailing one with the great majority +of mankind, is admirable satirized in some verses which I had great +pleasure in printing in the April number of the St. Louis Public Library +Magazine: + + There was once a Neolithic Man, an enterprising wight, + Who made his simple instruments unusually bright, + Unusually clever he, unusually brave. + And he sketched delightful mammoths on the border of his cave, + To his Neolithic neighbors who were startled and surprised, + Said he: "My friends, in course of time we shall be civilized! + We are going to live in cities and build churches and make laws! + We are going to eat three times a day without the natural cause! + We're going to turn life upside down about a thing called Gold! + We're going to want the earth, and take as much as we can hold! + We are going to wear a pile of stuff outside our proper skins; + We're going to have Diseases! and Accomplishments!! and Sins!!! + Then they all rose up in fury against this boastful friend + For prehistoric patience comes quickly to an end. + Said one, "This is chimerical! Uptopian! Absurd!" + Said another, "What a stupid life! Too dull, upon my word!" + Cried all, "Before such things can come, you idiotic child, + You must alter Human Nature!" and they all sat back and smiled! + Thought they, "An answer to that last it will be hard to find!" + It was a clinching argument--to the Neolithic Mind! + +Yes, great progress and reform can be accomplished without changing +human nature. The elemental forces in the heart of man are the same now +as in the earliest recorded ages, and they are likely to remain the same +for all time to come. We cannot change the elements of man's nature; but +by changing conditions we can improve the product of reaction. We can +elevate conduct by elevating ideals. There was a time when the man who +could wield the heaviest battle-axe was the greatest man; and there are +still circles in which Corbett and Fitzsimmons are regarded as the +greatest men of the present day. But the men who now excite most general +admiration are our "captains of industry," the men who succeed in +getting money and the luxury and power it commands. How shall we elevate +our national ideals? + +Selfishness is a mainspring of human action. A like motive, desire for +happiness, sets men to fighting dogs and to founding hospitals. Nero +found pleasure in one way, Marcus Aurelius in another. Charles I. and +Louis XVI. were not bad men; but they were controlled by outgrown +standards. Elizabeth, Napoleon, Peter, and Catherine of Russia sought +their own pleasure in accordance with their personal characters and the +standards of their times. But how much higher and purer pleasure the +devotion of their talents to the service of their fellowmen brought to +Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, Cobden, Bright and Gladstone--and +John Pounds! + +False standards, low ideals, now lead many good men to find their +pleasure, not in cruelty, not in sensuality, but in the accumulation of +wealth, partly for the luxury, chiefly for the power it brings. +"Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer." + +With the spread of intelligence and thought, and the consequent +elevation of popular ideals, men possessed of millions will not seek to +add to their large legitimate gains by legalized robbery from their +fellow-citizens; and people calling themselves Christians will not +rejoice in the distress and starvation of their fellow-men across the +ocean. Men will still be selfish but their selfishness will at least be +on a higher plane--less intense, less destructive of essential rights. + +How shall we most speedily bring about this desired consummation? By +what agency can we most effectively elevate our national ideals? By +extending and improving our system of popular education, by reversing +the usual order and beginning where school curricula now end, by placing +our school-children from their earliest years in close and familiar +contact with the life and thought of the race as expressed in +literature, by exciting in every child admiration and emulation of the +world's true heroes, by feeding the imagination and cultivating the +moral faculties, by putting every child into the way of acquiring a +social and a historic perspective. + +I suppose I am one of those simple-minded visionary optimists of whom +Prof. Royce speaks. But I do not "dislike" economic facts in the sense +of ignoring them, and I am not blind to the persistence of the elemental +forces of human nature. But as the abolition of slavery changed men's +mental attitude towards this social crime, without at all changing human +nature, just so I believe that the adoption of other social reforms +would in a generation cause all men to look with horror and wonder upon +social injustice that nearly every one now ignores or regards as +irremediable and inevitable. I share Ruskin's scorn of the word +"Utopian." "A thing is either possible or impossible." As Carlyle says, +"The actual final rights of man lie in the far deeps of the ideal. Every +noble work is at first impossible." In the A.L.A. we have heard the word +"Utopian," or its equivalent, on more than one occasion met by the +motto, "Hitch your wagon to a star"; and we have seen the impracticable +an accomplished fact. + +If time permitted I might risk ridicule by presenting some features of +the vision that I see with the eye of faith in an all-wise and +all-powerful Creater and belief in human perfectibility as an infinite +progress. + + "Die Zukunft decket + Schmerzen and Glücke + Schrittweis' dem Blicke; + Doch ungeschrecket, + Dringen wir vorwärts." + + "New occasions teach new duties; + Time makes ancient good uncouth! + They must upward still and onward + Who would keep abreast with truth." + + + + +INDEX + + + Abbott, Abiel, library pioneer, 172. + + Adams, Brooks, quoted, 81. + + Adams, Charles Francis, trustee of Crane Library, Quincy, 308. + + Adams, John Quincy, quoted, 294. + + Adams, Matthew, lends books to Franklin, 133. + + Adams library, Quincy, Mass., 310. + + Adaptation of Libraries to Constituencies, + paper, by S.S. Green; in full, 307. + + Addingham, Eng., home of Robert Collyer, 105. + + Addison, Joseph, quoted, 389. + + Address at the dedication of the Library of the + University of Pennsylvania, + by Talcott Williams; in full, 365. + + Alexander the Great, quoted, 161. + + Alexandrian Library, destruction of, 377. + + Allegheny, Pa., gift of conservatories, 42. + + Alternatives to tax-support; general editorial introduction, 251. + + American Antiquarian Soc'y, 313. + + American Library Ass'n, + work of, 70; + catalogue praised. + + American Magazine of Civics, article from, 169. + + "Americans," book by Munsterberg, chapter quoted, 79. + + Americans as lovers of books, 18. + + Americanization, a library function, 326. + + Ames, Ohio, Public Library, 26, 164. + + Anderson, Col. James, praised by Carnegie, 39. + + Angell, James Burrill, + address at Grand Rapids library opening; in part, 425; + sketch of, 425. + + Arbor, Mich., library, 27. + + Arguments for public support of public libraries, + paper by William E. Foster, in full, 215. + + Arnold, Matthew, + introduction to Wordsworth's poems, 299; + quoted, 338. + + Arnold, Dr. Thomas, on the Reform Bill, 456. + + Art Gallery and School, Hartford, Conn., 148. + + Art School, Boston; B.F. Butler's attack on, 65. + + Art works as donations, 44. + + Association Libraries, 21. + + Astor, John Jacob, library gift, 49. + + Astor Library, 30, 105. + + Atkinson Free Library, Southport, Eng., 208. + + Atlanta Conference, talk by Melvil Dewey at, 75. + + Auditoriums as donations, 45. + + Author's League, N.Y., Carnegie dinner, 33. + + + Bacon, Francis, quoted, 94. + + Baird, Henry Carey, quoted, 384. + + Bakala, Wallachian peasant, legend of, 92. + + Baltimore, Md., + Enoch Pratt Library, 39; + Peabody Institute, 30. + + Barber, Henry Hervey, + article by, 169; + sketch of, 169. + + Barnard, Henry, anecdote of, 76. + + Barr Branch, St. Louis, 446. + + Baths as donations, 45. + + Bellevue Hospital, N.Y. City, gift to, 42. + + Bequests, effect of, 34. + + Bergen, Norway, parks in, 43. + + Berkeley, Gov., opposes free schools, 176. + + Billings, Dr. John Shaw, + article on public libraries, in full, 329; + biog. sketch of, 329; + pioneer in interlibrary work, 385. + + Birge, Edward Asahel, + address at Madison, in full, 109; + sketch of, 109. + + Birmingham (Eng.) Free Library, 41, 175, 207. + + Blackpool Free Library report, quoted, 206. + + Blair, Rev. James, library of, 20. + + Boards of Trustees; + general editorial introduction, 265. + _See also_ TRUSTEES. + + Bodleian Library, rule of, 353. + + Boers, characterized, 227. + + Bolton (Eng.) Free Library founded, 290. + + Book Committee of library board, 275. + + Book-readers, who are? 222. + + Book-selection, 351. + + Books and Life, address by Edward A. Birge; in full, 109. + + Books and the Public Library, + address by James Russell Lowell, in full, 87. + + Books, cheapness of, 204. + + Booklovers among the colonists, 19. + + Boston Art Museum, 313. + + Boston Common Council advocates library, 53. + + Boston, libraries in, 80. + + Boston Public Library; address at its dedication, by Edw. Everett, 127. + + Boston Public Library, 280, 317; + children in, 408; + its building, 81; + gifts to, 153; + facilities of, 327; + fiction purchases in, 321; + praised, 151; + George Ticknor on, 50; + statistics in 1885, 234. + + Bowditch mathematical collection, Boston, 327. + + Bradford, Wm., booklover, 19. + + Brashear, John, 37. + + Bright, John, quoted, 41. + + Bristol, Eng., library report quoted, 208. + + British + education acts, 202; + library law, earliest (1850), 39, 151, 172, 289; + amendment of (1866), 290. + + British Museum, fiction policy, 322. + + Brockton, Mass., reading-room in, 407. + + Brougham, Lord, approves travelling libraries, 171. + + Brown music collection, Boston, 327. + + Brown, Samuel, founds Scottish itinerating libraries, 171. + + Brown, Squire Sam, buys books for "Coon-Skin Library," 26. + + Brown University, paper by Pres. Faunce, 343. + + Brownwell's writing-school, attended by Franklin, 131. + + Browsing commended, 346. + + Burnham, T.O.P.H., book-collector, anecdote of, 313. + + Burton, R., Historical Collections bought by Franklin, 131. + + Business enterprise, library as a, 231. + + Butler, Benj. F., his attack on the Boston Art School, 65. + + Butler, James Davie, + address by, at Madison, Wis., 140; + biog. sketch of, 149. + + Byrd, William, library of, 20. + + + Cabanne Branch, St. Louis, 446., 448. + + California, + anecdotes of pioneers, 159; + school libraries in, 28. + + Calvinism as encourager of reading, 80. + + Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 63, 335, 465. + + Carnegie, Andrew, + article by, 33; + sketch of, 33; + praised by Melvil Dewey, 75; + quoted, 433; + library gifts, 329. + + Carondelet Branch, St. Louis, 445. + + Cassell's National Library, praised, 205. + + Castine, Me., library, 25. + + Catalogues, uses of, 91, 405. + + Censorship, do libraries exercise it? 323. + + Chamberlain, Mellen, Supt. Boston Public Library, 280. + + Chamberlain autograph collection, Boston, 327. + + Charity, so-called, 36. + + Charleston, S.C., Library Society, 24. + + Chaucer, Geoffrey, quoted, 162. + + Chelsea, Mass., address by Lowell at library-opening, 87. + + Chetham, Humphrey, library founder, 353. + + Children + in reading-rooms, 407; + reading of, 303; + work with, 115, 318, 435; + pioneer work of Mrs. Sanders, 401. + + Chicago, library growth in, 169. + + Chicago Public Library, 317; statistics in 1885, 234. + + Churches as objects of philanthropy, 46. + + Cincinnati, O., Springer Hall, 45. + + Cincinnati Public Library, 26, 341 (note); + statistics in 1885, 234. + + Circulation, + proposed by Ticknor, 51; + expediency doubted by Everett, 53. + + Clark, Charles Hopkins, + opening address at Hartford library, 145; + biog. sketch, 147. + + Classics, meaning of term, 5. + + Cleveland, Grover, + address in favor of the N.Y. Free Circ. Lib'y, 139; + biog. sketch of, 139. + + Clinton, De Witt, advocates libraries, 27. + + Club, library as a, 122. + + Club-rooms, use of, 449. + + Colden, Cadwallader, library of, 20. + + Coleridge, Samuel T., quoted, 64. + + Collection of Information: general editorial introduction, 379. + + College, increased attendance, 110. + + College libraries, 20. + + Collyer, Robert, + address given in full, 101; + sketch of, 101; + his story of his own life, 104. + + Colonies, libraries in the, 402. + + Colorado, school libraries in, 28. + + Columbia medical school, Vanderbilt gift to, 42. + + Committees of Library Board, 275. + + Community Center Service; editorial paragraph, 431. + + Community relations, general, 15. + + Community's Service to the Library; editorial introduction, 183. + + Connecticut, school libraries in, 28. + + Conservatism, deplored, 457. + + Contents, Table of, 7. + + Control and Guidance of Reading; general editorial introduction, 395. + + "Coon-Skin Library," Ames, Ohio, 26. + + Co-operation Between Library and Community; + paper by M. Anna Tarbell; in full, 257. + + Cooper Union, N.Y., 30, 41. + + Cornell, Ezra, + bequest, 37; + anecdote of, 98. + + Cost of libraries, 176. + + Cotton mill, first in U.S., 403. + + Countryman, Gratia Alta; + paper on social centres, in full, 433; + biog. sketch, 433. + + Crane Library, Quincy, Mass., 308. + + Crunden, Frederick Morgan, + paper by, in full, 333; + address on library's future, 453; + quoted, 179. + + Crunden Branch, St. Louis, 444. + + Curtis, George William, quoted, 98. + + Cushman, Robt., booklover, 19. + + Cutler, Mary Salome, paper by, 67. + + Cutter, Charles A., quoted, 312. + + Cyclopedia on cards, proposed, 379. + + + Dana, John C., + on interlibrary loans, 383; + quoted, 433. + + Dances at libraries, 449. + + Davenport, John, booklover, 19. + + Defoe, Daniel, "Essay on Projects," read by Franklin, 132. + + Democracy applied to books, 23; an "unworked theory," 414. + + Detroit Society Library, 27. + + Dewey, Melvil, + on the relation of the state to the library; in full, 185; + editor of Library Congress papers, 307; + talk at Atlanta given in full, 75; + advocates card encyclopedia, 379. + + Dickens's novels commended, 294. + + District School Libraries. + _See_ SCHOOL DISTRICT LIBRARIES. + + Dix, John A., establishes libraries, 27. + + Donne, Dr. John, quoted, 89. + + Dresden, beautification of, 43. + + Drury, Gertrude G., aid acknowledged, 5. + + Dudley, Gov., booklover, 19. + + Duties of trustees, 273; + and their relations to librarians; paper by S.S. Green, in full, 279. + + Easter, George, quoted, 211. + + Education Acts, Great Britain, 202. + + Education, + lengthening of, 110; + from libraries, 78, 115, 238, 244, 305, 331, 334, 440. + + Educational influence of the librarian, 420. + + Edwards, Edward, quoted, 296. + + Eliot, Charles W., + suggests reservoir libraries, 307; + quoted, 335. + + Eliot, George, quoted, 192, 441. + + Elmendorf, Mrs. Henry L., paper by, 359; + biog. sketch of, 359. + + Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quoted, 337, 371, 389, 457. + + Endowment of libraries, 30. + + England, + _see_ BRITISH. + + Entertainment a function of libraries, 221, 318, 331, 421, 427. + + Everett, Edward, + letter to, from George Ticknor, 50; + answer, 53; + dedication address of Boston Public Library; in full, 127; + biog. sketch of, 127; + opinions on libraries, 176. + + Evolution of libraries (Dewey), 185. + + Ewart, William, moves library inquiry in House of Commons, 289. + + Ewing, Thomas, quoted, 26. + + + Fairchild, Mrs. Milton, paper by, 67. + + Fairservice, Andrew, quoted, 103. + + Faunce, William Herbert Perry, + paper by, 343; + sketch of, 343. + + "Feminization" of the library, 116. + + Fiction, + use of in libraries, 154, 224, 294, 320, 331, 428; + circulation discussed, 180; + discouraged by J.P. Quincy, 55; + commended by Lowell, 97; + policy of British Museum, 322. + + Finance Committee of library board, 275. + + Financial Support; general editorial introduction, 199. + + Fiske, John, quoted, 361. + + Fletcher, William I., quoted, 177. + + Flint, Mich., library, 27. + + "Flower Band" in Pawtucket, 409. + + Foss, Sam Walker, + paper on inspiration, in full, 419; + sketch of, 419. + + Foster, William E., + paper on securing community interest; in full, 193; + paper advocating public support of libraries in full, 215; + quoted, 314, 356. + + Franklin, Benjamin, + autobiography quoted, 131; + Everett's gift of autobiography to Boston Public Library, 134; + anecdote of, 19; + founds Phila. Library Co., 21, 170; + education of, 130; + quoted, 22, 165. + + Free access, adopted by Mrs. Sanders, in Pawtucket, R.I., 401, 405. + + Free Libraries: + an argument against public support, by M.D. O'Brien, 201. + + Free Public Library, + essay by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in full, 63; + article by Henry H. Barber, in full, 169; + evolution of, 30. + + Freedom of thought, 455. + + Freeport, Ill., Public Library, 387. + + Freiberg, Saxony, tanning school, 382. + + Froissant, read in rural N.Y., 51. + + Function of a Town Library, paper by Josiah P. Quincy, in full, 55. + + Future of the library, 453. + + + Georgetown, S.C., library in, 24. + + Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 18. + + Gilbert, W.S. ("Iolanthe") quoted, 457. + + Grant, Ulysses S., funeral of, 108. + + Glasgow cathedral, anecdote of, 103. + + Grand Rapids, Mich., address at dedication of building, 425. + + Greece, smallness of, 372. + + Green, Samuel Swett, + paper on duties of trustees, in full, 279; + on adaptation of libraries to constituencies, in full, 307; + address at library-openings, in full, 381; + pioneer in library educational work, 239; + praised by Col. Higginson, 66; + praised, 177. + + Greenough, William W., Pres. Boston Public Library Board, 280. + + Greenwood, Thomas, quoted, 211. + + Griggs, Lilian (Barr Branch, St. Louis) quoted, 446. + + + Hale, Edw. Everett, quoted, 268. + + Harper, William R., quoted, 335. + + Harris Collection of poetry, 314. + + Harris, William T., quoted, 335. + + Harrison, William Henry, a founder of Vincennes Library, 27. + + Hartford, Conn., addresses at opening of Wadsworth Athenĉum Library, 145. + + Harvard College library, 20, 80. + + Harvard University + donations, 38; + bequest of John Harvard, 90; + rule for trustee's terms, 272. + + Haston Library. N. Brookfield, Mass., address at dedication, 381. + + Hatboro, Pa., library in, 106. + + Hawthorne, Nathaniel, praised, 106. + + Herschel, Sir John, quoted, 401. + + Hewins, Caroline, praised, 148. + + Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, + essay by, 63; + sketch of, 63; + quoted, 268, 313. + + Hingham, Mass., library, 25. + + Historical Evolution of the Free Public Library in America and its + True Function in the Community; sketch by Moses Coit Tyler, 17. + + Historical Society, Hartford, 148. + + History defined, 95. + + Home use, + advocated by Ticknor, 51; + doubted by Everett, 53. + + Homer, praised, 366. + + Hood, Thomas, quoted, 157. + + Hooker, Thos., booklover, 19. + + Hosmer, James K., + praised, 177; + resigns, 433. + + Hospitals as donations, 41. + + How to Make Town Libraries Successful; paper by F.B. Perkins, cited, 274. + + How to Use a Library, addresses by James M. Hubard; in full, 297. + + Howell, James, old writer, 90. + + Hubbard, James Mascarene, + addresses by, 297; + sketch of, 297. + + Huxley, Thomas, quoted, 188. + + + Idea of a Popular Library, letter from George Ticknor, 49. + + If Not a Tax-Supported Library, What? + paper in _Iowa Library Quarterly_; in full, 253. + + Ignorance, power of to-day, 413. + + Illinois, school libraries in, 28. + + Increase of libraries, results of, 97. + + _Independent, The_, quoted, 119. + + Indiana, + school libraries in, 28 + Trustee's Association, 265. + + Indigo Society Library, S.C., 24. + + Influence of Good Books, address by Robert Collyer; in full, 101. + + Information Bureau, library as an, 381. + + Information-desk work, 387. + + Inspiration from libraries, 419. + + Insurance of a library, 240. + + Interlibrary loans, 312, 381. + + International Library Conference, London, Second, 185. + + International Congress of Arts (1904), paper before, 333. + + Iowa, + school libraries in, 28; + Library Commission, 246; + Library Code, 253. + + _Iowa Library Quarterly_, paper from, in full, 253. + + Ireland, Alexander, book praised, 87. + + Irving, Washington, + commended, 105; + anecdote of, 163. + + + Jefferson, Thomas, quoted, 293. + + Jerome, Jerome K., quoted, 117. + + Jevons, William Stanley, + approves free libraries, 230; + commends travelling libraries, 171; + quoted, 175, 336, 461. + + Johns Hopkins bequest, 37. + + Johnson, Samuel, quoted, 58. + + + Kalamazoo, Mich., library, 27. + + Kansas, school libraries in, 28. + + Kentucky, school libraries in, 28. + + Kittery, Me., "Revolving Library," 25. + + Knox, John, quoted, 245. + + + Laboratories as donations, 41. + + Lancaster, Mass., library in, 25. + + Langley, Samuel P., discoveries of, 37. + + Larned, Joseph Nelson, + A.L.A. address, in full, 411; + biog. sketch of, 411; + quoted, 70. + + Lawrence, Abbott, 50, 52. + + Lawrence, James, pres. Boston Council, 53. + + Lea, Henry C., library gift, 170. + + Leamington Free Library (Eng.), 208. + + Learned, John Calvin, paper by, in full, 267; + sketch of, 267. + + Lecture courses in libraries, 123, 157, 262. + + Lenox Library, N.Y., 30. + + Lessing, quoted, 159. + + Levy of Library Tribute, paper by Henry M. Utley; in full, 243. + + Librarian and his Constituents, paper by Reuben B. Poole; in full, 351. + + Librarian, + qualities necessary in, 71, 281, + his relations with his Board, 271, 279; + "who reads," 420. + + Libraries as Bureaus of Information; address by S.S. Green; in part, 381. + + Libraries as Leaven, inauguration address + at Madison, Wis., Public Library, by James D. Butler, 149. + + Libraries, + growth of in U.S., 113; + as donations, 39. + + Library; a plea for its recognition, + paper by Frederick M. Crunden; in full, 333. + + Library and Society; general introduction, 13. + + Library and the Social Centre; paper by Lutie E. Stearns, in full, 439. + + Library as a Factor in Modern Civilization, + paper by W.H.P. Faunce; in full, 343. + + Library as a Field for Philanthropy, article by Andrew Carnegie, 33. + + Library as a Social Centre; paper by Gratia A. Countryman; in full, 433. + + Library as an Inspirational Force; + paper by Sam Walter Foss; in full, 419. + + Library Association of the United Kingdom, opposed, 207. + + Library associations, local, 253. + + Library buildings, imposing, 343. + + Library Commission, + Iowa, 246; + Massachusetts, 181, 263, 385. + + Library Friend, paper by Winifred L. Taylor; + in full, 387. + + _Library Journal_ recommended to trustees, 274. + + Library of Congress, 79; + advice to "weed out," 309; + "weeding out," 371. + + Library Schools in U.S., 84. + + Library Work from the Trustees' Standpoint, + paper by John C. Learned; in full, 267. + + Library's Service to the Community; general editorial introduction, 285. + + Lick Observatory donation, 37. + + Lincoln, Abraham, educated by reading, 297. + + Liverpool Free Library, 208; + founded, 290. + + Logan, Jas., library of, 20. + + London _Daily News_, quoted, 207. + + London Library Conference (1897), 337. + + Loomis, Elias, Yale donor, 38. + + Louisville, Ky., no free public library in (1885), 233. + + Lovejoy, Elijah P., death of, 454. + + Lowell, James Russell, + address by, 87; + sketch of, 87; + quoted, 226, 440, + (Hosea Bigelow), 409. + + Lowell, Mass., + statistics of, 403; + reading-room in, 407. + + Luther, Martin, quoted, 162. + + Lynn, Mass., library statistics (1885), 234. + + + McGlynn, Father, quoted, 108. + + Mackay, Thomas, editor of "Plea for Liberty," essays, 201. + + Madison, Wis., + library, inauguration address, 149; + Boston man's opinion of, 157. + + Maine, school libraries in, 28. + + Manchester (England) + Free Library founded, 290, 353; + library use in, 175. + + Manchester, N.H., statistics of, 403. + + Mann, Horace, + advocates libraries, 28; + favors school libraries, 172. + + Manners, Lord John, opposes British library act, 290. + + Manufacturing towns, libraries in, 401. + + Marietta, Ohio, library, 26. + + Massachusetts, + passes first free library act, 31, 172, 289; + growth of libraries in, 173; + Library Commission, 181, 263, 385; + school libraries in, 28, 171. + + Mather, Cotton, + "Essay to do good," read by Franklin, 132; + library of, 20. + + Mazzini, on education, 334. + + "Mawtucket of Pawtucket," 401. + + Meadville City Library, 179. + + Medical Schools as donations, 41. + + Melbourne, Australia, travelling libraries in, 171. + + "Men and Women," by T.W. Higginson, essay reprinted from, 63. + + Men, library work with, 120. + + Methods of securing the interest of a community, + paper by Wm. E. Foster; in full, 193. + + Metropolitan Museum, N.Y., 41. + + Michigan, + libraries in, 27; + failure of district libraries, 29. + + Milk St., Boston, Franklin's birthplace, 135. + + Milton, John, quoted, 108, 146. + + Milwaukee, + school attendance in, 110; + library statistics (1885), 234. + + Minnesota, school libraries in, 28. + + Minnesota Library Association, paper at, 433. + + Missouri, school libraries in, 28. + + Monks as librarians, 351. + + Moore, Tom, quoted, 154. + + Morris, William, quoted, 440. + + Mullins, Mr., Birmingham, Eng., librarian, quoted, 207. + + Municipal Cooperation in St. Louis, 459. + + Munsterberg, Hugo, + chapter quoted in full, 79; + sketch of, 79. + + + Nashville, Tenn., Vanderbilt Univ., 38. + + National Municipal League, article written for, 320. + + New Bedford, Mass., + library opened, 151; + statistics (1885), 234. + + New books, necessity of, 232. + + New England town meetings praised, 108. + + New Englanders, practicality of, 90. + + New Hampshire + library law, 172; + mandatory, 316; + library growth in, 174. + + New Jersey, school libraries in, 28. + + New Orleans, wishes no free library, 233. + + New York City, no free public library in (1885), 233. + + New York Free Circulating Library; + address in its favor by Grover Cleveland; in full, 139. + + New York Public Library, 139. + + New York Society Library, 25. + + New York State, + libraries in, 27; + failure of district libraries, 29; + public libraries department, 191; + travelling libraries in, 174, 191. + + Newburyport, Mass., library statistics (1885), 234. + + Newcastle-on-Tyne library, 209. + + Newport, R.I., library at, 25. + + News, triviality of, 93. + + Newspapers + as aids to libraries, 261; + influence of, 186, 415. + + Nitti, quoted, 461. + + _North American Review_, quoted, 33. + + North Brookfield, Mass., opening address at Haston Library, 381. + + Northwest Territory, ordinance of 1787, 244. + + Norwich, Eng., library report quoted, 211. + + Notes, making of, on books, 429. + + + Objections to libraries classified, 291. + + O'Brien, M.D., + argument against public support of libraries; in full, 201; + answered by W.E. Foster, 215. + + Ohio, school libraries in, 28. + + _Old and New_, paper quoted from, 55. + + Olneyville, R.I., reading room in, 408. + + Oregon, school libraries in, 28. + + Organization of trustees, 274. + + Osborne, Mr., gift to Bellevue Hospital, N.Y., 42. + + Osborne, _Mrs_. C.J., Yale donor, 38. + + + Packer, Asa, bequest, 37. + + Page, Father, N.Y. library pioneer, 172. + + Palmer, Sir Roundell, opposes British library act, 290. + + Paradise Lost, J.Q. Adams on, 294. + + Parks as donations, 42. + + Peabody Library, Baltimore, 30. + + Peabody Museum, Harvard, 38. + + Penn, William, booklover, 19. + + Pennsylvania Library Club, paper reprinted, 67. + + Pennsylvania University Library, address at dedication; in full, 365. + + "Peoples University," library as the, 126. + + Peoria, Ill., Mercantile Library, 179. + + Periodicals, use of, 356. + + Perkins, Frederic Beecher, + paper given in full, 231; + biog. sketch of, 231; + quoted, 274. + + Peterboro, N.H., free library, 172. + + Philadelphia Centennial, effects of, 145. + + Philadelphia, no public library in (1885), 233. + + Philadelphia Liby Co., founded by Franklin, 21; 133. + + Phillips, Jonathan, 50. + + Phillips, Wendell, on education, 334. + + Phipps, Henry, partner of Carnegie donations to Allegheny, 42, 38. + + Pierce, Bradford Kinney, + paper by, in full, 397; + biog. sketch of, 397. + + Pittsfield, Mass., library addresses at, 297. + + Pittsburgh technical room, 121. + + "Plea for Liberty," essays, + extracts from, 201; + quoted, 216. + + Plutarch, quoted, 36. + + Political meetings in a library, 446. + + Poole, Reuben Brooks, + paper on choice of books, in full, 351; + biog. sketch of, 351. + + Poole, William Frederick, + paper on objections to libraries, 287; + sketch of, 287; + library study plan, 239. + + Poole's Index, 287; + value of, 356. + + Portland, Me., library, 25. + + Possibilities of Public Libraries in Manufacturing Communities; + paper by Minerva A. Sanders; in full, 401. + + Pratt, Enoch, praised by Carnegie, 33. + + Pratt Institute technical room, 121. + + Pratt Library, Baltimore, 39. + + Preface, 5. + + Presidential Address (A.L.A.), by Joseph N. Larned; in full, 411. + + Pretlow, Mary D. (Cabanne Branch, St. Louis), quoted, 448. + + Private libraries in the colonies, 20. + + Probable Intellectual and Moral Outcome of the + Rapid Increase of Public Libraries; + paper by Rev. Dr. B.K. Pierce; in full, 397. + + "Protection of Majorities and Other Essays," by J.P. Quincy, quoted, 55. + + Providence, R.I., Public Library, 25, 84, 314. + + Provision of Books; general editorial introduction, 349. + + Public Library and the Public, + paper by Frederic Beecher Perkins; in full, 231. + + Public Library in American Life, + extract from book by Hugo Munsterberg, 79. + + Public Library; its Uses to the Municipality, + article by Dr. John S. Billings; in full, 329. + + Public Library, functions classified, 340. + + Public, desires of, 193. + + Public Support of libraries + opposed, 201; + advocated, 215. + + Putnam, Herbert, + paper on libraries and the community; in full, 315; + biog. sketch of, 315. + + + Qualifications of a librarian (Dewey), 191; + (Green), 281; + of trustees (Green), 272. + + Quigley, Margery Closey; + report on social centre work in St. Louis; in part, 443; + biog. sketch, 443. + + Quincy, Josiah, suggests Mass. library act, 289. + + Quincy, Josiah P., + paper in full, 55; + biog. sketch, 55. + + Quincy, Mass. Crane Library, 308; + plan of "weeding out," 309; + Adams collection, 310. + + + Racine, Wis., school attendance in, 110. + + Raleigh, Sir Walter, 18. + + Raphael, Italian artist, 166. + + Ray, Dr. Isaac, quoted, 57. + + Reade's "Griffith Gaunt" condemned by J.P. Quincy, 57. + + Readers, classes of, 301. + + Reading, + encouragement of, 346; + of librarians, 420. + + Reading-rooms, 411; + as educators, 406. + + Reclus, Elisée, quoted, 227. + + Recreation, + _see_ ENTERTAINMENT. + + Redwood Library, Newport, 25. + + Reference work, 389. + + Reform Act (British) of 1832, 455. + + Relation of Free Public Libraries to the Community, + article by Herbert Putnam; in full, 315. + + Relation of the State to the Public Library; + statement by Melvil Dewey; in full, 185. + + Reservoir libraries, suggested by Pres. Eliot, 307. + + "Revolving Library" of York and Kittery, Me., 25. + + Rhode Island, school libraries in, 28. + + Richard Sugden Library, Spencer, Mass., opening address, 101. + + Ripley, George, anecdote of, 102. + + Rousseau, "Confessions," favorite of Emerson, 95. + + Ryerson Library Building, Grand Rapids, Mich., + address at dedication, 425. + + + St. Louis, + fiction purchases in, 321; + no free public library in (1885), 233. + + St. Louis Library School, 5. + + St. Louis Public Library, + social centre work at, 443; + Library Board quoted, 340; + _Public Library_ Magazine quoted, 463. + + St. Louis World's Fair, 333. + + St. Paul, quoted, 460. + + Salem, Mass., Social Library, 25. + + San Francisco Public Library, + paper about, 231; + statistics (1885) 234. + + Sanders, Minerva Amanda, + paper by, in full, 401; + biog. sketch of, 401. + + Scholastic libraries in the colonies, 20. + + School and library co-operation, 426. + + School attendance, increase of, 110. + + School District libraries, 27; + failure in N.Y. and Mich., 29; + described by Barber, 171. + + School _versus_ library, 337. + + Schools, free, opposed, 201. + + Scotland, travelling libraries in, 171. + + Scott's novels commended, 294. + + Seaver, Mayor, advocates library in Boston, 53. + + Seneca, quoted, 164. + + Sentiment, part played by, in public institutions, 329. + + Sever Hall, Harvard, 38. + + Shakespeare, William, 163. + + Shakesperiana in libraries, 327. + + Sheffield Scientific School, 38. + + Sibthorp, Col., opposes British library act, 290. + + Simon, Jules, on education, 334. + + Smith, _Capt_. John, booklover, 19. + + Smoking in libraries, 122. + + Social Centre, + library as a, 433, 439; + in St. Louis, 443. + + Social consciousness, growth of, 13. + + Social Libraries, + foundation of, 170; + in Salem, Mass., 25. + + Social meetings in a library, 447. + + Socialism opposed, 201. + + Socialization, trend toward, 15. + + Society Library, N.Y. City, 25. + + Some Popular Objections to Public Libraries, + paper by William F. Poole, in full, 287. + + Soule, Charles Carroll, + paper by, 271; + sketch of, 271. + + South Carolina, colonial libraries in, 24. + + Southey, Robert, quoted, 92. + + Southport, Eng., free library, 208. + + Spencer, Herbert, + opposes free education, 201; + opposes free libraries, 178, 292; + quoted, 460. + + Spencer, Mass., Sugden Library, 101. + + Spenser, Edmund, quoted, 97. + + Spofford, A.R., quoted, 57. + + Springer Hall, Cincinnati, 45. + + Springfield, Mass. library statistics (1885), 234. + + _Springfield Republican_, paper from, 257. + + Stages of libraries, six, 17. + + Stanford, Leland, bequest, 37. + + Statistics of American libraries + (1876), 289; + (1885), 234. + + Stead, William T., quoted, 456. + + Stearns, Lutie E., paper on social centres, in full, 439. + + Stevens Point Library, 123. + + Story, Chief Justice, quoted, 150. + + Street, Augustus, Yale donor, 38. + + Subscription libraries, 21. + + Sugden, Richard, + gives library to Spencer, Mass., 101; + sketch of, 102. + + Sunday opening, Allegheny parks, 43. + + Swimming pools as gifts, 46. + + + Tarbell, Ida, quoted, 446. + + Tarbell, M. Anna, paper by, in full, 257. + + Tarde, Gabriel, quoted, 461. + + Taunton, Mass., library statistics (1885), 234. + + Taxation, dread of, 291; + for library support, 243, 330; + use for fiction circulation opposed, 60. + + Taylor, Winifred Louise, paper by, in full, 387; + biog. sketch of, 387. + + Teacher, librarian as a, 395. + + Teaching, N.Y. investigation of, 77. + + Technical rooms + in libraries, 121; + use in libraries, 238. + + Technical training, growth of, 110. + + Term of office of trustees, 272. + + Thaw, William, Pittsburgh donor, 37. + + Ticknor, George, + extract from "Life and Letters" given at length, 49; + sketch of, 49; + letter to Edward Everett, 176. + + Ticknor Spanish collection, Boston 327. + + Tilden, Samuel J., + bequest, 169; + will-contest, 34. + + Tom Sawyer's fence, 422. + + Translations commended, 96. + + Travelling Libraries, + Scotch, 171; + Australian, 171; + New York state, 174, 191, 316. + + Treasurer of Library Board, 274. + + Trumbull, J. Hammond, librarian, 148. + + Trumbull collection, Hartford, 383. + + Trustees, + Boards of, 265; + duties of, 279; + standpoint in library work, 261; + A.L.A. section, 265. + + Trustees of Free Public Libraries, + paper, by Charles C. Soule, in full, 271. + + Two Fundamentals, paper by Mary Salome Cutler Fairchild, 67. + + Tyler, Moses Coit, + paper by, 17; + sketch of, 17. + + + Union St., Boston; + Franklin's house, 135. + + Unitarianism in St. Louis, 460. + + Universities, foundation of, 36. + + University + libraries in U.S., 80; + without a library, 370. + + Use of the Public Library, address by James B. Angell; in part, 425. + + Usefulness of Libraries in Small Towns, + paper by Theresa West (now Mrs. Elmendorf) in full, 359. + + Utley, Henry Munson, + paper by, in full, 243; + sketch of, 243. + + + Vanderbilt gift + to Columbia, 42; + to Vanderbilt University, 38. + + Vested rights, influence of, 455. + + Victorian Reign, retrospect of, 456. + + Villiers, Charles, quoted, 454. + + Vincennes, Ind., library, 26. + + Virginia, school libraries in, 28. + + + Wadsworth Athenaeum, 147; + addresses at the opening of its library in Hartford, Conn., 145. + + Wallachian legend, 92, 226. + + Waltham, Mass., statistics of, 403. + + Warner, Chas. Dudley, + opening address at Hartford library, 145; + biog. sketch, 145. + + Washington, Life of, inspiration to Lincoln, 297. + + Washington, D.C., libraries of, 80. + + Watkinson, library donor, 148. + + Watkinson Library, Trumbull collection, 383. + + Wausaukee Library, 123. + + Wellington, Duke of, opposes Reform Bill, 456. + + Wesley, John, quoted, 421. + + West, Sir Algernon, quoted, 453. + + West, Theresa, + _see_ ELMENDORF. + + What a Library Should be and What It Can Do; talk by Melvil Dewey, 75. + + What of the Future? address by Frederick M. Crunden; in full, 453. + + Where Neighbors Meet; St. Louis report by Margery Quigley, in part, 443. + + Wigan, Eng., Library report quoted, 208. + + Wilcox, William, English bookseller, friend of Franklin, 133. + + William and Mary College library, 20. + + Williams, Roger, booklover, 19. + + Williams, Talcott, + address at library dedication, in full, 365; + biog. sketch of, 365. + + Williamson bequest to Phila., 34. + + Winslow, Edward, booklover, 19. + + Winslow, Dr. Forbes, quoted, 57. + + Winsor, Justin, + Sup't Boston Public Library, 280; + promotes interlibrary loans, 384. + + Winthrop, Robert C., quoted, 134. + + Winthrops, the, booklovers, 19. + + Winyard, S.C., library, 24. + + Wisconsin Library Ass'n, address before, 109. + + Wisconsin + Library fund used for military purposes, 151; + school libraries in, 28. + + Wisconsin University, 109. + + Women + as library founders in Michigan, 27; + library work with, 116; + clubs in libraries, 440; + aids to libraries, 260. + + Worcester, Mass., + library statistics (1885), 234; + Public Library, 66, 239, 279; + disposition of old books in, 313. + + Wordsworth, William, + quoted, 89; + poems of, 299. + + Workingmen and libraries, 209. + + World's Library Congress of 1893, paper read at, 307. + + Wyer, James I., Jr., suggestion acknowledged, 5. + + + Yale + Art School, 38; + college library, 20. + + Yarmouth, Eng., Library report quoted, 208. + + York, Me., "Revolving Library," 25. + + Yorkshire, Eng., home of Richard Sugden, 103. + + Young Men's Institute Library, Hartford, Conn., 147. + + Young Men's Society Library, Detroit, 27. + + + _Zion's Herald_, paper by editor, 397. + + Zosinius, history, inaccessible, 151. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes + +This book consists of multiple contributions by various authors. +Inconsistencies in the spelling of Proper Names have been retained. +Other instances of questionable spelling and even more questionable +grammar have been retained. However, the following typographical +corrections have been made. + + Page 8 + ("Orations and Speeches, Boston, 1859; Vol. III. + ("Orations and Speeches", Boston, 1859; Vol. III. + + Page 56 + taxation of towns and small muncipalities. + taxation of towns and small municipalities. + + Page 57 + physicians have agreed as to the influence they exert + physicians have agreed as to the influence they exert. + + Page 91 + short-cut to learning, but that there may be, and is, such a short cut + short-cut to learning, but that there may be, and is, such a short-cut + + Page 98 + most strict and sacred bond and convenant of the Lord, of the violation + most strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord, of the violation + + Page 135 + every Frankln medal boy shall be entitled to its privileges; and + every Franklin medal boy shall be entitled to its privileges; and + + Page 141 + the daily recurring routine of effort for mere existence, canont escape + the daily recurring routine of effort for mere existence, cannot escape + + Page 170 + brillant triumphs for the free public library, unparalled in the + brilliant triumphs for the free public library, unparalleled in the + + Page 210 + the task will be an easy one." + the task will be an easy one.' + + Page 245 + secondary, or betwen secondary and higher education, there is where the + secondary, or between secondary and higher education, there is where the + + Page 272 + year. This provision secures stability by preventing suddent changes of + year. This provision secures stability by preventing sudden changes of + + Page 292 + maintenance of public health, the introducation of water and gas, the + maintenance of public health, the introduction of water and gas, the + + Page 295 + whole in the new Centennial edition. The accurage student of specialties + whole in the new Centennial edition. The accurate student of specialties + + Page 317 + with a two millon dollar building, studded with costly mosaics, and + with a two million dollar building, studded with costly mosaics, and + + Page 320 + who are avid to read the latest novel by Mr X. or Mrs Y. while it is + who are avid to read the latest novel by Mr. X. or Mrs. Y. while it is + + Page 325 + denounce this or that publication. Yet is is to be remembered that a + denounce this or that publication. Yet it is to be remembered that a + + Page 326 + cheap silver prints and the Art Museum is but a hundred feet distant; + cheap silver prints and the Art Museum is but a hundred feet distant); + + Page 334 + deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughful man." "Education," exclaims + deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man." "Education," exclaims + + Page 336 + But is it worth while to consider a unversity without a library? + But is it worth while to consider a university without a library? + + Page 372 + panolpy of learning on whose myriad rivets so many hammers have rung, + panoply of learning on whose myriad rivets so many hammers have rung, + + This exalts the miscroscopic municipalities of Greece. This abases the + This exalts the microscopic municipalities of Greece. This abases the + + Page 375 + its compass and sound, measure the confines thereof or phophesy its far + its compass and sound, measure the confines thereof or prophesy its far + + Page 381 + part of an address delivered a the dedication of the Haston + part of an address delivered at the dedication of the Haston + + Page 402 + "It is morally impossiblle but that the manners should take a tinge of + "It is morally impossible but that the manners should take a tinge of + + Page 404 + practical worth and preserverance either in mechanical, civil, or + practical worth and perserverance either in mechanical, civil, or + + Page 406 + "'Tis a wise community that enables its trustees to give to their + 'Tis a wise community that enables its trustees to give to their + + Page 412 + well for a reason. Democrary was fairly equipped with a spelling-book + well for a reason. Democracy was fairly equipped with a spelling-book + + Page 440 + boys that frequent the gymnasium may be won by Barbour's lastest + boys that frequent the gymnasium may be won by Barbour's latest + + Page 463 + a final quietus to any propsal for social reform, is--"Oh, that's + a final quietus to any proposal for social reform, is--"Oh, that's + + Page 467 + Boston Public Library; address at it dedication, by Edw. Everett, 127. + Boston Public Library; address at its dedication, by Edw. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Library and Society</p> +<p> Reprints of Papers and Addresses</p> +<p>Author: Various</p> +<p>Editor: Arthur Elmore Bostwick</p> +<p>Release Date: August 22, 2010 [eBook #33494]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Christine D.,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<p class='center'><i>Classics of American Librarianship</i></p> + +<p class='center'>Edited by ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Ph. D.</p> + +<h1>THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY</h1> + +<p class='center'>REPRINTS OF PAPERS AND ADDRESSES</p> +<div class='padding'> +<p class='center'> +WITH NOTES BY<br /> +ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Ph. D.<br /> +</p></div> + +<p class='center'> +NEW YORK<br /> +THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY<br /> +<span class="smcap">London: Grafton & Company</span><br /> +1920<br /> +</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p> +<div class='padding'> +<p class='center'><i>Published, January, 1921</i></p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> + + +<p>It may be desirable to repeat here the warning that the word “classics” +in the title of this series is to be understood as meaning early and +standard expressions of ideas that have later developed into prominence. +The papers and addresses in this volume have been chosen especially with +this in view, and as they emphasize social relations an effort has been +made to include expressions from men of eminence whose names would not +probably occur to the student of library economy as having expressed an +opinion about the work of libraries or as having influenced it in any +permanent way.</p> + +<p>I desire to acknowledge the kindly assistance rendered in the selection +and grouping of the articles by Mrs. Gertrude Gilbert Drury, chief +instructor in the St. Louis Library School. It has been most valuable.</p> + +<p>The original suggestion of this volume, and of the character of its +contents, I owe to Dr. James I. Wyer, Jr., Director of the New York State Library.</p> + +<p class='right'> +<span class="smcap">Arthur E. Bostwick</span><br /> +</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>PREFACE</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>GENERAL COMMUNITY RELATIONS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Historical Evolution of the Free Public Library in America and Its True Function in the Community; Dedication Address at Sage Library. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1884, p. 40)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Moses Coit Tyler.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Library as a Field for Philanthropy. (Extract from “The Best Fields for Philanthropy,” <i>North American Review</i>, December, 1889.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Andrew Carnegie.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Idea of a Popular Library. (“Life, Letters, and Journals,” Vol. 2, 1851.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">George Ticknor.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Function of a Town Library. (“Protection of Majorities,”) 1875</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Josiah P. Quincy.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Free Public Library. (Extract from “Men and Women,” 1888.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Thomas W. Higginson.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Two Fundamentals. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1896, p. 446.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Mary Salome Cutler.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>What a Library Should Be, and What It Can Do. (<i>Public Libraries</i>, 1899, p. 269.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_75">75</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Melvil Dewey</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Public Library in American Life. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1905, p. 925.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Hugo Munsterberg.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Books and the Public Library; Dedication Address of Chelsea Library. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1886, p. 10.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">James Russell Lowell.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Influence of Good Books; Dedication Address, Spencer Library, Mass. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1889, p. 380.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Robert Collyer.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Books and Life. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1906, p. 203.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Edward Asahel Birge.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Address at the Dedication of the Boston Public Library. (“Orations and Speeches”, Boston, 1859; Vol. III.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Edward Everett.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Address at a Meeting in Favor of the New York Free Circulating Library. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1890, p. 107.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Grover Cleveland.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Addresses at the Opening of the Wadsworth Athenæum Library, Hartford, Conn. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1893, p. 18.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Charles Dudley Warner.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Charles Hopkins Clark.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Libraries as Leaven; Dedication address, Madison Public Library. (<i>American Bibliopolist</i>, 1875, p. 189.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">James Davie Butler.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Free Public Library. (<i>American Magazine of Civics</i>, 1895, p. 469.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Henry Hervey Barber.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE COMMUNITY'S SERVICE TO THE LIBRARY</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Relation of the State to the Public Library. (<i>Transactions of the Second International Library Conference</i>, London, 1898, p. 19.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Melvil Dewey.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Methods of Securing the Interest of a Community. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1880, p. 245.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">William Eaton Foster.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>FINANCIAL SUPPORT</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Free Libraries: An Argument against Public Support. (“A Plea for Liberty,” ed. by Thos. Mackay, 3rd ed., London, 1894, p. 260.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_201">201</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">M.D. O'Brien.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Arguments for Public Support of Public Libraries: a Rejoinder to the Foregoing. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1891, p. 39, Conference No.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">William Eaton Foster.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Public Libraries and the Public, with Special References to San Francisco. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1885, p. 223.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Frederic Beecher Perkins.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Levy of Library Tribute; Presidential Address to the A.L.A. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1895, Conference No., p. 1.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_243">243</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Henry Munson Utley.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>ALTERNATIVES TO TAX SUPPORT</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_251">251</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>If Not a Tax-Supported Library—What? (<i>Iowa Library Quarterly</i>, April, 1903, p. 21.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_253">253</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Anonymous.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Cooperation Between Library and Community. (University of New York, Home Education Bulletin 31, p. 131.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">M. Anna Tarbell.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>BOARDS OF TRUSTEES</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Library Work from the Trustees' Standpoint. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1890, Conference No., p. 23.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">John Calvin Learned.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Trustees of Free Public Libraries. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1890, Conference No., p. 19.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_271">271</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Charles Carroll Soule.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Duties of Trustees and Their Relations to Libraries. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1890, Conference No., p. 24.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Samuel Swett Green.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE LIBRARY'S SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Some Popular Objections to Public Libraries. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1876, p. 45.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">William Frederick Poole.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>How to Use a Library: Addresses at Pittsfield, Mass. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1884, p. 25.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_297">297</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">James Mascarene Hubbard.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Adaptation of Libraries to Constituencies; World's Library Congress, Chicago Exposition. (Education Bureau Report, Chap. IX., Part II, p. 658, 1892-93.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_307">307</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Samuel Swett Green.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Relation of Free Public Libraries to the Community. (<i>North American Review</i>, 1898, p. 660.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_315">315</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Herbert Putnam.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Public Library: Its Uses to the Municipality. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1903, p. 293.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_329">329</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">John Shaw Billings.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Library: a Plea for Its Recognition. (International Congress of Arts and Science, St. Louis Exposition. <i>Library Journal</i>, 1904, Conference No., p. 1.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_333">333</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Frederick Morgan Crunden.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Library as a Factor in Modern Civilization. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1906, Conference No., p. 18.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_343">343</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">William Herbert Perry Faunce.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>THE PROVISION OF BOOKS</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_349">349</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Librarian and His Constituents. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1886, p. 229.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_351">351</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Reuben Brooks Poole.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Usefulness of Libraries in Small Towns. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1883, p. 227.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_359">359</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Theresa Hubbell West.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Address at the Dedication of the University of Pennsylvania Library. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1891, p. 108.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_365">365</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Talcott Williams.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>COLLECTION OF INFORMATION</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_379">379</a></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Libraries As Bureaus of Information. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1896, p. 324.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_381">381</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Samuel Swett Green.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Library Friend. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1901, p. 197.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_387">387</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Winifred Louise Taylor.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>CONTROL AND GUIDANCE OF READING</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_395">395</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Probable Intellectual and Moral Outcome of the Rapid Increase of Public Libraries. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1885, p. 234.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_397">397</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Bradford Kinney Pierce.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Possibilities of Public Libraries in Manufacturing Communities. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1887, p. 395.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_401">401</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Minerva Amanda Sanders.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Presidential Address, Lake Placid Conference. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1894, Conference No., p. 1.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_411">411</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Joseph Nelson Larned.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Library as an Inspirational Force. (<i>Public Libraries</i>, 1899, p. 102.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_419">419</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Sam Walter Foss.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Use of the Public Library; Ryerson Library Dedication Address. (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1904, p. 592.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_425">425</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">James Burrill Angell.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>COMMUNITY CENTER SERVICE</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_431">431</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Library as a Social Centre. (<i>Public Libraries</i>, 1906, p. 5.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_433">433</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Gratia Alta Countryman.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Library and the Social Centre. (<i>Wisconsin Library Bulletin</i>, 1911, p. 84.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_439">439</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Lutie Eugenia Stearns.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Where Neighbors Meet. (From St. Louis Public Library report, 1916-17.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_443">443</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Margery Closey Quigley.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>What of the Future? (<i>Library Journal</i>, 1897, Conference No., p. 5.)</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_453">453</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='center'><span class="smcap">Frederick Morgan Crunden.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>INDEX</td><td align='right'><a href="#Page_459">459</a></td></tr> +</table></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LIBRARY_AND_SOCIETY" id="THE_LIBRARY_AND_SOCIETY"></a>THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Recent progress in all directions—political, educational, +industrial, hygienic—has been marked by the growth and +strengthening of a social consciousness. It is this chiefly +that has differentiated the modern library from its +predecessors and has made prominent our present insistence +on the reader as well as the book, as a fundamental element +in what we are doing. At first evident only in a general and +somewhat vague recognition, by writers and speakers, of a +vital relation between libraries and the communities that +they serve, it later crystallized into definite discussions +of their reciprocal service—that of the community to the +library, consisting of financial, material and moral support +expressing itself partly in the appointment of adequate +boards of trustees and their proper backing, and that of the +library to the community, showing itself largely in the +provision of books, the collection of information, the +control and guidance of reading, and so-called +“community-centre” service. These facts have guided the +grouping and sequence of the papers and addresses that make +up the present volume. The authors, it will be noticed, +include more statesmen, publicists, and professional men, +and fewer librarians, than was the case with the two +previous volumes, thus reflecting the greater generality and +wider interest of the subject.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="GENERAL_COMMUNITY_RELATIONS" id="GENERAL_COMMUNITY_RELATIONS"></a>GENERAL COMMUNITY RELATIONS</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In the following group have been included papers and +addresses largely by publicists or educators interested in +libraries from the general civic standpoint, and affected by +the general trend toward what has been termed here +“socialization.” They have been loosely arranged in three +groups—general ideas on the field, function and +possibilities of the library, papers on books and their +uses, as affected or promoted by the library, and general +addresses, chiefly at the opening of library buildings. +Within these groups they are given in general in their +chronological order, although with some exceptions whose +purpose will be self evident. Through them all runs the +thread of consciousness that service to the community must +be the primary object of the library, although the breadth +and extent of that service, as it was destined later to grow +and develop is not generally realized and in some cases +doubtless would have been deprecated by the writers or +speakers, could they have foreseen it. But in all these +pronouncements we may clearly see the dawning light of a new +library day.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_HISTORICAL_EVOLUTION_OF_THE_FREE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY_IN" id="THE_HISTORICAL_EVOLUTION_OF_THE_FREE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY_IN"></a>THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN +AMERICA AND ITS TRUE FUNCTION IN THE COMMUNITY</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This comprehensive sketch, by Professor Tyler of Cornell +University, forms part of an address delivered at the +dedication of the Sage Library, at West Bay City, Michigan, +Jan. 16, 1884.</p> + +<p>Moses Coit Tyler was born in Griswold, Conn., Aug. 2, 1835 +and graduated at Yale in 1857. He was professor of English +at Michigan University in 1867-81 and from the latter year +to his death, Dec. 28, 1900, held the chair of American +History at Cornell.</p> + +<p>In this address, Prof. Tyler has added to his equipment as a +philosophical historian his personal knowledge and +experience of the service that a properly administered +collection of books may render to a community.</p></div> + +<p>Looking over the entire course of American society, from its rough and +hardy beginning, in the first years of the 17th century, I find six +distinct stages of development with reference to the possession and use +of books by the people. The first stage is that of private libraries; +the second is that of special institutional libraries, like those of +colleges and other learned corporations, and intended for a limited and +rather scholastic class in the community; the third is that of +association or joint stock libraries, <i>i.e.</i>, libraries of a more +miscellaneous and general character, but for the use only of those whose +names are on the subscription list; the fourth is that of common school +libraries; the fifth is that of endowed libraries, <i>i.e.</i>, public +libraries founded and sustained entirely by private endowment and thrown +open to the public without any cost whatever to the public; and finally, +the sixth is that of free public libraries created, it may be, by +private benefaction, but sustained in part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> at least at the public cost, +<i>i.e.</i>, uniting the two elements of private help and public selfhelp, +and cherished by the public only as people will cherish that which costs +them something, and of which they have some sense of real ownership.</p> + +<p>But before proceeding to inspect these successive forms of library +evolution, the fact should be distinctly brought out as applicable to +them all, that the American people started on their career in this +country with an uncommon interest in books; and say what one will about +American philistinism and American devotion to the practical, this +people have always retained that ancient and primitive homage for books. +To an extent, I think, unapproached elsewhere, they are, and they always +have been, a bookish people. In some other nations there is, +undoubtedly, a larger leisurely class; and among persons of that class +there is a profounder and more extensive contact with books than is the +case with us. But while among most other nations, the craving for books +is the propensity of one class, with us it may be fairly described as +the propensity of all classes. A certain tincture of bookishness has +pervaded the American people from the beginning. Perhaps the most +decided quality of American civilization has been its effort to unite +the practical with the ideal; its passion for material results ennobled +by the intellectual and the spiritual; its fine reverence for +studiousness, even amid the persistent fury of dollar-hunting.</p> + +<p>And not only was this bookish trait visible in our colonial infancy but +it may be said to have had an ante-natal origin. The two Englishmen who +in the latter half of the 16th century did most to make possible the +birth of American civilization in the first half of the 17th, were Sir +Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh; and both were men possessed by +this large zest for ideas as well as for deeds; both were contemplative +men as well as active men. The last glimpse that any surviving mortal +had of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, before his ship went down in the sea, was +of that stern hero sitting calmly on the deck, with a book in his hand, +cheering his companions by telling them that heaven is as near by water +as by land; and the last labor of Sir Walter Raleigh, before his +judicial murder in the Tower, was to write one of the learnedest and +stateliest books to be met with in the literature of modern men.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<p>And this flavor of bookishness which belonged to these two great +pioneers and martyrs of American colonization, seems to have passed on +to the men who successfully executed the grand project in which they had +failed. When you run your eyes along the sturdy list of the great +colony-founders of the 17th century—the men who carried out the fierce +task of conveying English civilization across the Atlantic, and of +making it take root and live in this wild soil—Captain John Smith, and +William Bradford, and Winslow, and Robert Cushman, and the Winthrops, +and Dudley, and Hooker, and Davenport, and Roger Williams, and William +Penn, you will find them all, in some special sense, lovers of books, +collectors of books, readers of books, even writers of books.</p> + +<p>And what is true of the leaders of that great act of national +transmigration is true also of the men of less note who followed in it. +The first American immigrants were reading immigrants—immigrants who +brought in their hands not only axes and shovels, but books. Their +coming hither was due to the restlessness inflicted by the possession of +ideas. Books were to them a necessary part of the outfit for the voyage +and the settlement. And so rare and so precious were books in those days +that they were cherished as family treasures, and handed down as +heirlooms; nay, they were so dealt with in wills and in contracts as if +they rose almost to the dignity of real estate. In fact, in those days, +the possession of an unusual number of books, with the reputation of +using them, constituted a sort of patent of gentility, and seemed to +bridge the chasm between the most widely separated classes in society; +as when, in 1724, a young mechanic, named Benjamin Franklin, arriving in +New York on a sloop from Newport, is invited to the house of the +Governor of New York and is honored by him with a long and friendly +interview, for no other reason than that the captain of the sloop had +told the governor of a lad on his vessel who had with him “a great many +books.” “The governor received me,” says Franklin in his autobiography +“with great civility, showed me his library, which was a considerable +one, and we had a good deal of conversation relative to books and +authors. This was the second governor who had done me the honor to take +notice of me, and for a poor boy, like me, it was very pleasing.” So I +think I am justified in saying that we started on our career as a people +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>with this underlying intellectual quality—a pretty general respect for +books, love for them, habit of using them; and this is the impelling +moral force which prompts to the several efforts which society has made +for providing itself with books. Now, the first stage in the process of +library evolution—and I have called it that of private libraries—was +the prevailing condition of the American colonies during the whole of +the 17th century and the first third of the 18th. This is the picture: +Everywhere books, but few, costly, portly, solemn, revered, read over +and over again; every respectable family, however poor, having at least +a few hereditary treasures in the form of books, as in that of silver +and choice furniture; and here and there up and down the colonies, an +occasional luminous spot, drawing to itself the wide-eyed wonder of the +surrounding inhabitants, the seat of a great private library, belonging +to some country gentleman, or clergyman, or publicist, like that of +Colonel William Bird, of Westover, or of the Reverend James Blair, of +Williamsburg, or of Dr. Cotton Mather, of Boston, or of James Logan, of +Philadelphia, or of Cadwallader Colden, of New York.</p> + +<p>This is the first stage of library evolution. And, of course, it has its +pleasant aspects; but surely there is here no adequate provision for the +intellectual wants of the entire community. Very few persons in any +community are rich enough to buy and own all the books they ought to +have access to; and the existence of great private libraries in a few +wealthy households can no more supply this general need of books than +the great private dinners which are given in the same households can +keep the entire community from going hungry.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, the second stage in the evolution of libraries is away +from mere private ownership and use, and is toward complete public +ownership and use; but it stops far this side of it; it is the stage of +special scholastic libraries, collected by colleges and other learned +corporations, and intended for the particular use of the learned +class—students, investigators, and specialists. The earliest library of +that sort ever formed in this country was begun at Harvard College in +1638; near the close of the 17th century, another was begun at William +and Mary College, and still another at Yale; thenceforward, and +especially during the past eighty years, such libraries have been +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>multiplying in the land, so that at the present moment there are more +than three hundred of them, and a few of them are now really vast +library collections. The value of these libraries—who can doubt? Yet +their direct value is only for a class; they are scholars' libraries, +not people's libraries. This will not suffice; society cannot rest +satisfied, and will not rest satisfied until everywhere good books for +all are placed within the reach of all. The complete popularization of +books is the goal.</p> + +<p>So we come to the third stage of library evolution—that of libraries +gathered and controlled by voluntary associations of people, <i>e.g.</i>, +joint stock associations, but of course for the use only of those who +subscribe to them and share in the expense.</p> + +<p>Here we have a natural step forward; a goodly step; a step in the right +direction, but still not far enough. We shall all agree that this is the +strong and hearty modern method of doing difficult things—the method of +clubbing together to do something; it is self-reliant, social, +cooperative, mutually, helpful, What the individual cannot do alone a +club of individuals can do together. Thus the hardest and grandest +achievements of our time have been brought about—vast railroads, vast +manufacturing and commercial enterprises. And so men and women, who +could not singly get the books they wanted, have joined forces and have +got them by combination.</p> + +<p>It is a notable fact, however, that this third stage of library +evolution was not reached until more than a hundred years after the +first colonies had been settled.</p> + +<p>Many of you, doubtless, in wandering about Philadelphia—perhaps during +our great centennial visit to that city—may have noticed the venerable +building of the Philadelphia Library company, and in the walls of it an +old tablet with this inscription: “Be it remembered in honor of the +Philadelphia youth (then chiefly artificers) that, in 1731, they +cheerfully, at the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin, one of their number, +instituted the Philadelphia Library, which though small at first, is +become highly valuable and extensively useful, and which the walls of +this building are now destined to contain and preserve.” Now, in +reality, that year 1731, when that first subscription library was +started in America, begins a new epoch in the intellectual life of the +American people, the epoch of systematic cooperation for the procurement +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>by the people of the great intellectual and spiritual boon of books. +Immense results have followed from that example set in 1731. Therefore, +let us stop a moment longer, and listen to Benjamin Franklin's own +account of the way in which he came to think of that capital project. +“At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania, there was not a good +bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. +Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from +England; the members of the Junto had each a few. We had left the +alehouse, where we first met, and hired a room to hold our club in. I +proposed that we should all of us bring our books to that room; where +they would not only be ready to consult in our conferences, but become a +common benefit, each of us being at liberty to borrow such as he wished +to read at home. This was accordingly done, and for some time contented +us. Finding the advantage of this little collection, I proposed to +render the benefit from the books more common by commencing a public +subscription library. I drew a sketch of the plan and rules that would +be necessary, and got a skilful conveyancer to put the whole in form of +articles of agreement to be subscribed; by which each subscriber engaged +to pay a certain sum down for the first purchase of the books and an +annual contribution for increasing them. So few were the readers at that +time in Philadelphia, and the majority of us so poor, that I was not +able with great industry to find more than fifty persons, mostly young +tradesmen, willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each and +ten shillings per annum. With this little fund we began. The books were +imported; the library was opened one day in the week for lending them to +the subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if +not duly returned. The institution soon manifested its utility, was +imitated by other towns and in other provinces. The libraries were +augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, +having no public amusements to divert their attention from study, became +better acquainted with books; and in a few years were observed by +strangers to be better instructed, and more intelligent, than people of +the same rank generally are in other countries.”</p> + +<p>I think you will agree with me that this is a very striking bit of +testimony, too much so to permit us to hurry past it. Note these few +things about it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p><p>In the first place, that device of Franklin's, started in 1731—what +does it really signify in our history? It signifies this. It signifies a +new departure for mankind—the application of the democratic spirit to +the distribution of intellectual advantages. These things called +books—these bewitched and bewitching fabrics of paper and ink, which +somehow contain the accumulated thought of all nations and of all +centuries, and can communicate to us the noblest pleasures and the most +godlike powers—these potent things, in all the ages before, had been +accessible only to some few fortunate human beings—to a privileged +class—to rich men who wished them—to scholars who could win their way +to them—in short, to an aristocracy of intellectual privileges. But in +1731, by that modest device of Benjamin Franklin, the democratic +spirit—the modern humane spirit—the spirit which in its true nature is +a levelling spirit only in this grand sense that it levels upward and +not downward, and raises the general average of human intelligence and +felicity—this benign and mighty democratic spirit, I say, which was +then marching with gentle but invincible footsteps along all avenues and +pathways of modern life, and was laying its miraculous touch on church +and state, on kings and priests and peasants, on the laws and law-makers +and law-breakers, on all the old activities of society, on the old +adjustments of human relations, that spirit then began to touch this +relation also, the relation of man to the superb and royal realm of +books. And the first effect of that touch was what? It was enlargement, +liberalization, extension of intellectual opportunity for man simply as +man. Hitherto books had been the privilege of the privileged class. In +effect, Franklin says: They shall be so no more. In this year 1731 I set +agoing a device concerning books which shall abolish the privileged +class by making all classes privileged, and shall finally result in +placing the blessings of books within the reach of all.</p> + +<p>But, in the second place, in that year 1731, who was Franklin who did +all that, and who were the persons who helped to do it? He and they were +young men; obscure men, poor men, laboring men; mechanics and tradesmen +of the town where they lived; young men just getting a start in the +world. So this new era in the brain life of the American people had its +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>beginning with such as they were. Who of us, therefore, however modest +be our lot in life, has any right to say to himself, “I am not in +position to do anything for the advancement of my race”? Nay; my +brother, think of young Ben Franklin, the printer, and his 50 brother +mechanics; remember what they accomplished; and do not despair of being +useful in your time also. And in the third place, this movement came +from those young men associated together in a social debating club. It +was their experience in the actual discussion of the problems of human +thought which made them feel the need of books and suggested this great +measure for popularizing books: a fact which fits in well with Mr. +Sage's idea of blending the two things together here; of giving +perpetual house-room and hospitality to a debating club, here, in the +very midst of this library. And now the fourth point is, that the plan +started by Franklin and those other young mechanics in Philadelphia, in +1731, the plan of joint-stock library associations, worked so well there +that, as Franklin tells, it was taken up in other provinces. Naturally, +the new plan was adopted first in the towns where it was heard of +first—the towns nearest to Philadelphia. But before many years, the +news of it had travelled far, to the southward and the northward, and +whether consciously or unconsciously the model set up in Philadelphia, +was imitated, with more or less closeness, in scores of places far away. +One curious example springs up in South Carolina. It is in the +Georgetown district, then given to the growth of indigo. A number of the +planters came together and formed the Winyaw Indigo Society. Their chief +business was to have a pleasant time together and talk indigo; they paid +their initiation fees in indigo; they paid their annual dues in indigo; +and presently they found their treasury so full and overflowing with +indigo, that they resolved to devote their surplus in part to the +formation of the Indigo Society Library. Then, too, at about the same +time in Charleston, seventeen young men, of very limited means, desirous +of seeing the best and freshest English magazines, formed a club for +that purpose, and started with a fund of ten pounds sterling, not +venturing at first to hope to be able to purchase books also. Soon, +however, their plan grew and took in books; and from this small +beginning arose the great “Library Society” of Charleston, which has +ministered to the pleasure and benefit of the people of that place for +nearly a century and a half.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p><p>But the Philadelphia plan travelled northward as well as southward. In +1747, at Newport, Rhode Island, was formed, also out of a discussion +club, the famous Redwood Library, which lives and flourishes still. In +1753 the Providence Library was started on the same general plan; in +1754, the New York Society Library; in 1760, the Social Library at +Salem, Massachusetts; in 1763, similar libraries at Lancaster and at +Portland, Maine; in 1753, a similar one at Hingham; and so on throughout +the country.</p> + +<p>One of the most curious of these joint-stock library associations was +one formed in 1751 in three parishes in the towns of York and Kittery, +Maine, and called the “Revolving Library.” It was not a circulating +library—that being the name of a library from which the books circulate +singly and in units; but it was called a “revolving library” because the +entire library was to revolve, in bulk, on its own axes, in an orbit +including the parsonages of the three parishes embraced in the scheme. +And thus this library began to revolve from parsonage to parsonage more +than 130 years ago; and it has been revolving ever since, occasionally +encountering some queer experiences, as when, about 15 years ago, it was +found by the new pastor of Kittery Point in the garret of the parsonage, +“dumped down on the attic floor like a load of coal,” the wife of the +former incumbent having had a prejudice against books for sanitary +reasons, “considering them unhealthy, and so being unwilling to have +them in any living room” where their presence might communicate diseases +to the family.</p> + +<p>This, of course, is a rather eccentric specimen of the class of +libraries now under view. A very good normal example of the class is +furnished us by the social library of Castine, Maine, organized in 1801; +and its articles of association I desire to read to you as exhibiting +the scope and spirit of this whole movement for supplying the public +with books through jointstock companies. The articles of association are +as follows: “It is proposed by the persons whose names are here +subjoined to establish a social library in this town. It is greatly to +be lamented that excellent abilities are not unfrequently doomed to +obscurity by reason of poverty; that the rich purchase almost everything +but books; and that reading has become so unfashionable an amusement in +what we are pleased to call this enlightened age and country. To remedy +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>these evils; to excite a fondness for books; to afford the most rational +and profitable amusement; to prevent idleness and immorality; and to +promote the diffusion of useful knowledge, piety, and virtue, at an +expense which small pecuniary abilities can afford, we are induced to +associate for the above purposes; and each agrees to pay for the number +of shares owned, and annexed to his name at $5 per share.”</p> + +<p>The first public library in the north-west was established by an +association formed at Marietta, Ohio, in 1796. Then followed similar +libraries at Cincinnati, and at Ames, Athens County. The latter, which +was formed as early as 1802, had a curious origin. It was popularly +known as the “Coon-skin Library.” The hardy pioneers of that township of +Ames met together, it seems, to consider the subject of roads; and, +having considered it, they proceeded to consider also the subject of +books—a fine illustration, I think, of the blending of the practical +and the ideal in the American character and in American civilization. +Here were these sturdy pioneers projecting a public library even before +they had got their public roads cut out and put in order. What is called +money hardly existed among them; but they knew how to shoot bears and to +catch coons and to take their skins, and these skins could be sent to +Boston and sold for cash, and the money invested in books. This +accordingly was done. The noted politician, Thomas Ewing, then a boy at +Ames, gives this account of the affair: “All my accumulated wealth, ten +coon-skins, went into the fund,” the total amount of which proved to be +about $100. “Squire Sam Brown, of Sunday Creek, who was going to Boston, +was charged with the purchase. After an absence of many weeks, he +brought the books to Capt. Ben Brown's, in a sack on a pack-horse. I was +present at the untying of the sack and pouring out of the treasures. +There were about 60 volumes, I think, and well selected; the library of +the Vatican was nothing to it, and there never was a library better +read. This, with occasional additions, furnished me with reading while I +remained at home.”</p> + +<p>That is the stuff of which strong men are made, and strong communities, +and mighty nations. And what was done at Marietta, and at Cincinnati, +and at Ames, was done in a multitude of other towns all over the +north-west. At Vincennes, Indiana, a library was started by similar +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>means in 1807; and one of the founders was Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison, the +hero of Tippecanoe and hard cider. That was the first public library +established in Indiana.</p> + +<p>So, too, in Michigan, far back in its territorial days, similar +libraries were formed, especially that of the Young Men's Society of +Detroit. But in Michigan, by far the greatest service in this direction +has been rendered more recently by the ladies, whose admirable library +associations in such towns as Ann Arbor, Flint, and Kalamazoo have done +much, especially during the past twenty years, for the literary +improvement and enjoyment of the people.</p> + +<p>But this third stage of library evolution, good and useful as it has +been during the past 150 years, has this defect: it does not offer books +freely to all who would like books; it is limited to those who +participate in its privileges by paying for them.</p> + +<p>Therefore society pushed forward into a fourth stage of evolution—one +still nearer to the grand object to be reached—the complete +popularization of books. This fourth stage was reached chiefly through a +new idea entering into the case, namely, the duty of the state to help +in providing books for the people who compose the state. The principle +is already admitted that the state must educate its citizens, and for +that purpose must sustain schools. For the same purpose, and on the same +principle, it must sustain libraries; for these are but an annex to +schools, and the books in them are only a part of the necessary +apparatus for public education.</p> + +<p>In this way was started the fourth plan, that of “district school +libraries,” a plan which for a while was hailed with delight as a real +contribution to human progress and happiness; which was eagerly adopted +in this state and in many others; but which has, upon the whole, +resulted in failure.</p> + +<p>The State of New York has the honor of having started this plan, which +was first publicly advocated by Governor De Witt Clinton, in his message +for 1826. In 1838 General John A. Dix, then secretary of state, was +“charged with the execution of the law giving to the school districts +$55,000 a year to buy books for their libraries, and requiring them to +raise by taxation an equal amount for same purpose.” The system was +received throughout the state with enthusiastic favor. In 1841 the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>school libraries of the state reported the possession of 422,459 +volumes; in the following year, 200,000 volumes more; and in 1853 they +had reached the enormous number of 1,604,210 volumes.</p> + +<p>The plan as advocated in New York soon passed over into Massachusetts, +where it was taken up and advocated by Horace Mann, that noble-minded +and eloquent champion of popular enlightenment. Through his influence +the necessary law was passed in 1837, but the operation of the plan was +never very successful in that state, and after twelve years had resulted +in the accumulation of only 42,707 volumes.</p> + +<p>Michigan appears to have been abreast of Massachusetts in the adoption +of the plan of district school libraries, incorporating it into its +school law of 1837.</p> + +<p>After New York, Massachusetts, and Michigan, the several other states +which adopted this plan did so in the following order: Connecticut in +1839; Rhode Island and Iowa in 1840; Indiana in 1841; Maine in 1844; +Ohio in 1847; Wisconsin in 1848; Missouri in 1853; California and Oregon +in 1854; Illinois in 1855; Kansas and Virginia in 1870; New Jersey in +1871; Kentucky and Minnesota in 1873; and Colorado in 1876.</p> + +<p>These data will give you some idea of the wide extension of this fourth +stage in library evolution. Its merits are very great. Perhaps its +greatest merit is that it recognizes the true function of the public +library as a part of the system of public education, and therefore as +entitled to a share in public taxation. Moreover, it has undoubtedly +done a vast amount of good in placing the means of intellectual +improvement within the reach of millions of people of all ages; it has +stimulated the love of books and diffused knowledge and happiness. And +yet with all these merits, it has been a failure; and this is largely +due to just three defects in administration:</p> + +<p>1. Lack of care and wisdom in the selection of the books, resulting in +the acquisition of many volumes of trash and of profligacy.</p> + +<p>2. Lack of care as to the distribution and return of the books, +resulting in their rapid dispersion and disappearance.</p> + +<p>3. Lack of care in the preservation of the books that were not strayed +and stolen, resulting in their rapid deterioration.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p><p>You have got to apply business principles to the handling of books, as +well as of any other material possessions. Libraries as well as sawmills +need to be dealt with according to common-sense and with efficiency. Now +upon the general failure of these libraries, let me quote for you a +little testimony. The superintendent of schools in New York State, in +1875, says: “The system has not worked well in this state.... The +libraries have fallen into disuse, and have become practically +valueless.” [1 Pub. lib. of U.S., i. 41.]</p> + +<p>The superintendent for 1861 says that in “nearly every quarter of the +state,” the libraries are “almost totally unused and rapidly +deteriorating.” [2 Pub. Lib. of U.S. i. 40.] For 1862, the +superintendent gives a more detailed picture of the condition of the +school libraries. He finds them “mainly represented by a motley +collection of books, ranging from ‘Headley's sacred mountains‘to the +‘Pirate's own book,’ numbering in the aggregate a million and a half of +volumes, scattered among the various families, constituting a part of +the family library, or serving as toys for children in the nursery; ... +crowded into cupboards, thrown into cellars, stowed away in lofts, +exposed to the action of water, the sun, and of fire, or more frequently +locked away into darkness unrelieved and silence unbroken.” [2 Pub. Lib. +of U.S. i. 40.]</p> + +<p>This graphic picture of the failure of the system in New York is perhaps +matched by a similar picture of its failure in Michigan, as drawn by our +superintendent of education in 1869:</p> + +<p>“The books were distributed to the districts by the town clerk to be +returned by the directors every third month for exchange. This would now +require more than 60,000 miles' travel per annum, at a positive expense +to the directors, certainly, of $100,000, to say nothing of more than +10,000 days' time. This was like putting two locomotives ahead of each +other to draw a hand-car. The result was the books were generally hidden +away in the clerks' offices, like monks in their cloister, and valueless +to the world. And what kind of books were they? Some good ones, +doubtless; but generally it was better to sow oats in the dust that +covered those books than to give them to the young to read. Every year, +soon after the taxes were collected, the state swarmed with pedlers, +with all the unsalable books of Eastern houses—the sensational novels +of all ages, tales of piracies, murders, and love intrigues—the +yellow-covered literature of the world.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p><p>Finally, the superintendent for 1873 says: “The whole system seems to +have come into general disfavor; and is, more than any other feature of +our school system, the one of which we are least proud.”</p> + +<p>Now we come to the fifth stage in the evolution of libraries—that of +libraries fully endowed by private generosity, and thrown open to the +public on such conditions as the founders have been pleased to indicate; +sometimes called patronymic libraries. Notable specimens of this class +of libraries are the Astor, Cooper, and Lenox Libraries, of New York, +and the Peabody Library, of Baltimore. The note of this species of +library is this: it is for the use of the public entirely without cost +to the public. In short, it is a library completely endowed, not only as +to the original expense of its erection and equipment, but absolutely +for all subsequent expense in its increase and administration. +Concerning this species of library, I have this to say: It is a noble +use to make of private wealth; it does immense good; but it is not the +best final form of library evolution. And for two reasons: first, the +man who will completely endow a free public library does not arise in +every community; whereas, every community needs a free public library. +And, second, the wholesomest kind of a gift is not that which does it +all for the community and requires no exertion or sacrifice on their +part; but that which gives the community a good generous start, but +still leaves something for the community to do for itself. In other +words, the healthiest sort of help, whether for one man or for ten +thousand, is that help which helps a man to help himself.</p> + +<p>And this brings us to the sixth and final form of library development. +It is the one which is the resultant of the two grand ideas; primarily, +the recognition of the free public library as an essential part of the +system of public education and therefore as a legitimate subject for +public taxation. This idea is essential to the most satisfactory form of +a public library—the public must invest something in it. But this idea +can adjust itself to that other noble one—private liberality in aid of +the public.</p> + +<p>And it is in this final and most consummate form, combining private +help with public selfhelp, that many of the most successful libraries in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>this country have been organized; and yet it is only since 1848 that +such libraries have been possible. For it was in 1848 that the first +state in our Union, Massachusetts, passed an act authorizing a +municipality to tax itself for the support of a free public library. +Since then many other states have followed with similar legislation. So +that it is only within the past thirty-five years that this grand result +has been reached: the systematic popularization of books under the +direction of the municipality, partially at least at the public expense, +and often in combination with private benefaction.</p> + +<p>Now, it is this grand result that you have reached here in West Bay +City. The library which you to-day dedicate to the perpetual service of +the people, and which we may believe will continue as long as society +lasts here to do its serene and beneficient work for the instruction and +delight of innumerable generations of mankind—this library represents +the latest, and I think we may say the most perfect and the final term +in a process of library evolution, which has been going forward on this +continent for more than two hundred years, and has involved, as we have +seen, countless struggles and failures and sacrifices for the production +of this single result.</p> + +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, may I venture to express the hope that this study +which we have now made of the process—the slow, costly, laborious +process—by which this brilliant result has been made possible and easy +for you, in West Bay City, is something which will enhance even your +pleasure in the acquisition of this noble library as well as your +appreciation of the princely act of Mr. Sage in his creative relation to +it?</p> + +<p>I trust it may enhance also your feeling of responsibility for the +perpetual success of this library in the purposes for which it has been +formed. This library has been well organized; but the working of it will +depend upon you. It is on one side of it a business concern; and like +any other business concern it will go to wrack and ruin unless it is +conducted on sound business principles, accurate accounting, sharp +supervision, punctuality, system, order, promptitude, energy.</p> + +<p>But more than ordinary business qualities are needed to make this +library all that it should be. Recognize the true function of the free +public library; it is a part of a large system of public education. It +is but a co-ordinate department of that larger institution for public +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>education—the people's university—including the ward schools and the +high schools. Some of the fruitfullest and best work of those schools +will be done in this library.</p> + +<p>Then, too, the public library stands for the wholesome truth that +education is never finished and should not stop when one stops going to +school. The boy and the girl who graduate at the school do not desert +the library; they keep up and carry forward their intellectual training +by a post-graduate course in the public library, for the rest of their +lives.</p> + +<p>Furthermore, the free public library supplements the work of the free +public schools by reaching those whom the schools never reached at all, +or only reached very slightly.</p> + +<p>And that public library is never a complete success, in which is not +present in the officers a spirit of courtesy toward readers, of +sympathy, of cheerfulness, of patience, even of helpfulness. Don't +permit your library ever to be a dismal, bibliographical cave, in charge +of a dragon. Let it always be a bright and winsome place, hospitable to +all orderly people; a place where even those ill-informed about books +will not be made embarrassed, but encouraged. Let it be one of the most +attractive places in town; let it outshine in attractiveness the vulgar +and harmful attractions of the bar-room and the gambling den; let it +grow up into the best life of the community, a place resorted to by all, +loved by all, a blessing to all.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LIBRARY_AS_A_FIELD_FOR_PHILANTHROPY" id="THE_LIBRARY_AS_A_FIELD_FOR_PHILANTHROPY"></a>THE LIBRARY AS A FIELD FOR PHILANTHROPY</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>At a dinner given to Andrew Carnegie by the Authors' League +in New York, he said: “They say I am a philanthropist. I am +no such foolish fellow.” Nevertheless, to the <i>North +American Review</i> for December, 1889, he contributed an +article, entitled “The Best Fields for Philanthropy,” in +which he gives the Library first place. It is of course +impossible to tell whether the title was his or a suggestion +of the editor. The extract printed here is interesting as +embodying Mr. Carnegie's gospel of “help by self-help,” but +also as giving credit to Enoch Pratt of Baltimore as an +earlier exponent of it.</p> + +<p>Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, Nov. 25, +1835. He was brought by his family to Pittsburgh, Pa. as a +boy of 13, and after working as a weaver's assistant and a +telegraph messenger boy, became an operator, rose to be head +of his division, made money by organizing a sleeping-car +company and after the Civil War became an ironmaster, +retiring in 1901 as a multi-millionaire. Much of his fortune +he gave to build libraries, almost always on the condition +that the municipality should assure them a stated support. +He died in New York, Aug. 11, 1919.</p></div> + +<p>The reception given to the first paper <a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> upon this subject, to which +our lamented friend, the late editor and proprietor of this <i>Review</i>, +was pleased to give the first place in the June number, has been most +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>encouraging to its author, as it would surely have been to the editor +had he been spared, for he was most deeply interested in the subject.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> “Wealth” by Andrew Carnegie. In the North American Review, +June, 1889.</p></div> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Before entering upon the question which you have proposed, it may be +advantageous to restate the positions taken in the former paper, for the +benefit of those who may not have read it, or who cannot conveniently +refer to it. It was assumed that the present laws of competition, +accumulation, and distribution are the best obtainable conditions; that +through these the race receives its most valuable fruits; and, +therefore, that they should be accepted and upheld. Under these it was +held that great wealth must inevitably flow into the hands of the few +exceptional managers of men. The question then arose, What should these +do with their surplus wealth? and the “Gospel of Wealth” contended that +surplus wealth should be considered as a sacred trust, to be +administered during the lives of its owners, by them as trustees, for +the best good of the community in which and from which it had been +acquired.</p> + +<p>It was pointed out that there were but three modes of disposing of +surplus wealth, and two of these were held to be improper. First, it was +held that to leave great fortunes to children did not prove true +affection for them or interest in their genuine good, regarded either as +individuals or as members of the state; that it was not the welfare of +the children, but the pride of the parents, which inspired enormous +legacies, and that, looking to the usual results of vast sums conferred +upon children, the thoughtful man must be forced to say, if the good of +the child only were considered: “I would as soon leave to my son a curse +as to leave to him the almighty dollar.”</p> + +<p>The second mode open to men is to hoard their surplus wealth during +life, and leave it at death for public uses. It was pointed out that in +many cases these bequests become merely monuments of the testators' +folly; that the amount of real good done by posthumous gifts was +ridiculously disproportionate to the sums thus left. The recent decision +upon Mr. Tilden's will, which is said to have been drawn by the ablest +of lawyers, and the partial failure of Mr. Williamson's purposes in +regard to the great technical school which that millionaire intended to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>establish in Philadelphia, are lessons indeed for the rich who only +bequeath.</p> + +<p>The aim of the first article was thus to lead up to the conclusion that +there is but one right mode of using enormous fortunes—namely, that the +possessors from time to time during their own lives so administer them +as to promote the permanent good of the communities from which they have +been gathered. It was held that public sentiment would soon say of one +who died possessed of millions of available wealth which he might have +administered: “The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.”</p> + +<p>The purpose of this article is to present some of the best methods of +performing this duty of administering surplus wealth for the good of the +people. The first requisite for a really good use of wealth by the +millionaire who has accepted the gospel which proclaims him only a +trustee of the surplus that comes to him, is to take care that the +purpose for which he spends it shall not have a degrading, pauperizing +tendency upon its recipients, and that his trust should be so +administered as to stimulate the best and most aspiring poor of the +community to further efforts for their own improvement. It is not the +irreclaimably destitute, shiftless, and worthless that it is truly +beneficial or truly benevolent to attempt to reach and improve. For +these there exists the refuge provided by the city or the state, where +they can be sheltered, fed, clothed, and kept in comfortable existence, +and—most important of all—where they can be isolated from the +well-doing and industrious poor, who are liable to be demoralized by +contact with these unfortunates. One man or woman who succeeds in living +comfortably by begging is more dangerous to society, and a greater +obstacle to the progress of humanity, than a score of wordy Socialists. +The individual administrator of surplus wealth has as his charge the +industrious and ambitious; not those who need everything done for them, +but those who, being most anxious and able to help themselves, deserve +and will be benefited by help from others and the extension of their +opportunities at the hands of the philanthropic rich.</p> + +<p>It is ever to be remembered that one of the chief obstacles which the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>philanthropist meets in his efforts to do real and permanent good in +this world is the practice of indiscriminate giving; and the duty of the +millionaire is to resolve to cease giving to objects that are not proved +clearly to his satisfaction to be deserving. He must remember Mr. Rice's +belief, that nine hundred and fifty out of every thousand dollars +bestowed to-day upon so-called charity had better be thrown into the +sea. As far as my experience of the wealthy extends, it is unnecessary +to urge them to give of their superabundance in charity so-called. +Greater good for the race is to be achieved by inducing them to cease +impulsive and injurious giving. As a rule, the sins of millionaires in +this respect are not those of omission, but of commission, because they +will not take time to think, and chiefly because it is much easier to +give than to refuse. Those who have surplus wealth give millions every +year which produce more evil than good, and which really retard the +progress of the people, because most of the forms in vogue to-day for +benefiting mankind only tend to spread among the poor a spirit of +dependence upon alms, when what is essential for progress is that they +should be inspired to depend upon their own exertions. The miser +millionaire who hoards his wealth does less injury to society than the +careless millionaire who squanders his unwisely, even if he does so +under cover of the mantle of sacred charity. The man who gives to the +individual beggar commits a grave offence, but there are many societies +and institutions soliciting alms which it is none the less injurious to +the community to aid. These are as corrupting as individual beggars. +Plutarch's “Morals” contains this lesson: “A beggar asking an alms of a +Lacedaemonian, he said: ‘Well, should I give thee anything, thou wilt be +the greater beggar, for he that first gave thee money made thee idle, +and is the cause of this base and dishonorable way of living.’” As I +know them, there are few millionaires, very few indeed, who are clear of +this sin of having made beggars.</p> + +<p>Bearing in mind these considerations, let us endeavor to present some of +the best uses to which a millionaire can devote the surplus of which he +should regard himself as only the trustee.</p> + +<p><i>First</i>—Standing apart by itself there is the founding of a university +by men enormously rich, such men as must necessarily be few in any +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>country. Perhaps the greatest sum ever given by an individual for any +purpose is the gift of Senator Stanford, who undertakes to establish +upon the Pacific coast, where he amassed his enormous fortune, a +complete university, which is said to involve the expenditure of ten +millions of dollars, and upon which he may be expected to bestow twenty +millions of his surplus. He is to be envied. A thousand years hence some +orator, speaking his praise upon the then crowded shores of the Pacific, +may repeat Griffith's eulogy of Wolsey, “In bestowing he was most +princely: ever witness for him this great seat of learning.” Here is a +noble use of wealth.</p> + +<p>We have many such institutions, Hopkins, Cornell, Packer, and others, +but most of these have only been bequeathed, and it is impossible to +extol any man greatly for simply leaving what he cannot take with him. +Cooper, and Pratt, and Stanford, and others of this class deserve credit +and the admiration of their fellows as much for the time and the +attention given during their lives, as for their expenditure, upon their +respective monuments.</p> + +<p>We cannot have the Pacific coast in mind without recalling another +important work of a different character which has recently been +established there, the Lick Observatory. If any millionaire be +interested in the ennobling study of astronomy,—and there should be and +would be such if they but gave the subject the slightest +attention,—here is an example which could well be followed, for the +progress made in astronomical instruments and appliances is so great and +continuous that every few years a new telescope might be judiciously +given to one of the observatories upon this continent, the last being +always the largest and the best, and certain to carry further and +further the knowledge of the universe and of our relation to it here +upon the earth. As one among many of the good deeds of the late Mr. +Thaw, of Pittsburg, his constant support of the observatory there may be +mentioned. This observatory enabled Professor Langley to make his +wonderful discoveries. The professor is now at the head of the +Smithsonian Institution, a worthy successor to Professor Henry. +Connected with him was Mr. Brashear, of Pittsburg, whose instruments are +in most of the principal observatories of the world. He was a common +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>millwright, but Mr. Thaw recognized his genius and was his main support +through trying days. This common workman has been made a professor by +one of the foremost scientific bodies of the world. In applying part of +his surplus in aiding these two now famous men, the millionaire Thaw did +a noble work. Their joint labors have brought great, and are destined to +bring still greater, credit upon their country in every scientific +centre throughout the world.</p> + +<p>It is reserved for very few to found universities, and, indeed, the use +for many, or perhaps any, new universities does not exist. More good is +henceforth to be accomplished by adding to and extending those in +existence. But in this department a wide field remains for the +millionaire as distinguished from the Croesus among milionaires. The +gifts to Yale University have been many, but there is plenty of room for +others. The School of Fine Arts, founded by Mr. Street, the Sheffield +Scientific School, endowed by Mr. Sheffield, and Professor Loomis's fund +for the observatory, are fine examples. Mrs. C.J. Osborne's building for +reading and recitation to be regarded with especial pleasure as being +the wise gift of a woman. Harvard University has not been forgotten; the +Peabody Museum, and the halls of Wells, Matthews, and Thayer may be +cited. Sever Hall is worthy of special mention, as showing what a genius +like Richardson could do with the small sum of a hundred thousand +dollars. The Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee, may be +mentioned as a true product of the gospel of wealth. It was established +by members of the Vanderbilt family during their lives—mark this vital +feature—during their lives; for nothing counts for much that is left by +a man at his death. Such funds are torn from him, not given by him. If +any millionaire is at a loss to know how to accomplish great and +indisputable good with his surplus, here is a field which can never be +fully occupied, for the wants of our universities increase with the +development of the country.</p> + +<p><i>Second</i>—The result of my own study of the question, What is the best +gift which can be given to a community? is that a free library occupies +the first place, provided the community will accept and maintain it as a +public institution, as much a part of the city property as its public +schools, and, indeed, an adjunct to these. It is, no doubt, possible +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>that my own personal experience may have led me to value a free library +beyond all other forms of beneficence. When I was a boy in Pittsburg, +Colonel Anderson, of Allegheny,—a name I can never speak without +feelings of devotional gratitude,—opened his little library of four +hundred books to boys. Every Saturday afternoon he was in attendance +himself at his house to exchange books. No one but he who has felt it +can know the intense longing with which the arrival of Saturday was +awaited, that a new book might be had. My brother and Mr. Phipps, who +have been my principal business partners through life, shared with me +Colonel Anderson's precious generosity, and it was when revelling in +these treasures that I resolved, if ever wealth came to me, that it +should be used to establish free libraries, that other poor boys might +receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to +that noble man.</p> + +<p>Great Britain has been foremost in appreciating the value of free +libraries for its people. Parliament passed an act permitting towns and +cities to establish and maintain these as municipal institutions, and +whenever the people of any town or city voted to accept the provisions +of the act, the authorities were authorized to tax the community to the +extent of one penny in the pound valuation. Most of the towns already +have free libraries under this act. Many of these are the gifts of rich +men, whose funds have been used for the building, and in some cases for +the books also, the communities being required to maintain and to +develop the libraries; and to this feature I attribute most of their +usefulness. An endowed institution is liable to become the prey of a +clique. The public ceases to take interest, in it, or, rather, never +acquires interest in it. The rule has been violated which requires the +recipients to help themselves. Everything has been done for the +community instead of its being only helped to help itself.</p> + +<p>Many free libraries have been established in our country, but none that +I know of with such wisdom as the Pratt Library, of Baltimore. Mr. Pratt +presented to the city of Baltimore one million dollars, requiring it to +pay 5 per cent. per annum, amounting to fifty thousand dollars per year, +which is to be devoted to the maintenance and development of the library +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>and its branches. During the last year 430,217 books were distributed; +37,196 people of Baltimore are registered upon the books as readers; and +it is safe to say that 37,000 frequenters of the Pratt Library are of +more value to Baltimore, to the State, and to the country than all the +inert, lazy, and hopelessly-poor in the whole nation. And it may further +be safely said that, by placing within the reach of 37,000 aspiring +people books which they were anxious to obtain, Mr. Pratt has done more +for the genuine progress of the people than has been done by all the +contributions of all the millionaires and rich people to help those who +cannot help themselves. The one wise administrator of his surplus has +poured his fertilizing stream upon soil that was ready to receive it and +return a hundred-fold. The many squanderers have not only poured their +streams into sieves which never can be filled,—they have done worse; +they have poured them into stagnant sewers that breed the diseases which +afflict the body politic. And this is not all. The million dollars of +which Mr. Pratt has made so grand a use are something, but there is +something greater still. When the fifth branch library was opened in +Baltimore, the speaker said:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“Whatever may have been done in these four years, it was his +pleasure to acknowledge that much, very much, was due to the +earnest interest, the wise councils, and the practical +suggestions of Mr. Pratt. He never seemed to feel that the +mere donation of great wealth for the benefit of his +fellow-citizens was all that would be asked of him, but he +wisely labored to make its application as comprehensive and +effective as possible. Thus he constantly lightened burdens +that were, at times, very heavy, brought good cheer and +bright sunshine when clouds flitted across the sky, and made +every officer and employee feel that good work was +appreciated, and loyal devotion to duty would receive hearty +commendation.”</p></div> + +<p>This is the finest picture I have ever seen of any of the millionaire +class. As here depicted, Mr. Pratt is the ideal disciple of the “Gospel +of Wealth.” We need have no fear that the mass of toilers will fail to +recognize in such as he their best leaders and their most invaluable +allies; for the problem of poverty and wealth, of employer and employed, +will be practically solved whenever the time of the few is given, and +their wealth is administered during their lives, for the best good of +that portion of the community which has not been burdened by the +responsibilities which attend the possession of wealth. We shall have no +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>antagonism between classes when that day comes, for the high and the +low, the rich and the poor, shall then indeed be brothers.</p> + +<p>No millionaire will go far wrong in his search for one of the best forms +for the use of his surplus who chooses to establish a free library in +any community that is willing to maintain and develop it. John Bright's +words should ring in his ear: “It is impossible for any man to bestow a +greater benefit upon a young man than to give him access to books in a +free library.” Closely allied to the library, and, where possible, +attached to it, there should be rooms for an art gallery and museum, and +a hall for such lectures and instruction as are provided in the Cooper +Union. The traveller upon the Continent is surprised to find that every +town of importance has its art gallery and museum; these may be large or +small, but in any case each has a receptacle for the treasures of the +locality, which is constantly receiving valuable gifts and bequests. The +free library and art gallery of Birmingham are remarkable among these, +and every now and then a rich man adds to their value by presenting +books, fine pictures, or other works of art. All that our cities require +to begin with is a proper fireproof building. Their citizens who travel +will send to it rare and costly things from every quarter of the globe +they visit, while those who remain at home will give or bequeath to it +of their treasures. In this way these collections will grow until our +cities will ultimately be able to boast of permanent exhibitions from +which their own citizens will derive incalculable benefit, and which +they will be proud to show to visitors. In the Metropolitan Museum of +Art in this city we have made an excellent beginning. Here is another +avenue for the proper use of surplus wealth.</p> + +<p><i>Third</i>—We have another most important department in which great sums +can be worthily used,—the founding or extension of hospitals, medical +colleges, laboratories, and other institutions connected with the +alleviation of human suffering, and especially with the prevention +rather than the cure of human ills. There is no danger of pauperizing a +community in giving for such purposes, because such institutions relieve +temporary ailments or shelter only those who are hopeless invalids. What +better gift than a hospital can be given to a community that is without +one?—the gift being conditioned upon its proper maintenance by the +community in its corporate capacity. If hospital accommodation already +exists, no better method for using surplus wealth can be found than in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>making additions to it. The late Mr. Vanderbilt's gift of half a million +of dollars to the medical department of Columbia College for a chemical +laboratory was one of the wisest possible uses of wealth. It strikes at +the prevention of disease by penetrating into its causes. Several others +have established such laboratories, but the need for them is still +great.</p> + +<p>If there be a millionaire in the land who is at a loss what to do with +the surplus that has been committed to him as trustee, let him +investigate the good that is flowing from these chemical laboratories. +No medical college is complete without its laboratory. As with +universities, so with medical colleges; it is not new institutions that +are required, but additional means for the more thorough equipment of +those that exist. The forms that benefactions to these may wisely take +are numerous, but probably none is more useful than that adopted by Mr. +Osborne when he built a school for training female nurses at Bellevue +College. If from all gifts there flows one-half of the good that comes +from this wise use of a millionaire's surplus, the most exacting may +well be satisfied. Only those who have passed through a lingering and +dangerous illness can rate at their true value the care, skill, and +attendance of trained female nurses. Their employment as nurses has +enlarged the sphere and influence of woman. It is not to be wondered at +that a Senator of the United States and a physician distinguished in +this country for having received the highest distinctions abroad should +find their wives from this class.</p> + +<p><i>Fourth</i>—In the very front rank of benefactions public parks should be +placed, always provided that the community undertakes to maintain, +beautify, and preserve inviolate the parks given to it. No more useful +or more beautiful monument can be left by any man than a park for the +city in which he was born or in which he has long lived, nor can the +community pay a more graceful tribute to the citizen who presents it +than to give his name to the gift. If a park be already provided, there +is still room for many judicious gifts in connection with it. Mr. +Phipps, of Allegheny, has given conservatories to the park there, which +are visited by many every day of the week, and crowded by thousands of +working people every Sunday, for, with rare wisdom, he has stipulated as +a condition of the gift that the conservatories shall be open on +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>Sundays. The result of his experiment has been so gratifying that he is +justified in adding to them from his surplus, as he is doing largely +this year. To any lover of flowers among the wealthy I commend a study +of what is possible for them to do in the light of Mr. Phipps's example; +and may they please note that Mr. Phipps is a wise as well as a liberal +giver, for he requires the city to maintain these conservatories, and +thus secures for them forever the public ownership, the public interest, +and the public criticism of their management. Had he undertaken to +manage and maintain them, it is probable that popular interest in the +gift would never have been awakened.</p> + +<p>The parks and pleasure-grounds of small towns throughout Europe are not +less surprising than their libraries, museums, and art galleries. We saw +nothing more pleasing during our recent travels than the hillside of +Bergen, in Norway. It has been converted into one of the most +picturesque of pleasure-grounds; fountains, cascades, water-falls, +delightful arbors, fine terraces, and statues adorn what was before a +barren mountain side. Here is a field worthy of study by the millionaire +who would confer a lasting benefit upon his fellows. Another beautiful +instance of the right use of wealth in the direction of making cities +more and more attractive we found in Dresden. The owner of the leading +paper there bequeathed its revenues forever to the city, to be used in +beautifying it. An art committee decides from time to time what new +artistic feature is to be introduced or what hideous feature is to be +changed, and as the revenues accrue they are expended in this direction. +Thus through the gift of this patriotic newspaper proprietor his native +city of Dresden is fast becoming one of the most artistic places of +residence in the whole world. A work having been completed, it devolves +upon the city to maintain it forever. May I be excused if I commend to +our millionaire newspaper proprietors the example of their colleague in +the capital of Saxony?</p> + +<p>Scarcely a city of any magnitude in the older countries is without many +structures and features of great beauty. Much has been spent upon +ornament, decoration, and architectural effect: we are still far behind +in these things upon this side of the Atlantic. Our Republic is great in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>some things,—in material development unrivalled; but let us always +remember that in art and in the finer touches we have scarcely yet taken +a place. Had the exquisite memorial arch recently erected temporarily in +New York been shown in Dresden, the art committee there would probably +have been enabled, from the revenue of the newspaper given by its owner +for just such purposes, to order its permanent erection to adorn the +city forever.</p> + +<p>While the bestowal of a park upon a community as one of the best uses +for surplus wealth will be universally approved, in embracing such +additions to it as conservatories, or in advocating the building of +memorial arches and works of adornment, it is probable that many will +think we go too far, and consider these somewhat fanciful. The material +good to flow from them may not be so directly visible; but let not any +practical mind, intent only upon material good, depreciate the value of +wealth given for these or for kindred aesthetic purposes as being +useless as far as the mass of the people and their needs are concerned. +As with libraries and museums, so with these more distinctively artistic +works; these perform their great use when they reach the best of the +masses of the people. It is worth more to reach and touch the sentiment +for beauty in the naturally bright minds of this class than that those +incapable of being so touched should be pandered to. For what the +improver of the race must endeavor to do is to reach those who have the +divine spark ever so feebly developed, that it may be strengthened and +grow. For my part, I think Mr. Phipps put his money to better use in +giving the workingmen of Allegheny conservatories filled with beautiful +flowers, orchids, and aquatic plants, which they, with their wives and +children, can enjoy in their spare hours, and on which they can feed the +love for the beautiful, than if he had given his surplus money to +furnish them with bread, for those in health who cannot earn their bread +are scarcely worth considering by the individual giver; the care of such +being the duty of the state. The man who erects in a city a truly +artistic arch, statue, or fountain makes a wise use of his surplus. “Man +does not live by bread alone.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p><p><i>Fifth</i>—We have another good use for surplus wealth, in providing for +our cities halls suitable for meetings of all kinds, especially for +concerts of elevating music. Our cities are rarely provided with halls +for these purposes, being in this respect also very far behind European +cities. The Springer Hall, of Cincinnati, that valuable addition to the +city, was largely the gift of Mr. Springer, who was not content to +bequeath funds from his estate at death, but who gave during his life, +and, in addition, gave—what was equally important—his time and +business ability to insure the successful results which have been +achieved. The gift of a hall to any city lacking one is an excellent use +for surplus wealth for the good of a community. The reason why the +people have only one instructive and elevating, or even amusing, +entertainment when a dozen would be highly beneficial, is that the rent +of a hall, even when a suitable hall exists (which is rare), is so great +as to prevent managers from running the risk of financial failure. If +every city in our land owned a hall which could be given or rented for a +small sum for such gatherings as a committee or the mayor of the city +judged advantageous, the people could be furnished with proper lectures, +amusements, and concerts at an exceedingly small cost. The town halls of +European cities, many of which have organs, are of inestimable value to +the people, when utilized as they are in the manner suggested. Let no +one underrate the influence of entertainments of an elevating or even of +an amusing character, for these do much to make the lives of the people +happier and their natures better. If any millionaire born in a small +village, which has now become a great city, is prompted in the day of +his success to do something for his birthplace with part of his surplus, +his grateful remembrance cannot take a form more useful than that of a +public hall with an organ, provided the city agrees to maintain and use +it.</p> + +<p><i>Sixth</i>—In another respect we are still much behind Europe. A form of +beneficence which is not uncommon there is providing swimming baths for +the people. The donors of these have been wise enough to require the +city benefited to maintain them at its own expense, and as proof of the +contention that everything should never be done for any one or for any +community, but that the recipients should invariably be called upon to +do part, it is significant that it is found essential for the popular +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>success of these healthful establishments to exact a nominal charge for +their use. In many cities, however, the school children are admitted +free at fixed hours upon certain days, different hours being fixed for +the boys and the girls to use the great swimming baths, hours or days +being also fixed for the use of these baths by ladies. In inland cities +the young of both sexes are thus taught to swim. Swimming clubs are +organized, and matches are frequent, at which medals and prizes are +given. The reports published by the various swimming baths throughout +Great Britain are filled with instances of lives saved because those who +fortunately escaped ship-wreck had been taught to swim in the baths, and +not a few instances are given in which the pupils of certain bathing +establishments have saved the lives of others. If any disciple of the +“Gospel of Wealth” gives his favorite city large swimming and private +baths (provided the municipality undertakes their management as a city +affair), he will never be called to account for an improper use of the +funds intrusted to him.</p> + +<p><i>Seventh</i>—Churches as fields for the use of surplus wealth have +purposely been reserved until the last, because, these being sectarian, +every man will be governed by his own attachments; therefore gifts to +churches, it may be said, are not, in one sense, gifts to the community +at large, but to special classes. Nevertheless, every millionaire may +know of a district where the little cheap, uncomfortable, and altogether +unworthy wooden structure stands at the cross-roads, to which the whole +neighborhood gathers on Sunday, and which is the centre of social life +and source of neighborly feeling. The administrator of wealth has made a +good use of part of his surplus if he replaces that building with a +permanent structure of brick, stone, or granite, up the sides of which +the honeysuckle and columbine may climb, and from whose tower the +sweet-tolling bell may sound. The millionaire should not figure how +cheaply this structure can be built, but how perfect it can be made. If +he has the money, it should be made a gem, for the educating influence +of a pure and noble specimen of architecture, built, as the pyramids +were built, to stand for ages, is not to be measured by dollars. Every +farmer's home, heart, and mind in the district will be influenced by the +beauty and grandeur of the church. But having given the building, the +donor should stop there; the support of the church should be upon its +own people; there is not much genuine religion in the congregation or +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>much good to flow from the church which is not supported at home.</p> + +<p>Many other avenues for the wise expenditure of surplus wealth might be +indicated. I enumerate but a few—a very few—of the many fields which +are open, and only these in which great or considerable sums can be +judiciously used. It is not the privilege, however, of millionaires +alone to work for or aid measures which are certain to benefit the +community. Every one who has but a small surplus above his moderate +wants may share this privilege with his richer brothers, and those +without surplus can give at least part of their time, which is usually +as important as funds, and often more so. Some day, perhaps, with your +permission, I will endeavor to point out some fields and modes in which +these may perform well their part as trustees of wealth, or leisure, +according to the measure of their respective fortunes.</p> + +<p>It is not expected, neither is it desirable, that there should be a +general concurrence as to the best possible use of surplus wealth. For +different men and different localities there are different uses. What +commends itself more highly to the judgment of the administrator is the +best use for him, for his heart should be in the work. It is as +important in administering wealth as it is in any other branch of a +man's work that he should be enthusiastically devoted to it and feel +that in the field selected his work lies.</p> + +<p>Besides this, there is room and need for all kinds of wise benefactions +for the common weal. The man who builds a university, library, or +laboratory performs no more useful work than he who elects to devote +himself and his surplus means to the adornment of a park, the gathering +together of a collection of pictures for the public, or the building of +a memorial arch. These are all true laborers in the vineyard. The only +point required by the “Gospel of Wealth” is that the surplus which +accrues from time to time in the hands of man should be administered by +him in his own lifetime for that purpose which is seen by him, as +trustee, to be best for the good of the people. To leave at death what +he cannot take away, and place upon others the burden of the work which +it was his own duty to perform, is to do nothing worthy. This requires +no sacrifice, nor any sense of duty to his fellows.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p><p>Time was when the words concerning the rich man entering heaven were +regarded as a hard saying. Today, when all questions are probed to the +bottom and the standards of faith received the most liberal +interpretations, the startling verse has been relegated to the rear, to +await the next kindly revision as one of those things which cannot be +quite understood, but which meanwhile—it is carefully to be +observed—are not to be understood literally. But is it so very +improbable that the next stage of thought is not to restore the doctrine +in all its pristine purity and force, as being in perfect harmony with +sound ideas upon the subject of wealth and poverty, the rich and the +poor, and the contrasts everywhere seen and deplored? In Christ's day, +it is evident, reformers were against the wealthy. It is none the less +evident that we are fast recurring to that position to-day; and there +will be nothing to surprise the student of sociological development if +society should soon approve the text which has caused so much anxiety: +“It is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich +man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” Even if the needle were the small +casement at the gates, the words betoken serious difficulty for the +rich. It will be but a step for the theologian to take from the doctrine +that he who dies rich dies disgraced to that which brings upon the man +punishment or deprivation hereafter.</p> + +<p>The “Gospel of Wealth” but echoes Christ's words. It calls upon the +millionaire to sell all that he hath and give it in the highest and best +form to the poor, by administering his estate himself for the good of +his fellows, before he is called upon to lie down and rest upon the +bosom of Mother Earth. So doing, he will approach his end no longer the +ignoble hoarder of useless millions, poor, very poor indeed, in money, +but rich, very rich, twenty times a millionaire still, in the affection, +gratitude and admiration of his fellow-men, and—sweeter far—soothed +and sustained by the still small voice within, which, whispering, tells +him that, because he has lived, perhaps one small part of the great +world has been bettered just a little. This much is sure: against such +riches as these no bar will be found at the gates of Paradise.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_IDEA_OF_A_POPULAR_LIBRARY" id="THE_IDEA_OF_A_POPULAR_LIBRARY"></a>THE IDEA OF A POPULAR LIBRARY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The following seven papers give some fundamental ideas on +the functions of popular libraries. They are arranged in +chronological order, and, so grouped, span the gap between +1851 and 1906, considerably more than half a century. The +first is interesting as presenting a discussion at the +inception of our first great public library, that of the +city of Boston, quoted from “The Life, Letters and Journals +of George Ticknor” (Boston, 1909). Ticknor's idea of a +popular library, given in a letter to Edward Everett, is +followed by Everett's answer. Some of the editor's comments +precede and conclude. Those interested may read on, in +Chapter XV, Vol. II of the “Life,” and get a further idea of +Ticknor's zeal in promoting the Boston library and his +interest in making it as popular as possible, in distinction +to the idea of a library solely for scholars, upheld by John +Jacob Astor, in his New York gift of three years previous, +which Everett rather favored.</p> + +<p>George Ticknor was born in Boston, Aug. 1, 1791 and +graduated at Dartmouth in 1807. He was admitted to the bar +in 1813 but devoted his life chiefly to teaching and to +literature, serving as professor in Harvard in 1819-35. He +died in Boston, Jan. 26, 1871. A sketch of Everett appears +on page 127 of this volume.</p></div> + + +<p>The endowment of a great library in New York, given by Mr. John Jacob +Astor, at his death, in 1848, was much talked about; and men of forecast +began to say openly that, unless something of a like character were done +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>in Boston, the scientific and literary culture of this part of the +country would follow trade and capital to the metropolis, which was thus +taking the lead. Still, nothing effectual was done. Among the persons +with whom Mr. Ticknor had, of late years, most frequently talked of the +matter, Dr. Channing was dead, Mr. Abbott Lawrence had become Minister +to England, and Mr. Jonathan Phillips was growing too infirm to take +part in public affairs. The subject, however, kept its hold on Mr. +Ticknor's mind.</p> + +<p>His idea was that which he felt lay at the foundation of all our public +institutions, namely, that in order to form and maintain our character +as a great nation, the mass of the people must be intelligent enough to +manage their own government with wisdom; and he came, though not at +once, to the conclusion that a very free use of books, furnished by an +institution supported at the expense of the community, would be one of +the effective means for obtaining this result of general culture.</p> + +<p>He had reached this conclusion before he saw any probability of its +being practically carried out, as is proved by the following letter, +which he wrote to Mr. Everett, in the summer of 1851. A few months +before this date Mr. Everett had presented to the city—after offering +it in vain more than once—a collection of about a thousand volumes of +Public Documents, and books of similar character, accompanied by a +letter, urging the establishment of a public library.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class='center'>To <span class="smcap">Hon. Edward Everett</span>.</p> + +<p class='right'>Bellows Falls, Vermont, July 14, 1851.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My dear Everett</span>,—I have seen with much gratification from +time to time, within the last year, and particularly in your +last letter on the subject, that you interest yourself in +the establishment of a public library in Boston;—I mean a +library open to all the citizens, and from which all, under +proper restrictions, can take out books. Such, at least, I +understand to be your plan; and I have thought, more than +once, that I would talk with you about it, but accident has +prevented it. However, perhaps a letter is as good on all +accounts, and better as a distinct memorandum of what I +mean.</p> + +<p>It has seemed to me, for many years, that such a free +public library, if adapted to the wants of our people, would +be the crowning glory of our public schools. But I think it +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>important that it should be adapted to our peculiar +character; that is, that it should come in at the end of our +system of free instruction, and be fitted to continue and +increase the effects of that system by the self-culture that +results from reading.</p> + +<p>The great obstacle to this with us is not—as it is in +Prussia and elsewhere—a low condition of the mass of the +people, condemning them, as soon as they escape from school, +and often before it, to such severe labor, in order to +procure the coarsest means of physical subsistence, that +they have no leisure for intellectual culture, and soon lose +all taste for it. Our difficulty is, to furnish means +specially fitted to encourage a love for reading, to create +an appetite for it, which the schools often fail to do, and +then to adapt these means to its gratification. That an +appetite for reading can be very widely excited is plain, +from what the cheap publications of the last twenty years +have accomplished, gradually raising the taste from such +poor trash as the novels with which they began, up to the +excellent and valuable works of all sorts which now flood +the country, and are read by the middling classes +everywhere, and in New England, I think, even by a majority +of the people.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p>Now what seems to me to be wanted in Boston is, an apparatus +that shall carry this taste for reading as deep as possible +into society, assuming, what I believe to be true, that it +can be carried deeper in our society than in any other in +the world, because we are better fitted for it. To do this I +would establish a library which, in its <i>main</i> department +and purpose, should differ from all free libraries yet +attempted; I mean one in which any popular books, tending to +moral and intellectual improvement, should be furnished in +such numbers of copies that many persons, if they desired +it, could be reading the same work at the same time; in +short, that not only the best books of all sorts, but the +pleasant literature of the day, should be made accessible to +the whole people at the only time when they care for it, +<i>i.e.</i> when it is fresh and new. I would, therefore, +continue to buy additional copies of any book of this class, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>almost as long as they should continue to be asked for, and +thus, by following the popular taste,—unless it should +demand something injurious,—create a real appetite for +healthy general reading. This appetite, once formed, will +take care of itself. It will, in the great majority of +cases, demand better and better books; and can, I believe, +by a little judicious help, rather than by any direct +control or restraint, be carried much higher than is +generally thought possible.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Mr. Ticknor was much struck by the publication of a cheap +edition of Johns' Translation of Froissart, by the Harpers, of which he +found a copy in a small inn of a retired village of southern New York, +in 1844; and he always watched the signs of popular taste, both in +publishers' lists and in the bookshelves of the houses which he entered, +in his summer journeys, or in his errands of business and charity in the +winter.</p></div> + +<p>After some details, of no present consequence, developing this idea, the +letter goes on:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Nor would I, on this plan, neglect the establishment of a +department for consultation, and for all the common purposes +of public libraries, some of whose books, like +encyclopaedias and dictionaries, should never be lent out, +while others could be permitted to circulate; all on the +shelves being accessible for reference as many hours in the +day as possible, and always in the evening. This part of the +library, I should hope, would be much increased by donations +from public-spirited individuals, and individuals interested +in the progress of knowledge, while, I think, the public +treasury should provide for the more popular department.</p> + +<p>Intimations of the want of such public facilities for +reading are, I think, beginning to be given. In London I +notice advertisements of some of the larger circulating +libraries, that they purchase one and two hundred copies of +all new and popular works; and in Boston, I am told, some of +our own circulating libraries will purchase almost any new +book, if the person asking for it will agree to pay double +the usual fee for reading it; while in all, I think, +several, and sometimes many copies of new and popular works +are kept on hand for a time, and then sold, as the demand +for them dies away.</p></div> + +<p>Omitting other details, now of no importance, the letter ends as +follows:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Several years ago I proposed to Mr. Abbott Lawrence to move +in favor of such a library in Boston; and, since that time, +I have occasionally suggested it to other persons. In every +case the idea has been well received; and the more I have +thought of it and talked about it, the more I have been +persuaded, that it is a plan easy to be reduced to practice, +and one that would be followed by valuable results.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>I wish, therefore, that you would consider it, and see what +objections there are to it. I have no purpose to do anything +more about it myself than to write you this letter, and +continue to speak of it, as I have done heretofore, to +persons who, like yourself, are interested in such matters. +But I should be well pleased to know how it strikes you.</p></div> + +<p>To this letter Mr. Everett replied as follows:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class='right'> +<span class="smcap">Cambridge</span>, July 26, 1851.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">My dear Ticknor</span>,—I duly received your letter of the 14th +from Bellows Falls, and read it with great interest.</p> + +<p>The extensive circulation of new and popular works is a +feature of a public library which I have not hitherto much +contemplated. It deserves to be well weighed, and I shall be +happy hereafter to confer with you on the subject. I cannot +deny that my views have, since my younger days, undergone +some change as to the practicability of freely loaning books +at home from large public libraries. Those who have been +connected with the administration of such libraries are apt +to get discouraged, by the loss and damage resulting from +the loan of books. My present impressions are in favor of +making the amplest provision in the library for the use of +books there.</p> + +<p>Your plan, however, is intended to apply only to a +particular class of books, and does not contemplate the +unrestrained circulation of those of which the loss could +not be easily replaced.</p> + +<p>That Boston must have a great public library, or yield to +New York in letters as well as in commerce, will, I think, +be made quite apparent in a few years. But on this and other +similar subjects I hope to have many opportunities of +conferring with you next winter.</p></div> + +<p>The difference of opinion, here made evident, as to the possibility or +safety of allowing books to circulate freely, was not removed by many +subsequent conversations, nor were the hopes of either of the gentlemen, +with regard to the establishment of a great library, raised even when, +in the early part of 1852, the mayor, Mr. Seaver, recommended that steps +be taken for such an object, and the Common Council, presided over by +Mr. James Lawrence, proposed that a board of trustees for such an +institution should be appointed. When, therefore, both Mr. Everett and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>Mr. Ticknor—the latter greatly to his surprise—were invited to become +members of this board, they conferred together anew on the project; and, +although the mayor, on hearing Mr. Ticknor's views, was much pleased +with them, and urged him to take the place, yet he at one time +determined to decline the office, certainly unless the library were to +be open for the free circulation of most of its books, and unless it +were to be dedicated, in the first instance, rather to satisfying the +wants of the less favored classes of the community, than—like all +public libraries then in existence—to satisfying the wants of scholars, +men of science, and cultivated men generally.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_FUNCTION_OF_A_TOWN_LIBRARY" id="THE_FUNCTION_OF_A_TOWN_LIBRARY"></a>THE FUNCTION OF A TOWN LIBRARY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Nearly a quarter-century elapsed after Ticknor's letter, +just quoted, before the publication in book form of Josiah +P. Quincy's “Protection of Majorities and Other Essays” +(Boston, 1875), of which collection his paper on the +function of a town library forms a part. As stated in his +introduction, it appeared originally in <i>Old and New</i>, a +magazine already extinct when that introduction was penned.</p> + +<p>While asserting as strongly as Mr. Ticknor his belief in +making a library “popular,” the writer denies that his +belief justifies the inclusion of fiction. His position +seems to be that, praiseworthy as much of it is, fiction +should not be supplied to the public from the public funds. +The present attitude, that this is a matter to be settled by +the public itself, is repudiated in set terms and with +somewhat picturesque illustrations, by Mr. Quincy. His +stalwart advocacy of the library as a supplement to the +school is what justifies the inclusion of his paper in this +collection. Those who desire to follow Mr. Quincy a little +farther may read the next paper in the above-named +collection entitled “The Abuse of Reading.”</p> + +<p>Josiah Phillips Quincy was born in Boston, Nov. 28, 1829 +and graduated at Harvard in 1850, the son of the statesman +Josiah Quincy who was also president of Harvard. He was +admitted to the bar in 1854, but afterward engaged in +business and in farming, also writing freely on civic and +economic subjects.</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p><p>This is a one-sided paper. Something might be said on the other side; +but, as that is the popular side, it is likely to receive full justice. +In behalf of an unconverted minority, who should be represented through +the press, if nowhere else, I desire to register a dissent from the +prevailing opinion concerning the function of libraries sustained by the +taxation of towns and small municipalities. The importance of +stimulating thought upon subjects bearing ever so remotely upon our +fiscal requirements, I conceive to be far greater than may superficially +appear. For when the mass of our people clearly comprehend what +government should not be called upon to do for them, they will insist +upon its performing duties which are manifestly within its sphere of +action. Laboring men and women are to-day suffering from the +adulteration of their food and drink, and from a system of taxation +which oppresses them with weighty and unjust burdens. Their deliverance +can only come by dismissing legislators who are disciples of what may be +called the Todgers school of economy; that remarkable matron, as Dickens +tells us, caring little for the solid sustenance of her boarders, +provided “the gravy” was abundant and satisfactory.</p> + +<p>Upon what principle can the citizen, who thinks before he casts his +ballot, justify himself in voting increased taxes upon his neighbors for +the purpose of establishing a library? He must assume the necessity of +public schools, and then argue that he may vote for a library that will +supplement the elementary instruction which the town provides. And the +justification is ample. If our schools are so conducted as to awaken a +taste for knowledge and give a correct method in English reading, the +town library may represent the university brought to every man's door. +But suppose a large portion of the funds taken from tax-payers is +devoted to circulating ephemeral works of mere amusement. Is it not as +monstrous for me to vote to tax my neighbor to furnish the boys and +girls with “A Terrible Tribulation,” or “Lady So-and-So's Struggle,” as +it would be for the purpose of providing them with free tickets to +witness “Article 47” or “The Black Crook”? These romances and dramas (to +represent them in the most favorable point of view) are evanescent +productions, designed to meet the market demand for the intense and +spasmodic. Their claims to patronage from the public purse are precisely +similar.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p><p>So far, the citizen has a right to object as a tax-payer. But, if he +were truly solicitous for the welfare of the community about him, the +protest might be far deeper. For the weak spot in our school system lies +just here: while claiming immense credit for giving most of our children +the ability to read, we show the profoundest indifference about what +they read. But this accomplishment of reading is a very doubtful good if +it goes no farther than to give a boy the satisfaction of perusing “The +Police Gazette,” or introduces a girl to the immoralities of Mr. +Griffith Gaunt, and the adventures of a hundred other heroes of +characters even more questionable. By teaching our children to read, and +then setting them adrift in a sea of feverish literature which vitiates +the taste and enervates the character, we show an indifference about as +sensible as that of the old lady who thought it could not matter whether +her son had gone to the bosom of Abraham or Beelzebub, seeing that they +were both Scripture names.</p> + +<p>It is not difficult to conceive of communities, existing in Greenland +or elsewhere, which might legitimately tax the citizen to furnish his +neighbors with their novel-reading. But it can scarcely be disputed that +an increased facility for obtaining works of fiction is not the pressing +need of our country in this present year of grace. Dr. Isaac Ray, +perhaps our highest authority on morbid mental phenomena, concludes his +study on the effects of the prevalent romantic literature in these +words: “The specific doctrine I would inculcate is, that the excessive +indulgence in novel-reading, which is a characteristic of our times, is +chargeable with many of the mental irregularities that prevail among us +in a degree unknown at any former period.” The late Dr. Forbes Winslow, +a physician of similar note in England, used still stronger language in +describing how fearfully and fatally suggestive to the minds of the +young are those artistically developed records of sin which form the +staple of the popular novel. In these days of disordered nerve centres, +and commissions to inquire into every thing, we neglect much valuable +information which lies upon the surface. It is well to bear in mind that +our eminent bibliographer, Mr. Spofford, has informed us that “masses of +novels and other ephemeral publications overload most of our popular +libraries”; and that our wisest physicians have agreed as to the +influence they exert.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p><p>Of course these views will be met by a brusque statement that town +libraries must supply such books as people want, and that they demand +the current novels in unlimited quantities. But I repudiate the dismal +fallacy upon which such an argument is based. Plum-cake and champagne +would doubtless be demanded at a Sunday-school picnic, were these +delicacies placed upon the table; but, if the committee did not think it +necessary to supply them from the parish funds, is it certain that a +fair amount of cold beef and hasty-pudding would not be consumed in +their stead? And if a heartless man-government declined to furnish +Maggie and Mollie with “The Pirate's Penance” or “The Bride's Bigamy” +for their Sabbath reading, is it not possible that those fair voters of +the future might substitute Mrs. Fawcett's interesting illustrations of +political economy, or some outline of human physiology, their knowledge +of which would bless an unborn generation?</p> + +<p>I do not advocate the absurdity of a town library which should chiefly +consist of authors like Plato and Professor Peirce. No one can doubt +that the great majority of its volumes should be emphatically <i>popular</i> +in their character. They should furnish intelligible and interesting +reading to the average graduate of the town schools. And there is no +lack of such works. The outlines of physical and social science have +been written by men of genius in simple and attractive style. History +and biography in the hands of their masters give a healthy stimulus to +the imagination, and tend to strengthen the character. The function of a +town library should be to supply reading improving and interesting, and +yet, in the best sense of the word, popular; and I maintain that this +can be done, without setting up a rival agency to the news-stand, the +book-club, and the weekly paper, for the circulation of the novels of +the day.</p> + +<p>There is a saying of Dr. Johnson, to the effect, that, if a boy be let +loose in a library, he is likely to give himself a very fair education. +But, in accepting this dictum, we must remember the sort of library the +doctor had in his mind. As known to him, it was based upon solid volumes +of systematized information. Besides these were the noblest poems of the +world, a very few great romances, and ponderous tomes of controversial +theology; good, healthy food, and much of it attractive to an unpampered +boy-appetite.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p><p>But the range of a large library is by no means necessary to produce the +soundest educational results. Can it be doubted that familiar knowledge +of a small case of well-selected books—such, for instance, as the +modest stipend of a country clergyman easily collects—is better for boy +and girl than the liberty of devouring a thousand highly-flavored sweets +in the free library? At all events, a few old-fashioned people do not +question it. “A year ago,” writes one of them, “Alice used to read +Irving and Spenser, and Tom was dipping into Gibbon and Shakespeare; +liking them well enough, yet preferring a game of base-ball to either, +as it was proper he should. But the town library was opened, and these +young people are found crouching over novels in out-of-the-way corners, +when they ought to be at play; or reading surreptitiously at night, when +they ought to be asleep.” It is in vain to throw all the responsibility +upon parents. American parents are very busy, and somewhat careless. +Mrs. Fanny Firefly's highly-seasoned love-stories for girls, and Mr. +Samuel Sensation's boy-novels and spiced preparations of boned history, +are got up, like the port-wine drops of the confectioners, to tempt and +to sell. And they do their work. No one can examine the average boy and +girl of the period without being struck with their ignorance of the +great works of English literature which young people of a former +generation were accustomed to read with profit and delight.</p> + +<p>The function of a town library is to supplement the town schools; to +gratify the taste for knowledge which they should have imparted; and to +serve as an instrument for that self-education to which there is no +limit. But tax-payers are not bound to circulate twenty-seven thousand +novels against nineteen hundred volumes of biography and seventeen +hundred of history, according to the figures of one report; or to expend +two-thirds of the working force of their establishment in sending out +“novels and juveniles,” according to the statement of another. In a +word, information, not excitement, should be imbibed from the atmosphere +of the town library. That prevailing infirmity of our time which seems +to substitute sensibility for morality should there find small +encouragement. But we shall never know what this institution might do +for a community, so long as the temptation of free novels is thrust in +the faces of all who enter. For it is not to be expected that our youth +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>fresh from school, moving among the countless agitations of American +life, will select reading that may require some mental exertion, so long +as mental excitement is offered them in unlimited amounts.</p> + +<p>I am well aware how much may be said for the story-tellers, and how many +people there are to say it; and, whenever there is danger of their being +unduly neglected, my voice shall be loudly raised in their behalf. But +one may allow the claims of the romances, from Scheherazade to Mrs. +Southworth, and yet maintain that the theory upon which the average town +library is run is faulty. There is no virtue in despising cakes and ale, +and the heat of ginger in the mouth may at times impart a wholesome glow +to the entire system. But it does not quite follow that it is the +function of American towns to supply these stimulants gratis, at the +expense of their tax-payers. While we consider the immense amount of +reading of a certain sort that a town library supplies, it is well to +remember that there are other sorts of reading it may possibly prevent. +For it may encourage reading precisely as prodigality encourages +industry. Luxury and profusion do indeed feed industry, and demoralize +it; but the industry which serves God by blessing man, they prevent from +being fed. I fear that in these days more noble capacities die of a +surfeit from too much poor reading, than starve from want of good books. +The valid defence of institutions working in the interest of State +education is this: they prevent a waste of power. When any one of them +can be shown to encourage waste of power, it needs looking after. In our +complex social condition, the real consequences of any government +interference extend far beyond its apparent consequences. An institution +may be very useful up to a certain point, and yet hurtful if allowed to +run its full course without restraining criticism.</p> + +<p>The managers of our smaller libraries are apt to be picked men, who +give unrequited labor and intelligence to their trust. But they are +chosen at town meetings,—and to a certain extent must carry out the +wishes of their electors. Upon this matter, as upon most others, it is +the duty of the thoughtful men and women to create a wholesome public +opinion. They must recognize the fact that the change from a few good +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>books to an unlimited supply of all sorts of books is by no means an +unmixed advantage to a community. While the results of town libraries, +taken in the aggregate, are undoubtedly good, it is our duty to consider +whether they ought not to be better.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_FREE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY" id="THE_FREE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY"></a>THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The public library had now passed the period of the merely +academic advocacy exemplified in the Ticknor letter of 1851. +It was an actual, functioning institution, and as such was +called upon to answer criticism and to justify its +existence. The atmosphere of apologetics begins to appear in +what its friends have to say about it. This is evident in +the extract from Col. Higginson's “Men and Women” (New York, +1888) which immediately follows. The author's comparison of +the evolution of a library with that of a great railroad +system is perhaps the first hint of a comprehensive vision +of the library as something bigger than any individual town +or city institution and beyond it.</p> + +<p>Thomas Wentworth Higginson was born in Cambridge, Mass., +Dec. 22, 1823, and graduated at Harvard in 1841. He entered +the ministry in 1847 but retired in 1858 and served in the +Civil War. From that time until his death, May 9, 1911, he +devoted himself to literature, publishing a large number of +books.</p></div> + + +<p>Just as there is a good deal of anxiety wasted in regard to our free +public schools, especially on the part of those who have never entered +them, so there is some misplaced solicitude in regard to our libraries. +The free town or city library is one of the few things in our democratic +society that would have pleased the splenetic Carlyle, who mourned in +one of his early letters that every village in England had its jail, but +none its open library. It is a pity, therefore, when a man of high +standing and great influence writes of these institutions thus hastily +(I take the passage from a well-known literary journal): “Among the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>forms of beneficence for which our own generation has been conspicuous +is the Free Library.... But it is, I apprehend, no exaggeration to say +that such well-meant generosity has <i>oftener than otherwise</i> (the +italics are my own) been chilled and discouraged by its results. +Appreciative readers are few, the best books are largely let alone, and +the cost of the ‘plant‘and the taste which are put into it are often in +most painful contrast to the appreciation which they have received.” +Now, while every count of this last sentence may be true indictment, it +is easy to show how little it sustains the verdict. “Appreciative +readers” are few in the most cultivated circles, if their appreciation +must be tested by “the best books” only. It is not easy even to know +what the best books are, if we may judge by the tiresome failures in +making out the list of them; and suppose that they were known, do we +find many clergymen or bishops who habitually read Plato, Æschylus, and +Dante, rather than “Ben-Hur” or “The lady or the tiger”? It does not +therefore follow that people are unworthy of public libraries because +“the best books are largely let alone”; the question is whether even the +second best may not be good reading. We have the medical authority of +Hippocrates for saying that the second best medicine may be better than +the best, if the patient likes it best. So in regard to the fine +buildings, the success of republican government happily does not depend +on how far our citizens appreciate the architecture of the Capitol at +Washington and the State House at Albany; and it is surely the same with +libraries. Grant a few over-fine library buildings, built to please some +private benefactor; grant a few mismanaged public libraries—though +where these buildings or these libraries are I do not myself know—does +the kindly writer of these lines mean to be understood as saying that +“oftener than otherwise” our free public libraries are failures?</p> + +<p>If he does, it can only be said that this remark adds another to the +innumerable illustrations of that invaluable remark of Coleridge that we +must take every man's testimony to the value of that which he does not +know. All experience shows how easy it is to construct an institution +out of one's own consciousness and then condemn it; we see this daily in +what is written of our public school system. In General Butler's brief +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>career as Governor of Massachusetts he made a severe attack upon the +Normal Art School in Boston, and cited a pathetic instance of a fallen +girl who undoubtedly (as he urged) received her first demoralization +from the study of the nude in that school. It turned out on +investigation that he himself had never entered the school, and that the +young girl herself made no such charges; that there never had been any +studying from nude models in the school; that she had attended it but a +month or two, and this in its early days, when it did not possess so +much as a plaster cast of a human foot or hand. No matter; the charge +was reiterated up to the very end of His Excellency's career in office, +and is believed by many worthy people of this day. It is equally easy to +bring general charges against public libraries, and equally hard to +remove their impression, however unjust and even cruel they may be.</p> + +<p>What are the facts? There has just been a great Librarians' Convention +assembled from all parts of the country, and keeping together for many +days. Did a single speaker at that Convention take the ground that +“oftener than otherwise” the benefactors of public libraries were +chilled and discouraged? On the contrary, it was reported that such +benefactors were never so active, and their benefactions were never so +large. The tone was not one of discouragement, but of buoyancy and hope. +Every one admitted the vastness of the educational engine created by the +free library system; every one had his own suggestion by way of +improvement or development, but every one expressed a cordial faith in +the community, and reported encouragement in all work well done. The +simple truth is that the creation of a system of such libraries is like +the creation of a great railway system; it must be an evolution, not a +creation outright. The wisest librarian in America fifty years ago had +no more conception of the free library system of to-day than had +Benjamin Franklin of our postal methods; nor can any one now foresee +what fifty years of development will do for either.</p> + +<p>The truth is that every step in any great organization brings out new +possibilities, new dangers, and new resources. Side by side with the +perils of free libraries—as of too much light reading, and the absence +of proper appreciation of the best things—there are evoked resources to +meet these dangers.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p><p>Outside the library there come up the “association to promote study at +home,” and the vast Chautauqua “reading circles”—all these being +essentially based on the free library system, and implying it for their +full development. Inside the library there grow up such methods as those +of Mr. S.S. Green, City Librarian of Worcester, Massachusetts, whose +ways of making such an institution useful to all sorts and conditions of +the people may take rank with Rowland Hill's improvements in postal +service, as to their results on democratic civilization. He has +succeeded in linking the library and the public schools so closely that +he and the teachers acting in concurrence, indirectly control the +reading of the whole generation that is growing up in that city. The +details must be sought in his reports—as, for instance, one from the +Library Journal of March, 1887, which is printed as a leaflet; but the +essential thing in managing libraries, as in managing schools, is to +have faith in the community in which one lives, and to believe that +people do, as the Scripture has it, “covet earnestly the best gifts,” if +you will only show them how those best gifts are to be obtained. Put +into school and library methods one-half the organizing ability brought +to bear on railways and telegraphs, and we shall stand astonished at the +results within our reach. Those already attained, if fairly looked at, +are sufficient to encourage any one. The writer has at two different +times and in two different States been a director in these institutions. +Whenever he needed a little stimulus toward doing his duty it was his +custom to go and look over the rack containing the books lately brought +back by readers. With all necessary deduction for the love of fiction—a +love shared in these days by the wisest and best—the proportion of +sensible and useful reading was always such as to vindicate the immense +value of the free public libraries.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="TWO_FUNDAMENTALS" id="TWO_FUNDAMENTALS"></a>TWO FUNDAMENTALS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Mary Salome Cutler, now Mrs. Milton Fairchild, is the first +librarian to be quoted in this symposium. A sketch of her +appears in Vol. II. of this series. In the paragraphs quoted +below which form part of a paper read by Miss Cutler, then +vice-director of the New York State Library School, before +the Pennsylvania Library Club and printed in <i>The Library +Journal</i> (October, 1896), appears a definite recognition of +the social character of the library's task. Her two +fundamentals—organization and human feelings—are both +decided elements in its socialization.</p></div> + + +<p>In considering library interests we do well, I think, not to confine +ourselves to the limited range of library subjects.</p> + +<p>That mysterious thing which we call society is growing more complex, +every part more curiously intertwined with every other part, each human +life bearing some relation to every other human life. Whether he will or +no, it is literally true that “no man liveth to himself alone.” If it +were possible, then, as a part of this organism to discover some of the +laws which govern the whole, we might come back to our special domain +with an application of the laws which would have the force of freshness. +I believe that we gain an insight into these controlling principles only +by yielding to the tendency of solidarity, by opening ourselves to +surrounding influences, by living the fullest life of which we are +capable. I think I have seen the workings of two of these laws which +have a close relation to each other. If I am right your experience will +confirm mine, and we can together make the application to what concerns +us most—the library interests of to-day.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p><p>In any undertaking results depend directly, and often largely, upon the +perfection of organization. Organization implies a mind which can grasp +the undertaking as a whole, follow it out, each step in detail, estimate +the various factors, personal and impersonal, provide for unforeseen +contingencies, and furnish the faith, the will-power, the personal +magnetism, whatever you choose to call it, in such measure as is needed +to carry it through. Such a mind sees the end at the beginning, and +thinks of it as already done while to others it may seem far off and +even impossible. Such thought, often the work of one mind, sometimes the +result of cooperation, is behind every piece of accomplished work. Other +elements may doubtless be essential, but there can be no adequate +results without organization. And, making allowance for other elements, +the perfection of results depends upon the perfection of +organization....</p> + +<p>For the reason of this tendency we have not far to seek. I believe it is +found in the scientific spirit of the age, which is surely pervading +every sphere of human thought and activity. The careful investigation of +facts, the deduction of the law from the phenomena, the distrust of +chance and the loyalty to the law deduced, all of which evidence the +scientific spirit, mark alike the great financier, diplomatist, +inventor, philanthropist.</p> + +<p>In some undertakings organization alone will suffice. For example, +making a machine, laying out a railroad, compiling a volume of +statistics. In others there must needs come in what I will call the +human element, the consideration of people, not in masses, but as +individuals, that matchless, indescribable quality which we call human +sympathy....</p> + +<p>Illustrations might be multiplied in educational, religious, and +philanthropic efforts where we work for the masses, and forget that each +one of the mass is a human being with passions, sensibilities, +aspirations like our own. This interest in the human being as such, +which is a gift to some, can be cultivated, but it can never be +simulated. The counterfeit always rings false. Joined to a good memory +for names and faces, it gives a person a power which can hardly be +estimated....</p> + +<p>It seems to me that these two principles apply with tremendous and +unusual force to the problems of the modern library. I will speak of the +public library alone because it has a wider reach and a closer touch on +life.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p><p>We will review in imagination the library situation in this country. We +take up Mr. Flint's Statistics volume for 1893; we sum up 593 free +libraries in the New England states, 520 in New York, Pennsylvania, and +New Jersey, 285 in the Southern states, 758 in the Western states, a +total of 2156 free libraries.</p> + +<p>We recall our friends in the American Library Association, who +constitute with some marked exceptions, who prefer to work alone, the +high-water mark of the fraternity. As their names pass before us we take +a measure of the men and women. We think of their libraries which we may +have visited, or, better still, which we have used as readers. In some +few cases we know the influence of these libraries in the town or city. +Take it for all in all we find a body of hard-working men and women +translating into practice noble ideals. As a result, the library is +beginning to get a hold upon the community. But it is only a beginning +and, compared with the possibilities, only a prophecy of what may and +will be. Are not the failures in our work due to the lack of the best +organization and the true human touch?</p> + +<p>A librarian is appointed, let us say, to an important post. He has +doubtless had experience in library work. He comes on to consult with +the trustees. They vote to send him on a trip for getting ideas from +other libraries. He probably has on his hands a beautiful building illy +adapted to library work. He carries the plans with him, and spends most +of the time with other members of the craft, in choosing the least of +several evils in placing the reference-room, catalog, charging-desk, +etc. He secures two or three assistants with training, experience, or +both, and fills the minor places with local help chosen by examination +or by luck or by personal favor. He learns in a general way the +character of the town and selects books with that in view. If there are +certain manufacturing interests or a particular foreign population, he +makes large purchases in those lines. He decides on a system of +classification, of cataloging, and on a method of charging. The books +are rushed through the various processes, though all too slowly for an +impatient public. In a few months at the latest the big educational +plant begins to be utilized.</p> + +<p>The circulation surprises the most sanguine, the average of fiction +drops a little below the usual mark, good service is done at the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>information or reference desk by the enthusiastic man or woman having it +in charge, work is begun with the schools, and a little fraction of +teachers make the children know books because they know books +themselves. The rest go through the motions. The bookworm fills his +corner, the chronic grumbler has his little say, the usual number of +prize questions are answered. The library becomes the very bread of life +to those who are ready to receive it, and gives refreshment and +suggestion and inspiration to many more. The profession approves. At the +next A.L.A. meeting Mr. —— is brought forward more prominently, and +the wise ones say, “I always thought he was a rising man.”</p> + +<p>But only 20 per cent. of the population ever set foot within the +library, and when a stranger asks the way within a block of the +building, a fairly intelligent-looking workman does not appear to know +there is such a thing as the public library.</p> + +<p>In looking over the proceedings of the library association for the 18 +years of its existence, we are struck by the evidences of industry and +earnestness. There are papers and discussions on libraries and schools, +access to the shelves, bookbinding, systems of classification, +cataloging rules. The keynote is cooperation in securing, with an +enthusiasm which amounts to missionary zeal, the best and most uniform +methods, with special reference to mechanical devices. The very motto +smacks of arithmetic and commerce. “The best reading for the largest +number at the least cost.” All this is good and proper in its place. +Wise methods are essential to the best results. But we sought in vain +all along the years for the philosophic insight which should grasp the +higher motive of our profession and connect it with the great struggles +of our modern life. After the Columbus year in the clearer air of the +mountain-top, the word for which we were waiting came. I wish it were +possible to stop right here and give you the papers of Mr. Larned and +Mr. Brett, which were read at Lake Placid, as well as the discussion +which followed. I must content myself by quoting Mr. Larned's last +sentence: “Those of us who have faith in the future of democracy can +only hold our faith fast by believing that the knowledge of the learned, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>the wisdom of the thoughtful, the conscience of the upright, will some +day be common enough to prevail, always, over every factious folly and +every mischievous movement that evil minds or ignorance can set astir. +When that blessed time of victory shall have come, there will be many to +share the glory of it; but none among them will rank rightly before +those who have led and inspired the work of the public libraries.”</p> + +<p>This leads us to the first great need of the profession to-day, that the +librarian should be in the noblest sense a large, man, that he should +add to executive and business ability and technical knowledge a broad +and generous culture in Matthew Arnold's sense of the word, “An inward +spiritual activity, having for its character increased sweetness, +increased light, increased life, increased sympathy.” He must be an +omnivorous reader, skimming many books, and knowing by instinct which +books and which chapters and sentences to read carefully. He must study +from books and in life the great industrial, social, and religious +questions which stir our age. He must be a scholar without pedantry, a +man of the world without indifference, a friend of the people without +sentimentality.</p> + +<p>There follows naturally the second necessity, that the librarian should +be a careful student of his own town. He should know its history and +topography, its social, political, business, literary, and +ecclesiastical life. To this end he should have a personal acquaintance +with the city officers, the party bosses, the labor leaders, members of +the board of trade, manufacturers, leading women in society, with the +clergy, with the school superintendent and the teachers, with those who +shape the charitable organizations, with reporters, policemen, and +reformers.</p> + +<p>To what end? Broadly that he may catch the spirit of the civic life and +relate the library to the whole as the organs to the body. Specifically, +that he may reach the entire population through the natural leaders, +that he may select books, establish branches, open up new avenues of +communication between the library and the people.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p><p>The church may be aristocratic, industry, trade, and politics a war, +the public school like the drinking-fountain, though planned for the +many scorned by the few. I believe it is possible for a man with a broad +and sympathetic knowledge of our age and an intimate knowledge of his +own city, to make of the public library the one common meeting-place, +the real focus of democratic ideas. The church and the school will reach +this in the future, the library may achieve it to-day.</p> + +<p>There is a third difficulty, which is a very real and palpable one. The +librarian himself may have a fairly high ideal of the library which is +shared by perhaps one or two assistants. The bulk of the work in a +library with a large circulation is done by young persons of less +opportunity and training. Each has a distinct part of the work to do +with little idea of its relation to the whole. Unfortunately the +loan-desk, registration-desk, and reading-room are usually manned in +this way. I have often stood amazed at the delivery-desk of librarians +whose names represent all that is best in the library profession. I +would not be understood as depreciating the work of the lower assistants +in our libraries. I know well that this service, as a whole, represents +an amount of faithfulness and devotion which it ill becomes me to +undervalue. The responsibility lies with the head of the library and the +failure comes from lack of organization. The appointing power should be +practically in his hands. The man whom we have described above does not +need to seek this power. It comes to him. It is surely possible to +secure for the library service young men and women, boys and girls, of +fair intelligence, quick wits, responsive minds, and human sympathies. +The making of these units into an organism is the severest test of a +librarian's power. The ability of a general is not enough. He must +himself have the real human touch or he cannot call it forth from +others. There must be the promptness, the accuracy, the despatch which +marks military discipline; there must be also an intelligent conception +of the purpose of the library, a strong sense of personal responsibility +and of the dignity and beauty of the public service. It is sometimes +said that spirit of the library should be that of a merchant and his +well-trained clerks, anxious to please their customers. It should be +rather the fine spirit of a hostess with the daughters of the house +about her greeting her guests.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p><p>There is a fourth failure which is perhaps the root difficulty. It is +the failure to make the most of time. The day opens. The man hastens to +his place and finds a score of voices calling him to as many different +tasks. He hastily begins the one which seems to call the loudest, and +has just begun to gather up the threads of thought when there is a +peremptory call in another direction. And so he is driven through the +day, not controlling, but controlled, and constantly lashed by the +thought of neglected duties. By dint of keeping at it all through the +day and often into the night much work is done. The man gets and +deserves the reputation of a hard-working man, deliberately sacrificing +health, ease, leisure, and the joys of a scholar's life for the public +good.</p> + +<p>Now this is the first and natural result of the enlarged conception of a +librarian's work. The man is dazed by the sense of responsibility and +almost crushed by the demands upon his time apparently separate and +conflicting. But this should be considered only the first process from +which the strong man will speedily evolve a wiser way. The fatal mistake +lies in considering this first stage inevitable and final. If a man +tarries here it argues limitation, not power. There certainly are men +who stand high in public life as well as those holding less prominent +positions, who accomplish an enormous amount of work with a sense of +freedom and an impression of leisure. As I have observed individual +cases, I am led to the conclusion that the explanation lies not in a +stronger physique, or a stronger intellect, but in a better organization +of work with reference to time. There is no need more imperative than +this for all of us who are proud to be called busy people. The trouble +is, we think we are too busy to stop and plan. Our philosophic error +lies in believing that the work must all be done to-day. Nature herself +should teach us that the best work cannot be done in a hurry.</p> + +<p>We may not hope in this generation to understand well the working of +that complex, mysterious thing which we call human society, but we may +at least so relate ourselves and our libraries to it that we may live, +move, and grow together.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Not unrelated, ununified,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But to each thought and thing allied,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is perfect Nature's every part<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rooted in the mighty Heart.”<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WHAT_A_LIBRARY_SHOULD_BE_AND_WHAT_IT_CAN_DO" id="WHAT_A_LIBRARY_SHOULD_BE_AND_WHAT_IT_CAN_DO"></a>WHAT A LIBRARY SHOULD BE AND WHAT IT CAN DO</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>No one has done more to inspire library workers with the +feeling that what they are doing is worth while than Dr. +Melvil Dewey, pioneer in this country of the modern library +and of the socialized library spirit. A sketch of Dr. Dewey +will be found in Vol. I. of this series. The following is +from the stenographer's report of a brief talk at the +Atlanta Conference of the American Library Association, as +printed in <i>Public Libraries</i> (Chicago, June, 1899).</p></div> + + +<p>Atlanta has been known long in this country as a southern city that +believes supremely that education pays, and as the revelation has come +late in this century of what the library is or should be, and what the +library can do, on this line I will say a few words to you tonight.</p> + +<p>We have had an illustration in the recent war with Spain that education +pays, in what it means to have the man behind the guns trained. We have +an illustration in Mr. Carnegie's work, whose name has been mentioned +here in his competition with the rest of the world, illustrating another +peculiar American feature that American education pays in dollars and +cents; but it is a more recent conception of the part the library has in +a system of public education. It took a thousand years to develop our +educational system from the university down; first the university as the +beginning of all education, and then we must have the colleges to +prepare for the universities, the academies and common schools to +prepare for the colleges, and it is only in our own generation that we +have come to understand that we must begin with the kindergarten and end +in our libraries.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p><p>I am really pleased tonight that the Young men's association has done +this generous work, and that Atlanta is going to pay the money from the +taxes. It would be no advantage to this city if your schools were +provided for you without charge to the people. Those who study the +question from the low plane of dollars and cents, without regard to the +higher things in life, have learned that no investigation pays well. In +many a community men are giving liberally to the schools, and are +beginning to give liberally to the libraries, and they do it because +they know it makes everything more valuable—it makes their business +more prosperous.</p> + +<p>The library is going through the same process the public school went +through. Henry Barnard, of Connecticut, visited 27 different states and +spoke before them to urge upon them the system of public education, and +to provide a guidance for the children.</p> + +<p>It is true that the educated parents are more likely to have children +educated highly, but there is no question whatever that the great +majority of the men and women who are to shape the future of this +country will be born in the humblest homes, and we come back to the +problem of the general education of all the people as the best possible +advancement and the chiefest defense of the nation; it is the concern of +the state because it is the duty of the state, because it pays, and +because the state does not dare any longer to neglect it. Therefore I +call your attention to the fact that we are repeating in libraries +exactly the process of the school, and that there were meetings to urge +the acceptance of them. There are few who doubt the wisdom of donating +money to support the free library, and when the history of the time is +written it will be marked as the history of free libraries.</p> + +<p>Why is it that the people are taxing themselves erecting beautiful +buildings, buying books, paying salaries, printing catalogs, incurring +all these expenses, paying out an amount of money that a short time ago +would have been thought only a dream? It is a recognition of its +necessity and importance. We understand that it is a good thing.</p> + +<p>A broad conception at the end of the century of the work of the schools +is simply this, to teach the children to think accurately, with strength +and with speed. If it is in the school that they get their start, then +where do they get their education? Tell me from your own experience, was +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>it from the school that you got most of your ideas? We had an experiment +some time ago, when the teachers of New York made an elaborate +investigation as to the teaching of boys and girls. The thing that +influenced those boys and girls most was the books they read. What, +after all, is the supreme end of education? I state that we should teach +them to think with accuracy and with speed, but I doubt if there is one +who denies the supreme necessity of the building of character. That is +what is winning in the peaceful conflicts of commerce. If you care to +analyze how character is built, follow it back briefly. Character comes +from habits, and habits from actions repeated, and actions from a +motive, and a motive from reflection. What makes me reflect? What makes +you reflect? What is the cause? Isn't it something that you have read in +a book, a magazine, or a paper? So the genealogy is this: reading begets +reflection, reflection begets motive, motive begets action, and action +begets habit, and habit begets that supreme thing—character. So we have +come to recognize that if we are to accomplish the chief end that is +before the people, we must strive to control the reading for others.</p> + +<p>Reading sometimes carries downhill, as it often carries upward, and +there is no way that we can reach the people except through the free +library and with proper help from the people.</p> + +<p>What Atlanta wants to make out of her citizens is not to train privates, +but to train officers. If you go out on the streets you can find a +thousand men to do the work of a laborer, where you can find only a few +to do the work that will demand five or ten thousand dollars. The world +is looking for that class of men. It is the highest salaried man that is +the hardest to find. If you would buy a machine, there enters into it +the material that is in it; the process of manufacture throughout which +has transformed it, and then the approved fitness for performing its +functions. The same way with a man—the native that is manufactured; +then comes the experience which proves the fitness for his work; and you +pay the salary for these things. And by means of our schools and +libraries we must reach these girls and boys.</p> + +<p>Thomas Edison and other great men say that their whole lives are +governed from reading a single book. So the province of the library is +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>to amuse, to inform and inspire. We have the old proverbs, As free as +air; As free as water; but the new one that is important to the race is, +As free as knowledge. The people of this state cannot afford to have any +boy in Georgia who is anxious to know more, how to make his life more +valuable, who wants inspiration and is ready to read, and not furnish it +to him. Education is the chief concern of the American people, and the +states that have done most for their education have been the most +prosperous.</p> + +<p>It is the concern of the richest as to what should be done for the +poorest; you should provide free schools and free libraries, or the +failure to do so will react in your own lives. If you say that this +ideal is too high, that the library has important functions, but it does +not take its place as the equal of the schools, it is because you have +not studied this question in all its details. When you do, you will be +forced to the conclusion that while we must say that this is the +inspiration of a dreamer, remember that it is the devotion of noble +minds that never falters, but endures and waits for all it can find, and +what it cannot find, creates.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY_IN_AMERICAN_LIFE" id="THE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY_IN_AMERICAN_LIFE"></a>THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN AMERICAN LIFE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>As the last of this particular group of papers we reproduce +a view of our public library system by a foreigner who had +lived in this country long enough to appreciate it and who +was yet able to contrast it with the library systems of +European countries—Prof. Munsterberg of Harvard.</p> + +<p>Hugo Munsterberg was born in Danzig, Germany, June 1, 1863, +educated at Leipzig and Heidelberg, and after serving as +assistant professor at the University of Freiburg, became +professor of psychology at Harvard in 1892, where he served +until his death on Dec. 16, 1916. The subjoined extract is +from his book “The Americans” (New York, 1904).</p></div> + + +<p>The American's fondness for reading finds clearest expression in the +growth of libraries, and in few matters of civilization is America so +well fitted to teach the Old World a lesson. Europe has many large and +ancient collections of books, and Germany more than all the rest; but +they serve only one single purpose—that of scientific investigation; +they are the laboratories of research. They are chiefly lodged with the +great universities, and even the large municipal libraries are mostly +used by those who need material for productive labors, or wish to become +conversant with special topics.</p> + +<p>Exactly the same type of large library has grown up in America; and +here, too, it is chiefly the universities whose stock of books is at the +service of the scientific world. Besides these, there are special +libraries belonging to learned societies, state law libraries, special +libraries of government bureaus and of museums, and largest of all the +Library of Congress. The collection of such scientific books began at +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>the earliest colonial period, and at first under theological auspices. +The Calvinist Church, more than any other, inclined to the study of +books. As early as 1790 the catalog of Harvard College contained 350 +pages, of which 150 were taken up by theological works. Harvard has +to-day almost a million books, mostly in the department of literature, +philology, history, philosophy, and jurisprudence. There are, moreover, +in Boston the state library of law, with over a hundred thousand +volumes; the Athenaeum, with more than two hundred thousand books; the +large scientific library of the Institute of Technology, and many +others. Similarly, in other large cities, the university libraries are +the nucleus for scientific labors, and are surrounded by admirable +special libraries, particularly in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. +Then, too, the small academic towns, like Princeton, Ithaca, New Haven, +and others, have valuable collections of books, which in special +subjects are often unique. For many years the American university +libraries have been the chief purchasers of the special collections left +by deceased European professors. And it often happens, especially +through the gift of grateful alumni, that collections of the greatest +scientific value, which could not be duplicated, come into the +possession even of lesser institutions.</p> + +<p>In many departments of investigation, Washington takes the lead with +the large collection of the various scientific, economic, and technical +bureaus of the government. The best known of these is the unique medical +library of the War Department. Then there is the Library of Congress, +with many more than a million volumes, which today has an official right +to one copy of every book published in the United States, and so may +claim to be a national library. It is still not comparable to the +many-sided and complete collection of the British Museum; the national +library is one-sided, or at least shows striking gaps. Having started as +the Library of Congress, it has, aside from its one copy of every +American book and the books on natural science belonging to the +Smithsonian Institution, few books except those on politics, history, +political economy, and law. The lack of space for books, which existed +until a few years ago, made it seem inexpedient to spend money for +purposes other than the convenience of congressmen. But the American +people, in its love for books, has now erected such a building as the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>world had never before seen devoted to the storing of books. The new +Congressional Library was opened in 1897, and since the stacks have +still room for several million volumes, the library will soon grow to an +all-round completeness like that at London. This Library has a specially +valuable collection of manuscripts and correspondences.</p> + +<p>All the collections of books which we have so far mentioned are +virtually like those of Germany. But since they mostly date from the +nineteenth century, the American libraries are more modern, and contain +less dead weight in the way of unused folios. Much more important is +their greatly superior accessibility. Their reading-rooms are more +comfortable and better lighted, their catalogs more convenient, library +hours longer, and, above all, books are more easily and quickly +delivered. Brooks Adams said recently, about the library at Washington +as a place for work, that this building is well-nigh perfect; it is +large, light, convenient, and well provided with attendants. In Paris +and London, one works in dusty, forbidding, and overcrowded rooms, while +here the reading-rooms are numerous, attractive, and comfortable. In the +National Library at Paris, one has to wait an hour for a book; in the +British Museum, half an hour, and in Washington, five minutes. This +rapid service, which makes such a great difference to the student, is +found everywhere in America; and everywhere the books are housed in +buildings which are palatial, although perhaps not so beautiful as the +Washington Library.</p> + +<p>Still, all these differences are unessential; in principle the academic +libraries are alike in the New and Old Worlds. The great difference +between Europe and America begins with the libraries which are not +learned, but which are designed to serve popular education. The American +public library which is not for science, but for education, is to the +European counterpart as the Pullman express train to the village +post-chaise.</p> + +<p>The scientific libraries of Boston, including that of Harvard +University, contain nearly two million printed works; but the largest +library of all is distinct from these. It is housed on Copley Square, in +a renaissance palace by the side of the Art Museum, and opposite the +most beautiful church in America. The staircase of yellow marble, the +wonderful wall-paintings, the fascinating arcade on the inner court and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>the sunlit halls are indeed beautiful. And in and out, from early +morning till late evening, week-day and Sunday, move the people of +Boston. The stream of men divides in the lower vestibule. Some go to the +newspaper room, where several hundred daily newspapers, a dozen of them +German, hang on racks. Others wander to the magazine rooms, where the +weekly and monthly papers of the world are waiting to be read. Others +ascend to the upper stories, where Sargent's famous pictures of the +Prophets allure the lover of art, in order to look over more valuable +special editions and the art magazines, geographical charts, and musical +works. The largest stream of all goes to the second floor, partly into +the huge quiet reading-room, partly into the rotunda, which contains the +catalog, partly into the hall containing the famous frescoes of the Holy +Grail, where the books are given out. Here a million and a half books +are delivered every year to be taken home and read. And no one has to +wait; an apparatus carries the applicant's card with wonderful speed to +the stacks, and the desired book is sent back in automatic cars. Little +children meanwhile wander into the juvenile room, where they find the +best books for children. And everything invites even the least patient +reader to sit down quietly with some sort of a volume—everything is so +tempting, so convenient and comfortable, and so surpassingly beautiful. +And all this is free to the humblest working-man.</p> + +<p>And still, if the citizen of Massachusetts were to be asked of what +feature of the public libraries he is most proud, he would probably not +mention this magnificent palace in Boston, the capital of the state, but +rather the 350 free public libraries scattered through the smaller +cities and towns of this state, which is after all only one-third as +large as Bavaria. It is these many libraries which do the broadest work +for the people. Each little collection, wherever it is, is the center of +intellectual and moral enlightenment, and plants and nourishes the +desire for self-perfection. Of course, Massachusetts has done more in +this respect than any other ward in this respect. But there is no longer +any city of moderate size which has not a large public library, and +there is no state which does encourage in every possible way the +establishment of public libraries in every small community, giving +financial aid if it is necessary.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p><p>Public libraries have become the favorite Christmas present of +philanthropists, and while the hospitals, universities, and museums, +have still no reason for complaint, the churches now find the +superfluous millions are less apt to go to gay church windows than to +well chosen book collections. In the year 1900 there existed more than +5383 public libraries having over a thousand volumes; of these 144 had +more than fifty thousand, and 54 had more than a hundred thousand +volumes. All together contained, according to the statistics of 1900 +more than forty-four million volumes and more than seven million +pamphlets; and the average growth was over 8 per cent. There are +probably to-day, therefore, fifteen million volumes more on the shelves. +The many thousand libraries which have fewer than 999 books are over and +above all this.</p> + +<p>The make-up of such public libraries may be seen from the sample catalog +gotten out by the Library Association a few years since, as a typical +collection of five thousand books. This catalog, which, with the +exception of the most important foreign classics, contains only books in +English, including, however, many translations, contains 227 general +reference books, 756 books on history, 635 on biography, 413 on travel, +355 on natural science, 694 on belles-lettres, 809 novels, 225 on art, +220 on religion, 424 on social science, 268 on technical subjects, etc. +The cost of this sample collection is $12,000. The proportions between +the several divisions are about the same in larger collections. In +smaller collections, belles-lettres have a somewhat greater share. The +general interest taken by the nation in this matter is shown by the fact +that the first edition of 20,000 copies of this sample catalog, of 600 +pages, was soon exhausted.</p> + +<p>The many-sidedness of this catalog points also to the manifold +functions of the public library. It is meant to raise the educational +level of the people, and this can be done in three ways: first, interest +may be stimulated along new lines; second, those who wish to perfect +themselves in their own subjects or in whatsoever special topics, may be +provided with technical literature; and third, the general desire for +literary entertainment may be satisfied by books of the best or at least +not of the worst sort. The directors of libraries see their duties to +lie in all three directions. The libraries guide the tastes and +interests of the general public, and try to replace the ordinary +servant-girl's novel with the best romance of the day and shallow +literature with works that are truly instructive. And no community is +quite content until its public library has become a sort of general +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>meeting-place and substitute for the saloon and the club. America is the +working-man's paradise, and attractive enough to the rich man; but the +ordinary man of the middle classes, who in Germany finds his chief +comfort in the Bierhalle would find little comfort in America if it were +not for the public library, which offers him a home. Thus the public +library has come to be a recognized instrument of culture along with the +public school; and in all American outposts the school teacher and +librarian are among the pioneers.</p> + +<p>The learned library cannot do this. To be sure, the university library +can help to spread information, and conversely the public library makes +room for thousands of volumes on all sorts of scientific topics. But the +emphasis is laid very differently in the two cases, and if it were not +so neither library would best fulfil its purpose. The extreme quiet of +the reference library and the bustle and stir of the public library do +not go together. In the one direction America has followed the dignified +traditions of Europe; in the other, it has opened new paths and +travelled on at a rapid pace. Every year discovers new ideas and plans, +new schemes for equipment and the selection of books, for cataloging, +and for otherwise gaining in utility. When, for instance, the library in +Providence commenced to post a complete list of books and writings +pertaining to the subject of every lecture that was given in the city, +it was the initiation of a great movement. The juvenile departments are +the product of recent years, and are constantly increasing in +popularity. There are even, in some cases, departments for blind +readers. The state commissions are new, and so also the travelling +libraries, which are carried from one village to another.</p> + +<p>The great schools for librarians are also new. The German librarian is +mostly a scholar; but the American believes that he has improved on the +European library systems, not so much by his ample financial resources +as by having broken with the academic custom, and having secured +librarians with a special library training. And since there are such +officials in many thousand libraries, and the great institutions create +a constant demand for such persons, the library schools, which offer +generally a three years' course, having been found very successful.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p><p>Admittedly, all this technical apparatus is expensive; the Boston +library expends every year a quarter of a million dollars for +administrative expenses. But the American taxpayer supports this more +gladly than any other burden, knowing that the public library is the +best weapon against alcoholism and crime, against corruption and +discontent, and that the democratic country can flourish only when the +instinct of self-perfection as it exists in every American is thoroughly +satisfied.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOKS_AND_THE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY" id="BOOKS_AND_THE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY"></a>BOOKS AND THE PUBLIC LIBRARY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This paper and the two that follow it relate specifically to +reading as fostered by the public library and yet not +sufficiently to the provision of books to the public as a +definite library service to warrant postponing them to the +section relating to that branch of community service. They +have a somewhat academic or “literary flavor,” and yet are +permeated not with the idea of “books for scholars” but with +that of “books for people”—the idea of reading as a +universal function—duty, pleasure and inspiration in +one—which is distinctly that of a socialized library. The +first paper is an address made by Lowell at the opening of +the new public library building at Chelsea, Mass., Dec. 22, +1885.</p> + +<p>James Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 22, +1819, and graduated at Harvard in 1838, succeeding +Longfellow as professor of Literature there in 1855. He +edited <i>The North American Review</i> in 1863-72, served as +U.S. minister to Spain in 1877-80 and to Great Britain in +1880-85. He died in Cambridge, Aug. 12, 1891.</p></div> + + +<p>“A few years ago my friend, Mr. Alexander Ireland, published a very +interesting volume which he called “The book-lover's euchiridion,” the +handbook, that is to say, of those who love books. It was made up of +extracts from the writings of a great variety of distinguished men, +ancient and modern, in praise of books. It was a chorus of many voices +in many tongues, a hymn of gratitude and praise, full of such piety and +fervor as can be parelleled only in songs dedicated to the supreme +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>power, the supreme wisdom and the supreme love. Nay, there is a glow of +enthusiasm and sincerity in it which is often painfully wanting in those +other too commonly mechanical compositions. We feel at once that here it +is out of the fulness of the heart, yes, and of the head, too, that the +mouth speaketh. Here was none of that compulsory commonplace which is +wont to characterize those ‘testimonials of celebrated authors,’ by +means of which publishers sometimes strive to linger out the passages of +a hopeless book toward its <i>requiescat</i> in oblivion. These utterances +which Mr. Ireland has gathered lovingly together are stamped with that +spontaneousness which is the mint mark of all sterling speech. It is +true that they are mostly, as is only natural, the utterances of +literary men, and there is a well-founded proverbial distrust of herring +that bear only the brand of the packer, and not that of the sworn +inspector. But to this objection a cynic might answer with the question, +‘Are authors so prone, then, to praise the works of other people that we +are to doubt them when they do it un-asked?’ Perhaps the wisest thing I +could have done to-night would have been to put upon the stand some of +the more weighty of this cloud of witnesses. But since your invitation +implied that I should myself say something, I will endeavor to set +before you a few of the commonplaces of the occasion, as they may be +modified by passing through my own mind, or by having made themselves +felt in my own experience.</p> + +<p>The greater part of Mr. Ireland's witnesses testify to the comfort and +consolation they owe to books, to the refuge they have found in them +from sorrow or misfortune, to their friendship, never estranged and +outliving all others. This testimony they volunteered. Had they been +asked, they would have borne evidence as willingly to the higher and +more general uses of books in their service to the commonwealth, as well +as to the individual man. Consider, for example, how a single page of +Burke may emancipate the young student of politics from narrow views and +merely contemporaneous judgments. Our English ancestors, with that +common-sense which is one of the most useful, though not one of the most +engaging, properties of the race, made a rhyming proverb, which says +that:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“When land and goods are gone and spent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then learning is most excellent”;<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p><p>and this is true, so far as it goes, though it goes, perhaps, hardly +far enough. The law also calls only the earth and what is immovably +attached to it <i>real</i> property, but I am of opinion that those only are +real possessions which abide with a man after he has been stripped of +those others falsely so called, and which alone save him from seeming +and from being the miserable forked radish to which the bitter scorn of +Lear degraded every child of Adam. The riches of scholarship, the +benignities of literature, defy fortune and outlive calamity. They are +beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As they cannot be inherited, +so they cannot be alienated. But they may be shared, they may be +distributed, and it is the object and office of a free public library to +perform these beneficial functions.</p> + +<p>“Books,” says Wordsworth, “are a real world,” and he was thinking, +doubtless, of such books as are not merely the triumphs of pure +intellect, however supreme, but of those in which intellect infused with +the sense of beauty aims rather to produce delight than conviction, or, +if conviction, then through intuition rather than formal logic, and, +leaving what Donne wisely calls</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Unconscious things, matters of fact,”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>to science and the understanding, seeks to give ideal expression to the +abiding realities of the spiritual world for which the outward and +visible world serves at best but as the husk and symbol. Am I wrong in +using the word <i>realities</i>?—wrong in insisting on the distinction +between the real and the actual? in assuming for the ideal an existence +as absolute and self-subsistent as that which appeals to our +senses—nay, so often cheats them in the matter of fact? How very small +a part of the world we truly live in is represented by what speaks to us +through the senses when compared with that vast realm of the mind which +is peopled by memory and imagination, and with such shining inhabitants! +These walls, these faces, what are they in comparison with the countless +images, the innumerable population which every one of us can summon up +to the tiny show-box of the brain, in material breadth scarce a span, +yet infinite as space and time? And in what, I pray, are those we +gravely call historical characters, of which each new historian strains +his neck to get a new and different view, in any sense more real than +the personages of fiction? Do not serious and earnest men discuss Hamlet +as they would Cromwell or Lincoln? Does Cæsar, does Alaric, hold +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>existence by any other or stronger tenure than the Christian of Bunyan +or the Don Quixote of Cervantes or the Antigone of Sophocles? Is not the +history which is luminous because of an indwelling and perennial truth +to nature, because of that light which never was on land or sea, really +<i>more</i> true, in the highest sense, than many a weary chronicle with +names, date, and place in which “an Amurath to Amurath succeeds”? Do we +know as much of any authentic Danish prince as of Hamlet?</p> + +<p>But to come back a little nearer to Chelsea and the occasion that has +called us together. The founders of New England, if sometimes, when they +found it needful, an impracticable, were always a practical people. +Their first care, no doubt, was for an adequate supply of powder, and +they encouraged the manufacture of musket bullets by enacting that they +should pass as currency at a farthing each—a coinage nearer to its +nominal value, and not heavier than some with which we are familiar. +Their second care was that “good learning should not perish from among +us,” and to this end they at once established the Latin School in +Boston, and soon after the college at Cambridge. The nucleus of this +was, as you all know, the bequest in money by John Harvard. Hardly less +important, however, was the legacy of his library, a collection of good +books, inconsiderable measured by the standard of to-day, but very +considerable then as the possession of a private person. From that +little acorn what an oak has sprung, and from its acorn again what a +vocal forest, as old Howell would have called it—old Howell, whom I +love to cite, because his name gave their title to the ‘Essays of Elia,’ +and is borne with slight variation by one of the most delightful of +modern authors! It was, in my judgment, those two foundations, more than +anything else, which gave to New England character its bent and to +Boston that literary supremacy which, I am told, she is in danger of +losing, but which she will not lose till she and all the world lose +Holmes.</p> + +<p>The opening of a free public library, then, is a most important event +in the history of any town. A college training is an excellent thing; +but, after all, the better part of every man's education is that which +he gives himself, and it is for this that a good library should furnish +the opportunity and the means. I have sometimes thought that our public +schools undertook to teach too much, and that the older system, which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>taught merely the three R's, and taught them well, leaving natural +selection to decide who should go farther, was the better. However this +may be, all that is primarily needful in order to use a library is the +ability to read. I say primarily, for there must also be the +inclination, and, after that, some guidance in reading well. Formerly +the duty of a librarian was considered too much that of a watchdog to +keep people as much as possible away from the books, and to hand these +over to his successor as little worn by use as he could. Librarians now, +it is pleasant to see, have a different notion of their trust, and are +in the habit of preparing for the direction of the inexperienced lists +of such books as they think best worth reading. Cataloging has also, +thanks in great measure to American librarians, become a science, and +catalogs, ceasing to be labyrinths without a clew, are furnished with +finger-posts at every turn. Subject catalogs again save the beginner a +vast deal of time and trouble, by supplying him for nothing with one at +least of the results of thorough scholarship, the knowing where to look +for what he wants. I do not mean by this that there is or can be any +short-cut to learning, but that there may be, and is, such a short-cut +to information that will make learning more easily accessible.</p> + +<p>But have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to read +means? That it is the key that admits us to the whole world of thought +and fancy and imagination; to the company of saint and sage, of the +wisest and the wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moment? That it +enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and +listen to the sweetest voices of all time? More than that, it +annihilates time and space for us; it revives for us without a miracle +the Age of Wonder, endowing us with the shoes of swiftness and the cap +of darkness, so that we walk invisible like fern seed and witness +unharmed the plague at Athens or Florence or London, accompanying Cæsar +on his marches, or look in on Catiline in council with his +fellow-conspirators, or Guy Fawkes in the cellar of St. Stephen's. We +often hear of people who will descend to any servility, submit to any +insult, for the sake of getting themselves or their children into what +is euphemistically called good society. Did it ever occur to them that +there is a select society of all the centuries to which they and theirs +can be admitted for the asking—a society, too, which will not involve +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>them in ruinous expense and still more ruinous waste of time and health +and faculties?</p> + +<p>Southey tells us that, in his walk, one stormy day, he met an old +woman, to whom, by way of greeting, he made the rather obvious remark +that it was dreadful weather. She answered, philosophically, that, in +her opinion, ‘<i>any</i> weather was better than none!’ I should be half +inclined to say that any reading was better than none, allaying the +crudeness of the statement by the Yankee proverb, which tells us that, +though ‘all deacons are good, there's odds in deacons.’ Among books, +certainly there is much variety of company, ranging from the best to the +worst, from Plato to Zola, and the first lesson in reading well is that +which teaches us to distinguish between literature and merely printed +matter. The choice lies wholly with ourselves. We have the key put into +our hands; shall we unlock the pantry or the oratory? There is a +Wallachian legend which, like most of the figments of popular fancy, has +a moral in it. One Bakála, a good-for-nothing kind of fellow in his way, +having had the luck to offer a sacrifice especially well pleasing to +God, is taken up into heaven. He finds the Almighty sitting in something +like the best room of a Wallachian peasant's cottage—there is always +something profoundly pathetic in the homeliness of the popular +imagination, forced, like the princess in the fairy tale, to weave its +semblance of gold tissue out of straw. On being asked what reward he +desires for the good service he has done, Bakála, who had always +passionately longed to be the owner of a bagpipe, seeing a half wornout +one lying among some rubbish in a corner of the room, begs eagerly that +it may be bestowed on him. The Lord, with a smile of pity at the +meanness of his choice, grants him his boon, and Bakála goes back to +earth delighted with his prize. With an infinite possibility within his +reach, with the choice of wisdom, of power, of beauty at his tongue's +end, he asked according to his kind, and his sordid wish is answered +with a gift as sordid. Yes, there is a choice in books as in friends, +and the mind sinks or rises to the level of its habitual society, is +subdued, as Shakespeare says of the dyer's hand, to what it works in. +Cato's advice, <i>cum bonis ambula</i>, consort with the good, is quite as +true if we extend it to books, for they, too, insensibly give away their +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>own nature to the mind that converses with them. They either beckon +upward or drag down. And it is certainly true that the material of +thought reacts upon the thought itself. Shakespeare himself would have +been commonplace had he been paddocked in a thinly shaven vocabulary, +and Phidias, had he worked in wax, only a more inspired Mrs. Jarley. A +man is known, says the proverb, by the company he keeps, and not only +so, but made by it. Milton makes his fallen angels grow small to enter +the infernal council room, but the soul, which God meant to be the +spacious chamber where high thoughts and generous aspirations might +commune together, shrinks and narrows itself to the measure of the +meaner company that is wont to gather there, hatching conspiracies +against our better selves. We are apt to wonder at the scholarship of +the men of three centuries ago and at a certain dignity of phrase that +characterizes them. They were scholars because they did not read so many +things as we. They had fewer books, but these were of the best. Their +speech was noble, because they lunched with Plutarch and supped with +Plato. We spend as much time over print as they did, but instead of +communing with the choice thoughts of choice spirits, and unconsciously +acquiring the grand manner of that supreme society, we diligently inform +ourselves and cover the continent with a network of speaking wires to +inform us of such inspiring facts as that a horse belonging to Mr. Smith +ran away on Wednesday, seriously damaging a valuable carryall; that a +son of Mr. Brown swallowed a hickory nut on Thursday; and that a gravel +bank caved in and buried Mr. Robinson alive on Friday. Alas! it is we +ourselves that are getting buried alive under this avalanche of earthy +impertinences. It is we who, while we might each in his humble way be +helping our fellows into the right path, or adding one block to the +climbing spire of a fine soul, are willing to become mere sponges +saturated from the stagnant goosepond of village gossip.</p> + +<p>One is sometimes asked by young people to recommend a course of +reading. My advice would be that they should confine themselves to the +supreme books in whatever literature, or still better to choose some one +great author, and make themselves thoroughly familiar with him. For, as +all roads lead to Rome, so do they likewise lead away from it, and you +will find that, in order to understand perfectly and weigh exactly any +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>vital piece of literature, you will be gradually and pleasantly +persuaded to excursions and explorations of which you little dreamed +when you began, and will find yourselves scholars before you are aware. +For remember that there is nothing less profitable than scholarship for +the mere sake of scholarship, nor anything more wearisome in the +attainment. But the moment you have a definite aim attention is +quickened, the mother of memory, and all that you acquire groups and +arranges itself in an order that is lucid, because everywhere and always +it is in intelligent relation to a central object of constant and +growing interest. This method also forces upon us the necessity of +thinking, which is, after all, the highest result of all education. For +what we want is not learning, but knowledge—that is, the power to make +learning answer its true end as a quickener of intelligence and a +widener of our intellectual sympathies. I do not mean to say that every +one is fitted by nature or inclination for a definite course of study, +or indeed for serious study in any sense. I am quite willing that these +should ‘browse in a library,’ as Dr. Johnson called it, ‘to their +hearts' content. It is, perhaps, the only way in which time may be +profitably wasted. But desultory reading will not make a “full man,” as +Bacon understood it, of one who has not Johnson's memory, his power of +assimilation, and, above all, his comprehensive view of the relations of +things. “Read not,” says Lord Bacon, in his “Essay of Studies,” “to +contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find +talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be +tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and +digested—that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be +read, but not curiously (carefully), and some few to be read wholly and +with diligence and attention. <i>Some books also may be read by deputy.</i>” +This is weighty and well said, and I would call your attention +especially to the wise words with which the passage closes.</p> + +<p>I have been speaking of such books as should be chosen for profitable +reading. A public library, of course, must be far wider in its scope. It +should contain something for all tastes, as well as the material for a +thorough grounding in all branches of knowledge. It should be rich in +books of reference, in encyclopædias, where one may learn without cost +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>of research what things are generally known. For it is far more useful +to know these than to know those that are <i>not</i> generally known. Not to +know them is the defect of those half trained and therefore hasty men +who find a mare's nest on every branch of the tree of knowledge. A +library should contain ample stores of history, which, if it do not +always deserve the pompous title which Bolingbroke gave it, of +philosophy teaching by example, certainly teaches many things profitable +for us to know and lay to heart; teaches among other things how much of +the present is still held in mortmain by the past; teaches that, if +there be no controlling purpose, there is, at least, a sternly logical +sequence in human affairs, and that chance has but a trifling dominion +over them; teaches why things are and must be so and not otherwise; +teaches, perhaps, more than anything else, the value of personal +character as a chief factor in what used to be called destiny, for that +cause is strong which has not a multitude but one strong man behind it. +History is indeed mainly the biography of a few imperial men, and forces +home upon us the useful lesson how infinitesimally important our own +private affairs are to the universe in general. History is clarified +experience, and yet how little do men profit by it—nay, how should we +expect it of those who so seldom are taught anything by their own! +Delusions, especially economical delusions, seem the only things that +have any chance of an earthly immortality. I would have plenty of +biography. It is no insignificant fact that eminent men have always +loved their Plutarch, since example, whether for emulation or avoidance, +is never so poignant as when presented to us in a striking personality. +Autobiographies are also instructive reading to the student of human +nature, though generally written by men who were more interesting to +themselves than to their fellow-men. I have been told that Emerson and +George Eliot agreed in thinking Rousseau's “Confessions” the most +interesting book they had ever read.</p> + +<p>A public library should also have many and full shelves of political +economy, for the dismal science, as Carlyle called it, if it prove +nothing else, will go far toward proving that theory is the bird in the +bush, though she sing more sweetly than the nightingale, and that the +millennium will not hasten its coming in deference to the most +convincing string of resolutions that were ever unanimously adopted in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>public meeting. It likewise induces in us a profound distrust of social +panaceas.</p> + +<p>I would have a public library abundant in translations of the best books +in all languages; for though no work of genius can be adequately +translated, because every word of it is permeated with what Milton calls +‘the precious life blood of a master spirit,’ which cannot be transfused +into the veins of the best translation, yet some acquaintance with +foreign and ancient literatures has the liberalizing effect of foreign +travel. He who travels by translation travels more hastily and +superficially, but brings home something that is worth having, +nevertheless. Translations properly used, by shortening the labor of +acquisition, add as many years to our lives as they subtract from the +processes of our education.</p> + +<p>In such a library the sciences should be fully represented, that men may +at least learn to know in what a marvellous museum they live, what a +wonder worker is giving them an exhibition daily for nothing. Nor let +art be forgotten in all its many forms, not as the antithesis of +science, but as her elder or fairer sister, whom we love all the more +that her usefulness cannot be demonstrated in dollars and cents. I +should be thankful if an every day laborer among us could have his mind +illumined, as those of Athens and of Florence had, with some image of +what is best in architecture, painting and sculpture to train his crude +perceptions and perhaps call out latent faculties. I should like to see +the works of Ruskin within the reach of every artisan among us. For I +hope some day that the delicacy of touch and accuracy of eye that have +made our mechanics in some departments the best in the world may give us +the same supremacy in works of wider range and more purely ideal scope.</p> + +<p>Voyages and travels I would also have, good store, especially the +earlier, when the world was fresh and unhackneyed and men saw things +invisible to the modern eye. They are fast sailing ships to waft away +from present trouble to the Fortunate Isles.</p> + +<p>To wash down the dryer morsels that every library must necessarily +offer at its board, let there be plenty of imaginative literature, and +let its range be not too narrow to stretch from Dante to the elder +Dumas. The world of the imagination is not the world of abstraction and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>nonentity, as some conceive, but a world formed out of chaos by the +sense of the beauty that <i>is</i> in man and the earth on which he dwells. +It is the realm of might be, our heaven of refuge from the shortcomings +and disillusions of life. It is, to quote Spenser, who knew it well,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“The world's sweet inn from care and wearisome turmoil.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Do we believe, then, that God gave us in mockery this splendid faculty +of sympathy with things that are a joy forever? For my part, I believe +that the love and study of works of imagination is of practical utility +in a country so profoundly material in its leading tendencies as ours. +The hunger after purely intellectual delights, the content with ideal +possessions, cannot but be good for us in maintaining a wholesome +balance of the character and of the faculties. I for one shall never be +persuaded, that Shakespeare left a less useful legacy to his countrymen +than Watt. We hold all the deepest, all the highest satisfactions of +life as tenants of imagination. Nature will keep up the supply of what +are called hard-headed people without our help, and, if it come to that, +there are other as good uses for heads as at the end of battering rams.</p> + +<p>I know that there are many excellent people who object to the reading of +novels as a waste of time, if not as otherwise harmful. But I think they +are trying to outwit nature, who is sure to prove cunninger than they. +Look at children. One boy shall want a chest of tools and one a book, +and of those who want books one shall ask for a botany, another for a +romance. They will be sure to get what they want, and we are doing a +grave wrong to their morals by driving them to do things on the sly, to +steal that food which their constitution craves and which is wholesome +for them, instead of having it freely and frankly given them as the +wisest possible diet. If we cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, +so neither can we hope to succeed with the opposite experiment. But we +may spoil the silk for its legitimate uses. I can conceive of no +healthier reading for a boy, or girl either, than Scott's novels or +Cooper's, to speak only of the dead. I have found them very good reading +at least for one young man, for one middle-aged man, and for one who is +growing old. No, no; banish the Antiquary, banish Leather Stocking, and +banish all the world! Let us not go about to make life duller than it +is.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p><p>But I must shut the doors of my imaginary library, or I shall never +end. It is left for me to say a few words of fitting acknowledgment to +Mr. Fitz for his judicious and generous gift. It is always a pleasure to +me that I believe the custom of giving away money during their lifetime +(and there is nothing harder for most men to part with, except +prejudice) is more common with Americans than with any other people. It +is a still greater pleasure to see that the favorite direction of their +beneficence is toward the founding of colleges and libraries. My +observation has led me to believe that there is no country in which +wealth is so sensible of its obligations as our own. And, as most of our +rich men have risen from the ranks, may we not fairly attribute this +sympathy with their kind to the benign influence of democracy rightly +understood? My dear and honored friend, George William Curtis, told me +that he was sitting in front of the late Mr. Ezra Cornell in a +convention, where one of the speakers made a Latin quotation. Mr. +Cornell leaned forward and asked for a translation of it, which Mr. +Curtis gave him. Mr. Cornell thanked him, and added: “If I can help it, +no young man shall grow up in New York hereafter without the chance, at +least, of knowing what a Latin quotation means when he hears it.” This +was the germ of Cornell University, and it found food for its roots in +that sympathy and thoughtfulness for others of which I just spoke. This +is the healthy side of that good nature which democracy tends to foster, +and which is so often harmful when it has its root in indolence or +indifference; especially harmful where our public affairs are concerned, +and where it is easiest, because there we are giving away what belongs +to other people. In this country it is as laudably easy to procure +signatures to a subscription paper as it is shamefully so to obtain them +for certificates of character and recommendations to office. And is not +this public spirit a natural evolution from that frame of mind in which +New England was colonized, and which found expression in these grave +words of Robinson and Brewster: “We are knit together as a body in a +most strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord, of the violation +of which we make great conscience, and by virtue whereof we hold +ourselves strictly tied to all care of each other's good, and of the +whole.” Let us never forget the deep and solemn import of these words. +The problem before us is to make a whole of our many discordant parts, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>many foreign elements, and I know of no way in which this can better be +done than by providing a common system of education and a common door of +access to the best books by which that education may be continued, +broadened, and made fruitful. For it is certain that, whatever we do or +leave undone, those discordant parts and foreign elements are to be, +whether we will or no, members of that body which Robinson and Brewster +had in mind, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, for good or ill.</p> + +<p>There is no way in which a man can build so secure and lasting a +monument for himself as in a public library. Upon that he may +confidently allow “Resurgam” to be carved, for through his good deed he +will rise again in the grateful remembrance and in the lifted and +broadened minds and fortified characters of generation after generation. +The pyramids may forget their builders, but memorials such as this have +longer memories.</p> + +<p>Mr. Fitz has done his part in providing your library with a dwelling. +It will be for the citizens of Chelsea to provide it with worthy +habitants. So shall they, too, have a share in the noble eulogy of the +ancient wise man: “The teachers shall shine as the firmament, and they +that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.”</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_INFLUENCE_OF_GOOD_BOOKS" id="THE_INFLUENCE_OF_GOOD_BOOKS"></a>THE INFLUENCE OF GOOD BOOKS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The following paragraphs, which are from an address +delivered by Rev. Dr. Collyer at the opening of the Richard +Sugden Library at Spencer, Mass., are taken from a report in +<i>The Library Journal</i> (September, 1889). The +autobiographical portions, perhaps, are little related to +the progress of libraries here in the United States, but +their interest is so great that more of them have been +included here than are strictly pertinent to our subject.</p> + +<p>Robert Collyer was born in Keighley, Yorkshire, Eng., Dec. +8, 1823. He was apprenticed to a blacksmith as a boy of 14, +came to Shoemakertown, Pa., with his parents in 1850 and +followed there the trade of a hammermaker. Later he entered +the ministry of the Unitarian church and in 1860 founded +Unity church in Chicago. In 1879 he became pastor of the +Church of the Messiah in New York City, where he died in +1912.</p></div> + + +<p>When Richard Sugden asked me to come to Spencer and say some word +which would fit this occasion, I wrote him by the next mail that I +should be ever so glad to come, and felt that it was a great honor to +receive such an invitation, and a great pleasure. Nor was the trouble of +much account—which touches us all who say Aye to such an invitation on +the impulse of the moment and then wonder how we shall make our promise +good. My old friend wanted me to come, and not another and better man, +and to say the word which was in my heart to-day, whatever this might +be; and this was enough, because I had read in the papers—what he was +far too modest to tell me, beyond the merest mention—about the gift of +Richard Sugden to his town, and so I said it makes no great matter what +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>any man may say, the thing he has done tells its own story, and tells it +more nobly than I could ever hope to do, more nobly and in this fashion +which shames my speech. For our words float away on the summer winds, to +be caught, it may be, and set in type and read by those who care for +such things, and then to die and be forgotten; but this your friend and +mine has done in Spencer will be eloquent with the silence which is +golden, and still tell its tale when we are all dead and dust who gather +here to-day. It is a poor and scant manhood which does not long now and +then to be remembered some little while after the grass grows green and +the daisies bloom on the grave. To have them speak of us at the +fire-side and in the workshop and the market, remembering what was +worthy in us and forgetting what was base, though there may be no more +to tell by comparison than Dr. Ripley told down in Concord, as he stood +by the dust of a man in his own town, and being sorely troubled to find +some real worth in the man's life he could dwell on for a moment, said, +“He was the best man I ever knew at a fire.” I cannot even guess whether +Richard Sugden ever thought of this as one of the rewards which must +return to him for his gift to Spencer, and I love to think that to his +generous heart the work was its own reward. But I say, as we stand here +on this day of gift and dedication, that if this had been his sole +purpose, to be held in grateful remembrance of his fellow-townsmen and +their children through centuries of time, then he has taken out an +insurance that will stand good always and keep his memory green in the +town of Spencer. And not here alone, but far away across the sea in old +Yorkshire, where his home was in the old time before he came to this new +world to seek his fortune, and, far more and better than that, to earn +it honestly and well. The story will be told there long after to-day and +to-morrow, how one of the Sugdens who went out from among them gave this +gift, and then the kith and kin will hold up their heads and feel that +the fine old name has won still another patent of nobility. A poor youth +he was in the narrow, contracted, dear old land, where the poor were +held by a cruel bit. And a voice came to him, saying, “Get thee out from +thy kindred and thy father's house unto a land that I will tell thee +of”; and he followed the voice, as I did also, to the promised land; +carved out his fortune honest and fair, I say, but then could not be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>content to enrich his own family alone, or, as so many do, to remember +his town in his will. He must build this noble structure, please God, in +his own lifetime, and convey it by free gift to you and yours forever; +and so the work is done, and so well done, to all seeming, that if you +care for the gift as your friend has cared for its creation, we may say, +as old Andrew Fairservice said of the cathedral in Glasgow, “Keep airn +and gunpooder aff it, and it will stand to the crack o'doom.”</p> + +<p>My friend and yours is also an Englishman and a Yorkshireman, as you +know, by birth and breeding, as I am also, and I am the more glad and +proud of what he has done for that reason; because I still love old +England with a very tender love after these forty years of absence, as I +know he does also. But I have had to notice how very many of us who came +here from England to find a home in the American republic, and it may be +make their fortune, can find nothing so good in this new world as that +they left behind them, and no matter how much wealth they may win, they +do nothing as a rule for the town they live in, like this your friend +has done in Spencer. He could not be content to be a mere exile from +England, he must be a citizen of the United States and blend his life +with the life in this new world which has made him so much more of a man +than he ever could have been had he stayed on that hill-side in old +Yorkshire. This is the true home of his heart and life, here he won his +wealth and found ample room to grow to be the man you honor, and here is +one proof among many he has given in all these years, that while he was +born in England and is proud of it, though he may not say so, he was +born again in America, and does not love the old land less but the new +land more, as every man must who comes here to share your life, if he is +worth his salt.</p> + +<p>You will pardon me, I know, as you receive the gift, for this word in +praise of the giver, while he may find it hard to do so; but for that I +do not care, because in asking me to come here and say the word that was +in my heart he must run his risk and take it as it came to me, and +insisted on being said. Richard Sugden falls into line with our +home-born men far and wide, but especially in Massachusetts, who have +done or are ready to do some such thing as he has done now in +Spencer—building these public libraries in the towns where they live or +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>from which they went away to seek their fortune; public libraries, which +range with the schools and churches and the town halls; which are the +four-square defence of our life as citizens of the republic and of our +intelligence and virtue, when they are nobly maintained. They can do no +nobler thing. They are sure of their reward, also, if they want one, in +the grateful remembrance of their towns and cities, and open the way for +others again who wonder what they can do to the finest purpose; men who +have made their fortune and have not been struck by what we may call the +greenback paralysis, through which the hand that gets takes all the +strength from the hand that gives. What can we do better, they will say +in such a case, than this Richard Sugden has done for Spencer, and many +another man far and wide?—see to it that our town also shall have a +public library, which shall be its pride and joy, and make perfect so +far as we can the defence from ignorance and vice and crime; open a +fountain from which the waters of life may flow forever for those who +thirst for knowledge or whatever good books can give them? And, as I +have had to notice up among the mountains this summer how I would not +feel thirsty till I came to a clear, cool spring, but then would drink +to my heart's content, so such fountains as these will also create the +thirst they can so nobly allay, while still we keep on drinking in +answer to their perpetual invitation, as the years come and go.</p> + +<p>And now shall I tell you a very simple story touching my own life, +which will help to make good my thought of the worth of this you are +doing in Spencer through your free public library, and have been doing, +as I understand, these 30 years, which is in itself a great and singular +honor to your town, maintaining a free library and reading-room at your +own proper charges, for which your friend and fellow-citizen has built +this noble edifice, with some such feeling as he had in the old time who +built the temple that the ark of the covenant and the rod which budded +and the sacred books might have an abiding and splendid home. It was my +lot to be born as your friend was and mine, in a poor and small home, +with this thirst in my nature, as far back as I can remember, for +something to read. And I mind very well the first book I ever bought +with my own penny, the delectable history of Whittington and his Cat, +which cast such a spell over my imagination that when I went up Highgate +Hill over London the other summer, and saw the stone on which poor Dick +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>sat down to hear the bells ringing far below, which lured him back again +to fame and fortune, I found I was a small boy again reading my small +wonder-book, and the old stone divided the honors of a tender interest +with the red granite shaft set above the grave of the woman of finest +genius England has to her name, George Eliot, which is a few minutes' +walk away.</p> + +<p>There were a few books in our small cottage of three rooms, but these +were among the best in the English tongue, the Bible and Bunyan and +Goldsmith, with a few more I do not now remember, but these I read as +you drink at clear, cool springs. Then a man came along from over the +moors and brought Burns with him, and another brought Shakespeare. My +father borrowed these for me to read, and the world grew great and wide +and wonderful to me as I read them, while to this day I notice that I +care more for the history of England in Shakespeare's grand dramas than +I do for Hume and Froude and Macaulay, so great was the spell cast again +over my life. Then an old farmer came along with a couple of volumes, +and said, “Here, lad, I notice thou is fond o' good reading, and I think +thou will like to read these books.” It was Irving's Sketch-Book and it +was Christmas day, and I was away from home then and lonesome, wanting +to be with my folks and to sit by the old fireside, but the magic wand +of Irving touched me and stole away all my tears. Still, as you may see, +this was only hand-to-mouth reading. I had never seen a public library, +but had heard of them and longed to find one somewhere, sometime, as, I +fear, I never had longed to find my way into heaven. Well, I heard of +one that had been started only three miles away, and so I went with my +heart in my mouth to see what I could find to read in the wonderful new +library. I can see the books now standing on the shelves in the small +upper room, and recall the old delight of my youth. I go into the Astor +Library now and then when I have time, rich in the lore of all the ages, +and have wandered through some of the finest in the world beside, but +that small room in Addingham is still the story of one's first love. +There were some 200 volumes, but here I was with all this wealth of +books at my command at about the cost of three days' work in a year. I +cannot tell you the story of that first grand passion and the delight of +it. I had found a library. I like that honest Dutchman, a fine old +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>scholar says, who told me that one page of Plato did him more good than +ten bumpers of wine, and that was the way I felt about those 200 +volumes. I had found out the unspeakable delight of drinking all my +heart could desire, and struck the matchless intoxication of noble and +wholesome books, that leave no headache or heartache when you are sober, +only it was a good while before I got sober.</p> + +<p>Then I came in due time to this new world and began to work again at the +anvil in Pennsylvania, my own proper business I expected to follow all +my life, and presently heard of a library in the small town of Hatboro, +six or seven miles away, six one way and seven the other. A fine old +farmer had found a long while ago that this was the noblest use he could +make of a good deal of his money, to build up a library away among the +rich green lands, and so there it was waiting for me with its treasure +of good books. I see them again as they stand on the shelves, and think +I could walk right in and lay my hands on those that won me most +potently and cast their spell again over my heart, though it is five and +thirty years since I was within the doors. I may mention Hawthorne among +them all as the author I found there for the first time who won my heart +for good and all, as we may say, and holds it still. Then I found a +great treasure in no long time in Philadelphia, that I could no more +exhaust than you can exhaust the spring we have been glancing at by +drinking, which dips down toward the deepness of the world. I was still +bound fast to the anvil, for this was our living, but there was my life, +so far as good books could make it, rich for me and noble in the great +library again seven miles away. So what matter about the hard day's work +at the anvil, while there was some new volume to read when the day's +work was done or old one to read with an ever new delight. My new book +or old one, with the sweet green lane in the summer time where I could +walk while the birds sang their mating song, and the fragrance of the +green things growing floated on the soft summer air, and the fireside in +winter with the good wife busy about the room, and the little ones +sleeping in their cribs, I look back to those times still and wonder +whether they were not the best I ever knew. I was reading some lines the +other day in an old English ballad written 300 years ago, and they told +the story of those times:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“O for a booke, and a shadie nook, eyther indoore, or out,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the green leaves whisp'ring overhede, or the streete cries all about,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where I maie reade, all at my ease, both of the New and Olde,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For a right good Booke, whereon to looke, was better to me than Golde.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And so I touch the story of my own life for some poor evidence of what +good books can do for us and for the worth of what you have been doing +in Spencer all these years, and are made glad to day by this library +building which crowns the good endeavor; a place that will not shame but +will glorify your purpose and hold it to the noblest and best endeavors +you can make in the time to come, for such a shrine will be sure to draw +books to it always, worthy of its beauty and grace, and there will be +other men and women also to follow in the steps of Richard Sugden, and +bring to it costly works and rare and beautiful, worthy to be in the +palaces of kings while still you will see to it that the noble provision +of books for the general reading rests directly as it has done so long +on your own generous care.</p> + +<p>You have made this noble boon of good books easy and opulent for the +workingmen of Spencer. When I came to this new world and had not heard +as yet of that library among the green lands, but must have books on any +terms, and the terms were hard, and the good wife watching not the +dollars but the very cents because they must all be saved to furnish the +little home, I can well remember how I bought a book one day for half a +dollar, far too big to smuggle into the cottage, and hid it in the +bushes, watched my chances the next day, and got it in all safe and +sound; and some days after, when she caught me reading, and said, “Where +did you get that book, my dear?” I answered, “Why, I have had it for +some time”; and then she only said, “Indeed!” for she was patient with +me and good; and then, it was in what somebody calls our treacle moon. +The workingmen of Spencer fall on happy times. Here are books easy to +come at as the water you drink and the air you breathe and stores of +them which can never be exhausted. If it had come to pass thirty years +ago that some man delving in your wild hills had struck gold, and all +the eager manhood of New England had gone crazy to delve for gold where +Spencer stands, and had found it in mighty stores, I wonder whether that +would have been such a boon to Spencer and the world as this you have +done—establishing great industries and wholesome and good; beckoning +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>the working forces from far and wide to come here and take hold with you +on such terms as we can find nowhere else outside this new world. +Brother McGlynn, I remember, as we rode together to the funeral of Gen. +Grant, called out some half-dozen times, “God's world for the +workingman!” You did this who were the pioneers of the strong and +steadfast town, and then you said, We must have a free public library, +and pay the bills; we have got our churches started, and our schools, +and our place for town-meeting—the tap-root of the tree of liberty in +New England, a living tree, and no mere liberty-pole, and reaching down +200 years—now we must complete the walls of the city, which standeth +four-square, by a free public library, and so do what men may to +maintain a fair public virtue and intelligence within the lines of +Spencer; these men we employ shall have books to read of every kind any +man ought to read, and the ought shall be large and free and fair; and +so the thing was done.</p> + +<p>The thirty years have come and gone; the free public library has done +its noble and beautiful work. It is a new departure we touch to-day in +this ceremony of gift and acceptance. This library will grow always more +worthy the name your friend and neighbor has made for it from this time. +They say that in Scotland once a man sent for his minister and said, “If +I give £20,000 to the church do you think it will be reckoned in my +account when I get through down here?” And the minister said: “I do not +feel sure about that; but it is weel worth the experiment.” I do feel +sure about this, and the worth of what you can do, to be placed to your +credit, not yonder but right here in the town of Spencer. There can be +no nobler investment, and but few as noble as this you have made these +thirty years for all who have the hunger and thirst in them good books +can satisfy; while still with poor Oliver in the story, we ask for more; +and they are not dead things, as Milton says, but contain a potency of +life as active as the soul from which they sprang:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Books are each a world; and those we know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are a substantial world both pure and good;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our pastime and our happiness will grow.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And books are yours<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within whose silent chambers treasure lies<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Preserved from age to age; more precious far<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than that accumulated store of gold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And orient gems, which for a day of need<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Sultans hide deep in ancestral vaults.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These stores of truth you can unlock at will.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOOKS_AND_LIFE" id="BOOKS_AND_LIFE"></a>BOOKS AND LIFE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The influence of books on the community has been used in +this address by Dean (now President) Birge as a basis for +discussing their reaction on special groups, especially +those differentiated by age and sex, and how far the library +should be guided by it and take advantage of it. It is +perhaps the best general treatment of the group features of +socialized library work by a speaker of authority, not a +professional librarian.</p> + +<p>Edward Asahel Birge was born at Troy, N.Y., Sept. 7, 1851, +graduated at Williams in 1873 and since 1875 has been a +member of the University of Wisconsin faculty, serving +successively as instructor in natural history, professor of +zoology, dean of the college of arts and sciences, acting +president, and finally in 1919, president of the University. +He has also served as a director of the Free Library at +Madison, and in 1906 was president of the Wisconsin Library +Association, before whom this address was delivered.</p></div> + + +<p>The aspect of the subject to which I would call your attention is the +often observed fact of the extent to which modern life in all of its +phases, is becoming based upon books. I say in all of its phases, for we +are concerned with the present extent of this relation between books and +life with its rapid increase, rather than with its existence. Ever since +the beginning of human society men have based their actions on the +teachings of experience. Part of these teachings each individual has +directly derived from his environment, and he has supplemented and +enlarged them by means of those coming from the remembered experience of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>others, often belonging to an older generation. Later in history there +were added those teachings derived from books—from the recorded +experience of others. With that enlargement of the basis of human action +which comes from the remembered experience of others we, as librarians, +have nothing to do, and, indeed, there is little to say about it now +which could not have been said with equal propriety, one, two, or twenty +centuries ago. With books the case is different. The last century, the +last generation, the last decade—each has seen the transfer of the +basis of action from the oral to the printed word, which could be +paralleled by no other period of equal length in the history of +civilization. The story of this transfer from talk to print, from rule +of thumb to textbook, from tradition to school, from practise to +science, is long and intensely interesting. I can touch only a few +phases of it.</p> + +<p>First consider the lengthening of the school period for children. I do +not think it is possible accurately to compare the present length of +this period with that which existed a century or a half ago; nor would +such a comparison interest us. It is enough for our purpose to know that +years have been added to the school life of many thousands of the youth +of all classes. As a single illustration, consider the effect of the +high school, whose development into a large and popular institution, an +institution affecting great masses of the people, belongs almost wholly +to the period within the life of the generation now on the stage. A half +century ago the public high school was almost unknown and the private +academy reached very few persons. Only a generation ago the number of +students in secondary schools was hardly one-tenth of the present +number. The attendance on institutions of secondary grade has thus +increased five times as rapidly as the population. Within the past +fifteen years the attendance in the high schools of Milwaukee has more +than trebled, while only a little more than fifty per cent. has been +added to the population of the city. In Racine almost exactly the same +ratio holds, and so for many other cities of the United States, the +increase being least marked in New England cities, and greatest in the +cities of the West.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p><p>The formative influence of the high school youth are far more +extensively and exclusively books than were those of his father or +grandfather, who probably began to learn his trade, or his business, at +about the age when his boy enters the high school, and who therefore, +during the period of adolescence, received his training from action +rather than from study, from oral rather than from printed experience.</p> + +<p>One may find to-day in the writings of many teachers jeremiads over the +shortness of the average school life of children. I would not contradict +their statistics and would join in their regrets, but the fact remains +that the most striking phenomenon in the life of the children of the +past thirty years is the extent to which their training has been +committed to the use of books and the rapid growth of the use of books +as the period has advanced. Few as the school years of the children now +are, those of any older generation have been fewer. This aspect of the +matter is the one that is of interest to us, and the school life of the +present, instead of arousing our regrets by its brevity, may well call +out our astonishment by its length, and demand the use of our best wits +to see the changes which have been caused in the life of the present and +to forecast those which in the future will flow from this fundamental +change in education.</p> + +<p>One of these correlated changes is already apparent—the extension of +the period of book learning for many thousands of persons into the +college and university course.</p> + +<p>In 1850 the total attendance on colleges in the United States was about +ten thousand. Half a century later, when the population of the country +had increased about three and one-third times, the college students had +increased in a tenfold ratio, or more than three times as rapidly as the +population. Even more significant is the growth of the number of college +students in more recent years. Since 1889 the number has more than +doubled, thus continuing in the latest years a ratio of growth with +reference to population quite as great as in earlier years.</p> + +<p>An equally significant, and quite as conspicuous change, is seen in the +growth of technical education. Thirty years ago, when I came to +Wisconsin, the university was graduating from two or three and a half +dozen engineers yearly, and these could not all find occupation in this +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>commonwealth, with a population then of more than a million people. Now +a hundred graduates go out at Commencement, while the population of the +state has little more than doubled, and while other engineering schools +of high rank have multiplied all around it.</p> + +<p>Nowadays the man of books, rather than the man of tradition is directing +the work of the world. In the copper mines of the north the +old-fashioned mine captain, who received his profession and his +traditions from his father, is disappearing and has almost vanished. His +place is taken by the graduate of a mining school, who interprets what +he sees, not by the light of the experience of his elders, communicated +to him orally, but by the far clearer light of the collective experience +of men embodied in books.</p> + +<p>When the capitalist now desires to explore for new iron mines he employs +not the old-fashioned prospector, but puts into the field a party of +young men often fresh from the geological laboratory. Thus science, +organized knowledge, book learning, is driving out with increasing +rapidity the picturesque figures of past times—times wholly past, +though only just behind us in years. That “bookish theoric,” so detested +by Iago, is apparently firmly in control of affairs and has displaced +its predecessors and rivals.</p> + +<p>In countless other ways the same fact is shown. Half a century ago a +youth who desired to become a lawyer or a doctor entered the office of a +practitioner and learned his profession by practise and experience. Now +he goes to the school of law or medicine and gains his entrance to his +chosen calling by the way of books and laboratories. Even commerce and +trade, in which the rules of practical experience seem most firmly +entrenched, are shifting their basis to books, and schools of commerce +and trade schools are springing up on every hand to give youth a broader +foundation of knowledge than can be gained from practise. Still more +significant are the facts shown by the enormous development of +agricultural experiment stations, farmers' bulletins and farmers' +institutes. Agriculture, that calling which of all others is most +ancient and most conservative, is rapidly changing its basis from +tradition to books. Perhaps I ought not to say “most conservative,” for +there is one calling which may better deserve the title—that of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>domestic industries practised by women. Yet even here a beginning of the +transfer, although a small one, has been made by schools of domestic +science.</p> + +<p>While this beginning is but small, and while the traditional professions +of women have not yet been greatly modified by books, the life of no +class of the community has been more profoundly affected by this general +change than has that of women. With the passing away of home industries +and with the great increase of wealth which the past century, or half +century, has seen, have come vastly increased opportunities to women for +leisure, for release from domestic duties, and for the prolongation of +school life. The statistics of high schools and colleges sufficiently +show the use which they are making of this leisure. Other facts are +equally obvious and significant as showing the transfer of the basis of +woman's life from domestic experience to books. The woman's club, I +suppose, may be said fairly to take the place of the sewing circle of +our mothers and grandmothers. The contrast even in the name is +significant, as marking the transfer of interest from the circle of +domestic experience to the wider domain of the recorded life of the +world, to the realm of books.</p> + +<p>Thus at whatever point we examine the life of the present, we find it +basing itself on books, both for action and enjoyment, and that in an +ever-increasing degree. This truth is peculiarly evident to you as +librarians, since the facts of your own profession and the rapid growth +of libraries and library work afford one of the latest phases of this +general movement.</p> + +<p>From 1875 to 1896 the number of libraries in the United States just +about doubled, increasing steadily, and adding, during this period, +about 2,000 libraries, or a little less than 100 per year. From 1896 to +1900, 1,350 libraries were added, or about 450 per year. From 1900 to +1903, 1,500 libraries were founded, or 500 per year. In the past ten +years the number of libraries must have doubled; a ratio growth at least +four times that of the population....</p> + +<p>It is plain that the adjustment of the library to this movement of +men's minds towards books is the most important practical question for +all of us. Questions of management, of administration, of methods are +all of secondary importance beside this one—if, indeed they may be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>called even secondary. For this change of base is a revolutionary +affair, not a mere matter of readjustment of detail, and it is no easy +task for the library to find itself in such a movement. Libraries are so +small a part of the national intellectual life, so small, in the mass, +for example, in comparison to the great universities, that their proper +influence and work are easily overlooked. There is sometimes danger that +they may be swept into currents guided by other forces rather than find +opportunity freely to contribute their own share to the movement.</p> + +<p>Let us turn then to the more practical side of the question, and ask how +the library is adjusting itself, in this changed relation of men, where +it has best succeeded, and where it still has most to do. Let us ask +where experience seems to promise successful solution of problems, and +where the problems are in that stage in which only doubtful success can +be expected from experiments, and final solution still lies far before +us.</p> + +<p>The library began as a place to keep books, permitting their use by the +public, but often under such restrictions as seem to indicate that this +service was granted “grudgingly and of necessity.” Books and the high +life were in some obscure way correlated in the mind of the librarian, +and he too often seemed to feel that these were treasures not to be +shared by the many. The first change which came, therefore, as the +library was swept into the general intellectual current of time, was the +removal of restrictions on the use of books and their replacement by +devices intended to encourage and extend that use. A second step, and a +much more revolutionary one, has been to teach the community directly +the uses of books, and thus not merely to afford easy conditions for the +use of books on the part of those who want them, but to add a positive +force which will compel the books to go out in the community, there to +perform their present service and to create a demand for an increased +service in the future.</p> + +<p>This change marks a fundamental departure of the library from its old +basis, and one which will affect it greatly, for good and perhaps for +ill. The movement toward freedom of administration was really concerned +with small matters, and left unaltered the central plan and purpose of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>the library. But with the assumption of direct educational work for +children, for women, for men, the library has entered upon a new epoch +in its evolution. It has taken up duties whose performance will demand +greatly enlarged resources—of space and of money, of books and of +working staff. And what is of even greater importance, the purpose, the +point of view, of those who control the library, and the temper of the +administration, will change, and ought to change, under the pressure of +these new duties.</p> + +<p>This positive and educational library work falls into two main +types—that for children, and that for adults—both men and women. It is +still in a tentative condition, in a formative and experimental period. +The results are still so few and recent that they do not admit any exact +formulation. They permit only general and suggestive statement.</p> + +<p>Work for children is, in some ways, the easiest educational attempt of +the library, since it runs parallel to the work of the schools, and +those for whom the work is done are easily reached and easily guided. +Its function is, of course, in part to supplement the school. It would +be, however, a great misfortune if it were looked upon merely as a +supplement to the school, as a means of providing reading which the +school ought to buy, but cannot afford. Its purpose is rather to begin +in childhood, both for pleasure and for profit, a voluntary association +with books which lie wholly outside of the school program. It aims to +begin the early formation of the habit of reading as distinguished from +study—a habit which will be permanent, instead of ending with the +period of formal instruction. It recognizes the fact that school life +must soon end, and that when the end comes, the important feature of the +child's intellectual condition is not so much the amount he has learned +as the temper and habit of his mind toward books. Has he merely learned +certain truths from books or are books open to him? It is of fundamental +importance to the community that the second alternative be secured. The +school libraries and children's librarians are, therefore, not to feel +that their duty is to supplement the school. That duty lies on a +different, and, in a way, a higher plane, in a more spiritual region. It +is their part to make the child a citizen of the world of books, and to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>naturalize him so thoroughly that he will always remain a citizen. Thus +only can he share fully, not only in the high and permanent pleasures +that books afford, but also in that great movement of life toward books +which marks our time.</p> + +<p>From remarks which I have heard on various occasions, I believe this +extension of library service and library duties to youth has often been +misunderstood. Work with school children, whether done by the library +force as part of their duties, or by assistants especially engaged, has +seemed to many to be a somewhat unnecessary extension of the +library—something of a luxury. These added duties have often been +assumed by the libraries under special pleas, and for reasons temporary +in character. But in that wider view which I am trying to present, the +truth is recognized that the library is a permanent storehouse of books +for the community, to which the citizen of every class and age must +repair for knowledge not only interesting and useful but necessary to +the conduct of life. We recognize also that while the training of the +schools soon ceases for every individual, the service of the library +extends throughout life. We assert also that the possibilities of this +service must be taught to the members of the community from childhood, +and that the efficiency of the books will largely depend on the +efficiency with which this teaching is done.</p> + +<p>Especial care must be taken with children and youth toward the end of +the ordinary school periods—in the upper grades and in the high school. +Here it is that the transition to independent reading must come. The +children's room must not be merely an appendage to the kindergarten and +primary school, but the library must supply to youth of all ages not +only books, but inspiration in reading. The questions which arise in +work for children are many and often perplexing, but if these general +principles are accepted, they are, after all, questions of detail rather +than of principle.</p> + +<p>The library's influence over women has been the greatest in extent and +productive of the largest results; so much so that, in the opinion of +many critics of the public library, that institution is in danger of +becoming “feminized.” I shall not attempt to discuss so large a subject +as that indicated by this fearful word, but it may not be unprofitable +to touch upon the causes which have given the work of the library for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>women at once so great an extension and so great a success, as well as +some obvious limitations. I should place first among the causes, both +for the success and the limitation of this influence, the recent +acquisition by women of large opportunities for the intellectual life, +their natural conservatism, and their greatly increased leisure as +compared with men. That women read books, and read them in enormous +numbers, is granted, indeed asserted. That they read seriously I have +heard questioned and have always wondered at the doubt. It seems to me +rather that they never read in any way except seriously. How many +women—reading women, I mean—can put away an unfinished book without a +sense of guilt? How many can “browse about” in a library and enjoy doing +so? How many really like to read a dictionary or encyclopaedia without +ulterior designs upon an article for the women's club, or, at least, +without wanting to know something? These are all tests—unconscious, but +none the less excellent—of the real readers, of those to whom books are +alive and intimate friends. While I have no statistics at hand, I fear +that many women most devoted to libraries would fail to reach this +standard. The field of the intellectual life has been widely opened to +women so recently that they still feel a certain sense of duty along +with the privilege which is granted them in entering it, rather than a +complete sense of being at home there. The conservatism of women helps +this tendency to read seriously and for general purposes. The +traditional use of books as a means of culture appeals to their more +conservative mind as it does not to men. They are more easily induced to +read for reading's sake—they are willing to read the books one ought to +read. They are moved by considerations of mental improvement independent +of any result beyond the improvement itself. The library as a library +attracts them. Then, too, the amount of their reading and its character +is modified by the fact that women are so much more limited than men in +means to pass their leisure. Jerome K. Jerome (if correctly reported by +newspapers) recently pointed out that much so-called reading is no more +an intellectual process than is smoking a cigar, and that often we go to +books just as to the cigar, to pass the time and to prevent the +intrusion of disagreeable thoughts. Of course this is, and ought to be, +wholly true, and since with us the cigar is a masculine privilege, the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>woman must take to books as the man takes to smoking, and even to +drinking. Speaking seriously, the library is to many women a relief from +care—the only distraction from the monotony of routine. It is a cheap +and easy thing to sneer at this use of books, but we who believe in the +friendship of books know that here lies one of the greatest blessings +they can give, as it is one of the greatest blessings of true +friendship. Nor do we wonder that the uncultivated, or the +half-cultivated, often choose their book friends from a class not +greatly above their own.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, women have hardly begun to use books on lines along +which we are seeking to get men to read—in directions connected with +their trade or profession. Domestic industries, so far as they are in +the hands of women, are still most wholly dependent upon tradition. They +are not exposed to competition. Failure or inefficiency does not put the +proprietor out of business. Their results are not measured in dollars +and cents. In a word, the whole line of motives which is forcing +masculine industries over to the basis of books is lacking in the chief +feminine occupations. We are now seeing only the feeble beginnings of +the attempt thus to transfer them from tradition to science. A long time +must pass, and social conditions greatly change, before the transfer is +made. Thus women are not forced from general to special lines of +reading, while they have greater motive for general reading than have +men.</p> + +<p>As a result, women are becoming, to a degree without example in the +past, the possessors and transmitters of the life of culture. I do not +believe that fewer men read good literature than formerly, but the +increase in masculine readers of this type has been so much less than +the increase in women readers that in comparison the number of men seems +to have shrunken greatly. Of course much of this reading by women for +culture is desultory and aimless, much is misdirected. But after all +deductions are made, it remains true that the knowledge of books seems +to be tending to become the possession of women rather than of men. It +has always belonged to a certain class of men—not a very large part of +the community—and it is still theirs; but its extension to other +classes has been along female lines rather than male, and its +transmission to the next generation seems only too likely to depend in a +large measure upon the female line. College statistics at present show +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>the same facts. Language, literature, and art are the chosen studies of +women. Men turn rather to science, economics, or politics—subjects +which, they suppose, bear directly on future plans for life. These great +subjects whose main purpose in education is the uplifting of the mind, +the widening of the mental horizon without direct reference to any +specific line of life—these appeal far more strongly to women than to +men, and their influence, in a rapidly increasing degree, will reach the +next generation through the mother rather than through the father. It +would be a pessimistic view which would say that modern society is +coming to depend on the mothers for the accumulation and transmission of +culture, while retaining in the male line the function of accumulating +and transmitting wealth, though much could be said for the thesis and a +very plausible argument could be constructed for it.</p> + +<p>If all this is true, it is inevitable that women should use libraries +far more than men. It is equally inevitable that in this large use much +should be trivial, much customary, much misdirected and unwise. Nature +has no means of reaching success except by the rule of natural +selection—the old-fashioned plan of “cut-and-try,” and this means much +failure along the road of advance. We who see the work of the library +from our daily experience know how much it is contributing of culture, +how much of happiness, to the life of women, and through them to that of +the community.</p> + +<p>But men—why do they not use the library, say the critics, and what +shall the library do to increase its use by men? You have all read the +vigorous article that the <i>Independent</i> published on this subject last +summer, which, with much of error, contains a good deal of truth in a +stimulating form. It presents a subject which must have a somewhat +larger treatment.</p> + +<p>It ought first to be said that in this and other articles on the topic +the terms <i>women</i> and <i>men</i> are by no means similarly used. The writers +are not concerned about men at large—the husbands and brothers of the +women who are said to visit the library—the women of comparative +leisure, who are seeking information on art, literature, or ancestry, +who are trying to get up a paper for the club, or who visit the library +for recreation. It is the plumber, the machinist, the grocer, whose +absence they deplore, and to whom they think the library ought to give +help. Not only so, but it is the plumber, rather than as a man, whose +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>presence is desired and who is to be aided. The library, says the +<i>Independent</i> in effect, ought to teach the plumber how to “plumb”; +ought to furnish him with information which his boss is unable to give. +But this is a new function for libraries, however useful it may be, and +a function which libraries do not attempt for women. Dressmakers do not +(I speak under correction, but I think I am right) expect to secure at a +library a knowledge of how to fit a difficult customer, any more than do +tailors. Yet this sort of thing, we are told, the library ought to do +for men; and we are told in a tone which implies that here is an obvious +duty which only wilful ignorance can overlook.</p> + +<p>It ought rather to be recognized that in undertaking this work the +public library is entering a new and almost unexplored field of effort, +and also that it is trying to extend its influence to classes of the +community which it has not hitherto reached, and along lines of +knowledge which it has never seriously attempted to follow. In such a +work there must be many experiments and many failures, and the positive +results will be small for a long time....</p> + +<p>The problem for the library, as regards men, is therefore twofold: 1. +Can men be induced to visit the library for general purposes, to use it +in ways similar to those for which women come to it? 2. How can the +wage-earners and handicraftsmen be induced to visit the library and use +its books for their practical advantage?</p> + +<p>Let us first consider the general question: Can we reach the men? The +women come to the libraries, say the critics, in shoals and droves, for +all sorts of intellectual purposes, good and bad. You catch the +children, they say, in school, when they cannot get away, and indeed are +glad of relief from lessons; but the men—can you reach them and affect +their lives? In reply we must say at once and frankly that no such large +volume of success with men is possible as has been the case with women. +The public library came to women at the precise moment when increased +education disposed them to use it, and increased leisure gave them the +opportunity. It fills a space in their lives which would be otherwise +void. But the present time is one of decreased leisure and increased +intensity of work for all classes of men. Perhaps I ought to except from +this statement the wage-earner, who as eight hour laws and customs come +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>into force will have more time for reading than the man of almost any +other class in the community. This movement toward lessened hours of +labor is more effective where libraries are best organized and therefore +presents an opportunity for the extension of library influence, both +general and special. The opportunity must be improved, yet neither the +wage-earner nor the business man will be easy to reach; neither has been +among the active patrons of the library in the past. Their lives are +already full, both with business and pleasure, and if the library is to +reach them, it must attract them on lines which appeal to them more +strongly than business or present pleasure. It must reach needs which +they know and feel to be real.</p> + +<p>I do not believe that men of the present generation will come to +libraries in great numbers for the purposes that attract women. We might +as well admit that they will not substitute the novel for the cigar, the +printed story for the companionship of the club. They will not read good +books because they ought to do so, and the number who will read them +because they like to do so is unfortunately not great. Men have not thus +acted since the world began, and man-like, they will not do so now, even +though such conduct on their part would help our library statistics very +greatly. Nor will any great number of them read in order to enlarge the +basis of life, for, in spite of the greatness of the movement toward +books, it affects at first hand only a few people in the community. The +mass of workmen, now and always, will get their knowledge from tradition +or at second hand. It will be the unusual man who will get his ideas +from books at first hand and thus improve his work and that of his +fellows.</p> + +<p>The problem is then to reach these few, and through them the community; +and this brings us to the second phase of the question. I do not find +that the problem has been solved; perhaps it is too recent. But +libraries have been attempting its solution by various methods and with +varying success.</p> + +<p>The first and most successful attempt is that of the large libraries, +like that of Pittsburgh and the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn, which +maintain a technical library for the men—a library adequately housed in +its own rooms and administered by a special librarian. These technical +libraries for working men succeed in their aim of reaching many of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>class for which they are established. They offer not merely an +opportunity for reading, but that guidance in the use of books which all +classes of the community need, if they are to use books for a serious +purpose. They show us that success in this line of effort may be reached +if the library has an income sufficient to enable it to undertake the +task on a large scale.</p> + +<p>This condition is, however, not that of most of the libraries which are +represented here. Our incomes are none too large for the work which we +must necessarily do for the general public. Such libraries must +ordinarily content themselves with offering to men opportunities for +reading without special guidance in the use of books. This work has been +attempted in a good many of the smaller libraries. They attempt to +provide masculine conditions for reading and reading material which will +appeal to men. The first includes a well-furnished, comfortable room for +men, where a man can come in his working clothes without feeling he is +out of place; smoking may be allowed or not—both plans are tried +without great difference in apparent result. The masculine reading +comprises newspapers and magazines; good books of literature which can +be left in the room (paper bound copies suggested); most important of +all are trade journals; if possible, files of the recent volumes of +these journals, selected according to the industries of each town; and +the most readable and most recent reference books on similar subjects. +In a word, a room is furnished with reading which will appeal to the +classes of men who do not ordinarily use libraries and who are not +greatly interested in literature.</p> + +<p>This plan is good one and ought to be tried, but I believe the +conditions are exceptional under which it will reach large numbers of +men. Inertia and habit will keep most of them away from the library. +They will see the daily papers at their wonted places of resort, and the +room, necessarily lacking in much of the freedom of the club, will fail +to attract very many of them. They will not form the habit of visiting +it, even though they might enjoy it if the habit were formed. It must +also be remembered that increasing numbers of the manufacturing concerns +are providing their employees with reading of this kind, and thus +limiting the use of the city library.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p><p>In some libraries the attempt to reach men has gone still further and +has led to an inclusion of attractions which are ordinarily regarded as +outside the work of a library. They have attempted to combine to some +degree the privileges of a club with that of the public library. The +Stevens Point Library has a club room, equipped with billiard tables, +cards, etc., as well as with technical journals and similar books. This, +the librarian reports, is very successful in attracting boys, many of +whom learn to use the library. Men, however, do not come in large +numbers, as they do not care to use a place frequented by boys, and in +which smoking is not permitted. At Wausaukee a special room with games +and where lunch is served has been established at the library as a means +of furnishing a sort of club room for lumber men who come to the +village, especially on Sunday, and who have no other place of resort, +except the saloon. How far such methods are advisable as a part of +library work is a question which will often be asked during the coming +years and which only experience can answer. At present such enterprises +have not gone beyond the stage of early experiment.</p> + +<p>Summing up the result, I would frankly confess that the reports which I +have received are not numerous enough for a positive judgment, yet it is +my impression that where there is an income large enough to provide a +special librarian and a public large enough to warrant the expense, this +movement for special libraries for men is likely to succeed. It seems +also to be true that where the library provides the men with the +opportunity for reading only, and does not furnish guidance for readers, +no very large use is made of technical books and there is no greatly +increased use of the library in general. How to guide the reading seems, +therefore, to be the central factor in the solution of the problem.</p> + +<p>In a small town a special librarian is impossible, for financial +reasons, but there, as well as in large cities, lectures can be given +which deal with practical subjects and the aid to their knowledge which +the library affords. Many cities are giving such courses of lectures, +notably perhaps New York, and with considerable effect on the use of the +public library. I have no statistics regarding such lectures from the +various cities, but undoubtedly this method offers the easiest plan for +extending the use of the library in smaller cities and towns. I say the +<i>easiest</i>, and it will not be difficult to secure good lectures on +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>literature, history, or art, but lectures on the practical subjects are +much more difficult to obtain, since it is hard to secure lecturers who +know more about the trades than do the craftsmen who constitute the +audience.</p> + +<p>If these movements are to succeed, they must not be attempted in an +amateurish way. They must be well planned and well executed—planned and +executed with careful reference to the wants of the men of the +community. Above all, they must be persistently carried out with full +vigor year after year, even though results are apparently small. Their +purpose must be steadfastly maintained and the methods of execution +continually readjusted, as success or failure indicates. It is no light +or easy thing to change the habits of half the adult members of the +community—to cultivate the reading habit in those who have reached +maturity without acquiring it—and the work which the library proposes +for itself involves such a task.</p> + +<p>If men are to be reached at all it must be on a business basis, not on +that of occasional effort. Nor must the missionary spirit prevail, for +men, as a rule, do not wish to be reformed or to be helped. They must +find in the library a place which appeals to their sense of comfort and +which gives them things that they want, or, like other sensible people, +they will not use it.</p> + +<p>One word in closing this topic, and that in emphasis of what I have +already said. It is easier to keep a boy reading as he grows up than to +catch him again as a man after the library has lost him. Take a lesson +from the church. The boy who graduates from Sunday-school rarely returns +for a post-graduate course. In the wise administration of the work for +children and youth lies the main hope not of reaching, but keeping men +in the library.</p> + +<p>But it should be definitely understood that this enlargement of library +work which the times are forcing upon us means increasing expense, more +room, more books—which must be more frequently renewed—and a larger +library staff. It means the attempt to do efficiently several lines of +intellectual work for the public instead of purveying literature for +those who desire it. This new work the library can readily accomplish, +but not with the staff which was sufficient for the old duties. Any +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>library can provide, for example, the list of desiderata mentioned in +the <i>Independent's</i> article, which could easily be extended. They can +all be furnished by the library as the public wants them and will pay +for them. They cannot be, and ought not to be, supplied by an already +overworked library staff of two or three persons.</p> + +<p>The library, therefore, should not enter upon these duties blindly or +ignorantly. It is a great task which is thus undertaken—to educate the +community to use books and to guide it in that use. Although small +beginnings are possible, the work will inevitably grow on our hands just +as that of the schools and colleges has done, and for similar reasons. +But whatever difficulties lie in the way of their performance, it is +plain that the library must assume these new duties. With many +experiments, with many failures, with many partial successes, the +library will extend its teachings, its conscious influences, until they +touch the life of the community at every point.</p> + +<p>In this rambling talk I have discussed library work as it looks forward +to new problems, and have devoted only a word, and that perhaps a rather +disparaging one, to the traditional use of the library. I would not +leave the subject in this way. For the traditional use of books remains +and will remain the center of library work and the main source of its +best influences. The problem of the library to-day, looked at from +within and not from without, and in relation to other agencies, is +essentially that which confronts the university. Both institutions once +stood for culture and for culture exclusively. Both are now challenged +by the spirit of the newer time and are called upon to justify +themselves as public utilities. This they must do, and that in full +measure, but there is a real danger that both, in the multiplicity of +the new duties thus forced upon them, may forget the weighty words, +“these ought ye to do and not leave the other undone.” For, after all, +the highest public utility which the library offers, or can offer, is +the opportunity to cultivate the friendship of books. This utility is +none the less precious because it is intangible. Indeed, it is the +unique privilege of the library among municipal enterprises that it can +provide a service which aids the higher life of the citizen so directly +and so purely. In the spirituality of this function, the library stands +second only to the highest institutions of pure learning, and to the +church.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p><p>No new undertaking, no extension of work, no plea of necessity can +warrant or justify any loss of power on this highest level. The problem +is not to discover how to sacrifice as little as possible of the old +spirit to the new duties, but to learn how through the new duties we may +make more wide-spread and more potent for good that oldest and best +inheritance from the past—the love of books.</p> + +<p>“The people's university,” the library has been called, but it would be +as great a pity if the librarian so understood this term as to believe +that people came to the library only to learn, as it would be if any +went there who could not learn what they sought. That university which +is a place to study rather than a place to live is missing its best +possibilities, and in a similar way the library ought to be, first and +always, a place to read rather than a place to study. I would not go so +far as to say that I want to find it a place to “loaf,” though I might +be provoked into saying so; but certainly it must be a place where I can +“invite my soul”—such a place as the world gives me elsewhere only in +the church or in the silence of nature. Trade journals and technical +works are of great use; books for women's clubs are good things; the +children's room is a necessity; but these of themselves no more make a +library than a kitchen, dining room and bedroom make a home. Out of such +utilities as these you may get a boarding house, but nothing better; the +family makes it a home. Those are wholly wrong who believe that standard +books are so cheap that anyone can buy them, and therefore the library +could conceivably get on without them. Without the best literature you +might get a very useful institution, no doubt, but not a library, for in +a library the great works of the great authors are the soul and theirs +is the spirit which enables the library not merely to contribute to the +advance of the community toward prosperity and intelligence, but also, +in some degree, to touch its higher life to finer issues.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_BOSTON_PUBLIC_LIBRARY" id="THE_BOSTON_PUBLIC_LIBRARY"></a>THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY</h2> + +<p class='center'><span class="smcap">An Address at its Dedication</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This and the four addresses that follow it have little in +common except that all were delivered at the opening +exercises of libraries. Everett's address at the opening of +the Boston Public Library appropriately heads the group. The +reader will look in it in vain for any reflection of the +conservative opinions expressed in the letter to George +Ticknor printed on page 53 of this volume, unless perhaps in +the total absence of anything radical. It is typical oratory +of the day—ponderously graceful, if that is not a +contradiction in terms.</p> + +<p>Edward Everett was born in Dorchester, Mass., April 11, +1794. He graduated at Harvard in 1811 and served there as +professor of Greek in 1819-25. He was a member of Congress +in 1825-35, governor of Massachusetts in 1836-40, minister +to Great Britain in 1841-45, president of Harvard, 1846-49, +U.S. secretary of state in 1852-53, and U.S. senator in +1853-54. He died in Boston, Jan. 15, 1865. His reputation as +a scholarly orator was very high.</p></div> + + +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Mayor</span>:—</p> + +<p>In behalf of the Trustees of the City Library, I receive with extreme +pleasure the keys which you have placed in my hands. The completion of +the noble building, which the city government now confides to our care, +is an event to which the Trustees have looked forward with the greatest +interest, and which they now contemplate with the highest satisfaction. +They deem themselves especially honored in their connection with an +institution, for whose use this stately and commodious edifice has been +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>erected, and which they doubt not is destined to be instrumental of the +highest good to the community, and to reflect lasting credit upon the +liberality, public and private, with which it has been founded and +endowed.</p> + +<p>The city of Boston, owing to peculiar circumstances in its growth and +history, has been at all times, as I think, beyond most cities in the +world, the object of an affectionate attachment on the part of its +inhabitants; a feeling entitled to respect and productive of good, even +if it may sometimes seem to strangers over-partial in its +manifestations. It is not merely its commanding natural situation, the +triple hills on which it is enthroned, its magnificent bay and harbor, +and the group of islands and islets that sparkle like emeralds on their +surface; not merely this most admirable common, which opens before our +windows, delightful even at this season of the year, and affording us in +summer, in its noble malls and shady walks, all that the country can +boast of cool and beautiful and salubrious, transported to the heart of +the city, “the poor man's pleasure-ground,” as it has been well called, +though a king might envy it;—nor the environs of our city of surpassing +loveliness, which enclose it on every side in kindly embrace; it is not +solely nor principally these natural attractions which endear Boston to +its citizens. Nor is it exclusively the proud and grateful memories of +the past,—of the high-souled fathers and mothers of the land, venerable +in their self-denying virtues, majestic in the austere simplicity of +their manners, conscientious in their errors, who, with amazing +sacrifices and hardships never to be described, sought out new homes in +the wilderness, and transmitted to us delights and blessings which it +was not given to themselves to enjoy;—of those who in succeeding +generations deserved well of their country,—the pioneers of the +Revolution, the men of the stamp act age, whose own words and acts are +stamped on the pages of history, in characters never to be effaced;—of +those who, when the decisive hour came, stood forth in that immortal +<span class="smcap">hall</span>, the champions of their country's rights, while it scarcely yet +deserved the name of a country; it is not exclusively these proud and +grateful associations, which attach the dutiful Bostonian to the city of +his birth or adoption.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p><p>No, Mr. Mayor, it is not exclusively these, much as they contribute to +strengthen the sentiment. It has its origin, in no small degree, in the +personal relation in which Boston places herself to her children; in the +parental interest which she cherishes in their welfare, which leads her +to take them by the hand almost from the cradle,—to train them up in +the ascending series of her excellent free schools; watching over them +as a fond father watches over the objects of his love and hope; in a +word, to confer upon them a first-rate school education at the public +expense. Often have I attempted, but with very partial success, both in +this country and in Europe, to persuade inquiring friends from the +countries and places where no such well-organized system of public +education prevails, that our free schools do really afford to the entire +population means of elementary education, of which the wealthiest +citizen is glad to avail himself.</p> + +<p>And now, Mr. Mayor, the enlightened counsels of the city government are +about to give new strength to those ties of gratitude and affection, +which bind the hearts of the children of Boston to their beloved city. +Hitherto the system of public education, excellent as it is and wisely +supported by a princely expenditure, does but commence the work of +instruction and carry it to a certain point; well advanced, indeed, but +far short of the goal. It prepares our young men for college, for the +counting-room, for the office of the engineer, the <i>studio</i> of the +artist, the shop of the artisan, the laboratory of the chemist, or +whatever field of employment they may be destined to enter, but there it +leaves them, without further provision for the culture of the mind. It +disciplines the faculties and forms a taste for the acquisition of +knowledge, on the part of our young men and women, but it provides no +means for their exercise and gratification. It gives them the elementary +education requisite for their future callings, but withholds all +facilities of access to those boundless stores of recorded knowledge, in +every department, by which alone that elementary education can be +completed and made effectual for the active duties of life.</p> + +<p>But to-day our honored city carries on and perfects her work. The +trustees, from their first annual report to the present time, have never +failed to recommend a first class public library, such as that, sir, for +whose accommodation you destine this noble building, as the completion +of the great system of public education. Its object is to give to the +entire population, not merely to the curious student, but to the +inquisitive member of either of the professions, to the intelligent +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>merchant, mechanic, machinist, engineer, artist or artisan, in short, to +all of every age and of either sex, who desire to investigate any +subject, either of utility or taste, those advantages which, without +such an ample public collection, must necessarily be monopolized by the +proprietors of large private libraries, or those who by courtesy have +the use of them; nay, to put within the reach of the entire community +advantages of this kind, far beyond those which can be afforded by the +largest and best provided private libraries.</p> + +<p>The trustees are anxious that the institution, whose prosperity they +have so much at heart, should continue to be viewed in this light; as +one more added to the school-houses of the city, at which Boston boys +and girls, when they have outgrown the other schools, will come to carry +on the education which has been there commenced; where Boston men and +women, “children of a larger growth,” may come to acquire that +additional knowledge which is requisite for the most successful +discharge of the duties of the various callings of society,—which +opens, in its pursuit, the purest sources of happiness,—and which, +without reference to utility, contributes so materially to the grace and +ornament of life.</p> + +<p>I am aware that there is still floating about in the community a vague +prejudice against what is called book-learning. One sometimes hears +doubts expressed of the utility of public libraries; opinions that they +are rather ornamental than necessary or useful; and the fact that our +time-honored city, never indifferent to the mental improvement of her +children, has existed more than two centuries without one, is a +sufficient proof, that, until within a very few years, their importance +has not been practically felt. There is perhaps even now a disposition +to claim some superiority for what is called practical +knowledge—knowledge gained by observation and experience (which most +certainly the trustees would not disparage), and a kind of satisfaction +felt in holding up the example of self-taught men, in supposed +contradistinction from those who have got their knowledge from books. No +name perhaps is so frequently mentioned for this purpose as that of +Franklin, who, because he had scarce any school education and never went +to college, has been hastily set down as a brilliant example to show the +inutility of book-learning. It has been quoted to me in this way, and to +show that libraries are of no use, within three days.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p><p>Now, Mr. Mayor, I need not tell you that there never was a greater +mistake in point of fact. A thirst for books, which he spared no pains +to allay, is the first marked trait disclosed in the character of +Franklin; his success throughout the early period of his life can be +directly traced to the use he made of them; and his very first important +movement for the benefit of his fellow-men was to found a public +library, which still flourishes;—one of the most considerable in the +country. Franklin not a book-man! whoever labors under that delusion, +shows that somebody else is not a book-man, at least so far as concerns +the biography of our illustrious townsman. We happen to have a little +information on that subject, in a book written by Franklin himself. He +there gives a very different account of himself, and I would ask any one +who entertains the idea to which I am alluding, at what period of +Franklin's career he supposes this taste for books began to be +manifested by him; how soon he ceased to be a self-formed man? Perhaps +after he had struggled through the years of his youthful poverty, +escaped to Philadelphia, set up in business as a printer, and begun to +have a little money in his pocket. I need not tell you, sir, that it was +earlier than that. Was it, then, while he was the clever apprentice to +his brother, the editor of a journal, and wrote articles for its columns +in a disguised hand, and tucked them under the office door, enjoying the +exquisite delight of being ordered to set up his own anonymous articles; +was it then, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, that this fondness for +reading, under the stimulus of boyish authorship, disclosed itself? +Earlier than that. Well, then, at the grammar-school and Master +Brownwell's writing-school, which he attended from eight to ten (for +there are boys who show a fondness for reading, even at that tender +age); was little Benjamin's taste for books developed while yet at +school? Earlier than that. Hear his own words, which you will permit me +to read from that exquisite piece of autobiography to which I have +already alluded: “From my <span class="smcap">infancy</span> I was <i>passionately</i> fond of reading, +and all the money that came into my hands was laid out in purchasing +books. I was very fond of voyages. My first acquisition was Bunyan's +works, in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me +to buy R. Burton's <i>Historical Collections</i>. They were small chapman's +books and cheap, forty volumes in all. My father's little library +consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read. I +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>have often regretted [and this is a sentence that might be inscribed on +the lofty cornice of this noble hall] that at a time when I had such a +thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way.... +There was among them Plutarch's Lives, which I read abundantly, and I +still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of +Defoe's, called an <i>Essay on Projects</i>, and another of Dr. Mather's, +called an <i>Essay to do Good</i>, which“—did what, sir? For I am now going +to give you, in Franklin's own words (they carry with them the +justification of every dollar expended in raising these walls), the +original secret of his illustrious career—what was the effect produced +by reading these two little books of Defoe and Cotton Mather? “they +perhaps gave me a turn of thinking, which had an influence on some of +the principal future events of my life.” Yes, sir, in the reading of +those books was the acorn that sprouted into that magnificent oak; there +was the fountain-drop which a fairy might have sipped from a buttercup, +from which has flowed the Missouri and the Mississippi,—the broad, deep +river of Franklin's fame, winding its way through the lapse of ages, and +destined to flow on, till it shall be ingulfed in the ocean of eternity.</p> + +<p>From his “infancy,” sir, “passionately fond of reading,” nay, with the +appetite of a vulture, with the digestion of an ostrich, attacking the +great folios of polemic divinity in his father's library. Not a dull +boy, either; not a precocious little bookworm; fond of play; doesn't +dislike a little mischief; sometimes, as he tells us, “led the other +boys into scrapes;” but in his intervals of play, in his leisure +moments, up in the lonely garret when the rest of the family were +asleep, holding converse in his childhood with the grave old +non-conformists, Howe and Owen and Flavel and Baxter,—communing with +the austerest lords of thought; the demigods of puritanism.</p> + +<p>Franklin not a book-man? Why, he goes on to tell us that it was “this +bookish inclination which at length determined his father to make him a +printer,” against his own inclination, which was for the sea; and when +he had thus by constraint become a printer, his great consolation was, +as he says, that “I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with +the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small +one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my +chamber reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>borrowed in the evening and was to be returned in the morning, lest it +should be found missing.”</p> + +<p>Then he made the acquaintance of Mr. Matthew Adams, an ingenious, +sensible man, “who had a pretty collection of books.” He frequented the +printing-office, took notice of the bright little apprentice, and “very +kindly proposed to lend me such books as I chose to read.” Having taken +to a vegetable diet at the age of sixteen, he persuaded his brother to +allow him in cash half the price of his board,—lived upon potatoes and +hasty pudding,—soon found that he could save half even of that little +allowance (which could not have exceeded two-and-six-pence a week, +lawful money), and this poor little economy “was an additional fund for +buying books.” What would the poor, underfed boy, who was glad to buy +books on the savings of his potato diet, have said could he have had +free access to a hall like this, stored as it soon will be with its +priceless treasures?</p> + +<p>Further, sir, while working as a journeyman in England, he says, “I made +the acquaintance of one William Wilcox, a bookseller, whose shop was +next door. He had an immense collection of second-hand +books.”—(Somewhat, I suppose, like our friend Burnham, in +Cornhill.)—“Circulating libraries were not then in use, but we agreed +that on certain reasonable terms, which I have now forgotten, I might +take, read, and return any of his works. This I esteemed a great +advantage, and I made as much use of it as I could.”</p> + +<p>Finally, sir, as I have already said, Franklin's first important +movement for the good of his fellow-men was the foundation of the public +library in Philadelphia. At his instance, the members of a little club +to which he belonged, tradesmen and mechanics of narrow means, threw +into common stock the few books which belonged to them. A subscription +was then obtained from fifty young men, principally tradesmen, of two +pounds each, and ten shillings <i>per annum</i>, and with this little fund +they began. “The books were imported, the library was opened one day in +the week for lending them to the subscribers, on their promissory notes +to pay double the value if not duly returned.” “This was the mother,” +says Franklin, “of all the North American subscription libraries, now so +numerous. It has become a great thing itself, and continually goes on +increasing. These libraries have improved the general conversation of +the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>most gentlemen from other countries, and, perhaps, have contributed in +some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in +defence of their privileges.”</p> + +<p>Those are the words of Franklin, Mr. Mayor, which I read from his own +book. Our excellent friend the President of the Commissioners (Hon. R.C. +Winthrop) has justly felicitated himself on having been the first person +publicly to raise his voice in this noble hall. He must be a happier man +than I who can speak an earlier or an abler word than his on any +occasion; but I claim the credit of having read from the first book +opened in this hall;—and what is more, sir, I mean to have the +satisfaction of presenting the first volume given to the library, since +this building came into the care of the Trustees. In your presence, Mr. +Mayor, and that of this vast assembly on this first of January, 1858, I +offer this copy of Franklin's Autobiography in Sparks's edition, as a +New Year's gift to the Boston Public Library. Nay, sir, I am going to do +more, and make the first, and perhaps the last, motion ever made in this +hall; and that is, that every person present, of his own accord, if of +age,—with the consent of parent or guardian, if a minor,—man, woman, +boy, or girl, be requested, on going home, to select one good book, and +in memory of the poor boy, who half-fed himself to gratify his taste for +reading, present it as a New-Year's gift to the Boston Public Library. I +make you that motion, Mr. Mayor, and I call upon all present to give me +their voices: especially I ask the cooperation of the fairer and better +part of creation. If nowhere else, woman's rights shall be respected in +this hall, while I have anything to do with it. I pray you, Mr. Mayor, +put the question, and then I'll finish my speech.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>His Honor the Mayor then rose and stated the question, which +was seconded by Mr. Winthrop. The mayor particularly called +on the ladies to vote, and a unanimous and emphatic aye +resounded through the vast hall. The negative was then +called and no response made. His Honor, amidst great +cheering and laughter, pronounced it a unanimous vote. Mr. +Everett resumed—</p></div> + +<p>No, sir, if there is one lesson more than another directly deducible +from the life of Franklin, it is the close connection of a thoroughly +practical and useful life and career with books, libraries, and reading. +If there is a thing on earth which would have gladdened his heart could +he have anticipated it, it would be the knowledge that his native city, +in two generations after his death, would found a library like this, to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>give to the rising generation and to the lovers of knowledge of every +age that access to books, of which he so much felt the want. And could +it be granted to him, even now, to return to his native city, which +dwelt in his affections to the close of his life, his first visit would +be to the centre of the ancient burial-ground, where in after-life he +dutifully placed a marble slab on the graves of his parents; his second +visit would be to the spot in Milk street where he was born; his third +to the corner of Union street and Hanover street, where he passed his +childhood, in a house still standing; his fourth visit would be to the +site of the free grammar school-house, where, as he says in his will, he +received “his first instruction in literature,” and which is now adorned +with a statue which a grateful posterity has dedicated to his memory; +and his last and longest would be to this noble hall, where you are +making provision for an ample supply of that reading of which, “from his +<i>infancy</i> he was <i>passionately</i> fond.” The trustees have done what they +could to connect some reference to Franklin with an institution which +would have been the object of his warmest affections, by providing that +every Franklin medal boy shall be entitled to its privileges; and +inasmuch as the accumulating fund which he bequeathed to the city, and +which now exceeds seventy thousand dollars, has proved almost wholly +unavailing for the primary object of the bequest, it deserves +consideration whether, when it has reached a sufficient magnitude, as it +will before the end of this century, the interest of the fund, if it can +be legally done, might not advantageously be appropriated, as a +permanent endowment for the support of the library.</p> + +<p>I have not proposed at this time, sir, on the part of the trustees, to +make a formal speech; I have preferred to let Benjamin Franklin speak +for us. This day belongs of right to the commissioners for building the +library, ably represented as they are, by our distinguished friend their +president, who has done such ample justice to the subject; and to you, +Mr. Mayor, as the organ of the city government, whom I cannot but +congratulate on closing your official career,—in all respects so +honorable to yourself and so acceptable to your fellow-citizens,—by an +act, I am sure, most grateful to your own feelings and most auspicious +of the public good. It is not yet the time for the trustees to speak. A +more fitting opportunity may hereafter present itself, when the books +shall be placed on the shelves, the catalogue printed, and the library +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>opened for public use. Occasion may then, perhaps, with propriety be +taken, to illustrate the importance and utility of such an institution; +to do justice to the liberality on the part of the city government and +the individual benefactors by which it has been founded, endowed, and +sustained; and especially to the generosity of our greatest benefactor +and esteemed fellow-countryman, Mr. Bates, whose letters announcing his +first munificent donation of fifty thousand dollars, alluding to his own +early want of access to books, assign that as the moving cause which +prompted his liberality. It will be the pleasing duty of those who may +then be intrusted with the administration of the library, to pay a +fitting tribute to so much public and private bounty.</p> + +<p>In the mean time, sir, we must throw ourselves on the patience and +considerateness of the city council and the community. Not much short of +sixty thousand volumes are to be brought together from four different +places of temporary deposit, and assigned to their final resting-places +in this hall and the circulating library below. Here they are to be +arranged on the shelves, the cards and slips which pertain to them, far +more numerous than the volumes themselves, reduced to alphabetical +order; a separate catalogue of each alcove prepared; and a comprehensive +catalogue of the whole collection, without which it will be little +better than an unmanageable mass, prepared and printed. Every thing +which could be done beforehand, has been anticipated; but much of the +work was of necessity reserved till the books should be placed on the +shelves. In the interval, and while this labor is going on, the library +in Mason street will be left in possession of the books most in request +for daily circulation, and will be closed at last only when it becomes +absolutely necessary that they also should be removed to the new +building.</p> + +<p>But it is time for me to conclude. The shades of evening are falling +around us; those cressets which lend us their mild and tasteful +illumination will soon be extinguished; and the first day of the +New-Year, rich in the happy prospects we now inaugurate, will come to a +close. May the blessing of Heaven give effect to its brightest +anticipations. A few more days,—a few more years,—will follow their +appointed round, and we, who now exchange our congratulations on this +magnificent New-Year's gift of our city fathers, shall have passed from +the scene; but firm in the faith that the growth of knowledge is the +growth of sound principles and pure morals, let us not doubt, that, by +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>the liberality of the city government and of our generous benefactors at +home and abroad, a light will be kindled and go forth from these walls, +now dedicated to the use of the <span class="smcap">Free Boston Public Library</span>, which will +guide our children and our children's children in the path of +intelligence and virtue, till the sun himself shall fall from the +heavens.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_NEW_YORK_FREE_CIRCULATING_LIBRARY" id="THE_NEW_YORK_FREE_CIRCULATING_LIBRARY"></a>THE NEW YORK FREE CIRCULATING LIBRARY</h2> + +<p class='center'><span class="smcap">Address in its Favor at a Public Meeting</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>President Cleveland made this address on March 6, 1890, +while a resident of New York City in the interval between +his two presidential terms, at a meeting, at Chickering +Hall, called for the purpose of directing attention to the +work of the struggling Free Circulating Library and if +possible to raise funds for its support, which was only +partially insured by the City. Owing to increase in both +public and private contributions this library was enabled to +make rapid growth in the years immediately following until +in 1901, when it was merged in the Circulation Department of +the New York Public Library, it was operating eleven +branches with a circulation of over 600,000. This +institution was the pioneer of the popular, as distinguished +from the scholarly, library idea in New York.</p> + +<p>[Stephen] Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, N.J., +March 18, 1837, the fifth son of a Presbyterian clergyman. +He received a common-school education and after his father's +death went in 1855 to live with an uncle in Buffalo, N.Y. He +was admitted to the bar there in 1859, was assistant +district attorney in 1863-66, sheriff in 1871-74 and mayor +in 1882. In the latter year he was elected Governor of New +York and in 1884 President of the United States. He was an +unsuccessful candidate for re-election in 1888, but was +elected again in 1892. He died in Princeton, N.J., where he +had resided since his last presidential term, on June 24, +1908.</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p><p>The words I shall speak on this occasion I intend rather as a pledge of +my adherance to the cause in which you are enlisted than an attempt to +say anything new or instructive. I gladly join with the enthusiasm of a +new convert in the felicitations of those who have done noble and +effective work in the establishment and maintenance in our city of a +free circulating library, and it seems to me they have abundant cause +for congratulation in review of the good which has already been +accomplished through their efforts and in the contemplation of the +further usefulness which awaits their continued endeavor.</p> + +<p>In every enlightened country the value of popular education is fully +recognized, not only as a direct benefit to its recipients, but as an +element of strength and safety in organized society. Considered in these +aspects it should nowhere be better appreciated than in this land of +free institutions consecrated to the welfare and happiness of its +citizens, and deriving its sanction and its power from the people. Here +the character of the people is inevitably impressed upon the government, +and here our public life can no more be higher and purer than the life +of the people, than a stream can rise above its fountain or be purer +than the spring in which it has its source.</p> + +<p>That we have not failed to realize these conditions is demonstrated by +the establishment of free public schools on every side, where children +are not only invited but often obliged to submit themselves to such +instruction as will better their situation in life and fit them to take +part intelligently in the conduct of the government.</p> + +<p>Thus, in our schools the young are taught to read, and in this manner +the seed is sown, from which we expect a profitable return to the state, +when its beneficiaries shall repay the educational advances made to them +by an intelligent and patriotic performance of their social and +political duties.</p> + +<p>And yet if we are to create good citizenship, which is the object of +popular education, and if we are to insure to the country the full +benefit of public instruction, we can by no means consider the work as +completely done in the schoolroom. While the young gathered there are +fitting themselves to assume in the future their political obligations, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>there are others upon whom these obligations already rest, and who now +have the welfare and safety of the country in their keeping. Our work is +badly done if these are neglected. They have passed the school age, and +have perhaps availed themselves of free instruction; but they, as well +as those still in the school, should, nevertheless, have within their +reach the means of further mental improvement and the opportunity of +gaining that additional knowledge and information which can only be +secured by access to useful and instructive books.</p> + +<p>The husbandman who expects to gain a profitable return from his +orchards, not only carefully tends and cultivates the young trees in his +nurseries as they grow to maturity but he generously enriches and cares +for those in bearing and upon which he must rely for ripened fruit.</p> + +<p>Teaching the children of our land to read is but the first step in the +scheme of creating good citizens by means of free instruction. We teach +the young to read so that both as children and as men and women they may +read. Our teaching must lead to the habit and the desire of reading to +be useful; and only as this result is reached can the work in our free +schools be logically supplemented and made valuable.</p> + +<p>Therefore, the same wise policy and intent which open the doors of our +free schools to our young, also suggest the completion of the plan thus +entered upon by placing books in the hands of those who in our schools +have been taught to read.</p> + +<p>A man or woman who never reads and is abandoned to unthinking torpor, or +who allows the entire mental life to be bounded by the narrow lines of +the daily recurring routine of effort for mere existence, cannot escape +a condition of barrenness of mind, which not only causes the decay of +individual contentment and happiness, but which fails to yield to the +state its justly expected return of usefulness in valuable service and +wholesome political action.</p> + +<p>Another branch of this question should not be overlooked. It is not +only of great importance that our youth and our men and women should +have the ability, the desire, and the opportunity to read, but the kind +of books they read is no less important. Without guidance and without +the invitation and encouragement to read publications which will improve +as well as interest, there is danger that our people will have in their +hands books whose influence and tendency are of a negative sort, if not +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>positively bad and mischievous. Like other good things, the ability and +opportunity to read may be so used as to defeat their beneficient +purposes.</p> + +<p>The boy who greedily devours the vicious tales of imaginary daring and +blood-curdling adventure which in these days are far too accessible to +the young will have his brain filled with notions of life and standards +of manliness which, if they do not make him a menace to peace and good +order, will certainly not tend to make him a useful member of society.</p> + +<p>The man who devotes himself to the flash literature now much too common +will, instead of increasing his value as a citizen, almost surely +degenerate in his ideas of public duty and grow dull in appreciation of +the obligations he owes his country.</p> + +<p>In both these cases there will be a loss to the state. There is danger +also that a positive and aggressive injury to the community will result, +and such readers will certainly suffer deprivation to the happiness and +contentment which are the fruits of improving study and well-regulated +thought.</p> + +<p>So, too, the young woman who seeks recreation and entertainment in +reading silly and frivolous books, often of doubtful moral tendency, is +herself in the way of becoming frivolous and silly, if not of weak +morality. If she escapes this latter condition, she is certain to become +utterly unfitted to bear patiently the burden of self-support or to +assume the sacred duties of wife and mother.</p> + +<p>Contemplating these truths, no one can doubt the importance of securing +for those who read, as far as it is in our power, facilities for the +study and reading of such books as will instruct and innocently +entertain, and which will at the same time improve and correct the +tastes and habits.</p> + +<p>There is another thought somewhat in advance of those already suggested, +which should not pass unnoticed.</p> + +<p>As an outgrowth of the inventive and progressive spirit of our people, +we have among us legions of men, and women, too, who restlessly desire +to increase their knowledge of the new forces and agencies which at this +time are being constantly dragged from their lurking-places and +subjected to the use of man. Those earnest inquirers should all be given +a chance and have put within their reach such books as will guide and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>inspire their efforts. If by this means the country shall gain to itself +a new inventor or be the patron of endeavor which shall add new elements +to the sum of human happiness and comfort, its intervention will be well +repaid.</p> + +<p>These considerations, and the fact that many among us having the ability +and inclination to read are unable to furnish themselves with profitable +and wholesome books amply justify the beneficient mission of our Free +Circulating Library. Its plan and operation, so exactly adjusted to meet +a situation which cannot safely be ignored and to wants which ought not +to be neglected, establish its claim upon the encouragement and +reasonable aid of the public authorities and commend it most fully to +the support and generosity of private benefaction.</p> + +<p>The development which this good work has already reached in our city has +exhibited the broad field yet remaining untouched and the inadequacy of +present operations. It has brought to view also instances of noble +individual philanthropy and disinterested private effort and +contribution.</p> + +<p>But it certainly seems that the time and money directed towards this +object are confined to a circle of persons far too narrow, and that the +public encouragement and aid have been greatly disproportioned to +private endeavor.</p> + +<p>The city of New York has never shown herself willing to be behind other +cities in such work as is done by our Free Circulating Library, and +while her people are much engrossed in business activity and enterprise +they have never yet turned away from a cause once demonstrated to them +to be so worthy and useful as this.</p> + +<p>The demonstration is at hand. Let it be pressed upon our fellow +citizens, and let them be shown the practical operation of the project +you have in hand and the good it has accomplished, and the further good +of which it is capable through their increased liberality, and it will +be strange if they fail to respond generously to your appeal to put the +city of New York in the front rank of the cities which have recognized +the usefulness of the free circulating libraries.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_WADSWORTH_ATHENAEUM" id="THE_WADSWORTH_ATHENAEUM"></a>THE WADSWORTH ATHENAEUM</h2> + +<p class='center'><span class="smcap">Addresses at the Opening of its Library in Hartford, Conn., Jan. 2, +1893.</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>These addresses, by Charles Dudley Warner and Charles H. +Clark, are reprinted from brief abstracts given in <i>The +Library Journal</i> of January, 1893.</p> + +<p>Charles Dudley Warner was born in Plainfield, Mass., Sept. +12, 1829 and graduated at Hamilton College in 1851. He +practised law in Chicago in 1856-60 and in 1861 became +managing editor of the Hartford, Conn., <i>Press</i>. In 1867 on +its consolidation with the <i>Courant</i>, he became co-editor. +He was made associate editor of <i>Harper's Magazine</i> in 1884, +and died at Hartford, Oct. 20, 1900. He was widely popular +as an essayist, first gaining favorable notice by his “My +Summer in a Garden.”</p></div> + + +<p>This building and its contents are contributory to the excellence and +enjoyment of life exactly as Bushnall Park is—not merely that it is a +place of rest and recreation, but it is a training in beauty, in the +appreciation of nobleness, and in the public and private refinement. +Culture is a plant of rather slow growth. I suppose there never was such +a change wrought, almost instantaneously, in a people as was wrought in +the American people by the opening and exhibition of the Philadelphia +Centennial of 1876. Its effect was at once apparent everywhere. But +knowledge precedes culture, culture being, after all, but another name +for educational taste.</p> + +<p>Now this institution is simply a means for the culture of the city of +Hartford, in all ways, because literature and art—not taken externally, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>but absorbed as a part of our lives, not only of knowledge, but of +experience—are the things that make life worth living.</p> + +<p>No one can speak too highly of the offices of a great library. It was +one of our great essayists, you remember, who said that the +monastery—speaking of it with reference to its books—was the ark that +floated down over the tempest and darkness of the middle ages, in order +to carry classic learning to the fifteenth century. They were +repositories of learning. That is the old idea. And for a long +time—almost to our day—that was the notion of the library. It was a +place to put something away. It was not even like a market for the sale +of provisions or eggs; indeed, if they were eggs the librarians thought +it their duty to sit on them, with the idea that they might hatch out +other books. That was a noble thing to do. But much better than that is +to scatter these books abroad among the people, so that we shall not +have reproduction—an egg for an egg—but that these books will so +revivify the life that we shall have books new, that express the actual +conditions and that appeal to the human life as it is. This is the +modern idea of the library. This great collection, which is not to be +secluded, is to be carried and even forced upon the people, so that it +shall enter into and become a part of their daily lives.</p> + +<p>You remember, perhaps, what Milton says about the books, in that +noblest of noble defences of unlicensed printing, that “they are not +dead things. As good almost,” he says, “kill a man as you kill a good +book. Who kills a man, kills a reasonable being, made in God's image. +Who destroys a good book destroys reason itself, kills the image of God +as it were, in the eye. Many a man,” he goes on to say, “lives a burden +to the earth, but a good book is the precious life blood of a master +spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life; so +that if we slay a good book we would slay immortality rather than a +life.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Charles Hopkins Clark, who immediately followed Mr. Warner, +was at this time editor in chief of <i>The Hartford Courant</i>, +of which Mr. Warner was co-editor. Mr. Clark was born in +Hartford April 1, 1848, graduated at Yale, and joined the +<i>Courant</i> staff in 1871, becoming editor in 1890.</p></div> + + +<p>One of the earliest sins of my youth, or rather one of the earliest that +is burnt into my memory, was committed in the library of what was then +the Young Men's Institute. I spoke out loud! The rebuke that I received +sent me down the stairs overwhelmed with a sense of the enormity of my +crime, yet more than sustained by joy to think that I had escaped the +utter annihilation with which my reprimand was freighted. And I can say +that the awe with which I used to enter that chamber of silence, and the +fear with which I regarded the librarian were the common property of all +the young people of that somewhat remote period. But long since we found +out that the old librarian was one of the gentlest and most inoffensive +men, and that we had misunderstood him as completely as he had +misunderstood us.</p> + +<p>But I have no such gloomy recollection, nor to be honest, have I any +recollection at all of the Wadsworth Athenaeum gallery, because, like +everybody else who then lived in Hartford, I never went in there. The +door was often open and the only sentinel on guard had no more +formidable weapon than a pair of knitting-needles. But no one ever +crossed that threshold. The simple legend, traced on a placard at the +door, “Admission Ten Cents,” did the business, or rather, to be more +elegant as well as accurate, prevented any business being done. The +people who came up the stone steps read the notice and turned off to the +left to the library or to the right to the Historical Society, where +entrance was free. I say free, but freedom must have its limits if we +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>are to have safety, so the tin sign on the outside of the door gave +notice to the always unwelcome boy that he could not go in until he +reached the mature age of twelve years. That was one of the things that +I wanted to grow to full manhood for.</p> + +<p>And I well remember my first visit there. As I walked slowly up the +stairs I wondered what venerable monument of patriotic achievement, what +new inspiration to love for our noble State whose history is such a +priceless treasure, what vision of heroic self-sacrifice in her behalf +would first burst upon my eager eyes when I should look around the hall. +I looked and lo! there in a glass jar stood the chaste but familiar +figure of Charles Hosmer's night-blooming cereus—the modest pioneer of +the canned-fruit industry in this community.</p> + +<p>I have made this brief review in order to suggest to you the state of +innocuous desuetude in which for more or less time the various miscalled +interests in this building had been lying for lack of any interest at +all. The library had a limited and dwindling clientage. The Athenaeum +was deserted. The Historical Society, with no funds and few friends, was +exhibiting a collection of animal, vegetable, and mineral curiosities, +while its real treasures of history and truth were by lock and key shut +off from the very public for whom they were collected and preserved. +Look at that picture, then look at this which greets us here to day.</p> + +<p>In these elegant and spacious buildings the whole public of Hartford is +welcome, without money and without price. The circulating library will +furnish every home with books, and Miss Hewins, who has devoted her life +to this town, is always ready to help the younger readers. The Library +of Reference, monument alike to Mr. Watkinson's liberality and Dr. +Trumbull's rare judgment and life-long devoted service as a librarian, +offers free to all students the authorities on every branch of +knowledge. The Historical Society, with improved facilities, has been +able to adopt a more liberal policy, and is widening its claim upon +public interest, and so increasing its usefulness, and, thanks largely +to the women of Hartford, the Art Gallery and Art School are ready to +spread their refining and wholesome influence all through this +community.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LIBRARIES_AS_LEAVEN" id="LIBRARIES_AS_LEAVEN"></a>LIBRARIES AS LEAVEN</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This address was delivered at the inauguration of the Free +Public Library, Madison, Wis., by Prof. James D. Butler.</p> + +<p>James Davie Butler was born in Rutland, Vt., March 15, 1815, +and was graduated at Middlebury College, Vt., in 1836. He +entered the Congregational ministry, and held the chairs of +ancient languages in Wabash College, 1854-58 and the +University of Wisconsin, 1858-67, after which he devoted +himself to lecturing and writing until his death in Madison +in 1905.</p></div> + + +<p>My subject is “Libraries as Leaven,” or the relation of libraries to the +increased diffusion of knowledge.</p> + +<p>What is a Library? It is the knowledge of all brought within the reach +of each one. It is an expanded encyclopædia, or the books which are, or +ought to be, consulted in compiling a perfect encyclopædia.</p> + +<p>Human knowledge—and hence the books in which it is treasured up—is +divided by some authors into forty departments. I have their names here +all written down—but I dare not read them. You would give no more +quarter to such a catalogue than the lover gave to the mercantile +inventory of his sweetheart's charms, when itemized as “two lips +indifferent red,” “two gray eyes with lids to them,” and so on.</p> + +<p>But all these forty classes of knowledge ought to be represented in a +library, and the more largely the better. They should also mingle there +in due proportion, “parts into parts reciprocally shot, and all so +forming a harmonious whole.” “If the whole body were an eye, where were +the hearing?”</p> + +<p>I once lived in a town of a thousand families, where, through a legacy, +one copy of some single author was annually presented to each family. +But, with the same money, a thousand different works might have been +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>every year purchased, and all kept accessible by all the families. The +result would have been a feast as appetizing to all palates as the +miraculous manna which the rabbins tell us tasted to each Jew like that +particular dainty which he loved best.</p> + +<p>It is no objection to a library that no man will ever read it through. +No man will read through his dictionary, and time is not long enough for +a man to read all the words in the daily <i>Tribune</i>. Nor will any +customer exhaust a store. Yet he demands an assortment from which to +select the little that he needs. In every library most authors, bound up +in congenial calf, sleep soundly in their own sheets. Yet the dust of +dead men's bones, at the touch of genius, comes forth in a new life. How +much that is best in Macaulay and in Buckle is extracted from +bibliothecal rubbish—or reading which had never been read. Hence even +Samson could not say to the jaw-bone of an ass: “I have no need of you.” +The wise thank God for fools. They get their living out of them, and +mostly out of the greatest fools. In truth, no library is large enough. +Guizot and Michelet complain of inability to consult certain books, even +in that Parisian library, where books are as plenty as water in the +deluge, and the shelves would reach from here to Milwaukee.</p> + +<p>A library should be a cosmos; but it is a chaos till arrangement, +catalogues and librarians bring us at once the volume we desire, and +which, without them, would be as hard to fish up as the Atlantic cable +lost in mid-ocean.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Thus warlike arms in magazines we place,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All ranged in order and disposed with grace:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not thus alone the curious eye to please,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But to be <i>found</i>, when need requires, with ease.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In some libraries, however, books are arranged on a system which seems +borrowed from Spanish hospitals, where patients are arranged according +to religious creeds, rather than bodily complaints. Every library has +more volumes than I can master; but no library though it be the conflux +of all civilizations, has so many volumes as I may need to consult.</p> + +<p>Chief Justice Story used to assert that no American could test the +accuracy of Gibbon without crossing the Atlantic. Such an assertion +would now, perhaps, be extravagant, yet many of Gibbon's references are +still hard to trace in America. One instance may be worth notice. Our +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>approaching national centenary leads us to curiosity in reference to the +secular feasts of the Romans. In Gibbon's account of the most famous +among them, a thousand years from the founding of Rome, the main +authority quoted is Zosimus. But the history of Zosimus you will seek in +vain throughout Madison libraries. You will not find his name in the +public collections of Chicago, or Cincinnati, or St. Louis, or San +Francisco. It is unlikely that any single copy of Zosimus has yet +penetrated west of our Atlantic slope.</p> + +<p>But how dare I thus speak about Zosimus? How is it possible for me to +know whether his history can, or cannot, be discovered, either on the +Pacific shore, or in the Mississippi valley? I know it, thanks to the +Library of Our Historical Society, and specifically to its goodly array +of bibliothecal catalogues.</p> + +<p>Why will not our Centenary Women's Club buy our Free Library a Zosimus?</p> + +<p>Free libraries, especially those maintained by public taxation, were +scarcely known before the last half of the nineteenth century. If in an +antiquarian mood, I could indeed bring forth curious details concerning +half a hundred in continental Europe, some of them running back several +centuries, but I forbear. The earliest British library law, similar to +ours in Wisconsin, dates from 1850. The earliest in Massachusetts—and I +suppose in America—was approved May 24, 1851. The first library opened +in consequence of this law was in New Bedford, March 3, 1853. The +grandest triumph under the Massachusetts law is in Boston. The free +library there stands to-day surpassed in volumes by only three or four +American libraries—say the Astor, Congress, and Harvard—while in +arrangement, architecture, and equipment it is pronounced by the most +enlightened foreigners unsurpassed by any library in the world.</p> + +<p>Our legislature in 1872 empowered the mayors and councils in towns and +cities to lay an annual tax of one mill on a dollar of the assessed +valuation, for establishing and maintaining free libraries. This law +will bear good fruit. Yet it is a step backward from the act of 1859. +That act created a library fund by setting apart for that purpose +one-tenth of the school-fund income, and imposing a tax of one-tenth of +a mill on all property. The sum of $88,784.78 had been thus accumulated +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>when the war of 1861 broke out,—and the money was used for military +purposes. It ought to be refunded by the State, or United States, and +expended for its original object. The great superiority of the law of +1859 lies in its extending to rural districts,—and so leaving no hamlet +unvisited—while the maxim of the present law is, “Coals to Newcastle, +owls to Athens, apples to Alcinous. He that hath—to him shall be +given.” It gives a library to Madison, where 40,000 volumes were already +within reach, but nothing at all to five and twenty other places in Dane +County, whose need of books is ten times greater. But libraries bring +forth after their kind, and free libraries, we may hope, will become +co-extensive with free schools.</p> + +<p>Madison, to-day, in opening to all her sons and daughters a Free +Library, has outstripped every other municipality in the State. It is a +noble preëminence, and will do her honor to the end of the world.</p> + +<p>The Madison Free Library, it may be reasonably hoped, will approximate +to the bibliothecal ideal. It starts with an inheritance of 3,308 +volumes, accumulated during a score of years by the Madison Institute. +Its revenue is considerable, and it will grow in even pace with the +growth of the city. Nothing but Adam and Minerva was ever born of full +stature. The tax now assessed for it would impoverish no man till after +the lapse of thrice three thousand years. It was limited to less than a +third of what the law allows because we make the entering edge of a +wedge thin, and would learn wisdom from Satan who never makes his +temptations so bad at the beginning as at the end. Is is only the first +step that costs. The Free Library will be ready for windfalls, and so +surely as history repeats itself, they will pour cornucopias into its +lap. Of the million volumes in the British Museum, two out of every five +were gifts. No wonder. Book-gatherers abhor the breaking up of their +collections as we do the dissolution of the Union, or as abolitionists +did the snapping of family ties by slave-traders. Lest what they have +joined together shall be put asunder, they rejoice to lay up their +treasures in an institution which shall never die. Accordingly, in +tracing the origin of one hundred and eighty libraries in continental +Europe, it has been discovered that all of them, except sixteen, were +presented to the municipalities by book-lovers.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p><p>Experience this side the Atlantic is thus far equally encouraging. I +will notice a single specimen. The Boston Free Library is mainly +contributed by individuals. One thousand volumes were given by Everett; +2,300 by Bowditch; 11,360 by Theodore Parker; 26,000 by Joshua Bates; +11,899 by the Old South Church, and those of greater rarity than any +other equal number of volumes. Then Ticknor and Prescott bestowed the +best Spanish library ever gathered by private men, and Wheelwright one +scarcely inferior, relating to South America. Of pecuniary benefactions, +I will only mention $10,000 from Lawrence, $30,000 from Phillips, and +$50,000 from Bates. But legacies to the Free Library have become so +common that we may confidently expect that, if any Bostonian shall die +and bequeath it nothing, the courts will decide the neglect of the +Library to be conclusive proof of insanity, and so will nullify his +will! On the whole, we cannot be too sanguine concerning the prospective +progress of our book-feast for the million.</p> + +<p>But a library, however perfect, and though freely open to all the world, +may be a light shining in a darkness which comprehendeth it not. Many +years ago, I was a student in such a library at Rome. It was larger than +any one in America at that time, and offered the best of all its stores +daily to everybody, and that without charge. Yet it was well-nigh a +solitude. The reason was obvious. My walk thither was through a gauntlet +of beggar-boys, and I once took with me an Italian primer, and cried out +that I would give something to any boy who could read. I held it up +before nineteen in succession, but no one could spell out a line. They +had eschewed not only writing as tempting to forgery, but reading also +as a black art. Had they been giants they could,—like the barbarians +who sacked Rome,—ruin, but not relish, the nectared sweets of books. To +them the collective wisdom of the world was as sunshine to the blind, or +as smoke in the nursery riddle,—“roomful, houseful, can't catch a +handful!”</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Or like gospel pearls which pigs neglect<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When pigs have that opportunity.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But in regard to <i>our</i> Free Library, I have better hopes, and beg your +leave to show <i>what use</i>, in my judgment, will be made of it. It will be +resorted to for <i>amusement</i>. Some will flit through it in the spirit of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>the Viennese, who turn their central cathedral into a thoroughfare on +promenades and business walks. But such visitors will learn something in +glancing at the backs of books. Books, as well as men, have a +physiognomy. Here, as elsewhere, the admirers of Shakespeare will take +out his plays, return them with the leaves uncut, and then insist that +booksellers be instructed if Mr. Shakespeare writes any new book, to +forward it without further orders. Many will have no eyes except for the +volumes of <i>fiction</i>, and sometimes will rather run through these than +read them. Novels are a sort of cake, which, if eaten alone, is prone to +make mental dyspeptics. Yet most novel-readers will gain some profit +from our library. Some of them will here acquire a facility in reading +which for lack of practice has hitherto been unknown to them. No one has +really learned to read, until he has read to learn. Their interest in +stories will beguile the toil of becoming <i>ready</i> readers, and their +range of reading will naturally widen. But if it does not, they may +learn much. Every good fiction is <i>true</i>, if not to particular fact yet +to general principles, to natural scenery, to human nature, to the ways +of human life, manners, customs, the very age and body of the time. Even +Tom Moore declares that “his chief work of fiction is founded on a long +and labourious collection of facts.” Again, when worn out by work, when +care-crazed, and nerves are unstrung, who has not found in fiction—the +balm of hurt minds—a recreation, a city of refuge, a restorative.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Cups that cheer but not inebriate?”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In this way our free library will be a new pleasure, and the founder of +it deserves the reward offered by the Sicilian tyrant, for such an +invention. Work was never so monotonous as now; accordingly, play ought +to be more than ever amusing. The Kilkenny cats, who devoured each other +all but the tails, left one orphan kitten which began to eat up itself, +but catching sight of a mouse was diverted from suicide. There is among +us more than one disconsolate kitten now destroying himself, who will in +our free feast of fiction espy a mouse which will reconcile him to life, +and save him from himself. The rationale of this solace is indicated +after a forcible, though rather a homely fashion, in the Chinese saying: +“A dog chasing game does not mind the fleas which he <i>barks</i> at while he +lies in his kennel.” “The labour we delight in physics pain.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p><p>Again, in all great works of fiction the purpose is, while not +o'erstepping the modesty of nature, to show virtue her own feature, and +scorn her own image. Who can count the admirers of Scott and Dickens +that have learned from their portraitures moral lessons so well as never +to forget them;—to loathe the mean and aspire to the noble;—to shun +evil and cleave to good—in spite of temptations to one and from the +other?</p> + +<p>But, after all, our book-treasury will only now and then bestow its best +gifts on those who resort to it merely for pleasure. To most visitors of +this class it must remain no more than a telescope to a child, something +to play with rather than to look through. Accordingly, they no more +exhaust the capacities of books than the Irish made full proof of +potatoes while they cooked only the balls and left the tubers to rot in +the ground.</p> + +<p>But the Free Library will be resorted to for <i>instruction</i>. Few will +always hold the amusing button so close to their eyes that it will hide +the instructive sun. From the start it will be superior to every private +collection in the city, and its superiority will increase. Accordingly, +professional men will come thither to inform themselves either each in +his own specialty, or sallying on excursions from their home fields. +Besides the time-honoured and traditional three professions, editors and +teachers will be there, learning how to answer the hard questions of +pupils and subscribers. Each of these professionals will more or less +make known what he learns. The bibliothecal odor will be as plain upon +them as a certain other odor is upon those who emerge from the +smoking-car or saloon. “Dispensing native perfumes they whisper whence +they stole those balmy spoils.” But the bibliothecal leaven will leaven +the community more <i>directly</i>.</p> + +<p>God has set geniuses as great lights in the firmament to give light and +delight as well on the earth. The circuit of such suns is unto the ends +of the heaven, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. More and +more pervasive is their influence, like the spring-time, which leaves no +corner of the land untouched. In a library every man will recognize some +supreme author transfiguring whatever he touches,—crystallizing into +diamonds by wit, turning to gold with poetry, and glorifying as with +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>tongues of angels by eloquence, and whom he hence worships as Scotchmen +do Burns and as all the world does Shakespeare. Less and less do men +entertain angels unawares, more and more are they ashamed to know the +world's books only by name. Nobody now asks concerning Paradise Lost, +“What does it prove?”</p> + +<p>Moreover, the Free Library will be patronized by the people in quest of +answers to multitudinous questions. Newspapers, whether in its +reading-room or out of it, will rouse in many directions a curiosity +they cannot satisfy, and so will urge to the library. There is a story +that an Englishman in a London library, after looking through an atlas, +said to a friend, “Help me find <i>Umbrage</i> on the map! I read in my +gazette that the French have taken <i>Umbrage</i>. What a good-for-nothing +minister is ours—to leave <i>Umbrage</i> so poorly defended that the French +could take it.” That John Bull discovered in the library either +<i>umbrage</i>, or what was better for him—his own ignorance and the way to +remove it, “taking umbrage” against himself. His gazette probably +brought the same earnest inquirer to the library for <i>history</i> as well +as for geography. A daily paper, which is the history of the world for +one day, leads backward, as a stream carries our thoughts to its +fountain. Whoever repairs to a library with one historical query will be +likely to repeat his visit, since newspapers, in the light of history, +will become more significant as the last chapter in a novel is more +interesting to those who have read the previous chapters, and so often +leads one back to them. Again, discussions are always arising, not +merely in formal debates, but as we sit in the house and walk by the +way. Some carry them on by assertions and counter-assertions—a strong +will and a strong won't—equally positive and ignorant, discussing and +sometimes leaving off the <i>dis</i>, till like Milton's devils they find no +end, in wandering mazes lost. Too often “It comes to pass that a +terrible oath, with a swaggering accent twanged off, gives an opinion +more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned it.” Others +back up their opinions by <i>wagers</i>, in spite of a lurking feeling that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Bets are the blockhead's argument,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The only logic he can vent,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His minor and his major.—<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Tis to confess your head a worse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Investigator than your purse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To reason with a wager.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But where standard books are at hand, investigation will often either +take the place of disputation, or bring strife to a speedy end.</p> + +<p>Let us hope those here seeking props for their arguments will never be +those jealous lovers of books who cannot use them without using them up, +or who spirit them away for themselves alone. Such abductors have +sometimes infested the libraries in the Capitol. Their thefts can be +justified only by that casuistry which holds stealing the relics of +saints for a pious fraud. But in truth the more holy the saint, the more +heinous the sacrilege of what Hood calls <i>Book</i>-aneering.</p> + +<p>Moreover, every <i>lecture</i> delivered in the city will send some +investigators to the library, that they may confute, or confirm, or +amplify its teachings. A lecture that pops will not be as surely +<i>popular</i> as formerly, if the library shall evince that what is true in +it is not new, and that what is new is not true, or that the speaker +draws on imaginations for facts and on facts for imaginations.</p> + +<p>Every meeting of our Women's Centennial Club will start inquiries which +cannot be answered without recourse to the library.</p> + +<p>It is certain that books of <i>travel</i> will here be largely consulted. +Some of us purpose to go abroad. Such will read beforehand in order to +add a precious seeing to their eyes. They would dislike to have their +experiences those of a lady who when asked what she saw in Rome answered +“dirt,” or of the London barber who at the coronation of Napoleon +remembered nothing except that the Emperor was well shaved, or of the +Bostonian fresh from the West who, when called on for his opinion of +Madison, said it would be a pretty fair Massachusetts village if it were +not spoiled by so many fresh water ponds around it. Others among us have +travelled already, and we shall be studious in the library that we may +ascertain what we ought to have seen—but did not, or the meaning of +what we did see, but which was Greek to us. The Shah of Persia noted in +his journal that of all the fine things in Europe the finest to his mind +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>was a show of wax work. His library would teach him better, and would +not laugh at him, as we do. A Vermont friend of mine, after his trip to +London, when asked whether he saw Westminster Abbey, confessed that he +did not, but added that Westminster Abbey was out of town at the time of +his visit. If he had free course in our library he would hardly excuse +himself in that way again. Soon after crossing the Mississippi at +Burlington, I heard a New York merchant, bound for California, +remarking: “How much geography one learns in travelling. Here is +Burlington. I always thought it in Illinois, but now I find it is in +Missouri.” Library-reading may by this time have added insight to his +sight, and convicted him of the blunder which I suffered to pass +uncorrected, though we chatted 100 miles together. There are others of +us who, on hearing a traveller's tales, are curious to examine how far +we, like the old prophet, should count the way-faring man a fool, and +how far he uses his license to lie. Hence they will read that they may +make up their minds whether all <span class="smcap">Mark Twain's</span> caricatures have the ring +of truth.</p> + +<p>A German table d'hote of twenty courses will surfeit a careless diner +before it is half over, and yet fail to afford him either what he likes +best or what he should like best. Hence it compels guests to a careful +choice what they will partake of and what refuse of the blessing there +is no room to receive in its fulness. A similar influence will be +exerted by the free library where we fall into the embarassment of +riches. We shall be driven to select from its bill of fare, that is the +catalogue, that fraction which we can enjoy most and which will profit +us most.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Taste after taste upheld by kindliest change.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Some persons, when they survey a library and perceive that they can +never read the hundredth part of its volumes, will be attracted to those +works which teach “what to read,” or open a panoramic outlook on the +diversified regions of the bookish world.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Of all the best of man's best knowledges,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The contents, indexes and title-pages,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through all past, present, and succeeding ages.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p><p>Unless we thus liberalize our views we are likely to vegetate, like the +rhubarb pie plant, under a barrel, and see the world only through its +bunghole. Ignorant of bibliographical guides and hence at a loss how to +estimate books, the steward of a British nobleman sold as rubbish all +volumes in the library which lacked <i>covers</i>. One of those thus disposed +of, and bought by a pedlar for nine pence, proved to be the very +earliest issue of the British press, snapped up by the British museum +for £80, and could not now be bought for ten times that sum. In regard +to the <i>intrinsic</i> value of books blunders more egregious are daily +made. Libraries were never so needful as now, for libraries and life +never lay so close to one another as now. Our familiar sights lead to +interest in recondite knowledge. Photography, gas, the locomotive, +kerosene, yes, every match that lights it, provokes questions in +chemistry, or philosophy, which not every library can answer. No one can +gaze at the dome of our Capitol without naturally falling into +architectural inquiries which draw him through a world of books that +expose the nakedness of his ignorance, yet never put him to open shame. +But the truth is too palpable to dwell on that in our day life touches +libraries at every point.</p> + +<p>In all libraries there are readers whose emblem is dead fish who follow +the stream, but thanks to various accidents, some of this class, ceasing +to be passive recipients, begin to investigate as active seekers. They +at once rise to a higher mental plane. The contrast between active +seekers and passive recipients is analogous to that between the +mountaineers and the maritime aborigines of California. The mountaineers +lived on grizzly bears—food which it was impossible to seize without +tasking their energies to the utmost. But tasking trains. The maritimes +lived on salmon, which were so abundant and so tame that they could be +caught by fishers who lay basking in the sun. But basking enervates. +Naturally enough no Indians are superior to the mountaineers who are +active seekers, nor yet inferior to the maritimes, who are passive +recipients. What investigators seek they will not find at once; they may +never find it. But they are sure to discover something better, so that +they will say with <span class="smcap">Lessing</span>, in the library at Wolfenbuttel, “Were God to +hold truth in one hand and search in the other, and give me my choice, I +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>would say: Give me seeking without finding, rather than finding without +seeking!”</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">“All things that are,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are with more spirit chased than enjoyed.”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Courtship once over, the novel ends.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In the library where <span class="smcap">Lessing</span> was made librarian—not that he might serve +the library, but that the library might serve him—I took in my hand +with reverence the inkstand out of which he distilled the essence of a +thousand books, and reformed German literature as radically as <span class="smcap">Luther</span> +had reformed German religion.</p> + +<p>All truths being inter-dependent, every road will lead to the end of the +world, and so while studying one subject a man becomes interested in +others, and his range of inquiry expands. When he kindles one dry stick, +many green ones will catch, and his brightest blazes are lit up by +unexpected sparks. One quickly learns to love hunting, and before +working up many topics, he forms an investigating habit which will +perpetuate itself. Thus while seeking an oyster, he finds a pearl, like +<span class="smcap">Saul</span> who sought asses and found a kingdom. Henceforth he reads more by +subjects, each a cord to string pearls on, than by volumes, for he feels +that,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Unless to some particular end designed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reading is but a specious trifling of the mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And then, like ill-digested food,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To humors turns and not to blood.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But less and less of that sort is his reading, though it range through +all time, and tax all the world. Such an inquirer will live longer than +<span class="smcap">Methuselah</span>, for he will have more thoughts, yet he will wish each of his +minutes was a millenary. He will read with an appetite growing as long +as he lives; indeed reading will help him to live longer. A thousand +such readers feel what one has spoken out, saying:</p> + +<p>“In a library I was thrown, instead of worse society, into the company +of poets, philosophers and sages—to me good angels and ministers of +grace. From these silent instructors who often do more than fathers for +our interests, from these delightful associates I learned something of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>the divine and more of the human religion. They were my interpreters in +the House Beautiful of God, and my guides among the Delectable Mountains +of Nature,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Blessing be with them and eternal praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who gave me nobler loves and nobler cares.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Pre-eminently to the <i>young</i> will the myriad-minded library be an oracle +in perplexities. They have been better trained in public schools than we +of the last generation were. They have broken ground in more various +studies, and their curiosity has been stimulated concerning more +questions. Each question, each study puts in their hand a new <i>key</i> to +the locks which shut up libraries. Singers love to sing, and it is joy +for the just to do justice, so will our youth rejoice to use in the +library the skill they have acquired in school as naturally as when they +get jack knives they take to whittling. The public schools then find in +free libraries their fitting supplement, and complement. Schools without +libraries feed a prisoner with salted viands and then tantalize his +thirst with pitchers and bottles, all empty. The free school and the +free library will join hands like husband and wife in a well-matched +marriage.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“He is the half-part of a blessed man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Left to be finished by such as she;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And she a fair divided excellence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose fulness of perfection lies in him;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But two such silver currents when they join,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do glorify the banks that bind them in.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Each befits the other, as <span class="smcap">Alexander</span> said concerning the finest poem and +the most costly casket in the world when he enshrined the Iliad in the +Persian box of gold and gems. Both are lotteries where tickets cost +nothing and everybody may draw all the prizes.</p> + +<p>In addition to this, the free library will be to some nothing less than +an <i>inspiration</i>. <i>To some</i>—I wish I could say <i>to all</i>, but alas, it +is only an “elect few” whom the library can inspire. Spectacles are +invaluable,—but only to those who have eyes. One Sultan never wore a +shirt that had not every word of the Koran written on it yet absorbed +little piety. <span class="smcap">Aaron's</span> excuse for making only a golden calf was, that the +Jews did not bring him gold enough to make an ox. The cherubim who know +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>most can never equal the seraphim who love most. An ugly and stupid man, +walking with a lady on each arm, boasts that he is between wit and +beauty, but may not imbibe one particle of either.</p> + +<p>To some, however, a free library will make up for the lack of a liberal +education. More than that. It will furnish such an education every jot +and tittle of it, and that, in some sense, better than was ever bestowed +in a college, because acquired in the face of greater difficulties. +Libraries have often vouchsafed this priceless boon. That in Salem did +to <span class="smcap">Bowditch</span>, the mathematician, in the last century, and to <span class="smcap">Whipple</span>, the +essayist, in this. The Edinburgh library made <span class="smcap">Hume</span> an historian. Another +was inspiration to <span class="smcap">Cobbett</span>. So was that of the Erfurt convent to <span class="smcap">Luther</span>. +“It had purchased,” says his biographer, “at heavy cost, several Latin +Bibles just printed for the first time in the neighboring city of Mainz. +When he first opened one of these tomes his eyes fell on the story of +<span class="smcap">Hannah</span> and <span class="smcap">Samuel</span>. “O, God,” he murmured, “could I have one of these +books I would seek no other worldly treasure.” A great revolution then +took place in his soul. His happiest hours were in the library. +Concerning such a scholar—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i18">“We cannot say: ‘'Tis pity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He lacks instructions,’ for he seems a master<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To most that teach.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The influence of ancient Libraries on classical writers is manifest from +their quotations. <span class="smcap">Plutarch's</span> have been traced to 250 authors. <span class="smcap">Pliny's</span> to +2,000 works. Classical Libraries preserved in Constantinople, so long as +studied, made there a Goshen of light in the Dark Ages, and when carried +to Italy proved a Promethean spark to kindle occidental culture anew. It +is well known that inventions are oftenest struck out in the Patent +Office, the grand store-house of inventions. In the world of mind, as +well as of matter, new ideas are suggested where old ideas most +congregate, or are most communed with. According to <span class="smcap">Chaucer</span>,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Out of old fields, as man saith,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cometh all the new corn from year to year,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And out of old books, in good faith,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Cometh all the new science that men lear.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p><p>The idea of writing the “Life of <span class="smcap">Columbus</span>” first darted into the mind +of <span class="smcap">Irving</span>, when, in Madrid, he found himself surrounded by an unrivaled +magazine of materials made ready to his hand, and for which the world +had been ransacked. Thus the sight of means to make good books makes +good books made.</p> + +<p>Not only those volumes which compose the body of literature, but those +finer essences which form its soul,—the literature of power,—stamped +in Nature's mint of ecstasy—are marked all over with proofs of +familiarity with the best that had been achieved,—each in its own +department. Nobody has hesitated thus to affirm concerning <span class="smcap">Virgil, +Dante, Tasso, Milton</span>. But it is commonly said that <span class="smcap">Shakespeare</span> was +<i>ignorant</i>. The truth is that no ignorant man, no ordinary, scholar can +understand his allusions, historical, romantic, classical, or those to +art, science, nationalities, customs—or even his words. He could get +more from a Library in a day than most men in a life-time, but he needed +it still.</p> + +<p>In speaking of <span class="smcap">Shakespeare</span>, I mean the man who wrote the Plays reputed +his, no matter whether that author was <span class="smcap">Bacon</span>, or <span class="smcap">John Smith</span>, or even our +townsman <span class="smcap">George</span> B.</p> + +<p>We ought to say that <span class="smcap">Shakespeare</span> was a universal man,—because he was +heir of all ages,—and his was universal knowledge, a knowledge which +neither can we fathom nor could he find without a library.</p> + +<p>His peculiarity was ability to discern the immortal part of books, or to +stamp what were otherwise perishable with his own immortality. Whoever +can do much without tools, can do more with them. Accordingly men do +their broken weapons rather use than their bare hands. Whoever can do +much without a library, can do more with a library. <span class="smcap">David</span> did much with +a sling, but more with better arms, and builded an armory on which there +hung a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.</p> + +<p>If then there be among us any one person endued with any spark of +Shakespearian or other genius he will find it kindling to a flame +through contact in this library with similar celestial fires. To such a +“meeting soul!” as <span class="smcap">Milton</span> calls it,—the library will prove a better +bonanza than has been prospected in our States of silver and gold. +Though having nothing he shall possess all things,—infinite riches in a +little room.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p><p>Thus our Free Library will amuse, and instruct, and inspire. Over its +entrance I seem to read as on the front of the oldest in the world, the +inscription, “The healing of the soul,” or the words of <span class="smcap">Franklin</span> to his +namesake town, “I give you books instead of a bell, sense rather than +sound.” Let it have free course for a generation, calling to culture as +ceaselessly as a standing army calls to war, and this community will say +with <span class="smcap">Seneca</span>, “Leisure without books and letters is mental death and +burial.”</p> + +<p>The first public library in Ohio—just two years younger than the +State—was founded in Ames. It was bought by hunters who threw together +a lot of raccoon skins, sent them in a sleigh by one of their number to +Boston and there bartered them for books. They soon hunted Greek as +zealously as game, and while Ames remained a hamlet ten of them, or +their children, were among the early graduates of the State University.</p> + +<p>The influences of a library are <i>cumulative</i>, and sometimes become +manifest only after a long lapse of ages. The cuniform library of +Assyrian bricks, dating from pre-historic periods, burned up, buried and +forgotten just now emerges from its grave speaking in a voice heard +round the world, and no less authoritative than a second book of +Genesis. From its shelves more centuries look down upon us than upon +<span class="smcap">Napoleon</span> at the Pyramids.</p> + +<p>Libraries are hemmed in by no lines of State, nation, race, language, +religion or century. Their field is the world. But ours is the +cosmopolitan age, and we are pre-eminently the cosmopolitan people. More +than any other people, then must we feel the need of libraries, which +are, of all institutions, the most cosmopolitan. Hence they will benefit +us most.</p> + +<p>Considerations like these demonstrate that free libraries tend to +<i>equality</i> and <i>fraternity</i>. They are free lunches, crying to all: “Cut, +and come again!” As we all have equal rights at the polls and in court, +so have we in the free library. In church we each secure a blessing in +proportion to our capacity; so can we in the library. In both blessed +are they who hunger and thirst, for they shall be filled. In public +schools all can enjoy the best of teaching without money and without +price; so can they in the free library. Free libraries will create an +aristocracy—one open to talent and toil, but to nothing else; the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>aristocracy of knowledge. Where street cars have been introduced, half +the private carriages are soon given up, so the establishment of free +libraries will lead many to refrain from large domestic collections as +superfluous, and to the transfer of many a private library to the public +shelves, where they will not only do more good, but will be better cared +for, better arranged, and more accessible than they now are even to +their owners. One millionaire as we walked into his library, said with a +sigh: “See how many gaps there are in my shelves! Five hundred of my +books are missing, lent and lost.” “Lost!” cried I, half in joke, “say +rather found! lost to you, but found each by some one who will make the +most of them. Would to heaven these 5,000 were lost in the same way, +lost by you who have no time nor care for them, found by those who have +both. Nobody could steal them from you, but at most only from moths and +worms, dust and mould.” Rich men who have bought libraries as luxuries +will learn that the way to save them is to lose them, and that their +books serve them best when deposited in free libraries.</p> + +<p>Many varieties of <i>sham</i> equality result from outside pressure. In +Venetian gondolas all awnings are required to be black that no one may +outshine his neighbor. Under the first republic the French proscribed +all titles but citizen, and citizeness, which they gave to everybody. +Communists would make all men's shares in property equal. Endeavors of +this sort not only fail, but prove suicidal like the impetuous Irishman, +insisting that one man is as good as another, and <i>a great dey better +too</i>. The influence of Free Libraries, however is toward genuine and not +merely visible equality. Thanks to them the most expensive luxury of the +rich becomes the daily food of the poor, and the tree of knowledge no +more bears forbidden fruit. A volume which I can draw out of a library +at will is worth as much to me as if I owned it. In fact, though my +private library is not small, the books I read are more often borrowed +than my own.</p> + +<p>If I take out books from a library, I am doubly spurred to to make their +contents my own, because those books must be returned more promptly than +to the friend who neither exacts fines nor yet even notes in a book what +book we borrow.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Franklin</span> tells us that “he often sat up reading, the greater part of +the night, when a book borrowed (he means <i>stolen</i>) from booksellers in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>the evening, was to be returned in the morning lest it should be found +missing.” In proportion as men make full proof of books, they become +alike <i>inside</i>, in real communion with great authors, in information, +taste, mental capacity, mastery of speech,—accomplishments which cannot +be lost, and which render each one more equal and congenial with his +fellows. Men will still differ by God, not by man. What then is the Free +Library less than the key stone in our Republican arch?</p> + +<p>When we would show attention to strangers, it has been a Madison custom +to take them into our cemetery. That grave yard is well worth showing. +But in time to come I trust we shall rather exhibit our Libraries, and +say; “These are our jewels.” Not tombs, but living shrines that on the +living still work miracles,—the shrines where all the relics of the +saints full of true virtue are preserved, where the dead live and the +dumb speak—the dead sceptered sovereigns who still rule our spirits +from their urns. This sun of our intellectual worlds is</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">“Made porous to receive<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And drink the liquid light, firm to retain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its gathered beams, great palace now of light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hither as to a fountain countless stars<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Repairing in their golden urns draw light.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Let us rejoice in it all glorious within, even as our Capitol and +University parks are without.</p> + +<p>A library,—the assembled souls of all men deem most wise, the only men +who speak loud enough for posterity to hear;—reminds me of that fresco +by <span class="smcap">Raphael</span>, which I admired most of all his Vatican masterpieces, +popularly styled “The School of Athens,” and which I hope to see hung up +as the genius of our library hall, as I have seen it in many. In some +one of the fifty-two figures glowing with life in that picture, every +variety of culture has a representative. You see there the practical +man, like <span class="smcap">Franklin's</span> Poor Richard, in Diogenes rough and ready by his +tub. Archimedes is drawing a diagram in the sand. On the broad steps of +a temple stand Ptolemy, with the terrestrial and Hipparchus with the +celestial globe. No sage is without a docile retinue. <span class="smcap">Socrates</span>, with sly +humor, is humbling the self-sufficient <span class="smcap">Alcibiades</span> that he may rouse him +to loftier aspirations. <span class="smcap">Pythagoras</span> is writing among disciples, one of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>whom holds his musical scale, while above all, and in the midst of the +temple, appear <span class="smcap">Aristotle</span>, father of natural philosophy, pointing down to +the earth, and <span class="smcap">Plato</span>, the father of spiritual philosophy with hand +uplifted toward heaven, man as it were feeling for God. The culture +proffered in such a School of Athens, as <span class="smcap">Raphael</span> painted—and as an +ideal free library is to my mind, has its fittest emblem in the miracle +of architecture, the dome,—which is well said to unite clustered arches +and pillars and radiate in equal expansion towards every quarter of the +earth, while with every convergent curve it soars heavenward, buried in +air, and looking to the stars.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime.”<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This section, devoted to the general relations of the +library and society, which opened with a historical account +by Prof. Moses Coit Tyler, may appropriately close with +another of similar tenor, contributed eleven years later to +<i>The American Magazine of Civics</i> (New York, May, 1895) by +Prof. Henry H. Barber. It covers some of the same ground but +gives results to a later date, while it is still only +introductory to the social development of more recent years.</p> + +<p>Henry Hervey Barber was born in Warwick, Mass., Dec. 30, +1835, graduated at Meadville Theological Seminary in 1861 +and after holding several Unitarian pastorates was professor +of philosophy and theology there from 1884 to 1904. He was +also editor of the Unitarian Review from 1875 to 1884. He +died about 1915.</p></div> + + +<p>No public institution has made greater progress during the last few +years or grown more rapidly in public interest and favor than the free +public library. The building of a magnificent structure in Chicago, +together with the excellent Newberry free reference library, and in +cooperation with the fast growing library of the Chicago University, +will make perhaps the most superb public provision for free literary +culture ever furnished by any municipality. Boston has lately +transferred its more than half a million volumes to the new and noble +public library building on the Back Bay. The newspapers of this last +week tell us that in New York Mr. Tilden is after all not to be finally +counted out; but that the two millions rescued from his estate by the +high sense of honor of one of his heirs is to be joined with the +invaluable Astor Library, and the choice Lennox Reference Library, and +all made free and available to the public—a property valued in the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>aggregate at eight million dollars. These events, together with the +recent founding of the Carnegie free libraries in Pittsburg and +Allegheny, the not very remote establishment of the Enoch Pratt Free +Library in Baltimore, and the addition by Mr. Henry C. Lea to the +splendid Ridgway foundation in Philadelphia, constitute a series of +brilliant triumphs for the free public library, unparalleled in the +history of educational institutions, and seldom equalled, I must think, +in the intellectual progress of civilization.</p> + +<p>Nor do these metropolitan successes indicate, after all, the most +essential advance. The frequency with which private beneficence is +coming to the aid of public enterprise in smaller cities and country +towns, for the establishment and increase of these libraries; the recent +notable instances of stimulative auxiliary legislation; and the growth +of intelligent interest in new and widely scattered sections of the +civilized world, are equally significant, and perhaps even more widely +beneficent. It is the era of the free public library; and it is of +special interest to us to see that our community and our commonwealth +are moving in accord with this tide of new feeling and enterprise +concerning it.</p> + +<p>Of special interest, I say, to us as Pennsylvanians; for we are glad to +remember that it is here that the first impulse was given to the +foundation of the system of circulating libraries, the development of +which is the free public library in England and America. Benjamin +Franklin, after considerable effort, founded in 1732 the Philadelphia +Library Company, the “mother,” as he himself calls it, “of all the +subscription libraries in North America.”</p> + +<p>This library which Franklin started for the advantage of himself and his +fifty young business associates, in the early time, when, as he says, +“there was not a good bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the +southward of Boston,” and when most of the books had to be imported from +England, was followed soon by the establishment of more ambitious +similar libraries in Newport (1747) and Hartford (1774); and later in +many other places in England and this country. These were called public +libraries, though books could only be taken out by subscribers. +Probably, however, as in Philadelphia, the librarian could “permit any +civil gentlemen to peruse the books of the library in the library room.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p><p>But it was in the formation of many so-called “Social Libraries” in the +smaller cities and country towns of New England and the Middle States, +early in the present century, that the foundations of the free municipal +library were laid. These subscription libraries, in their growth and in +their decay, no less than in the appetite for books they developed, +created a demand and at length a necessity for public provision for what +had come to be one of the prime intellectual needs of many communities.</p> + +<p>Meantime in Scotland, in 1816, Samuel Brown of Haddington, following in +part the methods of London booksellers, established a system of free +itinerating libraries, loaning without cost selections of fifty books in +each package to villages and neighborhoods that would engage to +circulate and take proper care of them. At the end of two years each +loan was called in, and another of different works sent in its place. +This scheme was for many years highly successful, and doubtless highly +useful; but seems to have failed soon after the death of its projector +and inspirer in 1839. The system had the earnest sanction of Lord +Brougham, and about 1825 was taken up in some parts of England; and, in +a modified form, has had a great success in Melbourne and its +neighborhood, in Australia. Stanley Jevons, whose article on the +rationale of free public libraries in his “Methods of Social Reform” is +one of the most interesting and valuable contributions to the literature +of this subject, commends it as the best form of extending free public +libraries in the rural portions of Great Britain, and he estimates that +there ought to be three thousand such literary itinerants in England and +Wales.</p> + +<p>This system was copied in this country in the School District Libraries +which were started in the state of New York in 1835, and a few years +afterward were in successful operation in Massachusetts and other New +England states, and in Michigan and Ohio at least, among states further +west. At first every school district raising thirty dollars the first +year and ten dollars thereafter, by tax or subscription, was assisted by +the state—I cite the Massachusetts statute—to a like sum; and a small +but choice selection of books sent to it for free circulation within the +district. A little later Massachusetts, at least, removed this +condition; and supplied every school district with such a library. These +libraries after remaining in use for a while, and generally being +thoroughly read, were exchanged among the districts. New books were thus +continually coming to new readers. This movement was earnestly forwarded +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>by that pioneer among American educators, Horace Mann, and during the +period of my boyhood was a godsend to the young people of New England. I +want to bless the memory of Samuel Brown, Father Page (a pioneer of the +system in New York), and Horace Mann for the gleams of literary light +thus cast across the bookless darkness of New England rural homes forty +to fifty years ago. This highly economical missionary agency of general +intelligence passed away in New England with the incoming of the more +satisfactory town system of free libraries. The cause of its decadence +elsewhere is not clear, but it has lately had a remarkable resurrection +in New York, as we soon shall see.</p> + +<p>The first free town library in America, or the world, supported by +municipal taxation, was established by the efforts of Abiel Abbot, D.D., +in Peterboro, New Hampshire, in 1833. A decayed social library and an +operatives' library, and perhaps some other small collections, were thus +gathered under the shelter of the town; and took on new life from its +fostering care, and the small annual appropriation for new books which +is the breath of life to all libraries. Here, as always, it was <i>a man</i> +that inspired the advance movement and carried it on to successful +fulfilment.</p> + +<p>In 1849, New Hampshire passed a general law enabling towns and cities to +maintain free libraries by taxation; and in 1851 Massachusetts, which +had granted Boston in 1847 the right to establish such a library, passed +a similar general enabling act. Several other states followed almost +immediately, and nearly every northern and northwestern state, except +Pennsylvania, has since adopted the measure. In 1893, twenty states had +enacted similar statutes; and, in all, more than seven hundred free +libraries have been established under them. They have increased—as +might naturally have been expected—most rapidly in the portions of the +country where other library agencies, and where an efficient public +school system, have been longest and most efficiently at work. Thus, of +the seven hundred libraries, more than three hundred are in +Massachusetts (according to the returns of the Public Library Commission +for 1894), or 1,233 volumes for every thousand of population; in New +Hampshire something over one hundred (in 1894), or 464 volumes per +thousand of inhabitants.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p><p>Great Britain has kept nearly equal pace with our foremost states in +free library legislation. A general enabling act to establish and +support free libraries for the people from municipal rates was passed by +Parliament in 1850, and accepted with great energy and enthusiasm by +many of the northern towns and cities. Eighty-six free libraries, not +including branches, had been opened before 1880; but, as in this +country, the conservatism of the southern portions of the country has +prevented their general establishment. For similar reasons only the +province of Ontario has made any considerable movement in this direction +in the Dominion of Canada.</p> + +<p>This hasty historical sketch would be very incomplete without some +account of the recent legislation, in several states, for the assistance +of the smaller towns and villages in the establishment and increase of +public libraries. This legislation has already had marvelous results. +Massachusetts, in 1890, appropriated one hundred dollars to any town +that would raise by taxation, or appropriate from the dog tax, or +otherwise raise, at least fifty dollars (or if its valuation was less +than one million dollars it should raise twenty-five dollars, or if less +than $250,000 it should raise at least fifteen dollars); and should +agree to take care of the books, and furnish the agency of distribution. +The sums granted by the state are in the hands of a board of +commissioners appointed by the governor (with the advice and consent of +the council); and so far these commissioners—librarians and +others—have been eminent citizens, serving without salaries, and having +only $500 in their hands annually for clerk hire and traveling expenses. +The commission is also required to give advice and information to +librarians and others concerning selection of books, cataloguing, and +administration; and to select and forward the books granted by the +state.</p> + +<p>Now for results. The commission has thus aided in establishing, in four +years, more than sixty free public libraries in small towns (out of one +hundred and four not thus supplied) and its action has shamed a few +larger towns into establishing them; so that now only two and three +fourths per cent of the population of the state, in forty-four small +towns, were in January, 1894, without their advantages. And this has +been accomplished with an entire expense to the commonwealth of less +than ten thousand dollars. <i>Per contra</i>, more than half a million +dollars were given by individuals in a single year for similar purposes +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>within the state. Certainly, this has been a most economical and +effective public outlay; free, too, from all suspicion of any one's +fattening by political jobbery.</p> + +<p>The record of New Hampshire is even more remarkable. This state passed a +law in 1891, similar to the one outlined above, and over eighty towns +accepted its provisions, and established free libraries within a +twelvemonth after it came in force. We are glad to read that the states +of Maine, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania are moving in the direction of a +measure that has proved so effective in its operation, and that must be +so widely beneficent.</p> + +<p>The state of New York has adopted another system to stimulate the +development of the free library. Her enabling act of many years ago +produced, as we have seen, comparatively small results; and in 1892 a +law was passed authorizing the Regents of the University of New York to +lend for a limited time—usually six months—selections of books from +the duplicate department of the state library, or from books purchased +for the purpose, to any public library in the state; or, where none +exists, to twenty-five petitioners in any town or village of the state. +A fee of five dollars is required, to cover cost of transportation, +catalogue, etc., for a loan of one hundred volumes, and a smaller sum +(three dollars) for a loan of fifty volumes. This plan, it will be seen, +is a revival of the old school district method; and of that instituted +by Samuel Brown in Scotland, and the later one found successful in +Australia. The antipodes have a fashion lately of suggesting valuable +object-lessons for social legislation. In small communities it has the +advantage of making books do manifold duty, and of meeting the wants of +varied communities and occupations. By judicious and varied selection, +clubs, classes, schools, and reading circles may be aided in special +courses and investigations. At the end of twenty months one hundred and +twenty-five of these free loan libraries had been sent out by the New +York Board of Regents; of which nearly one half (44) went to communities +without public libraries, the remainder going to libraries already +established (22), to university extension centers (18), and to academy +libraries open to the public (22). Eleven thousand nine hundred volumes +were thus made accessible to the public, with a total circulation of not +far from 25,000 volumes and 9,000 readers. This system, which seems even +more economical than the Massachusetts one, has greatly promoted +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>interest in good reading, and led to the establishment of several local +public libraries. The system is very elastic and is easily adapted to +the rapidly growing demands for its privileges. As a pioneer method, or +as auxiliary to municipal libraries, it promises excellent results.</p> + +<p>After this historical survey it would hardly seem necessary to dwell +upon the arguments in behalf of the free public library. “There is +probably no mode of expending public money,” says Stanley Jevons, “which +gives a more extraordinary and immediate return in utility and innocent +enjoyment.” He affirms that in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and +some other great towns in England, as in similar communities in this +country, where such libraries have existed for years, there is but one +opinion about them. “They are classed with town-halls, police courts, +prisons, and poorhouses as necessary adjuncts of our stage of +civilization.” A more natural, and certainly more cheerful, collocation +would class them with free schools, museums, and public parks, as Jevons +himself afterwards suggests. “The main <i>raison d'être</i> of free public +libraries, as indeed of public museums, art galleries, parks, halls, +public clocks, and many other kinds of public works, is the enormous +increase of utility which is thereby acquired for the community at a +trifling cost.” He proceeds to illustrate by several instances what he +calls “the remarkable multiplication of utility” in the case of free +lending libraries by several instances. Every book, in the first year of +the Birmingham Free Library, was issued on an average seventeen times, +and the periodical literature turned over fifty times. In Leeds, every +book was used eighteen times. In larger libraries and in later use, of +course, the figures are less, averaging from three to ten times, the +whole cost of each issue averaging only from two to five cents. Similar +statistics may be found in the <i>Forum</i> article already referred to in +regard to the manifold use of books furnished in New York.</p> + +<p>The comfort and moral economy of a cheerful, well-lighted reading-room, +too, is overwhelmingly illustrated. Mr. Jevons found that in Manchester +all persons of suitable age visited the free libraries on an average +thirteen times a year, of whom three fourths came to read in the +reading-rooms. Such a refuge from the perils of the saloon and the +street is an immense benefaction in any neighborhood.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p><p>The relative cheapness of securing this means of general culture and +enjoyment, this efficient antidote to vice and ignorance, is strikingly +shown by comparing its cost with other items of governmental +expenditure, and the statistics of national luxuries and vices. The +eighty-six free libraries in the large cities of Great Britain cost not +more than half a million dollars per year—one fifth the cost of a first +class ironclad. The statistics I have given show that the cost of the +two war vessels just voted by Congress might be abundantly sufficient to +insure the organization on the Massachusetts plan of a free library in +every village and country town of the United States, not now accessible +to such a library. The expenditure for drink, for horse-racing, or even +for tobacco, for a single year, would royally equip and endow a public +library for every thousand people now without such privileges. As +post-office savings banks are, wherever established, a mighty engine for +teaching thrift, as public parks are an incalculable source of health +and enjoyment in our cities, so the public library, “the free literary +park,” as Jevons calls it, is a most effective agency for the promotion +of culture and civilization.</p> + +<p>In the year 1851, George Ticknor, the distinguished author of the +“History of Spanish Literature” and a benefactor of the Boston Public +Library, wrote to Edward Everett: “I would establish a library which +differs from all free libraries yet attempted; I mean one in which any +popular books tending to moral and intellectual improvement shall be +furnished in such numbers that many persons can be reading the same book +at the same time; in short, that not only the best books of all sorts, +but the pleasant literature of the day, shall be made accessible to the +whole people when they most care for it—that is, when it is fresh and +new. I would thus by following the popular taste—unless it should +demand something injurious—create a real appetite for healthy reading. +This appetite once formed will take care of itself. It will in a great +majority of cases demand better and better books.”</p> + +<p>Mr. Everett's conservatism doubted the wisdom of these principles for +the foundation of a library: but they are essentially those which have +proved sound in the free library system of England and New England, of +Australia and the Northwestern cities. In the light of fifty years' +experience, indeed, Everett's skepticism reads like Governor Berkeley's +report on education in Virginia, in which he thanked God that there were +no free schools in Virginia and hoped that there would be none for a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>hundred years. The communities in which libraries, approaching George +Ticknor's ideal, have been longest established, would do without paved +streets or electric lights sooner than without these libraries, and they +support them by taxation as cheerfully as the public schools. Indeed, +the free library in not a few communities is reckoned an invaluable and +indispensable adjunct of the public school, the very crown of the system +of popular education. Such librarians as Green of Worcester, +Massachusetts, and Whitney of Watertown, and Hosmer of Minneapolis, keep +in touch with the work of the schools, and apprize the various classes +of pupils of new books especially valuable for their work. More than +this, they have regard to the needs of the various clubs, trades, and +professions, and keep their members aware of valuable books in their +special departments. But perhaps the most helpful service of all is +rendered by capable librarians in the constant advice given to +inexperienced readers, and the frequent bulletins sent out to stimulate +the interest and instruct the intelligence of the community. It is of +special interest to note that the demand for good reading has been +greatly increased wherever the public library has been administered in +this way. Indeed, booksellers and proprietary libraries have come to +favor the opening of the free library as largely increasing the demand +for their books.</p> + +<p>It is not strange that with this large and various capacity of social +service, the free library should be rapidly growing in public favor; nor +that private munificence should frequently come to the municipal +provision. There is no public object for which so generous gifts are +often made. In the year 1893, for instance, five hundred thousand +dollars were contributed to public libraries and the erection of library +buildings in Massachusetts alone. “There has been ready perception,” +says Fletcher in his “Public Libraries in America,” “of the truth that +one's memory cannot better be perpetuated than by association with an +institution so popular and at the same time so elevating and refining as +the public library. Memorial libraries are therefore very abundant, and +as expense has not been spared in the erection of such memorials, many +of our towns, even the smaller ones, are ornamented by library buildings +which are gems of architecture.... The fact remains, with all its +significance, that about the public library cluster naturally the +affections and the interest of the community. In its endowment, on the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>one hand by private beneficence, and on the other by public taxation, is +illustrated that collaboration of the rich and the poor in the pursuit +of the highest ends which has in it the promise, and perhaps the +potency, of the solution of vexing social questions.”</p> + +<p>The remembrance that these statements are only locally accepted, and +that large portions of England and the United States have hardly moved +toward the establishment of public libraries, may prompt a consideration +of certain objections which are still sometimes urged. Civilization +accepts its most benignant and effective agencies of progress only under +protest; and it is not, therefore, wholly inexplicable that fifty years +of unmixed and increasing success should have left some excellent and +otherwise intelligent people unconvinced of the beneficence of the free +public library. A friend of mine was enthusiastically setting forth the +advantages of such libraries, and their rapid multiplication and growing +service in New England, at the dinner table of one of the most +distinguished, philosophic, and progressive of contemporary Englishmen; +and was not a little surprised to be cut short with the decided comment, +“I do not believe in it.” The Englishman's fastidious preference for +high fences and compartment railway carriages pervades all his +intellectual conceptions also; and makes him impervious even to Stanley +Jevons's overwhelming demonstration of the moral, social, and economic +utility of the free public library; impervious even to the appeal that +ignorance and narrow intellectual opportunity must be supposed to make +upon enlightened philanthropy.</p> + +<p>Mr. Herbert Spencer and the individualists oppose to the public +library, supported by taxation, their wellworn declamation about the +injustice of making one man pay for another man's culture and amusement; +and urge the dictum of <i>laissez faire</i> in civilization and government. +But as the post-office and the public school have survived their +onslaughts we may not feel compelled to surrender the advantages of the +free library. For, as with the school, it is easy to show that mental +health and light are as primary interests of the community as material; +and that it is precisely because those most deficient are least sensible +of their defect that society must seek to remedy it. Mr. Spencer's +analogy between hunger for food and hunger for knowledge is utterly +fallacious. The physical appetite may be trusted to seek vigorously its +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>own supply; the intellectual appetite has most to be aroused where +intellectual starvation is most imminent; and it grows only by what it +feeds on. Men usually value most, indeed, what they work or pay for; but +it is precisely those who do not value good books at all who need to be +tempted and trained to their appreciation. And it is just the children +of those whose parents will not, or cannot, provide them wholesome +reading, that society cannot afford to let go wholly unprovided.</p> + +<p>The smallest fee here proves an effective bar, as the experience of all +subscription libraries proves. When the Springfield (Mass.) library was +made free, its circulation was trebled the first year—though the fee +had been only one dollar—and in a few years rose six or seven fold. +“The Mercantile Library of Peoria, Ill.,” says Mr. Crunden, “turned over +to the city and made free, notes an increase in ten years, of members +from two hundred and seventy-five to four thousand five hundred, and of +issues from fifteen thousand to ninety thousand.” So always. If the +dollar fee were removed from the circulation of the books of our +Meadville City Library, for instance, within five years they would go +into fifteen hundred families instead of less than three hundred, as +now; and the added twelve hundred families would be the very ones where +the books would be of highest service. And, perhaps, more beneficent +still would be the influence upon the vastly larger number who would +frequent the library, and grow intelligent through the multiplied use of +its reading facilities, and the help of its valuable reference +department. The reaction upon the general intelligence of the community +would make itself felt in the increasing intelligence of its working men +and the higher standard of life this would bring among them. In short, +it would insure economic progress.</p> + +<p>Besides the economic advantages, and much more important, the influence +of a well-furnished free library would tell in the training of citizens. +The discussion of economic and social questions, eager and often bitter +as it is, would become less crude and partisan in the knowledge of the +best books and magazine articles upon the topics involved. The reading +of history, biography, and travels would exert a broadening, +enlightening, and often inspiring influence. To make wholesome +literature more accessible than dime novels would save many boys and +girls from ruin, rouse many dormant intellects to higher life, and +supply effective rivals to the saloons and other low resorts. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>Philanthropy and religion alike demand the wide opening of such an +“effectual door” to the opportunities of the higher life.</p> + +<p>It is sometimes objected that the records of all public libraries show +that the lightest literature is most read, that fiction constitutes one +half or three fourths of the books circulated. But besides the obvious +consideration that only wholesome fiction finds place in all +well-appointed public libraries, Horace Greeley's view has much to +commend it, viz.: that all pure reading, however light, tends to develop +a taste for more vigorous and instructive literature. Besides, it may +well be urged that fiction is not only the current form of literary art, +but also the effective vehicle of current social theories, +philanthropies, and reforms; and that much of the most earnest thinking +and serious moral purpose of this age is embodied in it. Under such +intelligent and careful selection as the public opinion of the community +may provide for, the public library will furnish a healthful substitute +and corrective for the unappointed and vagrant reading of that large +section of young people most in need of guidance.</p> + +<p>I have left myself but a moment to suggest one or two practical +questions that may need consideration in the establishment of a new +system of free public libraries in communities or a commonwealth. Next +to thorough discussion of their proved beneficence, an efficient +enabling act is certainly the first desideratum, in any state still +without it, so that towns and cities may tax themselves for this +purpose. And it is most important that this act be not so narrowly +limited that communities shall be unable to attempt anything worth +while. Better wait five years, or ten years, more for the statute that +will enable our communities to put themselves in line with the most +advanced in the country in this respect, than to enact a starveling and +ineffective statute that shall</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Keep the word of promise in our ear,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And break it to our hope,”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>as has already sometimes happened. The public appropriation is so +limited by penny-wise legislation in a number of states as to discourage +all action, and kill all interest in the matter.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p><p>In the same way, it is to be hoped that these states will accompany +their enabling acts by auxiliary legislation similar to that in +Massachusetts and New Hampshire; or, perhaps still better, patterned +upon that of New York. It is difficult to decide upon the comparative +advantages of these two systems. That of Massachusetts seems to me +better for permanent results; but that of New York seems likely to be +more immediately effective in stirring the sluggish interest of +indifferent communities. Both are wonderfully economical in money, and +both have great effectiveness when worked by the intelligent interest of +even a few enthusiastic friends of the free library movement in any +community. It would seem that even a governor who thinks five million +people cannot afford $25,000 for the “Birds of Pennsylvania” might +consent to spend a fifth of that sum per year to begin a work that would +not end, if once well begun, without putting a new and most effective +agency of social culture and even economic progress within the reach of +every boy and girl in the state.</p> + +<p>The machinery through which to plan and begin this great and hopeful +experiment should be carefully considered. Massachusetts's unsalaried +commission of eminent citizens, New York's Board of University Regents, +alike insure that in those commonwealths the work will be carried on +under the most hopeful and efficient conditions. Some such unpartisan +and public-spirited agency is absolutely demanded for the success of the +movement in a state that has to begin it <i>de novo</i>; and the <i>personnel</i> +of the agency is the most important point in any legislation initiating +it.</p> + +<p>There is also a difference of opinion as to whether school boards, or +boards specially constituted for the purpose, should have charge of +public libraries. My opinion is decidedly in favor of the latter; for +while school boards would bring the library, as is most desirable, into +closer relation with the public schools, an independent board, chosen, +perhaps, by the school board in connection with the city council, as +sometimes in Massachusetts, would be likely to bring more ability, +independence, and careful consideration to the affairs of the library, +and to separate it more completely from injurious partisan and personal +politics.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_COMMUNITYS_SERVICE_TO_THE_LIBRARY" id="THE_COMMUNITYS_SERVICE_TO_THE_LIBRARY"></a>THE COMMUNITY'S SERVICE TO THE LIBRARY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Public Library, like the Public School, is the creature +of the community, which owes it provision for keeping it in +condition to render the service for which it was created. +This duty of course, includes adequate financial support but +does not end here. Among the most important adjuncts to such +support are the aid that can be given by enlightened public +opinion and by organized groups in the maintenance of +liberal and helpful policies, and the appointment of a +governing board equally conscious of its responsibilities +and its limitations.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_RELATION_OF_THE_STATE_TO_THE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY" id="THE_RELATION_OF_THE_STATE_TO_THE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY"></a>THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This statement of first principles was made by Melvil Dewey +at the Second International Library Conference, held in +London, July 13-16, 1897, and is reprinted from the +Transactions and Proceedings of the Conference (London, +1898). In reading this address, it must be kept in mind that +it was made to Englishmen, whose conception of the functions +of a public library were then, as now, much more +conservative than ours. A sketch of Dr. Dewey will be found +in Vol. I. of this series.</p></div> + + +<p>We have been listening to an admirable account of the development of the +library movement from earliest times to the present day, and I venture +to believe that when the history of the age in which we live is written, +and is looked back upon by those who shall come after, it will be known +distinctively as the “Library Age.”</p> + +<p>Libraries of one sort or another have existed from the beginning of +human history, and we are now well into the fifth century since the +invention of printing; so that it would seem as if there had been +abundant time for library development. But so great an institution as +the modern library is of slow growth. It has taken a thousand years to +develop our school system from university down to kindergarten. The +public library is much more rapidly going through corresponding stages +in order to come to its own. The original library was a reservoir, +getting in and keeping safely, a storehouse for posterity. That was and +is a great function, for which I have profound respect. Then, after many +centuries, came another library epoch, for which we all feel still +greater respect. The cistern was made a fountain; giving out was seen to +be more important than getting in. The library is no longer merely a +passive receptacle, but becomes an aggressive educational force in every +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>community. The reservoir will not become a stagnant pool, for, in its +branches and deliveries, the public library has mains and pipes laid +through every street, and reaching almost to the door of every +householder. And we live now not in the age of the reservoir, but in the +age of the fountain. In our zeal and admiration, however, we are apt to +forget that there is yet another and even more important stage to reach. +In my own city, some time ago, we spent half a million dollars in +providing an ample supply of water. But we found that we had really +opened convenient communication with the cemetery by water, for the +quality of the new and abundant beverage was such that our death-rate +steadily rose. The burning question became qualitative, not +quantitative, and we are now spending our money on efficient filtration. +Of course no library intends to circulate injurious books, but equally +no town intends to distribute harmful water. We are concerned more with +the results than with the intention. The mortality tables make plain the +physical defect, but alas! science has as yet devised no instruments +delicate enough to record the greater danger to the individual and the +State from poison in the great current, which has come to be a mighty +flood, of modern reading matter. The most hopeful, and perhaps the only +practicable, method of guarding against this serious danger is through +the public library, which must now in the last days of this eventful +century recognise the gravity of the new responsibility which it cannot +shirk. Before another audience I might dwell at length on what this +problem of selection means, but the representative librarians of the +world will understand my claim that, wonderful as was the development +from the cistern to the fountain, its importance is overshadowed by this +great question of excluding the pernicious, which I sum up in the word +filtration. This is the great problem of the modern library, and its +solution must depend largely on the State.</p> + +<p>It is often said that the modern periodicals and newspapers are our +greatest danger; but this, of course, is true only of the sensational +and other objectionable types. I yield to none in my high appreciation +of what the best kind of newspaper may do in its capacity as the +strongest ally of the public library and of the public school. I am +confident that early in the next century such journals will be +recognised as a distinct part of our educational machinery, but I am +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>equally clear that the worst journals, conducted merely as money-making +enterprises, and catering to the worst instead of to the best elements +of both society and individuals, are the most potent factors for evil, +and the greatest enemy which the ideal librarian has to combat in +carrying forward his best work. They leave their habitual readers with +neither time nor taste for anything above their own low plane. The mind +will inevitably rise or fall to the level of its habitual reading, and +we apostles and missionaries of the book have no more disheartening +outlook than on the readers whose literary atmosphere is limited to the +modern sensational newspapers. But the apologists for such reading say +that the history of their own times is of more importance to them than +any other history; should they not, therefore, become as familiar as +possible with it? But when a man, on account of “pressure of business,” +never looks inside any good book, yet has time to read everything in the +newspapers, he is—well, specialising too much in “history.” How many +men and women there are, who, from year's end to year's end, read +nothing but the so-called history of their own times, and who can tell +you nothing better than which dog won the last fight! It is a good thing +to know the history of our own times; so is a pinch of salt a good thing +on one's breakfast potato, but it is not necessary to drink a barrel of +sea water each morning in order to get it.</p> + +<p>It is highly desirable that I should know the geology and topography of +my own State, but I can learn all that is worth knowing without creeping +on hands and knees with nose close to the ground over the barnyards and +dump heaps of our commonwealth, under the vain delusion that I am +exhaustively studying its geology. We must join this battle squarely. +The eternal conflict of good and the best with bad and the worst is on. +The librarian must be the librarian militant before he can be the +librarian triumphant. At the end of another century, when a conference +like this is held, our descendants will look back with wonder to find +that we have so long been satisfied to leave the control of the +all-pervading, all-influencing newspaper in the hands of people who have +behind them no motive better than the “almighty dollar.” The solution of +our difficulties lies in recognition by the State that public libraries +are not only good things, but that they are an absolutely necessary part +of our educational system. We started with the university, but found +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>that we had to put under it the college. Then we went a step further, +and had the academy and high school to prepare for the college; the +primary and grammar schools to prepare for the high school; and now we +have the kindergarten under the primary school. I am not giving a +chronology, but simply pointing out that during these centuries +educators have constantly been facing the question of adequate provision +for meeting completely the public wants. We have at last reached step by +step from the university to the nursery, and have provided a series of +schools covering the entire field. Yet, with all this, we have not +attained the full system of education that we ought to attain, and every +thoughtful person is now asking, “What next?”</p> + +<p>Huxley has well said that a system of education which in the early years +trains boys and girls to read and then makes no provision for what they +shall read during all the rest of their lives, would be as senseless as +to teach our children the expert use of the knife, fork, and spoon, and +then make no provision for their daily food. The whole history of +education has been a series of broadening conceptions. I can recall no +case in which the ideal has narrowed, but step by step we have come to a +general recognition that education is for poor as well as rich, for +plebeian as well as prince, for black and white, for native and +foreigner, for brilliant or backward, for women as well as men, for +deaf, dumb, and blind, and all defectives and delinquents, who in the +old conception were left without the pale. It is almost within our +memory that we have come to substantial agreement that the State owes an +elementary education to every boy and girl born within its limits, not +alone as a right to the child, but as a matter of safety and practical +wisdom on the part of the State; and this broader conception is followed +closely by a second and still broader one, that every boy and girl is +entitled not only to an elementary, but to something also of higher +education. I have met no competent student of this subject who dares +deny that hereafter the State must recognize that education is not alone +for the young, for limited courses, in schools which take all the time +of their pupils, but that it must regard adults as well; and not alone +for short courses, but all through life—not in our recognised teaching +institutions alone, but in that study outside of office or working hours +that may be carried on at home. I may sum it up in the one sentence, +“Higher education, for adults, at home, through life.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p><p>In this home education, which must hereafter be recognised side by side +with school education, the library is the great central agent round +which study clubs, reading circles, extension teaching, museums, and the +other allied agencies must cluster. A statesman solicitous for the +future welfare of his country will find his most fruitful field in +protecting and guiding the reading of the people. It is what a man reads +that shapes his future, which depends, not at once upon the rostrum and +the pulpit, but on the book and the newspaper. In education we recognise +that the supreme end is the building of character, but many of us have +never thought clearly how directly this character-building rests upon +the public library. It is reading that begets reflection, reflection +begets motive, motive begets action, and action begets habit, and habit +begets character; and who here dares question this, that it is not the +air nor the water, nor yet the “roast beef of Old England,” not its +history nor traditions nor laws nor geographic location, but +<i>character</i>, that has made the Anglo-Saxons, England and her daughters +across the seas, the most wonderful people of the earth. It is not +brawn, but brain. The dogs and horses might have the physical qualities, +but it is the mind and soul, and those elements of true greatness which +can best be instilled into a people through the reading of good and +great books, that have made a race of which we are justly all so proud. +One of the wisest of Frenchmen said of the Franco-Prussian War, when the +needle-gun was suggested as the explanation of German victory, “No; it +was not the needle-gun, nor the German soldier who held it, nor yet the +German schoolmaster who trained the soldier, but it was the German +university that made the schoolmaster.”</p> + +<p>“Knowledge is power,” and it is knowledge that has made England and +America great. Think of the men who read the poorest newspapers, but +know nothing of our best books. Can the State afford to make other +things free, and not make free true and useful knowledge as preserved in +books? Can the State recognize the necessity for free schools, and fail +to provide free access to the best reading in all realms of knowledge?</p> + +<p>“Free as air,” was the old-time strongest expression. Then men learned +how absolutely essential to physical well-being was abundance of water, +and our language records in its favourite expression, “free as water,” +the meaning of the untold millions that civilization has spent to supply +all people freely with this essential. We are learning the greater +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>lesson about the necessity of free knowledge more slowly, because +intellectual and spiritual things are not so readily discerned by our +mortal eyes, and it takes more time to read even those messages that God +has written very large for those who have eyes to see; but the time is +not far distant, mark my words, when our speech will again record the +general acceptance of a great truth in the common phrase, as “free as +knowledge.” We should make the public understand the relation of the +school system to the library system; that the library is not merely a +collection of books, or a storehouse, but an aggressive and active +source of education, side by side with the free schools. If the issue +came—but, thank God, it never will—between giving up either the +library or the free school, I am not sure that I would not choose for +the welfare of the country the public library rather than the school. +This may sound strange from one who has given his life to education, but +I believe that even without our schools nearly every boy and girl would +somehow learn to read; and when I soberly consider the influence on +lives and characters and on the State, it seems probable that, +infinitely valuable as is the work of our free schools, it would be +exceeded by what could be done by a system of free public libraries, +reaching every boy and girl and man and woman in the community, and so +administered as to provide each freely from childhood to the grave with +the best reading in every field of interest and activity.</p> + +<p>The State, whatever it may or may not do, should recognise the library +as being as essential to public welfare as is the school, and it should +give it as careful protection from dangers without and within as it +gives to institutions like banks and insurance companies. The State +should protect the library against unjust laws, improper interference, +or pernicious influence of any kind from without. It should guard it +also against misconduct, incapacity, or neglect on the part of its +trustees, officers, or employees. Beside the direct appropriations for +its support, it should grant the most liberal powers for holding +property given by individuals for the public benefit, and, above all, +should grant entire exemption from taxation. To tax a free public +library for doing its beneficent work is theorising gone mad. It is as +absurd as for a missionary to refuse admission to his preaching, or for +the manager of a theatre in which a fire has just started to shut out +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>every fireman till he had presented the conventional coupon for a +reserved seat. The example first set by my own State (New York) in the +statute which I had the honour of drawing ought to be followed +universally. We created a public libraries department, to devote its +entire attention to advancing the best interests of public libraries. It +would take the entire morning to sketch to you the various forms of +beneficent work which we have found practicable. We help to establish +new libraries, reorganise old ones, revise methods, select books, lend +single books or entire libraries, grant books or money up to $200 yearly +to any library raising an equal sum from local sources, and, by means of +correspondence, personal inspection, and steady work in a dozen +directions, help every community to get the greatest practical good from +the labour and money given to its free library. We have now about five +hundred travelling libraries moving about in all parts of the State. The +public library is rapidly becoming universal. For the Government not to +recognise it in its own organisation is as absurd as it would be to have +a standing army and no war department, or schools dotted all about the +state and no department of education. Time forbids more than the mere +naming of what is needed, but the first great step in summing up the +relation of the State to public libraries is the establishment of a +public libraries department, in charge of a strong man who appreciates +the almost limitless opportunities for usefulness which this new field +affords.</p> + +<p>Our discussions this morning took such a turn that you could almost +hear behind them, like the recurring motive of one of Wagner's operas, +the question, “Who shall be greatest among librarians?” In our State +Library School I give each year a course of five lectures on the +qualifications of a librarian, and point out under a half-hundred +different heads the things we should demand in an ideal librarian; but +when we have covered the whole field of scholarship and technical +knowledge and training, we must confess that overshadowing all are the +qualities of the man. To my thinking, a great librarian must have a +clear head, a strong hand, and, above all, a great heart. He must have a +head as clear as the master in diplomacy; a hand as strong as he who +quells the raging mob, or leads great armies on to victory; and a heart +as great as he who, to save others, will, if need be, lay down his life. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>Such shall be greatest among librarians; and, when I look into the +future, I am inclined to think that most of the men who will achieve +this greatness will be women.</p> + +<p>It is well to hold up high ideals, but it would be a sad mistake to +underrate the services of the noble men and women who in some, perhaps +many, respects fall far short of the standards we lay down, and yet who +have done, and are doing well, much of the world's best work. Let us +dwell on what has been well done, not on what has been omitted or on +what might have been done by other men in other circumstances.</p> + +<p>I remember, some twenty-five years ago, reading in George Eliot's +<i>Romola</i> these words, which we should remember when thinking of any +great librarian who of necessity fails in some respects to meet all our +ideals: “It was the fashion of old, when an ox was led out for sacrifice +to Jupiter, to chalk the dark spots and give the offering a false show +of unblemished whiteness. Let us fling away the chalk, and boldly say +the victim was spotted; but it was not therefore in vain that his mighty +heart was laid on the altar of men's highest hopes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>”</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="METHODS_OF_SECURING_THE_INTEREST_OF_A_COMMUNITY" id="METHODS_OF_SECURING_THE_INTEREST_OF_A_COMMUNITY"></a>METHODS OF SECURING THE INTEREST OF A COMMUNITY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This paper by Wm. E. Foster, Librarian of the Providence +Library, appears in the double number of <i>The Library +Journal</i> for September-October, 1880. Written forty years +ago it is more advanced from the standpoint of +socialization, especially as regards group-action, than some +pronouncements that one might hear to-day. A sketch of Mr. +Foster appears in Vol. I. of this series.</p></div> + + +<p>This mainly resolves itself into a consideration of direct and indirect +methods. The one attempts only to supply the public with what it wants; +the other, striving after the truest improvement of the readers, in time +secures, with the growth of intelligent appreciation, an interest even +more active, and vastly more permanent, than the other. No library may +safely disregard either class of methods, and their proper adjustment is +a point which may very profitably engage much of the librarian's +attention.</p> + +<p>It is true that the first of these is not likely to escape his +attention. “What the public wants” is a consideration which will meet +him frequently, from one end of the year to the other. No one needs to +be told, for instance, that the public wants to be amused. Doubtless the +class of books described as “humorous” would constitute, to a large body +of readers in any one of our cities, the true ideal of a collection of +books. The taste for imaginative literature begins early and lasts long, +with a large number of readers. “Something new” is a phrase whose +attractiveness is not far from universal. Still further, if it is a +question between a “true account,” which deals with stirring adventures, +and another “true account,” whose pages are devoted to an impassive +statement of scientific facts, there is not much question which will +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>find the most readers among the general public. “What the public wants,” +then, as regards the choice of books, while it certainly does not +indicate a high degree of enlightenment, has perhaps the merit of being +true to nature.</p> + +<p>There are certain points of administration, also, in which the interest +of the public is concerned. It is in favor of having the library as near +its place of residence as possible; and here, unfortunately, “the +public” is a plural personage which cannot all be suited at once. It is +in favor of that method of obtaining the privileges of the library which +requires the least trouble and inconvenience on its part, and seldom +sees the need of a careful verification of the applicant's identity. It +is in favor of the fewest restrictions on access to the books, and on +the time for keeping them. It is in favor, decidedly, of that “charging +system” which will deliver the book soonest. It is in favor of finding +the library open on all days and at all hours, sometimes even not +regarding the specified hours announced as worthy of consideration. In +short, while it is by no means difficult to persuade the public of the +reasonableness of a particular restriction, yet its first thought is +undeniably largely influenced by selfish considerations.</p> + +<p>Nor is the larger part of the public any more fond of bestowing deep and +painstaking thought upon the books which it reads, and of carrying the +mind systematically through a complicated mental process. It is not +improbable that some readers would be glad of some method of using books +which should save them the trouble of any mental process. And, while +these readers are so much averse to any troublesome efforts toward +improvement on their own part, it would be scarcely reasonable to look +for any very intelligent supervision by them of the reading of their +children, or of the pupils in the schools. Here, again, what the public +wants is “the royal road”—some “short and easy method.”</p> + +<p>That library, then, which would awaken and develop a lively interest +among its readers in the miscellaneous public, cannot certainly complain +of a lack of methods by which to secure such interest. It may include in +its selection of books a suitable percentage of fiction, and humorous +works. It may infuse “new blood” into the library by frequent and +regular purchase of the latest publications. It may add largely to the +department of voyages and travels, of books copiously illustrated,—of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>popular literature, in short. It may place its main building in the +center of population, and establish branches for the accommodation of +outlying localities. It may recognize the desirableness of “the least +red tape” in registering readers, of open book-shelves, of expeditious +serving of readers, and long periods of time for the use of the library +and the retention of books. It may furnish its readers with explanations +and directions for obtaining and using the books which shall require the +least difficulty in understanding and applying them. It may, and it +should, recognize the value of all these principles, and the library +which fails to act on them does so at its peril. Yet these points do not +comprise all that demand attention; and the effectiveness of even these +is due to the limits which are set to them. A certain amount of fiction +is well enough, but to enlarge this department at the expense of all +others would clearly defeat the library's purpose. Diminution of +restrictions in the use of books is certainly agreeable to the public, +but the removal of all restrictions would result in such a loss of books +as would soon work its own cure.</p> + +<p>The question, “What does the public want?” is not the only, nor, in +fact, the chief question to be borne in mind in the conduct of a +library. One has only to keep his eyes open to see how suggestive as to +methods is this other question: “Of what service may the library be?” +And it is safe to say that one who has not given the subject attention +will be surprised to find at how many points a collection of books, and +the thought there contained, touch human life. Here is a machine-shop +with its hundred or more workmen, many of whom are anxious to study some +mechanical work. The library has such works, and is glad to supply them. +Here again is a society of natural history, whose members are +systematically studying some department of natural science. To them, +also, the library willingly offers its resources in that department. +With no less willingness it offers its cooperation to those who are +following a course of public lectures on some topic of political science +or of art, to a college class studying topically some epoch of history +or period of literature; or to a public-school teacher, with a class in +geography; or a parent desiring some suitable reading for a child. Or, +with no specified class of persons in view, it seeks to make its +collection generally available, by regular references to its resources +on matters of current and universal interest.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p><p>Much more effective, however, than the best of such attempts at reaching +classes of readers will be the aid rendered to individual readers. Not +general and indefinite, but specific and direct assistance, is here +given, and, although at first this kind of work might seem to be +impracticable in a large library, yet one who tries it will be +interested to see how far such individual methods may be introduced. The +librarian almost mechanically learns “to pigeon-hole” in his mind the +peculiar tastes and lines of reading of single readers, and, when the +occasion presents itself, can bring to their notice books and articles +which they are glad to obtain. More than one librarian makes it a +regular practice, in adding new books to the library or in collecting +material bearing upon some one topic, to drop a postal to this and that +reader who, he knows, will be glad of just this information. The more +the conducting of a library can be made an individual matter, bringing +particular books to the notice of particular readers, the more effective +it becomes.</p> + +<p>It remains to consider what may be called the “general effect” of such +individual efforts, continued from one year to another. They will +certainly result in giving the public a large amount of assistance. +Being exerted in connection with the whole community, they cannot fail +to leave an influence, like the school, the church, or the +newspaper,—an influence moreover, which, if wisely directed, and +intelligently shaped, will make the public library idea appreciably felt +in the civilization of the country.</p> + +<p>Nor can it fail to have a reflex influence in securing the interest of +the public. If methods of the former class were able, by their direct +agency, to accomplish practical results, even more significant and more +permanent are those reached indirectly by this method. No class of +people will be so truly attached to the institution, by active interest, +as those who feel that they have been personally aided and improved +through its agency. The former methods are directly adapted to secure +popularity, the latter to win gratitude; and if it should ever become +necessary to choose one of these, at the expense of the other, there can +be little room for hesitation. The growth of public sentiment in +communities like Boston and Worcester, where public libraries have been +administered on these principles, and with these ends in view, for a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>series of years, is very instructive. Public sentiment, like confidence, +is “a plant of slow growth“; but experience shows that when the +conviction has once thoroughly penetrated a community that an +institution like this is sincerely aiming to serve the public, a hold on +its sympathy and interest has been acquired not easily to be shaken. It +should be the aim of each librarian to make the usefulness of his +institution so manifest that the public will as soon think of dispensing +with the post-office as with the library.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FINANCIAL_SUPPORT" id="FINANCIAL_SUPPORT"></a>FINANCIAL SUPPORT</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The justification for taxing the members of a community to +support a Public Library, although rarely questioned to-day +was argued with heat in former times. Earlier, there was the +same difference of opinion with regard to the public +schools. In order to obtain the argument in opposition, in +its best form, we have had to draw from a British source, +which we consider it proper to quote here because it +elicited a reply from an American librarian which will +immediately follow:</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="FREE_LIBRARIES" id="FREE_LIBRARIES"></a>FREE LIBRARIES</h2> + +<p class='center'>(<span class="smcap">An Argument Against Public Support</span>)</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This paper, by M.D. O'Brien, forms Chapter IX of the +compilation of essays entitled “A Plea for Liberty” edited +by Thomas Mackay (3rd ed. London, 1894). The sub-title of +the book, “an argument against socialism and socialistic +legislation,” gives its viewpoint. There is a formidable +introduction by Herbert Spencer in which he condemns even +the extremely limited state support given at that time to +general education in England as a “tyrannical system tamely +submitted to by people who fancy themselves free.” Mr. +Spencer ends by asserting that the end, if this sort of +thing is to go on, “must be a society like that of ancient +Peru, dreadful to contemplate, in which the mass of the +people, elaborately regimented in groups, ... were +superintended in their private lives as well as in their +industries and toiled hopelessly for the support of the +governmental organization.“</p></div> + + +<p>A Free Library may be defined as the socialists' continuation school. +While State education is manufacturing readers for books, +State-supported libraries are providing books for readers. The two +functions are logically related. If you may take your education out of +your neighbour's earnings, surely you may get your literature in the +same manner. Literary dependency has the same justification as +educational dependency; and, no doubt, habituation to the one helps to +develop a strong desire for the other. A portion of our population has +by legislation acquired the right to supply itself with necessaries and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>luxuries at the cost of the rates. The art of earning such things for +themselves has been rendered superfluous. Progress therefore halts +because this all-important instinct has fallen into disuse. At a point +the rates will bear no more, and those who depend on them for their +pleasures are doomed to disappointment. The identity of principle +exemplified alike by compulsory education and compulsory libraries, +logically involves the justification or condemnation of both; and, let +us disguise the unpleasant truth in as many sounding phrases as we +please, the fact remains that the carrying out of this socialistic +principle means pauperism pure and simple. Have we forgotten the evils +that resulted from the application of this principle under the old poor +law? or do we imagine that when an evil changes its outward appearance +it changes its inner essence also? The harm done to the national +character by a policy of this nature varies in intensity in proportion +to the necessity of the want supplied. If the thing supplied at public +cost is really necessary and eagerly accepted by the people, it becomes +more readily a potent cause of dependency, and a heavy and at length an +insupportable charge on the ratepayers. This was the experience of the +old poor law. The cost of national education is fast approaching to the +same state of things, and the problem will one day have to be faced: +‘How is the burden of the cost of education to be returned to the +shoulders of those who are responsible for it?’ In this paper we are +concerned with a smaller question. A very inconsiderable section of the +people really want the Free Library; the question at the polls is +generally treated with apathy, and only a very small proportion of the +ratepayers record their votes one way or the other. As a matter of fact +the Free Library is forced upon the public by a number of doctrinaire +believers in the superhuman value of a mere literary education. It is +not a popular want. The vast majority of people have still a greater +faith in the training which results from practical contact with the real +facts of life, and still only regard book-learning as a useful +supplement, easily obtainable by those who really desire it and are +likely to profit by it.</p> + +<p>The history of the Education Acts is very analogous. The literary +classes became alarmed at the ignorance of the poor, and instead of +allowing the efforts of philanthropists, aided by the growing +appreciation of education amongst the labouring class—already giving +great promise of providing a true and voluntary remedy for the supposed +evil—to work out a system of education on natural and healthy lines of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>spontaneous evolution, a course which would have added dignity and +stability to the domestic life of the parents and given a real and +technical system of education to the children—instead of this, the +hasty politician rushed forward crying. ‘The people do not want +education, so we must compel them.’ The compulsory and demoralizing +character of the means reacts on the otherwise advantageous nature of +the end, and the result is a mind-destroying system of cram for the +children; summons, fines, and police for the parents. This is how the +politician makes education a lovely and desirable thing. It is almost +impossible to over-estimate the evils resulting from the State not +allowing teachers and parents to adjust the educational arrangements so +as to meet the felt requirements of the case. This communal despotism +strikes at the very foundation of personal virtue, viz. the home, the +instrument by which nature lifts human character above the non-moral +sensuousness of the animal world. Let us never forget that the human +mind is made up of lower and higher elements, and that the removal of +personal duties—the practice-ground of the virtues—favours the +development of the lower factors of character at the expense of the +higher, of weeds at the expense of flowers.</p> + +<p>What else can possibly result from the carrying out of a principle which +means the public feeding, clothing, and lodging of children under +official superintendence and control? Will it be contended that State +officers can know better than parents what is really needed for +children? Yet this is what our Free Educationalists are leading us to. +The system which robs the parent of one of the noblest motives to +effort—the desire to give a good education to his children—which +weakens the sense of duty and takes away a wholesome stimulus to the +mental and moral faculties, is only the beginning of an evil that +menaces civilization and threatens to swallow up all natural +distinctions and relationships in a low and promiscuous communism. This +bribe of parental irresponsibility—this patent method of shirking +duties—which the politician offers us in exchange for our manhood, is a +scheme for encouraging the race to cast itself forth into the moral +darkness of a world where the parents are all childless and the children +all orphans.</p> + +<p>The Free Library, however, has not yet reached the same degree of +compulsion as the Free School. A majority of the local public must vote +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>for it before it can be established; or rather, we should say, there +must be a majority favourable to it amongst <i>those who do take the +trouble to record their votes</i>: usually only a very small proportion of +the electorate think it worth while to cross the street in order to pay +a visit to the poll. When the Library is established, its real +popularity is to be measured by the fact that its books are borrowed by +only about one per cent. of the population. We make bold to say that if +it ever becomes popular, it will be an extremely mischievous +institution. As yet it is merely a plaything for a number of +well-meaning busybodies, and an occasional convenience to a few +middle-class readers. The limited amount generally spent upon it +prevents it from doing anything more than minister to the sensational +indulgences of a very limited section of the reading public. If the +working classes of the country ever really become students, it will be +impossible to supply them with adequate store of books from the rates: +if this is attempted, it can only be at a time when books will be but a +small item in the expenditure which a dominant State Socialism seeks to +lay on the public purse. On the one hand will stand a class whose only +plan for satisfying their wants is the imposition of a new tax, and on +the other a harried remnant of ratepayers, both soon to be overwhelmed +by the near approach of national bankruptcy.</p> + +<p>Want is the spring of human effort. Self-discipline, self-control, +self-reliance, are the habits which grow in men who are allowed to act +for themselves. The meddlesome forestalling of individual effort, which +is being carried into mischievous excess, is going far to bind our +poorer classes for another century of dependence.</p> + +<p>Let us run, as rapidly as possible, through a few of the pleas set up +by the advocates of this form of municipal socialism. Good books, it is +said, are out of the reach of the working man. Whether this is true as +regards books we shall see, but obviously it would be easy to make out a +much stronger case for many other forms of amusement which are far more +popular with the million than books; yet no one seriously proposes that +the amusements of the poorer classes can <i>all</i> be supported by the +rates. But a glance down the lists of some of our publishers will show +any one that the statement is not true—is the very reverse of truth. +When books like ‘Pilgrim's Progress,’ ‘The Vicar of Wakefield,’ +‘Rasselas,’ ‘Paul and Virginia,’ Byron's ‘Childe Harold,’ ‘Lady of the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>Lake,’ ‘Marmion,’ and others, can be purchased from Messrs. Dicks at +twopence each; when all Scott's novels can be obtained from the same +publishers for threepence per story; when, from the same source, any of +Shakespere's plays can be got for a penny each, it will not do to say +that the best kind of literature is unpurchasable by a class that spends +millions a year on alcohol, as well as thousands on tobacco and other +luxuries. Three or four pence, which even comparatively poor people +think nothing now-a-days of spending on an ounce of tobacco or a pipe, +will buy enough of the best literature to last an ordinary reader at +least a week or a fortnight. And when the book is read, there is the +pleasure to be derived from lending or giving it to a friend, and of +accepting the loan or gift of his in return; a custom that largely +obtains in country districts where no socialistic collection of unjustly +gotten books exists to hinder the development of personal thrift or +poison the springs of spontaneous generosity. Lying on the table where +this is written is a list of the works published in Cassell's National +Library. How some of the old book-lovers who are gone—who lived in the +days when the purchase of a good book involved some personal +sacrifice—would have appreciated this valuable library! Here are 208 of +the world's best books, each one of which contains some 200 pages of +clear readable type. The published price is threepence each; but a +discount of twenty-five per cent. is allowed when four or five or more +are purchased. It would be a waste of space to give the entire list; but +a few typical examples may be taken. Here are the Essays of Lord +Macaulay; here are works by Plutarch, Herodotus, Plato, Xenophon, +Lucian, Fénelon, Voltaire, Boccaccio, Gothe, and Lessing—in English, of +course. Here is Walton's ‘Complete Angler,’ Goldsmith's ‘Plays,’ Bacon's +‘Wisdom of the Ancients’ and ‘Essays.’ Here are works by Burke, Swift, +Steele and Addison, Milton, Johnson, Pope, Sydney Smith, Coleridge, +Dickens, Landor, Fielding, Keats, Shelley, Defoe, Dryden, Carlyle, +Locke, Bolingbroke, Shakespere, and many others. All Shakespere's plays +are here complete, and each play is accompanied by the poem, story, or +previous play on which it is founded. Here, for example, is the last of +the series as yet published, ‘All's Well that Ends Well’; it contains a +translation of the story of Giletta of Narbona from Painter's ‘Palace of +Pleasure’; it is worth threepence to a student, if only for showing the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>difference between raw material and finished product. Hundreds of new +novels, including some of those of Thackeray, Kingsley, Dickens, Lytton, +and other well-known authors, are to be obtained in most places for +4-<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub><i>d.</i>, and their secondhand price is less still. Considering the +marvellous cheapness of good books, it is difficult to understand how +any one can either blackmail his neighbour for them, or encourage +working-men to do so. If a man will not deduct a few coppers now and +then from his outlay in other luxuries to purchase literature, he cannot +want literature very badly; if he does not value books sufficiently well +to buy them with his own earnings he does not deserve to have them +bought for him with other people's earnings. That poor women and others, +who are often the sole support of a large family of children, should +have their hard earnings confiscated to maintain readers—many of them +well-to-do—in gratuitous literature, is an injustice not to be +palliated by all the hollow cant about culture and education so freely +indulged in at the present time. Some time ago there was a discussion on +‘the sacrifice of education to examination.’ There is another question +quite as serious—the sacrifice of justice to so-called education.</p> + +<p>Let us next consider the educational value of this institution.</p> + +<p>It is hardly necessary for us to say that we have no objection, either +for ourselves or for our neighbours, to novel-reading. On the contrary, +we regard it as a legitimate form of recreation. All we argue is that it +is not a luxury which should be paid for out of the rates. Now, to +listen to the advocates of Free Libraries one would imagine that these +institutions were only frequented by students, and that the books +borrowed were for the most part of a profound and scholarly character. +But the very reverse of this is the case. The committee of the Blackpool +Free Library, in their Report for the year 1887-8, say:—‘Works of +fiction and light literature enjoy the greatest degree of popularity, +each book circulating eleven times in the year, while <i>the more +instructive books in the other classes circulate only once during the +same period</i>.’ According to this Report, out of a total average daily +issue of 150 volumes, 137 are works of fiction and light literature. The +average issue of history, which is the next largest item, is only 9 per +diem.</p> + +<p>No wonder is it, after such results as this, that the Committee should +express the opinion ‘that the rich stores of biography, history, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>travels, and works of science and art which have been added in recent +years are deserving of greater attention than has hitherto been given to +them.’</p> + +<p>Although the nominal and frequently exceeded limit is now one penny in +the pound, there is no knowing how soon it may be raised. Already one of +the members of the Library Association of the United Kingdom, a body +composed to a considerable extent of librarians whose bureaucratic +instincts naturally impel them to push their business by all possible +means, has awarded a prize of ten guineas for a draft Library Bill, +which, among other things, permits a twopenny instead of a penny rate. +‘But,’ says the <i>Daily News</i> of Oct. 4th, 1889, ‘the feeling appeared to +be unanimous that it would be <i>unwise</i> to put this forward as a part of +the Association's programme, as it would enormously increase the +opposition to the adoption of the Act in new localities.’ No regard for +the ratepayers' pockets holds them back; but only a fear of injuring +business by frightening the bird whose feathers are to be plucked. Were +it not for this the Bill would be pushed forward, and those ratepayers +who have voted for the adoption of the Act in the belief that no more +than one penny can be levied, would have the rate suddenly doubled over +their heads without knowing it. Perhaps, after all, it would serve them +right.</p> + +<p>The intervention of this Association in the conduct of the agitation for +Free Libraries is instructive, and points to the fact that if we admit +the principle that the wants of the poorer classes generally are to be +supplied from the rates, it is not the poorer classes themselves who are +allowed to say what form the gift shall take. On the contrary the law is +manipulated by a number of amiable enthusiasts who succeed in foisting +their own fad on the public charges. If the working classes were allowed +to choose the application of <i>1d.</i> or <i>2d.</i> in the pound it would not go +to Free Libraries.</p> + +<p>The enormous amount of light reading indulged in by the frequenters of +Free Libraries leads us to expect that these places are largely used by +well-to-do and other idlers. And this is exactly what we find. Free +Libraries are perfect ‘god-sends’ to the town loafer, who finds himself +housed and amused at the public expense, and may lounge away his time +among the intellectual luxuries which his neighbours are taxed to +provide for him. Says Mr. Mullins, the Birmingham librarian, ‘No +delicacy seemed to deter the poor tramp from using, not only the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>news-room, but the best seats in the reference library <i>for a snooze</i>. +Already the Committee had to complain of the use of the room for +<i>betting</i>, and for the transaction of various businesses, and the +exhibition of samples, writing out of orders, and other pursuits more +suited to the commercial room of an hotel.’ And referring to another +Free Library, the same authority continues:—‘In the Picton Room of the +Liverpool Library, alcoves were once provided with small tables, on +which were pens, ink, &c., but it was found that pupils were received in +them by tutors, and much private letter-writing was done therein; so +that when a respectable thief took away £20 worth of books they were +closed.</p> + +<p>After the nonsense usually indulged in by the officials of literary +pauperism such candour as this is positively refreshing. It is seldom +the high priest allows us to look behind the curtain in this fashion. As +a rule, the admission is much less direct, and can only be gathered from +a careful analysis of the statistics. According to the Bristol Report +for last year, there were 416,418 borrowers during the twelve months +preceding December 31, 1889: of these 148,992 are described as having +‘no occupation.’ The Report of the Atkinson Free Library of Southport +informs us that out of the 1283 new borrowers who joined the library +last year, 536 are written down as of ‘no occupation.’ At the same town, +in the years 1887-8, there were 641 who, according to the report, were +without any occupation, out of a total of 1481. According to the annual +Report of the Leamington Free Public Library for 1888-9, 187 made a +return ‘no occupation,’ out of a total of 282 applicants. In the +Yarmouth Report for the same year, out of a total of 3085 new borrowers, +1044 are described as of ‘no occupation’; the report for the previous +year states the proportion as follows:—Total of borrowers, 2813; ‘no +occupation,’ 1078; in the year before that the total was—3401; ‘no +occupation,’ 1368.</p> + +<p>Some reports give a fuller analysis of the different classes of people +who use the libraries to which they refer. In the Wigan Report for last +year we are told that 13,336 people made use of the reference library in +that town during 1888-9. The largest items of this amount are given as +follows:—Solicitors, 1214; clergy, 903; clerks and book-keepers, 1521; +colliers, 961; schoolmasters and teachers, 801; architects and +surveyors, 418; engineers, 490; enginemen, 438. At Newcastle-on-Tyne, +last year, there were 11,620 persons used the reference library, and +only 3949 of these were of ‘no occupation.’ Yet, notwithstanding the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>numerical weakness of the latter, they managed to consult nearly half +the books that were consulted during that year. The total number +consulted was 36,100; and 16,800 were used by people who had ‘no +occupation.’ And this is legislation for the Working Classes!</p> + +<p>There is little doubt that at least forty-nine out of every fifty +working-men have no interest whatever in these institutions. For one +penny they can buy their favourite newspaper, which can be carried in +the pocket and read at any time; whereas if they wanted to see a paper +at a Free Library they would generally have to wait half an hour or an +hour in a stuffy room, without being allowed to speak during the time. +The following sensible remarks are from the pen of one who has risen to +an honourable position from a very humble beginning without the aid of +either Free Libraries or Free Schools:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Not long ago a conference of working men was held at Salford +to consider the question of rational amusement, when, in +reply to a series of questions, it was stated that Free +Libraries were not the places for poor, hard-working men, +who had social wants which such libraries could not gratify. +It was argued that people who went to work from six in the +morning till six at night did not want to travel a mile or +so to a Free Library. Music, gymnastics, smoking and +conversation rooms, and other things were suggested, but in +summing up the majority of replies, it appeared that +amusement rather than intellectual improvement, or even +reading, was what was most wanted by men after a hard day's +toil. This appears to have been realised in the erection, +according to Mr. Besant's conception, of the Palace of +Delight in the east end of London.</p></div> + +<p>The truth is that a Free Library favours one special section of the +community—the book-readers—at the expense of all the rest. The +injustice of such an institution is conspicuously apparent when it is +remembered that temperaments and tastes are as various as faces. If one +man may have his hobby paid for by his neighbours, why not all? Are +theatre-goers, lovers of cricket, bicyclists, amateurs of music, and +others to have their earnings confiscated, and their capacities for +indulging in their own special hobbies curtailed, merely to satisfy +gluttons of gratuitous novel-reading? A love of books is a great source +of pleasure to many, but it is a crazy fancy to suppose that it should +be so to all. If logic had anything to do with the matter we might +expect to hear proposals for compelling the attendance of working men at +the Free Library. But surely in this nineteenth century men might be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>trusted to choose their own amusements, and might mutually refrain from +charging the cost thereof to their neighbours' account. This pandering +to selfishness is bad for all parties, and doubly so to the class it is +specially intended to benefit.</p> + +<p>The following imaginary dialogue will perhaps serve to show the inherent +injustice of literary socialism.</p> + +<p><i>A</i> and <i>B</i> earn <i>1s.</i> each by carrying luggage. Says <i>A</i> to <i>B</i>: ‘I am +in favour of circulating books by means of a subscription library; from +this <i>1s.</i> I therefore propose to deduct <i>1d.</i> in order to compass my +desire. There is my friend <i>C</i>, who is of the same opinion as myself, +and he is willing to subscribe his quota to the scheme. We hope you will +be willing to subscribe your mite, but if not, we intend to force you to +do so, for, as you know, all private interests must give way to the +public good.’</p> + +<p>‘Perhaps so,’ replies <i>B</i>,‘but then, you see, I have my own opinions on +the subject, and I do not believe that your method of supplying +literature is the best method. Of course I may be wrong, but then I am +logically entitled to the same freedom of thought and action as you +yourself are. If you are entitled to have your views about a “Free“ +Library and to act upon them, I am equally entitled to the same liberty, +so long as I don't interfere with you. I don't compel you to pay for my +church, my theatre, or my club; why should you compel me to pay for your +library? For my own part I don't want other people to keep me in +literature, and I don't want to keep other people. I refuse therefore to +pay the subscription.’</p> + +<p>‘Very well,’ rejoins <i>A</i>, ‘if that is the case I shall proceed to make +you pay; and as I happen to represent a numerical majority the task will +be an easy one.’</p> + +<p>‘But are we not man and man,’ says <i>B</i>,‘and have not I the same right to +spend my earnings in my own way as you have to spend yours in your way? +Why should I be compelled to spend as you spend? Don't you see that you +are claiming more for yourself than you are allowing to me, and are +supplementing your own liberty by robbing me of mine? Is this the way +you promote the public good? Is this your boasted free library? I tell +you it is founded upon theft and upon the violation of the most sacred +thing in this world—the liberty of your fellow man. It is the +embodiment of a gross injustice, and only realises the selfish purpose +of a cowardly and dishonest majority.’</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> +<p>‘We have heard all this before,’ replies <i>A</i>, ‘but such considerations +must all give way before the public good. We are stronger than you are, +and we have decided once and for all that you shall pay for a “Free“ +Library; don't make unnecessary resistance, or we shall have to proceed +to extremities.’</p> + +<p>And, after all, the so-called Free Library is not really free—only so +in name. If the penny or twopenny rate gave even the shabbiest +accommodation to anything like a fair proportion of its compulsory +subscribers, there would not be standing room, and the ordinary +subscription libraries would disappear. According to Mr. Thos. +Greenwood, who in his book on ‘Free Libraries’ has given a table of the +daily average number of visitors at the different Free Libraries +distributed up and down the country, there is only one per cent., on an +average, of visitors per day of the population of the town to which the +library belongs accommodated for a rate of one penny in the +pound,—sometimes more, sometimes less;—but the general proportion is +about one per cent. Now what do these facts mean? If it costs one penny +in the pound to acommodate so few, what would it cost for a fair +proportion to receive anything like a share that would be worth having? +Even now it is a frequent occurrence for a reader to wait for months +before he can get the novel he wants. Says Mr. George Easter, the +Norwich librarian:—‘Novels most read are those by Ainsworth, +<i>Ballantyne</i>, <i>Besant</i>, <i>Braddon</i>, <i>Collins</i>, <i>Craik</i>, Dickens, Fenn, +Grant, <i>Haggard</i>, <i>Henty</i>, <i>C. Kingsley</i>, <i>Kingston</i>, <i>Edna Lyall</i>, +Macdonald, Marryat, Oliphant, Payn, Reade, Reid, Verne, Warner, <i>Wood</i>, +<i>Worboise</i>, and <i>Young</i>; of those underlined (in italics) the works are +nearly always out.’ The fact is, the Free Library means that the many +shall work and pay and the few lounge and enjoy; theoretically it is +free to all, but practically it can only be used by a few.</p> + +<p>While there is such a run on novels, solid works are at a discount. At +Newcastle-on-Tyne during 1880-81 we find that 2100 volumes of Miss +Braddon's novels were issued (of course some would be issued many times +over, as the whole set comprised only thirty-six volumes), while Bain's +‘Mental and Moral Science’ was lent out only twelve times in the year. +There were 1320 volumes issued of Grant's novels, and fifteen issues of +Butler's ‘Analogy of Religion’; 4056 volumes of Lever's novels were +issued, while Kant's ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ circulated four times; +4901 volumes of Lytton's novels were issued, while Locke ‘On the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>Understanding’ went eight times. Mill's ‘Logic’ stands at fourteen +issues as against Scott's novels, 3300; Spencer's ‘Synthetic Philosophy‘ +(8 vols.) had forty-three issues of separate volumes; Dickens' novels +had 6810; Macaulay's ‘History of England’ (10 vols.) had sixty-four +issues of separate volumes. Ouida's novels had 1020; Darwin's ‘Origin of +Species’ (2 vols.) had thirty-six issues; Wood's novels, 1481. Mill's +‘Political Economy’ had eleven issues; Worboise's novels, 1964. Smith's +‘Wealth of Nations’ (2 vols.) had fourteen issues; Collins' novels, +1368.</p> + +<p>‘No worse than in other libraries,’ it may be said; ‘knowledge is at a +discount: sensation at a premium everywhere!’ Perfectly true; but are +people to be taxed to give facilities for this? Novel reading in +moderation is good: the endowment of novel reading by the rates is +bad—that is our contention. And when it is remembered that any book +requiring serious study cannot be galloped through, like a novel, in the +week or fourteen days allowed for use, it becomes at once evident that +this gratuitous lending system is only adapted for the circulation of +sensation, and not for the acquirement of real knowledge. And this is +the sort of thing people allow themselves to be rated and taxed for! +This is progressive legislation, and its opponents are backward and +illiberal!</p> + +<p>Free Libraries are typical examples of the compulsory cooperation +everywhere gaining ground in this country. Like all State socialism they +are the negation of that liberty which is the goal of human progress. +Every successful opposition to them is therefore a stroke for human +advancement. This mendacious appeal to the numerical majority to force a +demoralising and pauperising institution upon the minority, is an +attempt to revive, in municipal legislation, a form of coercion we have +outgrown in religious matters. At the present time there is a majority +of Protestants in this country who, if they wished, could use their +numerical strength to compel forced subscription from a minority of +Catholics, for the support of those religious institutions which are +regarded by their advocates as of quite equal importance to a Free +Library. Yet this is not done; and why? Because in matters of religion +we have learnt that liberty is better than force. In political and +social questions this terrible lesson has yet to be learned. We deceive +ourselves when we imagine that the struggle for personal liberty is +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>over—probably the fiercest part has yet to arise. The tyranny of the +few over the many is past, that of the many over the few is to come. The +temptation for power—whether of one man or a million men—to take the +short cut, and attempt by recourse to a forcing process to produce that +which can only come as the result of the slow and steady growth of ages +of free action, is so great that probably centuries will elapse before +experience will have made men proof against it. But, however long the +conflict, the ultimate issue cannot be doubted. That indispensable +condition of all human progress—liberty—cannot be permanently +suppressed by the arbitrary dictates of majorities, however potent. When +the socialistic legislation of to-day has been tried, it will be found, +in the bitter experience of the future, that for a few temporary, often +imaginary, advantages we have sacrificed that personal freedom and +initiative without which even the longest life is but a stale and empty +mockery.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ARGUMENTS_FOR_PUBLIC_SUPPORT_OF_PUBLIC_LIBRARIES" id="ARGUMENTS_FOR_PUBLIC_SUPPORT_OF_PUBLIC_LIBRARIES"></a>ARGUMENTS FOR PUBLIC SUPPORT OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A rejoinder to the preceding paper was made by William E. +Foster, of the Providence Public Library, before the +American Library Association at its conference held in San +Francisco, Cal., in 1891. It may be considered as giving the +normal American view as contrasted with the +ultra-conservative attitude of Mr. O'Brien. A sketch of Mr. +Foster appears in Vol. I. of this series.</p></div> + + +<p>The rise of the public library system both in this country and Great +Britain, during the past half-century, has been almost coincident with +the very noteworthy reexamination of every phase of social economy now +so powerfully influencing the thought of the world. In this discussion +the contributions of Kaufmann, of Fawcett, of Graham, of Jevons, and +above all, of Herbert Spencer, have been more than influential—they +have been almost epoch-making—and whatever view one may hold in regard +to the social question, in its various phases, one cannot fail to +acknowledge the deep debt which we owe to these profound thinkers.</p> + +<p>No book, from Mr. Spencer's point of view, which has appeared within +recent years, is worthy of a wider reading than the volume entitled “A +plea for liberty; an argument against socialism and socialistic +legislation,” which appeared about the beginning of the present year. In +it thirteen writers, whose point of view is very nearly identical, have +discussed in successive chapters such topics as postal communications, +electric communication, investment, improvement of workingmen's homes, +free libraries, education, and other subjects, in their relation to the +question, “What action shall the State take in regard to them?” The +underlying purpose of the book is thus expressed in the words of Mr. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>Mackay, the editor of the volume:—”If the view set out in this volume +is at all correct, it is very necessary that men should abandon the +policy of indifference, and that they should do something to enlarge the +atmosphere of liberty. This is to be accomplished not by reckless and +revolutionary methods, but rather by a resolute resistance to new +encroachment and by patient and statesmanlike endeavor to remove +wherever practicable the restraints of regulation, and to give full play +over a larger area to the creative forces of liberty, for liberty is the +condition precedent to all solution of human difficulty.” Surely this is +a statement of the case which must powerfully appeal to all thinking +men, and lead them to reexamine, at least, the principles on which State +support of the various institutions referred to is based.</p> + +<p>In such a spirit, a reexamination of the argument for public support of +public libraries must be regarded as entirely germane to the objects +which the American Library Association has at heart. In such a spirit +the present paper proposes to weigh once more the principles which +underlie our American library system, and the considerations brought +forward by Mr. O'Brien in the chapter devoted to “Free libraries” in the +volume referred to.</p> + +<p>The half-century of discussion of “socialism and socialistic +legislation” already referred to has made few things so clear as the +fact that the arguments employed on any subject—social subjects in +particular—are weakened in almost the exact ratio in which they are +allowed to be tinged by passion and excited feeling. It must therefore +be regarded as unfortunate that Mr. O'Brien's chapter suffers most +emphatically from comparison with the generally high level of calm and +unimpassioned argument, characterizing the larger portion of the book. +Whether this is to be explained on the basis of the apocryphal legal +maxim, “When you have no case, abuse your opponent,” or whether Mr. +O'Brien entered the lists fresh from some too recent participation in a +personal contest over the question, we do not undertake to inquire. The +fact remains that not only do the writers of the other chapters of the +book appear from a careful reading to state their arguments more +effectively, but that the reader is also impressed with the fact that +they have a case which admits of more effective argument.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p><p>Let us glance in succession at the points which Mr. O'Brien has aimed +to make. They may be grouped in general under two heads; first, those +which relate to the injury (in Mr. O'Brien's view) inflicted on the +individual user of a free library from having it aided by public +support, and second, those which relate to the tax-payer's grievance (in +Mr. O'Brien's view) in helping to support it. The former is of course +the side of the question most germane to the general purpose of the +book, and it is therefore an occasion for surprise to notice that in Mr. +O'Brien's enumeration of arguments those coming under the other class +outnumber it in the ratio of six to one. First of all, to use Mr. +O'Brien's own language “the argument that if readers were left to pay +for their own books, not only would books be more valued, but the moral +discipline involved in the small personal sacrifice incurred by saving +for such a purpose would do infinitely more good than any amount of +culture obtained at other people's expense.” And he takes occasion to +suggest that “possibly the advocates of literary pauperism will see +little force in” this argument. Possibly; we are not familiar with the +train of reasoning which leads to an advocacy of “literary pauperism.” +For ourselves, we have been accustomed, long before the appearance of +Mr. O'Brien's chapter, to attach exceptional importance to the principle +which he has here indicated, somewhat awkwardly, to be sure. There can +be no doubt that the appreciation of any object is in almost the exact +ratio of the effort expended to procure it. This is why teachers and +librarians—in American communities, at least—have so often had +occasion to rejoice at seeing a taste not only for reading, but for +owning books inspired in a young man or woman by access to a noble +collection of books for the use of the public. For “owning books,” we +say; but the limits of a collection so owned are too soon reached in the +case of even the best-endowed pockets of individual readers. Were the +intelligent teacher who takes an interest in the reading and +intellectual growth of the pupils, from the various walks in life +represented in our schools, to find a pupil whose interest in pursuing +further some lines of thought therein suggested, extended no further +than to the books at home on his own book-shelf, we cannot doubt that it +would give occasion to question the efficacy of the teaching imparted. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>Mr. O'Brien's objection to the enjoyment of these reservoirs of +enlightenment, by a portion of the community, where the community as a +whole is responsible for their support, is as if a man should be told +that he would do well not to walk abroad at night by the light of the +public street lamps, but rather enjoy the light kindled in his own +house. The latter is certainly important, but not even Mr. O'Brien's +reasoning is likely to persuade us that it precludes the former. Mr. +O'Brien, in the second place, deeply feels for the reader who, in being +brought in contact with the benefits of the library, is, he thinks, +subjected to a wrong system of education. To quote his language: “Just +at the time when a child is beginning to form his tastes, just at the +period when the daily habituation to the simple duties of farm life +would lay the foundation both of sound health and practical knowledge, +he is taken out of the parent's control, and subjected to a +mind-destroying, cramming process, which excludes practical knowledge +and creates a dislike for all serious study.” One is compelled on +reading this extraordinary deliverance to cast one's eye to the heading +at the top of the page, “Free Libraries,” and ask what this formidable +indictment—not one count in which has any bearing on libraries—can +mean in this connection. The only conclusion possible is that it was +written with a view to appearing in some other chapter of the book.</p> + +<p>But Mr. O'Brien's concern is manifested also for the taxpayer, who +unites in the public support of the library. If we understand him +correctly, his contention is that the enormity of this tax consists +largely in the reprehensible nature—as represented in his pages—of the +institution itself. For from this short chapter one gradually frames a +picture of the free library as a place which tramps frequent for +sleeping off the effects of dissipation; as a place used by commercial +travellers for exhibiting their samples; as a place from which in one +instance “a respectable thief took away £20 worth of books”; as a place +used in an almost exclusive degree for reading fiction; as a place where +the time prescribed for keeping books makes ‘serious study’ impossible;” +and, more serious than all the rest, as a place which, he says, “favors +one special section of the community at the expense of all the rest.” +Let us do Mr. O'Brien the justice to add that for the first three of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>these counts he gives “chapter and verse” for his charges, quoting, +namely, from various (English) library reports. No one will therefore +wish to dispute his well-fortified statement that in such and such an +instance an unseemly incident occurred. But even a child can assuredly +see the difference between a statement of an isolated occurrence and an +inference that it is a necessarily characteristic and inherent quality +of the institution in question. Were this latter true, then we might +well cry out for abolishing our churches, sidewalks, and railway +stations, for in them these very same three things respectively are +known at some time to have been done. In the last three of these counts, +however, we have only Mr. O'Brien's assertions as the basis, and we are +obliged to add also that even these are found to be conflicting. On one +page his language shows that he is pained that a certain percentage of +readers in the libraries named should prefer to call for works of +fiction. Can it be that he has forgotten this, when on another page he +cites it as a grievance that “it is a frequent occurrence for a reader +to wait for months before he can get the novel he wants”! On page 333, +after quoting, from the annual report of one of the English libraries, +the statement as to the use of works of fiction, nothing but a resort to +italics can sufficiently emphasize his lamentation that “the more +instructive books in the other classes circulate only once during the +same period.” Mr. O'Brien is not the only observer who has failed always +to observe, when commenting upon percentages of fiction, that “any book +requiring serious study cannot be galloped through, like a novel, in the +week or fourteen days allowed for use,” yet who would have believed that +“out of his own mouth” would he be so completely answered, for this +remark, as well as the one which it answers, is found in his decidedly +interesting chapter (p. 348). But here it is evident that the bearing of +the two upon each other was not in his mind in writing it, for his +purpose in the sentence last quoted was plainly to make it appear that +the customary regulations of public libraries were such as to render +“serious study” impossible.</p> + +<p>The limitation of “a week or fourteen days” for a book of the kind +which he here indicates—he instances by name Kant's “Critique of pure +reason” and Smith's “Wealth of nations”—is practically unknown in +American public libraries. In most of those known to the present writer +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>a book of this kind can be charged in the first instance for fourteen +days and then renewed, making twenty-eight days in all, and in still +others for a longer period. It can then, after being returned to the +library—to give any other reader who may need it a chance at it—be +taken out again after remaining on the shelves twenty-four hours, for +another twenty-eight days' use by the same reader. The annual report of +an American library which lies before us contains a case in point. +Speaking of Bryce's “American Commonwealth,” it states: “Of this, seven +copies were added in succession.” It names 101 as the total of the +issues of this work during the year; but considering the truth expressed +in Mr. O'Brien's own very just words, that “any book requiring serious +study cannot be galloped through, like a novel,” the statement is added +that “such a record, for a book like this, constantly in the hands of +readers, may be contrasted with the more than ten times greater number +of times that some work of fiction might be read through, returned and +taken out again, requiring but a part of a day's attention.” In fact, +101 is very likely to be the total number of issues possible in the case +of seven copies of this book, while 700 would probably fall far short of +the total possible issues of the same number of copies of a story like +“The Wreck of the Grosvenor.” Again, Mr. O'Brien not only tells us that +“a free library favors one special section of the community” at the +expense of all the rest, but throughout his chapter recurs again and +again to the case of the “workingman.” On page 330, for instance, we are +solemnly told: “If the workingman cannot come by his books honestly, let +him wait until he can.” This is indeed somewhat summary, particularly +when, being interpreted, it is found to mean, Let there be no free +libraries supported by the public. And yet, on page 344, with no less +certainty, we are assured that “there is little doubt that at least +forty-nine out of every fifty workingmen have no interest whatever in +these institutions.”</p> + +<p>Where the deliverances from one and the same source are so +contradictory, the impartial inquirer will doubtless feel like looking +for some other source of information. From the materials accessible to +the present writer in regard to American libraries—and the new edition +of Mr. Greenwood's “Public libraries” appears to tell the same tale in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>regard to Great Britain—the interest of workingmen in the opportunities +afforded by public libraries is everywhere emphatically shown; but he +who sets out with the purpose of showing that there is any one exclusive +class to whom the public library is of service and to no other—be that +class workingmen, or students, or manufacturers, or scientists—will +find the facts singularly obstinate and unresponsive to his purpose. The +truth is—Mr. O'Brien's confident assertion to the contrary—that there +is no more “universal” and non-partisan institution than a public +library. This is undoubtedly the highest among its several claims to +public support. Few among the objects to which the public funds have +been appropriated, in American cities, have met with so hearty and +unquestioning approval as the public parks, and it is right that it +should be so. Yet there are whole classes in every community who not +only never do enjoy the public parks, but never care to enjoy them. Even +the public schools are for a certain fraction of the population +only—the younger portion. In contrast with both of these, the public +library extends its resources to the children and the adults alike. +Perhaps, however, the fundamentally important question of universality, +in the sense of non-partisanship, is one which is seldom appreciated in +its full force, as applied to a public library. An independent position, +one entirely free from bias, a non-partisan attitude, in fact, is an +ideal repeatedly set before the conductors of a school or a newspaper. +In both these cases, however, there is too often an element of practical +difficulty in carrying these praiseworthy intentions into practice, +which is almost completely wanting in the case of a public library. The +policy of the latter, is, in its very essence, catholic. It places on +its shelves the volumes which represent, not one side, but both, or +rather all sides of any subject on which the sentiment of the public +divides; and thus, whether the user be Democrat or Republican, +protectionist or freetrader, Catholic or Protestant, the aspect which +this collection of books presents to him is no less free and +uncircumscribed than the illimitable aid.</p> + +<p>Again, it is important that the relation of a public library to the +question of entertainment should be clearly understood. Entertainment is +not an element totally foreign to the purposes of a public library—the +same kind of public benefit accrues in this case as in the case of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>public parks—but in the light of the infinitely more important +functions which it renders, this must of necessity occupy a subordinate +place. The primary function of a library is to render a service, to +supply a need, to respond to a demand. In this respect its value to the +community is of the same description as the postal system, the bank at +which one may cash a check, or the reservoir from which one may “turn +on” a supply of water.</p> + +<p>One of the points which Mr. O'Brien aims to make, and which proceeds +from a manifest confusion of thought, can be appropriately noticed here. +His contention is that a public library is for the “class” who may be +designated “book-readers,” that these form but a small percentage of any +community, and that therefore it is obviously wrong that the library +should receive public support. This is ingenious, as is also his +eloquent, though somewhat contemptuous setting of their supposed special +needs over against those of others. “Are theatre-goers, lovers of +cricket, bicyclists, amateurs of music, and others to have their +earnings confiscated,” merely that the “book-reader” may gratify his +peculiar craving? Like many other ingenious theories, however, it leaves +out of account certain fundamentally important bearings of the subject. +There can be no doubt that in any community “the book-reader” is not +synonymous with the entire population. Some of the population are +children in arms; some have never learned to read; the sight of some who +have learned has failed; others again are too fully occupied to find +time for it; others find their inclination drawn more strongly in other +directions; others still have more or less to do with reading, yet are +not, in the strict sense, “book-readers.” Yet we shall err very widely +if we lose sight of the fact that even those who do not personally +perform the role of the “book-reader” do nevertheless benefit by the +existence of the library, by proxy. The young child is read to, by his +mother; or is cared for by her, by methods learned through her use of +books. The busy “captain of industry,” whose large profits are due to a +skillful application of scientific principles, may find his own time so +closely occupied by details of administration that, personally, he +seldom opens the treatises which bear upon the subject, but he expects +to keep abreast of the ever unfolding science, by the consultation not +only of such works as private ownership may provide, but the more nearly +complete collection in a great public library.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p><p>This principle of “community of interest” and interdependence has an +even wider bearing; for it applies not only to the family and the +business firm, but to the community as a whole. A public library report +now before the writer contains several instances of this kind. Speaking +of the systematic efforts made to build up an approximately complete +collection of works on industrial and decorative subjects, the report +states that in this way “the library is gradually becoming the possessor +of a scientifically selected set of volumes and plates which cannot fail +to leave a distinct impress on the character of the work done in the +various industries of the city.” Another portion of the same report +illustrates the direct service rendered by such an institution to the +interests of the municipality. To quote the language there used, +“Instances of the last named, both striking and tangible, are of by no +means exceptional occurrence, sometimes an application of this kind +being presented from more than one city official on the same day,” the +foregoing having reference to the city in question. “A +well-authenticated instance,” it continues, “in one of the largest +cities of the country, of the saving of a sum of many thousand dollars, +in the matter of a contract, due to the opportunity for consulting the +requisite data comprised in works of authority in the public library of +that city, is but an indication of the possibilities of a public +library.”</p> + +<p>It is fitting that where funds are to be appropriated, collected by +taxes levied on the tax-paying population, there should be possible so +tangible a presentation as the above, of the direct relation of the +institution supported, to the question of “profit and loss,” as +affecting those who are taxed. And yet it is well to remember that it is +as true now as twenty centuries ago, that “man does not live by bread +alone;” and that the public support of the institutions referred to can +be justified by other arguments than that of the material interests just +cited.</p> + +<p>No aspect of the library's operation is more full of interest than +that which takes account of its uplifting influence. The analogy between +its service and that of the postal system has been noticed; but it has a +no less real analogy to the work of the school, the pulpit, or the +press—yet without the propagandist principle which so often attaches to +these latter—namely, in the principle of growth or advance. In the +earlier portion of this paper a little space was devoted to showing that +in the nature of the case the number of copies of any work of fiction +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>used in the course of a year would immensely out-number those which +could possibly be read in the more solid departments of reading. Even +were the constituency of the library confined to a selected few, to +whose minds the higher class of reading was congenial, this would be the +case. Nor should we forget that the ground of distinction between a +“public” library and any other, as the library of a scientific society, +a debating society, a theological school or a teachers' club, is that +its constituency <i>is</i> not thus limited to a selected class but is broad +as humanity itself, with all its enormous inequalities of condition, +taste, and mental growth. Like a mirror, therefore, the recorded +classified circulation reflects this variety. Even with this apparently +almost unmanageable unevenness, appreciable improvement in standards of +reading is by no means an unknown experience. There lies before the +writer, for instance, a library report which is able to make such a +statement as this: “The fiction percentages of the seven successive +years, beginning with 1883 and ending with 1889, show an uninterrupted +decline, as follows: 70+, 66+, 62+, 61+, 58+, 56+.” But it must be +remembered also that figures such as these, though they may tell a part, +and a very gratifying part, of the advances which individual readers +have been helped to make, fall very far short of expressing the whole. +It would be entirely possible for individual after individual thus to +advance from good to better, and from better to best, and yet the +figures which express the aggregate use of the year remain stationary +(or even retrograde), because the constituency of a public library +(particularly in a large city) is all the time being reenforced by new +readers. And these new readers comprise both those who are children in +age and those who are children in mental growth, who begin at the foot. +When, therefore, there is anything more than a preserving of a uniform +level—as in the noteworthy figures above quoted—it stands for a very +striking advance indeed, on the part of a very large portion of the +community. Probably every librarian in charge of a public library in a +large city has had an opportunity of observing these advances in +innumerable individual instances. And this class of results, while +distinctly following the “order of nature,” does not by any means come +about through a view of library administration which regards either +books, readers, or librarian as inert masses. Much of it is the result +of individual interest expressed by the librarian in some reader, whose +mind receives an awakening impulse.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p><p>More than one well authenticated instance exists of an individual +beginning life as a newsboy or an elevator-boy, and through his use of a +public library finding his intellectual powers unfolding until he has +entered one of the learned professions. The relation of the library +system to the school system opens an almost boundless field of thought, +and it is a fact of deep significance that the profound principle +involved in it, after having engaged the attention of English and +American libraries for years, has been recognized in the educational +steps recently taken by the government of Japan, where the two systems +are placed on a plane of equality. In the experience of one of the +American libraries already referred to, almost the chief hope of the +library for the future is placed upon “a class of readers,” every year +largely increasing in numbers, who comprise the “graduates from the +various institutions of learning” in the city, and whose “lines of study +and reading” “may be characterized as a carrying forward of those +impulses in the direction of right reading which were received in school +and college.” The library has a no less direct relation to the needs and +ambitions of those who have received the invaluable training of “the +practical duties of the world,” to use Mr. O'Brien's phrase, and it +responds with equal readiness to these. There is concentrated in the +contemptuous phrase, “book-learning,” a popular judgment of condemnation +which is for the most part just, on the spurious variety of knowledge +which knows the expression of certain principles in books, but knows +nothing of their practical embodiment in the life and work of this +world. We are glad to observe that Mr. O'Brien's antipathy to this +pseudo-knowledge is almost as profound as our own, but his expression of +it seems singularly out of place in a philippic against public +libraries; for one will seek far before finding an institution more +perfectly suited to be a corrective of such a tendency than the modern +public library. Does any one claim that the public school system +sometimes has an unfortunate tendency to repress individuality and turn +out a set of pupils of uniform mould? If so, the public library supplies +a means of supplementing and complementing this uniformity by its +infinite variety and universality, and it is continually doing this, +indeed. Does any one regret that the school system at its best reaches +but a fraction of the population and that fraction for but a few short +years of their life, and that in too many instances there is a tendency +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>on the part of even these few, educated in the schools, to conceive of +their education as “finished,” and allow the fabric to become hopelessly +ravelled? If so, the public library stands to these members of the +community in an almost ideal relation, not only fulfilling very +perfectly Mr. Carlyle's characterization of a “collection of books” as +“the people's university,” but in the peculiarly wide range shown in the +demands made upon it, almost as properly rendering it the people's +workshop, or laboratory.</p> + +<p>The same library report which has several times been cited printed +several years since a record of the inquiries made on specific subjects +during a single month, which throws significant light upon this subject. +Another report of the same library declares that “few can adequately +conceive to what extent the inquiries made at the library have become +specialized, and require trained facility and research” on the part of +the library staff. The library thus becomes a laboratory, in which the +reader gains not only the specific information, but the method.</p> + +<p>An observation of popular movements in their relation to political or +economic principles reveals few facts so plainly as that an almost +insuperable narrowness of view is, in much the greater number of +instances, the barrier to advance in those questions decided mainly by +the popular voice. Why then should any one wish to perpetuate the +conditions which make this possible? In Mr. O'Brien's view the +workingman,—and we ought not to forget how large a percentage of the +community this word “workingman” represents, both in England and +America,—will be a fortunate man when the contents of free libraries +are no longer rendered everywhere accessible to him by public support, +for then the workingmen “for one ‘penny’ can buy their favorite +newspaper, which can be carried in the pocket and read at any time”! It +is well nigh incredible that an ideal such as this should be looked +forward to by thinking men. Whatever may be the fact in regard to the +workingmen of Great Britain,—and Mr. O'Brien of course knows them +better than we do,—it may confidently be asserted that the American +workingman would strike no such false note. Mr. Lowell in one of his +admirable orations quotes from a Wallachian legend of a peasant who was +“taken up into heaven” and offered his choice among the objects to be +seen there. He chose a half worn-out bagpipe, and with this returned to +the earth. “With an infinite possibility within his reach, with the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>choice of wisdom, of power, of beauty, at his tongue's end, he asked +according to his kind, and his sordid wish is answered with a gift as +sordid.” The newspaper is well enough in its way,—even a “penny +newspaper,”—but to condemn whole masses of the population to limit +themselves to this, is to incur the condemnation of Mr. Lowell's fine +scorn when, in another portion of the oration just referred to, he says: +“It is we who, while we might each in his humble way be helping our +fellows into the right path, or adding one block to the climbing spire +of a fine soul, are willing to become mere sponges saturated from the +stagnant goose-pond of village gossip.” It is more. It is to help +develop a community from whom in the end every spark of uplifting +influence shall have vanished. Does any one say that this is a result +impossible of attainment by any people? The scientifically true, yet +brutally summary record given by the distinguished European savant, +Elisée Reclus, of a certain European stock which has found and occupied +virgin soil in the South of Africa, is a sufficient answer. “In +general,” he says, “the Boers despise everything that does not +contribute directly to the material prosperity of the family group. They +ignore music, the arts, literature, all refining influence, and find +little pleasure in anything,” except solid amassing of wealth.</p> + +<p>A few additional points remain to be noted. It is an entirely pertinent +question whether every public library in England and America improves +its high privilege, uses to the full the peculiar opportunities open to +it, places itself in close communication with the public school system, +with the university extension movement, and with the influences +continually at work in industrial and artistic development. And we need +not hesitate to answer in the negative. Yet the significant fact is, +that everywhere the tendency is in this direction with a stronger and +stronger momentum. The advance made in this country, within the last +decade even, in this direction, is among the most striking phenomena of +the time; and no less striking is the almost overwhelming percentage of +the body of librarians in this country whose entrance upon the work from +a deep-seated love for it, rather than as furnishing a means of +livelihood, supplies one of the strongest guarantees against the +invasion of the perfunctory spirit in the future. Again, it is equally +pertinent to ask whether, granted that the benefits of such an +institution as the public library are unquestioned, dependence may not +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>be placed on funds entirely unconnected with those of the public, for +its support. It would ill become the citizen of a country where private +munificence has accomplished so much in channels of public spirit, to +overlook these noble memorials of enlightened private action. Yet it +remains true, nevertheless, that were dependence to be placed on these +alone, a map of the country on which public libraries should be dotted +down would show as partial and inadequate a supply furnished to the +community, as the very instructive “annual rainfall map” published by +the government shows in the matter of rain. What we are accustomed, in +the eastern portion of this country, to consider the rain—in its +universal beneficent service and in its indispensableness—that also is +to be associated with the “reservoirs” comprised in these public +collections of books. For, after all, valuable as are the books +themselves, even in their material aspect, as pieces of handiwork, still +more in the specific items of information and admonition contained in +them, yet in the deeper view these are but symbols of their real +significance and service. To place one's self in communication with them +as contained in these libraries, is to bring ourselves in contact with +the stored-up thought of the world thus far. We have just adverted to +the fundamental bearing which this has upon the deeper or spiritual side +of man's life. But the two-sided character of these collections of books +follows us even here, for their indispensableness in the material point +of view is almost as striking, and this, not only whether we consider +the statesman planning measures of public weal, while neglecting to +inform himself of the recorded conditions which necessarily must +determine such measures; or whether it be the inventor spending long +years of his too brief life in perfecting a machine which his +consultation of the recorded patent would have shown him some one else +had anticipated him in thinking out; or whether it be the day laborer +submitting without an effort to violations of his rights, which a single +glance at the recorded statutes would have shown him he had a remedy +for.</p> + +<p>How like all this is to the supposed state of things which one of the +most suggestive writers of our day has thus expressed: “Our early +voyagers are dead: not a plank remains of the old ships that first +essayed unknown waters; the sea retains no track; and were it not for +the history of these voyages contained in charts, in chronicles, in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>hoarded lore of all kinds, each voyager, though he were to start with +all the aids of advanced civilization,” would be in the helpless +position of the earliest voyager.</p> + +<p>Once more, each reader of the strongly written book which we have been +considering should ask the question for himself, whether all of the +various propositions maintained therein necessarily stand or fall +together. Because the compiler has chosen to bracket together two such +headings as “Free libraries” and “The state and electrical +distribution,” it certainly does not follow that the argument which +carries conviction in the one case must in the other also. We shall not +be suspected of having our judgment in this regard swayed by the natural +weakness with which, to use Mr. O'Brien's illustration, the shoemaker is +inclined to think that “there is nothing like leather,” if we suggest, +what the public at large in this country is very plainly persuaded of, +that, for one person who has appreciated the need for public action in +the latter case there are thousands in the former. The writer lives in a +city in which for more than eleven years the public library was +administered by funds not in the least degree derived from municipal +appropriations. Yet the character of its service to the public had so +widely impressed itself upon the community that, largely from sources +outside of the library board, a movement arose for recognizing the +closeness of the relation, by public support. A report by a committee of +the city government, recommending this course, significantly declares: +“Your committee are unanimously of the opinion that this public library, +already existing in the city, is a useful and a necessary adjunct to the +educational system sustained by the city in its public schools, and +properly appeals to the treasury for an appropriation towards its +support.” After eleven years' opportunity for observation and +comparison, such a judgment as this has the merit of deliberation and +conviction.</p> + +<p>It is true that by far the greater part of the considerations which +lead the present writer to find Mr. O'Brien's view untenable are drawn +from observation and experience of conditions existing in this country. +Yet it is to be noted that his position is also contested, so far as +Great Britain is concerned, by an article in the March number of The +Library (of London), which shows, not only that our English cousins are +fully able to take care of themselves, but also that on many of the +questions of fact, about which his arguments turn, he is painfully wide +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>of the mark. Few students of social conditions have left so noteworthy +an impress on contemporary thought as the late William Stanley Jevons. +Of the free public library he held a view radically opposed to that of +Mr. O'Brien, believing it to be “an engine for operating upon” the +community, in ways at once protective and ennobling. As to the +universality of its beneficent service, he was equally convinced, +declaring not only that “free libraries are engines for creating the +habit and power of enjoying high-class literature, and thus carrying +forward the work of civilization which is commenced in the primary +school,” but also that they are “classed with town halls, police courts, +prisons, and poor-houses, as necessary adjuncts of our stage of +civilization.” The experience of one community or one nation is +repeatedly serviceable to another; but, after all, it is the local +conditions which must finally determine in any case. Even if a different +conclusion were to be reached in this matter in Great Britain, it would +still remain true that for us in America it is one of the highest duties +of self-preservation to keep alive the uplifting influences represented +in the public support of these institutions. The future of this country, +even more than its past, will be irrevocably committed to the democratic +principle in government. As is the people—in the widest sense of the +word—so will be the national life and character. In the future, even +more than in the past, crudity, narrowness, well-meaning ignorance, and +low standards of taste and ethics will, unless met with corrective +tendencies, color our national life. The public school and the public +library—“instruments equal in power to the Dionysiac theatre, and +vastly greater in their range of power,” to quote the language of one of +the most thoughtful of our men of letters—will stand more and more, in +our American communities, as such corrective tendencies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PUBLIC_LIBRARIES_AND_THE_PUBLIC" id="PUBLIC_LIBRARIES_AND_THE_PUBLIC"></a>PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THE PUBLIC</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>One of the first clear statements of the Public Library as a +business enterprise, involving certain amounts invested by a +city with the expectation of certain definite returns. The +paper refers particularly to the San Francisco Public +Library, of which the author, Frederic Beecher Perkins, was +then librarian but its conclusions are general, and hold +good to-day. It was read at the Lake George Conference of +the American Library Association, in September, 1885.</p> + +<p>Frederic Beecher Perkins was born in Hartford, Conn., Sept. +27, 1828, a grandson of Lyman Beecher. He left Yale in +sophomore year to study law and was admitted to the bar in +1851, but graduated at the State Normal School in 1852 and +devoted himself to literary and educational work. In 1880-87 +he was librarian of the San Francisco Public Library. He +died in Morristown, N.J., Jan. 27, 1899. He was the father +of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.</p></div> + + +<p>There are in the United States about 5,000 public libraries of 300 +volumes or more. Returns of their present conditions are very imperfect, +and must therefore be summed in the following crude way:—</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>Annual cost much more than</td><td align='right'>$1,500,000</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The books in them are many more than</td><td align='right'>13,000,000</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Books added yearly are many more than</td><td align='right'>500,000</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Books used yearly are many more than</td><td align='right'>10,000,000</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>These institutions, therefore, represent a large money investment, and +a very extensive and active educational agency. Not all of them by any +means are “free public libraries,”—<i>i.e.</i>, libraries supported by taxes +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>or endowments for the use of all. But a considerable portion of them +are. It may now be justly said that no town of importance is respectably +complete without a free public library any more than any town whatever +without a school.</p> + +<p>The San Francisco Free Public Library was founded in 1879, and was +advancing with creditable speed towards a size and usefulness +corresponding to the position of San Francisco, among American cities, +until the present city government suddenly cut down its annual +appropriation to bare running expenses, leaving no allowance for buying +new books, or even for replacing old ones worn out.</p> + +<p>This library is not a collection of mummies of deceased learning, which +will be no drier in a thousand years than they are now. It has thus far +consisted of live books for live people. But a library of this +practically useful kind, if it stops buying new books, quickly becomes +dead stock,—unattractive, obsolete, useless. In <i>belles-lettres</i>, +literature, history, mechanic arts, engineering, applied science, all +alike, it is equally indispensable to have the new books. The +photographer, the druggist, the electrician, the machinist, the +manufacturing chemist, as much as or more than the reader of novels, +poetry, travels, or history, want this year's discoveries, for last +year's are already obsolete. Next year it will not be Mr. Blaine's book +that will be most called for,—that will be a year old,—but General +Grant's book. But a thousand examples would not make the case clearer. +This prohibition of new books, perhaps on pretence of economy, would be +the natural first step of shrewd opponents intending to close the +library entirely as soon as the books are dead enough. It is girdling +the tree now, so as to destroy it more early next year. It is understood +that at least two prominent members of the present city government +(Supervisor Pond and Auditor Strother) are distinctly opposed to the +library, and to free public libraries, on principle. It is not known +that any member of it is a particularly energetic friend of the +institution. The library staff is small in number (seven boys and eight +adults); the salaries (omitting the librarian's) exceptionally scanty, +and even this small patronage and expenditure is wholly controlled by +the Board of Trustees, and wholly out of reach of the Board of +Supervisors. When this is remembered it is easy to understand both the +probable firmness of any opposition, and the probable lukewarmness of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>any friendship to the library in the latter body. This is perfectly +natural. All governing bodies try to keep and increase their authority +over persons and payments. They never let go of them when they can help +it. And, accordingly, the Supervisors insisted on controlling all the +expenditure and management of the library, until a decision of the +Supreme Court of the State forced the control out of their hands.</p> + +<p>Whether the actual closing of the library is intended or not, the +obvious first step towards it has been taken, and its closing will +follow in due season, if the policy is continued. If the voters of San +Francisco choose to have it so, there is no more to be said, for it is +their library. Probably they could lawfully divide up the books among +themselves, and so close out the enterprise. The dividend, now, would be +not far from one volume to each household in the city. But, if they wish +the library to continue, this early notice is due them.</p> + +<p>Further: the custom here, in respect to the contents of municipal public +documents, prevents such discussions of library questions as are usual +in the annual reports of other city libraries; so that, if a view of +principles and practices in and about such institutions as a class, and +of their application in this instance, is to be laid before the public +at all, it must be submitted, as in this paper, unofficially.</p> + +<p>The following table shows the financial, and some of the literary, +relations between public libraries and cities in San Francisco, in four +other large cities, and in six small cities. The cases were taken +promiscuously as they came to hand, of the latest dates available, but +all are within a few years. New York has no free public library; +movements to establish one there have repeatedly been contemplated, but +have been abandoned, because the men who could have set up the library +would not encounter the practical certainty of its becoming one more +corruptionist engine in the hands of the city rulers. Philadelphia has +none, for reasons not known to the present writer, but, very likely, the +same as in New York. St. Louis has none now, although its excellent +Public School Library may, very likely, become one. New Orleans has +none, apparently, because it doesn't want any. Louisville has none, +because the devil cannot set up a true church; the enormous lottery +swindle which was worked off there a few years ago was ostensibly to +establish and endow one, but where did the money go?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='center'>Cities</td><td align='center'>Population (1880)</td><td align='center'>Assessed Value in Millions (1880)</td><td align='center'>Whole City Tax</td><td align='center'>Gives its Library</td><td align='center'>Being, of whole tax</td><td align='center'>Vols. in Library</td><td align='center'>Vols. per soul (about)</td><td align='center'>Circulation per year</td><td align='center'>Being per soul (about)</td><td align='center'>And per $1.00 of salaries</td><td align='center'>Volumes added yearly</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Boston</td><td align='right'>362,000</td><td align='right'>$613</td><td align='right'>$7,261,741</td><td align='right'>$120,000</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>60</sub></td><td align='right'>438,594</td><td align='right'>1 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>5</sub></td><td align='right'>1,056,906</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>14</td><td align='right'>16,478</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Chicago</td><td align='right'>503,000</td><td align='right'>118</td><td align='right'>3,776,451</td><td align='right'>54,330</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>75</sub></td><td align='right'>111,621</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>5</sub>+</td><td align='right'>664,867</td><td align='right'>1 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>3</sub></td><td align='right'>23 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td><td align='right'>5,280</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Cincinnati</td><td align='right'>255,139</td><td align='right'>169 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>3</sub></td><td align='right'>4,070,225</td><td align='right'>49,016</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>82</sub></td><td align='right'>153,870</td><td align='right'><sup>3</sup>/<sub>5</sub>+</td><td align='right'>730,544</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>26 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>6</sub></td><td align='right'>4,120</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lynn</td><td align='right'>38,274</td><td align='right'>22 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td><td align='right'>332,481</td><td align='right'>5,730</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>58</sub></td><td align='right'>32,006</td><td align='right'><sup>4</sup>/<sub>5</sub></td><td align='right'>90,330</td><td align='right'>2 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>3</sub></td><td align='right'>36</td><td align='right'>1,264</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Milwaukee</td><td align='right'>115,587</td><td align='right'>55 <sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td><td align='right'>902,537</td><td align='right'>17,697</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>51</sub></td><td align='right'>24,481</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>5</sub></td><td align='right'>83,052</td><td align='right'><sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td><td align='right'>16</td><td align='right'>2,778</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>New Bedford</td><td align='right'>26,875</td><td align='right'>25 <sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td><td align='right'>390,208</td><td align='right'>5,148</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>76</sub></td><td align='right'>45,000</td><td align='right'>1 <sup>4</sup>/<sub>5</sub></td><td align='right'>71,798</td><td align='right'>3</td><td align='right'>...</td><td align='right'>2,448</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Newburyport</td><td align='right'>13,537</td><td align='right'>7 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td><td align='right'>105,686</td><td align='right'>1,661</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>64</sub></td><td align='right'>17,828</td><td align='right'>1 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>3</sub></td><td align='right'>...</td><td align='right'>...</td><td align='right'>...</td><td align='right'>441</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Springfield, Mass.</td><td align='right'>33,340</td><td align='right'>29 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td><td align='right'>307,434</td><td align='right'>8,231</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>37</sub></td><td align='right'>48,832</td><td align='right'>1 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td><td align='right'>57,152</td><td align='right'>1 <sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td><td align='right'>14 <sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td><td align='right'>1,797</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Taunton</td><td align='right'>21,213</td><td align='right'>15 <sup>3</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td><td align='right'>213,912</td><td align='right'>5,195</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>41</sub></td><td align='right'>21,197</td><td align='right'>1</td><td align='right'>58,920</td><td align='right'>2 <sup>9</sup>/<sub>10</sub></td><td align='right'>31 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td><td align='right'>1,971</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Worcester</td><td align='right'>58,291</td><td align='right'>39 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub></td><td align='right'>557,193</td><td align='right'>14,860</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>38</sub></td><td align='right'>61,204</td><td align='right'>1+</td><td align='right'>194,321</td><td align='right'>3 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>3</sub></td><td align='right'>26 <sup>6</sup>/<sub>7</sub></td><td align='right'>3,105</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>San Francisco</td><td align='right'>233,959</td><td align='right'>225</td><td align='right'>2,252,000</td><td align='right'>18,000</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>125</sub></td><td align='right'>62,647</td><td align='right'><sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub>+</td><td align='right'>326,000</td><td align='right'>1 <sup>1</sup>/<sub>4</sub></td><td align='right'>36</td><td align='right'><a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>3,883</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Next year <span class="smcap">none</span> except gifts.</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p><p>The six small cities tabulated are all in Massachusetts, because the +latest and fullest reports came to hand from them.</p> + +<p>Of various comparisons which could be formulated from the above figures, +the following are the most pertinent now:—</p> + +<p>(1) Of the five large cities listed, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, and +Milwaukee give from one fifty-first part to one eighty-second part of +their tax levies for their libraries; San Francisco, one one-hundred and +twenty-fifth part.</p> + +<p>(2) Of the actual sums so set apart by these cities, Boston, with half +as many more people, gives nearly seven times as much; Chicago, with +twice as many, gives three times as much; Cincinnati, with one-tenth +more gives two and two-thirds times as much; Milwaukee, with one-half as +many, gives nearly as much ($300 less).</p> + +<p>(3) Accordingly, San Francisco would expend every year for its library, +if it were as liberal as Boston, about $84,000; if as liberal as +Chicago, $27,000; and so on.</p> + +<p>(4) The actual comparative size of their libraries is: Boston seven +times as large as San Francisco; Chicago nearly twice; Cincinnati twice +and a half; Milwaukee only is smaller, being somewhat more than +one-third as large.</p> + +<p>(5) The rate of increase is: from 16,478 volumes a year at Boston, to +2,778 at Milwaukee; and in San Francisco, for the coming year none (for +the loss in worn-out volumes will more than equal any probable total of +gifts), none at all.</p> + +<p>(6) The number of volumes circulated in a year for each dollar of +salaries paid is in San Francisco more than twice as great as in Boston +or Milwaukee, and decidedly larger than in Chicago or Cincinnati. It may +be added, although the figures are not in this table, that a much more +striking evidence of the stringent economy of the library administration +here is the fact that there is paid at the Boston Public Library in +salaries, in the cataloging department alone, without allowing anything +for printing, nearly as much as the whole of this year's library +appropriation by the city of San Francisco.</p> + +<p>(7) Similar comparisons with the six smaller cities listed would give +results generally similar, but showing a still more liberal rate per +head and dollar of expenditure for libraries.</p> + +<p>In addition to this exposition of comparative parsimony a feature of it +should be remembered which might easily escape notice: that, while the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>money for running expenses is all gone at the end of the year, nearly +all of the allowance above running expenses remains represented by +valuable property. Thus, if the year's allowance for this library had +been $28,000, instead of $18,000, it would not have cost a cent more to +run the library and at the year's end about $10,000 worth of books would +remain added to the permanent property of the city.</p> + +<p>Another result of this policy is to prevent printing any catalogue of +the recent additions to the library; so that there is practically no +access, and there will, for the present, continue to be none, even for +the public who own the books, to all additions to this library since +June, 1884, being several thousand titles. It is needless to point out +that if there were to be the hypothesis of an unfriendly purpose +entertained against the library, that purpose would be served as +directly by suppressing the names of books in the library as by +preventing the addition of new ones, or by the replacing of those worn +out.</p> + +<p>These brief statements sufficiently show what our city is doing, and +what other cities are doing, for or against public libraries. It is not +within the scope of this paper to inquire after the real reason for the +stop put to the progress of the San Francisco Free Public Library. One +hypothesis is, that, instead of any unfriendly intention against the +library itself, the step was taken to help in persuading the public that +the “dollar limit” to the rate of city taxation is too low, and that our +citizens must submit to a higher rate. As the money saved is only +$6,000, the economy is not great in itself, being about one +four-hundredth part of the city tax levy. If the proposed effect was +expected to be produced by continuously annoying and dissatisfying the +citizens there is more reason in the scheme; for the library is +frequented by more than a thousand persons daily; between 26,000 and +27,000 cards have been issued to authorize the home use of books; and +there are always at any given moment from 5,900 to 6,000 volumes from +the library in use in as many homes all over the city. To inconvenience +and disoblige so large a constituency as this may naturally produce some +effect. This paper need not attempt to decide whether that effect would +naturally be approval or disapproval of the treatment of the library, +enthusiasm in favor of, or against, the proposed increase of taxation, +unpopularity or popularity of the institution itself, or of those whose +action so effectually cripples its usefulness. Nor will it discuss the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>still larger question of the “dollar limit” itself,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> however +decisively important all these inquiries are for the future of the +library, and however interesting and clear the arguments and conclusions +on those subjects may be. But what it may properly do is, to state, +without any pretence of novelty, but simply in order to refresh the +public memory, the chief heads of a doctrine of her public libraries +from a practical point of view.</p> + +<p>First (to limit the discussion). What a free public library is <i>not</i> +for.</p> + +<p>It is not for a nursery; a lunch-room; a bed-room; a place for meeting a +girl in a corner and talking to her; a conversation-room of any kind; a +free dispensary of stationery, envelopes, and letter-writing; a free +range for loiterers; a campaigning field for mendicants, or for +displaying advertisements; a haunt for loafers and criminals. Indeed, +not to specify with inelegant distinctness, a free public library, like +any other similarly commodious place of free public resort, would, if +permitted, be used for any purpose whatever, no matter how private or +how vicious, which could be served there more conveniently than by going +to one's own home, or than by having any home at all. It would be so +used systematically, constantly, and to a degree of intolerable +nuisance; and its purification from such uses, if they have been set up, +will be met with clamor, abuse, and with any degree and kind of even +violent resistance which may be thought safe, or likely to succeed. Let +it not be supposed that this is an imaginary picture. It is in every +point taken from actual and numerous instances, and could be illustrated +by a sufficiently ridiculous series of single adventures, by any +librarian of large experience. Open public premises for some of the +purposes above specified might conceivably be properly supplied by the +public. What is here affirmed is, that public libraries are not at +present proper for them.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> San Francisco is at present taxed on a precise scale of one +dollar to the hundred dollars of value, and on an annual total valuation +of $200,000,000, which is, however, in practice somewhat, but not +largely, exceeded.</p></div> + +<p>Second. What such a library <i>is</i> for.</p> + +<p>Its first object is to supply books to persons wishing to improve their +knowledge of their occupations. Such books as Nicholson's, Burns', +Riddell's, Tredgold's, Dwyer's, Waring's, Holly's, and others, on +practical architecture, building, or departments of them; the numerous +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>collections of plans and details of domestic and other architecture; +Masury's house-painting; Kittredge's metal-worker's pattern-book; +Percy's, Phillips', and other books on metallurgy and mining; Dussance, +Piesse, and others on soap-making, perfumery, and other branches of +applied chemistry; Lock on sugar-refining; many manuals of brewing and +distilling; Noad, Hospitalier, Preece, etc., on applications of +electricity; Burgh's, Roper's, and other hand-books and more advanced +works on steam engineering generally, locomotives, marine engines, etc.; +Gaskell's, Hill's, and other business manuals; hand-books of +correspondence, book-keeping, phonography; in short, text-books, both +elementary and advanced, in all sorts of commercial and industrial +occupations, are of the first importance in a free public library, and +are constantly and eagerly used in this one. The study of such books +puts money directly into the student's pocket, promotes his success in +life, and the prosperity of the city. A good and active public library +raises the value of every piece of real estate in the city, by thus +making the city more profitable (in dollars) to live in; because it +enables the intelligent and studious to earn more.</p> + +<p>Second in importance is the supply of books to those who wish to acquire +or pursue an education, or to complete or continue a knowledge of +general literature; and, third, the accommodation of students working +out special lines of research.</p> + +<p>Fourth. Such is the more solid usefulness of a public library. The rest +of its distributing work, whatever its intrinsic usefulness, is at least +as indispensable, and is always numerically the most popular. This is +the supply of light literature to readers for rest or amusement. Whether +books of this class constitute one-half the library or (as in this one) +one-tenth of it, it may be depended on that from one-half to four-fifths +of all the reading done will be done from that part. The justification +of the supply of such books by a free public library is, that it is +important also, if not likewise, to afford mental relaxation, as it is +to feed mental effort; that even light reading is a very important +improvement over and safe-guard from street life and saloon life; that +such books introduce to a more useful class of books by forming the +habit of reading; and that the public, who pay for the library, choose +to have books of this sort as much as, if not even rather more than, the +more useful sort.</p> + +<p>Fifth. There is another department of usefulness for public libraries, +quite unknown until within a few years, which makes them actual and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>vital members of the public-school system, and additionally justifies +the term “People's Universities,” which has often been applied to them. +This is the arrangement at the library of courses of illustrative study +and reading for teachers or pupils, or both. A series of such books as +relate to one or another part of the school course is laid out at the +library; the teachers, and perhaps sometimes one of the higher classes, +examine them along with the librarian, and such information as they +afford is used to fill out and illustrate the outline in the school-book +for the fuller information of the pupils.</p> + +<p>This practice is perhaps easiest in history and geography. It is easy to +see how a capable teacher could intensify the interest and enrich the +minds of a class about the geography of the East Indian archipelago, by +introducing them to the vivid narrative and abundant illustrations of +Wallace's most entertaining and instructive book on that region. How, +for instance, Palgrave's “Year in Arabia,” Palmer's “Desert of the +Exodus,” Lady Duff Gordon's “Letters from Egypt,” O'Donovan's “Merv +Oasis,” Atkinson's and Kennan's books on Siberia, Huc's “Travels in +Tartary and in China,” and hundreds of other books, each for its +locality, all over the world, could be used to give a child clear +notions and strong impressions of savage or civilized landscapes and +people. It is not too much to say that the study of geography in the +public schools of San Francisco, illustrated as it could easily be from +books of travel now in the public library, could be made from beginning +to end as fascinating as any romance, while it would store the +children's minds with a kind and quantity of distinct knowledge about +the earth and its people as much beyond the results of ordinary +geographical study as gold is better than mud. It would be easy to +furnish similar specifications for the study of history, of natural +science, and other branches. This is no mere speculation. This system of +instruction is regularly practised by Mr. Green, of the Worcester Free +Library (the originator and pioneer in it); by Mr. Poole at Chicago, and +elsewhere, and with complete success. Besides its immediate result in +vivifying and enriching the pupil's minds, this method affords a +training in habits of reading of the very best kind, by teaching +research, the habit of selecting books, and the practice of comparative +thinking.</p> + +<p>To sum up: A free public library—</p> + +<p>1. As to manners—is a parlor, not a bar-room; a place where not only +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>working men and business men, but ladies and young girls can safely and +conveniently come and abide. While not expressly a school of manners and +morals, it is much and closely concerned in maintaining a high standard +in both.</p> + +<p>2. As to objects—is to furnish good books, not bad ones; to satisfy +within this limit all demands on it as far as may be; and in particular +to be progressive; that is, to supply for intelligent readers what they +most require,—the <i>new</i> good books.</p> + +<p>3. As to method—should keep the books in the best possible condition +for the longest possible term of use, and should not allow them to be +scattered, lost, abused, mutilated, or stolen.</p> + +<p>Lastly. It is needless to add, under these heads, any of the numerous +technical details which crowd the work of an active library; but this +exposition would be inexcusably imperfect without a reference to the +absolute indispensableness of proper quarters in order to successful +library administration. Only the merest reference need now be made to +the professional immorality of notorious localities close around this +library in its present place. Something more may be said of the +unbusinesslike payment by the city of a heavy insurance on $50,000 worth +of its property, which must be paid, because the library is in the same +building with a theatre. Theatres burn down on an average once in +seventeen years; and a theatre risk, although not absolutely uninsurable +like a gunpowder mill, is what insurance men call “extra hazardous;” so +that not only is the insurance rate high, but the destruction by fire of +the library (in its present location) may be looked upon as certain, the +only question being, How soon?</p> + +<p>A difficulty less obvious and less dangerous, but still a source of +constant friction and annoyance, is the present arrangement of the +library as one collection, with but one place for delivering books. In a +small library, with a small business, this difficulty becomes nothing; +but in one as large and as energetically active as this it is a serious +disadvantage. Such a library imperatively requires division into two +libraries or sections, one to contain all books deliverable without +discrimination; the other, all books calling for special care and +precaution of any kind. The receipt and delivery desks of these two +sections should be separate, and before and behind them there should be +plenty of room. In the present library, which is in one large undivided +hall, the space is insufficient, both for the public and for the library +staff; and books of the two classes above described are intermingled all +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>over the shelves. The result is, crowding, interruption, delay, error, +confusion, and dissatisfaction. Very many books might be trusted with a +studious mechanic or a literary student which it would be a folly to +deliver into the hands of a small boy or girl. Many other extremely +desirable objects would be gained by the occupancy of properly arranged +library quarters; but of these only two need be mentioned here; separate +quarters could be provided for students who need special facilities and +assistance, and there could be such arrangements that ladies using the +library need not crowd and struggle about among impatient children and +miscellaneous masculine strangers.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LEVY_OF_LIBRARY_TRIBUTE" id="THE_LEVY_OF_LIBRARY_TRIBUTE"></a>THE LEVY OF LIBRARY TRIBUTE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The above title was constructed by the editor from a +sentence in the presidential address of Henry M. Utley +before the American Library Association at its Denver +conference of 1895. President Utley himself gave it no +title, but it is an examination of the claims of the library +to public support, with a conclusion that those claims are +justified only by regarding the library as an educational +institution, using this term in its broadest sense.</p> + +<p>Henry Munson Utley was born at Plymouth, Mich., Aug. 5, +1836. He served on the staff of the Detroit <i>Free Press</i> in +1861-66, was city editor of the <i>Post</i> and <i>Post-Tribune</i> +until 1881, and then, after holding the secretaryship of the +Detroit Board of Education, became in 1885 librarian of the +Public Library, in which post he served until his death on +Feb. 16, 1917, becoming librarian emeritus in 1913.</p></div> + + +<p>We are met for the seventeenth Conference of the American Library +Association in the Capital city of the Centennial State. It is a +pleasing co-incidence that the Association and the State celebrate the +same natal year. Within the memory of some of us the whole region of +which this city is now the metropolis was a wilderness. The century was +fairly begun when Lieut. Pike led his little band to the sources of the +Arkansas and made his futile attempt to scale the lofty peak which now +bears his name. Forty years later came the explorations of Fremont, and +then fifteen years elapsed before the tide of immigration set in. The +desert of that day has been converted into prosperous farms. Thriving +towns have sprung up in the mountain fastnesses, at the gateway to which +sits this Queen City of the plains, displaying all the evidences of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>wealth, culture, and refinement to be found in the proud cities to the +eastward.</p> + +<p>This rapid and wonderful transformation has been the work of human hands +guided by intelligent brains and an indomitable spirit of pluck and +perseverance. We are accustomed to think of this combination as purely +American. In many of its characteristics it certainly is so. And in no +respect more distinctively so than in the cause in which we are most +interested. Not all the older commonwealths, even on this side of the +Atlantic, have yet accepted the theory that the education of the citizen +is the concern of the state. But in all this newer portion of our +country this doctrine has been incorporated into the fundamental law. +The ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory northwest of +the Ohio river declared that for obvious reasons schools and the means +of education shall be forever encouraged. The twenty states now +organized within this and the subsequently acquired territory to the +westward have all accepted to the fullest extent the doctrine of the +ordinance. They have not only carried it into practical effect by +general laws providing for free public schools for children, for +universities and institutions of higher learning for the education of +youth, but have also provided for the establishment and maintenance of +free public libraries at the general expense and for the common use of +all the people.</p> + +<p>Let us consider very briefly the theory upon which the state assumes to +levy tribute upon the property of individuals to provide means for +maintaining libraries. By what right does the state tax the man of +wealth to put miscellaneous books into the hands of the man who pays no +tax?</p> + +<p>So far as primary education is concerned, the basis seems clear. The +free state which depends for its very existence upon the intelligence of +the masses of its citizens must, as a measure of self-defense, provide +the facilities by which all may become intelligent. Self-preservation is +the supremest natural law. Whatever has a right to exist has a right to +do that which is necessary to preserve its existence. The free state +which rests on the suffrage of its citizens is bound in duty to itself +to see to it that popular education, which is essential to its +perpetuity, is universal. Ignorant men are not competent to take care of +themselves and their households, still less to direct the destinies of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>an empire. The state has, therefore, the right, not only to provide the +means of education, but to compel education. Laws are in force which +require certain attendance upon the schools. These rest on the theory +that the interest of the state in the education of the individual +surpasses that of the individual, and therefore, the state cannot, in +justice to itself, treat education purely as a matter of individual +concern.</p> + +<p>It is a notorious fact that the average person does not perceive the +importance of self-cultivation. As the vineyard left to itself is soon +choked out with weeds and chapparall, so man if left to himself lapses +naturally into his primitive condition. The state cannot leave him to +himself, but must interpose to make it certain that he acquires the best +degree of information which his natural abilities and the time not +necessary to his self-support shall permit. Neither can the state leave +the matter of providing facilities and inducements to education to +private enterprise, nor to the church, which has been the foremost of +all organizations to appreciate its importance. While the state +recognizes these agencies and accepts them as satisfactory, so far as +they go, it nevertheless fully equips schools of its own, in pursuance +of its inherent right and duty, which cannot be relinquished to any +other agency.</p> + +<p>The extent to which the state shall go in the matter of educating its +citizens has been the subject of much discussion. There are those who +maintain that as the education of the individual proceeds his concern in +his own development increases, until finally, if his education proceeds +far enough, his concern in his own development surpasses that of the +state, and he must thenceforth be left to equip himself entirely at his +own expense. If that point is marked by the line between primary and +secondary, or between secondary and higher education, there is where the +state is in duty bound to stop. The extent of the interest of the +community as compared with that of the individual is held to grow less +and less and finally to disappear as he advances.</p> + +<p>But the better judgment of our time repudiates this theory, and holds +apparently that there is no limit to the concern of the state in the +mental progress of the individual. Ian Maclaren in his touching story of +“Domsie” quotes John Knox as saying: “Ilka scholar is something added to +the riches of the commonwealth.” It can probably be demonstrated by the +rules of accounts that as a business investment the state is wisely +spending money in the education of the people. The cost is more than +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>returned to it in the material development which an enlightened +citizenship ensures. If we contrast our own country, where education is +free, with some older countries where it is yet held to be a matter of +minor concern, or if we contrast some of the states of this republic +with others of corresponding age, we shall see at a glance a wide +difference in material resources and prosperity. In one the industrial +arts are far advanced, there is intellectual activity, the average +citizen is well clothed, well housed, and enjoys many luxuries; in the +other, the methods and life of a past century prevail and poverty and +ill-living are the rule. This, if not the highest motive, is an +incidental one of considerable importance for doing at the common +expense that which is for the common good.</p> + +<p>But the maintenance of the public library is not based on the +communistic idea. A former president of this association, speaking at +the Lake George Conference, said: “The socialists and communists are all +friends of the library, for we give them the books they want, and they +hold that it is not only the duty of the government to educate the +people, but to furnish them with reading. If the library ever shall have +enemies they will be the rich, who do not enjoy being taxed for the +benefit of the public, and have libraries of their own. Its defenders +will be men of broad views, scholarly people, and behind them, with +votes, the middle and poorer classes.”</p> + +<p>While it may be true, in a certain sense, that socialists and +communists approve the public library because it appears to give them +something which they desire at the public cost, that scheme, on its true +ground, is as far removed as possible from any such theory of +maintenance by the state. The essential principle of communism is that +the members of the community shall hold their property in common for the +common use and benefit. This principle flourished in the village +community in which each individual was allotted his certain proportion +of the lands owned in common. There are at this day a sporadic few who +advocate government ownership of railroads, and some would even include +all the great instrumentalities of commerce and production. But the +rational majority hold that the state of society is best which makes the +individual a free and independent member of the community. His ambitions +and energies are best stimulated by his opportunities to prosper for +himself. Civilization and enlightenment are advanced by the efforts of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>the master spirits of the race. The only demand which the individual can +justly make on the community, with its government as the common agent of +all, is that it shall not merely protect him in his rights as a free and +independent citizen, but that it shall assure him the opportunities for +the fullest exercise of his talents, and shall also, as a measure of +common interest, provide the facilities for his very highest mental +equipment. In this latter service of the state there is nothing whatever +of the communistic idea.</p> + +<p>The public library is not a public charity. There may be some who regard +it as in the nature of a free soup-house which caters to the appetite +for mental pabulum more or less wholesome. Most communities make some +provision for those who are mentally or physically unfitted to care for +themselves and who have no estate nor natural relations upon whom they +can rely for support. So the state builds and maintains hospitals and +almshouses. This it does simply as a duty of humanity. The instincts of +the race and the teachings of an enlightened civilization assure us that +a universal brotherhood makes all human creatures kin. As individuals we +owe a certain duty to all other individuals, and as organized society we +must see to it that the welfare of all is conserved. But there is no +duty of kindness or good-will which requires the furnishing of reading +matter for the use of the whole community.</p> + +<p>The public library is not provided for the mere intellectual enjoyment +of the citizens. The municipal corporation uses public funds to buy and +beautify parks and boulevards. The purpose of these is to promote the +public health and comfort, and incidentally to cultivate the aesthetic +sense. The state has a direct interest in the health of its citizens. It +must rely on their physical strength for defense in time of peril or +invasion. Therefore it must have a care that their physical welfare is +promoted. Wholesome food, gentle exercise, a cheerful and contented +mind, have much to do with soundness of body, and so food-inspection and +open-air recreation are justified at the common expense.</p> + +<p>Art-museums and public concerts are sometimes maintained out of the +general treasury. The only basis on which this expense can be justified +is that their purpose is educational. The welfare of the state depends +not alone on the ability of its citizens to merely read and write and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>solve problems in simple arithmetic. Our nature is many-sided and its +full and perfect development must be sought in many directions. The +aesthetic is not less real than the practical. The finer qualities of +the mind have weightly influence upon national progress and destiny. The +state has a right to do for its citizens the things which will best +serve its ultimate interests.</p> + +<p>Universities and higher institutions of learning maintained at public +cost now train those who have the means and opportunities to take +advantage of their curricula for the most advanced degrees, and through +their post-graduate courses offer facilities for spending the good part +of a lifetime in the immediate pursuit of knowledge. But in the nature +of things the number of those who can give time to these higher courses +is limited. The argument has sometimes been employed against high +schools and universities that they are maintained at great cost for the +use of a comparatively trifling portion of the community. Statistics are +quoted to show that of the whole number of children in the primary +grades less than 25 per cent. go through the grammar grades, and that of +the small number who enter the high school grades hardly one in ten +finishes them, while of these but an infinitesimal number go on to and +through the university.</p> + +<p>It is not due to lack of capacity wholly, or lack of interest, that so +many students fall by the wayside, but mainly to the fact that their +services are necessary in the productive channels of business. Yet, in +spite of the comparatively few who are able to take advantage of them, +the state considers it a duty to foster, and the community cheerfully +bears the burden of maintaining, the higher institutions of learning, +because the benefits which they confer are easily recognized. To +compensate in some degree those who are not able to pursue in organized +institutions studies untimely stopped by the necessities of active life, +the community provides the free library. This is the people's +university, close to the door of every citizen, in which all who have +the inclination and energy to do so may pursue through their whole lives +the studies which most interest them.</p> + +<p>The function of the public library is purely and wholly educational. In +this case the term is to be construed in its most comprehensive sense. +It does not merely include development of the intellect; it involves all +the varied human relations. We owe duties to our Maker, to ourselves, to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>those who are dependent upon us, to our neighbors, to society, and to +the state. In all these delicate and intricate relations we must be +taught, and as the world advances, our civilization becomes more complex +and our relations more involved, the character and quality of our +education becomes the more important. The school and the college have +merely laid the foundation. If they have done their full duty they have +done little more than set the student on the high road. The sequel rests +with himself. The public library puts into his hands books, which +contain the combined wisdom and experience of all who have gone before, +and wherein are preserved the best thoughts of the best men and women of +all time. They who pass judgment upon what shall and what shall not be +admitted to the shelves of a public library must bear in mind that, +strictly construing the function of the library to be educational, there +is yet very wide latitude in respect to the things which people may +safely and wisely learn.</p> + +<p>In this aspect of the case, those who are charged with the management +and control of libraries have imposed upon them a very grave +responsibility. They are not merely the custodians of the books which +the public purse has bought; they are commissioned to guide in the path +of highest progress. In this light, the function of the librarian +assumes the halo of a holy office. He who discharges it earnestly and +faithfully may do much to help forward the enlightenment of his +generation.</p> + +<p>The sum of the whole statement, briefly, is this: There is no limit to +the concern of the free state in the education of its citizens. It is as +much bound to provide libraries in which the adult may continue his +studies as it is to maintain schools in which as a child he may begin +them. The day is not distant when this duly will be universally +recognized in this country. In most of the states compulsory education +laws prevail. In at least one, every town is required by law to +establish and maintain a free public library. In this respect, New +Hampshire is only leading the way in which others will shortly follow.</p> + +<p>Then organized society can truthfully say to the individual, in the +language of Professor Hoffman in his “Sphere of the State”: “We have +done what we could to develop and strengthen all your powers. We have +taught you to the best of our ability to know yourself and to understand +your relations to your fellows. Now, so long as you conduct yourself as +a child of the day and not of the night, all the rights and privileges +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>of the brotherhood are yours. But if you choose to walk in the darkness +rather than in the light, if you trample under foot our laws, if you +raise your hand against every man, let the curse of your wrong doing +fall upon your own head, not on ours.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>”</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ALTERNATIVES_TO_TAX-SUPPORT" id="ALTERNATIVES_TO_TAX-SUPPORT"></a>ALTERNATIVES TO TAX-SUPPORT</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In the case of a public library, that is, of one intended to +be used by all the members of the community, as +distinguished from a subscription library, alternatives to +public support have usually been in the nature of expedients +to tide matters over until the library could be turned over +to the municipality. The next two papers are early +discussions of some of these alternatives.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="IF_NOT_A_TAX-SUPPORTED_LIBRARY_WHAT" id="IF_NOT_A_TAX-SUPPORTED_LIBRARY_WHAT"></a>IF NOT A TAX-SUPPORTED LIBRARY, WHAT?</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The following paper contributed anonymously to <i>The Iowa +Library Quarterly</i> (Des Moines, April, 1903) tells how local +library associations have been formed in that state, in +small towns where public support, for the moment, has been +deemed impossible or inadvisable.</p></div> + + +<p>The fact that a majority of the states of the Union have by legal +enactment provided for free public libraries supported by tax indicates +the general acceptance of the belief that such an institution is for the +public good and its support as an educational institution is as +desirable as the support of the public schools.</p> + +<p>More and more has it come to be recognized that if the ideals and +aspirations of youth are to be aroused and directed early in life by the +reading of inspiring books, the state may well foster this institution +which provides such literature.</p> + +<p>The Code of Iowa provides that towns and cities shall have power to +provide for the foundation and maintenance of a free public library by +voting upon the question, “Shall a free public library be established” +at a general or special election, and further providing that a tax not +exceeding two mills on the dollar of the taxable valuation of such city +or town may be levied for its support. This places the library on a firm +footing as a public educational institution, even though its income from +the tax may be small.</p> + +<p>There are, however, some towns in the state that find it impossible or +unwise at present to secure this support of the library by a tax and +hence they ask, “If not a free public library supported by tax, what +shall we attempt?” This inquiry is practical. The desire is earnest in +many places to support a library by some other means than a tax until +such time as sentiment will be strong enough to vote favorably upon it, +hence the best method of conducting it needs to be considered.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p><p>The beginning of such a work must be made by a few, earnest people who +thoroughly believe in the need of a public collection of books, not +alone for the value it will be to them personally, but what it may do +for the many who are unable to own books for themselves. Club women are +often the most active factors in inaugurating such a movement and +sometimes the Woman's Club alone espouses the cause of the library and +provides for the purchase of books and the running expenses of the +library. It would seem, however, after observation of various efforts, +more or less successful, along this line, that it is much better to +secure the cooperation of all clubs and other organizations in the town, +thus disarming any outside criticism or antagonism from those outside +the one club.</p> + +<p>A library association, which includes all persons in the town who are +desirous of having a public library, seems to be the better form for the +organization to take, though a city federation of clubs has proven a +successful agency in many towns. The difficulty of providing funds for +conducting such a library on an absolutely free basis is evident, but to +make membership in the association, with the payment of an annual +membership fee, the condition of borrowing is to bar from the use of the +books the people who need them most.</p> + +<p>In organizing a library association it will be necessary to decide what +the policy is to be in this respect. Shall the library be solely for +those who join the association and pay this fee, or shall this be an +altruistic movement for the betterment of the town, making the use of +the books free to all? If the latter plan is decided upon it will be +necessary to provide by subscription of citizens or by entertainments +and otherwise, a larger fund for the support of the library, and such an +undertaking should be well considered for it often becomes burdensome.</p> + +<p>If an association is formed with an annual membership fee which entitles +the member to the use of the books, those who feel unable to pay this +annual fee may be loaned books upon the payment of a small fee for the +loan of a single book.</p> + +<p>The reading room feature is of great importance and whatever plan may +be adopted regarding the loan of the books for home use there is no +reason why the use of the reading room, the periodicals and the books in +the room should not be absolutely free to all who will come there to use +them. To make the reading room the brightest and most attractive spot in +town for the boys who are inclined to be on the street of evenings is a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>possibility for any library association, if a few earnest women will +give time and effort toward this end.</p> + +<p>The actual expenses incurred in such a venture are room rent, furniture, +heat, light, services of a librarian and the purchase of books and +periodicals, but a systematic effort to interest the people of the town +often results in the donation of the use of a room and the other +necessities. It is not desirable to solicit donation of books. The +random inclination of people to pass on to the public library books they +do not care for on their own library shelves is damaging to the library +receiving them. In another column the report of the Audubon Club +mentions this point. The books should be selected with the greatest +care.</p> + +<p>The most important feature of such an enterprise is to have some one in +charge of the room who shall be suited to the work,—a woman of culture +and character, of pleasing manners and one who loves children and +delights in aiding readers. Such a librarian gives an “atmosphere” to +the whole undertaking.</p> + +<p>In many towns club women and others who are interested have volunteered +to serve as librarians, without compensation, and if a head librarian is +selected to whom these volunteer workers shall report and who is +responsible for the work, this arrangement seems a good one until such +time as funds will permit of the employment of a paid librarian.</p> + +<p>At Audubon, Exira, Glenwood, Guthrie Center, Laurens, Leon, Tama and +other places in the state, the women are most courageously carrying on +this work, with the hope that the town will eventually take the +responsibility off their shoulders by voting a tax to support the +library.</p> + +<p>If any attempt has been made to vote a municipal tax and it has failed, +or if there seems to be little sentiment in favor of the measure, there +is no need to feel disheartened. A beginning may be made by securing a +travelling library of 50 volumes from the Library Commission at Des +Moines, without other cost than transportation, and these books, may be +exchanged for a similar collection every 3 months, thus making 200 +volumes accessible during the year.</p> + +<p>This collection with the few books the local association is able to buy +and a few good magazines should make it possible to open the room for +reading and the issue of books two afternoons and evenings each +week—preferably Wednesday and Saturday.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p><p>The small beginning will gather to itself strength if the workers are +persistent; the collection of books will increase, sentiment will grow +more favorable and eventually the movement will be popular.</p> + +<p>In making such a beginning the Iowa Library Commission should be called +upon for the use of the traveling library, form of constitution and +by-laws, book lists and other printed matter, and the secretary will be +glad to render any assistance possible in forwarding such an enterprise +in any town in the state.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CO-OPERATION_BETWEEN_LIBRARY_AND_COMMUNITY" id="CO-OPERATION_BETWEEN_LIBRARY_AND_COMMUNITY"></a>CO-OPERATION BETWEEN LIBRARY AND COMMUNITY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A paper that originally appeared in <i>The Springfield +Republican</i>, Dec. 1, 1899, and was reprinted in Home +Education Bulletin No. 31 of the University of the State of +New York. The author, Miss M. Anna Tarbell of Brimfield, +Mass.</p></div> + + +<p>The use of the word cooperation in connection with the public library +implies that the library is not simply a collection of books, that it is +not a passive institution, a repository of treasure, but an active +institution reaching out to bestow benefits. The library spirit means +not only cooperating with all uplifting forces in the community, but +creating and stimulating such forces. The library spirit seeks to carry +brightness into gray and toilworn lives, to give broad vision in place +of the narrow and distorted view, to awaken generous sympathies and +noble thoughts in place of sordid desires and petty interests. Imbued +with this spirit, the librarian will be a lover of humankind, +sympathetic, earnest, self-sacrificing, a true missionary, enthusiastic +withal and eager to seize upon ways and means by which the library may +more and more be made to enrich human life. But however abundant in +resources the library, and however zealous and efficient the librarian, +there is a limit to the work that can be accomplished on the library +side for the promotion of intellectual life and general culture. There +needs to be a larger and more intelligent demand on the community side +for the supply which the library offers. To stimulate this demand there +is needed the cooperation of those people and those institutions in the +community that possess special opportunities for increasing the use and +influence of the library, or in any way making human life wiser, better +and happier. This cooperation may be both direct and indirect, since all +culture influences are by nature cooperative with that of the library. I +shall dwell specially on the need of stimulating cooperation on the side +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>of the community, for the reason that the library has already taken the +initiative, and because library privileges are so abundant in +Massachusetts, so freely offered and eagerly extended, without a +proportionate response to these privileges on the part of the public.</p> + +<p>While dwelling most upon the importance of its educational influences, I +would not underrate the province of the library in providing +entertainment and recreation, which have their culture value. But the +following are impressive words from the editor of the New England +magazine in its current number: “Education in a democracy is so +fundamental that education may almost be looked upon as another way of +spelling democracy.” “We are to consider more carefully the educational +function of everything which affects the mind of the people: the church, +the newspaper, the library, the platform.”</p> + +<p>Considering cooperation with the library on the part of individuals, we +naturally think first of those who are connected with the library by +virtue of their office, namely, the library trustees. The trustees have +special opportunities for increasing the use and usefulness of the +library on account of their acquaintance with, and influence upon, the +library on one hand, and their daily intercourse with the public on the +other. There has so far come to my notice such assistance by the +trustees as inviting people, specially newcomers, to the library, +carrying books to outlying schools, personal assistance in the library +and collecting historical material for preservation in the library. It +is true that the literal requirements of the office of library trustee +are only those of a conservative nature, just as the duties of the +librarian were formerly considered to be those of the careful custodian, +but as the library spirit gains ground and the conception of the library +as an active mission grows, we may look forward to the day when every +town will be sure of having six or nine persons, as the case may be, not +only engaged in improving the character of the library, but in promoting +its increased and more effective use, a standing committee for the +culture interests of the town. This cooperation will be promoted by +trustees attending the meetings of library clubs, joining the clubs and +assisting them, as well as by giving the librarian every encouragement +to do so, such as granting leave of absence and possibly paying +expenses. The <i>Library journal</i> and <i>Public libraries</i> should be on the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>subscription list of every library, and trustees as well as librarian +need to keep informed of progress in the library world.</p> + +<p>There are other people in every town who would be willing to assist in +the work of the library, or help people to get books or encourage more +and better reading if asked to do so by the librarian. To seek out such +persons, then, is the duty and opportunity of the librarian in this work +of cooperation. Suggestions regarding “Volunteer aids in library work” +are admirably given in the report of the state library commission for +this year in the bound volume, <i>Public libraries of Massachusetts</i>, and +should be read by librarians and trustees and shown to all patrons of +the library who are available for assistance.</p> + +<p>Surely the home should cooperate with the library by the example of the +reading habit, and by the direction of the reading of the children; +while it would be an excellent thing for parents to pursue lines of +reading that would keep them in touch with the children's studies. As it +is, I fear librarians will bear out the recent statement of a school +supervisor that “The home is not even inclined to supervise the +children's reading, and, the selection of books being left largely to +themselves, many boys and girls read books not proper for them to read.”</p> + +<p>The church, the school and the library are institutions which naturally +constitute a triple alliance. Cooperation between the library and the +schools, which has received so much consideration and is being so +rapidly developed, I need not dwell upon. But there is need for +increased cooperation between the church and the library. This +cooperation should be both direct and indirect. Ministers should feel a +responsibility for the intellectual, as well as spiritual, welfare of +the people. They should show that intelligence and breadth of mind make +a better and more efficient Christian, and that the church will become a +greater power if its members read and think. The minister has had +special privileges for his own culture, and he has peculiar +opportunities for recommending books, guiding library taste, and +directly increasing the use of the library. There should be some kind of +study club connected with every church, and those young people who have +finished their school course should be taught their moral obligation to +cultivate their God-given mental powers and grow in intelligence and +wisdom.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p><p>To advance the special interests of the church along intellectual +lines, the library should be provided with books that will improve +Sunday school work, aid in the study of the Bible, and the growth of +intelligence on religious subjects. It should be provided with up to +date histories of Bible times in the light of archeological discoveries, +with works of modern reverent scholarship concerning the Bible, and +books which record the development of religious thought. Much excellent +study is being done by members of the women's missionary societies. It +is very desirable that these women cooperate with the librarian in the +selection of standard works revealing conditions in the countries +studied.</p> + +<p>Among organizations, women's clubs have probably done the most to assist +library interests. This is especially true in some of the western +states, notably in Wisconsin. Literary and other study clubs which +prevail in New England are certainly in their nature cooperative with +the library, while they might be of more direct assistance to it. The +library, of course, should give these societies all possible +encouragement and help. The clubs will react favorably on the library in +creating a demand for books which will improve the character of the +accessions to the library. Where a study club does not exist, the +librarian should help to form one. It is possible that there is a +tendency to exclusiveness in women's literary clubs. If the number limit +keeps out those desirous of joining, or those who need encouragement in +literary interest, a branch club for their benefit should be formed. +Besides working for their own improvement, the members of study clubs +should have a missionary spirit and should feel a responsibility for the +intellectual welfare of the town. A woman's literary club is capable of +being a strong ally of the public library.</p> + +<p>The newly developing local history societies and the public library are +naturally allied, and promise to be of increasing mutual benefit. The +library should buy town histories and books needed by the historical +society, while the latter will contribute to the library records, maps +and published memorials. Further, the historical society, by sustaining +lectures in which the principles of colonial development are illustrated +by local annals, should develop a perception and interest which will be +manifested in a demand for volumes of history now lying dusty on the +library shelves.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p><p>The grange is another organization whose objects affiliate it with the +library, since the grange movement is an important culture movement. +There is opportunity for more active cooperation between the library and +the grange. The grange, and also the farmers' clubs, should be asked to +recommend the best works upon agriculture, while the lecturer of the +grange and the committee of the farmers' clubs should confer in advance +with the librarian as to material needed in carrying out their literary +programs. More than one other organization might be mentioned which +would help the library and be helped by it through increased +cooperation, thereby extending the influence of both. It is the sense of +obligation and responsibility that needs to grow.</p> + +<p>The public press is an agency which certainly ought to be a firm ally of +the public library, cooperating with it directly and indirectly. +Newspapers should be ever ready to give space to any matter that will +bring the library to the attention of the public, and they should also +keep the public informed of progress in library interests. Deeper than +this, the press should constantly exemplify and teach culture ideals, +the true mission of journalism.</p> + +<p>The hope of stimulating greater cooperation between the community and +the public library seems to me to lie largely in the library club or, +better, library association, movement. First, local library clubs should +increase in number, becoming more truly local, thus exerting a stronger +influence upon the libraries in the section represented and coming into +closer relation with the community. The membership should include people +who are neither librarians nor trustees, but whose sense of +responsibility will be awakened as their interest is increased. The +district represented should not be so large as to prevent meetings being +frequently held in the same vicinity. These local clubs should be in +close relation with the state club or association, and the state library +commission. The local clubs will do the actual close work, while having +the support, advice and assistance of the state club and state +commission. The local clubs will give information as to conditions and +needs, and will be agencies for the application of progressive ideas. +The study of conditions, of what may be called the environment of +libraries, comes within the province of library-club work. The study of +the conditions and needs of the small towns and rural communities is of +leading importance. From what other source except from the library +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>movement with a greater development of its possibilities is help for +those towns to come? The initiative in personal effort to give +advantages for want of which some of the small towns are suffering has +been taken by the women's education association in the loan of their +traveling libraries accompanied by personal visits and the study of +conditions and needs.</p> + +<p>But there is another want besides that of books in the small villages +and towns. There is needed not only the printed page, but the speaking +voice, the influence of personality through lectures. A story from +experience will illustrate this need. A few years ago there was held in +our town an exhibition of antiquities which awakened intense interest on +the part of old and young. This interest made a good opportunity for the +study of colonial history, which a few of us carried on. Certain books +not in our library were needed, although the library is a good one and +well equipped in American history. Our want came to the knowledge of +Miss Chandler, chairman of the library committee of the woman's +education association, and out of this grew, another year, a special +library lent to us upon American history which formed a valuable +supplement to the works contained in our library in that department. At +both times, when we had the exhibition and when we received the +traveling library (which we still possess, having bought the books) I +realized the opportunity and need of lectures. What a strong combination +the group would have made—the exhibition, the working library, a +lecture course. This would have been in reality an adaptation of the +idea of university extension, which I believe could be developed by the +library club movement. Each town would have its standing library +committee composed of members of the local library club, and several +towns in the district represented by the club would form a convenient +circuit. But if this scheme, which I believe to be feasible, can not be +immediately developed or applied, there should be no delay on the part +of those interested in library work in Massachusetts in considering some +plan of promoting popular education, the leading object today of library +work, through lectures of some kind, if not sustained courses having +continuity of subject.</p> + +<p>Two difficulties meet this need of lectures in the smaller and poorer +towns and in many villages, that of the expense of securing the best +talent (and nothing short of excellent ability will serve), and that of +knowing where to find available speakers. The last difficulty can be met +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>by organizing a committee who will search out those who can be secured +to speak under the auspices of the libraries of the small towns. A plan +for bringing the expense within the means of the people of those towns +might also be developed. One source of help might be found in the +increase of the powers of the state library commission. In Wisconsin the +efficiency and powers of the state commission have been extended by the +passage of a bill through the legislature increasing the appropriation +awarded the commission and adding to its duties. The commission is +empowered to hold library institutes in various parts of the state, and +to encourage the growth of study clubs connected with the traveling +libraries. To carry out the duties of the commission, among which is +mentioned “to aid in building up a better system of popular education,” +the additional sum of $3500 is awarded to the commission. Why should not +Massachusetts aid in building up a better system of popular education by +helping to provide speakers for the smaller villages and towns where +needed, thus supplementing and aiding the work of the public libraries? +It is possible that a beginning could be made through the establishment +of library institutes. If it should be considered wise to establish +library institutes in this state, as important a feature of them as +instruction in library matters would be lectures for the public on +literary and educational subjects of a popular nature. The first step to +be taken is for a committee representing the three existing library +clubs and the Massachusetts library commission to consider what plans +are most feasible, not only for the improvement of library work, but +also for increasing the intelligent and effective use of the library by +creating new ideals of popular education in the community, and thus +bring about cooperation in its deepest sense.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BOARDS_OF_TRUSTEES" id="BOARDS_OF_TRUSTEES"></a>BOARDS OF TRUSTEES</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A board of trustees, or of directors or commissioners, is +the representative of the community in its control of the +library and in the formal service rendered by the community +to the library. The relationship was familiar in other +public institutions at the time that public libraries began +to be established, and its duties, responsibilities and +limitations in this instance were regarded as being the same +as in others. They were therefore not widely discussed, and +the work of library trusteeship is still too little +systematized.</p> + +<p>The Trustees' Section of the A.L.A., founded in order that +Library trustees might gather yearly to discuss their +peculiar problems, has always been scantily attended. The +Indiana Trustees Association is the only prosperous body of +the kind in the United States, but its success might well +prove suggestive to library trustees in other states. The +three following papers were all read at a single library +conference in 1890, which may show that there was then some +degree of awakening to the necessity for discussing this +phase of library administration.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LIBRARY_WORK_FROM_THE_TRUSTEES_STANDPOINT" id="LIBRARY_WORK_FROM_THE_TRUSTEES_STANDPOINT"></a>LIBRARY WORK FROM THE TRUSTEES' STANDPOINT</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A few first principles by the president of the Board of what +was at that time the St. Louis Public School Library, since +1893 the St. Louis Public Library. The Rev. Mr. Learned read +this paper at the Fabyan's Conference of the American +Library Association, in 1890.</p> + +<p>John Calvin Learned was born in Dublin, N.H., Aug. 7, 1834. +He engaged in teaching, went to Missouri in 1856 and in 1859 +entered Harvard Divinity School. After graduation he was +pastor of a Unitarian church in Exeter, N.H., and in 1870 +took charge of the newly-organized Church of the Unity in +St. Louis where he remained until his death, Dec. 8, 1893. +He was a member of the Board of Managers of the Public +School Library from 1884 to 1892 and its president for half +that period.</p></div> + + +<p>An old play has it that “trustees are not to be trifled with” and, as +they are not only allowed but invited to come among the librarians to +assert their rights and their authority, why should they not do it +vigorously? Did they not originate the librarian? “Shall the thing +formed say to him that formed it, ‘Why hast thou made me thus?’”</p> + +<p>Yet to assume such creative power must load us down with +responsibilities—greater, I fear, than some of us have joyfully +accepted. In fact, do not trustees incline, as a rule, to throw too much +of the burden of library administration upon the librarian? If the +incumbent of this office is fairly willing and capable, is he not +suffered to do pretty much as he pleases, except it may be with regard +to such large measures as the construction of buildings and the +management of investments?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p><p>Proportioned to the authority of trustees, however, is their +responsibility. To whom much is given, of them much is required. And the +position of the better sort of trustee valuable to the best work of the +librarian, is not that sinecure seat sometimes depicted. He must +constantly stand as the able and ready advisor of the librarian, and for +the honor and defence of the library. He will be made the court of +ultimate appeal in many matters, both practical and curious. He will +receive letters from all sorts of people, some with gifts in their +hands, and some with complaints on their lips; some seeking favors, +possible and impossible. Col. Higginson's humorous way, recently, of +introducing Phillips Brooks as the man whom nobody in the Cambridge +library could find out the height of, until at last the inquiry was +brought to him as trustee to answer, may illustrate the point.</p> + +<p>Lately an article in one of the English reviews treats of the “Perils of +Trustees.” And while no statute makes us responsible,—as innocent +parties were held to be under British law, in the failure of the Glasgow +Bank,—yet the library trustee carries risks, both moral and financial, +and the place should be offered to none who will not give it a +<i>bonafide</i> service. There is no room for a mere figure-head or +ornamental name on a working library board. Every member of a directory, +rightly organized, should take his share in the administration, and have +some knowledge of what goes on in the library world.</p> + +<p>It is true there have been instances where some ambitious and +irrepressible spirit has exceeded his official duties and privileges; +has been disposed to dictate the whole policy of the library, reducing +the librarian's office to that of a mere secretary. I knew a director in +a large library who resigned because he could not buy the books and +write all the reports. He hungered for more to do. But I have known more +than one to keep himself as far away from the board as possible, after +one or two sessions of three or four hours each, in the necessary +deliberations of the book committee.</p> + +<p>Edward Everett Hale says that the great essential for the directors or +trustees of any institution is, that they “keep their end in sight,” as +Dr. Watt's hymn reads. If it is an institution to help old women, or +save poor children, or find situations for the idle, does it really do +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>it? Or is it so taken up with the mechanism of the concern, so absorbed +and happy over methods and details, that it loses sight of the object? +This is especially to be considered in the management of a public +library. What is the library for? Is it accomplishing its work? Is it +doing its utmost to promote the virtue, refinement, and intelligence of +the community?</p> + +<p>A library may be likened to a bank where literary reserves are kept. It +is organized to promote the circulation of a sound literary currency. +The directors must see to it that, though there may be counterfeit and +worthless money in the vaults, the cashier or librarian must pay over +the counter for general circulation such only as will maintain the +institution's standard of credit and confidence in the community. The +gold basis must be maintained, and no “wild-cat” bills pass out through +the window.</p> + +<p>It grows increasingly evident that very few libraries in the world can +indulge in the luxury or licence of buying all books written. The +ambition to supply any man with any work he calls for must therefore be +held in check. Thus it becomes increasingly important that much care and +deliberation be exercised in the choice of books to be bought, whether +to complete deficient departments or for the daily circulation. The +purchase of poor books makes a market for poor authorship. Hereafter, +less than ever should libraries be the dumping place for indiscreet +publishers, for questionable or incompetent authors. The public library +exists for civilization, that is, for moral ends. It is the record and +history of civilization, as well as the ally of progress. It is the +“friend and helper of all those who seek to live in the spirit.” For +this reason, therefore, the character of the books in a library is of +more importance than mere numbers; and the value of a library to the +community may be imperfectly shown by the statistics of circulation. No +aim can be higher, however, than having a good library, to make its +resources known, and to multiply readers in the remotest and obscurest +parts of our towns and cities.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> + +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="Trustees_of_Free_Public_Libraries" id="Trustees_of_Free_Public_Libraries"></a>Trustees of Free Public Libraries</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In introducing this topic, Mr. C.C. Soule, who spoke as a +trustee of the Brookline Public Library, said that he had +found little or nothing about it in existing library +literature, and that his paper had been shown to a +considerable number of both trustees and librarians and +modified in accordance with their views. His analysis of the +subject is somewhat closer than President Learned's.</p> + +<p>Charles Carroll Soule was born in Boston June 25, 1842 and +graduated at Harvard in 1862. After serving in the Civil +War, which he left as a captain of Massachusetts volunteers +he became a publisher and after 1889 was president of the +Boston Book Co. He was an active member of the American +Library Association. He died at his home in Brookline, Jan. +7, 1913</p></div> + + +<p>This paper considers the constitution of elective boards of trustees of +free public libraries, intrusted with the appointment of librarians and +full control of their libraries.</p> + +<p>The subject can be naturally treated under the following heads: Size of +the board; term of office; qualifications for the position; duties; +individual and collective; organization; and relations with the +librarian.</p> + + +<p class='center'>1. SIZE OF THE BOARD</p> + +<p>The weight of opinion seems to be in favor of small boards; and in +small towns, where the duties are light, three trustees will usually +work more harmoniously and effectively than a larger number. But in +large towns and cities a more numerous board has two advantages—there +is more chance of securing among its members one or two men who are +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>exceptionally active, intelligent, judicious, and interested in library +science; and the board may be more thoroughly representative of +different sections of the town and different elements in the population.</p> + + +<p class='center'>2. TERM OF OFFICE</p> + +<p>The usual and undoubtedly the best composition of a board of library +trustees is to divide it into groups, one group going out of office each +year. This provision secures stability by preventing sudden changes of +the whole board by intrigue or popular caprice, and is intended to allow +opportunity for gradual change whenever it is needed.</p> + +<p>But does this provision alone insure sufficient change to prevent +stagnation? The position of trustee of a library is so pleasant and +honorable, that the incumbent may wish to retain it indefinitely. The +men selected as trustees may be personally so worthy and popular that +their townsmen are reluctant to retire them compulsorily, even when the +feeling is prevalent that others might serve more acceptably. To effect +a change under such circumstances requires an effort approaching +revolution, with danger of that discord and bad feeling which are so +unfortunate in library management.</p> + +<p>Would it not be wise, in view of this possible danger, to follow the +example of the graduates of Harvard College in electing overseers, and +provide by law that no trustee shall hold office for more than (say) +three successive terms of three years, or nine years in all? While a +library might thus lose occasionally an active and efficient trustee +(who could still be reëlected after being only a year out of office), +would it not gain much more than it could lose, in keeping that close +contact with popular needs and with new ideas, which is so healthy and +stimulating in the management of all public institutions?</p> + + +<p class='center'>3. QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE POSITION</p> + +<p>The ideal qualifications for a trustee of a public library (a fair +education and love of books being taken for granted) might be summarized +somewhat thus:—</p> + +<p>Sound character; good judgement and common-sense; public spirit; +capacity for work; literary taste; representative fitness.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p><p>Men of character and position in the community are usually selected as +trustees; but it may be assumed somewhat too confidently that, because a +man has been prominent in political or business or social circles, he +will make a good trustee. It is a mistake to put in such a position any +man who has outlived his public spirit and energy.</p> + +<p>Library taste is placed low on this list of qualifications, because in +any administrative position, even in connection with a library, capacity +and willingness to work, united with common-sense and a fair education, +are much more useful than a taste for literature without the practical +qualities. And of the different grades of literary taste, general +culture and a wide range of reading are generally more serviceable to a +public library than the knowledge of the scholar or the specialist.</p> + +<p>In selecting men of prominence for trustees, there is danger of +excluding too rigidly the younger men who might contribute to the +strength and efficiency of the board. There is so much activity and +progress in the library work of this generation, that the adage “Old men +for counsel, young men for action” is not wholly inapplicable to the +choice of trustees, whose work requires counsel and action in nearly +equal degrees.</p> + +<p>With a large board it would seem wise to select members with some +reference to representation of different sections of the town, and +different occupations, interests, or nationalities among the +inhabitants. This tends to prevent dissatisfaction, and to adapt the +purchase of books and the general policy of the library to the needs of +the whole community, rather than to the wishes of special classes.</p> + +<p>Neither politics nor religious opinion should of course enter into the +choice of library trustees, except so far as it is unwise to constitute +a board exclusively from one party or one denomination.</p> + + +<p class='center'>4. DUTIES, INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE</p> + +<p>As an individual, the trustee of a public library ought to realize that +he holds a high and sacred trust from the people; that he has been +elected to preserve and extend the privileges and benefits afforded by +the library in its modern development as “The People's University”; that +library science is not to be comprehended by intuition, but can be +learned only by intelligent observation and study; and that he has no +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>right to accept or hold the position unless he can take a lively +interest in the library, be constant in attendance at meetings and +diligent in committee work, keep himself informed of the current library +ideas by reading every number of the <i>Library journal</i>, and, if +possible, by visiting other libraries than his own, and watch keenly the +tastes and requirements of the constituency he represents.</p> + +<p>The collective duties of the board includes the care of investments and +funds, the careful and economical supervision of expenditures, the +determination of the policy of the library toward the public and in its +interior administration, the general direction of the choice and +purchase of books, the selection of the librarian and his assistants, +constant and critical observation of their work, occasional reckoning up +of work done and progress made, comparison of results with those reached +in other libraries, as a confirmation of merits and a corrective for +errors, and such active work of detail as will assist the librarian in +performing his duties.</p> + + +<p class='center'>5. ORGANIZATION</p> + +<p>A large board ordinarily transacts business through a chairman, a +secretary, a treasurer, and one or more committees.</p> + +<p>The chairman has few active duties, but the position requires judgment +in appointing committees, and tact in conducting meetings. The place is +perhaps the highest public honor in small towns, and is usually and +properly given to some trustee eminent for character and public +services.</p> + +<p>In Mr. Perkins's article, “How to make Town Libraries Successful,” in +the “Government Report of 1876 on Public Libraries,” it is suggested +that the librarian should act as secretary to the board of trustees; +but, aside from the fact he usually has more than enough work to do in +his own department, is it not at least doubtful whether an official, +whose conduct may at any time be a proper subject for confidential +discussion before the board, should serve as their secretary, and so be +obliged to be present throughout all meetings? The duties of a secretary +may properly provide occupation for some member of the board.</p> + +<p>The treasurer, if he holds funds in his hands, should always be put +under bond. No matter how trustworthy he may be, it is a sound principal +that no official should handle public money without giving bond. His +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>successor may not be so careful or so honest, and, unless the precedent +is established while the danger of loss seems small, it will be +difficult and invidious to insist upon a bond when occasion may require +it. If no trustee is willing to accept the position of treasurer with +bond, it is usually possible to leave the library funds in the hands of +the already bonded town treasurer, and draw on them as needed to pay +bills.</p> + +<p>As to committees, it is better to have as many as can actively be +employed, in order to enlist the cooperation or advice of every trustee. +In large boards, even with small libraries, four standing committees can +find occupation; namely, executive, book, finance, and progress.</p> + +<p>The executive committee can take charge of the daily work of the +library, of purchases, and of the care of the building. They should be +efficient men, with prompt business habits, with an active interest in +the library, with leisure to attend to their duties during library +hours, and with sufficient discretion to sift and formulate business to +be presented at the meetings of the trustees. While discharging their +executive duties promptly and thoroughly, they ought to be careful not +to assume too much of the power and responsibility which properly belong +to the full board, whose will they are appointed to execute.</p> + +<p>[In very large libraries, these duties of an executive committee are +sometimes subdivided among additional committees on building and +grounds, on purchase of supplies, on reading-room and so on, as +different departments increase in importance.]</p> + +<p>Inasmuch as the range of reading, the literary taste, and the critical +faculty, which qualify a man to select books for popular use, are not +necessarily united with executive ability, it will often be best to +intrust the choice of books to a book committee, selected for that +purpose alone. This is a sufficiently important duty to occupy all the +spare time of a committee, even where the initiative is taken by the +librarian, and appeal on doubtful points is made to the full board.</p> + +<p>The duties of a finance committee are often confined to a perfunctory +and occasional examination of accounts, but they may be made very +important. To make and watch investments, to provide that money on +deposit shall always draw the best interest, to see that purchases of +books and supplies are made on the most favorable terms, to keep close +watch on all the controllable expenditures, to examine and verify bills, +and to audit carefully the treasurer's accounts, will give full +employment to a good committee of business men.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p><p>In addition to these obviously useful committees, there is another,—a +“Committee on Library Progress”—which often serves to increase the +activity and efficiency of the library. Constituted from among the +younger or more active men, and from those trustees who can find +opportunity for visiting other libraries, such a committee can do good +work in watching the experiments made elsewhere; in placing before the +board information in regard to improved methods of library work; in +comparing the library with other libraries similarly situated; and in +encouraging their own librarian, if he be progressive, or in stimulating +him, if too conservative. In short such a committee, if both active and +wise, could keep even the smallest town library in the full tide of +modern progress.</p> + +<p>It will be best not to leave too much discretion or power permanently to +any committee, but to require all committees to report their acts and +plans frequently for the approval or criticism of the full board.</p> + + +<p class='center'>6. RELATIONS WITH THE LIBRARIAN</p> + +<p>The relations of the trustees with the librarian will vary greatly +according to circumstances. Some general principals may be suggested, +subject always to “the exceptions which prove the rule.”</p> + +<p>First of all, it should be borne in mind that the trustees are the +responsible managers of the library, and that so far as they chose to +act, the librarian is only their agent, bound in honor to carry out +their wishes promptly, thoroughly, and cheerfully.</p> + +<p>If they are fortunate enough, however, to have a first-class librarian, +with superior ability, training, knowledge, energy, wisdom, and tact, +the trustees ought to leave the management of the library practically to +him, working only to lighten his labors and strengthen his hands.</p> + +<p>But if—as sometimes may happen—the librarian has human limitations, +and while strong in some directions is weak in others, it is the part of +the trustees to try to supplement, without impeding, his abilities. If, +after ascertaining his limitations, they decide that he is the best +librarian that they can get, under the circumstances of the case they +should note in what lines he needs help, and select for committees the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>trustees best fitted to do the part of library work which he cannot +satisfactorily perform.</p> + +<p>If, however, the librarian has executive ability, it will be wise for +the trustees to let him control the selection, management, and dismissal +of all his assistants; if he has good judgement and what may be called +“the librarian's faculty,” it will be wise to let him arrange the +methods and details of library work; if he has literary taste, it will +be especially wise to allow him at least the initiative in the choice +and purchase of books, for he has (or ought to have) constant contact +with the public and an intelligent knowledge of their wants.</p> + +<p>Although it may not be considered best for the librarian to act as their +secretary, the trustees should take him into their confidence, consult +him freely, and invite his presence during some part of each board +meeting and of all committee meetings where his advice might be of +service. The librarian can properly reciprocate by allowing the board +and the committees frequent opportunities for private conference and +“executive session,” unembarrassed by his presence.</p> + +<p>In brief, while the trustees cannot forget that they control both +library and librarian, they should remember that the librarian is chosen +to be their expert advisor and their executive officer, and, so long as +he fills these positions satisfactorily, they ought not to hamper or +interfere with, so much as to assist and sustain him by their actions.</p> + +<p>The relations of an active librarian with an active board of trustees +demand discretion and consideration on both sides. But if the librarian +is sensible, and not too sensitive, and the trustees are reasonably +harmonious and judicious, the cooperation herein outlined may be carried +out with success.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_DUTIES_OF_TRUSTEES_AND_THEIR_RELATIONS_TO_LIBRARIANS" id="THE_DUTIES_OF_TRUSTEES_AND_THEIR_RELATIONS_TO_LIBRARIANS"></a>THE DUTIES OF TRUSTEES AND THEIR RELATIONS TO LIBRARIANS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Although Mr. S.S. Green says that he has prepared this paper +“from the standpoint of a librarian,” he is competent to +speak from that of a trustee also, for he served as both, +having been a trustee of the Worcester Public Library for +some time when he was chosen its librarian. A sketch of +Samuel Swett Green will be found in Vol I. of this series.</p></div> + + +<p>In the symposium in which we are now engaged, I understand that I am to +consider the subject which we are talking about from the standpoint of a +librarian.</p> + +<p>The position can be stated in a few words.</p> + +<p>A librarian should be regarded as holding relations to his trustees +similar to those held by the agent of a factory or the cashier of a bank +to the governing board of the factory or bank.</p> + +<p>Some cashiers and some agents have more power than others. The power +conferred depends upon the knowledge, training, experience, industry, +enterprise, good judgment, and ability of persons holding such +positions.</p> + +<p>If the board of trustees of a library is more competent to manage its +affairs than the librarian, and if it is ready to give the time that is +necessary to the discharge of the duties of management, it has a perfect +right to do so, and the librarian need then only be a clerk.</p> + +<p>So, too, if on any board of directors there is one man of leisure who +has especial qualifications for conducting the affairs of a library, the +board may delegate to him the performance of the more intellectual +portions of the work of the librarian.</p> + +<p>Even, however, in such cases as those the individuality of the +librarian should be considered, because, although his position may be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>very humble, yet he can do better work if allowed to work in his own +way, rather than in accordance with the provisions of rules laid down by +others which he is required to strictly observe.</p> + +<p>When a librarian is accomplished, it will be found wise for a board of +trustees or directors to ascertain his views on most subjects before +acting, and it will generally appear manifest that it is well to give +very careful consideration to those views.</p> + +<p>A board which encourages its librarian to initiate measures, will +administer its trust more satisfactorily than it can if it reduces him +to the position of a mere executive officer, who is only to carry out +the plans which it has formed.</p> + +<p>I should say that the wisest course for a board of trustees to pursue is +to let a good librarian do pretty much as he thinks best, only keeping a +watchful eye on him for the purpose of seeing that things are not going +wrong under his conduct of affairs. It is better, generally speaking, +for a board to change its librarian than to undertake to manage matters, +unless its members are willing to give much time and thought on the +subject.</p> + +<p>Mr. Greenough, at that time the President of the Board of Trustees of +the Boston Public Library, said to me, just after Mr. Windsor gave up +his position of Superintendent of that library, that he wished in his +successor the qualities of a librarian (using that designation in a +restricted sense) and not those of a superintendent, and that the title +of the new officer would be librarian and not superintendent.</p> + +<p>Mr. Greenough had had a long connection with the Boston Public Library +as a trustee and as President of the Board of Trustees, and felt that he +knew, better than any person whose services the library was likely to +secure, how to conduct its affairs.</p> + +<p>Judge Chamberlain, Mr. Windsor's successor, accepted the situation and +stated in an early report, in substance, that the duty of a librarian is +merely to carry out the wishes of the board of trustees.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Greenough became disabled after a while, and Judge Chamberlain +gained experience; and I venture to say, during the latter portion of +the short time which he was connected with the Boston Public Library, he +found that in the long run a librarian must take upon himself the lion's +share in the entire management of a library. Now that Judge Chamberlain +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>has resigned his place, the Trustees of the Boston Public Library are +understood to be looking around for an accomplished superintendent.</p> + +<p>The ideal executive head of a large public library—let me say it +emphatically—should have the qualifications of both librarian and +superintendent. Perhaps, in the case of some of the largest libraries, +it is well to have both a superintendent and a librarian; but when such +a distribution of duties becomes desirable, it is certain that the +superintendent should have something of the spirit of a librarian, and +as much of his technical knowledge as possible, and that the librarian +should be often consulted in regard to questions of management, and +have, himself, no mean qualifications as an executive officer.</p> + +<p>A good librarian should be allowed to make experiments (observing, of +course, reasonable limits), without consulting the board of trustees, +with the purpose of satisfying himself as to the desirability and +feasibility of adopting new methods, and of obtaining evidence that will +enable the board to form intelligent opinions in regard to the value of +changes recommended by him.</p> + +<p>Experiments may often be undertaken, with good prospect of success, by +persons familiar with kinds of work which a board of trustees, +acquainted with such kinds of work, would not care to try, but which, +nevertheless, it is very important should be tried.</p> + +<p>A librarian should have the appointment of his assistants in his own +hands, and should himself consult heads of departments in the choice of +persons to serve under them.</p> + +<p>He should be allowed to buy such books as are needed between meetings of +library committees and boards of trustees, just as a trusted cashier is +permitted to loan money to a bank's customer between meetings of its +board of directors. Both the librarian and the cashier should, of +course, give an account of such proceedings to the committee or board +over him at the meeting next after the transactions.</p> + +<p>Generally speaking, a competent librarian should be allowed large +freedom, and held responsible for wisdom in management.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the board of trustees should insist upon the +observance by the librarian of such forms as have been adopted as +safe-guards.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p><p>While it should allow much liberty to its executive officer, it should +also see to it that he keeps the machinery, by which work is done, in +order; so that, if in the exercise of a careful oversight, it shall +become advisable at any time for it to resume the power conferred on the +librarian, it may be able to do it promptly.</p> + +<p>Trustees and directors may render services of the greatest value to +libraries and librarians.</p> + +<p>Not long ago I had upon my board of directors an influential member, who +used to say regularly at the first meeting, after new men came on it, +“Gentlemen, our only duty is to support the librarian.”</p> + +<p>That is saying too much, certainly. It is, however, the duty of a board +of trustees to second heartily a librarian in his efforts to make his +administration energetic, useful, and progressive, and to do all that it +can to secure patient and generous consideration by town and city +governments, and by citizens, of all wise measures which he may adopt.</p> + +<p>Trustees are very influential in working individually to obtain for a +library the support in money which is needed.</p> + +<p>They can be of great service in showing their appreciation of good work +done by the librarian, by word and act.</p> + +<p>It is almost too much to expect of a board of trustees that it should +look out to see to it that a librarian receive a proper salary, and that +his compensation be increased as his services grow in value, without +being reminded that the remuneration is inadequate by a communication +from that officer. Still it is very desirable that, when a communication +is made, it should be sympathetically considered, and that members of +the board should point out to one another the excellence of the services +rendered by the librarian instead of expecting him to enlarge upon their +value himself.</p> + +<p>It should be understood, also, that it is a librarian's duty to state +fully the worth of the services of his assistants, and seek adequate +compensation for them.</p> + +<p>A board of trustees can do much, and should always do as much as +possible, to keep the interests of a library and of a librarian from +being sacrificed to supposed exigencies of politics.</p> + +<p>In some portions of the country the appointment and removal of +librarians for political reasons has become a scandal.</p> + +<p>A board of trustees owes it to its librarian to protect him from the +vagaries of impracticable men who may by some chance become members of +the board.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p><p>For example, it should quietly vote down unwise propositions, as they +are made by fussy or narrow men; by those persons who, while they are +self-confident, are also ignorant; by men who are so constituted as +always to oppose or hold back, or go ahead recklessly; and by such +persons as wish to have a hand in doing everything which it is the duty +of the librarian to do, and yet are unwilling to give any time or +thought to the conduct of affairs.</p> + +<p>There is a tendency in many boards of trustees, when a single member is +urgent in opposition to some measure proposed by a librarian, and the +other members have no positive opinions regarding the matter, to yield +to the objector.</p> + +<p>Such oppositions may afford a proper excuse for the delay, but should +not be allowed to become permanently efficacious in preventing the +execution of a project, without the librarian has been given ample +opportunities, for explaining the grounds of his recommendation. The +librarian should always be treated as a cooperator, and not as an +unintelligent servant. It would always be unwise in him to press the +adoption of measures until their wisdom is generally recognized by the +trustees. Still his reasons for advising action should be ascertained +and duly considered.</p> + +<p>A board of trustees will always do well to have the librarian present at +its regular meetings. His knowledge and experience will be found of +value.</p> + +<p>His plans will be the better understood. He, too, by being present will +not only comprehend better than in any other way the wishes of the board +of trustees (and its members), but, that which is of great importance +will catch the spirit which animates it, and become aware of the general +principles which it desires should underlie the administration of the +institution.</p> + +<p>Trustees should bear in mind that unnecessary delays are to be avoided, +and that, in order to keep the members of a community in a contented +frame of mind, their wants must not only be supplied, but supplied +promptly.</p> + +<p>Trustees should remember that it is important to give librarians and +some of their assistants time in which to aid users of libraries, +instead of keeping every attendant constantly employed about routine +work.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p><p>Trustees should guard themselves against the notion that library work +is easy, and that it is only the occupations which they are usually +engaged in, in which employment is wearing and hard.</p> + +<p>It must not be supposed, from anything which I have said, that the +position of a director or trustee of a library is, in the opinion of +librarians, a sinecure.</p> + +<p>Our idea is far from this, as will be seen if the remarks already made +are carefully considered.</p> + +<p>It should be said in conclusion, that one of the most important duties +of trustees is to look around among libraries in different towns and +cities, to read library reports and accounts of meetings of librarians, +with the purpose of finding out whether they are getting as much and as +good service from librarians in the communities whose interests they +have to look after, as citizens are obtaining in places where libraries +and their management have attained a high standard of excellence.</p> + +<p>With the same end in view, they should see to it that librarians are +provided with the current issues of the best library journals and with a +collection of the best bibliographical works.</p> + +<p>They should also put themselves, and insist upon librarians putting +themselves, into vital relations with other libraries, and with the +whole body of librarians.</p> + +<p>Librarians should never forget that the real authority in a library +rests with the board of trustees, or fail to render immediate and +cordial submission to its directions.</p> + +<p>They should also seek and accept with gratitude all practical +suggestions that may be made to them by trustees or other persons.</p> + +<p>When any members of the board of trustees are specialists, they should +be urged to give the library the benefit of their special knowledge, by +proposing for purchase lists of books known to them to be of particular +value.</p> + +<p>I wish to add to what I have written, the statement that I have always +been very fortunate in having over me a body of directors of unusually +good judgment, and of the kindest disposition toward me.</p> + +<p>In fact, the remarks which I have made regarding the duties of trustees +have been suggested to me by observation of the happy results which have +followed the administration of the affairs of my own library, by a board +of directors who have governed themselves by rules almost identical with +those which I have recommended for use by boards of trustees and +directors generally.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LIBRARYS_SERVICE_TO_THE_COMMUNITY" id="THE_LIBRARYS_SERVICE_TO_THE_COMMUNITY"></a>THE LIBRARY'S SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This division of the subject is that which has been most +discussed, and its subject matter is that in which most +progress has been made. It is creditable to libraries that +what they do for the public has extended and developed to a +marvelously greater degree than what the public does for +them. Whether it is equally creditable to the public “is +another story.” The first seven papers reproduced bear on +the subject of library service in a somewhat general manner +and are arranged chronologically.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="SOME_POPULAR_OBJECTIONS_TO_PUBLIC_LIBRARIES" id="SOME_POPULAR_OBJECTIONS_TO_PUBLIC_LIBRARIES"></a>SOME POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO PUBLIC LIBRARIES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This is probably the first treatment of the subject in this +country, and is the leading article in the second number of +<i>The American Library Journal</i>, as it was then called. The +writer, William F. Poole was at the time librarian of the +Chicago Public Library. He mentioned objections only to +explain them away. It will be noted that none of them would +be described at present as “popular,” and that only the +third is now much heard.</p> + +<p>William Frederick Poole was born in Salem, Mass., 1821, and +graduated at Yale in 1849, where as librarian of the +Linonian and Brothers Library he founded Poole's Index to +Periodical Literature, by which his name is chiefly +remembered. He was librarian of the Chicago Public Library +in 1873-87, and at his death, March 1, 1894, he was +librarian of the Newberry Library, Chicago, whose building +he designed on the departmental system, of which he was an +earnest advocate. He was the second president of the +American Library Association, serving in 1885-87.</p></div> + + +<p>In this paper I shall use the term “public libraries” as meaning free +municipal libraries organized under State laws and supported by general +taxation. This definition will exclude from our notice a large number of +libraries established on other foundations, some of them richly endowed +and partially accessible to the public.</p> + +<p>The rapid increase in the number and importance of public libraries, +both in this country and in England, is perhaps the most marked feature +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>of educational development during the past twenty-five years; for within +that brief period the first of them was opened to the public.</p> + +<p>My subject, as announced in the programme, requires me to speak of +popular objections; yet I must confess that popular appreciation of +these institutions, where they have been established, would have +furnished a more attractive theme. As their foundation involves +taxation, that prolific source of political controversy, it is somewhat +remarkable that in the eleven States of our Union where public-library +statutes have been enacted, so little public discussion has occurred, +and so few objections have been offered. I have heard of no instance +where such a bill was proposed in a State legislature and was defeated. +That all the Northern States, where general education and the +common-school system are established, have not by legislation provided +also for the public library—the natural ally and supplement of that +system—is doubtless owing to the fact that the people have not asked +for such legislation. The unanimity of the vote by which towns have +accepted taxation for the support of public libraries is significant. +The Commissioner of Education at Washington recently made inquiries on +this point, and received replies from 37 towns and cities. In 32 of +these the vote was unanimous; in 5 there was a divided sentiment, but +the vote was 1730 in favor to 515 against taxation. The vote of the +rate-payers in some English towns and cities where free libraries have +been established was as follows:</p> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'></td><td align='right'>Ayes.</td><td align='right'>Noes.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Manchester</td><td align='right'>3962</td><td align='right'>40</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Winchester</td><td align='right'>337</td><td align='right'>13</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Bolton</td><td align='right'>662</td><td align='right'>55</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Cambridge</td><td align='right'>873</td><td align='right'>78</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Oxford</td><td align='right'>596</td><td align='right'>72</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sheffield</td><td align='right'>838</td><td align='right'>232</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Kidderminster</td><td align='right'>108</td><td align='right'>11</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Blackburn</td><td align='right'>1700</td><td align='right'>2</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Dundee, no dissentient.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>By the latest statistics of the Bureau of Education, it appears that +there are 188 public libraries in eleven of the United States. Of these +five are Eastern States—Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts +and Connecticut; five are Western States—Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>Wisconsin, and Iowa: and one is a Southern State—Texas. Eight of these +States have passed public-library statutes within the past ten years. In +the number of libraries the States rank as follows: Massachusetts, 127; +Illinois, 14; New Hampshire, 13; Ohio, 9; Maine, 8; Vermont, +Connecticut, and Wisconsin, 4 each; Indiana, 3; Iowa and Texas, 1 each. +In the number of volumes they rank as follows (in round numbers): +Massachusetts, 920,000; Ohio, 144,000; Illinois, 77,000; New Hampshire, +52,000; Maine, 34,000; Indiana, 26,000; Vermont, 16,000; Connecticut, +15,000; Texas, 10,000; Wisconsin, 6000; Iowa, 1000. The aggregate number +of volumes in these libraries is 1,300,000, and their annual aggregate +circulation is 4,735,000 volumes. It is noticeable that no one of these +libraries is in New York, Pennsylvania, or any of the Middle States. The +representatives from those States in this Conference may be able to +account for this hiatus in the statistics of the Bureau of Education.</p> + +<p>In this brief sketch of the statistics of our American public libraries +we have not found much evidence of popular objections to their inception +and organization. In England, however, where the questions of national +schools, secular schools, and parochial schools are still mooted, the +idea of levying a general tax for the support of a library free to all, +and furnished with books adapted to the capacities of all classes, was +not in harmony with the traditions and public policy of that people. In +1848, the same year that the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the +suggestion of Josiah Quincy, Mayor of Boston, passed an act authorizing +the city of Boston to maintain a public library, Mr. William Ewart, +member of Parliament, moved in the House of Commons for a committee of +inquiry respecting libraries. Such a committee was raised, and Mr. Ewart +was appointed chairman. Much evidence was taken; a report was made; and +in February, 1850, a bill was introduced into the House of Commons +enabling town councils to establish public libraries and museums. “Our +younger brethren, the people of the United States,” says the report, +“have already anticipated us in the formation of libraries entirely open +to the public.” The bill proposed limited the rate of taxation to one +halfpenny in the pound; required the affirmative vote of two thirds of +the rate-payers; restricted its operation to towns which had at least +ten thousand inhabitants; and provided that the money so raised should +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>be expended only in building and contingent expenses. This bill, meagre +indeed compared with the later enactments of Parliament, met persistent +opposition from the conservative benches. An ex-Chancellor of the +Exchequer objected because it did not give sufficient powers to form a +library; and he should object to it more strongly if it did. Who was to +select the books? Was every publication that issued from the press to be +procured? or was there to be a censorship introduced? Another member +claimed that the bill would enable a few persons to tax the general body +of rate-payers for their own benefit, and the library would degenerate +into a political club. Col. Sibthorp thought that, however excellent +food for the mind might be, food for the body was more needed by the +people. “I do not like reading at all,” he said, “and hated it when I +was at Oxford.” Lord John Manners said he could not support the bill, +because it would impose an additional tax upon the agricultural +interest. Mr. Spooner feared these institutions might be converted into +normal schools of agitation. Sir Roundell Palmer—since the Lord +Chancellor of England—was most apprehensive that the moment the +compulsory principle was introduced, a positive check would be imposed +upon the voluntary, self-supporting desire which existed among the +people. A division being taken on the bill, there were 118 ayes and 101 +noes. The bill passed the House of Commons in July, and the House of +Lords, without opposition, in August, 1850.</p> + +<p>The Manchester, Liverpool, and Bolton free libraries were immediately +organized under this act, the cost of the books being defrayed by public +subscription. In 1853 similar legislation was extended to Scotland and +Ireland. In July, 1855, the new libraries having gone into operation +with the most encouraging results, a new and more liberal library act +was passed, by a vote of three to one, which raised the rate of taxation +from a halfpenny to a penny in the pound, and allowed the income to be +expended for books. Its provisions were made to include towns, boroughs, +parishes, and districts having a population of 5000 inhabitants, and +permitted two adjoining parishes, having an aggregate population of five +thousand, to unite in the establishment of a library.</p> + +<p>In 1866 the library act was again improved by removing the limit of +population required, and reducing the two-thirds vote on the acceptance +of the library tax to a bare majority vote. Provision was also made for +cases in which the overseers of parishes refused or neglected to call a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>meeting of the rate-payers to vote on the question. Any ten rate-payers +could secure the calling of such a meeting, and the vote there taken was +made binding and legal.</p> + +<p>The English free-library system is now so firmly established that it +will not be changed except to expand and enlarge it. Its chief +supporters are the middle classes, and artisans and laborers, who, with +their families, are its most numerous patrons.</p> + +<p>The recent extension of suffrage in England has strengthened the system. +No candidate for official position who opposed it could hope for +success. It has been found that free libraries have not degenerated into +political clubs and schools of agitation. No trouble has arisen in the +selection of books, and no censorship of the press was required. It was +at first supposed that all books relating to religion and politics—the +subjects on which people quarrel most—must be excluded. The experiment +of including these books was tried in the Manchester and Liverpool +libraries, where the books were purchased by private subscription, and +no controversy arising therefrom, all apprehension of evil from this +cause was allayed. Parliament doubled the rate of taxation, and +permitted the purchase of books from the public funds. The adoption of +the compulsory system has not imposed a check on the voluntary and +self-supporting desire of possessing books which existed among the +people. It has strengthened that desire; and ample proof of this +statement could be furnished if the prescribed limits of this paper +would permit.</p> + +<p>It is singular that objections to public libraries have come mainly from +men—as we have seen from the debate in the British Parliament—who are +educated, and in general matters of public welfare are intelligent above +their fellows. These objections, however, were uttered before the +persons making them had given the subject any attention, and hence they +were disqualified from entertaining an opinion.</p> + +<p>Nearly all the objections to public libraries which have been expressed +in this country—and these appear more frequently in private +conversation than in the public prints—may be classed under three +heads:</p> + +<p>1. The universal dread of taxation. Libraries cost money. In every city +and town of the land there is a feeling that the present rate of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>taxation is all that the property and business of the place will bear. +This feeling existed before the taxes were one half their present rates. +There is a generous rivalry among our cities and towns in the +maintenance of good schools; and localities which furnish the best +facilities for education are regarded as the most desirable places for +residence. Viewed simply as a matter of public economy, no city can +afford to dispense with its educational system, or to permit it to +degenerate. The public library also should be maintained as the +supplement of the public school, carrying forward the education of the +people from the point where the public school leaves it.</p> + +<p>2. There are certain theoretical objections offered to the establishment +and maintenance of public libraries. One is that the library tax bears +unequally upon the people. Some persons do not care to read books, and +others prefer to pay for their own reading. The same objection is quite +as valid against any system of public education. To lay the burden of +education uniformly upon property, and to tax the owner who has no +children, or, having children, prefers to educate them at private +schools, is another glaring instance of inequality. No taxation for the +maintenance of public health, the introduction of water and gas, the +construction of roads, bridges, and sewers, bears equally upon every +member of the community. If perfect equality in the distribution of +these burdens were a necessity, an organized municipality would be an +impossibility.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the most popular objection to public libraries is the one urged +by the few disciples of Herbert Spencer—that government has no +legitimate function except the protection of person and property, as the +original compact of society is simply for the purpose of protection. All +else is paternal, pertains to the commune, and tends to perpetual +antagonism. The government may support a police, courts of justice, +prisons, penitentiaries, and similar institutions, and can do nothing +else.</p> + +<p>How are the people under this theory to be educated? The reply is +explicit: Unless they will educate themselves, they are not to be +educated. How is the public health to be maintained? It is not to be +maintained by any interference of government. Who is to build bridges +and sewers and lay out public parks? Nobody. Imagine, if it be possible, +a community where such a Utopian theory was carried out. Such a +government fortunately does not, and never did, exist on the face of the +globe. The “general welfare”—which includes protection—is expressly +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>stated in the preamble of the national constitution to be the purpose of +our government, and the same expression is found in nearly all the state +constitutions. What ever the people desire, and whatever will, in their +judgment, conduce to the general welfare, is a legitimate subject for +governmental action. “The only orthodox object of the institution of +government,” says Mr. Jefferson, “is to secure the greatest degree of +happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.” +Herbert Spencer wrote his “Social Statics” before the British Parliament +passed an act for the support of public libraries. Mr. Ewart's bill was +then before Parliament; and Mr. Spencer, in that work, took occasion to +fling a sneer at it. In the preface of his American edition, written in +1864, he states, without remodelling the text, that “the work does not +accurately represent his present opinions.”</p> + +<p>3. The third and last class of objections to public libraries to which +I shall direct your attention relates to the kind and quality of books +circulated. These objections, which are usually made by educated and +scholarly persons, are based on an entire misconception of the facts in +the case. The objectors do not divest themselves of the old idea that +libraries are established for the exclusive benefit of scholars; whereas +the purpose of these is to furnish reading for all classes in the +community. On no other principle would a general tax for their support +be justifiable. The masses of a community have very little of literary +and scholarly culture. They need more of this culture, and the purpose +of the library is to develop and increase it. This is done by placing in +their hands such books as they can read with pleasure and appreciate, +and by stimulating them to acquire the <i>habit</i> of reading. We must first +interest the reader before we can educate him; and, to this end, must +commence at his own standard of intelligence. The scholar, in his pride +of intellect, forgets the progressive steps he took in his own mental +development—the stories read to him in the nursery, the boy's book of +adventure in which he revelled with delight, and the sentimental novel +over which he shed tears in his youth. Our objector supposes that the +masses will read books of his standard if they were not supplied with +the books to which he objects; but he is mistaken. Shut up to this +choice, they will read no books. When the habit of reading is once +acquired, the reader's taste, and hence the quality of his reading, +progressively improve.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p><p>The standard histories, technical works of science, and even +Shakespeare's plays and Milton's “Paradise Lost,” are sealed books to a +larger portion of every community than are willing to acknowledge the +fact. “When a Boy,” said John Quincy Adams, “I attempted ten times to +read Milton's ‘Paradise Lost.’ I was mortified, even to the shedding of +tears, that I could not conceive what it was that my father and mother +so much admired in that book. I smoked tobacco and read Milton at the +same time, and for the same motive: to find out what was the recondite +charm in them that gave my father so much pleasure. After making myself +sick four or five times with smoking, I mastered that accomplishment; +but I did not master Milton. I was nearly thirty years of age when I +first read ‘Paradise Lost’ with delight and astonishment.”</p> + +<p>If our objectors mourn over the standard of books which are read by the +public, they may be consoled by the fact that, as a rule, people read +books better than themselves, and hence are benefited by reading. A book +of a lower intellectual or moral standard than the reader's is thrown +aside in disgust, to be picked up and read by a person still lower in +the scale of mental and moral development.</p> + +<p>I do not lament, or join in the clamor sometimes raised, over the +statistics of prose fiction circulated at public libraries. Why this +lamentation over one specific form of fiction? The writers of such prose +fiction as is found in our libraries were as eminent and worthy men and +women as the writers of poetical fiction, dramatic fiction, or, I might +add, the fiction which passes in the world as history and biography. +History professes to relate actual events, biography to describe actual +lives, and science to unfold and explain natural laws and physical +phenomena. Fiction treats these and other subjects, mental, moral, +sentimental, and divine, from an ideal or artistic standpoint; and the +great mass of readers prefer to take their knowledge in this form. More +is known to-day of the history and traditions of Scotland, and of the +social customs of London, from the novels of Sir Walter Scott and +Charles Dickens than from all the histories of those localities. Fiction +is the art element in literature, and the most enduring monuments of +genius in the literature of any people are works of the imagination.</p> + +<p>It is said that there is much poor fiction, and the statement is true. +So there are many poor pictures and poor statues, wretched chromos and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>more wretched plaster casts. That these productions find purchasers is +evidence that there are persons whose ideal standard of excellence is +even below these feeble efforts, and they are educated thereby.</p> + +<p>But there are novels, we are told, which are immoral and positively +debasing. So there are immoral paintings and indecent plastic objects. +The act of photography, I am told, is debased to the lowest purposes. +Nobody would think of objecting to art because it can be and is +degraded. The librarian who should allow an immoral novel in his library +for circulation would be as culpable as the manager of a picture gallery +who should hang an indecent picture on his walls.</p> + +<p>Young people, again, we are told, read too many novels. So they eat too +much, play too much, go too often to the lake to bathe, remain too long +in the water, and do too much of everything in which they take special +delight. The remedy is not to deprive children of these pleasures, but +that parents and guardians should regulate them. I have never met a +person of much literary culture who would not confess that at some +period in his life, usually in his youth, he had read novels +excessively. His special interest in them suddenly ceased. He found +himself with a confirmed habit of reading, an awakened imagination, a +full vocabulary, and a taste for other and higher classes of literature. +A novel was read occasionally in later life, as recreation in the midst +of professional or technical studies. My observation addressed to this +point, and extending over a library experience of thirty years, has +confirmed me in the belief that there is in the mental development of +every person who later attains to literary culture a limited period when +he craves novel-reading, and perhaps reads novels to excess; but from +which, if the desire be gratified, he passes safely out into broader +fields of study, and this craving never returns to him in its original +form.</p> + +<p>Again, and finally, we are told that the reading of fiction should be +discouraged because it is not <i>true</i>. What department of literature is +true? Is it history? Whose history of the United States, for instance, +is the true history? Is it Bancroft's? Mr. Bancroft for forty years has +been changing the plates of his work to an extent that in pages we can +scarcely recognize the original text, and lately he has revised the +whole in the new Centennial edition. The accurate student of specialties +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>in American history will talk to you by the hour of mis-statements and +errors found in this new issue. Whose history of the reigns of Henry +VIII. and of Queen Elizabeth is the true one? Is it Hume's, Turner's, +Lingard's, or Froude's? “Do not read to me history,” said a sick +monarch, “that I know is a lie. Read to me something that is true.” Is +biography true? Which of the score of lives of Mary Queen of Scots is +the true biography? Is theology true? Whose is the true body of +divinity? Is science true? Why was it necessary to rewrite all the +science in the eighth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, for the +ninth edition? Homer's Iliad, Dante's Divine Comedy, Shakespeare's +Hamlet and Othello, do not require to be rewritten every ten or twenty +years. The Vicar of Wakefield, Ivanhoe, and Robinson Crusoe have held +and will hold their own from generation to generation without revision, +because they are <i>ideally true</i> pictures of human life and human nature. +Shall we say that in literature and science there is nothing true but +fiction and the pure mathematics?</p> + +<p>In the public libraries which are growing up in our land, fully four +fifths of the money appropriated for books is spent in works adapted to +the wants of scholars. In the larger libraries the proportion is even +greater. It is hardly becoming for scholars, who enjoy the lion's share, +to object to the small proportional expenditure for books adapted to the +wants of the masses who bear the burden of taxation.</p> + +<p>Mr. Edward Edwards, of the Manchester Library, speaking, in 1859, of +novels and romances—which he circulated more freely than is done in any +American library—remarked as follows: “It may be truthfully said that +at no previous period in the history of English literature has prose +fiction been made, in so great a degree as of late years, the vehicle of +the best thoughts of some of the best thinkers. Nor, taking it as a +whole, was it ever before characterized by so much general purity of +tone or loftiness of purpose.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>”</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="HOW_TO_USE_A_LIBRARY" id="HOW_TO_USE_A_LIBRARY"></a>HOW TO USE A LIBRARY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The substance of two addresses made at Pittsfield, Mass., +and printed in <i>The Library Journal</i> for February, 1884. Mr. +Hubbard's advice with regard to children's reading was +followed long ago by specialization in work with children. +That with regard to adult fiction remains unheeded. Some +day, possibly we shall have “adults' librarians” and +training for “work with adults.”</p> + +<p>James Mascarene Hubbard was born in Boston in 1836. He was +made assistant librarian of the Boston Public Library in +1884 and also reorganized the Berkshire Athenaeum of +Pittsfield, Mass., in the same year.</p></div> + + +<p>Among all the pictures of Abraham Lincoln none perhaps are more +interesting than two which represent scenes at the beginning and at the +end of his life. In the first, a lad of thirteen or fourteen, he is +reading by the light of a fire in his father's log hut. In the second, +he is reading the Bible to his sons in a room in the White House. This +Bible, which lies before the President in the latter picture, with a +catechism and a spelling-book, were the only books in that frontier +cabin when he learned to read. Though his father could neither read nor +write, yet he took the greatest interest in getting books for his son, +so that when he was eighteen his library consisted of the Bible, +Pilgrim's Progress, Æsop's Fables, Weem's and Ramsay's Lives of +Washington, a Life of Clay, the Autobiography of Franklin, and a copy of +Plutarch. It is note-worthy that the one which influenced him the most +strongly, after the Bible, was the Life of Washington. At the very +crisis of his career, when on his way to the national capital to take +the leading part in crushing out the rebellion, he reverted to those +early days, and recalled the burning thoughts which filled his mind +while reading of the sufferings and sacrifices endured for the sake of +freedom by the great patriot leader and his followers.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p><p>Lincoln's experience was, of course, no solitary one, but it doubtless +had a great effect when it became generally known. It filled many men's +imaginations with pictures of obscure lads with latent powers for noble +deeds in danger of being stunted or wholly destroyed for want of proper +nourishment, and they gave freely and generously that these “village +Hampdens,” these hearts “pregnant with sacred fire,” might not live +useless and ignoble lives for want of books alone. Hence to-day a large +section of our country is dotted over with libraries, in which the +collective wisdom and experience of the world, as it were, are gathered +for the use especially of the youth of the nation.</p> + +<p>But, as is inevitable with the blessing of abundance, has come its +danger also. Lincoln's naturally great intellectual powers were +strengthened by their being at first exercised upon a few subjects. The +possession of a book being an era in his early life from its rarity, he +read and re-read each one which he got, so as almost to learn it by +heart before he read another. So the vivid impressions received from the +lives of Washington and the other great heroes of history ran no risk of +being dissipated before they could have their full effect upon his mind +and heart. This, however, is our danger in this day of public libraries +and cheap literature, that the mental strength of our youth will be +weakened through the too much reading of a multitude of books. As the +waters of a brook when confined to a narrow channel may have power +enough to set in motion a thousand spindles, but if suffered to spread +over the ground are not able to turn a child's toy wheel, so with the +powers of the mind. When directed to a few objects they may be capable +of the greatest and most beneficent results, but when allowed to exhaust +themselves upon a multitude they are in danger of becoming sterile and +unfruitful. With Lincoln then, and with many a frontier and backwoods +boy now, the question was and is, How shall I get a book? With a greater +number to-day, however, the more important question is, Which book shall +I choose?</p> + +<p>Before attempting to aid any one to answer this question for himself, +let me briefly advert to the fact that there are two kinds of reading +for each of us, and two corresponding uses, therefore, of the +library—the reading for amusement and the reading for profit. In regard +to the former, I can say but a word, as it is a subject by itself. And +that word is, let this reading be the best possible, and do not let it +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>occupy too much of your spare time. Books read simply for amusement have +on most a greater power to elevate or degrade than any others, and more +care should be taken in selecting them than in the choice of those to be +read for instruction. Read then, and put into the hands of the young the +best fiction, and shun those writers, whatever their power or their +popularity, who reproduce in their books the slang and vulgar speech of +the streets and paint realistic scenes of vice and crime.</p> + +<p>The answer to the question, How or what shall I read? must necessarily +be as varied as the tastes, the talents, and the circumstances of +readers vary. The general aim, however, should be the same in all. We +should read in order to do well whatever we have to do in life. Now this +implies something more than the reading simply to increase one's +knowledge—certainly a worthy aim, but not the highest. The field of +knowledge is so broad and the time for reading so short that we must +necessarily choose those subjects, the knowledge of which will make us +better fitted for our work in life. And the mere seeking for knowledge, +which is the sole end of much reading, does not imply, but may even +prevent the attaining that higher end, the cultivation of our nobler +powers, as the imagination and the sympathies, and the gaining the power +of appreciating what is highest and best in literature and life. For +instance, one may be conscious of a total lack of a love for any great +writer. To him Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, and their peers are +but names. Now it may be that the best use to which such an one can put +a library is to make at least the attempt to understand and enjoy some +great author. It will be no easy task, but one needing and worthy the +hardest study. To take, as an illustration of one method, a lesser poet, +read carefully and thoughtfully Matthew Arnold's introduction to his +edition of the selected poems of Wordsworth. Whenever he refers to a +poem, read it before going farther and re-read it until the thought of +the poet as indicated by the commentator is reasonably clear. Then read +in the same manner what Coleridge, Shairp, F.W. Robertson, or any other +good critic has written upon Wordsworth. And, above all, sometimes read +the poems as nearly as possible in the same circumstances under which +they were written—in the forest, by the brook-side, in the solitudes of +the mountains, or on a bridge in the heart of a great city. If this fail +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>to awaken an interest in Wordsworth, try some other author in a similar +way, and it is impossible that of all who have stirred men's hearts +through the ages, no one can be found to arouse your sympathies. And +when the right author is at length found, you live on a higher plane +than before. This great poet, philosopher, or dramatist has become your +friend and familiar companion—a gain far greater than the acquirement +of any mere book knowledge.</p> + +<p>The greater part of another person's life may be spent in sordid +surroundings, with companions and in an occupation tending to depress +and degrade the better nature. I can easily conceive that it might be +the highest duty of such an one to remain ignorant of much useful +knowledge in order to quicken the imagination, to enlarge the tastes, +and heighten the enjoyments. So that when the day's work is done, he may +exchange the sordid companions, suggestive only of mean thoughts and low +aims, for intercourse with men of purest and noblest nature—men, too, +it may be, who have lived, thought, and written under circumstances as +depressing as those in which he lives and works. So there may be some +one who regretfully feels that in Nature there is nothing which gives to +him, as to others, the keenest pleasure, refreshing him when wearied, +encouraging him when downcast. Who sees nothing in the skies save signs +of the coming storm, nothing in the trees or flowers, the rivers or the +hills, save something relating to his material comfort or discomfort. +The best use to which this man could put a library and his reading hours +might be to study the works of the great interpreters of nature, as +White of Selborne, Ruskin, or Emerson. And if they should open his eyes +so that he can look “through Nature up to Nature's God,” his gain is +immeasurable.</p> + +<p>Now, in neither of these instances is the increase of knowledge the aim +set before the reader, but the development of some dwarfed faculty whose +growth is necessary to the leading of a noble life. But where the +increase of knowledge is the direct end sought, the value of the +knowledge in itself must not be that alone which decides one in the +choice of books, or incites him to reading, but the use to which it can +and ought to be put. An employer of labor, for instance, one who is +immediately responsible for the welfare of a large number of workmen, +cannot, with any true conception of his duty as a master, devote his +time for reading to acquiring a knowledge of history, science, or +literature, if he know nothing of the principles underlying the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>relations of capital to labor, if he is ignorant of the dangers, the +temptations, the needs and rights of his workpeople. However +well-informed on other subjects, he has read to far less advantage than +if his books had been chosen with a direct purpose to fit him to do his +duty as a master. So many a parent ought, for a time at least, to read +with a view wholly to prepare himself for the wise moral and mental +training of his children. And on the other hand a man should read the +history of his country, not merely that he may not blush from conscious +ignorance of it, but that, knowing what his heritage of freedom cost to +obtain, he may also come to the conviction that it is not his to enjoy +simply, but it is a sacred trust to be accounted for, however humble his +position. It could not be more humble than Lincoln's, and yet none can +doubt that to the spirit in which he read American history was largely +due his future fitness for the great work which God gave him to do.</p> + +<p>To what highest and most profitable use can I put my reading? is the +question then which each one should ask himself, and according as the +answer is, so should the choice be made. It may be that one will read +that he may understand better his duties and privileges as a citizen; +another, that he may be a just master, or an intelligent and faithful +workman; still another, that she may be a wise parent; while a fourth +may have the strong conviction that everything else should be laid aside +for the study of one of the masterpieces of the world's literature, that +he may develop his higher faculties and become a man thinking lofty +thoughts and capable of noble deeds.</p> + +<p>But there is a very large class of readers, especially of a public +library, to whom what I have just said will be of but little use. And as +it is upon them that the choice of books has the greatest influence for +good or evil, it is to speak of their interests that I turn with the +deepest solicitude. This class may be subdivided into two classes—the +children of intelligent parents who are capable of directing their +reading, and those children who have none to guide them in their choice. +As regards the former, one of the greatest dangers of the public +library, in my opinion, is that many parents throw off all +responsibility as to the books their children read upon those who have +charge of the library. A generation ago, all the books, as a rule, which +the young read were bought especially for them by their parents or +friends, with more or less care in the selection. Of course under these +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>circumstances they had a general knowledge of what their children read. +Now a great many parents neither know, nor do they apparently seem to +care to know, what books fall into their children's hands, so long as +they are from the public library, which is supposed to be a guarantee +for their fitness for young readers. Without entering here upon the +important question as to what books should or should not be put in a +public library, it is enough to say that no intelligent parent, with a +right idea of his duty toward his children, can properly lay this +responsibility upon persons, however carefully chosen or however +faithful in the discharge of their duties. The capacity of children for +receiving good or bad impressions from books differs, as their features +and forms vary. The same story might prove harmless to one boy and give +a moral twist to another's mind from which he might never recover. One +girl might receive from a book a hundred evil suggestions, hopelessly +depraving her imagination, while upon another it might not leave a +single evil trace. Now, it is not possible for the most scrupulous +librarian to discriminate between these two, and refuse the book to the +one and freely give it to the other. And therefore no library with a +large and miscellaneous collection of stories and novels can be safe for +children freely to use except under the careful supervision of their +parents. The only safeguard of which I know is for parents to read much +with their children, to interest themselves in their books, and to talk +with them about them. Those stories, for instance, against which there +has been such an outcry of late years, would have but small power to +hurt that boy to whom a father had taken the pains to point out the +absurdities, the unrealities, the false ideas and aims of which they are +accused.</p> + +<p>But in our cities and large towns there can be no doubt that the +greater number of the younger readers of a public library belong to the +second of the two classes referred to—those who have none to guide them +in the choice of their books. The most of these come, of course, simply +for amusement, without a thought of any better use of the library. But a +few come with other and higher aims. Some, with no specially strong +tastes or more than ordinary capacities, merely wish to read that which +will cultivate their minds and increase their knowledge, or will be +profitable to them in their work. A very few there are, however, in +every large town, with intellects of no mean order and strong ambitions, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>who turn to the library instinctively for that which will satisfy the +cravings of their intellects and the promptings of their ambitions. A +youth with the instincts of a Lincoln or a Webster comes to read the +history of his country. Another, with the latent powers of a Nasmyth, a +Stevenson, or an Arkwright, wants the books which will give full play to +his inventive faculties. Another finds a strange and irresistible +attraction in natural phenomena, in the habits of plants and animals, in +the formation of the rocks and the hills, in the aspects of the skies +and the movements of the stars. Now, it will depend very much upon the +first choice of their books, and the subsequent direction of their +reading, whether they will become men useful to the communities in which +they live and add substantial material to the sum of human knowledge, as +statesmen, inventors, naturalists, or astronomers. The danger is that, +for lack of proper guidance and restraint, they will dissipate their +mental energies and lose sight of all high aims by too much and too +vague reading. If the public library is to be in fact, what it is in +theory, an educating power second only to the church and the school, and +supplementing the work of both, there must be some method devised by +which such readers as these may be helped to choose the right books. +Without such aid, given continually and systematically, the library +fails in the principal end for which it was founded—the elevation and +instruction of the people. We might as well turn our children into a +school-house, fully furnished with books and apparatus, but with only a +janitor to see that no injury is done to them, and expect the children +to make a wise use of their opportunities, to take up and pursue the +proper studies without the aid of a master, as to give children the free +range of a great library and expect them undirected to make a wise use +of its advantages as a means of education. It is, therefore, in my +opinion, a most pernicious error to encourage young people, of the lower +classes especially, to come to a library, and to give them poor stories +in the mistaken belief that, the taste for reading being developed, they +will naturally and surely rise from these to better books. Such a belief +is contrary to all our experience of human nature. With careful guidance +and restraint a boy may be brought from the Dime novel to read Scott and +Macaulay. But without this restraint and guidance, where one will rise, +a hundred, a thousand rather, will remain at the level from which they +started, or more naturally sink to still lower depths.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p> + +<p>The question is, Can anything be done to help the young who throng our +public libraries to read well and wisely? Shall these boys and girls, +with their unknown powers both for good and evil, be left to grope +helplessly amid these treasures of wisdom and knowledge which our +libraries contain, or shall the attempt at least be made to give them a +kindly and intelligent guidance? This work, of such incalculable +importance, I hasten to say, is already well done to a certain extent by +a few librarians in the country. But it is a work which requires time, +patience, tact, an insight into character, and a very varied and +extensive knowledge. It is evident that the librarians who combine these +requisites are few in number. It is a work which cannot be done by them +as a class. Nor can it be done by the ordinary catalogues, however +skilfully prepared. For it is evident that there needs to be some +personal knowledge of each reader's capacities in order to help him +intelligently and profitably. Nor is it something which the +school-teachers, willing though many of them are, can do, except in a +limited degree, as many of those who need help are not school-children. +There are, however, a few persons in every town fitted by their +education and their circumstances in life for this work, and it is to +them we must finally appeal.</p> + +<p>The most practical plan, presenting on the whole the fewest +difficulties, seems to be the following: Let those persons who are +willing to make the attempt to give this instruction in reading choose +each a subject, as general History, the History of the United States, +Science, Travels, Biography, Fiction, or Children's stories, and see +what their public library contains on these subjects. In due time notice +could be given that all persons wishing help in the choice of books in +any of these subjects could be aided by applying to the librarian. He +would refer the inquirer to that person who has chosen this subject, who +will naturally endeavor to find out something of the character, +circumstances, and abilities of the applicant before selecting the books +best fitted in his or her opinion for him to read. No doubt, at first, +there would be few to apply, and mistakes would be made from lack of +experience. But, if only one reader was substantially aided, if only one +bright youth was rescued from the danger of dissipating his energies by +aimless or depraving reading, all the labor would be amply rewarded, to +say nothing of the benefit which the guide himself, in preparing for his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>work, would receive. I do not believe, however, that the applicants for +guidance would be few, when it was known among the work-people of our +mills, our shops and stores, among the poor, that every one coming to +the library asking for aid would find some one ready, as it were, to +take him by the hand, and lead him from book to book, so long as he +needed help. I am confident that it would be an invaluable service if +some one or two persons should take the pains to become acquainted with +the character of the books for the children and the novels contained in +a library. There are many parents who feel instinctively the truth of +the words of F.W. Robertson, that “a man's character and mind are +moulded for good or evil far more by the forms of imagination which +surround his childhood than by any subsequent scientific training.” Many +an anxious but ignorant parent who sees in her boys and girls a craving +for books, at which she rejoices with trembling, would turn with +heart-felt gratitude—I speak with the fullest confidence, because I +speak from experience—to one who would give them advice as to the books +which their children might safely read and those which they should shun.</p> + +<p>It is only by some such means as this that the public library can be +made a real educating power for the masses. In far too many places, now, +it is simply a place where children can get story-books at the public +expense. This cannot long continue, and I believe that the greater part +of the libraries which continue to do this work without an effort to +fulfil their higher mission, will surely and inevitably die, as the +District School and Agricultural libraries died fifty years ago. The +responsibility rests with the people of each place where there is a +public library, as to which of two ends shall be reached. It may be +merely a means for furnishing amusement for an hour, or it may be a +central beacon from whence the rays of light shall stream into every +house.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ADAPTATION_OF_LIBRARIES_TO_CONSTITUENCIES" id="ADAPTATION_OF_LIBRARIES_TO_CONSTITUENCIES"></a>ADAPTATION OF LIBRARIES TO CONSTITUENCIES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Prepared by Samuel S. Green, then librarian of the +Worcester, Mass. Public Library and a member of the State +Library Commission, for the World's Library Congress held at +the Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893) and printed in the +government report thereon. The “adaptation” favored by Mr. +Green consists in weeding out unfitting books. Melvil Dewey, +as editor of this volume of papers, tells us in a foot-note +that in the discussion of Mr. Green's paper, this process +was not generally approved except as the first step in a +transfer to other libraries. President Eliot's suggestion of +reservoir libraries for storage is a later stage, in the +same line of thought. A sketch of Mr. Green appears in Vol. +I. of this series.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.—With this paper should be read those pages of the +Chicago discussions in which it was pointed out by leading +librarians that to weed out safely would require much costly +expert service; that the most hurtful criticism would be +attacks after inevitable cases where some one would greatly +wish a book that had been withdrawn as useless; that the +printed catalogs already circulated would be made +untrustworthy by parting with any volume included; that what +one wise and learned man would throw out as trash, another +equally wise and learned would consider specially valuable +because of differing personal equations. In short, that +however excellent in theory, it was perhaps the most +difficult thing in librarianship to put successfully in +practice.</p> + +<p>While few favored “weeding out” simply to gain room by +getting rid of books little wanted, many believe in +transferring to other libraries which have a distinctly +greater need of them.—M.D.</p></div> + +<p>A resident of a Massachusetts town to which the Commonwealth was about +to give $100 worth of books came to secure my influence as a member of +the State free public library commission to have a large part of the +$100 spent for rare and expensive books on Massachusetts history. As a +large and valuable library made up principally of books of that class +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>was soon to be given to another small town in the same county, it would +have been manifestly unwise to grant this request. It seems unwise also +to place a students' library in a small town where there are few who +will use it. It would be better to give the library to a flourishing +institution at a county seat, on condition that it shall be open for +free consultation by all residents of the county, and that, under proper +rules, books may be lent from it to inhabitants of smaller towns for use +at home.</p> + +<p>In this way the library would be so placed that most persons wishing to +make investigations would have the books near home, and the +comparatively few investigators in the smaller towns, such as the man in +the town first mentioned, would also have their interests provided for.</p> + +<p>The trustees of the Thomas Crane Public Library at Quincy, Mass., have +concluded, utilizing the experience of many years, that a working +library of 15,000 volumes is sufficient to supply the general wants of +the 20,000 residents of the city. It is proposed not to let the library +grow beyond 20,000 volumes while the wants of the city remain what they +are, and when it exceeds that number of volumes to cut it down by taking +out books that never have been needed in a popular library like that in +Quincy or that have become useless. It having become evident that an +addition would presently have to be made to the building if the recent +rate of increase should continue, it seemed best to the trustees to +begin at once to reduce the size of the library. They proceeded, under +the able leadership of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, to remove from the +library large numbers of Government documents, unnecessary duplicates, +books of an outgrown ephemeral interest, and those unsuited to the +locality. Twenty-one hundred and forty-five volumes were removed +immediately. The Quincy library, by adopting this course, relieves +itself from very considerable prospective expenses and secures money to +use in increasing its usefulness.</p> + +<p>Part of the plan is to keep the printed catalogs of the small library up +to date and to scatter copies of them widely throughout the city by +selling them at a nominal price. It is always expensive to prepare and +print a good catalog; it is very expensive to issue new editions +frequently. Still, if a popular library is to do its work well it must +introduce its constituents to its books by means of frequent revised +editions of a good, printed catalog.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p><p>The Thomas Crane Library has been famous for the excellence of its +annotated catalog and for lists of books on special subjects for the use +of school children. It proposes in future to use more money than in the +past in making, printing, and keeping up to date good catalogs, and, in +order to make it practicable to do so, to keep down the number of +volumes in the library, thus reducing the expenses of cataloging, and +also to save money in housing its books. That is to say, it is acting on +the well-established principle that a small library well cataloged, if +at all adapted in the number of its volumes to the size of a town, is of +incalculably greater advantage to its constituency than one many times +larger but poorly equipped with catalogs.</p> + +<p>It is a distinctive feature of the Quincy plan not to make the library a +special reference library. That city is very near Boston and Cambridge, +which it is well known are richly supplied with large general and +numerous special libraries.</p> + +<p>When a man appears in Quincy who wishes to make a minute inquiry on some +special subject, it is proposed to refer him to the great libraries in +the neighboring cities, and to confine the efforts of the trustees of +the Quincy library to supplying the general wants of its constituency. +Here, then, is a bold attempt at adapting a library to its constituency. +Shall it be seconded?</p> + +<p>Many will hold it unwise to discuss such a subject publicly. Remembering +many ill-judged efforts at economy by ignorant, uneducated, or +parsimonious men in town meetings and on library boards, they will +pronounce it hurtful to libraries to point out to such men that some +library experts consider it well to keep down expenses for cataloging +and housing books by weeding out libraries. Perhaps they are right. +Whether they are so or not, however, their objection is too late. The +matter now under consideration is undergoing public discussion, and it +is important that men having special knowledge of library matters should +contribute now the results of their experience. Unreasonable men in town +meetings and in boards of trustees must be answered, and reasonable men +and women need to understand thoroughly the subject in order that their +answers may be discriminating and wise.</p> + +<p>Once, when the Librarian of Congress asked that an addition be made to +the library rooms, a member is said to have urged that instead of +enlarging the Capitol, the library should be weeded out. Such a plan +would be regarded generally as exceedingly foolish.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span></p><p>There must be in many parts of this broad land large and growing +libraries which will aim to gather very large general and special +collections not limited to books of intrinsic merit. Such libraries will +have to get many books of little value in themselves to enable students +to study subjects historically. It would indeed be very silly to weed +out the Congressional Library. Somewhere there should be accessible (and +where better than in that library?) every book, pamphlet, and map +published in the United States. The Congressional Library should be a +great national library like the Bibliothèque Nationale and the British +Museum.</p> + +<p>The Quincy plan would not work well even in a place the size of +Worcester, Mass., with a population of only 90,000 or 95,000, and but 44 +miles from Boston, for it is a center of important educational +institutions and of inquirers, and therefore needs large reference +libraries. Cambridge, though very much nearer Boston than Quincy, +becomes, because of Harvard University, a center where there must be a +large library. It is too great an inconvenience for Harvard professors +and students to rely, except for book rarities, on libraries even so +near as those in Boston.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, consider the John Adams Library at Quincy. It was +collected by President John Adams in Europe and America, and undoubtedly +contains many valuable books. But is it in place in Quincy? It was +formerly kept in the Adams Academy, but not proving useful there, it was +transferred to the Thomas Crane Public Library, where it now is. Mr. +Charles Francis Adams recently said that he only knew of this John Adams +Library having been consulted once in forty years, and that then he was +himself the consulter. It is more convenient for Mr. Adams to make his +many researches in the great libraries in Boston and Cambridge than in +Quincy, and his opinion is that this library should be given to the +Boston Public Library, where it would be of great value in supplementing +the collections, and would be readily accessible to the class of +students who would use it. Perhaps, however, Quincy would be unwilling +to give up this library, which marks its connection with a very +distinguished man. While it is a distinctive feature of the Quincy plan +not to make the public library a special reference library, its success +depends on having large reference libraries near at hand. In one respect +it encourages making the library a special library, namely, on local +interests and history. As to the saving in expense possible under the +Quincy plan, while money is saved which would ordinarily be used in +housing books and in other ways, increased expenditure, it should be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>remembered, is contemplated in frequent issues of improved catalogs. As +I shall soon show, the plan, if well carried out, requires other +expenditures.</p> + +<p>There are many small libraries which do not need weeding. If a library +needs weeding, as many undoubtedly do, will it be weeded out wisely?</p> + +<p>Broad-minded intelligence is needful for this kind of work, as well as +education and experience in library work. An expert is as much needed in +this work of weeding out as in selecting books for a library at its +start. Great harm might result from injudicious discarding.</p> + +<p>Another objection likely to be made to the Quincy plan is that it would +often be difficult to decide how large a library is needed in a town or +city, and that this difficulty would be magnified in a growing town. +Still, if a thing is desirable it should be done in spite of +difficulties. Foresight must be exercised and generous provision made +for the probable growth of towns, and the number of volumes changed as +changes in the size of population or other considerations demand. +Supposing a mistake has been made, the weeding has been made with the +accessibility in view of large and special libraries in towns and cities +near by. Those towns and cities will still remain near to the town which +has grown unexpectedly large; their libraries will still be accessible +for reference. The difference between the old state of things and the +new is likely to be that the books will be used more under changed +circumstances than formerly.</p> + +<p>But how provide under the Quincy plan for students who can not afford +time and money to frequent the large libraries even in towns or cities +near by; and supposing this number of special inquirers becomes +considerable, can you hope that they will receive a cordial welcome and +sympathetic assistance in large neighboring libraries? Dangers here +hinted at must be guarded against. Librarians and trustees should be on +the lookout for inquirers and help them to get at the books needed.</p> + +<p>It is proposed to help them by preparing and issuing often improved +printed catalogs. Personal assistance would also evidently be needed +under the new plan. In some cases it would be necessary to buy books. In +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>others the investigator might be introduced to the officers of the +library, or by some influential person to the officers of a large +neighboring library with reference to his being allowed to borrow if he +could not use books on the premises. The same thing might perhaps be +better accomplished by a loan from the large to the small library. The +small library might have to pay for this privilege. It might be +desirable, if an investigator had leisure but not money, for the small +library to pay his car fare to the town where the library to be +consulted is situated.</p> + +<p>Large libraries as now constituted are very obliging, and continually +extend courtesies to smaller institutions. The people of Worcester, for +example, every week, and sometimes oftener, have books borrowed for +their use from the Surgeon-General's library, Washington, from Harvard, +the Boston Athenæum, Columbia, Yale, and other libraries. Many +institutions are already extending gratuitously such privileges.</p> + +<p>Supposing it were to become the custom of small libraries to send books +and pamphlets which they can get, but do not need, to large neighboring +libraries where they would be useful. Such action would lead to an +exchange of various civilities. Then, too, as the desirability of having +large libraries help smaller ones by loans of books becomes more and +more obvious, will not persons of means give money to the former to +enable them to do this kind of work for small towns generally or for +particular towns in which they may be specially interested?</p> + +<p>Mr. Adams's advice to libraries is, not to accumulate books +promiscuously, but to practice a systematic differentiation in +collecting. Books which cumber the shelves of one library may be of the +greatest value in another. The public documents only of its own town and +State, and a few of the national documents relating to matters of +general interest, are in place in the library of a small town. But all +public documents have come to be of the greatest service in large +libraries and in libraries connected with important educational +institutions. Even those which seem driest, because exclusively of +statistics, are much in demand in colleges where students of history and +political economy are required to examine original sources.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p><p>Mr. Charles A. Cutter said several years ago, regarding the proper +disposition of pamphlets, that local pamphlets should be given to local +libraries, professional or scientific pamphlets to special libraries, +miscellaneous and all sorts of pamphlets to larger general libraries. +This is excellent advice.</p> + +<p>Even large general libraries practice differentiation, many of them +excluding professional books and leaving special libraries in their +neighborhood to accumulate them. A State library may properly make a +specialty of public documents, and perhaps law books, and pay little +attention to accumulating other books. A general subscription library +with a constituency mainly of people of leisure may find it more useful +to collect books in belles-lettres, biography, history, travel, etc., +than to buy many dealing with industrial subjects. But a public library +in a great manufacturing town, or a special library for architects and +engineers, must specialize on technical books.</p> + +<p>It is not proposed to destroy books taken out of libraries where they +are not needed, but to place them within reach of those most needing +them, either through other libraries or auction rooms or secondhand +bookstores. No countenance would be given to such a proceeding as that +of the administrators of the estate of the well-known collector of old +books, Mr. T.O.P.H. Burnham, who are said to have sent a ton or more of +material from his stock to the paper mill.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p>The people of Worcester act more wisely. They empty their attics into +the rooms of the American Antiquarian Society or those of the local +Society of Antiquity. Housekeepers there, too, dispose similarly of such +books as turn up in spring cleaning and are found to be in the way. An +extensive system of exchange is in operation under the auspices of the +former society, and books and pamphlets sent to the rooms of either +society, find their way to persons and libraries where they are needed, +and the two antiquarian societies enrich their collections by the +exchanges made.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> It is conceivable that after a lifetime of buying whole +attics of rejected books and preserving those which no one would buy at +any price, out of an immense stock there might be a ton of duplicate +schoolbooks, incomplete volumes, and other books and pamphlets which +could not even be given away to any library; since the large libraries +would have copies and the smaller ones would not esteem them worth shelf +room.—M.D.</p></div> + +<p>Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson recently stated that a trustee of the +Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, told him that he spent a considerable part +of his time in refusing gifts offered to the museum. This trustee is +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>probably wise in declining gifts. There are many books and pamphlets +offered to libraries which they would not find useful. These should be +accepted only on condition that they may be placed wherever they will be +most valuable.</p> + +<p>Differentiation is specially desirable in the smallest libraries. When +but little money is available for buying books the small amount should +be spent with closest regard to actual needs of the constituency. Not +infrequently intelligent entertainment and elementary instruction will +be the principles that should guide in selecting books for small +libraries. With intelligent cooperation several small neighboring towns +might adopt to advantage the suggestion that each of them spend a few +dollars a year on a specialty, such as botany, geology, zoology; every +town taking a different specialty and all lending to one another.</p> + +<p>This paper favors in the main the selection of books with special +reference to the actual existing needs of the users of the library. Such +an institution as the flourishing public library of Providence, R.I., +might properly, if allowable for any library in cities of moderate size, +add to its general work some specialty of limited interest. Mr. Foster, +its librarian, has recently stated, however, that he thinks that +notwithstanding the reputation which the famous Harris collection of +poetry gives to the library throughout the country, it is the best for +that library to devote itself almost exclusively to supplying the +general needs of Providence.</p> + +<p>In conclusion, it may be stated that Mr. Adams does not claim that the +plan of weeding out libraries adopted at Quincy has never been thought +of before. He was not indebted to any book for the idea, but it had +occurred to other persons before. Action upon it had always been +recommended. Mr. Adams has taken the bull by the horns. He has put the +plan in execution and to a considerable extent has systematized it. He +has also called attention to it and made it a living subject for +discussion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="RELATION_OF_FREE_PUBLIC_LIBRARIES_TO_THE_COMMUNITY" id="RELATION_OF_FREE_PUBLIC_LIBRARIES_TO_THE_COMMUNITY"></a>RELATION OF FREE PUBLIC LIBRARIES TO THE COMMUNITY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Presentations of Library questions to the general reading +public from authoritative sources are exceptionally hard to +find, even at the present day. The one reprinted below was +contributed to <i>The North American Review</i> for June, 1898, +by Herbert Putnam, then librarian of the Boston Public +Library.</p> + +<p>Herbert Putnam was born in New York, Sept. 20, 1861, the +youngest son of the founder of the publishing house. He +graduated at Harvard in 1883 and studied law. He served as +librarian in Minneapolis, first of the Atheneum and then of +the Public Library in 1884-91, meanwhile being admitted to +the bar in 1886. He practised law in Boston in 1892-95, but +in the latter year became librarian of the Boston Public +Library, serving until appointed in 1899 Librarian of +Congress. His administration has been marked by the +development of this institution along the line of service of +a national library. During the great war he was Director of +Library War Service.</p></div> + + +<p>Free libraries have existed for less than a half a century. Their +establishment assumed that books are beneficial: but it involved also +the assertion that it is the proper function of government to supply +books to such of its citizens as may require them at the expense of the +community as a whole.</p> + +<p>Libraries of this special type do not yet form the major portion of the +institutions supplying books on a large scale to groups of persons. +Under the head of “Public, Society and School Libraries,” these +institutions in the United States aggregate 8,000 in number, with +35,000,000 volumes, with $34,000,000 invested in buildings, with +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>$17,000,000 of endowments, and with over $6,000,000 of annual income. Of +these the free public libraries supported by general taxation number +less than 2,000, with 10,000,00 volumes, and with less than $3,500,000 +of annual income. They are, however, increasing with disproportionate +and amazing rapidity. In Massachusetts, but 10 of the 353 cities and +towns, but three-fourths of one per cent. of the inhabitants now lack +them. One hundred and ten library buildings there have been the gift of +individuals. No form of private memorial is now more popular; no form of +municipal expenditure meets with readier assent. Nor are the initiative +and the expenditure left wholly to local enterprises. The Commonwealth +itself takes part: extending, through a State Commission, State aid in +the form of books and continuing counsel. And Massachusetts is but one +of eight States maintaining such commissions. New York State, in its +system of traveling libraries, has gone further still in supplementing +initial aid with a continuing supply of books, and even photographs and +lantern slides, purchased by the State and distributed through the +Regents of the State University from Albany to the remotest hamlet.</p> + +<p>The first stage of all such legislation is an enabling act—authorizing +the establishment of a library by the local authorities; the next is an +act encouraging such establishment by bounties; and New Hampshire has +reached a third by a law actually mandatory, requiring the local +authorities to establish free libraries in proportion to their means and +the population to be served. This seems to mark the high-water mark of +confidence in the utility of these institutions. It indicates that free +public libraries are to be ranked with the common schools, as +institutions indispensable to good citizenship, whose establishment the +State for its own protection must require.</p> + +<p>So the movement has progressed, until now these 2,000 public libraries +combined are sending out each year over 30 million books, to do their +work for good or ill in the homes of the United States. The entire 2,000 +result from one conviction and a uniform purpose. Yet among them there +is every variety in scope and in organization. There is the hamlet +library of a hundred volumes, open for a couple of hours each week in +some farm house, under a volunteer custodian, maintained by the town, +but enlisting private contribution through bazaars and +sociables—sending out its books by the local provision dealer to its +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>remote and scattered constituents. There is the library of the great +city, with elaborate equipment and complex organization to meet a vast +and complex need. Such a library as you may find at Chicago; a city +which, though it has two great endowed reference libraries, still +considers its million and a half people entitled to a municipal library, +with a two million dollar building, studded with costly mosaics, and +aided by forty branches and stations in bringing the books nearer each +home. Or such a library as exists at Boston; organized as a City +Department, under Trustees appointed by the Mayor, maintained, like the +schools, or the police, or the fire department, by general taxation; +with a central building which has cost the city two and one-half million +dollars, with ten branch libraries and seventeen delivery stations +scattered through the city and reached daily by its delivery wagons; +with 700,000 books; and accommodations for over 2,000 readers at one +time; including in its equipment such special departments as a bindery +and a printing office; requiring for its administration over 250 +employes, and for its maintenance each year a quarter of a million +dollars, in addition to the proceeds of endowments; and representing in +its buildings, books and equipment an investment of over five millions +of dollars, the interest on which, at four per cent., to the expenditure +for maintenance, is equivalent to an annual burden of $450,000 for its +creation and support.</p> + +<p>When this function was first proposed for a municipality, the argument +used was that in this country books had come to be the principal +instruments of education; that the community was already supporting a +public school system; that this system brought a youth to the threshold +of education and there left him; that it qualified him to use books, but +did nothing to put books within his reach; and finally that it was of +“paramount importance that the means of general information should be so +diffused that the largest possible number of persons should be induced +to read and understand questions going down to the very foundation of +social order, which are constantly presenting themselves, and which we, +as a people, are constantly required to decide, and do decide, either +ignorantly or wisely.”</p> + +<p>A glance at the libraries now in operation in the United States shows +that the ends proposed for them fall far short of the service which they +actually perform. They begin with the child before he leaves school; +while he is still in his elementary studies they furnish to him books +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>which stir his imagination, and bring the teaching of the text books +into relation with the art and with life. They thus help to render more +vivid the formal studies pursued; but they also prepare the child to +become an intelligent constituent hereafter. This work cannot begin too +early, for four-fifths of the children pass out into active life without +reaching the high schools. It need not be deferred, for now the number +is almost countless of books that touch with imagination and charm of +style even the most elementary subjects; and the library can add +illustrations which through the eye convey an impression of the largest +subjects in the most elemental way.</p> + +<p>If the library begins with the citizen earlier than was foreseen, it is +prepared to accompany him further than was thought necessary. It +responds not only to the needs of the general reader, but also to those +of the student and even, to the extent of its means, to those of the +scholar engaged in special research. The maintenance of universities at +the common expense is familiar in the West; it is less so in the East. +And there is still contention that institutions for highly specialized +instruction should not be charged upon the community as a whole. But no +one has questioned the propriety of charging upon the community the +support of a library whose leading purpose may be the encouragement of +the higher scholarship.</p> + +<p>Finally, to the services just above described the public library has +added another: the supply of books for proposes purely recreative. This +service, if anticipated, was certainly not explicitly argued for; nor +was it implied in Edward Everett's prediction that the public library +would prove the “intellectual common” of the community. The common that +Mr. Everett had in mind was a pasturage, not a baseball ground, or +lover's walk, or a loafing place for tramps.</p> + +<p>But as regards certain of the books customarily supplied, the ordinary +public library of to-day is furnishing recreation rather than +instruction. In fact, if we look at the history of free public libraries +in this country, we find that the one point of practice on which they +have been criticised is the supply of merely recreative literature. The +protest has come from thoughtful persons, and it means something, +lightly as it has been waved aside.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p><p>The excuse that used to be given for the supply of inferior books was +that they would entice to the use of the better books. There was to be +reached a mass of persons of inferior taste and imperfect education. +These persons must be introduced gradually to an acquaintance with the +better class of reading through the medium of the familiar. And, at all +events, it was better that they should read something than not read at +all.</p> + +<p>I am not quite so confident of the regenerating virtue of mere printed +matter as such; and I am confident that the reading of a book inferior +in style and taste debases taste, and that the book which sets forth, +even with power, a false view of society does harm to the reader, and is +so far an injury to the community of which he is part. But even granting +the premises, the conclusion is doubtful. We do not deliberately furnish +poor art at public expense because there is a portion of the public +which cannot appreciate the better. Nor when the best is offered, +without apology, does the uncultured public in fact complain that it is +too “advanced.” Thousands of “ordinary” people come to see and enjoy the +Abbey and Chavannes and Sargent decorations in the Boston Public +Library. No one has yet complained that the paintings are too advanced +for him. The best of art is not too good for the least of men, provided +he can be influenced at all. Nor are the best of books too good for him, +provided he can be influenced, and provided they are permitted, as are +the pictures to make their appeal directly. They must not be secluded +behind catalogs and formal paraphernalia. The practice which admitted +the scholar to the shelves, and limited the general reader to the +catalogues, gave the best opportunity to him who least needed it. The +modern practice sets before the reader least familiar with good <i>titles</i> +a selection of good <i>books</i>. It places them on open shelves where he can +handle them without formality. The result is almost invariably, that he +is attracted to a book in advance of his previous tastes. Perhaps a +chance paragraph appeals to some experience or ambition, or an +illustration stirs his imagination. The books themselves draw him +outside of his previous limitations.</p> + +<p>In the place, therefore, of books inferior in quality, the more modern +public library seeks to attract by the freest possible access to books +of the best quality. Not that this practice is universal. But the +opinion and tendency are in this safe direction.</p> + +<p>However, quality assumed, the general question as to the reading of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>recreative literature remains. What shall we say of the fact that sixty +per cent. of the circulation of the free public libraries still consists +of fiction?</p> + +<p>In the first place, that this percentage takes no account of reference +use, which is almost wholly of serious literature; second, that as to +home use the ratio in circulation of fiction to serious literature does +not represent a similar ratio of trivial to serious service. Fiction is +the small coin of literature. It must circulate more rapidly to +represent the same volume of real business done. A volume of fiction may +be issued, returned and reissued three times while a biography or +history or work of science is issued once. It will then count +seventy-five per cent. in the circulation. But the serious book has +during the entire period been out in the hands of the reader; and the +service which it has performed—the period of attention which it has +occupied—equals that of the novel in its three issues. And, finally, +there is to be considered the influence of the best fiction toward +general culture (if the library is not merely to inform but also to +cultivate)—in broadening the sympathies, giving a larger tolerance, a +kindlier humanity, a more intelligent helpfulness; in affording the rest +that is in itself an equipment for work, and the distraction that may +save from impulse to evil.</p> + +<p>However, the amount of fiction circulated in proportion to the total +work of the library is on the average steadily decreasing. At the same +time the quality is improving; in part through critical selection, in +part as a happy result of the fact that the inferior novels are also, as +a rule, inferior books, so poorly manufactured that libraries cannot +afford to buy them.</p> + +<p>But there is standard fiction and current fiction; and it is the current +fiction that constitutes by itself a special problem still perplexing. +It is a problem that concerns not the uneducated child, nor the +illiterate adult; it is caused by the people of intelligent education +who are avid to read the latest novel by Mr. X. or Mrs. Y. while it is +still the latest novel by Mr. X. or Mrs. Y. It is being talked about at +dinner or afternoon tea. Well-informed people are reading it; to read it +is a social necessity.</p> + +<p>The reason that presses the public library to supply promptly every +most recent book in the domain of scientific literature is apparent +enough. Such literature contributes facts which are the data for action. +But novels in general belong to the literature of power. Their purpose +is not to furnish information but to give pleasure. Literature of this +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>sort adds no new fact, nor is it superseded, nor does it lose any of its +value by lapse of time. To assume that it does would be to assume that +beauty of form could become obsolete. This is not so in painting, in +sculpture, in architecture; why should it be so in prose fiction, in +poetry, in the drama? Was there, in fact, an aesthetic value in the +Canterbury Tales in 1380, in Hamlet in 1602, in Ivanhoe in 1819, that is +not to be found in them in 1898?</p> + +<p>But a large portion of latter day fiction is fiction with a purpose; +another way of saying that it is a work of art composed for the +dissemination of doctrine. This element promotes it at once to the +dignity of a treatise; a new view of politics, a new criticism of social +conditions, a new creed! Here is something that concerns the student of +sociology. And surely his needs are worthy of prompt response.</p> + +<p>In fact, his needs and the general curiosity do get prompt response, and +the new novels are freely bought. How freely I have recently sought to +ascertain. I asked of some seventy libraries their yearly expenditure +for current fiction in proportion to their total expenditure for books. +The returns show an average of from ten to fifteen per cent. In one case +the amount reached fifty per cent., in others it fell as low as two per +cent. The ratio for fiction in general is much higher on the average; +but fiction in general includes Scott and Thackeray and other standards, +an ample supply of which would not usually be questioned. At Providence +and Worcester, two of the most active and popular of public libraries, +the purchases of fiction, current and standard, formed last year but +seven and eleven per cent., respectively, of the entire expenditure for +books.</p> + +<p>At Boston there were selected but 178 titles of current fiction (out of +nearly 600 read and considered). But some dozen copies were bought of +each title, so that the entire purchases reached 2,300 volumes and cost +about $2,300. This was about six and a half per cent. on a total +expenditure for books of $34,000. At St. Louis the practise is to buy +but two copies out of the general funds to be circulated free. Nearly a +hundred more are added which are rented out and thus pay for themselves.</p> + +<p>The statistics do not seem to show that the initial expenditure for +current fiction is very alarming. But the purchase price of these books +is but a fraction of the expense of handling them. They cannot be +supplied in adequate quantities; for while the frenzy of curiosity +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>persists, an adequate supply is beyond the resources of any library. But +since the attempt to supply is futile the pretense is injurious. The +presence of the titles in the catalogues misleads the reader into a +multitude of applications which are a heavy expense to the library +without benefit to him. And the acquisition of the single book means to +the library the expense of handling a hundred applications for it which +are futile to one that can be honored. In this sense a current novel +involves perhaps a hundred times the expense of any other book in being +supplied to but the same number of readers.</p> + +<p>The British museum acquires the new novels as published; but it +withholds them from the readers until five years after their date of +publication. It is my personal belief that a one year limitation of this +sort adopted by our free libraries generally would relieve them of +anxiety and expense and their readers of inconvenience and delusion.</p> + +<p>But as regards current light literature in general it is worth while to +consider whether the responsibility of public libraries has not been +modified by the growth and diffusion of the newspaper and periodical +press. In 1850, when the free public library was started, the number of +newspapers and periodicals published in the United States was about +2,500; now it is nearly 20,000. The total annual issues have increased +from 400 million to over 4-<sup>1</sup>/<sub>2</sub> billion copies.</p> + +<p>The ordinary daily of 1850 contained perhaps a single column of literary +matter. To-day it contains, for the same price, seven columns. In 1850 +it gave no space to fiction; now it offers Kipling, Howells, Stockton, +Bret Harte, Anthony Hope, Crockett, Bourget and many others of the best +of the contemporary writers of fiction.</p> + +<p>Then there are the cheap magazines, which tender a half dozen stories +for the price of a cigar or a bodkin. There are, also, the cheap +“libraries,” which have flooded the United States with engaging +literature available to almost any purse.</p> + +<p>In short, conditions have altered. A vast mass of light literature is +now cheaply accessible to the individual which formerly could be +acquired only painfully or at great expense. Why then should the public +libraries struggle to supply it in book form at the public expense?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span></p><p>But as to a certain percentage of current light literature there is an +embarrassment that I have not touched. It is the embarrassment of making +selection without giving offense. All cannot be bought. A choice must be +made. With reference to standard literature authoritative judgement is +not difficult to obtain. But here there has been no lapse of time to +balance opinion. An anticipatory estimate must be attempted and +attempted by the library itself.</p> + +<p>Now, if the library decide against the book it is very likely held to +blame for “dictating” to its readers. “It is one thing,” says a journal +commenting on an adverse decision, “it is one thing to consider this +novel pernicious, but it is another and more serious thing for the +foremost library in the country maintained at public expense, to deny to +a large and respectable portion of the public an opportunity to judge +for itself whether the work of a man of (this author's) calibre is +pernicious or not.”</p> + +<p>The author in this case was, of course, not Mr. X., but rather Mr. A., +an already known quantity.</p> + +<p>So a library is not to be permitted to apply a judgement of its own! It +is not protected by the fact that this judgment coincides with the +judgment of professional critics—so far at least as these may be +ascertained. The author may have turned perverse and written a book +distinctly bad. Yet this book is to be bought and supplied to enable +each member of the public to form a judgment of his own upon it. And it +is to be so bought out of public funds entrusted to the library for +educational purposes. Censorship has to us an ugly sound; but does the +library act as censor when it declares a book beyond its province? Does +it dictate what the people shall read when it says, “We decline to buy +this book for you with public funds”?</p> + +<p>This is a question which is far larger than the selection or rejection +of a novel or two. It involves the whole question of authority, and it +concerns not merely the extremes, but the varying degrees of worth in +literature. Most departments of educational work are founded upon +principles, cautiously ascertained, and systematically adhered to. Their +consistent maintenance upon principle is the easier because each other +such department deals with a special constituency, limited either in age +or perhaps in sex, or at least in purpose, and one which accepts as +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>authoritative the system provided for it. The free public library, +however, has to satisfy a constituency practically unlimited, including +every age of both sexes, whose intellectual need ranges from that of the +most illiterate to that of the most highly accomplished, whose education +in books ranges from that of the person who has never entered a library +to that of the scholar whose life has been a perpetual training in the +use of the library; the assertive classes, the bashful classes. And if +toward this vast and heterogeneous constituency it seeks to assume the +position of an educator, it finds that its authority is one which the +constituents themselves are unanimously unwilling to concede. Each +constituent deems himself not a beneficiary accepting some service, but +a proprietor demanding it. Now, within each community there are persons +who would have every kind of printed matter published. If, therefore, a +public library exists simply to respond to the demands of its readers, +we must have, instead of an educational system devised by experts and +administered with reference to general principles, a system fluctuating +with each eccentric requirement of individuals, indefinite in number, +various in taste and culture, inexpert, except as each may be competent +to judge his own need, incapable of expression in the aggregate, and as +individuals without responsibility for the general results.</p> + +<p>If, on the other hand, an authority is to be vested in the library, what +limits shall it set upon itself, upon what principles of discrimination +shall it proceed, in what directions may it expediently control? I but +state the problem. I shall not endeavor to answer it. But it is one of +the most important involved in the relation of the public library to the +community.</p> + +<p>From such questions an ordinary educational institution stands aloof. It +is content to represent the judgment of the majority in matters of +morality and to inculate the lesson of tried truths as against untried +fancies in matters of opinion affecting the social order. It thus throws +its influence in favor of the established order of things. But its +right, nay, its duty, to do this is unquestioned. Nor is it regarded as +disparaging the opinion which it does not teach.</p> + +<p>But a public library is not so exempt. In addition to the doctrine +which is accepted, it is held to have a duty to the opinion which is +struggling for recognition. As to minority opinion, it is not so much a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>university as a forum. Nay, it is to give every advantage to minority +opinion, for—in our resentment of intolerance—minority opinion is not +merely tolerated, it is pampered.</p> + +<p>Now, it is not for libraries or librarians to act as censors and +denounce this or that publication. Yet it is to be remembered that a +library which circulates a book helps to promulgate the doctrine which +the book contains. And if public libraries circulate books which teach +restless, irreverent or revolutionary doctrines, they offer us the +incongruity of a municipality aiding in the propagation of ideas which +are subversive of social order.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, if there is to be exclusion on such grounds, where is +the line of exclusion to be drawn? Shall we say at doctrines which, if +carried into action, would be criminal under the law? Would the public +rest content with this?</p> + +<p>Moreover, the principle of exclusion accepted, who is to apply it? Whose +judgment shall determine whether the particular book does or does not +offend? Shall the library determine? But will it not then be “dictating” +to its readers? Will it not be unduly discriminating against a certain +class of opinion when it has undertaken to represent impartially all +shades of opinion? Will it not offend the remonstrant against the +existing order of things who has a grievance, and, therefore, a right to +be heard; and the defender of the existing order of things who must know +the opinion in order to combat it; and the student of sociology whose +curiosity reaches all extremes and regards them simply as phenomena upon +which he is entitled to be informed?</p> + +<p>I believe that it will. And yet I do not see how the library can escape +exercising judgment. For there is no other responsible authority which +can be brought to exercise it. We must then expect numerous decisions +which will offend a portion of the community. They will usually be on +the conservative side—of exclusion. And it is for those who believe +that a public library should be a conservative influence in the +community to see that it has the authority and is protected in its +exercise.</p> + +<p>Not that in respect of the violent books there is great injury in +present conditions. In the public libraries of to-day there exists no +doubt material sufficiently anarchic to upset society, if it could have +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>its will upon society. The fact is, that though there is plenty in +literature that is incendiary, there is little in our community that is +inflammable.</p> + +<p>The good that the libraries do is obvious and acknowledged. They +represent the accumulated experience of mankind brought to our service. +They are the custodians of whatever is most worthy of preservation in +our own life and literature. They are the natural depositories of what +we have of memorial and of records; the original entries of legislation +and of achievement. They must render history available; they must +adequately exhibit science; they may help to refine by the best examples +in each art, and in this they may also contribute to the industrial life +of the community by educating the artisan into an artist, his craft into +an art. And through record and description of processes and inventions +they may contribute to the foundations of great industries. They touch +the community as a whole as perhaps does no other single organized +agency for good. They offer to the shyest ignorance equality with the +most confident scholarship, and demand no formal preliminary which might +abash ignorance.</p> + +<p>They have a profound duty—not generally appreciated—to help render +homogeneous the very heterogeneous elements of our population. Thirty +per cent. of it has come to us from an alien life and alien +institutions. One-third of the people in our six leading cities are of +foreign birth; seventy-one per cent. were either born abroad or born of +foreign parentage. In the assimilation of this foreign element no single +agency is perhaps so potent as our public libraries.</p> + +<p>The public libraries deem themselves the allies of formal educational +processes; but also the direct educators of that part of the community +not subject to the formal processes. It is this latter responsibility +which has led them to attempt a broader service than the mere supply of +books. A book is not the only nor necessarily the most effective vehicle +for conveying knowledge. There are illustrations which more directly +convey an impression, and often as fully state a fact. And photographs +and process reproductions are now part of the equipment of a public +library almost as conventional as books. Within the past year 10,000 +such have been added to the collections of the Boston Public Library; +not as works of art (they are for the most part cheap silver prints and +the Art Museum is but a hundred feet distant); nor merely as aids to the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>study of the fine arts and the useful arts, but also as convenient +auxiliaries to the study of history, of literature and institutions. And +they are used by individuals and by classes not as a substitute for the +text, but as helping to render vivid the lesson of the text.</p> + +<p>With these go lectures in exposition. Every building of importance +recently designed for the uses of a public library includes an art +gallery and a lecture hall. What an immense augmentation of function +this implies! It implies that the library is no longer merely an +aggregate of books, each passive within rigid limits; but that it is an +active agent having under its control material which is kept plastic and +which it moulds into incredibly varied shapes to suit incredibly varied +needs.</p> + +<p>The experience of the Boston Public Library shows that in the case of +books each increase of facilities creates an increased demand. The +trustees of 1852 boasted that they were providing for as many as fifty +readers at a time; the trustees of 1887 thought themselves venturesome +in providing for 500 readers at a time; and within a month after the new +building was opened it was forced to accommodate over 700 at a time. +Every week over 30,000 persons enter the Central Library building, and +every year 1,200,000 volumes are drawn for home use by the 65,000 +card-holders. Yet these figures represent still but a portion of the +persons reached and the work to be done. Nor can facilities for +distribution keep pace with the need. For a city of a half million +people spread over an area of forty square miles adequate library +facilities cannot ever be provided. A municipality which even +approximates the adequate in providing buildings, equipment, +administration and general literature at the public expense must still +look to private gift for the specialized material necessary to a great +reference collection. That the Boston Public Library is next to the +British Museum in Shakespeariana is, to be sure, the result of a special +expenditure by the city. But the larger part of its special collections +which have given it distinction as a great scholars' library, has come +from private gift; the Ticknor collection of Spanish literature, the +Bowditch collection of mathematics, the Chamberlain collection of +autographs, the Brown collection of music and many others. And a city +which erects for its public library a building which is monumental is +putting forward the most attractive invitation to private gift. The +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>gifts which have come to Boston as the direct result of the new building +have already reached a twelfth of its cost.</p> + +<p>With proper organization and a liberal co-operation between municipal +and private effort the opportunities for service are almost limitless. +The risk is the greater of attempts at service either legally +inappropriate or practically inexpedient, and the risk is not lessened +by a popular appreciation which is more enthusiastic than it is apt to +be discriminating. There is, therefore, the greater need of +discrimination on the part of the library itself and of an authority +which will protect its exercise. This authority can be conferred only by +intelligent public opinion on the part of those who are capable of +appreciating constitutional limitations.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY_ITS_USES_TO_THE_MUNICIPALITY" id="THE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY_ITS_USES_TO_THE_MUNICIPALITY"></a>THE PUBLIC LIBRARY: ITS USES TO THE MUNICIPALITY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Written for the National Municipal League and printed in +<i>The Library Journal</i> for June, 1903, eight years after the +author, Dr. John S. Billings, had begun his service as +director of the New York Public Library; largely a defence +of libraries against certain objections. The statement of +the part played by “sentiment” in popular institutions, and +its justification, are striking and true.</p> + +<p>John Shaw Billings was born in Switzerland County, Ind., in +1839, graduated from Miami University in 1857, studied +medicine and after serving as a surgeon in the Civil War, +was assigned to the Surgeon General's Office in Washington, +of whose library he compiled the 16-volume Index Catalogue. +After service in Johns Hopkins and Pennsylvania Universities +he was chosen in 1895 director of the newly established New +York Public Library, where he served until his death in +1913, planning and supervising the construction of its +central building.</p></div> + + +<p>The great majority of cities of 25,000 inhabitants and upward in the +United States have public libraries of some sort, and the same is true +of many of the smaller cities. Many of these libraries have been founded +on gifts of individuals, some have developed from subscription +libraries, but the majority are now supported mainly or entirely by +funds appropriated by the city government. A considerable number are +still in the formative stage, this being true of those for which +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>buildings are being erected from funds provided by Mr. Carnegie and for +several hundred others for which he will probably provide buildings in +the near future.</p> + +<p>There may be excessive and unjustifiable taxation for the support of a +public library—the amount which the city can afford for this purpose +should be carefully considered in connection with its needs for a pure +water supply and good sewage disposal, for means of communication, for +the care of the sick poor and for public schools. Each case must be +judged by itself; the only general rule I have to suggest is that in the +department of education the claims of the public library for support are +more important than those of municipal college or high school. The +people who have no taxable property, and who therefore often erroneously +suppose that they contribute nothing toward the payment of the taxes, +are usually quite willing to have a higher tax rate imposed for the +purpose of securing for themselves and their families free library +facilities—although in exceptional cases religious or sociological +opinions may lead them to oppose it.</p> + +<p>A considerable number of taxpayers on the other hand, are more or less +reluctant to have their assessments increased for this purpose, and +their arguments should be considered and met. They are:</p> + +<p>1. That they should not be taxed for things they do not want and never +use.</p> + +<p>2. That furnishing free books tends to pauperize the community and to +discourage the purchase of books for home use.</p> + +<p>3. That there is no evidence that free public libraries improve the +community materially or morally.</p> + +<p>4. That the greater part of the books used are works of fiction and that +these are injurious to the readers.</p> + +<p>5. That most of the arguments used in favor of free public libraries are +merely sentimental and emotional.</p> + +<p>The first of these reasons would apply also to taxes for public schools, +street paving, sewerage, and many other items of municipal expenditure +and has no weight.</p> + +<p>With regard to the second argument it is not a sufficient reply to say +that every one pays through the taxes, for this would apply equally well +to free lodging houses, free lunchrooms and soup kitchens, free fuel, +etc., all of which it generally believed tend to pauperize a city, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>except in great and special emergencies. The proper answer is that the +free public library is an important and, indeed, necessary part of the +system of free education which is required to secure intelligent +citizens in our form of popular government, and that while in a few very +exceptional cases free schools and free libraries may tend to +improvidence or indolence or even to certain forms of crime, these rare +cases are of no importance in comparison with the benefits which +education confers upon the immense majority of the community and with +the fact that without free schools and libraries a large part of the +people will not be sufficiently educated to be useful citizens.</p> + +<p>With the regard to the third count, the public library, again, may be +considered together with the public school. While it is difficult to +trace to either specific instances of material or moral improvement, it +is certain that the general diffusion of intelligence which both +certainly effect does result beneficially in these directions. +Communities with flourishing free schools and libraries are usually more +prosperous and better than those without such facilities, and, while +there is doubtless room here for a confusion of cause and effect, it is +probable that there is both action and reaction. Prosperity calls for +increased facilities for education and these in turn tend to make the +community more prosperous.</p> + +<p>That the majority of books withdrawn from public libraries are works of +fiction cannot be denied. Many librarians are wont to deplore this fact, +and most libraries endeavor in one way or another to decrease the +percentage of fiction in their circulation.</p> + +<p>The proportion of recreative reading in a public library is necessarily +large. In like manner, the greater proportion of those who visit a +zoological or botanical garden do so for amusement. Yet the information +that they secure in so doing is none the less valuable and both are +certainly educational institutions. So if in the public library a large +number of its users get their history, their travel and their biography +through the medium of recreative readings we should not complain. Were +it otherwise these readers would probably lack altogether the +information that they now certainly acquire.</p> + +<p>Taking up the final count in the indictment, it is doubtless true that +sentimental and emotional considerations have had much to do with +library development. They have furnished the initial motive power, as +they have for free schools, for the origin and progress of democratic +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>government, and for most of the advances of civilization. They often +precede deliberate, conscious reasoning and judgment, yet they are often +themselves the result of an unconscious reasoning process producing +action of the will in advance of deliberate judgment. Sometimes they are +pure reflexes, like winking when the eye is threatened by a blow. The +free public library can neither be established nor maintained usefully +without their aid, but their methods—or want of method—must be +carefully guided to produce good results.</p> + +<p>The sentiment that we ought to establish institutions for the diffusion +of knowledge is the expression of a real economic need and should be +directed and encouraged and not suppressed. Logic is a useful steering +apparatus, but a very poor motive power.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LIBRARY_A_PLEA_FOR_ITS_RECOGNITION" id="THE_LIBRARY_A_PLEA_FOR_ITS_RECOGNITION"></a>THE LIBRARY: A PLEA FOR ITS RECOGNITION</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Delivered by Frederick M. Crunden before the Library Section +of the International Congress of Arts and Science, held in +connection with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. +Louis in 1904, closes with a summary of the public library's +functions that remains measurably true to-day, although, of +course, it could now be somewhat expanded.</p> + +<p>A sketch of Mr. Crunden appears in Vol. I.</p></div> + + +<p>The Louisiana Purchase Exposition is an epitome of the life and activity +of the world—from the naked Negrito to the grande dame with her +elaborate Paris costume, from the rude wigwam of the red Indian to the +World's Fair palace filled with the finest furniture, rugs and +tapestries, sculpture and painting, and decorations that the highest +taste and finest technique can produce—from the monotonous din of the +savage tom-tom to the uplifting and enthralling strains of a great +symphony orchestra—from fire by friction, the first step of man beyond +the beast, to the grand electric illumination that makes of these +grounds and buildings the most beautiful art-created spectacle that ever +met the human eye. And to all this magnificent appeal to the senses are +superadded the marvels of modern science and its applications—the +wonders of the telescope, the microscope and the spectroscope, the +telegraph, in its latest wireless extension, the electric motor and +electric light, the telephone and the phonograph, the Roentgen ray and +the new-found radium.</p> + +<p>And now after this vision of wondrous beauty, this triumph of the grand +arts of architecture and sculpture and landscape—of all the arts, fine +and useful—has for six months enraptured the senses of people from all +quarters of the globe, the learned men of the world have gathered here +to set forth and discuss the fundamental principals that underlie the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span>sciences, their correlations and the methods of their application to the +arts of life—to summarize the progress of the past, to discuss the +condition of the present and attempt, perhaps, a forecast of the future.</p> + +<p>In the scheme of classification, our subject appears in the last +department that concerns itself with man's purely mundane affairs, and +is the last section in that department. It thus appears properly as a +climax and summary of the arts and sciences intelligible to man in his +present stage of existence; and if the problem of the future life is +ever solved this side of the grave, the knowledge conserved and +disseminated by the library will be the starting-point and the +inspiration of the advance, as it has been of all progress since the art +of written speech was invented. “The library is the reservoir of the +common social life of the race. It is at once the accumulator and the +transmitter of social energy.” Without the library the highest social +culture is impossible; and a most moderate degree could be achieved by +very few.</p> + +<p>Under the main division, “Social Culture,” the library is one of the +five sections in the Department of Education. In education are summed up +all the achievements of the past and the possibilities of the future. In +the words of Wendell Phillips, “Education is the one thing worthy the +deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man.” “Education,” exclaims +Mazzini, “and my whole doctrine is included and summed up in this grand +word.” It is practically a truism that Jules Simon utters when he says +“Le peuple qui a les meilleures écoles est le premier peuple; s'il ne +l'est pas aujourd'hui il le sera demain.”</p> + +<p>Under this Department of Education, with its grades, the School, the +College and the University, the Library is assigned the last section. It +belongs there in chronological order of development as an active factor +in popular instruction and enlightenment; and, furthermore, the +presentation of its claims and functions comes naturally after those of +the other factors in education, because it is an essential coadjutor and +supplement to each and all. It is a summary and a climax. There have +always been libraries, and they have always been a factor in education; +but the public, free, tax-supported library is but just half a century +old, and could hardly be considered out of the long clothes of infancy +till the year 1876; while its general acceptance as an essential +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>supplement to the public school and a co-ordinate factor with the +college and university may be considered the accomplishment of the last +decade. There are still teachers who look on general reading as an +interference with school work and an extra burden on their shoulders.</p> + +<p>We start, then, with the axiomatic proposition that all human progress +depends on education; and no elaborate demonstration is necessary to +show that the library is an essential factor in every grade of +education.</p> + +<p>Higher education, certainly, cannot dispense with the library. The +well-known dictum of Carlyle, “The true university of modern times is a +collection of books,” was accepted as a striking statement of a man with +rhetorical habit, without, perhaps, a realization of its full +significance. It has been recently expanded into a more express and +specific tribute to the importance of the library in university +education. In an address delivered in St. Louis and afterwards published +in the <i>North American Review</i>, President Harper said:</p> + +<p>“The place occupied by libraries and laboratories in the educational +work of to-day, as compared with that of the past, is one of commanding +importance. Indeed, the library and the laboratory have already +practically revolutionized the methods of higher education. In the +really modern institution, the chief building is the library. It is the +center of institutional activity.... That factor of college work, the +library, fifty years ago almost unknown, to-day already the center of +the institution's intellectual activity, half a century hence, with its +sister, the laboratory, almost equally unknown fifty years ago, will +have absorbed all else and will have become the institution itself.”</p> + +<p>As to the value of the library in elementary education Doctor Harris +says:</p> + +<p>“What there is good in our American system points towards the +preparation of the pupil for the independent study of the book by +himself. It points towards acquiring the ability of self-education by +means of the library.”</p> + +<p>I might quote similar utterances from many other eminent educators as to +the value—the necessity—of the library in early education; but I can +think of no stronger summing-up of the subject, nor from higher +authority, than this statement from President Eliot:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p><p>“From the total training during childhood there should result in the +child a taste for interesting and improving reading, which should direct +and inspire its subsequent intellectual life. That schooling which +results in this taste for good reading, however unsystematic or +eccentric the schooling may have been, has achieved a main end of +elementary education; and that schooling which does not result in +implanting this permanent taste has failed.... The uplifting of the +democratic masses depends on this implanting at school of the taste for +good reading.”</p> + +<p>To persons who have given little thought to educational questions these +utterances will have the weight that attaches to the highest authority; +but we need no university president or national commissioner to tell us +these facts. We have learned them from our own experience; and, +enlightened as we now are, it seems to us strange that question could +ever have been raised as to the essential character of the library in +elementary education. Yet there are some of us, I am sure, who can +recall painful consequences from putting into practice an educational +theory not generally accepted by the pedagogues of our childhood days.</p> + +<p>We know that higher education is impossible without a library, for the +library is the storehouse of the world's knowledge, the record of +humanity's achievements, the history of mankind's trials and sorrows and +sufferings, of its victories and defeats and of its gradual progress +upwards in spite of frequent fluctuation and failure. In this chronicle +of the past lie lessons for the present and the future; from the lives +of storied heroes comes the inspiration that leads the race onward and +upward. A university without a library would of necessity have a very +small and weak faculty—only the few professors who could be induced to +go where the most important instrumentality of their work was lacking: +the university that has an adequate library includes in its faculty the +professors of all other universities and all the great teachers of all +countries and ages.</p> + +<p>But is it worth while to consider a university without a library? Can +there be such an institution?</p> + +<p>In higher education, then, the library is a necessity. In elementary +and secondary education it is no less essential, if the most is to be +made of the few years that the average child spends in school and if he +is to be started on a path of self-culture. On this point Stanley Jevons +says:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p><p>“In omitting that small expenditure in a universal system of libraries +which would enable young men and women to keep up the three R's and +continue their education, we spend £97 and stingily decline the £3 +really needed to make the rest of the £100 effective.”</p> + +<p>At the International Library Conference in London, in 1897, one of the +most distinguished American librarians, who has been an administrator in +a large educational field outside of the library, expressed his view of +the supreme importance of the library in a scheme of popular education +by saying that if he had to choose between the public school and the +public library—if he could have only one—(though the alternative is +one that never will or can be presented), he would keep the library and +let the school go. For, he argued, every child would learn to read +somehow; and, with a free library that actively sought him, he would be +better off than if he had a school to teach him to read, but no books to +read after he had learned. But however divergent might be opinions +regarding this impossible alternative, there is no doubt that the public +library, with enlarged functions and activities, has at least equal +potentialities with the school. Whether the formal instruction of the +school or the broader education of the library is of greater value, +depends on what is the chief aim. If it is merely to make breadwinners, +the school may be the more useful, though in this, too, the library is +an efficient coadjutor; but if our purpose is to make men and women, +citizens of a progressive nation, active members of an aspiring society, +the library may fairly claim at least equal rank with the school. For +the school wields its direct influence over the average child but a few +years; the library is an active influence through life.</p> + +<p>Again, more than ninety-five children out of every hundred leave school +before they are sufficiently mature to comprehend those studies which +open their eyes to the universe, which bear upon their relations to +their fellow-men, upon their duties as citizens of a state, as members +of organized society. These are the studies that deal with the most +important problems that mankind has to solve. They cannot be taught to +children; they cannot be taught—dogmatically—at all. They involve the +consideration of burning questions, subjects of bitter controversy—the +world-old battle between conservatism and innovation which, as Emerson +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>says, “is the subject of civil history.” They cannot be taught by any +teacher, they cannot be taught by any text-book or by any one book. +Their adequate consideration calls for the reading of many books—books +of the present and the future as well as the past. The electrician who +allows himself to be guided by the treatises of twenty years ago would +have no standing; neither has the economist or sociologist who has not +kept up with the literature of the last thirty years—or the last three +years. It would be of no particular advantage for all of us to be +electricians. We can safely trust that field to experts; but it is +extremely desirable that every man should comprehend the great issues of +economics and politics. The school cannot even <span class="smcap">present</span> the important +problems of sociology; the university cannot adequately do so without +the library. On no other subject is the wide reading that Matthew Arnold +enjoins so necessary. And no other subject is of such momentous +importance to mankind; for the betterment of social conditions is a +necessary forerunner and foundation of moral and religious progress. And +that cannot be true religion which does not lead to social betterment. +In that noblest aspiration ever put into the mouth and mind and heart +(too often, alas, only the mouth!) of man we are taught to pray not that +we may be transplanted to a better world, but that God's kingdom may +come and His will be done in this world.</p> + +<p>We are not likely to abate our eagerness in the pursuit of knowledge of +physical science, for the zeal of the scientist is stimulated by the +spur of commercialism; and, though it seems impossible, the twentieth +century may bring forth as wonderful discoveries and inventions as the +nineteenth. But, to take the advance just now most sought, can any one +raise the question as to which would be of greater benefit to St. Louis, +to reach Chicago in an hour by airship or to take six or ten hours for +the trip and find there—and everywhere—a contented body of workmen +supplying us with the necessities of life and a set of managers carrying +on the transportation system that we already have on equal terms to all +people? What the world's progress most needs is “evening up.” The +advancing column presents a very ragged front, with physical science and +its applications so far ahead that they have almost lost sight of social +science in the rear. It would be no great disadvantage to the world—to +the progress of mankind as a whole—if the swift-footed legion of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>applied science would merely mark time for a period, while attention +should be given to a better organization of the vast human army. The +objective point would be reached as soon, for a nation is like a railway +train; it can go no faster than its hindmost car. But this is not likely +to happen at present. Applied science has every stimulus from within and +without, every reward intrinsic and extrinsic; while progress in the +social and political sciences must carry the dead weight of the inertia +of conservatism and also meet the active and intense opposition of +vested interests, which have ever the single purpose of preserving the +status quo, no matter how unjust or maleficent.</p> + +<p>The solution of these all-important problems cannot be found in the +school, where immature minds are taught merely how to use the tools of +knowledge; these questions cannot be settled by the small number of +university students; they must be solved by the education of the masses, +by instilling in them in their early school years a desire for knowledge +and a love for good reading, which will lead them to continue their +education by means of the library. The education of the mass of the +voters who determine the character of a democratic government, must not +be left to the party organ or the stump speaker. The great social and +political questions should be studied and pondered in the quiet of the +closet and not decided, without previous thought, amid the hurrahs of +the hustings.</p> + +<p>To make the public library realize fully its possibilities as the +People's University calls for more than the opportunity which every +public library now offers; it requires active effort to reach out and +bring the people to the library by the fullest co-operation with the +school and by means of attractive lecture courses, which shall stimulate +reading and guide it in profitable channels. But the beginning of this +work—the inculcation of a taste for good reading—lies with the school, +with the library's co-operation, especially during the years from six to +ten or twelve, those years when nearly all the children come under the +school's influence and when the habit of reading can be most easily +formed.</p> + +<p>If charged with placing undue stress upon the value of the library, I +might urge its comparative newness and its consequent lack of +recognition; and, as an evidence of the latter, I might point to the +fact that in this great educational exposition, while one vast palace is +given up to exhibits of the school, the library has with difficulty +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>secured a part of a room in the Missouri State Building for an exhibit +of its activities in the great work of education, in which, as I am +trying to show, its potentialities are as great as those of the school. +As our Board of Directors said, in its appeal to the exposition +Directors for a separate library building:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“The library, besides being the most efficient and most +economical agency for popular education, represents all the +fair will have to show. It stands for the sum total of human +knowledge. It is the instrumentality through which knowledge +has been conserved and cumulated. Only through the library +can civilization continue to advance.... Books are the most +potent factors in progress. Without books we should have had +no powerful locomotives to show, no wireless telegraphy, no +wonder-making machinery, no beautiful buildings, no +impressive statuary, no paintings to arouse wonder and yield +delight—no World's Fair to draw distinguished scientists +and educators from all over the world.”</p></div> + +<p>By way of introduction to the comprehensive addresses of the two +distinguished delegates who have travelled four or five thousand miles +to lay before this Section, and, through publication, before the world, +the past history and the present problems of the library, it has seemed +to me appropriate that, as chairman, I should present a brief plea for +the consideration of the library as one of the greatest factors in human +progress. It has existed, though not in its present form or with its +present functions, from the dawn of recorded civilization. It is itself +the record of civilization; and without it there can be no records and +no civilization. It is the repository, the custodian, the preserver of +all the arts and sciences and the principal means of disseminating all +knowledge. With the school and the church it forms the tripod necessary +to the stable equilibrium of society. Let me briefly summarize the +functions of the public library.</p> + +<p>1. It doubles the value of the public school instruction, on which is +expended more than ten times the cost of the library.</p> + +<p>2. It enables the children who leave school at an early age (an +overwhelming majority) to continue their education while earning their +living. It provides for the education of the adults who have lacked or +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>failed to utilize early opportunities. This is of special importance in +a country like the United States, where one of the greatest political +problems is the assimilation of a vast influx of ignorant foreigners of +all races and languages.</p> + +<p>3. It supplies books and periodicals needed for the instruction of +artisans, mechanics, manufacturers, engineers, and all others whose work +requires technical knowledge<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>—all persons on whom depends the +industrial progress of the community.</p> + +<p>4. It furnishes information and inspiration to ministers, teachers, +journalists, authors, physicians, legislators—all persons on whose work +depend the intellectual, moral, sanitary, political and religious +welfare and advancement of the people.</p> + +<p>5. It is the stimulus and the reliance of the literary and study clubs, +which, especially among the women, have done much not only for +individual self-culture but also for civic enlightenment and social +betterment. This represents its numerous post-graduate courses, which +are taken by constantly increasing numbers.</p> + +<p>6. It has philosophers and theologians to explain and expound and to +exhort those who are willing to listen; but, far better, it has poets +and dramatists and novelists—who compel a hearing and impress on heart +as well as mind the fundamental truths of morality and religion.</p> + +<p>7. It is also a school of manners, which have been well defined as minor +morals. The child learns by example and by the silent influence of his +surroundings; and every visit to a library is a lesson in propriety and +refinement. The roughest boy or the rudest man cannot fail to be +impressed by the library atmosphere and by that courtesy which is the +chief element in the “library spirit.”</p> + +<p>8. It imparts, as the school cannot, knowledge of one's self, and of +one's relations to one's fellow-man, and thus prepares the individual +for citizenship and fellowship in organized society and leads him to be +an active force in social advancement.</p> + +<p>9. It elevates the standard of general intelligence throughout the +community, on which depends its material prosperity as well as its moral +and political well-being.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The information furnished by a book in the Cincinnati +Public Library once saved that city a quarter of a million dollars. This +in numerous instances, but on a smaller scale, is a part of the everyday +work of the library.</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span></p><p>10. But not last, if an exhaustive list were aimed at—nor least it +supplies a universal and urgent craving of human nature by affording to +all entertainment of the highest and purest character, substituting this +for the coarse, debasing, demoralizing, amusements which would otherwise +be sought and found. Further, it brings relief and strength to many a +suffering body and cheer and solace to many a sorrowing heart. It is +instruction and inspiration to the young, comfort and consolation to the +old, recreation and companionship to all ages and conditions.</p> + +<p>I close as I began:</p> + +<p>Education is the greatest concern of mankind; it is the foundation of +all human progress. The library is an essential factor in all grades of +education; and it is the agent plenipotentiary in the betterment of +society and the culture and cheer of the human soul. “The highest gift +of education is not the mastery of sciences, but noble living, generous +character, the spiritual delight that comes from familiarity with the +loftiest ideals of the human mind, the spiritual power that saves each +generation from the intoxication of its own success.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>”</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LIBRARY_AS_A_FACTOR_IN_MODERN_CIVILIZATION" id="THE_LIBRARY_AS_A_FACTOR_IN_MODERN_CIVILIZATION"></a>THE LIBRARY AS A FACTOR IN MODERN CIVILIZATION</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Read by President Faunce of Brown University, at the +Narragansett Pier Conference of the American Library +Association in 1906. Elaborates the library's three gifts to +the nation—“knowledge, perspective and ideals.”</p> + +<p>William Herbert Perry Faunce was born in Worcester, Mass., +Jan. 15, 1859, graduated at Brown University in 1880, +entered the Baptist ministry, and after holding several +pastorates became in 1899 president of his alma mater. He is +known as an effective writer and speaker, especially on +religion and education.</p></div> + + +<p>We have long been accustomed to speak of three great factors in modern +civilization—the school, the church, and the home. Must we, in view of +such a significant meeting as this, add a fourth factor—the library? +The modern library has in some places become a true school; in other +places it has radiated something of the refinement for which we once +looked to the home, and something of the idealism which is a peculiar +gift of the church. The library is vastly more than a collection of +books: it is a social, civilizing, moralizing force. We expect to find +the library building in every city and town as much as to find the spire +of the church or the flag of the schoolhouse. The visitor to Boston +to-day finds the public library as commanding a pile as Trinity Church, +and far more imposing than any schoolhouse. The visitor to New York +finds the new public library building climbing into a mass and dignity +as great as that of any cathedral. No smallest village is now complete +without its library, and when some future Goldsmith shall sing the +praise of another “Deserted village,” he will point out not only with +the “noisy mansion” of the school-master, not only the church adorned +with the meek and unaffected grace of the rural pastor, but the loaded +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>shelves, the catalogs and reference lists, the chairs and tables, and +the zeal unaffected, though not always meek, of the modern librarian.</p> + +<p>These libraries have sprung into being throughout the land without +specific legislation and without deliberate propaganda. The church +missionary societies of the country have adopted the avowed policy of +planting a church in every community, and appointing superintendents of +missions to see that this is done. Every state in the Union has its laws +for the establishment and maintenance of schools. But these multiplying +libraries have come into being without enactment of law or the preaching +of the crusade. They have spread from sea to sea by a happy contagion, +they have become a noble American epidemic. The great inarticulate +thirst for knowledge has demanded satisfaction, and created its own +supply. Our wisest directors of public sentiment and philanthropic +endeavor have realized that through the library may come a charity that +does not pauperize, a help that induces self-help, light to irradiate +the dark places of civilization, inspiration for every calling, and +access and power to every worthy institution and noble cause. What then +is the specific function of this new and powerful institution in modern +life? What is the contribution of the library to modern civilization?</p> + +<p>The library makes to the nation three gifts: the gift of knowledge, the +gift of perspective, the gift of ideals. Putting the matter in another +way, we may say it gives us facts, relations, values.</p> + +<p>The library is primarily to conserve and disseminate knowledge. Indeed, +the old conception of the library was purely that of a place of storage +for written or printed material. No one thought of taking out a book +from a mediaeval library any more than of removing a statue or painting +from an art gallery. And still to-day the function of the library as a +storehouse is most important. Modern democracy holds that knowledge is +not for a few bright minds of each generation, not for an intellectual +elite; but all that is knowable is to be made accessible to all that +desire to know. If we allow knowledge to come only to a chosen few of +each generation, how can we know that we have chosen the right ones to +receive it? The genius that might turn the stream of history may be born +in the lowliest cabin on the prairie, or in the darkest tenement of the +great city. There may not be a village Hampden in every village, but +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>there may be an Edison, a Fulton, an Eli Whitney, an Andrew Carnegie, a +Carl Schurz in any village in America. Only when we make knowledge +accessible to all shall we know what minds and hearts are among us.</p> + +<p>But we must discriminate. The books which no longer convey knowledge, +which state theories no longer held, and propound as facts things no +longer believed; in other words, antiquated books of knowledge should be +sharply separated from books abreast of modern thinking. Those books +which have ceased to be of any use to mankind (except for antiquarian +purposes) or which never were of any use to mankind—and their name is +legion—have their place in a museum, but not in an working library. In +an arsenal we keep only weapons now serviceable in actual war, and +relegate flint-locks, catapults, and bows and arrows to the museum. No +arsenal in the world would be large enough to accommodate weapons for a +modern regiment mingled with all the weapons of all past generations. It +is time for some one to say frankly that there is no inherent sanctity +in paper and printer's ink. It may have been true in Milton's day that a +book was usually the precious life-blood of a master spirit; but to-day +a book is often the product of the least erected spirit that fell. An +almanac put forth to advertise some nostrum, or a novel prepared purely +as a piece of merchandise, does not acquire dignity or value simply +because bound in leather and placed on the shelf with “Paradise Lost.”</p> + +<p>We must apply to our libraries some higher standard than that of size. +We never estimate the Uffizzi or the Louvre by the number of paintings +they contain, yet we continue to grade modern libraries by the number of +volumes groaning on dust-covered shelves. A library of five thousand +well selected books may be of far more service than one of one hundred +thousand composed largely of books outgrown and forgotten. Our public +libraries must distinguish sharply between the library and the museum, +to the advantage of both.</p> + +<p>Secondly: Perspective. The library aims to show us facts in their large +and permanent relations. There is no virtue in mere knowledge of facts +(any more than in vast numbers of volumes). Most facts are not worth +knowing, still less worth preserving. Doubtless the letter “p” occurs a +certain definite number of times in “Idylls of the King,” and it may be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>that some deluded mortal in prison or asylum has ascertained that +number; but we do not care to know that fact or have any one else know +it. The exact number of grains in some ant-hill is doubtless +discoverable, but only a lunatic would care for the discovery. Most +facts in nature and in history are in our present stage of development +without value. Only when these facts are collected, classified, seen in +relation, and translated into truth do they become of value to men.</p> + +<p>For this reason the library must encourage, slow, patient, thoughtful +reading. We have long been told that a taste for reading is worth ten +thousand a year. Whether this is true or not depends altogether on what +sort of reading is referred to. The habit of letting the mind lie +passive while some scribbler plays upon it is not worth ten thousand a +year. The habit of letting the mind become a waste basket for sensation +and scandal is not worth ten thousand a year. The habit of reading as a +substitute for thinking is worth nothing, but is sheer damage to mental +fibre. The university library is even more important than the university +laboratory. In the laboratory we verify the theory which is far more +likely to be discovered in the library. The new discovery is a new +combination of old ideas, and such mental combination comes to us more +easily when we are dealing with thoughts than with things.</p> + +<p>Our students need to use books not only as tools, but as friends. In the +old days, when the reading of college students was far more promiscuous +than to-day, they were accustomed to regard books almost as personal +acquaintances, and there was a genuine exchange of reaction of writer +and reader. Such reading was indeed very desultory, but, as our +professor of English literature is accustomed to say, “it was immensely +fattening.” Now, on the other hand, the college student goes to the +library with a list of references, using many books, but becoming really +acquainted with none. He opens one work at volume 2, page 193, another +at volume 4, page 315, and, having extracted the precise bit of +information he desires, has no further use for the author in question. +This modern method of reading is far more accurate and definite than the +older method, and is obviously effective in securing results. But it +must be supplemented by the “browsing” of former days, by the large +horizons which come from being set free in the companionship of great +minds.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span></p><p>Thirdly: Ideals. Our libraries must not be only storehouses of +knowledge, but reservoirs of power. The great books of all time give us +contact with inspiring personalities, shining examples, with the great +leaders of men. The trophies of Themistocles will not suffer us to +sleep. When such books come into many a shut-in life, to many a boyhood, +cabined and confined, the limitations of the farm and factory are +forgotten, the mind expands to a kinship with past and future, and the +reader in some village library may become the prophet of the new +century, and the leader of the modern world.</p> + +<p>More than that: the literature of power creates the climate in which we +live. It shapes our ideals of success, of power, of beauty, of goodness. +Fiction and poetry, if they thus create aspiration and give us +standards, may be more useful than all encyclopedias or text-books, for +they deal with the sources and the goal of all human action.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_PROVISION_OF_BOOKS" id="THE_PROVISION_OF_BOOKS"></a>THE PROVISION OF BOOKS</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The seven addresses or papers just preceding relate to the +general services of the library to the community. The twelve +that now follow analyze this into four types of special +service, as already suggested—the provision of books, the +collection of information, the control and guidance of +reading and community-centre service. The next three papers +treat of the provision of books.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LIBRARIAN_AND_HIS_CONSTITUENTS" id="THE_LIBRARIAN_AND_HIS_CONSTITUENTS"></a>THE LIBRARIAN AND HIS CONSTITUENTS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>That the choice of books is the most important of the +librarian's duties and that “his best effort” should be +given to it, is the thought of an institutional librarian, +R.B. Poole of the New York Y.M.C.A. This view should +interest those who think that administrative problems and +socialization are elbowing the books into the background.</p> + +<p>Reuben Brooks Poole was born in Rockport, Mass., in 1834, +and graduated at Brown University in 1857. After serving as +a teacher he became librarian of the Y.M.C.A. library in New +York City, where he remained until his death on April 6, +1895. He was president of his state library association in +1894.</p></div> + + +<p>By constituents is not meant political constituents. It is unfortunate +for any librarian when he holds his office in a public library as a +political favor, and library appointments should be as far removed as +possible from all party influences. A public library, like any other +public property, is susceptible of being used as a tool, and may easily +degenerate into a political job, unless specially protected by its +charter. New York city has one such library. The library exists for the +librarians; its constituents—not readers—are of the school of +politics. The example, it is to be hoped, is a unique one in our +country.</p> + +<p>A brief retrospect of the libraries and librarians of the past may help +us to more fully comprehend the situation of the librarian and his +constituents of to-day.</p> + +<p>The monk represented the librarian of the Middle Ages. He was not by +profession a librarian, and yet the valuable service he rendered to +literature entitles him to the name. He was at once chorister, master of +ceremonies, transcriber, illuminator, and collector. Professedly the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>monk was a religious ascetic. He retired from the world to devote +himself to religion, to a life of self-denial. His language was the +Latin; the books or manuscripts that surrounded him were works of the +Fathers, books of devotion, service-books, and the classics. These were +just in keeping with his life and thoughts. A congenial occupation was +thus opened to him. The hours of the cloister were made shorter as the +monk duplicated and reduplicated some dainty missal, or some commentary +of Augustine, or painted a miniature of the Virgin or of the apostles.</p> + +<p>However much we may differ in opinion as to the service rendered to +religion by the monasteries of the Middle Ages, as librarians we have a +fellow-feeling with these toiling monks, and are grateful to them for +the service they have rendered the libraries of to-day by their +preservation of works that otherwise would have been destroyed. There is +nothing in the book-making arts of to-day to compare with the artistic +skill displayed in the illuminations and miniature-painting which enrich +and beautify the manuscripts of those times.</p> + +<p>The monastic libraries were small, and the readers few. Books were +loaned from monastery to monastery. They were distributed once a year, +at the Lenten season. As each borrower returned his book he was +catechised as to its contents, if the examination was satisfactory he +was allowed another book for the coming year; if not, he must take his +old book again.</p> + +<p>One not a member of the order of St. Benedict, or an <i>attaché</i> of Cluny +or Canterbury, could procure the coveted treasure, sometimes, by +pledging to return with the manuscript borrowed a full transcription.</p> + +<p>Library economy in these ages was very simple. Catalogues were little +more than inventories, and no discordant notes were chanted, in duets or +solos, over systems of classification. The absolute or fixed system of +shelving was in vogue, the books being held in their places by chains. +The survival of this feature exists in the attachments of the modern +city directory.</p> + +<p>But, not to linger longer in cloisters or abbeys, we come to the age of +printing and to the foundation of the modern libraries of Europe; the +treasures in the monastic libraries contributing to form their vast +collections.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span></p><p>The monk's occupation as a librarian was gone, and he was succeeded by +the collector, the keeper, the scholar. In the centuries immediately +succeeding the invention of printing there was a growing diffusion of +knowledge by means of libraries. We smile at the restrictions imposed, +and look upon them as so many fetters on the intellect. It is, however, +to be borne in mind that at this time books were costly and rare, and on +this account were guarded with great jealousy.</p> + +<p>When the Bodleian library was founded it was stipulated by law that +under no pretence should any book be lent to any one, no matter what his +station. A Fellow of Corpus Christi College could not enter the sacred +alcoves alone, and he was under oath not to remove a book. The books +were there for use, there can be no question; and in the Bodleian, to +which we have just referred, a person could have six books at a time to +consult, and the library was open for six hours during the day.</p> + +<p>About 1650 Humphrey Chetham bequeathed £1,000 for a public library in +Manchester, England. He was a firm adherent of the fixed location. “My +mind and will is,” he says, “that care be taken that none of said books +be taken out of the said library at any time, and that the said books be +fixed or chained.” After specifying certain religious books, and +annotations on the Bible, he adds, “and other books proper for the +common people.” It was two hundred years after this, in this last half +century, before the Public Libraries Act was introduced into the English +Parliament; and from this period we may date a new era, both in England +and in this country, in the dissemination of books and improved library +methods. The last decade, commencing with the formation of the A.L.A. +and the beginning of our second century as a nation, has witnessed +results hitherto unachieved in library economy. It is not necessary to +enlarge here upon the work that has been accomplished. The important +thing to note is that the librarian of to-day should be <i>en rapport</i> +with all that pertains to his profession. He should acquaint himself +with schemes of classification, and elect from them that which is best +adapted for the purposes of his own library. He should adopt the best +system for charging, acquaint himself with the most approved library +appliances. Whether he adopt the classed catalogue, the dictionary, the +alphabeto-classed, or any other form, let it be one that shall be +abreast of the progress that has been made in this department of library +science. The librarian can scarcely keep pace with his fellow-librarians +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>unless he receives the right hand of fellowship of the American Library +Association, and is a reader of the <i>Library journal</i> or the <i>Library +notes</i>, just launched and designed to cruise along the coast into the +smaller ports. The advantages which the librarian receives from these +sources will qualify him better for his profession, but the greater +advantage will accrue to his readers: knowledge will be made more +available, and a bright, cheerful atmosphere will pervade the alcoves of +his store-house.</p> + +<p>The librarian of to-day is developing to the full the utilitarian +principle. He is practical,—practical in his library management, +practical in his choice of books. His constituency is either a +particular class or the great public. To supply the masses with reading, +and to make books helpful in all the vocations of life, is the +librarian's aim. It is just here that we need to emulate our +predecessors, the monks and the collectors and bookworms of the +sixteenth and succeeding centuries.</p> + +<p>He must have the spirit of the collector, the animus of the scholar. He +must not forget that he is an antiquarian in his zeal for utility. His +constituency is not confined to the present; he is building for +posterity as well. His library will live after him. He therefore needs +to be a wise master-builder.</p> + +<p>If the choice of books is in the librarian's hands, or if he occupies an +important position in connection with the selection, his best effort +should be given to this department. The responsibility is not small. He +will find it more difficult often to reject than to select. He must +consult the wants of his readers; but there is a limit to that. +Everything that is in print may be called for, but that is no reason why +it should be honored with a place in a library. The librarian's personal +equation is not to be the standard, but the foundation principles of +morality, truth, and sound sense must guide him. No quarter should be +given to books of doubtful morality. Fiction now finds a place in most +libraries open to any extent to the public, and this class of books +forms so large a part of the circulation of many libraries that it is +becoming a question of no small importance as to how far public funds +should be expended for such books as afford little else than pastime. A +public library is a public educator. It is not a sluice into which every +publisher may dump his entire wares; as educators, librarians and +managing boards have the right to maintain the purity of their +collections, and to protect them from inundations of worthless books.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span></p><p>The librarian should be alert to supply his readers with all they +require that will be helpful, as we have said; but, more than this, he +should lead them. He may do so by procuring works of standard worth, new +and old, that represent the best thought in any department of literature +or science.</p> + +<p>Unless he has something of the spirit of the collector very much will +elude his grasp, and be, perhaps, utterly lost to his library. There are +the limited editions, now so limited in number; the privately printed +book; the first numbers of periodicals; the first reports of societies; +local histories and genealogies; memorial volumes, and the like,—works +whose value is enhanced by time.</p> + +<p>A librarian, to be successful, must be a lover of books. The novice, in +applying for a librarianship, often puts it down as one of his cardinal +qualifications that he is fond of reading. To the active, toiling worker +this is not suggestive of business. A love of books very naturally +suggests a taste for reading, except when bibliomania is in the blood. A +true friend of books is not such because his collection embraces +Elzevirs and Aldines, or because they are in Grolier or Bedford +bindings, or printed on Whatman or Holland paper,—these are matters of +just pride,—but because the army of silent authors, marshalled under +his leadership, will diffuse light and knowledge wherever they go. The +librarian imbued with this spirit, if he finds time to read, will +reflect what he has read. It is to be feared that the librarian who +reads in these times is the exception; and yet there can be no question +that, if he could have each day an hour or two for reading,—time enough +to acquaint himself with the thought of the times, and occasionally +commune with the authors of the past,—his efficiency would be greatly +enlarged, and his readers would have a supplemental catalogue in him, +corresponding, to some extent, to the good work contemplated by our +Cooperative Committee.</p> + +<p>There are in every library very many books that are what we might term, +to use a mercantile phrase, dead stock. From the very necessities of the +case there must be many books that will be called for only at great +intervals, while others never have a friendly consultation. But, aside +from these, libraries will often have works of great practical value +that are standing idle, because it is not generally known that the +library possesses them. There may be a choice lot of works on +electricity, a rare collection on ceramics, a fine selection of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>engravings, representative works in the various industrial arts; the +call for them not being popular and large, they might be brought to the +notice of a larger constituency by calling the attention of certain +readers to them, or by sending a polite invitation to some manufacturing +firms, to some professional electricians, or to art schools and +scientific schools.</p> + +<p>Periodicals, before the days of Poole's Index, were sealed books. +Libraries have been wonderfully expanded where this index is used. +Further cooperation in this direction, as planned by the Cooperative +Committee, should receive hearty encouragement. The books of a library +may be further enlarged in their use by publishing, on the library +bulletin, the works in the library that illustrate important events, +after the admirable plan initiated by Mr. Foster, of Providence.</p> + +<p>If the librarian has not the time at his command to read he has rare +opportunities for reading character; and to be on good terms with his +varied constituency he will have to be like St. Paul,—all things to all +men. He must be polite, accommodating, possess his soul in patience, and +be unselfish in his devotion to his readers. Generally, his contact with +his constituency will be pleasant and agreeable, but he will have to +deal with certain typical characters that will vex and fret him.</p> + +<p>There is the rummager, who snarls at all catalogues, and wants the +freedom of the library, not for studious research, but to gratify his +bookish propensity. “Five minutes with authors” is his watchword.</p> + +<p>The crank, who has been defined as a person with an idea, without brains +to carry it out, is a frequenter of libraries. His inquiries are for +what the library does not possess. This affords him a text for lecturing +the librarian and the managers. If the librarian's sentiments are not in +accord with that idea of his he threatens to expose him in the +newspapers.</p> + +<p>The curiosity-hunter is another representative reader. He is brother to +the rummager, but he does not despise catalogues. They exhibit the +oddities of the library, at least the odd titles, such as Luther's +“Vagabonds and Beggars,” “The Foundling Hospital for Wit,” or “The +History of the Tread-mill.” He passes quickly from one to the other, +gleaning here and there till curiosity is satiated.</p> + +<p>Another reader helps the librarian materially in his statistics; if he +calls for one book he calls for an armful. The subject he is +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>investigating may require all the light the library can focus upon it; +but he disposes of his armful so quickly that the query is, by what +alchemy knowledge is appropriated so rapidly. It must be put to the +credit of this age.</p> + +<p>The intelligent tramp is another <i>habitué</i> of libraries. He is sometimes +a desultory reader, sometimes he is a specialist, and he investigates +with a profound air the most difficult problems; but that is as far as +he goes. He is constitutionally lazy. He has some love for literature +and science, but a far more appreciative love of leisure. He does +nothing, produces nothing.</p> + +<p>Then there are walking encyclopædias. You cannot name any author or work +that they have not an acquaintance with. They can talk glibly on any +subject; they absorb like sponges, but they give out nothing. They have +a passion for reading; but they either do not, or will not, make their +knowledge available to others. The colored man who not long since +applied to me for something on the toothache, as he was to deliver a +lecture upon this interesting topic, was not of this non-productive +class. If his monograph has been published it will be a good book for +close classification.</p> + +<p>The librarian who feels the obligations of his position realizes that +his influence as an educator is far-reaching, telling effectively upon +the community in which he lives, and destined to extend far down the +years to come. It becomes him, therefore, to fully equip himself for his +work, and to give to his constituents the results of his ripest +experience and his most unselfish attention.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_USEFULNESS_OF_LIBRARIES_IN_SMALL_TOWNS" id="THE_USEFULNESS_OF_LIBRARIES_IN_SMALL_TOWNS"></a>THE USEFULNESS OF LIBRARIES IN SMALL TOWNS</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A few books in a small town may exert as much influence as +many books in a large one; and the personal influence of +their custodian and administrator may count for more. An +early statement placing emphasis on this fact by Miss West +of the Milwaukee Public Library (now Mrs. Henry L. +Elmendorf) appears in the subjoined paper read at the +Buffalo Conference of the American Library Association in +1883.</p> + +<p>Theresa West Elmendorf, who as the writer of this paper was +Theresa Hubbell West, was born at Pardieville, Wis., Nov. 1, +1855, educated in Milwaukee and served on the staff of the +public library of that city, being deputy librarian in +1880-92 and librarian in 1892-96. In that year she married +Henry L. Elmendorf, then librarian of the Buffalo Public +Library, and since his death in 1906 she has been +vice-librarian there. In 1911 she was chosen president of +the American Library Association—the first woman to hold +this office.</p></div> + + +<p>There is still, as in the days when the story of the “wicked and +slothful servant,” who contemptuously hid his one talent in a napkin, +was told, something discouraging in the sight of incomparably greater +opportunities than our own in the hands of another.</p> + +<p>The librarian of a small town or village may not cherish the envy of +the man in the parable in his heart, and yet feel a certain depression, +a sense that the small things he is striving—perhaps with all his +might—to accomplish amount to very little, as he listens to plans for +the construction of a building which will commodiously and conveniently +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>house two millions of books; as he ponders over a printed scheme which +will intelligently order upon the shelves a hundred thousand volumes, +and is yet so flexible, so elastic, that this number may be indefinitely +increased with no confusion, no necessity for rearrangement; as he sees +a method of charging which has been slowly evolved to meet the +ever-varying, ever-increasing needs of a circulation whose daily issues +are counted by thousands.</p> + +<p>Possibly this feeling has something to do with the small representation +in this Association of the hundreds of lesser libraries which are +scattered through the land. Whether it has, or not, the fact of this +meagre representation remains, and remains to be regretted. That such a +state of things is to be deprecated by the society goes without saying. +Every new member, in one way or another, brings an added power and +influence, which is by no means always to be measured by the size of the +library which he represents, or the active part he bears in the +deliberations. He may even be utterly silent, and yet an actual force; +for no speaker fails to feel the inspiration which radiates from an +attentive and enthusiastic listener. In ordinary society the +accomplishment of being “a good listener” is one of the most enduring of +charms. It does not lose its power among librarians. The prosperity of a +paper as truly as a jest's “lies in the ear of him that hears it, never +in the tongue of him that makes it.”</p> + +<p>To ask these unattached librarians, if perhaps an echo may reach them, +to consider whether their isolation from their profession is not only a +deprivation to themselves which they can illy afford, but a retarding of +the progress of the true library spirit as well, and to suggest a +thought which may possibly prove a stimulus to counteract the +discouragement and depression before spoken of, is all that I have even +hoped to accomplish in the few words which have, somewhat too +ambitiously, been called a paper on “The usefulness of libraries in +small towns.”</p> + +<p>In regard to the interest and profit of these meetings to the lesser +libraries, I have heard it asserted, and it is, I think, true, that the +papers and discussions were almost exclusively directed to the +consideration of the aims, methods, and needs of great libraries. If the +fact needs explanation, or justification, an ample one is found in the +register of the names of the composing members, with their positions. +That there would be a ready and cordial response to any general call for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span>the discussion of topics specially pertinent to small libraries is not +to be doubted. Over the editorial columns of one of our most-used +periodicals runs the legend, “Every man is a debtor to his profession.” +It was a most wise choice of mottoes by our friend, the editor and +publisher, for in no profession is it more true than in our own. The +constant missionary work which Boston and Chicago, and indeed every +library of any repute in the country, has done and is doing, is proof +enough that the obligation is appreciated. If the smaller libraries want +the discussion of simpler, less technical methods, they have, probably, +but to ask.</p> + +<p>It may be objected that the great obviously includes the small, and +that plans and methods which are good and suitable for the former need +but to be reproduced in miniature for the latter. It is true, that, in +many departments, the accident of size makes little or no difference in +library economy; but in the administration of affairs, in the machinery +of running, the director of a municipal library has many and +accumulating cares, of which his less burdened rural brother need never +feel the weight. Prof. John Fiske, some years ago, at the time when he +was assistant librarian of Harvard University, very graphically +described a portion of the perplexing duties which fall to the lot of +even a university librarian, striving to correct the erroneous but too +prevalent notion that such a position is a sinecure. He confined himself +to an enumeration and description of the duties which are essentially +professional, the multiplicity of details of the ordering, classifying, +and cataloging of books. In this direction there is a difference only in +amount between the greater and the less. But, in addition to all that +Prof. Fiske described, a city librarian must needs oversee as well the +thousand and one minutiae which go to make up the sum of a day's work in +a circulating library. He must provide for the accurate identification +and registration of his borrowers,—no light task when they number tens +of thousands of the floating population of a western city, which has +more active duties for her police than the following up of delinquent +patrons of the public library. He must see to it that the thousands of +books which flow over his counters are unerringly charged, and that +tardy borrowers are warned of their remissness. These are but a few of +the numberless details, many of which are trivial in the extreme, but +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>which all go toward the making up of such a day's work as “none but he +that feels it knows.” As a machine increases in complications a +constantly greater percentage of power is consumed in overcoming +friction. This attention to the routine of daily work, which forms much +of the severest, because least satisfying, work which a librarian does, +may be compared to the friction of machinery; and just in the proportion +that the power of his mind and the strength of his body are taxed in +this direction, by just so much are they reduced for other duties, the +importance of which is specially prominent in the minds not only of the +profession, but of the public as well,—an actual knowledge of the books +which the library buys, and the exertion of an active personal influence +in raising the standard of literature which is drawn from the library.</p> + +<p>It is precisely in this line of personal influence that there seem to me +to be special encouragements to the librarians of small towns, that +here, notwithstanding their limited resources, they have peculiar +opportunities for attaining an almost ideal standard of excellence in +the quality of their work.</p> + +<p>It would be unjust to say that a city librarian actually works harder +than his country brother. The duties of the former are mainly those of +guiding, overseeing, and correcting the work of others. The latter, with +his own hands and brain, does most of the work himself. It is as if the +one were architect solely, and the other not only architect, but mason +and carpenter as well. One of the severest trials of the lot of a city +librarian, in the West at least, is that he must work through many +assistants who are not only utterly lacking in any real love or +enthusiasm for their work, but who are many times illy-educated as well. +The remedy for this state of affairs is not likely to be found until our +boards of trustees take for their careful consideration the reply of a +certain irate domestic to her remonstrating mistress: “You can't expect +a good cook and all the Christian virtues for two dollars a week!” If +the necessities of the work do not require the employment of more than +one, two, or, at most, three assistants, the subtle electric current of +the librarian's own enthusiasm may suffer the subdivision without being +utterly dissipated. He can actually do much of the work himself. He +comes into contact with his clientage, which is not so large but that he +may hope to become personally acquainted with many of them, and, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>learning their tastes and needs, easily become their trusted friend and +guide. His catalog, too, is his own work, and it is perhaps safe to say +that no one ever properly appreciates a catalog but its maker. Certainly +no one else ever handles it with equal ease and intelligence.</p> + +<p>I am afraid the catalog has never been made, and never will be, over +which the ignorant and indolent will not be perplexed and deceived; and, +after all is said, it is to the ignorant to whom the gospel of the +public library is specially sent. If the cataloger himself is constantly +at hand to explain intricacies, to supplement deficiencies, with his own +perfect knowledge of his library, to answer even foolish and stumbling +questioners patiently and intelligently, he may make the puzzling way of +finding and getting a book so plain that “The wayfaring man, though a +fool, need not err therein.”</p> + +<p>That this personal influence, when exerted, bears fruit, and that right +soon, has been proved again and again. The following is from the last +report of one of the largest libraries in the country: “The increasing +public interest in the more scholarly books of the Library, and the +large accession of visitors to the reference tables, are to be +attributed partly to the Saturday-morning classes which have been +conducted at the Library for the past four months.” If such work makes +so immediate and appreciable an impression upon a circulation which is +numbered by hundreds of thousands, is there not a hopeful outlook, +indeed, for small workers?</p> + +<p>One has said that “A library is, after all, very much what its +librarian makes it.” There are too many conflicting individualities at +work in a municipal library to make this, to any considerable extent, +true; but in a small town or village the personal equation of the +librarian may easily become the exponent of the power of the library.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ADDRESS_AT_THE_DEDICATION_OF_THE_LIBRARY_OF_THE_UNIVERSITY_OF" id="ADDRESS_AT_THE_DEDICATION_OF_THE_LIBRARY_OF_THE_UNIVERSITY_OF"></a>ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF +PENNSYLVANIA</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Dr. Talcott Williams, the orator of this occasion, Feb. 7, +1891, was at that time a journalist in Philadelphia. He has +always been a welcome writer and speaker on literary themes.</p> + +<p>Talcott Williams was born in Abeih, Turkey, July 20, 1849, +the son of an American missionary. He graduated at Amherst +in 1873 and in that year entered journalism, becoming later +an editorial writer on several large dailies until 1912 when +he was made director of the School of Journalism of Columbia +University, New York City.</p></div> + + +<p>For the first and for the last time, the voices of men are heard in +this place, dedicated to the more eloquent silence of books. Nowhere is +man more and men less than in the library. In the presence of books +individual learning pales. The scholar dies; the library lives. Yet only +in part. In this bookish age, we fondly impute immortality to books. +Nothing could be more false. Few books have the power of an endless +life. Against these books of power stand a great multitude of books of +use, which perish with the using. The vast mass of books, like the +thoughts in our daily lives, sink into the background of the +recollection of the race and furnish the soil from which fresh growths +spring. Few there are who have written books of power. Not a score in +all. Poets for the most part. High priests forever after the order of +humanity, whose flaming message burns from age to age in the great tree +of human existence, consuming and unconsumed. These books of power which +live that humanity may not die, and books of use that die that others +may live, divide literature between them. They constitute the warp and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>woof out of which the university weaves the higher education. In its +last analysis a liberal training is the mastery of books of use and a +glad yielding to the mastery of books of power.</p> + +<p>Controversy over the classics, wrangling over Greek, vain jangling over +required and elective courses—these are details. Direct contact between +the growing minds of each generation and the great minds of the +race—this is essential. We smile at the space given Confucius in +Chinese education; the Koran in Mohammedan schools; but this is only a +perversion of the sound instinct which everywhere puts the young to +school to the teachers of the race. Unless your education does this, it +stands where the electric telegraph did before its wires were +grounded—its batteries and instruments, its poles and wires useless +until they were in direct contact with the elemental source of electric +energy in the earth itself. So-called and mis-called practical systems +of education, <i>realschulen</i>, which omit these eternal realities of the +race, find when they have stuffed their pupils with the facts of the day +that they are still insulated from the thinkers of all time. Fortunately +for us and for our education, these books of power exist in more than +one language and are accessible through more than one channel of +learning. Thanks to the matchless translation of the Bible, one +incomparable group of books of power is taught in every Sunday-school, +though I doubt if this will be held sufficient reason for neglecting +their study in every university. Greek holds another group. But it is +the pitiful pedant's plea to urge their study because Greek is +difficult. It is not because Greek is Greek, but because Homer is Homer +that Chapman “spake out loud and bold” of the solitary text-book which +has held its own for 2500 years, and links, as may it forever link, this +university with the school of Athens.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Yet still your Homer, living, lasting, reigning,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And proves how truth builds in poets feigning.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is because these books of power hold the truth that makes men free, +working thoughts that perish never, that they live when the tongues in +which they speak are dead. Books of power which transmit the spiritual +life of the race keep the self-same spirit through all the +transmigrations of speech. The scriptures of the race, no less than the +scriptures of religion, enjoy a pentecostal gift of tongues, and are +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>heard by every man in his own language. Where such books are few in +number, which a shelf or two will hold, there is a liberal education, +and no elective course which permits their exclusion offers intellectual +salvation. Some such books every race has found in its own literature as +it reached the full stature of universal humanity, as our own +English-speaking race, well-nigh within this generation, has discovered +in adding Shakespeare to our general schooling. By the production of +such books of power nations are justly measured. This is the wisdom +which keepeth a city from destruction. The ship of state, however +weighted with worldly wealth, moves a trackless keel through the waters +of history unless some poet wings its course with “the proud, full sail +of his great verse.” We have all heard to-day from one whose lifelong +devotion has raised him to the foremost rank of scholarship.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Weave a circle around him thrice<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And close your eyes with holy dread,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For he on honey-dew hath fed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And drunk the milk of Paradise.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The study of such books is possible without any aid or apparatus +whatever; so near is the diviner of letters to every one of us. But the +first office which the library discharges in a university is in +providing the limitless and manifold interpretation which the ages have +builded about these great books of power. Better than all other books as +are the books of power when read without study, they are infinitely +bettered by all study. The literature of interpretation is only second +in value to the literature of inspiration. The study even of books of +power tends to become scholastic, narrow, provincial, letterwise, and +spiritually dead, unless it is quickened and corrected by the fruits of +the entire field of critical science. For lack of this more than one +sacred book has met a fate which makes one feel, as well kill a book as +give it a good name. Even in the teaching of books of power—which of +all teaching needs but a soul and the book to awake eternity—the +scholar is saved from himself by the library. He learns that with all +the inspired prophets of the race no scripture is of private +interpretation, that only time unlocks the weaving of these deeper +oracles of humanity, because they spake not of themselves, but for the +spirit of man. Nor need we fear that they will be smothered by their +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>interpretation. The mountains bear easily the weight of forests they +uprear, and at the last and highest, no tree ascends above the snow-line +of eternal thought.</p> + +<p>But such ascents are as little the normal work of the university as of +the road-builder. Its course lies chiefly along the broad highways of +learning. Not books of power, but books of use, which sum first general, +and then special and professional knowledge, occupy the greater portion +of its time, just as the most saintly of mortals devotes more of his +days to earning his living than to saving his soul. If the study of +books of power is rendered more valuable by a library, the adequate +teaching of books of use without one is impossible. Every text-book is a +compromise between what is known and what can be taught. Two classes, I +know, the publishers and the public, cherish the belief that there are +text-books which sum current knowledge on this subject and that; but +there are none. Every text-book is out of date the day after it goes to +the printer, and the day before it gave out, not what is known, but the +view of what is known then in vogue. It measures the advancing tides of +learning by a gauge itself incessantly changing. We love to speak of +authorities and standards. We delude ourselves. The whole field of +letters and of learning is in a perpetual flux, whose only complete +record is the library. We know that in science discovery succeeds +discovery. There is nothing certain about a scientific book except that +it will be wrong in five or ten years. Only now and then does some +law-giver in science, some Newton or Darwin, descend the mount of +discovery, bearing eternal and lasting laws of nature, writ by Nature's +God. But in literature we dream of permanent reputation. Here, too, +“Every century gives the last the lie.” All the lesser priests of +letters stand at shrines like that of Nemi and the Golden Bough,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Beneath Aricia's trees,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Where the ghastly priest doeth reign,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The priest who slew the slayer<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And shall himself be slain,”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Every new book enters the arena about to die. The friendly verdict but +deters fate; it does not avert it. The lesser criticism of letters must +be done anew for every crop of readers, and in fifteen or twenty years +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>most essays are left behind. The procession of novels passes almost as +rapidly. Few are read for thirty years, no English novels have held a +popular place for past half a century, and a decade before the centenary +of Waverly it begins to be whispered that Scott is no longer read by the +young. Every generation must have its own translations of the classics, +or reprints of those which have been forgotten. Morals, philosophy, and +religion must be rewritten for it. Even histories, which linger a little +longer on the stage than all the rest, yield to inexorable change. It is +barely a century since Gibbon launched his mighty fleet, freighted with +the fall of empire. It has long ridden the seas, but I think we are all +well aware that its masts are already low on the horizon. No one author, +no one work, can longer satisfy the world for the story of ten centuries +of the race. For most of us these changes do not exist. Unconsciously we +go on down the stream with the favorites of our youth and forget that +both are growing old together. If literature is to be taught as it is, +and not as it seems, to take one pregnant illustration, true of all +studies, teacher and taught must have instant and vital access to that +great body of books to which in every subject a text-book is but a rude +and makeshift guide. The present can only be understood by the past, and +both are needed to prophesy of the future. When this library has been +enlarged to the utmost bounds of our anticipation, it will still have +its limits to the specialists—joints in its armor of learning. Even at +the British Museum I was told and discovered that no man is long at work +without wanting some book with which it is unprovided.</p> + +<p>But if teaching requires this great array, much more does the wider +work of the college professor. To look upon him as set only to teach, to +hear recitations, is as narrow and barren a view of his work as to think +of the farmer as only occupied in feeding his calves. If a university is +in the highest sense to be a teaching body, it must cultivate knowledge +as well as pupils. Its professors must do more than harvest the learning +and teach the discoveries of other discoverers. They must produce and +discover. The spirit of genius bloweth where it listeth, but those books +of use which play their part in giving each generation its critical +standards, its histories, and the results of research are born only in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>full libraries. If a university is deficient in them, the lack is apt to +be in that laboratory of learning, its library. Unless a university is +producing these, it is teaching only its matriculates when it ought to +be teaching the public.</p> + +<p>Much may be done, much accomplished, in the university without the +library. Professional schools may multiply and grow, for in these men of +professional learning supply the lack of books. It is even possible to +carry on much research and produce valuable results along any narrow +rising line of discovery in some science, which, like the coral, has but +its growing edge alive, and for the rest is dead and under water. But if +a university is to fill the whole round and play part in society, it +must enjoy, employ, and extend the organized memory of man as +represented in a great library. As the chief value of this lies, not in +any view of its mere bulk and size, but in its relation to the +recollection of the race, so the work of the university pivots on its +ability to make vital the study of books of power, without which all +learning and letters and science are but a vain show. Better, a thousand +times better, the solitary study which brings men face to face with the +spirit of man in these great movements than any university study which +dwarfs to routine or degrades to mere rote these great works. For the +object of all our study is not knowledge, but wisdom, and we move to +dwindling ends if we search out all the secrets of matter and forget the +secrets of the spirit. The great round of studies which make up the +university, its libraries and laboratories, the accumulation of the past +and the discovery of the future, these are each and all but the +scaffolding by which the race rises to those conceptions of the Divine +and the spiritual uttered and summed in its books of power. Listening to +their teaching we may even learn that the ascent of man is more +important than his descent, his future of more consequence than his +origin—that it is his birth, and not his death, which is a sleep and a +forgetting.</p> + +<p>But books of use and books of power—the indiscriminate eulogy of books +and reading has ceased to be possible even at the opening of a building +dedicated to both. Their criticism has begun. Books are no longer the +unique property of the scholar. We all buy books. Most of us read them. +Many of you write them. The use of books is the one side of learning on +which we all claim an opinion. Yet owned, read, written, or wholly laid +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>aside in a busy life, the use of books, which each of us knows, is +individual and personal. Standing to-day in the home of a collection +which, we trust, is to be one of the larger libraries of learning, +landmark, and lighthouse at once, recording the past and lighting the +pathless future, this individual and personal use is inevitable before +us, cramping and limiting our conception of the relations, the aims, and +the ends of a great library. Its very beginnings about us raise a doubt +as to the wisdom of these endless accumulations of print. The peril of +the mere aggregate was, perhaps, never plainer than in these days, when +the great glacier of democracy slides on, making high places low and low +high—one would be glad to believe, preparing the pathway of a new +lordship of learning, but one is fain to fear making easy the track and +broad the road for an evil over-lordship of mediocrity in learning and +in literature. Our own democracy we are assured, has ceased to read +anything but fiction, and demands this, not book-meal, but piece-meal, +in monthly, weekly, or even daily doses.</p> + +<p>The vast book-stack of the modern library, in which volumes lose their +individuality as completely as urns in a columbarium, and like them but +too often hold naught but dead and forgotten dust, is far removed from +the still air of delightful studies which we associate with our own +loved libraries. “I seldom go there,” says Emerson of the University +Library he used, “without renewing my conviction that the best of it all +is already within the four walls of my study at home.” The ablest of +American editors recently urged in the most brilliant of American +newspapers that the Library of Congress should be reduced to a sound +working collection of 50,000 volumes, and the rest of its treasures +dissipated or stored. I have myself heard the suggestion in regard to +this library, and from one of academic connection, that its future +usefulness would be increased if its future bulk were restricted. +Whether we listen to the philosopher, the editor, or the university +trustee; whatever fanned and winnowed opinions we apply to the great +threshing floor on whose round the feet of the ages slowly tread out the +wheat from the chaff in the garnered harvest of human thought, the +remnant will be small—measured by high thought or narrow utility. The +mere mass of our libraries already overtaxes our utmost ability to +classify, to catalogue, and to administer. As we watch their bulk grow, +on whatever side of the great altar of learning we worship, our fears +increase that these heaped offerings will stifle the sacred fire. This +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>weighty weapon of letters forged by generations, this mighty armor and +panoply of learning on whose myriad rivets so many hammers have rung, +has outgrown the individual, and we begin to doubt its ultimate value to +society.</p> + +<p>Thus men ever err in their early thought on the new duties and fresh +responsibilities created for men by associate man. In the field of +organized life the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. +The body is more than an aggregate of cells. The soul wiser than all its +faculties. A nation more puissant than any census of its citizens. Man +more than men. The secret of this supremacy over the sterile synthesis +of sense, the root and germ mastery over the mere mechanics of life, and +the bald and barren arithmetic of existence, lies in the capacity to +know the present and to remember the past—in consciousness, out of +which conscience grows, and in memory, Mnemosyne, mother of all the +Muses and parent of all learning. Rightly in all history do we measure +the value of every human society to Humanity by its power to awake to +its own existence and be aware of its own past. This is the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">—“mystery in the soul of state<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which hath an operation more divine<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than breath or pen can give expression to—”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This exalts the microscopic municipalities of Greece. This abases the +dumb millions of Asia. Our own articulate millions, deficient in much, +have done most for the world, not by material development, but by +demonstrating that 62,000,000 spread over a continent can enjoy a +consciousness as constant, continuous, and complete as the handful of +citizens in the market-place of a Greek city, less in population that +the ward in which we stand, smaller in area than the open spaces about +this University. This general capacity to think as one and remember as a +whole differences modern societies from all the past, save that of +Greece. This has brought the awakening of nations in this century, a +mightier resurrection with power than the awakening of men in the +sixteenth century. With the future awakening of man the work will be +complete. Until it is, national consciousness and national memory, +creating conscious national life, are the determining conditions of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>human progress. The problem which Greece solved by making its +communities small, the modern world triumphantly meets by making them +large and live. It secures this through the newspaper, the print of the +present, which sets at one in consciousness vast masses of men which are +set apart in space. For generations separated in time, the library, the +print of the past, preserves for society the sacred oracles of memory. +Misunderstood, misappreciated, placed in opposition, treated as +antagonists, the editor assuring us that the newspaper has superseded +the printed book, the librarian hesitating to cumber his shelves with +the fugitive issues of the newspaper, these twin and vital organs in +society still supplement and correlate each other.</p> + +<p>The newspaper is the library of the moment, the library is the newspaper +of all time. We open a newspaper to learn what we are as a nation. We +enter a library to learn what we were. The revelations of neither are +altogether satisfactory. We object to the library because it does not +tell enough of the past. Too often we object to the newspaper because it +tells too much of the present. The faults and shortcomings of the past, +however plainly told, rouse no unpleasant sense of responsibility. In +our own individual experience we have each of us had our private and +personal quarrel with consciousness and memory for setting in too clear +a light the sins and duties, the lacks and demands of the past and +passing day. The revelation is no pleasanter when consciousness, memory +and responsibility are social and national. Yet it is only by accepting +both a complete social consciousness and a complete social memory that a +society can be created whose ultimate end is the highest development of +each of its individuals, whose service is the highest duty of all its +members. Lavish margin of error in the newspaper too often leads us by +some slain truth to ask with the soldier at Philippi:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">“Messenger of error—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The things they are not?—”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But like Cassius, the truth is self-slain and dies among its friends. +It still remains true that the newspaper is oftener challenged for +telling what is unpleasant than for recording what is untrue, and the +refined and cultured soul, which objects to the newspaper because it +reeks with the ill news of society for whose ills no man can avoid his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>just share of responsibility, but imitate the Pharaoh, who slew the +messengers of evil and sunk in wilful ignorance to an ignoble grave.</p> + +<p>The nation which lives by the newspaper will lose touch with the past. +The nation which lives in the library will want knowledge of the +present. We know all too much as Americans of the peril of thinking by +the newspapers. German thought has run in the seclusive channel of the +academic library to the lack and loss of civic consciousness. Germany +was the last of modern states to act as a people. We were the first, the +balance and connection between the newspaper and the library, news and +liberal letters, the reporter and the professor, cuts up by the roots +the frequent conception of the library as a place occult, withheld, +untrod; shut apart from practical ends, the grant of society to the +scholar—useful to letters, useless to life. This “idol of the +market-place” falls to pieces confronted by the facts of social +structure. As well might the brain be held silent, the voice of memory +dumb, the light of consciousness in darkness by the side of the brute +mechanical forces of the body; silence, seclusion, separation from the +active life of society, these may be for the exchange and the +market-place, the railroad and the factory, vast, dumb mechanic +processes which perish in producing, but not for the library—not here, +not here. These walls ring with war. They sound with the conflicts of +the race. Here, rather than in any arsenal is heard</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">—“the infinite fierce chorus,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The cries of agony, the endless groan,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which, through the ages that have gone before us,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In long reverberations reach our own.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Thus much for the library in organized society. Long since have we +known of books as the counsellors and comforters of men. To us all they +have been teachers, to each of us companions. That great majority, +greater in wisdom no less than in number, in which by the iron decrees +of fate so many are called and so few are chosen to lasting immortality, +holds all of whom living the world was not worthy, but of whom dead it +slowly seeks to be. Here and here alone in all shapes and forms, we +build the sepulchres of the prophets whom our fathers crucified and here +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>doubtless our children will build the sepulchres of those who in our day +are despised and afflicted of men for the truth's sake. In joy and in +grief, in life and in death some book supports, sustains, and soothes +each of us, and in this library the very light has been trained to teach +us at every window and door that we might enter it to pass within the +presence of the mighty dead, to enjoy the companionship of that great +company no man can number of wise men made perfect by time.</p> + +<p>But to the seeing eye and the hearing ear, awake and attentive to all +that a library is, not for men but for man, not for individuals but for +the race, a greater than Solomon is here, and a mightier shape fills +these halls and looks down from these shelves than all the trooped and +illustrious dead. These books, shelf on shelf, these volumes, which fit +subject by subject into the storied arch of human knowledge, resting one +side on metaphysics and the other on history, the science of mind and +the science of man, seem existent human memory. The complete library +would round and fill the record of the race. At best, we have but a +beggarly fragment. If a single copy of each of the 13,000,000 volumes +which dropped from the press in 450 years were by some glad miracle +multiplying knowledge gathered in one place, human memory would be +unbroken for this short span of its long stay on the globe. Of +13,000,000 but 1,000,000 rest in the largest library on earth in +Bloomsbury Square, and not a half are gathered in all known libraries. +But such as it is, large or small complete or incomplete, a great +library to its capacity gives, as this has begun to do, the only measure +we have of the recollection of the race. Here we stand face to face not +with men or nations, race or people, but with man. Blindly our humanity +still struggles to shape its thought, dumb, inarticulate, unconscious, +travelling in darkness and laboring in pain, century by century, and +generation by generation, in the slow pilgrimage toward the conscious +and consecration before it. The thunder of its power who shall know? Who +shall sound its depths or scale its heights? Who shall know it in all +its compass and sound, measure the confines thereof or prophesy its far +final coming? These are all hid in the inscrutable decrees of God from +the sight of men, but here, here and in places like this there rises +before us like an exhalation of the past in these volumes, in this +library, the majestic and visible memory of man.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p><p>Rightly here, as in that larger treasure house in London, have we +gathered museum and library under the same roof. These shapeless +fragments worked by the early cunning of savage man, these inscribed +marbles and sculptured slabs, these tablets and relics of another and a +distant life, these all, each in its place, play their part in the +recorded memory of the race. Out of every fragment from every book +shines this Ancient of Days, who before Abraham was and after us shall +be. Who and what are we, creatures of a day, toilers of an hour, to be +measuring by our experience the metes and bounds in the manifestations +of his mighty memory. Rather let our labor be given to render complete +and to transmit unbroken our share in this great heritage by preserving +the universal printed record of the life about us. The librarian falling +far short of the honor and amplitude of his office, standing between the +living past and the slowly dying life of the present, now and then +apologizes for saving every empty volume, because none but prescient +omniscience can tell which of 10,000 titles will be demanded by some +solitary reader a century hence. How petty the plea, how narrow the +argument, how infinitesimal the claims of this distant reader who after +all may never appear! But how simple, how sufficient, how adequate +becomes the reason for the preservation of every volume when we remember +that it, too, is a part of this vast image of human memory seated by the +slow river of time, more vocal than that of Memnon, older and younger, +and with every fresh sunburst of genius breaking into fresh song!</p> + +<p>In high reason has our own Historical Society gathered every volume +which fell in this State and city from the press of the last century. +Only thus can the span of human memory be set forth without a single +forgetful flaw. If the like effort is made here to fill a like +responsibility for the passing moment to the future, it is possible that +the Historical Society of another century will not find it necessary to +pay $700 for an almanac which might once have been had for a penny, and +yet how grievous the gap in the continuous and social memory of this our +city if the solitary copy left of Bradford's Almanac, the first product +of our press, had not found a secure resting-place.</p> + +<p>A great library, therefore, does not merely transmit the memory of the +past; it is daily providing memory for the future, safe preserved +“against the wreckful siege of battering days.” For the individual no +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>worse hap can fall than loss of memory. All other powers may remain. +This lost, all are worthless. Stripped of memory, the soul has no future +and no past, naught save an infructuose now. Nor less, the race. The +destruction of the Alexandrian Library, whether with Abulfaraj we +attribute it to the intelligent Moslem, or with Gibbon to the ignorant +monk, was not the loss of so many books and parchments. It was the +paralysis of a great lobe of human memory, fatal lesion had fallen on +the localized organ of recollection in the brain of humanity. If we had +the 200 plays of Aeschylus, the 160 of Sophocles, the last books of +Livy, the missing annals of Tacitus, which this library held, the +stature of these writers would not be increased. Like the greater peaks +of every chain they already rise as they recede. It is only the +foot-hill that needs bulk. These, and lost books like them, would fill +for us the full measures of classic memory. As library after library +perished and book after book shared the fate of those fathered by +Ptolemy, the wreck and loss of human memory went on. The ages that we +call dark lacked not in men of action. Those ages of faith had their men +of thought matching any before or after. They laid for us the +foundations of a civil liberty more indestructible than that of Rome. +The piers of that great arch of law along which our rights daily travel +in safety were built by them. Their architecture and their sculpture +equals any. Their knowledge of the earth, as a whole, was immeasureably +in advance of classic conception. They furnished in Dante one of the two +or three poets for all time, and in the Roman Church they gave the race +a creation and conception of whose future it would be a rash man who +ventured to say that it was destined to be less than its past, imperial +as its history has been. These ages were dark, not from lack of light +and of leading, but from lack of memory. The ages had lost touch of the +elbow in their march through the dark defile of time. The Renaissance +was less the revival of human knowledge than the recovery of human +memory. Age was joined again to age in the unbroken sequence of +continuous recollection, and Greece laid her hands to transmit an +Apostolic succession of memory on the bowed and studious head of the +modern world.</p> + +<p>To play its part in transmitting and preserving human memory this +library is tonight opened and dedicated. Our Library Committee, and you, +sir, its head, who have shown us that whole libraries of comment may be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>condensed into a volume by your magic alembic, providing for criticism a +new instrument of precision akin to the measurements and the analysis of +the exact science—you, sir, in the loving care you have given this +building, have not been providing a retreat for scholars; you have built +and fashioned here another refuge and stronghold, fortified</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Against confounding Age's cruel knife<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That he shall never cut from memory.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The architect of this building has not wrought in mere brick and stone; +he has added to those shrines and centres of human memory to which its +treasures gravitate for their security and convenience. This university, +in receiving this building from its Finance Committee, which has raised +its cost, and whose head first suggested its erection, is placed in a +position where it can discharge not only the first duty of a university, +to which it has always been true, of thinking for the community, but the +second, which is like unto it, of remembering for society.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="COLLECTION_OF_INFORMATION" id="COLLECTION_OF_INFORMATION"></a>COLLECTION OF INFORMATION</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>One of the functions of the modern library is that of a huge +cyclopedia, kept continually up to date by the acquisition +of new material—books, periodicals, prints, pamphlets, +clippings, publicity matter and manuscripts. It is the +cyclopedia on cards long advocated by Dr. Dewey, except that +the cards are in its catalogue and do not contain the +information directly but serve only as keys to it. In this +kind of service the library is for the moment getting away +from books and nearer to the worker, whether at home, in +school or laboratory, or in commerce and industry.</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LIBRARIES_AS_BUREAUS_OF_INFORMATION" id="LIBRARIES_AS_BUREAUS_OF_INFORMATION"></a>LIBRARIES AS BUREAUS OF INFORMATION</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Early material on this ancient function of libraries, so +widely extended and developed of late, is hard to find. Only +two papers are given here. The first, by Samuel S. Green, is +part of an address delivered at the dedication of the Haston +Free Public Library Building in North Brookfield, Mass., +printed in <i>The Library Journal</i> for July, 1896. A sketch of +Mr. Green appears in Vol. I. of this series.</p></div> + + +<p>The ideal library is one which invites everybody who has a question to +ask, which books contain answers to, to come to the library and put his +question, with the assurance that he will be kindly received, his +question sympathetically considered, and every effort made to find the +answer desired.</p> + +<p>I cannot better illustrate what I mean by saying that libraries should +be bureaus of information than by giving instances of inquiries recently +made in the library under my charge and explaining how those inquiries +were met. I will select questions which were answered by sending out of +town for books, and thus illustrate in addition the fact that libraries +administered on advanced principles help one another.</p> + +<p>A man came to me not long since and asked by what means he could +dissolve a certain gum which he mentioned. I had the United States +Dispensatory brought. The man did not find the answer wished for in that +work, but did find a reference to a volume of the <i>Pharmaceutical +Journal</i>. We did not have a set of that periodical; so I said that I +would send away to borrow the desired volume. I sent to the librarian of +the medical library in Boylston place, Boston, for it. He sent it to me +immediately by express. That volume contained some of the information +desired by the inquirer, but not all that he wanted. There was another +volume of the same periodical which he thought would contain the facts +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span>which he was in search of. I sent for that, promising to return both +volumes at once. The second volume was immediately received. That +contained just what was wanted.</p> + +<p>By doing work like this a librarian may do much to add to the prosperity +of the industries of a town.</p> + +<p>Another man came to me to inquire whether we had a catalog of a certain +southern society which purported to do hospital work.</p> + +<p>I found that we had no catalog of the society named. It appeared that +the applicant for information had been asked to contract to do $4000 +worth of work for a society of the name mentioned and wished to learn +something about its standing. I told him that if I were in his place I +should write to a gentleman in Washington, whose name I gave him, who +knows all about medical institutions and hospitals throughout the +country, to ask him about the society; I offered to write, myself, as +the applicant felt timid about writing.</p> + +<p>I did write and soon had the answer that the correspondent would advise +the Worcester man to be very cautious about entering into a contract, +for he knew nothing about the existence of such a society. I hope that I +helped to save a Worcester business man from loss on this occasion.</p> + +<p>Again, a boy who came into Worcester to school called at the library to +ask me what I could tell his brother about a school for instruction in +tanning leather in Freiberg, Saxony. Did it receive Americans? what was +the cost of attending its sessions? what was its curriculum? etc., were +questions asked.</p> + +<p>I had no pamphlet to give the required information, but suggested that +the Commissioner of Education at Washington be written to, to find out +what information could be found in the library of his office. I found +that it would be necessary for me to write the letter; so I wrote it. +Soon the answer came giving the information desired and stating the +address of the school. The answer was passed over to the applicant, with +the suggestion that if further information were desired he should write +to the officers of the school.</p> + +<p>I remember doing much to start in her studies a resident of Worcester +who has since become a distinguished Russian scholar, by helping her to +get a Russian-German dictionary from abroad and by borrowing Russian +books for her to read from Harvard College Library.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span></p><p>Three students of the Chinese language have received assistance at my +library, one a missionary at home on leave, the other two students under +the late Chinese professor of Harvard University, from dictionaries and +other books borrowed for their use.</p> + +<p>I have had occasion to hunt up books in the language of the Exquimaux +for the use of an investigator in Worcester. I could not find the books +in the libraries of Harvard University or Columbia College, and tried +the libraries of other centres of learning without success, when I +remembered that Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, the well-known Indian scholar +and historical student, had brought together a fine collection of +philological works in the Watkinson Library at Hartford, Connecticut. +The librarian of that library wrote me after a few days, saying that he +had the books and would send them at once. He apologized for not +despatching them before, saying that the library did not allow books to +be taken out. He had waited to consult the president. The president had +said that they must set aside the rule if Mr. Green and the library in +Worcester wanted the books, for it was evident that they were needed for +some important purpose. We got the books and they were used in the +preparation of a learned paper.</p> + +<p>Now, for closing illustrations, let me show you how libraries at great +distances help one another. I will choose the relations of the library +in Worcester to the Public Library of Denver, Colorado. Mr. Dana, the +librarian of that library, sent to me to borrow one of the publications +of the Browning Society of London. It was sent to him by registered mail +and returned, safely, in the same way.</p> + +<p>Next he wanted, for some student of mining, an extract from one of the +volumes of the <i>Comptes Rendus</i> of the French Academy. The extract was +copied from the volume and sent to him. There has since occurred the +following transaction. A gentleman in Chicago had written to Mr. Dana, +in Denver, to ask him whether he knew of a translation of the report of +a government railroad commission in Holland which had recently been +engaged in considering what kinds of paint are best to use in preserving +iron, and whether he could tell him where to find the results of certain +experiments which had been made in one of the bureaus of the U.S. Navy +Department. Mr. Dana passed along the question to me, knowing that I had +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span>often to answer questions of that kind. In order to find an answer to +the first question, I at once set a young man at work looking at the +indexes of the late volumes of the <i>Railroad and Engineering Journal</i>, +and soon an important article was unearthed giving the results of the +investigations of the Dutch commission. This piece of information was +sent to Denver. I then wrote to Mr. Henry C. Baird, the Philadelphia +publisher, to see if he knew of the publication of a translation of the +report. He wrote back that he did not know of the publication of such a +translation, but that there was a long article on paints useful in the +preservation of iron in one of the most recently issued volumes of +Spons's “Receipts.” He promised, however, to make further inquiries. So +he went to the rooms of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences and +inquired there what gentleman in the city was most likely to have the +information sought for. He was referred to some one connected with the +Pennsylvania Railroad Co., who told him that he was not aware that the +report had been translated, but referred the inquirer to an elaborate +article extending through several numbers of the well-known periodical, +<i>Iron</i>. Mr. Baird transmitted the information he had got to me and I +sent it and other pieces of information gained since my last letter to +the library of Denver. The information sent to Denver was sent to +Chicago. So by the aid of two far separated librarians a person in +Chicago, an intermediate city, distant from the homes of both, received +information which he desired through Denver, Worcester, and +Philadelphia. For an answer to his second question, this inquirer from +Chicago was referred to the Navy Department at Washington.</p> + +<p>A clergyman in Colorado Springs, and this is a final illustration, +applied to the librarian of the same public Library in Denver for an old +book by Goldwin Smith. He referred him to me. I knew him, having met him +on my way to California. To my surprise I found we did not own the book. +So I wrote to Mr. Winsor, the Librarian of Harvard University, and told +him that the applicant could be trusted and would make good use of the +information afforded him, and that he needed the book in preparing a +course of lectures which he was to give at once at Colorado College in +Colorado Springs. Then I asked Mr. Winsor if he felt at liberty to lend +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span>the book. The next thing I heard in regard to the matter, a letter came +from the gentleman in Colorado Springs thanking me for the aid rendered, +and saying that Mr. Winsor had sent the book and that it had reached him +just in time to use in preparing a lecture. The library in the United +States which was earliest in the field in doing the work of lending to +other libraries systematically and on a large scale, in so far as I +know, was that of the Surgeon-General's Office in Washington, long +administered so intelligently and with so keen an eye for usefulness by +Dr. John S. Billings.</p> + +<p>Now, how can libraries in towns of the size of North Brookfield become +bureaus of information?</p> + +<p>Let them approach as nearly as they can to the ideal of seeing to it +that everybody needing information gets it.</p> + +<p>The first thing to do is to let it be understood that a library desires +to have inquirers come to it for information, and that its librarian is +ready to take time to find out whether the library contains books which +will give the information desired.</p> + +<p>If it does not have the needed books, the librarian tries to think where +they can be had. Does anybody in town own them? If not, can they be had +from a library in a neighboring town?</p> + +<p>If these resources are not adequate, then let the librarian send to the +nearest large centre to borrow books from the library there to answer +the questions asked. Worcester would be the natural centre for North +Brookfield to send to.</p> + +<p>Individuals should not send to Worcester, but the librarian, having +exhausted resources at hand, should send for the books, the library +agreeing, of course, to make good damage and loss and pay the cost of +carriage. An out-of-town librarian does not know the individual users of +a library in a smaller town, but the librarian in that town does know +his constituency and for whom it is safe to borrow books. Libraries +should lend to one another, but the work of lending should be +systematic.</p> + +<p>As a member of the Free Public Library Commission of Massachusetts, I +wish to say that the commission likes to come into close contact with +the libraries of the state, and that the smaller libraries may from time +to time find it helpful to put questions to its chairman at the state +house in Boston, in person, through a representative, or by letter, +about library administration.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span></p><p>People are breaking away from their leaders to-day. There is an +immense amount of crude thought and imperfect information in every +community. I verily believe that not least among the instrumentalities +by which thought may be matured and knowledge completed are public +libraries when administered as bureaus of information by accomplished +and earnest librarians, who will act as sympathetic friends and advisers +to inquirers and help them to look at all sides of questions and form +well-grounded judgments.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LIBRARY_FRIEND" id="THE_LIBRARY_FRIEND"></a>THE LIBRARY FRIEND</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Not all the information required of the Public Library is +asked by those engaged in laboratory research or by experts +in commerce and industry. Much of it is homely stuff, +greatly desired and more or less easy to find. Much of it +can be given offhand by the capable reference assistant, who +thereby becomes what the writer of this article calls a +“library friend” to her neighborhood.</p> + +<p>Miss Winifred Louise Taylor was born in Freeport, Ill., Feb. +24, 1846. In 1874 she organized the first circulating +library in Freeport and acted as librarian for twelve years. +It was eventually incorporated in the Freeport Public +Library. In 1900-01, Miss Taylor was in charge of the +information desk at the Pratt Institute Free Library, +Brooklyn. For many years she gave much of her time to work +in the prisons, and in 1914 she published “The Man Behind +the Bars,” describing some of this work.</p></div> + + +<p>“The library friend” is the term that seems best to apply to that +member of the modern library's staff whose work is a development of the +service ordinarily rendered through the “information desk.” +Information-desk service as usually conceived, it is not; for the +library friend deals with the tendencies, tastes, and aspirations of +readers as much as if not more than with the definite question and +answer respecting facts. The office indeed may be regarded as finding +its first expression in the circulating libraries maintained by +subscription in many of the smaller cities twenty-five years and more +ago, when the free public library of to-day was comparatively rare. In +those libraries every subscriber knew the librarian, and the librarian +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>was personally acquainted with every book on the shelves. To bring the +books and readers into congenial relationship was the business and +usually the pleasure of the librarian. The personal element was the +heart from which the circulation of the books radiated—if the presiding +personality lacked vitality and enthusiasm the library was a failure.</p> + +<p>With the era of the democratic free libraries, with their more rapid +growth, with their doors open to men, women and children of all classes, +the human element, the personal relation of librarian to the reader +suffered a gradual eclipse, until, in some libraries more perfectly +developed on the technical side, the personal equation vanished +altogether. The library became a great machine, into which a number was +dropped, and out of which a book was dropped like corn from the hopper. +We all know how formidable this mechanism is to those unaccustomed to +modern library methods. To the uninitiated the card catalog is an +abomination, an unsolved problem, a delusion and a snare. The boy who is +interested in athletics, fumbling over the card catalog in Micawber-like +fashion, hits upon the title “Morning and evening exercises”; he +straight away hands in the number thinking he has found a prize. It is +discouraging and depressing when the machine shoots out to him a volume +of devotional compilations. He has tried his luck and it has failed, and +as he was reminded only last week that a book cannot be exchanged the +same day on which it is drawn out he retires with “Morning and evening +exercises,” a sadder, but not a wiser boy. It is in accord, therefore, +with the process of library evolution that a closer personal relation +between reader and librarian should be developed through some such +medium as is here outlined under the designation “the library friend.”</p> + +<p>One of the library problems just now is this: given on the one side +100,000 books and on the other 50,000 people. How is each individual to +be brought into contact with the particular book that he wants? Where +open shelves are practicable a great advantage—to the discriminating +reader, an inestimable advantage, is gained; but the majority of +librarians have not room to throw any department open to the public; and +even among open shelves the person whose judgment of books is wholly +untrained often misses what he is looking for.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span></p><p>The assistance given by the reference room is invaluable. There no one +goes away unsatisfied; but the reference room reaches only those in +pursuit of a definite subject. Beyond its range is the drifting, aimless +reader, the searcher after something he knows not what. The dull, the +diffident, the beginners in the use of libraries, those who read purely +for amusement and those who want the new books—new spelled with a +capital n and book with a small b—old persons, those whose eyesight is +defective and whose glasses strike the card catalog at the wrong angle, +foreigners who use English with difficulty and diffidence—all these +gather together in the delivery room at once, and efficient as the +assistant may be—and sometimes they effect miracles—it is impossible +for them to give the different individuals the help each one needs. In +the libraries where the human element is most withdrawn the case of +these people is hard.</p> + +<p>To bring the personal relation again into the library and to develop it +with the growth of the needs of the public, with this end in view, a +number of libraries have introduced the information desk. By common +consent, perhaps in the eternal fitness of things, this position so far +seems to have been relegated to woman.</p> + +<p>“She is a reading lady, and far gone in the pleasures of friendship.” +So wrote Sir Roger De Coverley of the object of his affections, and no +one could more felicitously describe two of the qualifications for the +one presiding at the information desk. A reading lady she must be; and +it is no less important that she be far gone in friendship for the +public. To study their needs; to be receptive as wax to their impress, +and responsive with heart and soul as well as with mind. This all around +sympathetic power is the fundamental requisite of true service in this +position. She may be a person of many words or of few; a good listener +she must be. Success depends less upon temperament or gifts than upon an +attitude of inward receptivity and outgoing friendliness—the attitude +that radiates a home-like atmosphere and insensibly sets the stranger at +ease. Emerson quaintly described certain faces as “decorated with +invitation.” This style of decoration will be permanently in fashion in +this position if the invitation from the heart is a magnet strong enough +to draw within its circle those who are in need of help. It is most +necessary, also, that a certain poise be preserved. To be ready but not +over anxious to assist; to be responsive but not intrusive; to be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span>suggestive but never insistent; to recommend books without forcing one's +own literary tastes or standards upon others; while helping new comers, +to seek to make them independent in their use of the library instead of +leading them to rely on some one else to do the work and use all the +judgement for them, all this requires a nice adjustment of balances. And +it is well to have on hand the tact which is the art of lessening social +friction, and the sense of humor so invaluable as a lubricator in human +relations. When any one comes to the information desk with a grievance, +irritated, if not angry, to be met with simple good nature, and not to +be taken too seriously, and yet to find instant readiness to adjust the +cause of annoyance if possible, soon dissipates the feeling of +antagonism or injury. Such encounters ought not to tax one's patience. +They sometimes turn out to be rather interesting.</p> + +<p>Nor need stupidity tax one's patience. What more pathetic than the +isolation of one who is slow to perceive and to grasp? It is a terrible +handicap. To rescue the dull from their dullness should be the first +impulse, and shallow is the sympathy that does not reach out to such +instinctively. It is not enough to be able also to unlock the resources +of the individual.</p> + +<p>People come to libraries from all sorts of homes. To the man or woman +living in the midst of ugly and sordid surroundings, where the days are +crowded with drudgery, the weekly visit to the library becomes a social +event; it is a lift into a fresh atmosphere, into another plane of life. +A passing greeting from the information desk gives a sense of welcome +and of relationship to the reading public. Five or ten minutes of +cordial contact, a brief conversation with one unrelated to their world +of worries, is a refreshing experience. To be recognized as a thinking, +reading being, with opinions about books, instead of a human machine for +cooking, scrubbing and sewing, or money-getting, puts new life into one.</p> + +<p>But this social side of the work of the information desk must rest on +the solid foundation of practical qualifications. One must possess the +knowledge of a wide range of books, the power of concentration on the +one person or the one subject in hand, and the mental alertness that +perceives when another person is waiting. The more perfect the +understanding of the system of classification of the books and of all +the technical side of library work, the more effective will be the +service at the information desk. There the resources of the library +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span>should be at command, and should be reached rapidly and accurately. When +any imaginable or unimaginable question may be asked at any moment, from +“May I use your pencil?” up through the whole range of history, art, +literature, politics, science or religion, one must know the ground +thoroughly in order to meet these demands. Topics requiring special +research are passed on to the reference room, but the inquirer should be +put on the right track when he wants but a single book from the delivery +room.</p> + +<p>The new-comer must be instructed in intelligent use of the catalogs and +helped towards self-reliance from the start. The young people must be +assisted in making out their first lists, and these lists should +represent a variety of authors, in order that the author who pleases can +be followed up independently through the card catalogs. A well selected +first list for boys or girls should place at their command a range of +50, 60, or 100 books. It is surprising how few writers are known to the +average boy or girl who comes to the public library for fiction. The +field of the boy is often bounded by Alger, Ellis, Optic, and Henty, +while the girls may know only Sophie May and Miss Olcott. Beyond are +unknown seas. One of the early developments at the information desk will +be carefully-selected lists of books for boys and girls. They grow under +one's hand as the young people in turn recommend additions. This sense +of co-operation wins the confidence of those who are quick to suspect +and ward off any lurking desire for their improvement on the part of the +library. Notwithstanding that the starting point must always be the +taste and inclination of the reader, it is a simple matter to keep the +pressure in the right direction. Carefully-selected fiction lists for +older readers also meet a want. Such lists do not include the works of +the standard, voluminous writers known to every one. Into them are +gathered some of the old favorites of a generation ago, or later novels +which may have happened to miss fame and yet possess an abiding charm +and the indispensable element of interest. There are hundreds of such +books, perennially delightful, novels just now submerged under the +continually rising tide of new fiction. It is a piece of pure good +fortune for the reader who turns in despair from the pursuit of “David +Harum,” “Eben Holden,” or “Janice Meredith,” to find a fresh range of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span>unheard-of novels of equal or more than equal interest. This enlargement +of their circle of congenial authors is welcomed with every grateful +appreciation. A list of good short stories is another resource, and one +of cheerful books for invalids; stories that are neither morbid nor +tragic. Young working men who can come to the library only at evening +are glad of assistance in selecting books related to their work and they +are quick to respond to any evidence of sympathetic interest in their +pursuit. Young girls employed during the day who wish to make up for the +lack of opportunities in school are eager and grateful for advice in +outlining courses of reading and study; those studying music are glad of +guidance into the more interesting pathways of musical literature, or it +may be the amateur in some branch of art who reveals a cherished +ambition in the hope of obtaining help in this direction, and +delightfully friendly relations spring into being while these various +lists are under way.</p> + +<p>Often the chance encounter, the mere passing remark, brings the happy +inspiration as to just the right books, as when one catches a glimpse of +a deep enthusiasm for nature surviving in the breast of a man through +fifty years spent between city walls. To introduce him to Richard +Jeffries, most intense, nearest to nature's spirit, and least known of +nature's lovers, is to enrich the remaining years of this man's life.</p> + +<p>All who go to the library go as seekers. Some are seeking merely +entertainment, others are searching for knowledge, but many are +struggling with the deep problems that beset us all, perhaps in moral or +spiritual darkness, and looking only for light. If one's heart is with +the people, nothing so quickens perception as sympathy. One notes the +trend of the reading of the individual, and often what he is seeking is +intuitively divined. Perhaps the simple remark, “If you can tell me just +what you want I may be able to find it for you,” results in a frank +statement of the difficulty, or an outburst of sudden confidence is +given from the impulse that makes it often easier to confide in a +stranger than in a relative. And it counts for a good deal just then if +the one at the information desk knows what writer has felt and thought +most deeply and has written most clearly and helpfully on that subject. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>Few are the needs of the human heart or mind that are really beyond the +reach of help from books—books in which we find the reflection of our +every mood, the expression in our inmost aspiration, the conservation of +the feeling, the experience and the wisdom of the race.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTROL_AND_GUIDANCE_OF_READING" id="CONTROL_AND_GUIDANCE_OF_READING"></a>CONTROL AND GUIDANCE OF READING</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Border regions are those of greatest interest, for they are +regions of contact and therefore places where things happen. +This is a border region between the field of the librarian +and that of the teacher. Its activities are the sole +justification for the name “library teacher” bestowed upon +assistants in many of the homelier city districts. Here the +librarian must tread warily. He can not push or pull; he +must effect what he desires by making it attractive to the +reader. In the five following papers this function is +somewhat elaborated—a very modern phase of library work and +one most nearly concerned with its socialization.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PROBABLE_INTELLECTUAL_AND_MORAL_OUTCOME_OF_THE_RAPID_INCREASE_OF_PUBLIC" id="PROBABLE_INTELLECTUAL_AND_MORAL_OUTCOME_OF_THE_RAPID_INCREASE_OF_PUBLIC"></a>PROBABLE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL OUTCOME OF THE RAPID INCREASE OF PUBLIC +LIBRARIES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A paper by Rev. Dr. Pierce, then editor of <i>Zion's Herald</i>, +a Methodist publication, read at the Lake George Conference +of the American Library Association in 1885. Notably free +from the caution and hesitancy then often appearing in the +public utterances of the clergy regarding popular libraries, +and full of belief that their power of guidance would make +them “powerful elements of culture.”</p> + +<p>Bradford Kinney Pierce was born in Royalton, Vt., February +3, 1819, and graduated at Wesleyan University in 1841. +Entering the Methodist Episcopal ministry, he was also +occupied for many years as teacher and editor, being agent +of the Sunday School Union in 1845-56, editing <i>Zion's +Herald</i> in 1872-88 and then serving as librarian of the Free +Library at Newton, Mass., in addition to his other duties, +until his death, April 19, 1889. He has been called “the +Nestor of New England Methodism.”</p></div> + + +<p>The free public library is now becoming the favorite posthumous +beneficiary of our men of wealth. Heretofore it has hardly been esteemed +respectable in the vicinity of Boston for a man of fortune to die +without leaving a generous bequest to Harvard College or to the +Massachusetts General Hospital. The city and town library is now +beginning to share liberally in these testamentary benefactions. The +college requires too considerable a sum in our days to be often +adequately endowed by the estate of one patron, but the library can be +established and be quite amply appointed by the accumulation of one +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>public-spirited citizen, and be made to become his most-honored and +permanent memorial. Every town of any size in our New England and +Northern States either has, or will soon have, one of these people's +universities, through the individual gift of a generous citizen, or by +public establishment.</p> + +<p>This general gathering of large bodies of books in all our principal +towns, opened freely to all ages, can but produce a manifest influence +for good or evil in the community. The familiar and forcible response to +the objection made to the establishment of so many small colleges in the +land, rather than securing their consecration and abundant endowment and +appointment in a few centres, is that the “fresh-water institution,” so +called, brings the opportunities for a liberal culture near to thousands +who could not otherwise be prompted to make the incident sacrifices to +secure an advanced education. The immediate presence itself of the +institution is an inspiration to study. So the presence of the numerous +libraries, with their wide-open doors to all, and their attractive +shelves, becomes a powerful incitement to those who otherwise would +hardly think of seeking enjoyment or profit in reading. The statistics +of these city and town libraries fully confirm this <i>à-priori</i> +presumption as to their influence in awakening and cultivating an +interest in books among all classes. And this influence of books upon a +reading community is very powerful. It is more subtle than human +companionship. The latter strongly affects and moulds the character; but +books reach us at lower depths. They inspire us more profoundly; they +touch our whole being, intellect, heart, and executive purpose; they +imperceptibly create or modify our ethical standards; they become our +models of life and conduct; they lay hold of our highest and most sacred +sentiments and color our views of the life beyond.</p> + +<p>It can but be, where the circulation of these volumes reaches nearly +all our families and enters into the thoughts and emotions of every day +of the year, that manifest results for the better or the worse will +follow. Many thoughtful persons have been honestly anxious in reference +to the result of the experiment. The public press has sent out its +serious forebodings from the pens of those who have taken depressing +views of the matter, and alarming tracts have been published, giving +painful criticisms upon the contents of certain libraries, the nature of +special volumes found upon their shelves, and the amount of circulation +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span>of works of fiction of not the most elevating, or even wholesome, +character. To all this we answer that these criticisms, whether well +founded or not, have not been without their influence in calling +attention to the most intelligent of our institutions. Their officers +are cultured gentlemen and ladies, clearly apprehending the relation of +the library to the intellectual and moral development of the community +and its true office in administering to the improvement, as well as +enjoyment, of its patrons. It is more and more becoming an educating +rather than a simply entertaining institution. It is every day becoming +more widely recognized that it is not intended to be a competitor with +the circulating library, but rather an antagonist, winning the patrons +of the latter to the reading and study of a higher order of literature. +While the majority of library managers do not take the extreme view that +has been strongly advocated by some quite intelligent library trustees, +that the public funds should not be used for the purchase of fiction, +which may be considered an intellectual luxury, but only for improving +and educating literature, they do seek to carefully sift the lighter +issues of the press, securing the best and the purest of this character. +They also study at the same time, through their accomplished officers +and assistants, in the use of the local press, through the cooperation +of the teachers of the schools and the leaders of public opinion, with +the aid of parents, to awaken especially in the minds of the young +people a taste for regular and substantial courses of reading in the +various departments of science, history, and <i>belles-lettres</i>. The +success that has attended these efforts is full of encouragement. Our +superintendents and librarians do not simply remain at their desks, or +stand behind their tables to respond to the call for books, but make +themselves felt in the community, aiding in the investigations of +students, assisting in the search for authorities, facts, and +illustrations, suggesting plans for interesting the youthful readers in +scientific or literary studies, and calling attention to the rich +accumulations upon the library shelves. The annual reports of these +institutions are constantly showing improvement in the character of the +reading in their several communities,—a gradual decrease in the lighter +works, and an increase in the call for books of art and science, of +travel and biography, of poetry and philosophy. A significant falling +off in the number of books taken from the library, in many places, is +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span>noticed, while the patronage of the library is manifestly increased. The +works that are now selected are substantial, requiring thought and time +in reading. They cannot be hurried over in a day like the light novel, +and hence the decrease in the number of volumes read is a most +gratifying evidence of improvement in the quality of the reading.</p> + +<p>The free library is becoming the effectual antagonist, also, of the +superficial news and story papers. Their “name is legion.” They assault +the eye with their staring illustrations, and tempt the reader by their +cheapness. Especially at the close of the week, supplies of this trash, +with periodical sheets of a little higher order, but still superficial, +have been heretofore laid in for the hours of respite from labor on the +Sabbath. This light, disconnected, desultory reading, carried on through +all the unoccupied hours of the week, while it secures a smattering of +information, can but be of a very vicious intellectual tendency, not to +speak of its moral influence. The free library and its reading-room +offer without expense the perusal of the best periodical literature in +the land, and permit and tempt their patrons to secure, for the +unemployed hours of the approaching Sabbath, works of deep interest and +of an improving character.</p> + +<p>We are confident that this multiplication of well-selected and +constantly growing collections of standard and current literature is +full of promise of good, and, as generally managed among us, is attended +with small and easily corrected evils. It is inspiring the establishment +of literary and scientific clubs, awakening the ambition and inventive +powers of our mechanics, encouraging a liberal and cultivating course of +reading among our school students, and affording an immeasurable amount +of pure and refining enjoyment throughout the community. We look upon it +as one of the significant and powerful elements of a higher and general +culture among the people, and prophetic of far greater and better fruits +in the future.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="POSSIBILITIES_OF_PUBLIC_LIBRARIES_IN_MANUFACTURING_COMMUNITIES" id="POSSIBILITIES_OF_PUBLIC_LIBRARIES_IN_MANUFACTURING_COMMUNITIES"></a>POSSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN MANUFACTURING COMMUNITIES</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>“A love of reading as a keynote to broader culture,” and how +the librarian may guide reading by stimulating that love—a +paper by Mrs. Sanders of the Pawtucket Public Library (long +lovingly known among librarians as “Mawtucket of +Pawtucket”).</p> + +<p>Minerva Amanda Sanders was born in Providence, R.I., Feb. 1, +1837. About 1876 she became librarian of the subscription +library in Pawtucket, R.I., organized in 1852, which +preceded the present free library; and when about six months +later it was turned over to the town, she continued in +charge, serving until her death, March 20, 1912. Mrs. +Sanders did notable pioneer work in her profession, +especially in the adoption of free access to books and in +work with children. This paper was read at the Thousand +Islands Conference of the American Library Association in +1887.</p></div> + + +<p>Sir John Herschel, in an address to the working people of Windsor and +Eton upon the occasion of opening a public library for their use in +1839, said:—</p> + +<p>“If I were to pray for a taste, which should stand me in stead under +every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and +cheerfulness to me through life, and as a shield against its ills +however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a +taste for reading.</p> + +<p>“Give a man this taste and a means of gratifying it, and you can hardly +fail of making a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands a +most perverse selection of books.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span></p><p>“You place him in contact with the best society in every period of +history; with the wisest, the wittiest, with the tenderest, the bravest, +and the purest characters who have adorned humanity.</p> + +<p>“You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The +world has been created for him. It is hardly possible but the character +should take a higher and better tone from the constant habit of +associating in thought with a class of thinkers, to say the least of it, +above the average of humanity.</p> + +<p>“It is morally impossible but that the manners should take a tinge of +good breeding and civilization from having constantly before one's eyes +the way in which the best-bred and the best-informed men have talked and +conducted themselves in their intercourse with each other.</p> + +<p>“There is a gentle but perfectly irresistible coercion in a habit of +reading well directed, over the whole tenor of a man's character and +conduct, which is not the less effectual because it is really the last +thing he dreams of.</p> + +<p>“It cannot, in short, be better summed up than in these few words: It +civilizes the conduct of men, and suffers them not to remain +barbarians.”</p> + +<p>Recognizing this love of reading as the keynote to broader culture and a +higher standard of morals, one by one, during the last half-century, +libraries have been thrown open to the public that were before only +accessible to the scholar (and often grudgingly even to him) and new +libraries established, till, in every community, a free public library +is as much a necessity to-day as its churches or its schools.</p> + +<p>Even in the troublous days of the Revolution our forefathers were +awaking to this demand, for in 1776 there were 29 “partially public +libraries in the colonies”; in 1800 there were 49; in 1876 the number +had increased to over 3,000; while to-day we number between 5,000 and +6,000 public libraries, comprising a total of over 20,000,000 volumes.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span></p><p>The influence of a public library is contingent upon many +circumstances—its community, its finances, and largely upon its +management. Possibilities which may be developed in one library, in +another remain unnoticed; while something of equal importance is made of +incalculable benefit to its own community. Thus, though working on a +general principle, each library independently works out the problem of +the greatest good to the greatest number of its own patrons. Happily, +therefore, there is no cause for the rivalry and jealousies that disturb +the harmony of so many fraternities.</p> + +<p>It is my pleasure and privilege to live in a manufacturing community; to +watch the development of practical ideas; to follow the progress of +mechanical improvement, and witness with pride their results, for the +distinctive feature of Pawtucket is the variety of its industries.</p> + +<p>We remember with pride our parentage and the honor due to it; but surely +when Samuel Slater, after a weary time of toil and discouragement, +perfected the first power machinery for cotton spinning in this country, +and with a pardonable pride saw it in successful operation in the first +bona fide cotton mill in the United States, which still stands in the +centre of our city—(I speak with authority though I am fully aware that +this is a case parallel to the “Seven Grecian cities striving for Homer +dead.”)—When, as I said, this was accomplished in 1791, there was no +power of the imagination that could have foreseen the change from the +little mill village on the Blackstone River, with its few hundred +inhabitants, to the present city of 25,000, 13,000 of whom are engaged +in industrial pursuits, its 70 schools, its 600 manufacturing +establishments, embracing the greatest variety of industries.</p> + +<p>But Pawtucket is only one of many thriving manufacturing communities.</p> + +<p>Waltham, Mass., the adoptive parent of the American Watch Co., which had +in 1865 a population of but 7,000, now numbers over 16,000, with not +less than 7,000 employés, 2,500 of whom alone are employed by the +American Watch Co.</p> + +<p>Lowell, Mass., according to the census of 1883, had a population of +66,000, one third of whom were employed in its 300 manufactories.</p> + +<p>Manchester, N.H., with a population of 40,000, employs 15,000 persons in +its 102 manufactories.</p> + +<p>And so I might go on enumerating special statistics, but these are +simply representative communities. It is sufficient for my purpose to +say that there are in the United States about 254,000 manufacturing +establishments, employing nearly 3,000,000 persons, at an average wage +of $1.15 per working day.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span></p><p>It is to this great class that we look for much of the prosperity of +our country; for we find that the value of the product of the +manufactures of the United States for the last ten years was +$5,400,000,000.</p> + +<p>It is also an important factor in our government, for the pride and +principle of our country is “Vox populi, vox Dei.”</p> + +<p>In these days when skilled labor is at a premium, when issues are +constantly arising requiring the best legislative ability, and the +demand for both is far greater than the supply, how are we to meet it? +The reply comes from far and near, “Educate the people.” Yes, educate +the people! for they are very ready to be educated, many of them +striving with a self-denial known only to themselves to give to their +children the education that was denied them; our schools of to-day are +showing good work from the sons and daughters of these parents, and its +influence is blessing their homes.</p> + +<p>But many are denied that privilege, and cannot afford to spare their +children's wages for even the three months covering the compulsory law +of education.</p> + +<p>At the average wage a private library though small is unattainable; a +newspaper may be a luxury indulged in. Where, then, is the royal road to +learning? We do not hesitate to say the free public library is that +long-sought highway. Then open wide the doors; let us stock our shelves +with the best mechanical and scientific works; see that each craft is +especially represented; supply the works on the leading questions of the +day, also works pertaining to the civil government. In this we must not +be partisan; these subjects must be considered in all their bearings, +and in the broadest manner.</p> + +<p>The biographies of working men who have attained honor by their +practical worth and perserverance either in mechanical, civil, or +military service must have a prominent place; history and travel will +receive their share of attention; while we will not forget that the +working man and woman must have some amusement and recreation, and that +“strong meat” is not always desirable; our fiction department must be +supplied with all that is bright, fresh, inspiring, and helpful, but +nothing that will create a craving for greater stimulant, or tend in the +least degree to weaken the moral character; for the office of a public +library is to develop to its fullest capacity the best powers of a +community. The extent of such development must depend largely upon the +manner of its use.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span></p><p>Believing that the first entrance into a library should bring with it +that most delightful sensation, the companionship of books, we have at +our own library, contrary to the custom which now obtains, thrown open +our shelves to the public, with the title and name of author plainly +printed on each volume so that literally “he who runs may read.”</p> + +<p>An old man said to me a few days since: “I get little time for reading +now, but I love to come in and look at the books; they bring to mind +many a thing that I read long ago, and I carry it with me all the day +through; 'tis an education just to be with them.” You say, How can this +be done without loss of books?</p> + +<p>Ten years of experience has taught us that there is a point of honor in +these working people in this regard, with which we must come in contact +to fully appreciate; we have lost no more books with our open system +than other libraries with their closed shelves.</p> + +<p>Understanding fully the value of a catalogue, especially a closely +classified one, to the scholar; to an uneducated man it is a labyrinth +through which he gropes till in despair he either lays it aside or +appeals for help. What is a catalogue to a man who asks for “a book on +birds,” and when we direct an attendant to give him a certain work on +ornithology, quickly replies, “'Tis not that I want; 'tis a book on +birds;” or the girl who wants an “adequate book” to furbish up her +society manners. Not one in ten persons comes to a library with a +definite object.</p> + +<p>Roaming at will among the books, the sight of Blaikie's “How to get +strong” has been the first step toward the recovery of health otherwise +lost; John B. Gough's “Darkness and daylight” has brought in the same +way happiness to a wretched household; while Andrew Carnegie's +“Triumphant Democracy” has awakened in more than one citizen an interest +and pride in his native or adopted country heretofore unknown.</p> + +<p>There are the contents of the shelves to select from; no fear of any one +leaving the library without a book; whereas, after presenting from the +catalogue a list of books to be returned as “not in,” he either “hasn't +time,” or “will make no further trouble,” and passes out unsatisfied.</p> + +<p>I have already said that a possibility in one community may be +impracticable in another; with us this open system has proved an +unqualified success.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span></p><p>A community of this class is not aggressive; on the contrary they are +in a library rather shy. They should be met with prompt service, and the +courtesy of the drawing-room. Make them welcome as they enter the +library; it is their own; help them to cultivate a personal pride in it; +ascertain their tastes, (many of them will surprise us), and call their +attention to such works as will gratify them, gradually leading them to +higher standards when it is necessary.</p> + +<p>If they are seeking special subjects and need our help, let us exhaust +our references. To “give to him that asketh” and “the Lord loveth a +cheerful giver” should be a librarian's watchword.</p> + +<p>What does it matter if half of the pleasures, and all of the ills of our +patrons be poured into our ears? It only brings us nearer to them, and +shows us how to be more helpful, and widens the influence of our work.</p> + +<p>'Tis a wise community that enables its trustees to give to their +librarian sufficient clerical assistance to allow him to mingle with the +people, to learn their habits and tastes, to direct their reading +(especially of the young), and to assist them in their researches; for +we all know that peculiarly inherent weakness of human nature, to seek +for information from the highest source, and to be better satisfied, +even though the same help may be rendered us by a subordinate.</p> + +<p>The reading-room in connection with a public library may be made an +important agent in the education of a community, especially of its young +men and children.</p> + +<p>After a day of hard work, what are the homes to which many of these +young men return? The accommodations of a cheap boarding-house, which +means a room generally occupied by two or more, with barely furniture +for necessity to say nothing of comfort.</p> + +<p>What inducement has he to spend his evenings at home? Where, then, will +he go? Into the street, to drift into the place offering the most +attraction for the least money; alas! too often at the bitter cost of +misery to himself and sorrow for his friends hereafter.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span></p><p>This, then is our work, to make our reading-rooms so attractive that +they will be drawn hither. Have them well lighted, well heated and +ventilated, supplied with the daily papers of our own and other cities, +also the current magazines. We cannot afford to be niggardly in this +work. Let us supply our tables with illustrated mechanical and art +works, also the best literature of the day. The more freedom that we can +give, the better the results. The young man will pass in and out at his +pleasure, spending an hour or two with whatever pleases him best, till +the reading-room largely takes the place of home, and reading becomes a +part of his daily existence, the beneficent effect of which he will +carry through life.</p> + +<p>There are lying on our tables week after week by actual count 600 +papers, magazines, and books, from “Baby Days” to “The Cathedrals of the +World,” free to the public. This has ceased to be an experiment, for +during the ten years our losses have not amounted to $10; and there are +days when nearly if not quite 500 persons sit at our tables.</p> + +<p>The greater possibilities, however, are with our children, the future +parents and guardians of our commonwealth. What are we doing for them as +public libraries, as educators? Working hand in hand with the schools +faithfully and well, as shown by the valuable and interesting reports +published in the Library journal, without which we would know as little +of the library work outside our own as we would know of the outside +world without our newspaper. Long may it live!</p> + +<p>Does our responsibility rest here? What of the multitude of waifs worse +than homeless, without restraining or guiding influence, to be thrown +into the community to swell the numbers of paupers and criminals, many +of whom, yes, the majority of whom, have the same gentle instincts and +latent ability as our own little ones so tenderly nurtured.</p> + +<p>We may say this is the work of charitable institutions and humane +societies; not so; this is essentially our work. We call ourselves +educators, and have the honor to be recognized as such; the work of a +public library is to teach, to elevate, to ennoble, there is no limit to +its possible influence.</p> + +<p>Must we wait, then, until our children (for they are all ours as a +community) are fourteen years of age or upwards before we begin to teach +them the first principles of right living, of mental growth, of love to +their neighbor?</p> + +<p>We maintain that we cannot begin too early, and that this is a part of +library work from which we get the greatest percentage of reward. Again +I ask, What are we doing for these children, the future pride or +dishonor of our communities?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span></p><p>Brockton, Mass., has a reading-room to which children are admitted, and +which they are encouraged to visit, so well patronized that it will soon +double its seating capacity.</p> + +<p>Waltham, Mass., has taken a step in the right direction. The trustees of +the public library have supplied two tables in their waiting room with +Wide awake and St. Nicholas for the children.</p> + +<p>Lowell, Mass., admits children during the day, and supplies them with +juvenile magazines. Manchester, N.H., admits children to the +reading-room; but unfortunately, from various causes, they are unable to +offer the necessary attractions, and few visit it.</p> + +<p>Newport, R.I., can only furnish St. Nicholas for want of money, but +children may come and go at their pleasure.</p> + +<p>Olneyville, R.I., is offering every inducement that their means will +allow to draw children to their reading-room; and to interest and +instruct them seems to be the object of those in charge.</p> + +<p>Willimantic, Conn., admits children at the age of 12 years.</p> + +<p>Somerville, Mass., supplies juvenile magazines, and has no limit to age.</p> + +<p>Springfield, Mass., also admits children at all ages.</p> + +<p>The Boston Public Library, the parent of the public libraries of New +England, true to its paternal instinct, begins to exert its influence +over the children at the earliest years.</p> + +<p>There are doubtless others from whom we would be glad to hear, but I +confess that, after visiting and inquiring among public libraries +concerning this work, I became disheartened and ceased investigation, +for the popular verdict seems to be “Children and Dogs not allowed.”</p> + +<p>With our experience in this work with the children since the opening of +our library in 1876, and knowing the possibilities only waiting for +development, I am emboldened to speak earnestly.</p> + +<p>Let us gather the children in; give “milk for babies,” in the +illustrated books which they may understand though they cannot read; +juvenile magazines and literature of a healthy nature to counteract the +pernicious trash that is flooding our communities.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span></p><p>It is only necessary to refer you to the specimens of flash literature +which our boys have relinquished to us, with pale faces and trembling +hands, after reading from the scrapbook here on exhibition the cuttings +from the newspapers of the day showing the bad influence of the dime +novel. It tells its own story far better than I can tell it, and the one +in whose mind this great remedial agent originated is daily blest in +seeing the good results of his experiment.</p> + +<p>Help the children to begin early to understand that even they are of use +in a community; awaken their pride and ambition in the right direction, +and their future is assured.</p> + +<p>If there are those who doubt the practicability of this work, and, like +Hosea Bigelow, would</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Give more for one live bobolink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than a square mile of larks in printer's ink,”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>come and see our “Flower Band,” numbering 200 children, gathered from +the little girls and boys who frequent our library and reading-room, +from five years of age to fourteen; from the little fellow who brings +three wilted daisies, or a rose without a stem, to the dainty miss with +a bouquet from the greenhouse.</p> + +<p>Their badges signify a pledge to bring flowers once a week (if +possible), and to respond to a call to distribute them in any place +where they will add a bit of brightness to a shadowed household; also to +seek out such homes and report them. Several names have been already +stricken from our list, of those who have died leaving a blessing for +these little missionaries.</p> + +<p>The influence of this work upon the children and the community cannot be +told. It must be seen to be appreciated.</p> + +<p>I have endeavored to show that upon the influence of the public library +working in harmony with the spirit of the churches and the schools, with +the single object of the highest welfare of the people, depends much of +the prosperity, morality, and culture of our industrial communities—I +might also say of our country; but when we consider that there are less +than 6,000 public libraries in the United States, are we not tempted to +say in the words of old, “What are they among so many?”</p> + +<p>But let us remember that the same spirit that gave power to feed the +multitude from the “five loaves and fishes” still lives in the hearts of +men to animate them to good works, as shown by Messrs. Ames, Hail, +Pratt, Carnegie, Osterhout, Newberry, and a host of others whose names +are yet to be engraved as public benefactors on the tablets of public +libraries.</p> + +<p>May God speed the work!</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PRESIDENTIAL_ADDRESS_OF_JOSEPH_N_LARNED" id="PRESIDENTIAL_ADDRESS_OF_JOSEPH_N_LARNED"></a>PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS OF JOSEPH N. LARNED</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The need of stronger forces in popular education—the +failure of the press—the library's opportunity, as it +appeared to a scholarly librarian of the so-called “old +school” in 1894.</p> + +<p>Joseph Nelson Larned was born in Chatham, Ontario, May 11, +1836, and was educated in the public schools of Buffalo, +N.Y. He served on the editorial staff of the Buffalo +<i>Express</i> in 1859-72, was superintendent of education in +Buffalo in 1872-73 and superintendent of the Buffalo Library +from 1877 until it became the Public Library in 1897, after +which he devoted himself to literature until his death in +1913. His best known work is his History for Ready Reference +and Topical Reading. He was president of the A.L.A. in +1893-94.</p></div> + + +<p>It was my misfortune to be absent from the meeting at which you did me +the honor to elect me to this place, and I had no opportunity, either to +give my advice against that action, or to thank you for the distinction +with which it clothes me. The advice I would have given is now belated; +but my thanks have lost no warmth by the delay, and I pray you to accept +them with belief in their sincerity. At the same time I shall venture to +draw from the circumstances a certain claim upon your generosity. If it +happens to me to be tripped in some of these tangles of procedure which, +in such meetings as this, await the stumbling feet of an untrained +presiding officer, be good enough to remember the warning I would have +given you if I had had the opportunity.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span></p><p>We are gathered for the sixteenth meeting of the American Library +Association, in the eighteenth year of its existence. Our league of the +libraries is young; its history is unpretentious; but it is the history +of a movement of higher importance to the world that many others that +have marched with trumpets, and drums. Eighteen years ago, the +conception of the Library militant, of the Library as a moving force in +the world, of the Librarian as a missionary of literature, was one which +a few men only had grasped; but with which those few had already begun +the doing of a revolutionary work. To-day such ideals are being realized +in most corners of the American republic. The last generation, and the +generations before the last, were satisfied with the school as an agent +of popular education. In our time we have brought the library to the +help of the school, and the world is just opening its eyes to perceive +the enormous value of the reinforcement that is gained from this new +power.</p> + +<p>And the discovery has come none too soon; for a desperate need of more +and stronger forces in the work of popular education is pressing on us. +If we reflect on the social conditions of the present day, and review a +little the working of the ferments in civilized society during a few +years last past, we shall marvel, I think, at the timeliness of the +movement which brings the public library, just now, to the front of +action among the instruments and agencies of popular education. It is +our fortune, good or ill as we may regard it, to be unmistakably passing +through one of the greater crisies of human history. In the last +century, modern democracy got its political footing in the world. Its +birth was older, and it had been cradled in divers nursing places, +Swiss, Dutch, English, and New English; but last century it stepped into +political history as the actor of the leading part; as the sovereign of +the future, mounting his throne. From the moment it came on the stage, +all wise men knew that its need above every other need was education. +They made haste, in our country, to build school-houses and to set the +school-master at work; seeing plainly that all they might hope for and +strive for in the future would depend on the intelligence that could be +put into the brain of this omnipotent sovereign who had risen to rule +the world.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span></p><p>Well, the schools and the school-masters served their purpose +reasonably well for a reason. Democracy was fairly equipped with a +spelling-book and a quill-pen for the duties and responsibilities of a +simple, slowly-moving time. The mass of its members, the every-day +people of the farm and the shop, read the pamphlets and the weekly +gazettes of their day, and were gently drawn, with unconfused minds, +into one or the other of two straightly opposed political parties which +sought their votes. If they lacked knowledge, there was a certain +ingenuousness in their character which paid respect to the opinions of +men who had more. If blundering in politics occurred, it was blundering +leadership, for the most part, and more easily corrected than perversity +in the ranks. So the reign of democracy was successful enough while +society kept the simpler state.</p> + +<p>But that simpler state is gone. We who are beyond middle age may say +that we have seen it disappear. We have witnessed a miraculous +transformation of the earth and of the people who dwell on it. We have +seen the passing of Aladdin, who rubbed his magical electric lamp as he +went calling Afreets from the air to be the common servants of man. A +change has been wrought within fifty years that is measureless, not only +in itself, but in its effects on the human race. The people who whisper +in each other's ears across a continent; who know at noon-time in +Nebraska what happened in the morning at Samarcand; the people to whom a +hundred leagues are neighborhood, and a thousand but easy distance; for +whom there is little mystery left on the face of the earth, nor anything +hidden from their eyes; these people of our day are not in the likeness +of the men and women who ambled horseback or rode in coaches from town +to town, and who were content with a weekly mail. The fitting and +furniture of mind that would make a safe member of society and a good +citizen out of the man of small horizons, who lived the narrower life of +a generation or two ago, are perilously scant for these times.</p> + +<p>It is true that all the wonderful quickening of life which has occurred +carries something of education in itself, and that men learn by living +under the conditions of the present day; but the learning caught in that +way is of the dangerous kind. It is the delusive knowledge of the +surface of things; the deceitful lore which breeds mischievous beliefs +and makes them fanatical. It goes but a little way, if at all, toward +the saving of society, as against the unrest, the discontent, the +desire, which torment such an age of revolution as ours.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span></p><p>And the threatening fact is this: that ignorant opinions have acquired +at the present day a capacity for harm enormously increased over that of +the elder times. They share the magnified potency that is given to all +things, good or ill, by the science of the modern man. Its million +tongues are lent to them for propagation; but that is a matter of small +seriousness compared with the boundless ease of combination which it +offers to them at the same time. It is in that appalling facility of +alliance and organization, which present conditions have given to men +and women of every class and character, for every kind of aim and +purpose, that the greatest peril of society lies in our day. A peril, +that is to say, so long as society has no assurance that the leagues and +confederacies formed within its bosom will be prevailingly well +instructed and intelligently controlled.</p> + +<p>As a serious danger this is something quite new. It has come upon us +within recent years. I can remember a state of things in which it was +difficult for a man in common life to join himself with other men, much +beyond his own neighborhood, in any effectual way, excepting as he did +it on the lines of an old political party or an older church. But, +to-day, leagues, unions, federations, associations, orders, rings, form +themselves among the restless, unstable elements of the time as clouds +are formed in the atmosphere, and with kindred lightning flashes and +mutterings of thunder. Any boldly ignorant inventor of a new economical +theory or a new political doctrine, or a new cornerstone for the fabric +of society, can set on foot a movement from Maine to California, between +two equinoxes, if he handles his invention with dexterity. This is what +invests popular ignorance with terrors which never appeared in it +before, and it is this which has brought the real, responsible test of +democracy, social and political, on our time and on us.</p> + +<p>Democracy, in fact, has remained considerably, hitherto, an unworked +theory of society, even in communities which have supposed themselves to +be democratically constituted. It has remained so through want of +conditions that would give a clear sound to the individual voice and +free play to the individual will. Those conditions are now arriving in +the world, and the democratic régime is consequently perfecting itself, +not politically alone, but economically, and in all the social relations +of mankind.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span></p><p>So it is not exaggeration to say that we have come to a situation in +which society must fight for its life against popular ignorance. The old +agencies of education are inadequate, when the best has been made of +them. The common school does not go far enough, and cannot. Its chief +function is to prepare a soil in the young mind for the after +seed-planting which will produce fruits of intelligence. Unsupplemented, +it is well-nigh barren of true educational results. The higher schools +and colleges reach too small a number to count for much in a problem +which concerns the teaching of the universal millions. What agency, +then, is there, that will prepare the democracy of the present and the +future for its tremendous responsibilities?</p> + +<p>Some may say, the newspaper press: and I would rejoice if we could +accept that reply. For the press is an educating power that might +transform the civilization of the world as swiftly in mind and morals as +steam and electricity have transformed its material aspects. There is +nothing conceivable in the way of light and leading for mankind which a +conscientious and cultivated newspaper press might not do within a +single generation. But a press of that character and that effect seems +possible only under circumstances of disinterestedness which are not +likely to exist. The publication of a newspaper may sometimes be +undertaken as a duty, but not often. As a rule it is a business, like +any other, with the mercenary objects of business; and as a rule, too, +the gain sought is more readily and more certainly found by pandering to +popular ignorance than by striving against it. A few newspapers can +secure a clientage which they please best by dignity, by cleanness, by +sober truthfulness, and by thoughtful intelligence, in their columns; +but the many are tempted always, not merely to stoop to low tastes and +vulgar sentiments, but to cultivate them; because there is gravitation +in the moral as well as the physical world, and culture in the downward +way is easier than the upward.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span></p><p>The vulgarizing of the news press has been a late and rapid process, +nearly coincident in cause and event with the evolution of this modern +democracy which it makes more problematical. We need not be very old to +have seen the beginnings: the first skimming of the rich daily news of +the world for the scum and froth of it; the first invention of that +disgusting brew, from public sewers and private drains, with which the +popular newspapers of the day feed morbid appetites. We can recall the +very routes by which it was carried from city to city, and taken up by +journal after journal, as they discovered a latent, un-developed taste +for such ferments of literature in the communities around them. The +taste was latent, potential; it did not exist as a fact; it was not +conscious of itself; it made no demands. The newspapers deliberately +sought it out, delved for it, brought it to the surface, fed it, +stimulated it, made it what it is to-day, an appetite as diseased and as +shamefully pandered to as the appetite for intoxicating drams.</p> + +<p>And, so far as I can perceive, this action and reaction between what is +ignorant and vulgar in the public and what is mercenary and unscrupulous +in the press will go on until popular education from other sources puts +an end to it. For it is the saving fact that there are other sources; +and foremost among them are the public libraries. If it has been our +privilege to see, and for some in our circle to bear a part in, the +beginnings of the active educational work of the libraries, I am +persuaded that it is only the beginnings we have witnessed as yet. I am +persuaded that the public library of the future will transcend our +dreams in its penetrating influence. Consider for a moment what it is, +and what it offers to the energies of education which a desperate +necessity is awakening and organizing in the world! It is a store, a +reservoir, of the new knowledge of the latest day and the ripened wisdom +of the long past. To carry into the memory and into the thought of all +the people who surround it, in a town, even some little part of what it +holds of instructed reasoning and instructed feeling, would be to +civilize that community beyond the highest experience of civilization +that mankind has yet attained to. There is nothing that stands equally +beside it as a possible agent of common culture. It is the one fountain +of intellectual life which cannot be exhausted; which need not be +channeled for any fortunate few; which can be generously led to the +filling of every cup, of every capacity, for old or young. There is +little in it to tempt the befouling hand of the politician, and it +offers no gain to the mercantile adventurer. For those who serve it on +behalf of the public there are few allurments of money or fame. Its vast +powers for good are so little exposed to seduction or corruption that it +seems to give promises for the future which are safer and surer than any +others that society can build hopes upon.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span></p><p>In this view, those who serve the public libraries have a great +responsibility laid on them. They hold in their hands what would give to +civilization an ideal refinement if it could be distributed and +communicated to all. As we know very well, that is impossible. There is +a part of mankind, in every community, which never will feel, never can +be made to feel, the gentle attractiveness and influence of books. The +fact is one not to be disputed or ignored. At the same time it is a fact +to be treated practically as though it did not exist. It is our business +to assume that the mission of good books, books of knowledge, books of +thought, books of inspiration, books of right feeling, books of +wholesome imagination, can be pushed to every hearth, and to every child +and parent who sits by it. And it is our business to labor unsparingly +toward the making of that assumption good, without reckoning any +fraction of hopelessness in it.</p> + +<p>That is the business to which we are appointed in this world. Let us be +careful that we do not misconceive it in one most important particular! +It is not the mission of <i>books</i> that we are charged with, but the +mission of <i>good books</i>. And there lies a delicate, difficult, very +grave duty in that discrimination. To judge books with adequate +knowledge and sufficient hospitality of mind; to exercise a just choice +among them without offensive censorship; to defend his shelves against +the endless siege of vulgar literature, and yet not waste his strength +in the resistance—these are really the crucial demands made on every +librarian.</p> + +<p>For the first condition of successful work is a good tool; and our tools +are not <i>books</i>, but <i>good books</i>. These given, then follow those +demands on us which we sometimes discuss as though they came first of +all: the demands, that is, for a perfected apparatus in the working +library, for a tireless energy in its motive forces, and for a large +intelligence in the directing of them.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span></p><p>Not many years ago, our missionary undertakings from the library seemed +to be bounded by its own walls. The improving, annotating, and +popularizing of catalogues; the printing and distributing of bulletins +and reference lists; the surrounding of readers and seekers in a library +with willing help and competent suggestion; these labors seemed, only a +few years ago, to include almost everything that the librarian most +zealous as a missionary could do. But see what doors have been opening +in the last few years, and what illimitable fields of labor now invite +him! Through one, the great army of the teachers in the common schools +is coming into co-operation with him. Through another, he steps into the +movement of university extension, and finds in every one of its servants +a true apostle of the library mission of good books. From a third, he +spreads his beneficient snares about a city in branches and delivery +stations; and by a fourth he sends “traveling libraries” to the ends of +his State.</p> + +<p>The arena of our work is large enough already to make claims on every +faculty and power we can bring to it; and yet our plainest duty is to +enlarge it still. I think we may be sure that there are portals yet to +open, agents yet to enlist, alliances yet to enter, conquests yet to +make. And in the end—what?</p> + +<p>Those of us who have faith in the future of democracy can only hold our +faith fast by believing that the knowledge of the learned, the wisdom of +the thoughtful, the conscience of the upright, will some day be common +enough to prevail, always, over every factious folly and every +mischievous movement that evil minds of ignorance can set astir. When +that blessed time of victory shall have come, there will be many to +share the glory of it; but none among them will rank rightly before +those who have led and inspired the work of the public libraries.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LIBRARY_AS_AN_INSPIRATIONAL_FORCE" id="THE_LIBRARY_AS_AN_INSPIRATIONAL_FORCE"></a>THE LIBRARY AS AN INSPIRATIONAL FORCE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>What a librarian may do to direct the attention of his +readers to the really great writers and thinkers—a plea for +original work and for innovation in the library—a note +frequently heard in 1920, but new in 1899 when Mr. Foss, +librarian and popular poet, sounded it in <i>Public Libraries</i> +for March.</p> + +<p>Sam Walter Foss was born in Canadia, N.H., June 19, 1858, +graduated at Brown University in 1882 and served on the +editorial staff of various papers. In 1895 he left that of +the <i>Boston Globe</i> and from 1898 to his death, Feb. 26, +1911, he was librarian of the Somerville, Mass., Public +Library. He published several volumes of popular verse.</p></div> + + +<p>A library has no especial reason for self-felicitation simply because it +distributes a large number of books. In fact, it is possible for it to +give out a very large number of books and do more harm than good. The +test question to ask is: Is it grinding out a product of enlightened and +symmetrical men and women? Is it transforming the community into +intellectual, thoughtful, better equipped, more roundly developed +citizens? Is it making life any ampler, is it making men any manlier, is +it making the world any better? If there is any library that cannot +answer these questions affirmatively, its librarians are doddering their +lives away in useless activity, and receiving a salary without rendering +any real service in return. The activities of such a library are useless +contortions, and the taxpayers have a right to protest its further +existence.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span></p><p>What can a librarian do to make his library an inspirational force? In +the first place he must be as accessible as a turnpike road. It seems to +me that he can do more good by talking to people than in any other way. +To do this, of course, it is a prerequisite that he should know +something. I have no faith in the miserable heresy that a librarian who +reads is lost. A librarian who does not read would better not be found +in the first place. A librarian who does not read is simply a stable +keeper for books. He may see to it that they are well blanketed, +groomed, and put in the proper stalls, and that the various implements +about his stable are kept in good order; but such a librarian will never +be mistaken for an intellectual giant in his community. Let him know the +books he handles so that he can talk with schoolgirls about Sophie May +and Virginia Townsend, and with boys about Henty and Brooks and Knox and +Butterworth. Let him be able to discuss Herbert Spencer and David Harum +with equal zest, and know something about Kant and a good deal about +Kipling, and venerate Marcus Aurelius, and not despise Mark Twain. His +mind should be a live coal in its love for books, and then nestle up to +other minds and let them get ignited also.</p> + +<p>But it may be said that a librarian hasn't the time for such extensive +reading. Did you ever know a boy who couldn't find time to play? One +always finds time to do the thing he loves to do; and a man who has a +genuine love for reading will find time for it even in a library.</p> + +<p>One of the greatest longings that any soul can have is a longing for +some one to talk with who is interested in identical subjects.</p> + +<p>A librarian, through personal intercourse, can become a powerfully +educative influence in his community, and start intellectual impulses +that will not subside during his lifetime, but go on widening and +blessing indefinitely. Let him become the father confessor of minds in +his town or city; the priest of the intellect, to whom all men shall +bring all their mental problems, all their dubious enigmas of the brain. +He will not be able to solve all their puzzles or untie all their knots; +but perhaps he will be able to hold the candle for a little while, while +they struggle with the knots themselves. Let him always hold the candle, +and talk pleasantly while he is holding it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span></p><p>This matter of being pleasant in a library is really the first and +great commandment. There should be an air of welcome inside that is +pleasanter than the sunshine outdoors. The deathlike stillness and +tomblike hush, the sepulchral gloom, the graveyard silence that +sometimes prevails in libraries, should not be encouraged. Make people +feel at home. The library here can learn a good lesson from the barroom. +There are no signs up in a barroom intimating that loud talking is not +allowed, nobody walks on tiptoes, everybody is welcomed heartily and +encouraged to stay, and men find a sympathetic friendliness there who +find it nowhere else. John Wesley said we should not allow the devil to +monopolize all the good tunes. The library should not allow the barroom +to monopolize all the spirit of human friendliness and good cheer. I am +sincerely glad that the old type of librarian is passing out—a man so +dignified that children were afraid of him, whose face was so long that +his chin dragged on the floor. We want human men with blood in them in a +library; men who like men and love children; men who can make themselves +agreeable to men, women, children, and dogs. Let us make life as +pleasant in a library as a mother's twilight hour with her children, and +we shall raise up great families for the afterdays, who shall look back +upon us as their intellectual parents, and rise up after we are gone and +call our memories blessed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span></p><p>There are three classes of books—books that give pleasure, books that +give information, and books that give inspiration. The first class has +its thousands of readers, the second its hundreds, and the third its +tens. It is a good thing to read books for pleasure—it is the most +innocent kind of drunkenness I know about; but that reading books merely +for pleasure may develop into a kind of intellectual dissipation is +something that we know from experience; for who is there of us who has +not sinned? But reading books merely for pleasure is something we should +outgrow in childhood, just as we do stilts and marbles and the game of +tag. It is a better thing to read books for information. It is one of +the healthiest joys of the normal mind to be forever learning something; +forever learning and forever coming to the knowledge of the truth. It is +the best thing, however, to read books for inspiration. And this is a +class of readers into which many of the frequenters of the public +libraries never graduate. Ah! the pity of it! Books that lift us out of +ourselves and the fogs and fumes and dust of our little treadmill +routines into the ampler ether of loftier altitudes—into the grandeurs +of life! Emerson and Shakespeare and Wordsworth and Whitman—do men love +such as these and remain little men? No, this is the meat from which +giants are grown; here is the food for souls. Now it seems to me it is +the duty of the good librarian, one who believes in the august nature of +his profession, to lead up his readers by all devices within his power, +by imperceptible gradations, through the books that please and the books +that inform, to the books that inspire. And the librarian who drops a +boy before he learns to love John Milton has only brought him half his +journey, and has dropped him before he has reached the destination to +which his fare was paid.</p> + +<p>Why do not people read the best books? One reason is they never see +them. It is a librarian's business to keep them in sight, his next +business is to read them himself, and his next business is to talk about +them whenever he can get an audience of fifty, or five, or one; to write +about them in his monthly bulletins and let every man know he can get +them, and welcome, by stretching out his hand. We all know how Tom +Sawyer got his fence painted. He made all the boys in his neighborhood +believe that fence painting was great fun. The librarian should make all +the boys in his neighborhood believe that reading the best books is +genuine pleasure. They can be brought to an appreciation of this +pleasure as one is brought to the height of a tableland of a great +continent, by gradations so gradual that they seem to be walking on a +flat surface.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span></p><p>I believe that the great destiny of the public library is as yet but +faintly foreseen. The plain truth is that the library has not tried yet +to do its best. It has opened it doors and let people come in, if they +so desire, or if they happen to be passing that way. No successful +auctioneer does business according to any such method. On the contrary +he lifts up his voice to all it may concern, and to all that do not care +that there are about to be great bargains at his place. The business man +who opens his store and then forever holds his peace has his solitude +very infrequently interrupted by customers. The church that has no +missionary spirit is as tepid as the old church of Laodicea. The +schoolmaster whose pupils absent themselves too frequently collects his +daily audience, even if he has to call in the services of the truant +officer. All this is written with something of the same wisdom. I do not +believe it should always wait for people to come to it; it should go to +the people. Every family in every city or town where there is a library +should be offered a library card, or as many cards as it has adult +members. Sometimes there is so much red tape prerequisite to obtaining a +library card that a bashful man does not dare to make the attempt. Let +us not shut the people off from the books that they have paid for by a +barbed wire fence of red tape. Let every man or woman, yes, or child, +too, that is old enough, be personally canvassed and offered a library +card. Then sell him a catalog at cost price, or better still, at less +than cost, and tell him how to use it. Ah, but our trustees will say, +this will cost something. Yes, it will cost something, but it will be a +tremendously profitable investment, and pay immense dividends later on +in a more intelligent citizenship and wiser and happier men.</p> + +<p>From all this I wish it might be inferred that no librarian can be too +great for his position. It is not easy for him to have too much +knowledge, too much tact, too much consecration to his work, too exalted +an estimate of his possibilities. He should not have a mind with a +flange on it, so that it forever runs on the small rail along the dusty +roadbeds of routine. Let him originate, let him innovate, let him blaze +his path with the pioneers—let him think.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_USE_OF_THE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY" id="THE_USE_OF_THE_PUBLIC_LIBRARY"></a>THE USE OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Part of an address by President Angell of the University of +Michigan—educator, diplomat and statesman—at the +dedication of the Ryerson Library Building in Grand Rapids, +Mich., Oct. 8, 1904. To advise a reader, Pres. Angell +thinks, one must know something of his personal aptitudes. +General advice about “good reading” is seldom of great +service. A modern note by a great man.</p> + +<p>James Burrill Angell was born in Scituate, R.I., Jan. 7, +1829, graduated at Brown University, and after studying +abroad, became eminent as an educator, holding first a +professorship in his alma mater and then serving +successively as president of the Universities of Vermont and +Michigan. He was U.S. minister to China in 1880-81 and +served on important international commissions. His works on +international law and on education are standard. He died on +April 1, 1916.</p></div> + + +<p>Now that your benefactor has so nobly done his part, it remains for the +city to see that the library is maintained and managed in an effective +manner. It would not only be an act of ingratitude, but it would be a +mockery, if in such an edifice as this we should not find a good and +growing and well administered library. There is no more important +commission in your city than the commission charged with the care of +your library. Let us hope that they will always be chosen with special +regard to their fitness for their official duty and without regard to +their party affiliations.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span></p><p>Especially is wisdom needed in the selection of your books. It is not +so difficult to choose books for the cultivated and scholarly readers. +But in a city library you must provide for all your population. +Particular care should be had to procure books attractive and useful to +your artisans and mechanics and common laborers. They should be led to +feel that this is the place where they can most profitably spend a spare +hour and can find something to bring new brightness into their +monotonous lives. The efforts which you have already initiated to make +the library serviceable to the pupils in your schools must now be +redoubled. The teachers and the library authorities must always contrive +to cooperate heartily. The multiplication of libraries in this country +has already elevated the work of the librarian to the dignity of a +distinct profession. And no profession promises to be more useful. In +addition to the proper organization and care of the library, the +influence which a competent librarian can wield in his guidance of the +reading and studies of the young is seldom outweighed by that of the +teacher or the preacher. In no manner can a generous appropriation of +funds for the support of a library be more wisely expended than in +securing a competent librarian.</p> + +<p>Judging by my own experience and by my observation of others, I doubt +whether the guide books which have been written to tell one what works +to read have been of great service. The simple reason why they are not +very helpful is that to advise one what to read, you should know +something of his aptitudes and taste and something of his plans of life. +General advice is a shot in the air. It may hit nothing.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span></p><p>But a competent person may give helpful counsels to the young +concerning useful methods of reading whatever one does read, and may +indeed specify what are some of the best books on certain topics. A good +librarian, if leisure enough is left him, may attract and help willing +auditors by occasional lectures or informal talks on how to read in a +library. But personal suggestions, to meet particular needs, are the +most fruitful of good. And just here the school teachers, if competent +to advise, can be of the utmost service. In no way can the library be +made so valuable as by the hearty and systematic co-operation of the +librarian and the teachers. It would be very useful if they could from +time to time meet to confer upon the best methods of securing harmonious +action. For it is the generation now coming on to the stage who are +chiefly to profit by the use of this library. It is through them that +the city is to receive its chief benefit. To incite them to read, to +train them to right habits of reading, to inspire them with high ideals +of what one should seek and love in reading, should be the aspiration of +parents and teachers, if this library is to yield its largest harvest of +good.</p> + +<p>Like all good things, this library may to some persons bring no good; it +may even be made an instrument of harm. It may bring no good, because it +may be utterly neglected. No doubt there are many families who have +never drawn a book from its shelves. It may bring no good, it may even +cause intellectual, not to say moral injury, if it is misused. It is +possible to choose from any great library such passages from works and +to peruse them in such a spirit as to gratify and stimulate prurient +desires, or if one does not descend to so unworthy and shameful an act, +one may read in such a manner as to be guilty of intellectual +dissipation. What we may call the desultory readers are exposed to this +danger. They pick up whatever book or magazine comes first to hand, +provided they are sure that it makes no tax upon their mental powers. +They spend their time dawdling over a chapter of this book, then over a +chapter of that, as men of the town now join this gay companion for an +hour and then another for the next hour for frivolous talk and +profitless gossip, and so wander aimless through the day without any +fruitage to show for their time. They lose the power, if they ever had +it, of consecutive study and thought and discourse on any theme +whatever.</p> + +<p>I do not mean to intimate that we should never come to this library to +read for pleasure and entertainment. One of the great and proper uses of +books is to refresh and amuse us in our hours of weariness and +depression. Like the society of our choicest friends, they may wisely be +sought for the sole purpose of diverting our minds from the flood of +cares and troubles which come in upon all of us. The library may well be</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“The world's sweet inn from care and wearisome turmoil.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span></p><p>Or in our happy and merry moods we may seek congenial company in the +creations of Cervantes and Moliere and Shakespeare and Dickens and Mark +Twain. Reading for pastime is a commendable occupation, if wisely +followed. Lowell in his paradoxical style tells us that what Dr. Johnson +called browsing in a library is the only way in which time can be +profitably wasted. But to browse profitably one should have an appetite +only for what has some merit. I have known lads born with a literary +instinct as unerring as that of the bee for finding honey, to have the +free run of a large library and come out with a wonderful range of good +learning. Such instances show the unwisdom of having the same rules to +guide every one in his reading. In such cases as those just cited, the +example and taste of the parents often determine the success of the +experiment. The books they talk about fondly at table and quote from +freely and appositely are likely to arrest the attention of the child. +Therefore we may say that the home as truly as the school may largely +determine what advantage shall be gained in this library. Parents who +for their children's sake are careful what guests they admit to their +house and what companionships they counsel the children to form may well +consider what reading comes under their roof and what literary tastes +they encourage in their household.</p> + +<p>In these days when reviews and magazines and school histories of +literature abound, there seems ground for one caution to youthful +readers. It is, not to be content with reading about great books and +great men, but to study the works themselves of great men. Many of the +outlines of English literature, for example, which pupils in school are +required to study, contain dates and names and brief descriptions of +masterpieces, and from the nature of the case can contain little else. +But cramming the memory with these is not learning the literature. +Reading, mastering, and learning to appreciate and love the great works +of a great author is better than to learn the dry facts in the lives of +a score of authors. So our magazines and reviews treat us to criticism +sometimes wise, sometimes unwise, of many authors. But all these are of +little value until the works themselves of the authors have been +studied. With the works the biographies of the authors should be read in +order to appreciate the conditions under which the works were produced. +But far better is it to gain a thorough acquaintance with one great +writer's life and works than to learn a few fragmentary facts at second +hand about the lives and writings of many.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span></p><p>One of the most difficult questions to settle in these days in the +selection of books for a library or in directing the reading of the +young is, how large shall be the proportion of fiction in a library or +in the reading of any one. Just now we are flooded with fiction, +stretching from the short story of the magazine to the two-volume novel. +I observe that nearly two-thirds of the volumes drawn from this library +in 1901-02 are classed under the two heads of juvenile fiction and +fiction. And I suppose the experience of other popular libraries is +similar to yours. This shows at least that there is a great craving for +fiction. That craving a library like this must to a fair degree strive +to meet. Nor need we regret that there is a strong desire for sterling +works of fiction. They stimulate and nourish the imagination. They give +us vivid pictures of life. They portray for us the working of human +passions. They give a reality to history. Sometimes they cultivate a +taste for reading in those who would otherwise be inclined to read +little, and so lead them to other branches of literature. But, on the +other hand, I think it must be confessed that a great deal of the +fiction which is deluging the market is the veriest trash, or worse than +trash. Much of it is positively bad in its influence. It awakens morbid +passions. It deals in most exaggerated representations of life. It is +vicious in style.</p> + +<p>It is a most delicate task for the authorities of a library like this to +draw the line between the works of fiction which should be and those +which should not be found on its shelves. As to the individual reader, +the best we can do is to elevate his taste as rapidly as we can by +placing in his hands fiction attractive at once in its matter and in its +style. We must hope that with the cultivation of taste to which our best +schools aspire, we can rear a generation which will prefer the best +things in literature to the inferior. That is the reason why the +teachers of languages and literature in our schools should be not mere +linguists, but persons of refined literary taste, who will imbue their +pupils with a love for the truest and highest in every literature which +they can read.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span></p><p>I would like to commend to my young friends who desire to profit by +the use of this library the habit of reading with some system and of +making brief notes upon the contents of the books they read. If, for +instance, you are studying the history of some period, ascertain what +works you need to study and finish such parts of them as concern your +theme. Do not feel obliged to read the whole of a large treatise, but +select such chapters as touch on the subject in hand, and omit the rest +for the time. Young students often get swamped and lose their way in +Serbonian bogs of learning, when they need to explore only a simple and +plain pathway to a specific destination. Have a purpose and a plan and +adhere to it in spite of alluring temptations to turn aside into +attractive fields that are remote from your subject. If in a note book +you will on finishing a work jot down the points of importance in the +volume and the references to the page or chapter, you will frequently +find it of the greatest service to run over these notes and refresh your +memory. If you are disposed to add some words of comment or criticism on +the book, that practice also will make you a more attractive reader, and +will make an interesting record for you to consult.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="COMMUNITY_CENTER_SERVICE" id="COMMUNITY_CENTER_SERVICE"></a>COMMUNITY CENTER SERVICE</h2> + + +<div class="blockquot"><p>This is the newest phase of library work and the most +convincing evidence of its socialization. There is little in +print about its early stages; its classics are still in the +making. We quote only three papers here.</p></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LIBRARY_AS_A_SOCIAL_CENTRE" id="THE_LIBRARY_AS_A_SOCIAL_CENTRE"></a>THE LIBRARY AS A SOCIAL CENTRE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The opening address at the Red Wing meeting of the Minnesota +Library Association, Oct. 12, 1905, by Miss Countryman, +librarian of the Minneapolis Public Library. The “public,” +Miss Countryman thinks, “is no indefinite, intangible +somebody; it is just ‘we‘”—the statement of library +socialization in a nutshell.</p> + +<p>Gratia Alta Countryman was born at Hastings, Minn., in +November, 1866, and graduated, with the B.S. degree, at the +University of Minnesota in 1889. In that same year she +entered the service of the Minneapolis Public Library, and +she was assistant librarian at the resignation of Dr. James +K. Hosmer in 1904, succeeding him as librarian.</p></div> + + +<p>During these latter days of enormous library activity, we have been +conscientiously examining the functions of a library; we have been +trying all sorts of methods to popularize it, to advertise it. We have +asked for and listened to the criticism of outsiders, and by the light +thrown upon it through this prism have separated our work into its +elemental parts and seen its various hues.</p> + +<p>We used to erect a library as an altar to the gods of learning; now, to +use Mr. Dana's words, we erect it as an altar to the “gods of good +fellowship, joy and learning.” So you see, our ideals are constantly +rising, our horizons ever broadening, and our work continually +increasing, both in extent and in depth. We might well have considered +our hands fairly full to have dealt alone with this god of learning, but +we find ourselves embracing the opportunity for additional service to +the gods of good fellowship and joy.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span></p><p>It might do us good to consider tonight what we are doing for the cause +of learning, what the library has done to increase serious reading and +study, and how it may further the educational work of the world. This +question is ever present with us, and can stand any amount of +discussion. But it is the gods of good fellowship and joy that we are +discussing tonight, the library not as a center of learning but as a +social center.</p> + +<p>We are dealing with a small crowd of people whom we call “our public.” +Who are the public? Why, you and I, and my family, and others just like +us. They want just the same things that we do, and to be accommodated in +just the same way that we do. The public is no indefinite, intangible +somebody, it is just “we.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span></p><p>We talk about the people being hungry for books and information. Have +you found it so? Then why do we have free libraries and free schools? +People are willing to sacrifice for something that they are very hungry +for. Do you hunger and thirst to read Homer and Shakespeare, and Emerson +and Arnold, and good histories and literature? Do you, when you are +tired after a day's work, take home a scientific work or a treatise on +civics? No, you are just a little sample of the public, and you think +you need to read a pleasant, entertaining, restful book. You aren't +hungry for information, and, as a matter of fact, the person who +delights in study and has a fine taste for the best in literature has +one of the “gifts extremely rare.” Most of us are practical, everyday, +working people, with a very limited time for reading, and this public +whom we serve is just like us. A few of them will love to read the best, +many of them will want information at intervals, a large proportion want +recreative reading, and the vast majority use the library not at all. +Now the former, who want and love the library, you need not be troubled +about. They will naturally come to the library, and you will find +pleasure in serving them. But these latter classes who either come for +pleasure or come not at all must be drawn and held through the social +instincts, and through their desire for pleasure. Every human being must +have social life. We seek company and companionship with whom we can +find mutual pleasure. We may find it in friendly gatherings, social +clubs, or music or conversation or games, but social pleasure of some +sort is sought by all of us, great and small, in town and country alike. +In the city there is usually plenty of opportunity—I might almost say +that there is a surfeit—and one must pick and choose. But in the towns +and villages it is often different; good amusement and profitable +pleasures are not always to be had, and being social beings, the social +craving is satisfied with whatever means may be at hand. Young people +especially can not isolate themselves, or live unto themselves. Just +where is the library going to stand in this matter? Is there anything +which we can do to satisfy these natural desires and to enter more +vitally into the lives of the people? This is the question to take home +and think about.</p> + +<p>As individuals, we are coming to have an enormous interest in other +human lives, there is a sense of social obligation upon us; we have come +to know that personal righteousness is not all that is required of us, +but that we must help to realize the social righteousness. The library +has the duty of being all things to all men. It is no longer simply a +repository of books, it is exactly what Mr. Carnegie calls it, the +cradle of democracy, filled with the democratic spirit, and it +endeavors, as far as circumstances permit, to minister to all the needs +of the community in which it dwells. The library stands for progress, +the progress of its town, and this does not mean increasing the material +prosperity of the people, though that may follow, but it chiefly means +the raising of the moral, social and intellectual standards of all its +people, and helping men and women to be more effective in every way. The +library does not exist for one side only of the life of the people, but +for every side, and if it fails to provide for those who seek amusement, +it shirks a duty and renounces a privilege. The sooner we unveil the +“gods of joy and good fellowship” in our library the better; the sooner +we make the library a centre for all the activities among us that make +for social efficiency the better.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span></p><p>Of course there are natural limitations to the kind of work which a +library can do, and in helping to further the spirit of good fellowship +and to furnish pleasure, we must keep within such limits as are +consistent with the spirit of a library. The library can appeal to +people in other ways than by books alone, as we shall consider later, +yet as books are our chief tools, it is natural to think first of giving +pleasure by that method. One of our chiefest ways of late years has been +through the children's room. The children get book instruction and +supplementary reading and enforced book interests, all of which are +needed for their development, in the schoolroom. But in the children's +room at the library furnished especially for them, with low tables, +picture books and low shelves containing fairy stories and all their +favorite authors, they settle down to satisfy their own especial +individual tastes. Then there is the story hour, of which we shall hear +to-morrow. Many of the children have never learned the pleasure of +reading. They do not belong to cultured homes and the presence of books. +Many of them never heard a Mother Goose jingle or a nonsense verse, and +a book is an unlearned delight. But what child, even of this kind, does +not love to hear stories, and listening breathlessly, would not come +again and again. Somehow it seems as if we could not discharge our +social obligation until we had gone into the by-ways and hedges and +gathered in these scraps of society, and taught them the pleasures of a +book. The children, once acquainted with the library, will always count +it among their friends, and it will forever remain a social centre to +them.</p> + +<p>We grown ups are not so different from the children; we, too, like a +story, and we, too, want to read the things that cheer and entertain us. +We agreed a moment ago that we, as well as our public, were liable to +leave the serious books for the infrequent study hour and to spend our +leisure evenings with the fascinating novel. Well, I do not know of any +better way to give amusement and pleasure than to furnish the people +with the books they want, in which they can be interested and absorbed. +The “cares that infest the day” will fold their wings better under the +spell of a good story than any other way. I think we need not be +frightened when libraries are accused of being only fiction +distributors, for it is a library's function to amuse as well as to +instruct, and if people will seek amusement through the library, so much +the better for the people. It is natural that the people should feel a +curiosity about the newest book and want to read what other people are +talking about. This adds also to pleasant social intercourse, and gives +people a common subject of conversation. Fiction is bound to be more and +more an interpretation of life by which we see the motives and the +currents in other souls. We need not be afraid to supply good, wholesome +fiction and to use it in establishing social relations with our people, +so that the adults as well as the children shall feel a real pleasure in +coming to the library.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span></p><p>Many of our libraries are now housed in beautiful buildings, in which +case, the building as well as the books becomes a means of social +influence. If there is need of a home for social intercourse and +amusement, the library may legitimately attempt to furnish such a home +within its walls. If there are social or study clubs, organized labor +guilds or missionary societies, or any other organizations, encourage +them to meet at the library, find out what they need, let them find out +that the library is their cooperative partner. And so with the schools +and industries, of which I have not time to speak. The whole building at +all times should be managed in the broadest spirit of hospitality; the +atmosphere should be as gracious, kindly and sympathetic as one's own +home. Then do away with all unnecessary restrictions, take down all the +bars, and try to put face to face our friends the books and our friends +the people. Introduce them cordially, then stand aside and let them make +each other's blessed acquaintance.</p> + +<p>Some have tried smoking rooms, had boy's club rooms and games, and many +have tried simply to make the rooms homelike and cheery, and all of +their experience is valuable to us.</p> + +<p>It may be that no one of the plans used by other libraries may fit your +case, for it is not necessarily good for you because some one else has +used it successfully. But with any plan do not expect immediate results, +for almost everything that succeeds permanently has a slow, gradual +development; that which flashes up quickly usually dies down suddenly. +Be willing to work out a good plan if you have one, and be willing to +study your people and all of their interests before you shape your +plans.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_LIBRARY_AND_THE_SOCIAL_CENTRE" id="THE_LIBRARY_AND_THE_SOCIAL_CENTRE"></a>THE LIBRARY AND THE SOCIAL CENTRE</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>By a great expert in library field-work as done by one of +our most active library commissions. Miss Lutie E. Stearns, +of whom a sketch will be found in Vol. I. of this series, is +now a lecturer at large, but at the writing of this paper, +which is reprinted from <i>The Wisconsin Library Bulletin</i> for +May, 1911, she was in the service of the Library Commission +of that state.</p></div> + + +<p>It is coming to be an axiom in library economy that “the worth of a book +is in its use.” For this reason, librarians everywhere are devoting +themselves to what is called “library extension” through the building of +branches, and the establishment of deposit stations in schools, +factories, stores, club-houses, police stations, fire-engine houses, +etc. Experience has shown that where no efforts are made along the line +of library extension only 10 per cent. or at the most 20 per cent. of +the people are reached in any given community. If we wish to have +wholesome literature become “the burden of the common thought” we must +place good books within easy reach of all. Libraries should be quick to +realize that the social centre offers a most excellent opportunity to +reach those that might not otherwise take the time to avail themselves +of library privileges. The free public library should therefore be made +an important part of social centre work through active and sympathetic +cooperation.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span></p><p>Where libraries can afford proper facilities, there is no reason why +the library building should not serve as the social centre for the +community, as this institution differs from the schoolhouse, in cities +where parochial schools exist, in being neutral on the religious +question and therefore acceptable to all denominations. Wherever the +social centre may be, whether in library building or schoolhouse, strong +emphasis should be placed on the use of books. A special librarian, of +peculiar fitness, should be appointed either by the library or the +social centre authorities. This man or woman should be earnestly +altruistic in his or her desire to fit the right book to the right +person at the right time. It may be that this will mean the issuance of +a primer in English to an adult Slav who has recently arrived in this +country, or it may be the loan of a novel more wholesome in tone though +just as sentimental as one by Bertha M. Clay, the author requested. +Again, the leader of the boy gang may be persuaded to give up the +reading of the lurid “nickel library” in favor of Custer and Grinnell's +truthful Indian experiences. Such selection involves a wide range of +books in the social centre library, from well-bound and attractive +editions of the classics down to the latest, most wholesome novel. The +boys that frequent the gymnasium may be won by Barbour's latest football +story. The raffia worker should find interest in Priestman's +Handicrafts. An up-to-date and authoritative encyclopedia, a good +dictionary, a World almanac, and other popular reference books should be +supplied and instruction given in their use. Debating material should be +sought and every inducement offered for individual research.</p> + +<p>Those who cannot afford to take correspondence courses in the various +trades and crafts should find material in the social centre library for +self-education. James Russell Lowell has said that the best part of +every man's education is that which he gives himself, and it is for this +that the library at the social centre should furnish the opportunity and +the means. Again, there should be books of a cheerful sort for tired +workers so that, as in William Morris's Earthly Paradise, they may</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Forget six counties overhung with smoke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke.”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Wholesome novels should be found in plenty for both men and women, +together with books that inspire with courage for life's daily round, +such as Hugh Black's Work, Gannett's Blessed be drudgery, Hyde's Art of +optimism, Emerson's Character and heroism, and Wagner's Courage. Each +book in the library's collection should serve one or all three +purposes—to inform, to inspire, or to refresh.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span></p><p>The rules for the issuance of books should be made as simple as +possible. Borrowers should not be restricted to one book at a time if +more can be used; that is, a novel should be loaned with a book for +study. No guarantee should be required except the borrower's signature.</p> + +<p>A reading room should be made an attractive feature in connection with +the issuance of books. The library and reading room should be well +lighted and heated, and order and quiet should be insisted upon. The +reading table should be supplied with an abundance of the best of the +popular magazines. The Technical World, Popular mechanics, Amateur work, +and the Scientific American, will be found to be strong magnets for +attracting the interest of the boys and young men. The World's work, +Collier's weekly, and the American magazine, are the three great +exponents of optimism in our national life which should find a place on +the reading room tables, as should McClure's, Everybody's, Hampton's, +Scribner's, Harper's, Century, and the Atlantic. In the small towns the +local paper and one or two of the near-by metropolitan dailies should +also be taken.</p> + +<p>Attractive libraries and reading rooms make less attractive the +seductions of other places. George Eliot said long ago, “Important as it +is to direct the industries of men, it is not so important as to wisely +direct their leisure.” It is indeed true, as a critic of our national +life has said, that “The use of a nation's leisure is the test of its +civilization.” To win people to a love of good literature, to bring back +the old days of reading and meditation, are two of the great problems +that confront the present-day librarian. In the words of one earnest +library worker, “The modern library movement is a movement to increase +by every possible means the accessibility of books, to stimulate their +reading and to create a demand for the best. Its motive is helpfulness; +its scope, instruction and recreation; its purpose, the enlightenment of +all; its aspiration, still greater usefulness.”</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WHERE_NEIGHBORS_MEET" id="WHERE_NEIGHBORS_MEET"></a>WHERE NEIGHBORS MEET</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Extracts from a special report on the social work of the St. +Louis Public Library made in 1917 by Margery Quigley, then +librarian of its Divoll Branch.</p> + +<p>Margery Closey Quigley was born in Los Angeles, Cal., Sept. +16, 1886, and graduated from Vassar College. She entered the +service of the St. Louis Public Library in February, 1909, +studied at the New York State Library School in 1914-15, and +in August, 1918, became librarian of the Free Library in +Endicott, N.Y.</p></div> + + +<p>The experience of the St. Louis Public Library goes to prove that no +matter what the neighborhood may be, and however well-supplied it +already is with meeting places, there is always room for the library +auditorium and club rooms without subtracting in any way from the +business of the other agencies. In fact, they seem to increase each +other's use.</p> + +<p>Of our six branch buildings, one is located in the heart of the older +ghetto, one in Carondelet, two in purely residential neighborhoods, one +at the Soulard civic center, where nine or ten European languages are +represented, and the sixth in the older German section of the north +side, near the river.</p> + +<p>About each branch is the full quota of meeting places required by any +given neighborhood—moving-picture houses, community halls to let for +dances and entertainments, churches, saloons, Turnvereins, settlements, +club houses, running the gamut from “lid clubs” to the Artists' Guild, +Masonic temples and public schools, which are now managed on the +community-center plan. Several of the branches have all these within a +radius of five or six blocks, and still they must show the +“standing-room-only” sign to many of the clubs that apply for the use of +the library halls.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span></p><p>The remarkable feature of this wider use of the library is that in +spite of the increase of meetings, there has been no spirit of +competition. Between the community halls and the library, for example, +there has been no rivalry for statistics of use. Cabanne branch, in the +heart of perfectly equipped institutions which foster all sorts of +clubs, shows more than 52 meetings a month during the last nine months, +while our report of 1907 said of this branch: “There has been an average +of nearly six meetings a month in the building.”</p> + +<p>Neighborhood clubs meet in the halls which best suit their purposes, and +no agency seeks to move any one of them to a different roof. In the +Crunden Branch neighborhood, the Socialists meet in a synagogue and a +Yiddish church meets in the library.</p> + +<p>The city recreation department reports that the library's work and the +department's community work at the Patrick Henry School and on the +playgrounds, far from duplicating one another are supplementary.</p> + +<p>In giving the free use of its meeting-rooms to any reputable group of +persons, the St. Louis Public Library acts upon two principles which it +cannot emphasize strongly enough. They are the same on which it buys its +books; first, that the library stands for no propaganda but seeks to +house all opinions, and second, that it makes no obvious attempt to +reform or “uplift.”</p> + +<p>Although the books it buys must meet a certain standard in style and +content, the day is past when library assistants seek to force down +readers’ throats books which “will be good” for them. In the same way, +the meeting which it shelters must meet the standards of the community; +but the Library has ceased to initiate or direct clubs and meetings, +cultural or otherwise.</p> + +<p>Community work can be successful only when it embodies the spontaneous +expression of the neighborhood's own demand, whether it is from +children, or women, or men. A chain of suffrage groups was successful, +if numbers were an indication, in one neighborhood and a failure in +another—from the same cause. In a neighborhood of illiterate foreign +women with large families, one suffragist lecturer on the common law of +England was greeted by an audience consisting of one deaf old lady and +fifty Jewish children under twelve, who had heard that candy was to be +given away.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span></p><p>Many of the meetings that wither and die are conceived in the finest +spirit of service. If they aim to interest the whole neighborhood, +irrespective of cliques and prejudices, they almost always fail—if, as +we Americans are supposed to do, we figure failure and success in terms +of quantity. Utopian schemes cannot long survive to-day, housed or not +in the scholarly and friendly surroundings of the library. A united +Ukraine cannot absorb the attention of its supporters half as +continuously as the possibility of a new job in Ford's factory, and a +“decent dancing club” cannot always endure in the face of profits to be +made from a river excursion.</p> + +<p>Probably of all municipal institutions, the library, while maintaining +its dignified and quiet atmosphere, may become the least formal and most +neighborly. It is a library truism that a librarian can tell from +repeated experiences just when a borrower is calling at the library to +announce her engagement or to proclaim that his new job has been +secured. Countless other bits of everyday news are exchanged over the +desk with real profit to the library and to the visitor. We feel in St. +Louis that the so-called wider use of the plant is only a tangible +expression of this same friendly relationship, justified on the one hand +by its economy and on the other, and to a far larger extent, by its +contribution to the community's legitimate social life.</p> + +<p>Very fortunately for the tax-payer, and for the average reader, the +public library does not look upon its branches as intellectual clinics +for the poor. Like the public schools, its problem is to serve “all the +children of all the people,” and consequently in localities other than +those where foreigners live, the same sort of branch building is +erected, with an auditorium open under the same regulations and used to +meet the needs of the particular neighborhood. The so-called “middle +class” has as fair a chance and as “good a time” in the library +auditoriums as the foreign poor.</p> + +<p>When there are public meetings at the Carondelet library, speakers from +other parts of the city invariably come late. They begin their addresses +with long apologies, saying that they have never been in the +neighborhood before, and did not know where to find the library. They +always seem amazed at the size and beauty of the building, and comment +particularly on the pleasant club-rooms. One West End woman could not +say enough in praise of everything, repeating continually, “and all this +down here!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span></p><p>Practically this same comment is made again and again in the main +library, and in the other branches throughout the city. “All this down +here,” is equally true of seven auditoriums, each with a seating +capacity of 200, and of club rooms and offices to the number of fifteen. +In these halls were held, during the past year, practically as large a +number of meetings as our equipment will permit. Omitting the meetings +at Crunden and Soulard, practically all are held by the average sort of +person—average financially, socially and intellectually. The very +absence of the feeling that the club must make money, or must at least +pay expenses, probably accounts for the long list of small clubs and +board meetings which could almost as easily meet in the homes of +members.</p> + +<p>There are those who think that no one uses the auditoriums except very +wealthy club-women, who set up Christmas trees for the poor. There is no +more truth in this than there would be in saying that all the +inhabitants of St. Louis are either immigrants or millionaires. In the +total number of meetings at the library, what Ida Tarbell has termed +“the shirtwaist crowd,” is far in the majority. At practically every +branch, the Simon-pure woman's clubs form at least fifteen per cent. of +all the meetings. At the Cabanne branch, about fifty per cent. are made +up of women. The Barr Branch Mothers' Circle, The Queen Hedwig Polish +Women, and the Carondelet Women's Club are three names out of a list +running almost to a hundred.</p> + +<p>The masculine of “shirtwaist crowd” is “shirtsleeves crowd”; and this is +equally well represented upon the schedules of all the branches. Miss +Griggs, of the Barr Branch, writes:</p> + +<p>“We seem now to have a number of new meetings that are held for +discussion—but not many for study—casual, one-meeting-only affairs. +For instance, the Royal Arcanum met to discuss what could be done about +the increased rates. All the premiums were raised and those for older +men raised far out of reason, so all the older members had a meeting +down here, to discuss what action they could take. I am glad people come +casually that way—and feel that we are open for something beside the +regular study meetings. They sit around very informally, smoke, come in +and out down stairs and do not have any very formal session.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span></p><p>“In common with the other branches, Barr has had political meetings. +Some have been held just before elections and have been quite warm. On +one occasion, the library was made a buzzing community center by a +series of bombs that were set off in the street. Other and quieter +meetings have been held by party committees, judges of elections and the +like. The State Socialist party has twice held its conventions here, and +each time the session lasted for four days. The meetings were opened +with hymns, and the delegates had all-day sessions, from 9:00 a.m. to +9:00 p.m. I think most of the partisan leaders feel that they are a +little handicapped when they meet in the library—still, they come back +occasionally.</p> + +<p>“There are coming to be more purely social meetings of younger grade +pupils. In some cases, these children are not organized, but merely +claim to be in order to get the halls. In other cases, relatives who +come with them to make application are frank to confess that they want +the hall to avoid inconvenience at home, especially the protracted +house-cleanings which are the pre-requisite at most home parties. One +mother said that the last time there was a birthday party in her house, +the man who lived upstairs, after rapping repeatedly on the floor to +stop the children's noise, came down and said, that ‘the party would +simply have to bust up.’ She wanted to hold this party in the library, +because her husband had such a bad temper, that she was sure he would +murder the man if such a thing happened again, and, of course, it +<i>would</i> happen again, for no children's party would ever be quiet enough +to suit the man upstairs.</p> + +<p>“Adult clubs as a whole ask very little of us beyond the occasional use +of the telephone, and they often come and go without our being conscious +of them. This is especially true of day-time meetings. It must be +admitted, that in addition to those who are very friendly and those who +do not make either criticism or appreciation articulate, there are some +who break the monotony of the librarian's existence by thinking ‘they +owns the place,’ to quote the janitor. The younger social meetings need +considerable attention, too. They overflow upstairs, are always noisy +and sometimes not as agreeable as they should be. A member of a new club +of girls said, ‘I guess we rented this building for the evening—we can +make as much noise as we please.’”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span></p><p>Within certain limits, particularly the powder-cans and lead pencils of +the staff, we want the clubs to think that they do own the place. The +surest proof that the St. Louis plan works, is to have the scions of our +democracy feel that they are getting their money's worth from the +institution that their taxes support.</p> + +<p>A group of young socialists was formed too late in the season to secure +a regular meeting night. They finally decided that they would have to be +satisfied with meeting, for the winter, at K——'s—a delicatessen store +a few blocks away. K——'s has an advertisement every week in the Jewish +Record, inviting men to come and read the papers there and make use of +the free meeting-room. Like all Jewish delicatessens, this shop contains +everything that any patron is willing to buy, and in addition, +elaborates the coffee-house idea into any shape that circumstances may +suggest. When the young men said individually on later occasions that +they were not contented at the delicatessen, they always added, “It's +because we feel so at home at the library; because we've always gotten +books out there.” The next winter their application was handed in +several months in advance.</p> + +<p>In a neighborhood where conditions are the exact antithesis of +Crunden's, the same feeling exists. Miss Pretlow was talking one evening +to a young man who belonged to a group giving a dancing party at Cabanne +Library. She said that she could not but remark how well-dressed and +well bred and altogether prosperous the dancers were. They very +evidently could have met in any one of a number of large homes or could +have paid for one of the best halls in the city; so she said to the +young man, “How is it you do not rent Blank's Hall, but use the Library +instead? I know it can't be the difference in cost that influences you.” +The young man answered in very evident astonishment: “Why, we like this +place; we all grew up in this Library.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span></p><p>When adolescents of both sexes meet together, their meetings are purely +for a good time. Their behavior is extremely immature from the social +side; either very wooden or very uncontrolled. This is the period when +the librarian must insist upon strict chaperonage, and it is also the +period when resentment of discipline, or even of suggestion, runs high. +They would no more follow the advice of the Librarian in the matter of +invitations, introduction of wall-flowers and how a dance is to be “run +off” generally, than they would copy her taste in dress, which they +invariably consider very “old-maidy.” The standards to which social +clubs adhere rigidly are those observed in places of commercialized +amusement. One group of boys met to teach each other dancing, where the +girls would not see them. As it was a case of the blind leading the +blind, a volunteer who had been teaching folk-dancing to the girls all +winter, offered her services. After one trial she was <i>persona non +grata</i>, because she wouldn't let them “rag.”</p> + +<p>Some of the dances are quite grim. One will not hear a note of laughter +all the evening. Five or six girls will often come together. Those who +know boys will dance with them, and between dances will not make the +slightest effort to introduce their friends to possible partners. The +friends, instead of resenting this inactivity, often sit all the evening +on the side lines watching and chewing gum, apparently perfectly +satisfied.</p> + +<p>At the opposite pole is the wild desire for “rough house.” In the early +stages of auditorium work and before these days of H.C.L., pieces of +cake have occasionally gone flying across the hall.</p> + +<p>As soon as branch libraries recognized these facts, and it was very +soon, the application for dances became fewer and of better quality. +Leavings from other club rooms no longer apply, and disgruntled alumni +associations in schools have ceased to contemplate a move to the nearest +branch library.</p> + +<p>No effort has been made to advertise the club rooms, beyond these +statements of the branch librarians in passing, except the exhibiting of +the rooms themselves to visitors who “stop in to show our library to +cousin Sarah, from Davenport,” or Illinois, or Oklahoma, as the case may +be. Word-of-mouth publicity accounts for the gradual steady growth in +the use of the rooms. One of the many examples began with a stenographer +who sewed, “in secret,” as she said, at noon in the club room. She was +embroidering an engagement present for one of the girls in her office. +Needless to say, she scattered information about the rooms, and the +rules governing them, wherever any one would listen. Eventually a Sunday +School class, to which her cousin belonged, gave a St. Patrick's Day +party in the library. As an indirect result, a School Patron's +Association now holds five or six meetings each Spring, to make +preparations for its annual picnic. So the ball of publicity rolls along +of its own momentum.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span></p><p>At branch libraries, the auditorium and study rooms are as a rule +closely connected architecturally with the reading rooms, and club +members usually pass through the main part of the library to reach the +meetings. One or two at least from each group stop to chat with the +workers, or to read. At Crunden the assistants say that whenever a +Yiddish meeting is to begin at nine, the men come at eight and read. +Then there are the isolated individuals from the club who stumble on the +resources of the library quite by accident, and later grow +communicative. Occasionally some one rushes up stairs to borrow the +telephone book, and when, after an unsuccessful quest, he is offered the +city directory by the librarian, he finds it hard to realize that any +library can contain a book as useful as that. One man who saw a magazine +lying on the desk while he was asking to be directed to the auditorium, +said, “I had no idea the library handled magazines.”</p> + +<p>Libraries try as faithfully to reach every one as if they were +commercial enterprises, but there will always be a certain number of +persons who have never been in a library building, not to speak of +knowing the location of the nearest branch and realizing its resources. +A Harvard graduate said he had walked past a branch every day for a year +and had thought it was a branch post-office. If there were no other +arguments in favor of adding auditoriums to the library's list of +activities, there is this: that they introduce to the library large +groups of people who have had no connection with it before. The horse at +least has been led to the water.</p> + +<p>If clubs meet regularly, there is always a small proportion who make +meeting-night their library night. They consequently read and want to +calculate all fines with reference to the night of the last meeting. I +once heard one young woman telling another how she finally had her +reading “doped out into a system,” by beginning on her seven-day book +just as soon as she reached home after the meeting, and using the +fourteen-day book only on the street cars.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span></p><p>With the establishment of libraries in small towns and rural +communities, there is at present a tendency to make social centers out +of library buildings, even at the sacrifice of the books, rather than to +establish libraries in connection with social activities. This is also +true in those cities where “field-houses” in parks are well developed. +Without holding a brief for either school, we may properly emphasize +three principles. The first is that a librarian holds her position by +virtue of being a librarian, and that her duty and training require her +full time for the purpose for which she is employed—the fitting of the +proper book to the individual. The second is that if the community needs +to have the social center stressed more than the books, a social worker +must direct the center and the librarian must contribute in a +subordinate capacity to make the center a success. For example, the St. +Louis Public Library has equipped a room with books and is furnishing an +attendant at a colored social center in a church building at Garrison +and Lucas Avenues, but it does not thereby put forward any claim to +control and stimulate the social activities of the neighborhood. The +third principle is that if the library plant is already in operation, it +is a waste to exclude neighborhood groups from rooms not being used +directly for the reading and circulation of books, inasmuch as overhead +expenses continue.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="WHAT_OF_THE_FUTURE" id="WHAT_OF_THE_FUTURE"></a>WHAT OF THE FUTURE?</h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>A forecast, not of library progress alone, but of +civilization itself, by one who declares himself “a +simple-minded visionary optimist.” It is of the warp and +woof of visions like this that the fabric of a better world +is woven. Frederick Morgan Crunden, who delivered this +address at the public session of the Philadelphia Conference +of the American Library Association, 1897, was not, it is +true, the technical founder of the St. Louis Public Library, +but in his thirty-year administration of it, he originated +and kept in motion the forces that have given it the +position that it now holds in the community. These forces +and their results were both social, and his address forms a +fitting conclusion to this compilation of material on “The +Library and Society.” A sketch of Mr. Crunden appears in +Vol. I of this series.</p></div> + + +<p>The present Victorian jubilee has naturally brought out a fresh group of +reminiscences comparing conditions at the beginning of the reign with +those now existing. The most striking contrast between the two periods +lies in the advances made in the material comforts of life—improvements +in lighting and heating, in locomotion and intercommunication. The +progress of applied science has been so rapid that some of its most +notable achievements have come within the memory of young persons still +at school. Telephonic conversation between New York and St. Louis is +only a thing of yesterday; aerial navigation is evidently near at hand; +and already daring scientists speak hopefully of electric communication +with the planets.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span></p><p>But it is not only in this line that the world has advanced. To note +great changes in social customs, we need not go back to the last +century. Sir Algernon West in a recent magazine article refers to the +matter-of-course manner in which his chief was in the habit of +announcing to the head clerk that he would not be at the office the +following day, as he was to dine out that evening. As an indication of +the social changes brought about in his lifetime, he quotes this +significant sentence of Mr. Charles Villiers: “In his young days,” said +Mr. Villiers, “every young man, even if he was busy, pretended to be +idle; now every young man, even if he is idle, pretends to be busy.” +There is great import in this. When every member of society is usefully +employed, our social problems will be well on the way to solution.</p> + +<p>To note progress in another direction we need not turn back to the acts +of the 14th century, which made it a crime to give or receive more than +the wretched wage fixed by law. At the beginning of the Victorian era +boys and girls as young as six years worked in mines and factories +longer hours than are now required of strong men; and the masses of +people were compelled to pay an artificially high price for their bread, +in order to increase the unearned wealth of the few.</p> + +<p>And in our own country we need not go back to the Salem witchcraft or +the persecution of the Quakers. There are still eye-witnesses to tell us +that men and women in this “land of the free,” were lawfully sold like +cattle or flogged to death at the will of their owners. It was a few +months after Queen Victoria's accession to the throne that Elijah Parish +Lovejoy was killed for daring to say that human slavery was wrong—for +advocating, not forcible abolition, but gradual emancipation as “the +free, voluntary act of the master, performed from a conviction of its +propriety.” For maintaining his right to express his opinions on this or +any other public question, he was driven from place to place and finally +shot down in cold blood. In the city where 60 years ago he fell, a +martyr to the cause of free speech, a stately monument—one of the most +imposing in the country—was the other day dedicated to his memory. No +American better deserves a monument. No leader in the Revolution or the +Civil War was a greater hero. In my opinion, the unquestioned courage of +the great Union commander is dwarfed and paled by the simple heroism of +this young preacher-editor, who gave his life to a greater cause than +even the preservation of the Union. Yet for some years after his death, +in many cities of this country, it would have been hazardous for a man +to utter his eulogy.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span></p><p>Here, then, is a marked advance. But we have not yet obtained entire +freedom of speech on live topics. Was it not as late as last year that +we hear of two librarians holding opposite political views, whose +positions were rendered insecure by an unfortunate misadjustment of +longitudes and political opinions? And not many miles from here a score +of good, earnest men were jailed for advocating, disinterestedly, and at +considerable self-sacrifice, a method of taxation that did not meet the +approval of the city authorities. Still we have made great progress +toward a broad tolerance. We not only permit the practice of all +religious forms, but we even allow a man to deny himself the +consolations of religion in any form if he chooses to do so.</p> + +<p>In science, at least, there is absolute freedom of thought and +expression. One may publish arguments to prove that the world is five +thousand, or five hundred million years old, and no one will molest or +denounce him; or he may announce a new theory of the universe with our +moon as the stationary centre, and no state or church will anathematize +him or compel him to recant. It is not till he enters the field of +politics, i.e., the discussion of economic and sociological questions +with a view to immediate practical results, that the advocate of new +ideas reaches the danger-point. Here he finds vested +interests—self-styled “vested rights,” but as often vested wrongs—on +guard and alert to repel intrusion and resist inquiry. These summon to +their aid the legions of unreasoning conservatism; and the innovator is +made to feel the truth of the saying that there is no pain so keen as +the pain of a new idea—from which, therefore, mankind has always +shrunk, as a child shrinks from the surgeon's knife. We have passed the +period of rack and stake; but social and business ostracism are pretty +effective, while occasionally there are suggestions of tar-buckets or +bullets. For the most part, however, we content ourselves with +denouncing the proposer of any marked departure from existing political +or sociological conditions as a “socialist,” a “communist,” and an +“anarchist,” using these terms indiscriminately as abusive epithets +without any definite knowledge of their meaning. From the beginning of +time every social advance—and until recently every forward step in +science or religion has been regarded as menacing the very foundations +of society. The Reform Act of 1832, which simply took the first step +towards correcting the grossest political abuses, was looked upon by the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span>Duke of Wellington and other good men as threatening the very existence +of the kingdom. The condition of affairs then existing, they considered, +if not the best possible, at any rate vastly better than the political +chaos that would be sure to result from change. Speaking on this blind +conservative opposition to the Reform Bill, Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, said:</p> + +<p>“All the resistance to these natural changes can effect is to derange +their operation, and make them act violently and mischievously instead +of healthfully, or at least harmlessly. The old state of things is gone +past recall, and all the efforts of all the tories cannot save it; but +they may by their folly, as they did in France, get us a wild democracy +or a military despotism in the room of it, instead of letting it change +quietly into what it is, merely a new modification of the old state. One +would think that people who talk against change were literally as well +as metaphorically blind, and really did not see that everything in +themselves and around them is changing every hour by the necessary law +of its being.</p> + +<p>“There is nothing so revolutionary, because there is nothing so +unnatural and so convulsive to society, as the strain to keep things +fixed, when all the world is, by the very law of its creation, in +eternal progress; and the cause of all the evils of the world may be +traced to that natural but most deadly error of human indolence and +corruption—that our business is to preserve and not to improve.”</p> + +<p>In his retrospect of the Victorian reign, in the June Review of Reviews, +W.T. Stead says: “It is to the stoutest conservatives of our time almost +inconceivable that rational beings could ever have defended the system +that prevailed in Britain sixty years ago.”</p> + +<p>I am no more assured of the rising of to-morrow's sun than I am that to +the stoutest conservatives of 1950, it will appear “almost inconceivable +that rational beings could ever have defended the system” that prevails +in America to-day. They will, however, resist further progress as +doggedly as do the conservatives of to-day, even while these see plainly +how absurd was the attitude of their predecessors of sixty years ago. +Your genuine conservative ever holds doggedly to things as they are. He +clings tenaciously—and vainly. He belongs to a party whose defeat all +history teaches is foredoomed. Now he stands for the divine right of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span>kings; and notwithstanding he is a man of irreproachable character and +able, moreover, to show that he is much less autocratic than most of his +predecessors, he loses his crown and his head. Again, he stands for the +parent country's unlimited power of taxation, and he forfeits his most +flourishing colonies. At another period he urges long sufferance as a +justification for continuing—even extending—the crime of slavery, and +he meets defeat amid slaughter and devastation. No repetition of the +lesson will ever teach him to consider what is abstractly right—what +ought to be without reference to what is.</p> + +<p>But the conservative has to be, in accordance with the law of nature, so +poetically announced in the song of Willis in Iolanthe:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“That every boy and every gal<br /></span> +<span class="i2">That's born into this world alive,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is either a little Liberal,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or else a little Conservative!”<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Or, as Emerson's prose expresses it—</p> + +<p>“The two parties which divide the state—the party of conservatism and +that of innovation—are very old and have disputed the possession of the +world ever since it was made. This quarrel is the subject of civil +history. The conservative party established the reverend hierarchies and +monarchies of the most ancient world. The battle of patrician and +plebeian, of parent state and colony, of old usage and accommodation to +new facts, of the rich and the poor, reappears in all countries and +times....</p> + +<p>“There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, +joined with a certain superiority in its fact. It affirms because it +holds. Its fingers clutch the fact, and it will not open its eyes to see +a better fact. The castle which conservatism is set to defend is the +actual state of things, good or bad. The project of innovation is the +best possible state of things. Of course conservatism always has the +worst of the argument, is always apologizing, pleading a necessity, +pleading that to change would be to deteriorate. It must saddle itself +with the mountainous load of the violence and the vice of society, must +deny the possibility of good, deny ideas, and suspect and stone the +prophets; while innovation is always in the right, triumphant, +attacking, and sure of final success.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span></p><p>But though doomed to defeat, conservatism is not to be denounced or +condemned. It is not without its uses. It often keeps us from following +untried paths that open out alluring but end in thickets or quagmires. A +brake is sometimes as necessary to safety as motive power is to +progress. But the usual tendency of conservatism is to keep the brakes +on all the time, causing either stagnation, retrogression, or a +smash-up. The real revolutionist is the rock-ribbed conservative. It is +the boulder blocking the onward flow of the stream that causes the eddy +and the whirlpool.</p> + +<p>Those who think on this subject and who really desire the improvement of +society—unfortunately a very small class—are divided over the question +whether mankind shall progress by the path of individualism or by that +of collectivism. Extremists assure us that these paths go in opposite +directions, or traverse each other at right angles. The truth is they +run parallel; and we have been travelling both, now advancing more on +one and then on the other, towards the ultimate goal of humanity—the +perfection of society through the elevation of the individual, the +perfection of the individual through the improvement of society. Each +helps the other; neither can be independent of the other. It often +happens that organized society cannot await the slow process of +individual perfection. It must accelerate the operation by changing +standards and ideals. There is no telling how long it would have +required to convince each individual slave-owner of the wrong of human +slavery, or each individual mine and factory owner of the wickedness of +child-labor. Society had to take the matter in hand and force individual +development—in one case by law, in the other by the sword. Many +thoughtful persons are raising the question whether society has not more +work of this kind ahead of it. There can be no individual perfection or +progress under certain social conditions. Ceremonious politeness was not +to be expected among the victims of the Black Hole of Calcutta. +Starvation has often led to cannibalism among men who would shrink with +horror from the thought of it under ordinary conditions. Society can +create conditions favorable or unfavorable to the improvement of the +individual.</p> + +<p>The inevitable outcome of the struggle between individualism and +collectivism is the triumph of each in its own proper field.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span></p><p>A line drawn from the past to the present shows the trend of the future. +We find this embodying two distinct, and apparently contradictory, +tendencies—one towards greater individual freedom, the other towards a +constant extension of the principle of cooperation, or collectivism. +That is, organized society leaves ever greater freedom to the individual +in all those things that concern only him, while at the same time it +extends farther and farther its supervision and performance of those +things that pertain to the welfare of all, and which society can do for +the individual better than he can do for himself. A man may kiss his +wife on Sunday without scandal or fear of prosecution; and he may dress +in any manner he pleases within the bounds of convention, which is still +an unreasoning tyrant. He is generally glad to avail himself of the more +convenient water-supply provided by the community; but he may, if he +wishes, have a well in his yard, until, with the growth of the city, +this becomes a menace to his neighbors' health; then it must be closed. +He may still mould his own tallow candles and use no other light if he +prefers; but cooperation among consumers supplies him with a much +superior illuminant; and when this cooperation is extended to embrace +all the citizens—i.e., when gas or electricity is furnished by the +municipality, the cost is reduced, and he becomes a partner in the +profits.</p> + +<p>Of the benefits of municipal cooperation we had a signal illustration in +the introduction of municipal sprinkling in St. Louis. Formerly, the +occupant of a fifty-foot lot paid a private contractor from $6 to $12 a +season, while he suffered from the dust blown from his neighbors' +frontage and from unsprinkled streets all over the city. Now the owner +of a fifty-foot lot pays about $1 a year and enjoys sprinkled streets +throughout the whole city. Municipal cooperation in libraries brings the +same kind of benefits. The average well-to-do reader, instead of a +five-dollar subscription fee, pays a dollar tax; and for that not only +he and his family, but also the families of his neighbors, have access +to a superior library. And it is almost as necessary for your comfort +that your neighbor's children have access to a library as for your own.</p> + +<p>While social evolution tends to relieve the individual of the +compulsion of law, and also to lessen the pressure of public opinion, in +those affairs that pertain only to his own life, correlatively his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span>action is more and more restricted in so far as it affects his neighbors +and society in general—though here, too, law and custom tend more and +more to individual freedom. It was once regarded as a public scandal not +to go to church; and 50 years ago in St. Louis Unitarians were shunned +as suspicious characters. But pari passu with the growth of individual +liberty has grown the recognition of the duty of society to see that all +persons have equal liberty—to protect the weak against the strong. +Nothing in Victoria's reign has done more for the progress of England +than the series of acts that have been passed to curb the greed of mine +and factory owners, to prevent them from coining the muscle and manhood +of Britain into gold—in a way that, at one period, threatened to +exhaust the vitality of the race—to kill the goose that lays the golden +eggs.</p> + +<p>The whole history of mankind is a continuous struggle of the weak and +ignorant many to secure the rights withheld from them by the superior +strength and cunning of the few. The oppression and injustice of the +past are apparent to all; but many of us, like the conservative +antagonists of Cobden and Bright, fail to see anything seriously wrong +in the present; and, like them, we fear change. But it is the part of +wise men to welcome change as the natural order of the universe—to see +that it is a change for the better.</p> + +<p>It does not by any means follow that every new idea is a good one, that +every proposed change would be an improvement. But as progress is the +law of the universe, it rests with the old order to show why it should +be continued. Wisdom, therefore, urges us to give careful consideration +to new ideas, however contrary they may be to prevalent opinions, +bearing in mind the frequent lesson of history that “the stone which the +builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner,” and +approaching all questions in the spirit of St. Paul's injunction: “Prove +all things; hold fast that which is good.” For all political and social +problems, which are the burning questions of to-day, there is, it seems +to me, a simple test in Herbert Spencer's “first principle”: “Every man +may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with +the possession of like liberty by every other man.” Legislation that +does not square with the self-evident truth and justice of this dictum +is bad legislation, and must prove maleficent to the nation, state, or +city that enacts it. I need not offer any modern instances.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span></p><p>Reasoning in reverse order, i.e., from effect to cause, we may be sure +that when we see in a country abounding in natural resources, as ours +is, inhabited by the most intelligent, energetic, and resourceful people +the world has ever seen—when we see in such a country millions of +willing workers in enforced idleness; when, to account for the idleness +and its attendant want and destitution, we are offered the absurdity of +“over-production” of the very things for which millions are suffering; +when we see men and women who toil not revelling in luxury, while others +who labor sixteen hours a day are barely able to keep body and soul +together, we may know absolutely, without further investigation, that +there is something fundamentally wrong in our social organization.</p> + +<p>This is not the time or place to point out these wrongs specifically, or +to advance, even in the most general terms, what, after much thought, I +believe to be the remedies. I merely urge the thoughtful study of social +problems without bias or prejudice. This state of openmindedness is not +easy to achieve. We think that we think our own thoughts; but as Tarde, +the French psychologist, says: “What the individual hypnotizer is to his +sleeping and abnormally plastic subject, such, almost precisely, is +society to the waking and normally plastic man.”<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>On the solution of social problems, Ibsen says: “There is only one thing +that avails—to revolutionize people's minds.” This was a difficult task +about so plain a matter as the Copernican system, which was opposed by +the combined learning and piety of Europe. How much more difficult must +it be when the change affects the every-day life of every individual? As +Nitti says: “Had the propositions of Euclid affected economic interests +they would still appear doubtful hypotheses of arduous solution.”</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> “As, then, in philosophy the first step is to begin by +doubting everything, so, in social philosophy, the first step is to +throw aside all supposed absolute rights.”—<span class="smcap">Jevons</span>.</p></div> + +<p>The public library is destined to play an important part, to exercise +an incalculable influence in the solution of the social problems of +to-day, and through this on the future of the nation and the race. The +wisdom needed for this task is not to be obtained from schools or +colleges, but from the higher education of mature minds—the masses of +the people—which the public library alone can give. The preparation for +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span>this higher education of the masses devolves on the schools and +colleges. Their curricula should be so arranged as to arouse “historic +consciousness” in the youngest child, to awaken social consciousness, +and to provide for its continuous development by starting every boy and +girl on a career of self-culture—by matriculating every child in the +People's University, the Public Library. In affairs that concern society +as a whole, it is better to trust the well-informed common-sense of the +people than the learning of the schoolmen.</p> + +<p>It is not knowledge of mathematics or physics, or Greek and Latin, or +modern languages; it is not the study—academic study—of history, or +philosophy, or even political economy, that will solve the great social +problems that now confront us. These will help in various degrees, +directly or indirectly, some more, some less, some, perhaps, not at all. +A knowledge of the general course of history is essential; some +acquaintance with philosophy is useful; dogmatic theology serves only to +confuse, but the true religion that lies in a vital acceptance of +Christ's two commandments as a summary of the law and the prophets—that +is the greatest aid of all. Such, however, is the influence of +established order on men's minds that no investigation will avail +without a determination to take nothing for granted, to re-examine what +have been considered basic principles, to accept no postulates that do +not square with reason and justice. This cannot be done by confining our +reading to the accepted standards of a generation or a century ago. We +must keep abreast of the thought of the time; we must keep our eyes and +ears, and still more our minds, open; we must scorn no aids to +enlightenment; but we must do our own thinking; we must consider the +idea, not the source from which it came, remembering that good may come +out of Nazareth; we must live up to the motto; “Truth for authority, not +authority for truth,” and we must “lend a hand.”</p> + +<p>My faith in the efficacy of the education offered by the public library +is not without foundation. In more than one case I have seen a course of +lectures or the reading of a single book lead to a course of reading in +economics and sociology, which has entirely changed points of view. New +ideals, higher standards, have made new men with higher lines of action. +Their natures have not been changed, but their visions have been +clarified.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span></p><p>One of the stock arguments which conservatism always brings out to give +a final quietus to any proposal for social reform, is—“Oh, that's +impossible; you'd have to change human nature!” This mental attitude, +which, I am sorry to say, is the prevailing one with the great majority +of mankind, is admirable satirized in some verses which I had great +pleasure in printing in the April number of the St. Louis Public Library +Magazine:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There was once a Neolithic Man, an enterprising wight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who made his simple instruments unusually bright,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unusually clever he, unusually brave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And he sketched delightful mammoths on the border of his cave,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To his Neolithic neighbors who were startled and surprised,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said he: “My friends, in course of time we shall be civilized!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are going to live in cities and build churches and make laws!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are going to eat three times a day without the natural cause!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We're going to turn life upside down about a thing called Gold!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We're going to want the earth, and take as much as we can hold!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are going to wear a pile of stuff outside our proper skins;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We're going to have Diseases! and Accomplishments!! and Sins!!!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then they all rose up in fury against this boastful friend<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For prehistoric patience comes quickly to an end.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said one, “This is chimerical! Uptopian! Absurd!”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Said another, “What a stupid life! Too dull, upon my word!”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cried all, “Before such things can come, you idiotic child,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You must alter Human Nature!” and they all sat back and smiled!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thought they, “An answer to that last it will be hard to find!”<br /></span> +<span class="i0">It was a clinching argument—to the Neolithic Mind!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Yes, great progress and reform can be accomplished without changing +human nature. The elemental forces in the heart of man are the same now +as in the earliest recorded ages, and they are likely to remain the same +for all time to come. We cannot change the elements of man's nature; but +by changing conditions we can improve the product of reaction. We can +elevate conduct by elevating ideals. There was a time when the man who +could wield the heaviest battle-axe was the greatest man; and there are +still circles in which Corbett and Fitzsimmons are regarded as the +greatest men of the present day. But the men who now excite most general +admiration are our “captains of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span> industry,” the men who succeed in +getting money and the luxury and power it commands. How shall we elevate +our national ideals?</p> + +<p>Selfishness is a mainspring of human action. A like motive, desire for +happiness, sets men to fighting dogs and to founding hospitals. Nero +found pleasure in one way, Marcus Aurelius in another. Charles I. and +Louis XVI. were not bad men; but they were controlled by outgrown +standards. Elizabeth, Napoleon, Peter, and Catherine of Russia sought +their own pleasure in accordance with their personal characters and the +standards of their times. But how much higher and purer pleasure the +devotion of their talents to the service of their fellowmen brought to +Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, Cobden, Bright and Gladstone—and +John Pounds!</p> + +<p>False standards, low ideals, now lead many good men to find their +pleasure, not in cruelty, not in sensuality, but in the accumulation of +wealth, partly for the luxury, chiefly for the power it brings. +“Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.”</p> + +<p>With the spread of intelligence and thought, and the consequent +elevation of popular ideals, men possessed of millions will not seek to +add to their large legitimate gains by legalized robbery from their +fellow-citizens; and people calling themselves Christians will not +rejoice in the distress and starvation of their fellow-men across the +ocean. Men will still be selfish but their selfishness will at least be +on a higher plane—less intense, less destructive of essential rights.</p> + +<p>How shall we most speedily bring about this desired consummation? By +what agency can we most effectively elevate our national ideals? By +extending and improving our system of popular education, by reversing +the usual order and beginning where school curricula now end, by placing +our school-children from their earliest years in close and familiar +contact with the life and thought of the race as expressed in +literature, by exciting in every child admiration and emulation of the +world's true heroes, by feeding the imagination and cultivating the +moral faculties, by putting every child into the way of acquiring a +social and a historic perspective.</p> + +<p>I suppose I am one of those simple-minded visionary optimists of whom +Prof. Royce speaks. But I do not “dislike” economic facts in the sense +of ignoring them, and I am not blind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span> to the persistence of the elemental +forces of human nature. But as the abolition of slavery changed men's +mental attitude towards this social crime, without at all changing human +nature, just so I believe that the adoption of other social reforms +would in a generation cause all men to look with horror and wonder upon +social injustice that nearly every one now ignores or regards as +irremediable and inevitable. I share Ruskin's scorn of the word +“Utopian.” “A thing is either possible or impossible.” As Carlyle says, +“The actual final rights of man lie in the far deeps of the ideal. Every +noble work is at first impossible.” In the A.L.A. we have heard the word +“Utopian,” or its equivalent, on more than one occasion met by the +motto, “Hitch your wagon to a star”; and we have seen the impracticable +an accomplished fact.</p> + +<p>If time permitted I might risk ridicule by presenting some features of +the vision that I see with the eye of faith in an all-wise and +all-powerful Creater and belief in human perfectibility as an infinite +progress.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“Die Zukunft decket<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Schmerzen and Glücke<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Schrittweis' dem Blicke;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Doch ungeschrecket,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dringen wir vorwärts.”<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">“New occasions teach new duties;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Time makes ancient good uncouth!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They must upward still and onward<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who would keep abreast with truth.”<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span></p> +<p><small>[numbered blank page]</small></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="INDEX" id="INDEX"></a>INDEX</h2> + + +<p> +Abbott, Abiel, library pioneer, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Adams, Brooks, quoted, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Adams, Charles Francis, trustee of Crane Library, Quincy, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Adams, John Quincy, quoted, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Adams, Matthew, lends books to Franklin, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Adams library, Quincy, Mass., <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Adaptation of Libraries to Constituencies, paper, by S.S. Green; in full, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Addingham, Eng., home of Robert Collyer, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Addison, Joseph, quoted, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Address at the dedication of the Library of the University of Pennsylvania, by Talcott Williams; in full, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Alexander the Great, quoted, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Alexandrian Library, destruction of, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Allegheny, Pa., gift of conservatories, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Alternatives to tax-support; general editorial introduction, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.<br /> +<br /> +American Antiquarian Soc'y, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.<br /> +<br /> +American Library Ass'n,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">work of, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">catalogue praised.</span><br /> +<br /> +American Magazine of Civics, article from, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Americans,” book by Munsterberg, chapter quoted, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Americans as lovers of books, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Americanization, a library function, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ames, Ohio, Public Library, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Anderson, Col. James, praised by Carnegie, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Angell, James Burrill,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address at Grand Rapids library opening; in part, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Arbor, Mich., library, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Arguments for public support of public libraries, paper by William E. Foster, in full, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Arnold, Matthew,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">introduction to Wordsworth's poems, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Arnold, Dr. Thomas, on the Reform Bill, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Art Gallery and School, Hartford, Conn., <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Art School, Boston; B.F. Butler's attack on, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Art works as donations, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Association Libraries, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Astor, John Jacob, library gift, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Astor Library, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Atkinson Free Library, Southport, Eng., <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Atlanta Conference, talk by Melvil Dewey at, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Auditoriums as donations, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Author's League, N.Y., Carnegie dinner, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Bacon, Francis, quoted, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Baird, Henry Carey, quoted, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bakala, Wallachian peasant, legend of, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Baltimore, Md.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Enoch Pratt Library, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Peabody Institute, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Barber, Henry Hervey,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">article by, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Barnard, Henry, anecdote of, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Barr Branch, St. Louis, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Baths as donations, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bellevue Hospital, N.Y. City, gift to, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bequests, effect of, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bergen, Norway, parks in, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Berkeley, Gov., opposes free schools, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Billings, Dr. John Shaw,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">article on public libraries, in full, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch of, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pioneer in interlibrary work, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Birge, Edward Asahel,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address at Madison, in full, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Birmingham (Eng.) Free Library, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Blackpool Free Library report, quoted, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Blair, Rev. James, library of, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Boards of Trustees;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">general editorial introduction, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See also</i> <a href="#Trustees">T<small>RUSTEES</small></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Bodleian Library, rule of, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Boers, characterized, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bolton (Eng.) Free Library founded, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Book Committee of library board, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Book-readers, who are? <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Book-selection, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Books and Life, address by Edward A. Birge; in full, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Books and the Public Library, address by James Russell Lowell, in full, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Books, cheapness of, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Booklovers among the colonists, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Boston Art Museum, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Boston Common Council advocates library, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Boston, libraries in, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Boston Public Library; address at its dedication, by Edw. Everett, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span><br /> +Boston Public Library, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">children in, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">its building, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">gifts to, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">facilities of, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fiction purchases in, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">praised, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">George Ticknor on, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">statistics in 1885, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Bowditch mathematical collection, Boston, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bradford, Wm., booklover, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Brashear, John, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bright, John, quoted, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Bristol, Eng., library report quoted, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<a name="British" id="British"></a>British<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">education acts, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">library law, earliest (1850), <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">amendment of (1866), <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +British Museum, fiction policy, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Brockton, Mass., reading-room in, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Brougham, Lord, approves travelling libraries, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Brown music collection, Boston, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Brown, Samuel, founds Scottish itinerating libraries, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Brown, Squire Sam, buys books for “Coon-Skin Library,” <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Brown University, paper by Pres. Faunce, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Brownwell's writing-school, attended by Franklin, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Browsing commended, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Burnham, T.O.P.H., book-collector, anecdote of, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Burton, R., Historical Collections bought by Franklin, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Business enterprise, library as a, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Butler, Benj. F., his attack on the Boston Art School, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Butler, James Davie,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address by, at Madison, Wis., <a href="#Page_140">140</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch of, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Byrd, William, library of, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Cabanne Branch, St. Louis, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>., <a href="#Page_448">448</a>.<br /> +<br /> +California,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">anecdotes of pioneers, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Calvinism as encourager of reading, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_465">465</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Carnegie, Andrew,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">article by, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">praised by Melvil Dewey, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">library gifts, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Carondelet Branch, St. Louis, <a href="#Page_445">445</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cassell's National Library, praised, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Castine, Me., library, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Catalogues, uses of, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Censorship, do libraries exercise it? <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Chamberlain, Mellen, Supt. Boston Public Library, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Chamberlain autograph collection, Boston, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Charity, so-called, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Charleston, S.C., Library Society, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Chaucer, Geoffrey, quoted, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Chelsea, Mass., address by Lowell at library-opening, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Chetham, Humphrey, library founder, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Children<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in reading-rooms, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reading of, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">work with, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pioneer work of Mrs. Sanders, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Chicago, library growth in, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Chicago Public Library, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>; statistics in 1885, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Churches as objects of philanthropy, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cincinnati, O., Springer Hall, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cincinnati Public Library, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a> (note);<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">statistics in 1885, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Circulation,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">proposed by Ticknor, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">expediency doubted by Everett, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Clark, Charles Hopkins,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opening address at Hartford library, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Classics, meaning of term, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cleveland, Grover,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address in favor of the N.Y. Free Circ. Lib'y, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch of, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Clinton, De Witt, advocates libraries, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Club, library as a, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Club-rooms, use of, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Colden, Cadwallader, library of, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Coleridge, Samuel T., quoted, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Collection of Information: general editorial introduction, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.<br /> +<br /> +College, increased attendance, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br /> +<br /> +College libraries, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Collyer, Robert,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address given in full, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his story of his own life, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Colonies, libraries in the, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Colorado, school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Columbia medical school, Vanderbilt gift to, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Committees of Library Board, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Community Center Service; editorial paragraph, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Community relations, general, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Community's Service to the Library; editorial introduction, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Connecticut, school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Conservatism, deplored, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Contents, Table of, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Control and Guidance of Reading; general editorial introduction, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Coon-Skin Library,” Ames, Ohio, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Co-operation Between Library and Community;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper by M. Anna Tarbell; in full, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Cooper Union, N.Y., <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cornell, Ezra,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bequest, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Cost of libraries, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cotton mill, first in U.S., <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Countryman, Gratia Alta;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper on social centres, in full, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Crane Library, Quincy, Mass., <a href="#Page_308">308</a>.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span><br /> +Crunden, Frederick Morgan,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper by, in full, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address on library's future, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Crunden Branch, St. Louis, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Curtis, George William, quoted, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cushman, Robt., booklover, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cutler, Mary Salome, paper by, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cutter, Charles A., quoted, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Cyclopedia on cards, proposed, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Dana, John C.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on interlibrary loans, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Dances at libraries, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Davenport, John, booklover, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Defoe, Daniel, “Essay on Projects,” read by Franklin, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Democracy applied to books, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>; an “unworked theory,” <a href="#Page_414">414</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Detroit Society Library, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dewey, Melvil,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on the relation of the state to the library; in full, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">editor of Library Congress papers, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">talk at Atlanta given in full, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advocates card encyclopedia, <a href="#Page_379">379</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Dickens's novels commended, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.<br /> +<br /> +District School Libraries.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>See</i> <a href="#School_District_libraries">S<small>CHOOL</small> D<small>ISTRICT</small> L<small>IBRARIES</small></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Dix, John A., establishes libraries, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Donne, Dr. John, quoted, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dresden, beautification of, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Drury, Gertrude G., aid acknowledged, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Dudley, Gov., booklover, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Duties of trustees, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">and their relations to librarians; paper by S.S. Green, in full, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Easter, George, quoted, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Education Acts, Great Britain, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Education,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">lengthening of, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">from libraries, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Educational influence of the librarian, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Edwards, Edward, quoted, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Eliot, Charles W.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">suggests reservoir libraries, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Eliot, George, quoted, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<a name="Elmendorf" id="Elmendorf"></a>Elmendorf, Mrs. Henry L., paper by, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch of, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quoted, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Endowment of libraries, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.<br /> +<br /> +England,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>see</i> <a href="#British">B<small>RITISH</small></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<a name="Entertainment" id="Entertainment"></a>Entertainment a function of libraries, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Everett, Edward,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to, from George Ticknor, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">answer, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">dedication address of Boston Public Library; in full, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch of, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opinions on libraries, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Evolution of libraries (Dewey), <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ewart, William, moves library inquiry in House of Commons, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ewing, Thomas, quoted, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Fairchild, Mrs. Milton, paper by, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fairservice, Andrew, quoted, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Faunce, William Herbert Perry,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper by, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +“Feminization” of the library, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fiction,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">use of in libraries, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">circulation discussed, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">discouraged by J.P. Quincy, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">commended by Lowell, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">policy of British Museum, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Finance Committee of library board, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Financial Support; general editorial introduction, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fiske, John, quoted, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Fletcher, William I., quoted, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Flint, Mich., library, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Flower Band” in Pawtucket, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Foss, Sam Walker,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper on inspiration, in full, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Foster, William E.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper on securing community interest; in full, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper advocating public support of libraries in full, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Franklin, Benjamin,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">autobiography quoted, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Everett's gift of autobiography to Boston Public Library, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">founds Phila. Library Co., <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">education of, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Free access, adopted by Mrs. Sanders, in Pawtucket, R.I., <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Free Libraries:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">an argument against public support, by M.D. O'Brien, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Free Public Library,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">essay by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in full, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">article by Henry H. Barber, in full, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">evolution of, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Freedom of thought, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Freeport, Ill., Public Library, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Freiberg, Saxony, tanning school, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Froissant, read in rural N.Y., <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Function of a Town Library, paper by Josiah P. Quincy, in full, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Future of the library, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Georgetown, S.C., library in, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Gilbert, W.S. (“Iolanthe”) quoted, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Grant, Ulysses S., funeral of, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Glasgow cathedral, anecdote of, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Grand Rapids, Mich., address at dedication of building, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Greece, smallness of, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Green, Samuel Swett,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper on duties of trustees, in full, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">on adaptation of libraries to constituencies, in full, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address at library-openings, in full, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pioneer in library educational work, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">praised by Col. Higginson, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">praised, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span><br /> +Greenough, William W., Pres. Boston Public Library Board, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Greenwood, Thomas, quoted, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Griggs, Lilian (Barr Branch, St. Louis) quoted, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Hale, Edw. Everett, quoted, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Harper, William R., quoted, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Harris Collection of poetry, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Harris, William T., quoted, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Harrison, William Henry, a founder of Vincennes Library, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hartford, Conn., addresses at opening of Wadsworth Athenæum Library, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Harvard College library, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Harvard University<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">donations, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bequest of John Harvard, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">rule for trustee's terms, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Haston Library. N. Brookfield, Mass., address at dedication, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hatboro, Pa., library in, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hawthorne, Nathaniel, praised, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Herschel, Sir John, quoted, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hewins, Caroline, praised, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Higginson, Thomas Wentworth,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">essay by, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Hingham, Mass., library, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Historical Evolution of the Free Public Library in America and its True Function in the Community; sketch by Moses Coit Tyler, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Historical Society, Hartford, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> +<br /> +History defined, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Home use,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advocated by Ticknor, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">doubted by Everett, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Homer, praised, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hood, Thomas, quoted, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hooker, Thos., booklover, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hosmer, James K.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">praised, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">resigns, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Hospitals as donations, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /> +<br /> +How to Make Town Libraries Successful; paper by F.B. Perkins, cited, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.<br /> +<br /> +How to Use a Library, addresses by James M. Hubard; in full, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Howell, James, old writer, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Hubbard, James Mascarene,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">addresses by, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Huxley, Thomas, quoted, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Idea of a Popular Library, letter from George Ticknor, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.<br /> +<br /> +If Not a Tax-Supported Library, What? paper in <i>Iowa Library Quarterly</i>; in full, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ignorance, power of to-day, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Illinois, school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Increase of libraries, results of, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Independent, The</i>, quoted, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Indiana,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Trustee's Association, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Indigo Society Library, S.C., <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Influence of Good Books, address by Robert Collyer; in full, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Information Bureau, library as an, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Information-desk work, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Inspiration from libraries, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Insurance of a library, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Interlibrary loans, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.<br /> +<br /> +International Library Conference, London, Second, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.<br /> +<br /> +International Congress of Arts (1904), paper before, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Iowa,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Library Commission, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Library Code, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<i>Iowa Library Quarterly</i>, paper from, in full, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ireland, Alexander, book praised, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Irving, Washington,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">commended, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Jefferson, Thomas, quoted, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Jerome, Jerome K., quoted, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Jevons, William Stanley,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">approves free libraries, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">commends travelling libraries, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Johns Hopkins bequest, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Johnson, Samuel, quoted, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Kalamazoo, Mich., library, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Kansas, school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Kentucky, school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Kittery, Me., “Revolving Library,” <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Knox, John, quoted, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Laboratories as donations, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lancaster, Mass., library in, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Langley, Samuel P., discoveries of, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Larned, Joseph Nelson,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A.L.A. address, in full, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch of, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Lawrence, Abbott, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lawrence, James, pres. Boston Council, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lea, Henry C., library gift, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Leamington Free Library (Eng.), <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Learned, John Calvin, paper by, in full, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Lecture courses in libraries, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lenox Library, N.Y., <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lessing, quoted, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Levy of Library Tribute, paper by Henry M. Utley; in full, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Librarian and his Constituents, paper by Reuben B. Poole; in full, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Librarian,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">qualities necessary in, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">his relations with his Board, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“who reads,” <a href="#Page_420">420</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Libraries as Bureaus of Information; address by S.S. Green; in part, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Libraries as Leaven, inauguration address at Madison, Wis., Public Library, by James D. Butler, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Libraries,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">growth of in U.S., <a href="#Page_113">113</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as donations, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Library; a plea for its recognition, paper by Frederick M. Crunden; in full, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span><br /> +Library and Society; general introduction, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Library and the Social Centre; paper by Lutie E. Stearns, in full, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Library as a Factor in Modern Civilization, paper by W.H.P. Faunce; in full, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Library as a Field for Philanthropy, article by Andrew Carnegie, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Library as a Social Centre; paper by Gratia A. Countryman; in full, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Library as an Inspirational Force; paper by Sam Walter Foss; in full, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Library Association of the United Kingdom, opposed, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Library associations, local, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Library buildings, imposing, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Library Commission,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Iowa, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Massachusetts, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Library Friend, paper by Winifred L. Taylor;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in full, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<i>Library Journal</i> recommended to trustees, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Library of Congress, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advice to “weed out,” <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“weeding out,” <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Library Schools in U.S., <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Library Work from the Trustees' Standpoint, paper by John C. Learned; in full, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Library's Service to the Community; general editorial introduction, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lick Observatory donation, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lincoln, Abraham, educated by reading, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Liverpool Free Library, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">founded, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Logan, Jas., library of, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +<br /> +London <i>Daily News</i>, quoted, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.<br /> +<br /> +London Library Conference (1897), <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Loomis, Elias, Yale donor, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Louisville, Ky., no free public library in (1885), <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lovejoy, Elijah P., death of, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lowell, James Russell,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address by, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">(Hosea Bigelow), <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Lowell, Mass.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">statistics of, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">reading-room in, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Luther, Martin, quoted, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Lynn, Mass., library statistics (1885), <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +McGlynn, Father, quoted, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mackay, Thomas, editor of “Plea for Liberty,” essays, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Madison, Wis.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">library, inauguration address, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Boston man's opinion of, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Maine, school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Manchester (England)<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Free Library founded, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">library use in, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Manchester, N.H., statistics of, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mann, Horace,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advocates libraries, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">favors school libraries, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Manners, Lord John, opposes British library act, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Manufacturing towns, libraries in, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Marietta, Ohio, library, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Massachusetts,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">passes first free library act, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">growth of libraries in, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Library Commission, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Mather, Cotton,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Essay to do good,” read by Franklin, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">library of, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Mazzini, on education, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Mawtucket of Pawtucket,” <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Meadville City Library, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Medical Schools as donations, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Melbourne, Australia, travelling libraries in, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Men and Women,” by T.W. Higginson, essay reprinted from, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Men, library work with, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Methods of securing the interest of a community, paper by Wm. E. Foster; in full, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Metropolitan Museum, N.Y., <a href="#Page_41">41</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Michigan,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">libraries in, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">failure of district libraries, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Milk St., Boston, Franklin's birthplace, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Milton, John, quoted, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Milwaukee,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">school attendance in, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">library statistics (1885), <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Minnesota, school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Minnesota Library Association, paper at, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Missouri, school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Monks as librarians, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Moore, Tom, quoted, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Morris, William, quoted, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Mullins, Mr., Birmingham, Eng., librarian, quoted, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Municipal Cooperation in St. Louis, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Munsterberg, Hugo,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">chapter quoted in full, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Nashville, Tenn., Vanderbilt Univ., <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /> +<br /> +National Municipal League, article written for, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.<br /> +<br /> +New Bedford, Mass.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">library opened, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">statistics (1885), <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +New books, necessity of, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.<br /> +<br /> +New England town meetings praised, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.<br /> +<br /> +New Englanders, practicality of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.<br /> +<br /> +New Hampshire<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">library law, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">mandatory, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">library growth in, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +New Jersey, school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +New Orleans, wishes no free library, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br /> +<br /> +New York City, no free public library in (1885), <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br /> +<br /> +New York Free Circulating Library; address in its favor by Grover Cleveland; in full, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.<br /> +<br /> +New York Public Library, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.<br /> +<br /> +New York Society Library, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span><br /> +New York State,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">libraries in, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">failure of district libraries, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">public libraries department, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">travelling libraries in, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Newburyport, Mass., library statistics (1885), <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Newcastle-on-Tyne library, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Newport, R.I., library at, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +News, triviality of, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Newspapers<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as aids to libraries, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">influence of, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Nitti, quoted, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>North American Review</i>, quoted, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br /> +<br /> +North Brookfield, Mass., opening address at Haston Library, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Northwest Territory, ordinance of 1787, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Norwich, Eng., library report quoted, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Notes, making of, on books, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Objections to libraries classified, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.<br /> +<br /> +O'Brien, M.D., argument against public support of libraries; in full, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">answered by W.E. Foster, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ohio, school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Old and New</i>, paper quoted from, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Olneyville, R.I., reading room in, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Oregon, school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Organization of trustees, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Osborne, Mr., gift to Bellevue Hospital, N.Y., <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Osborne, <i>Mrs</i>. C.J., Yale donor, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Packer, Asa, bequest, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Page, Father, N.Y. library pioneer, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Palmer, Sir Roundell, opposes British library act, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Paradise Lost, J.Q. Adams on, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Parks as donations, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Peabody Library, Baltimore, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Peabody Museum, Harvard, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Penn, William, booklover, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pennsylvania Library Club, paper reprinted, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pennsylvania University Library, address at dedication; in full, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Peoples University,” library as the, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Peoria, Ill., Mercantile Library, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Periodicals, use of, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Perkins, Frederic Beecher,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper given in full, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Peterboro, N.H., free library, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Philadelphia Centennial, effects of, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Philadelphia, no public library in (1885), <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Philadelphia Liby Co., founded by Franklin, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>; <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Phillips, Jonathan, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Phillips, Wendell, on education, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Phipps, Henry, partner of Carnegie donations to Allegheny, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pierce, Bradford Kinney,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper by, in full, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch of, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Pittsfield, Mass., library addresses at, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pittsburgh technical room, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Plea for Liberty,” essays,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extracts from, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Plutarch, quoted, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Political meetings in a library, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Poole, Reuben Brooks,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper on choice of books, in full, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch of, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Poole, William Frederick,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper on objections to libraries, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">library study plan, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Poole's Index, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">value of, <a href="#Page_356">356</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Portland, Me., library, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Possibilities of Public Libraries in Manufacturing Communities; paper by Minerva A. Sanders; in full, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pratt, Enoch, praised by Carnegie, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pratt Institute technical room, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pratt Library, Baltimore, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Preface, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Presidential Address (A.L.A.), by Joseph N. Larned; in full, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Pretlow, Mary D. (Cabanne Branch, St. Louis), quoted, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Private libraries in the colonies, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Probable Intellectual and Moral Outcome of the Rapid Increase of Public Libraries; paper by Rev. Dr. B.K. Pierce; in full, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Protection of Majorities and Other Essays,” by J.P. Quincy, quoted, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Providence, R.I., Public Library, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Provision of Books; general editorial introduction, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Public Library and the Public, paper by Frederic Beecher Perkins; in full, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Public Library in American Life, extract from book by Hugo Munsterberg, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Public Library; its Uses to the Municipality, article by Dr. John S. Billings; in full, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Public Library, functions classified, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Public, desires of, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Public Support of libraries<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposed, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">advocated, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Putnam, Herbert,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper on libraries and the community; in full, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch of, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Qualifications of a librarian (Dewey), <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(Green), <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of trustees (Green), <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Quigley, Margery Closey;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">report on social centre work in St. Louis; in part, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Quincy, Josiah, suggests Mass. library act, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span><br /> +Quincy, Josiah P.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper in full, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Quincy, Mass. Crane Library, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">plan of “weeding out,” <a href="#Page_309">309</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Adams collection, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Racine, Wis., school attendance in, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Raleigh, Sir Walter, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Raphael, Italian artist, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ray, Dr. Isaac, quoted, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Reade's “Griffith Gaunt” condemned by J.P. Quincy, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Readers, classes of, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Reading,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">encouragement of, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">of librarians, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Reading-rooms, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as educators, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Reclus, Elisée, quoted, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Recreation,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>see</i> <a href="#Entertainment">E<small>NTERTAINMENT</small></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Redwood Library, Newport, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Reference work, <a href="#Page_389">389</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Reform Act (British) of 1832, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Relation of Free Public Libraries to the Community, article by Herbert Putnam; in full, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Relation of the State to the Public Library; statement by Melvil Dewey; in full, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Reservoir libraries, suggested by Pres. Eliot, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.<br /> +<br /> +“Revolving Library” of York and Kittery, Me., <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rhode Island, school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Richard Sugden Library, Spencer, Mass., opening address, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ripley, George, anecdote of, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Rousseau, “Confessions,” favorite of Emerson, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ryerson Library Building, Grand Rapids, Mich., address at dedication, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +St. Louis,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">fiction purchases in, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">no free public library in (1885), <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +St. Louis Library School, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br /> +<br /> +St. Louis Public Library,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">social centre work at, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Library Board quoted, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Public Library</i> Magazine quoted, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +St. Louis World's Fair, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.<br /> +<br /> +St. Paul, quoted, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Salem, Mass., Social Library, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +San Francisco Public Library,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper about, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">statistics (1885) <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Sanders, Minerva Amanda,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper by, in full, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch of, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Scholastic libraries in the colonies, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +<br /> +School and library co-operation, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>.<br /> +<br /> +School attendance, increase of, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<a name="School_District_libraries" id="School_District_libraries"></a>School District libraries, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">failure in N.Y. and Mich., <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">described by Barber, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +School <i>versus</i> library, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Schools, free, opposed, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Scotland, travelling libraries in, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Scott's novels commended, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Seaver, Mayor, advocates library in Boston, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Seneca, quoted, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sentiment, part played by, in public institutions, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sever Hall, Harvard, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Shakespeare, William, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Shakesperiana in libraries, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sheffield Scientific School, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sibthorp, Col., opposes British library act, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Simon, Jules, on education, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Smith, <i>Capt</i>. John, booklover, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Smoking in libraries, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Social Centre,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">library as a, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in St. Louis, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Social consciousness, growth of, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Social Libraries,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">foundation of, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in Salem, Mass., <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Social meetings in a library, <a href="#Page_447">447</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Socialism opposed, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Socialization, trend toward, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Society Library, N.Y. City, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Some Popular Objections to Public Libraries, paper by William F. Poole, in full, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Soule, Charles Carroll,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper by, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +South Carolina, colonial libraries in, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Southey, Robert, quoted, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Southport, Eng., free library, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Spencer, Herbert,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposes free education, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opposes free libraries, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Spencer, Mass., Sugden Library, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Spenser, Edmund, quoted, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Spofford, A.R., quoted, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Springer Hall, Cincinnati, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Springfield, Mass. library statistics (1885), <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Springfield Republican</i>, paper from, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Stages of libraries, six, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Stanford, Leland, bequest, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Statistics of American libraries<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(1876), <a href="#Page_289">289</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">(1885), <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Stead, William T., quoted, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Stearns, Lutie E., paper on social centres, in full, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Stevens Point Library, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Story, Chief Justice, quoted, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Street, Augustus, Yale donor, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Subscription libraries, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Sugden, Richard,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">gives library to Spencer, Mass., <a href="#Page_101">101</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Sunday opening, Allegheny parks, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Swimming pools as gifts, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Tarbell, Ida, quoted, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tarbell, M. Anna, paper by, in full, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tarde, Gabriel, quoted, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Taunton, Mass., library statistics (1885), <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Taxation, dread of, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">for library support, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">use for fiction circulation opposed, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Taylor, Winifred Louise, paper by, in full, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch of, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span><br /> +Teacher, librarian as a, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Teaching, N.Y. investigation of, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Technical rooms<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">in libraries, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">use in libraries, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Technical training, growth of, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Term of office of trustees, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Thaw, William, Pittsburgh donor, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Ticknor, George,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">extract from “Life and Letters” given at length, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">letter to Edward Everett, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Ticknor Spanish collection, Boston <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tilden, Samuel J.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">bequest, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">will-contest, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Tom Sawyer's fence, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Translations commended, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Travelling Libraries,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Scotch, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Australian, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">New York state, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Treasurer of Library Board, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Trumbull, J. Hammond, librarian, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Trumbull collection, Hartford, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<a name="Trustees" id="Trustees"></a>Trustees,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Boards of, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">duties of, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">standpoint in library work, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A.L.A. section, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Trustees of Free Public Libraries, paper, by Charles C. Soule, in full, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Two Fundamentals, paper by Mary Salome Cutler Fairchild, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Tyler, Moses Coit,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper by, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Union St., Boston;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Franklin's house, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Unitarianism in St. Louis, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Universities, foundation of, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br /> +<br /> +University<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">libraries in U.S., <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">without a library, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Use of the Public Library, address by James B. Angell; in part, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Usefulness of Libraries in Small Towns, paper by Theresa West (now Mrs. Elmendorf) in full, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Utley, Henry Munson,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">paper by, in full, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">sketch of, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Vanderbilt gift<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">to Columbia, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">to Vanderbilt University, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Vested rights, influence of, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Victorian Reign, retrospect of, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Villiers, Charles, quoted, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Vincennes, Ind., library, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Virginia, school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Wadsworth Athenaeum, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">addresses at the opening of its library in Hartford, Conn., <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Wallachian legend, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Waltham, Mass., statistics of, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Warner, Chas. Dudley,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">opening address at Hartford library, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Washington, Life of, inspiration to Lincoln, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Washington, D.C., libraries of, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Watkinson, library donor, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Watkinson Library, Trumbull collection, <a href="#Page_383">383</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wausaukee Library, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wellington, Duke of, opposes Reform Bill, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wesley, John, quoted, <a href="#Page_421">421</a>.<br /> +<br /> +West, Sir Algernon, quoted, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>.<br /> +<br /> +West, Theresa,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>see</i> <a href="#Elmendorf">E<small>LMENDORF</small></a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +What a Library Should be and What It Can Do; talk by Melvil Dewey, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br /> +<br /> +What of the Future? address by Frederick M. Crunden; in full, <a href="#Page_453">453</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Where Neighbors Meet; St. Louis report by Margery Quigley, in part, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wigan, Eng., Library report quoted, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wilcox, William, English bookseller, friend of Franklin, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.<br /> +<br /> +William and Mary College library, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Williams, Roger, booklover, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Williams, Talcott,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">address at library dedication, in full, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">biog. sketch of, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Williamson bequest to Phila., <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Winslow, Edward, booklover, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Winslow, Dr. Forbes, quoted, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Winsor, Justin,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sup't Boston Public Library, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">promotes interlibrary loans, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Winthrop, Robert C., quoted, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Winthrops, the, booklovers, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Winyard, S.C., library, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wisconsin Library Ass'n, address before, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wisconsin<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Library fund used for military purposes, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">school libraries in, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Wisconsin University, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Women<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">as library founders in Michigan, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">library work with, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">clubs in libraries, <a href="#Page_440">440</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">aids to libraries, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Worcester, Mass.,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">library statistics (1885), <a href="#Page_234">234</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Public Library, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">disposition of old books in, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Wordsworth, William,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">quoted, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">poems of, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Workingmen and libraries, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.<br /> +<br /> +World's Library Congress of 1893, paper read at, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Wyer, James I., Jr., suggestion acknowledged, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +Yale<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Art School, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">college library, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</span><br /> +<br /> +Yarmouth, Eng., Library report quoted, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.<br /> +<br /> +York, Me., “Revolving Library,” <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Yorkshire, Eng., home of Richard Sugden, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Young Men's Institute Library, Hartford, Conn., <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Young Men's Society Library, Detroit, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<i>Zion's Herald</i>, paper by editor, <a href="#Page_397">397</a>.<br /> +<br /> +Zosinius, history, inaccessible, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class='trnote'> +<p>Transcriber's Notes</p> + +<p>This book consists of multiple contributions by various authors. +Inconsistencies in the spelling of Proper Names have been retained. +Other instances of questionable spelling and even more questionable +grammar have been retained. However, the following typographical +corrections have been made.</p> + +<p> +<a href="#Page_8">Page 8</a><br /> +(“Orations and Speeches, Boston, 1859; Vol. III.<br /> +(“Orations and Speeches”, Boston, 1859; Vol. III.<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_56">Page 56</a><br /> +taxation of towns and small muncipalities.<br /> +taxation of towns and small municipalities.<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_57">Page 57</a><br /> +physicians have agreed as to the influence they exert<br /> +physicians have agreed as to the influence they exert.<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_91">Page 91</a><br /> +short-cut to learning, but that there may be, and is, such a short cut<br /> +short-cut to learning, but that there may be, and is, such a short-cut<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_98">Page 98</a><br /> +most strict and sacred bond and convenant of the Lord, of the violation<br /> +most strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord, of the violation<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_135">Page 135</a><br /> +every Frankln medal boy shall be entitled to its privileges; and<br /> +every Franklin medal boy shall be entitled to its privileges; and<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_141">Page 141</a><br /> +the daily recurring routine of effort for mere existence, canont escape<br /> +the daily recurring routine of effort for mere existence, cannot escape<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_170">Page 170</a><br /> +brillant triumphs for the free public library, unparalled in the<br /> +brilliant triumphs for the free public library, unparalleled in the<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_210">Page 210</a><br /> +the task will be an easy one.”<br /> +the task will be an easy one.’<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_245">Page 245</a><br /> +secondary, or betwen secondary and higher education, there is where the<br /> +secondary, or between secondary and higher education, there is where the<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_272">Page 272</a><br /> +year. This provision secures stability by preventing suddent changes of<br /> +year. This provision secures stability by preventing sudden changes of<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_292">Page 292</a><br /> +maintenance of public health, the introducation of water and gas, the<br /> +maintenance of public health, the introduction of water and gas, the<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_295">Page 295</a><br /> +whole in the new Centennial edition. The accurage student of specialties<br /> +whole in the new Centennial edition. The accurate student of specialties<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_317">Page 317</a><br /> +with a two millon dollar building, studded with costly mosaics, and<br /> +with a two million dollar building, studded with costly mosaics, and<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_320">Page 320</a><br /> +who are avid to read the latest novel by Mr X. or Mrs Y. while it is<br /> +who are avid to read the latest novel by Mr. X. or Mrs. Y. while it is<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_325">Page 325</a><br /> +denounce this or that publication. Yet is is to be remembered that a<br /> +denounce this or that publication. Yet it is to be remembered that a<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_326">Page 326</a><br /> +cheap silver prints and the Art Museum is but a hundred feet distant;<br /> +cheap silver prints and the Art Museum is but a hundred feet distant);<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_334">Page 334</a><br /> +deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughful man.” “Education,” exclaims<br /> +deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man.” “Education,” exclaims<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_336">Page 336</a><br /> +But is it worth while to consider a unversity without a library?<br /> +But is it worth while to consider a university without a library?<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_372">Page 372</a><br /> +panolpy of learning on whose myriad rivets so many hammers have rung,<br /> +panoply of learning on whose myriad rivets so many hammers have rung,<br /> +<br /> +This exalts the miscroscopic municipalities of Greece. This abases the<br /> +This exalts the microscopic municipalities of Greece. This abases the<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_375">Page 375</a><br /> +its compass and sound, measure the confines thereof or phophesy its far<br /> +its compass and sound, measure the confines thereof or prophesy its far<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_381">Page 381</a><br /> +part of an address delivered a the dedication of the Haston<br /> +part of an address delivered at the dedication of the Haston<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_402">Page 402</a><br /> +“It is morally impossiblle but that the manners should take a tinge of<br /> +“It is morally impossible but that the manners should take a tinge of<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_404">Page 404</a><br /> +practical worth and preserverance either in mechanical, civil, or<br /> +practical worth and perserverance either in mechanical, civil, or<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_406">Page 406</a><br /> +“'Tis a wise community that enables its trustees to give to their<br /> +'Tis a wise community that enables its trustees to give to their<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_412">Page 412</a><br /> +well for a reason. Democrary was fairly equipped with a spelling-book<br /> +well for a reason. Democracy was fairly equipped with a spelling-book<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_440">Page 440</a><br /> +boys that frequent the gymnasium may be won by Barbour's lastest<br /> +boys that frequent the gymnasium may be won by Barbour's latest<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_463">Page 463</a><br /> +a final quietus to any propsal for social reform, is—“Oh, that's<br /> +a final quietus to any proposal for social reform, is—“Oh, that's<br /> +<br /> +<a href="#Page_467">Page 467</a><br /> +Boston Public Library; address at it dedication, by Edw. Everett, 127.<br /> +Boston Public Library; address at its dedication, by Edw. Everett, 127.<br /> +</p></div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 33494-h.txt or 33494-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/3/4/9/33494">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/4/9/33494</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Library and Society + Reprints of Papers and Addresses + + +Author: Various + +Editor: Arthur Elmore Bostwick + +Release Date: August 22, 2010 [eBook #33494] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY*** + + +E-text prepared by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Christine D., and the +Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Classics of American Librarianship + +Edited by + +ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Ph. D. + +THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY + +Reprints of Papers and Addresses + +With Notes by ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK, Ph. D. + + + + + + + +New York +The H. W. Wilson Company +London: Grafton & Company +1920 + +Published, January, 1921 + + + + +PREFACE + + +It may be desirable to repeat here the warning that the word "classics" +in the title of this series is to be understood as meaning early and +standard expressions of ideas that have later developed into prominence. +The papers and addresses in this volume have been chosen especially with +this in view, and as they emphasize social relations an effort has been +made to include expressions from men of eminence whose names would not +probably occur to the student of library economy as having expressed an +opinion about the work of libraries or as having influenced it in any +permanent way. + +I desire to acknowledge the kindly assistance rendered in the selection +and grouping of the articles by Mrs. Gertrude Gilbert Drury, chief +instructor in the St. Louis Library School. It has been most valuable. + +The original suggestion of this volume, and of the character of its +contents, I owe to Dr. James I. Wyer, Jr., Director of the New York +State Library. + + ARTHUR E. BOSTWICK + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PREFACE 5 + + THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY 13 + + GENERAL COMMUNITY RELATIONS 15 + + The Historical Evolution of the Free Public Library in + America and Its True Function in the Community; Dedication + Address at Sage Library. (_Library Journal_, 1884, + p. 40) 17 + MOSES COIT TYLER. + + The Library as a Field for Philanthropy. (Extract from + "The Best Fields for Philanthropy," _North American + Review_, December, 1889.) 33 + ANDREW CARNEGIE. + + The Idea of a Popular Library. ("Life, Letters, and Journals," + Vol. 2, 1851.) 49 + GEORGE TICKNOR. + + The Function of a Town Library. ("Protection of Majorities,") + 1875 55 + JOSIAH P. QUINCY. + + + The Free Public Library. (Extract from "Men and Women," + 1888.) 63 + THOMAS W. HIGGINSON. + + Two Fundamentals. (_Library Journal_, 1896, p. 446.) 67 + MARY SALOME CUTLER. + + What a Library Should Be, and What It Can Do. (_Public + Libraries_, 1899, p. 269.) 75 + MELVIL DEWEY + + The Public Library in American Life. (_Library Journal_, + 1905, p. 925.) 79 + HUGO MUNSTERBERG. + + Books and the Public Library; Dedication Address of Chelsea + Library. (_Library Journal_, 1886, p. 10.) 87 + JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. + + The Influence of Good Books; Dedication Address, Spencer + Library, Mass. (_Library Journal_, 1889, p. 380.) 101 + ROBERT COLLYER. + + Books and Life. (_Library Journal_, 1906, p. 203.) 109 + EDWARD ASAHEL BIRGE. + + Address at the Dedication of the Boston Public Library. + ("Orations and Speeches", Boston, 1859; Vol. III.) 127 + EDWARD EVERETT. + + Address at a Meeting in Favor of the New York Free Circulating + Library. (_Library Journal_, 1890, p. 107.) 139 + GROVER CLEVELAND. + + Addresses at the Opening of the Wadsworth Athenaeum Library, + Hartford, Conn. (_Library Journal_, 1893, p. 18.) 145 + CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. + CHARLES HOPKINS CLARK. + + Libraries as Leaven; Dedication address, Madison Public + Library. (_American Bibliopolist_, 1875, p. 189.) 149 + JAMES DAVIE BUTLER. + + The Free Public Library. (_American Magazine of Civics_, + 1895, p. 469.) 169 + HENRY HERVEY BARBER. + + + THE COMMUNITY'S SERVICE TO THE LIBRARY 183 + + The Relation of the State to the Public Library. (_Transactions + of the Second International Library Conference_, + London, 1898, p. 19.) 185 + MELVIL DEWEY. + + Methods of Securing the Interest of a Community. (_Library + Journal_, 1880, p. 245.) 193 + WILLIAM EATON FOSTER. + + + FINANCIAL SUPPORT 199 + + Free Libraries: An Argument against Public Support. + ("A Plea for Liberty," ed. by Thos. Mackay, 3rd ed., + London, 1894, p. 260.) 201 + M.D. O'BRIEN. + + Arguments for Public Support of Public Libraries: a Rejoinder + to the Foregoing. (_Library Journal_, 1891, p. 39, + Conference No.) 215 + WILLIAM EATON FOSTER. + + Public Libraries and the Public, with Special References to + San Francisco. (_Library Journal_, 1885, p. 223.) 231 + FREDERIC BEECHER PERKINS. + + The Levy of Library Tribute; Presidential Address to the + A.L.A. (_Library Journal_, 1895, Conference No., p. 1.) 243 + HENRY MUNSON UTLEY. + + + ALTERNATIVES TO TAX SUPPORT 251 + + If Not a Tax-Supported Library--What? (_Iowa Library + Quarterly_, April, 1903, p. 21.) 253 + ANONYMOUS. + + Cooperation Between Library and Community. (University + of New York, Home Education Bulletin 31, p. 131.) 257 + M. ANNA TARBELL. + + + BOARDS OF TRUSTEES 265 + + Library Work from the Trustees' Standpoint. (_Library Journal_, + 1890, Conference No., p. 23.) 267 + JOHN CALVIN LEARNED. + + Trustees of Free Public Libraries. (_Library Journal_, 1890, + Conference No., p. 19.) 271 + CHARLES CARROLL SOULE. + + Duties of Trustees and Their Relations to Libraries. (_Library + Journal_, 1890, Conference No., p. 24.) 279 + SAMUEL SWETT GREEN. + + + THE LIBRARY'S SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY 285 + + Some Popular Objections to Public Libraries. (_Library + Journal_, 1876, p. 45.) 287 + WILLIAM FREDERICK POOLE. + + How to Use a Library: Addresses at Pittsfield, Mass. (_Library + Journal_, 1884, p. 25.) 297 + JAMES MASCARENE HUBBARD. + + Adaptation of Libraries to Constituencies; World's Library + Congress, Chicago Exposition. (Education Bureau Report, + Chap. IX., Part II, p. 658, 1892-93.) 307 + SAMUEL SWETT GREEN. + + Relation of Free Public Libraries to the Community. (_North + American Review_, 1898, p. 660.) 315 + HERBERT PUTNAM. + + The Public Library: Its Uses to the Municipality. (_Library + Journal_, 1903, p. 293.) 329 + JOHN SHAW BILLINGS. + + The Library: a Plea for Its Recognition. (International + Congress of Arts and Science, St. Louis Exposition. + _Library Journal_, 1904, Conference No., p. 1.) 333 + FREDERICK MORGAN CRUNDEN. + + The Library as a Factor in Modern Civilization. (_Library + Journal_, 1906, Conference No., p. 18.) 343 + WILLIAM HERBERT PERRY FAUNCE. + + + THE PROVISION OF BOOKS 349 + + The Librarian and His Constituents. (_Library Journal_, + 1886, p. 229.) 351 + REUBEN BROOKS POOLE. + + The Usefulness of Libraries in Small Towns. (_Library + Journal_, 1883, p. 227.) 359 + THERESA HUBBELL WEST. + + Address at the Dedication of the University of Pennsylvania + Library. (_Library Journal_, 1891, p. 108.) 365 + TALCOTT WILLIAMS. + + + COLLECTION OF INFORMATION 379 + + Libraries As Bureaus of Information. (_Library Journal_, + 1896, p. 324.) 381 + SAMUEL SWETT GREEN. + + The Library Friend. (_Library Journal_, 1901, p. 197.) 387 + WINIFRED LOUISE TAYLOR. + + + CONTROL AND GUIDANCE OF READING 395 + + Probable Intellectual and Moral Outcome of the Rapid Increase + of Public Libraries. (_Library Journal_, 1885, p. + 234.) 397 + BRADFORD KINNEY PIERCE. + + Possibilities of Public Libraries in Manufacturing Communities. + (_Library Journal_, 1887, p. 395.) 401 + MINERVA AMANDA SANDERS. + + Presidential Address, Lake Placid Conference. (_Library + Journal_, 1894, Conference No., p. 1.) 411 + JOSEPH NELSON LARNED. + + The Library as an Inspirational Force. (_Public Libraries_, + 1899, p. 102.) 419 + SAM WALTER FOSS. + + The Use of the Public Library; Ryerson Library Dedication + Address. (_Library Journal_, 1904, p. 592.) 425 + JAMES BURRILL ANGELL. + + + COMMUNITY CENTER SERVICE 431 + + The Library as a Social Centre. (_Public Libraries_, 1906, + p. 5.) 433 + GRATIA ALTA COUNTRYMAN. + + The Library and the Social Centre. (_Wisconsin Library + Bulletin_, 1911, p. 84.) 439 + LUTIE EUGENIA STEARNS. + + Where Neighbors Meet. (From St. Louis Public Library + report, 1916-17.) 443 + MARGERY CLOSEY QUIGLEY. + + What of the Future? (_Library Journal_, 1897, Conference + No., p. 5.) 453 + FREDERICK MORGAN CRUNDEN. + + INDEX 459 + + + + +THE LIBRARY AND SOCIETY + + + Recent progress in all directions--political, educational, + industrial, hygienic--has been marked by the growth and + strengthening of a social consciousness. It is this chiefly + that has differentiated the modern library from its + predecessors and has made prominent our present insistence + on the reader as well as the book, as a fundamental element + in what we are doing. At first evident only in a general and + somewhat vague recognition, by writers and speakers, of a + vital relation between libraries and the communities that + they serve, it later crystallized into definite discussions + of their reciprocal service--that of the community to the + library, consisting of financial, material and moral support + expressing itself partly in the appointment of adequate + boards of trustees and their proper backing, and that of the + library to the community, showing itself largely in the + provision of books, the collection of information, the + control and guidance of reading, and so-called + "community-centre" service. These facts have guided the + grouping and sequence of the papers and addresses that make + up the present volume. The authors, it will be noticed, + include more statesmen, publicists, and professional men, + and fewer librarians, than was the case with the two + previous volumes, thus reflecting the greater generality and + wider interest of the subject. + + + + +GENERAL COMMUNITY RELATIONS + + + In the following group have been included papers and + addresses largely by publicists or educators interested in + libraries from the general civic standpoint, and affected by + the general trend toward what has been termed here + "socialization." They have been loosely arranged in three + groups--general ideas on the field, function and + possibilities of the library, papers on books and their + uses, as affected or promoted by the library, and general + addresses, chiefly at the opening of library buildings. + Within these groups they are given in general in their + chronological order, although with some exceptions whose + purpose will be self evident. Through them all runs the + thread of consciousness that service to the community must + be the primary object of the library, although the breadth + and extent of that service, as it was destined later to grow + and develop is not generally realized and in some cases + doubtless would have been deprecated by the writers or + speakers, could they have foreseen it. But in all these + pronouncements we may clearly see the dawning light of a new + library day. + + + + + THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN + AMERICA AND ITS TRUE FUNCTION IN THE COMMUNITY + + + This comprehensive sketch, by Professor Tyler of Cornell + University, forms part of an address delivered at the + dedication of the Sage Library, at West Bay City, Michigan, + Jan. 16, 1884. + + Moses Coit Tyler was born in Griswold, Conn., Aug. 2, 1835 + and graduated at Yale in 1857. He was professor of English + at Michigan University in 1867-81 and from the latter year + to his death, Dec. 28, 1900, held the chair of American + History at Cornell. + + In this address, Prof. Tyler has added to his equipment as a + philosophical historian his personal knowledge and + experience of the service that a properly administered + collection of books may render to a community. + +Looking over the entire course of American society, from its rough and +hardy beginning, in the first years of the 17th century, I find six +distinct stages of development with reference to the possession and use +of books by the people. The first stage is that of private libraries; +the second is that of special institutional libraries, like those of +colleges and other learned corporations, and intended for a limited and +rather scholastic class in the community; the third is that of +association or joint stock libraries, _i.e._, libraries of a more +miscellaneous and general character, but for the use only of those whose +names are on the subscription list; the fourth is that of common school +libraries; the fifth is that of endowed libraries, _i.e._, public +libraries founded and sustained entirely by private endowment and thrown +open to the public without any cost whatever to the public; and finally, +the sixth is that of free public libraries created, it may be, by +private benefaction, but sustained in part at least at the public cost, +_i.e._, uniting the two elements of private help and public selfhelp, +and cherished by the public only as people will cherish that which costs +them something, and of which they have some sense of real ownership. + +But before proceeding to inspect these successive forms of library +evolution, the fact should be distinctly brought out as applicable to +them all, that the American people started on their career in this +country with an uncommon interest in books; and say what one will about +American philistinism and American devotion to the practical, this +people have always retained that ancient and primitive homage for books. +To an extent, I think, unapproached elsewhere, they are, and they always +have been, a bookish people. In some other nations there is, +undoubtedly, a larger leisurely class; and among persons of that class +there is a profounder and more extensive contact with books than is the +case with us. But while among most other nations, the craving for books +is the propensity of one class, with us it may be fairly described as +the propensity of all classes. A certain tincture of bookishness has +pervaded the American people from the beginning. Perhaps the most +decided quality of American civilization has been its effort to unite +the practical with the ideal; its passion for material results ennobled +by the intellectual and the spiritual; its fine reverence for +studiousness, even amid the persistent fury of dollar-hunting. + +And not only was this bookish trait visible in our colonial infancy but +it may be said to have had an ante-natal origin. The two Englishmen who +in the latter half of the 16th century did most to make possible the +birth of American civilization in the first half of the 17th, were Sir +Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh; and both were men possessed by +this large zest for ideas as well as for deeds; both were contemplative +men as well as active men. The last glimpse that any surviving mortal +had of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, before his ship went down in the sea, was +of that stern hero sitting calmly on the deck, with a book in his hand, +cheering his companions by telling them that heaven is as near by water +as by land; and the last labor of Sir Walter Raleigh, before his +judicial murder in the Tower, was to write one of the learnedest and +stateliest books to be met with in the literature of modern men. + +And this flavor of bookishness which belonged to these two great +pioneers and martyrs of American colonization, seems to have passed on +to the men who successfully executed the grand project in which they had +failed. When you run your eyes along the sturdy list of the great +colony-founders of the 17th century--the men who carried out the fierce +task of conveying English civilization across the Atlantic, and of +making it take root and live in this wild soil--Captain John Smith, and +William Bradford, and Winslow, and Robert Cushman, and the Winthrops, +and Dudley, and Hooker, and Davenport, and Roger Williams, and William +Penn, you will find them all, in some special sense, lovers of books, +collectors of books, readers of books, even writers of books. + +And what is true of the leaders of that great act of national +transmigration is true also of the men of less note who followed in it. +The first American immigrants were reading immigrants--immigrants who +brought in their hands not only axes and shovels, but books. Their +coming hither was due to the restlessness inflicted by the possession of +ideas. Books were to them a necessary part of the outfit for the voyage +and the settlement. And so rare and so precious were books in those days +that they were cherished as family treasures, and handed down as +heirlooms; nay, they were so dealt with in wills and in contracts as if +they rose almost to the dignity of real estate. In fact, in those days, +the possession of an unusual number of books, with the reputation of +using them, constituted a sort of patent of gentility, and seemed to +bridge the chasm between the most widely separated classes in society; +as when, in 1724, a young mechanic, named Benjamin Franklin, arriving in +New York on a sloop from Newport, is invited to the house of the +Governor of New York and is honored by him with a long and friendly +interview, for no other reason than that the captain of the sloop had +told the governor of a lad on his vessel who had with him "a great many +books." "The governor received me," says Franklin in his autobiography +"with great civility, showed me his library, which was a considerable +one, and we had a good deal of conversation relative to books and +authors. This was the second governor who had done me the honor to take +notice of me, and for a poor boy, like me, it was very pleasing." So I +think I am justified in saying that we started on our career as a people +with this underlying intellectual quality--a pretty general respect for +books, love for them, habit of using them; and this is the impelling +moral force which prompts to the several efforts which society has made +for providing itself with books. Now, the first stage in the process of +library evolution--and I have called it that of private libraries--was +the prevailing condition of the American colonies during the whole of +the 17th century and the first third of the 18th. This is the picture: +Everywhere books, but few, costly, portly, solemn, revered, read over +and over again; every respectable family, however poor, having at least +a few hereditary treasures in the form of books, as in that of silver +and choice furniture; and here and there up and down the colonies, an +occasional luminous spot, drawing to itself the wide-eyed wonder of the +surrounding inhabitants, the seat of a great private library, belonging +to some country gentleman, or clergyman, or publicist, like that of +Colonel William Bird, of Westover, or of the Reverend James Blair, of +Williamsburg, or of Dr. Cotton Mather, of Boston, or of James Logan, of +Philadelphia, or of Cadwallader Colden, of New York. + +This is the first stage of library evolution. And, of course, it has its +pleasant aspects; but surely there is here no adequate provision for the +intellectual wants of the entire community. Very few persons in any +community are rich enough to buy and own all the books they ought to +have access to; and the existence of great private libraries in a few +wealthy households can no more supply this general need of books than +the great private dinners which are given in the same households can +keep the entire community from going hungry. + +Accordingly, the second stage in the evolution of libraries is away +from mere private ownership and use, and is toward complete public +ownership and use; but it stops far this side of it; it is the stage of +special scholastic libraries, collected by colleges and other learned +corporations, and intended for the particular use of the learned +class--students, investigators, and specialists. The earliest library of +that sort ever formed in this country was begun at Harvard College in +1638; near the close of the 17th century, another was begun at William +and Mary College, and still another at Yale; thenceforward, and +especially during the past eighty years, such libraries have been +multiplying in the land, so that at the present moment there are more +than three hundred of them, and a few of them are now really vast +library collections. The value of these libraries--who can doubt? Yet +their direct value is only for a class; they are scholars' libraries, +not people's libraries. This will not suffice; society cannot rest +satisfied, and will not rest satisfied until everywhere good books for +all are placed within the reach of all. The complete popularization of +books is the goal. + +So we come to the third stage of library evolution--that of libraries +gathered and controlled by voluntary associations of people, _e.g._, +joint stock associations, but of course for the use only of those who +subscribe to them and share in the expense. + +Here we have a natural step forward; a goodly step; a step in the right +direction, but still not far enough. We shall all agree that this is the +strong and hearty modern method of doing difficult things--the method of +clubbing together to do something; it is self-reliant, social, +cooperative, mutually, helpful, What the individual cannot do alone a +club of individuals can do together. Thus the hardest and grandest +achievements of our time have been brought about--vast railroads, vast +manufacturing and commercial enterprises. And so men and women, who +could not singly get the books they wanted, have joined forces and have +got them by combination. + +It is a notable fact, however, that this third stage of library +evolution was not reached until more than a hundred years after the +first colonies had been settled. + +Many of you, doubtless, in wandering about Philadelphia--perhaps during +our great centennial visit to that city--may have noticed the venerable +building of the Philadelphia Library company, and in the walls of it an +old tablet with this inscription: "Be it remembered in honor of the +Philadelphia youth (then chiefly artificers) that, in 1731, they +cheerfully, at the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin, one of their number, +instituted the Philadelphia Library, which though small at first, is +become highly valuable and extensively useful, and which the walls of +this building are now destined to contain and preserve." Now, in +reality, that year 1731, when that first subscription library was +started in America, begins a new epoch in the intellectual life of the +American people, the epoch of systematic cooperation for the procurement +by the people of the great intellectual and spiritual boon of books. +Immense results have followed from that example set in 1731. Therefore, +let us stop a moment longer, and listen to Benjamin Franklin's own +account of the way in which he came to think of that capital project. +"At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania, there was not a good +bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. +Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from +England; the members of the Junto had each a few. We had left the +alehouse, where we first met, and hired a room to hold our club in. I +proposed that we should all of us bring our books to that room; where +they would not only be ready to consult in our conferences, but become a +common benefit, each of us being at liberty to borrow such as he wished +to read at home. This was accordingly done, and for some time contented +us. Finding the advantage of this little collection, I proposed to +render the benefit from the books more common by commencing a public +subscription library. I drew a sketch of the plan and rules that would +be necessary, and got a skilful conveyancer to put the whole in form of +articles of agreement to be subscribed; by which each subscriber engaged +to pay a certain sum down for the first purchase of the books and an +annual contribution for increasing them. So few were the readers at that +time in Philadelphia, and the majority of us so poor, that I was not +able with great industry to find more than fifty persons, mostly young +tradesmen, willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each and +ten shillings per annum. With this little fund we began. The books were +imported; the library was opened one day in the week for lending them to +the subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if +not duly returned. The institution soon manifested its utility, was +imitated by other towns and in other provinces. The libraries were +augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, +having no public amusements to divert their attention from study, became +better acquainted with books; and in a few years were observed by +strangers to be better instructed, and more intelligent, than people of +the same rank generally are in other countries." + +I think you will agree with me that this is a very striking bit of +testimony, too much so to permit us to hurry past it. Note these few +things about it. + +In the first place, that device of Franklin's, started in 1731--what +does it really signify in our history? It signifies this. It signifies a +new departure for mankind--the application of the democratic spirit to +the distribution of intellectual advantages. These things called +books--these bewitched and bewitching fabrics of paper and ink, which +somehow contain the accumulated thought of all nations and of all +centuries, and can communicate to us the noblest pleasures and the most +godlike powers--these potent things, in all the ages before, had been +accessible only to some few fortunate human beings--to a privileged +class--to rich men who wished them--to scholars who could win their way +to them--in short, to an aristocracy of intellectual privileges. But in +1731, by that modest device of Benjamin Franklin, the democratic +spirit--the modern humane spirit--the spirit which in its true nature is +a levelling spirit only in this grand sense that it levels upward and +not downward, and raises the general average of human intelligence and +felicity--this benign and mighty democratic spirit, I say, which was +then marching with gentle but invincible footsteps along all avenues and +pathways of modern life, and was laying its miraculous touch on church +and state, on kings and priests and peasants, on the laws and law-makers +and law-breakers, on all the old activities of society, on the old +adjustments of human relations, that spirit then began to touch this +relation also, the relation of man to the superb and royal realm of +books. And the first effect of that touch was what? It was enlargement, +liberalization, extension of intellectual opportunity for man simply as +man. Hitherto books had been the privilege of the privileged class. In +effect, Franklin says: They shall be so no more. In this year 1731 I set +agoing a device concerning books which shall abolish the privileged +class by making all classes privileged, and shall finally result in +placing the blessings of books within the reach of all. + +But, in the second place, in that year 1731, who was Franklin who did +all that, and who were the persons who helped to do it? He and they were +young men; obscure men, poor men, laboring men; mechanics and tradesmen +of the town where they lived; young men just getting a start in the +world. So this new era in the brain life of the American people had its +beginning with such as they were. Who of us, therefore, however modest +be our lot in life, has any right to say to himself, "I am not in +position to do anything for the advancement of my race"? Nay; my +brother, think of young Ben Franklin, the printer, and his 50 brother +mechanics; remember what they accomplished; and do not despair of being +useful in your time also. And in the third place, this movement came +from those young men associated together in a social debating club. It +was their experience in the actual discussion of the problems of human +thought which made them feel the need of books and suggested this great +measure for popularizing books: a fact which fits in well with Mr. +Sage's idea of blending the two things together here; of giving +perpetual house-room and hospitality to a debating club, here, in the +very midst of this library. And now the fourth point is, that the plan +started by Franklin and those other young mechanics in Philadelphia, in +1731, the plan of joint-stock library associations, worked so well there +that, as Franklin tells, it was taken up in other provinces. Naturally, +the new plan was adopted first in the towns where it was heard of +first--the towns nearest to Philadelphia. But before many years, the +news of it had travelled far, to the southward and the northward, and +whether consciously or unconsciously the model set up in Philadelphia, +was imitated, with more or less closeness, in scores of places far away. +One curious example springs up in South Carolina. It is in the +Georgetown district, then given to the growth of indigo. A number of the +planters came together and formed the Winyaw Indigo Society. Their chief +business was to have a pleasant time together and talk indigo; they paid +their initiation fees in indigo; they paid their annual dues in indigo; +and presently they found their treasury so full and overflowing with +indigo, that they resolved to devote their surplus in part to the +formation of the Indigo Society Library. Then, too, at about the same +time in Charleston, seventeen young men, of very limited means, desirous +of seeing the best and freshest English magazines, formed a club for +that purpose, and started with a fund of ten pounds sterling, not +venturing at first to hope to be able to purchase books also. Soon, +however, their plan grew and took in books; and from this small +beginning arose the great "Library Society" of Charleston, which has +ministered to the pleasure and benefit of the people of that place for +nearly a century and a half. + +But the Philadelphia plan travelled northward as well as southward. In +1747, at Newport, Rhode Island, was formed, also out of a discussion +club, the famous Redwood Library, which lives and flourishes still. In +1753 the Providence Library was started on the same general plan; in +1754, the New York Society Library; in 1760, the Social Library at +Salem, Massachusetts; in 1763, similar libraries at Lancaster and at +Portland, Maine; in 1753, a similar one at Hingham; and so on throughout +the country. + +One of the most curious of these joint-stock library associations was +one formed in 1751 in three parishes in the towns of York and Kittery, +Maine, and called the "Revolving Library." It was not a circulating +library--that being the name of a library from which the books circulate +singly and in units; but it was called a "revolving library" because the +entire library was to revolve, in bulk, on its own axes, in an orbit +including the parsonages of the three parishes embraced in the scheme. +And thus this library began to revolve from parsonage to parsonage more +than 130 years ago; and it has been revolving ever since, occasionally +encountering some queer experiences, as when, about 15 years ago, it was +found by the new pastor of Kittery Point in the garret of the parsonage, +"dumped down on the attic floor like a load of coal," the wife of the +former incumbent having had a prejudice against books for sanitary +reasons, "considering them unhealthy, and so being unwilling to have +them in any living room" where their presence might communicate diseases +to the family. + +This, of course, is a rather eccentric specimen of the class of +libraries now under view. A very good normal example of the class is +furnished us by the social library of Castine, Maine, organized in 1801; +and its articles of association I desire to read to you as exhibiting +the scope and spirit of this whole movement for supplying the public +with books through jointstock companies. The articles of association are +as follows: "It is proposed by the persons whose names are here +subjoined to establish a social library in this town. It is greatly to +be lamented that excellent abilities are not unfrequently doomed to +obscurity by reason of poverty; that the rich purchase almost everything +but books; and that reading has become so unfashionable an amusement in +what we are pleased to call this enlightened age and country. To remedy +these evils; to excite a fondness for books; to afford the most rational +and profitable amusement; to prevent idleness and immorality; and to +promote the diffusion of useful knowledge, piety, and virtue, at an +expense which small pecuniary abilities can afford, we are induced to +associate for the above purposes; and each agrees to pay for the number +of shares owned, and annexed to his name at $5 per share." + +The first public library in the north-west was established by an +association formed at Marietta, Ohio, in 1796. Then followed similar +libraries at Cincinnati, and at Ames, Athens County. The latter, which +was formed as early as 1802, had a curious origin. It was popularly +known as the "Coon-skin Library." The hardy pioneers of that township of +Ames met together, it seems, to consider the subject of roads; and, +having considered it, they proceeded to consider also the subject of +books--a fine illustration, I think, of the blending of the practical +and the ideal in the American character and in American civilization. +Here were these sturdy pioneers projecting a public library even before +they had got their public roads cut out and put in order. What is called +money hardly existed among them; but they knew how to shoot bears and to +catch coons and to take their skins, and these skins could be sent to +Boston and sold for cash, and the money invested in books. This +accordingly was done. The noted politician, Thomas Ewing, then a boy at +Ames, gives this account of the affair: "All my accumulated wealth, ten +coon-skins, went into the fund," the total amount of which proved to be +about $100. "Squire Sam Brown, of Sunday Creek, who was going to Boston, +was charged with the purchase. After an absence of many weeks, he +brought the books to Capt. Ben Brown's, in a sack on a pack-horse. I was +present at the untying of the sack and pouring out of the treasures. +There were about 60 volumes, I think, and well selected; the library of +the Vatican was nothing to it, and there never was a library better +read. This, with occasional additions, furnished me with reading while I +remained at home." + +That is the stuff of which strong men are made, and strong communities, +and mighty nations. And what was done at Marietta, and at Cincinnati, +and at Ames, was done in a multitude of other towns all over the +north-west. At Vincennes, Indiana, a library was started by similar +means in 1807; and one of the founders was Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison, the +hero of Tippecanoe and hard cider. That was the first public library +established in Indiana. + +So, too, in Michigan, far back in its territorial days, similar +libraries were formed, especially that of the Young Men's Society of +Detroit. But in Michigan, by far the greatest service in this direction +has been rendered more recently by the ladies, whose admirable library +associations in such towns as Ann Arbor, Flint, and Kalamazoo have done +much, especially during the past twenty years, for the literary +improvement and enjoyment of the people. + +But this third stage of library evolution, good and useful as it has +been during the past 150 years, has this defect: it does not offer books +freely to all who would like books; it is limited to those who +participate in its privileges by paying for them. + +Therefore society pushed forward into a fourth stage of evolution--one +still nearer to the grand object to be reached--the complete +popularization of books. This fourth stage was reached chiefly through a +new idea entering into the case, namely, the duty of the state to help +in providing books for the people who compose the state. The principle +is already admitted that the state must educate its citizens, and for +that purpose must sustain schools. For the same purpose, and on the same +principle, it must sustain libraries; for these are but an annex to +schools, and the books in them are only a part of the necessary +apparatus for public education. + +In this way was started the fourth plan, that of "district school +libraries," a plan which for a while was hailed with delight as a real +contribution to human progress and happiness; which was eagerly adopted +in this state and in many others; but which has, upon the whole, +resulted in failure. + +The State of New York has the honor of having started this plan, which +was first publicly advocated by Governor De Witt Clinton, in his message +for 1826. In 1838 General John A. Dix, then secretary of state, was +"charged with the execution of the law giving to the school districts +$55,000 a year to buy books for their libraries, and requiring them to +raise by taxation an equal amount for same purpose." The system was +received throughout the state with enthusiastic favor. In 1841 the +school libraries of the state reported the possession of 422,459 +volumes; in the following year, 200,000 volumes more; and in 1853 they +had reached the enormous number of 1,604,210 volumes. + +The plan as advocated in New York soon passed over into Massachusetts, +where it was taken up and advocated by Horace Mann, that noble-minded +and eloquent champion of popular enlightenment. Through his influence +the necessary law was passed in 1837, but the operation of the plan was +never very successful in that state, and after twelve years had resulted +in the accumulation of only 42,707 volumes. + +Michigan appears to have been abreast of Massachusetts in the adoption +of the plan of district school libraries, incorporating it into its +school law of 1837. + +After New York, Massachusetts, and Michigan, the several other states +which adopted this plan did so in the following order: Connecticut in +1839; Rhode Island and Iowa in 1840; Indiana in 1841; Maine in 1844; +Ohio in 1847; Wisconsin in 1848; Missouri in 1853; California and Oregon +in 1854; Illinois in 1855; Kansas and Virginia in 1870; New Jersey in +1871; Kentucky and Minnesota in 1873; and Colorado in 1876. + +These data will give you some idea of the wide extension of this fourth +stage in library evolution. Its merits are very great. Perhaps its +greatest merit is that it recognizes the true function of the public +library as a part of the system of public education, and therefore as +entitled to a share in public taxation. Moreover, it has undoubtedly +done a vast amount of good in placing the means of intellectual +improvement within the reach of millions of people of all ages; it has +stimulated the love of books and diffused knowledge and happiness. And +yet with all these merits, it has been a failure; and this is largely +due to just three defects in administration: + +1. Lack of care and wisdom in the selection of the books, resulting in +the acquisition of many volumes of trash and of profligacy. + +2. Lack of care as to the distribution and return of the books, +resulting in their rapid dispersion and disappearance. + +3. Lack of care in the preservation of the books that were not strayed +and stolen, resulting in their rapid deterioration. + +You have got to apply business principles to the handling of books, as +well as of any other material possessions. Libraries as well as sawmills +need to be dealt with according to common-sense and with efficiency. Now +upon the general failure of these libraries, let me quote for you a +little testimony. The superintendent of schools in New York State, in +1875, says: "The system has not worked well in this state.... The +libraries have fallen into disuse, and have become practically +valueless." [1 Pub. lib. of U.S., i. 41.] + +The superintendent for 1861 says that in "nearly every quarter of the +state," the libraries are "almost totally unused and rapidly +deteriorating." [2 Pub. Lib. of U.S. i. 40.] For 1862, the +superintendent gives a more detailed picture of the condition of the +school libraries. He finds them "mainly represented by a motley +collection of books, ranging from 'Headley's sacred mountains' to the +'Pirate's own book,' numbering in the aggregate a million and a half of +volumes, scattered among the various families, constituting a part of +the family library, or serving as toys for children in the nursery; ... +crowded into cupboards, thrown into cellars, stowed away in lofts, +exposed to the action of water, the sun, and of fire, or more frequently +locked away into darkness unrelieved and silence unbroken." [2 Pub. Lib. +of U.S. i. 40.] + +This graphic picture of the failure of the system in New York is perhaps +matched by a similar picture of its failure in Michigan, as drawn by our +superintendent of education in 1869: + +"The books were distributed to the districts by the town clerk to be +returned by the directors every third month for exchange. This would now +require more than 60,000 miles' travel per annum, at a positive expense +to the directors, certainly, of $100,000, to say nothing of more than +10,000 days' time. This was like putting two locomotives ahead of each +other to draw a hand-car. The result was the books were generally hidden +away in the clerks' offices, like monks in their cloister, and valueless +to the world. And what kind of books were they? Some good ones, +doubtless; but generally it was better to sow oats in the dust that +covered those books than to give them to the young to read. Every year, +soon after the taxes were collected, the state swarmed with pedlers, +with all the unsalable books of Eastern houses--the sensational novels +of all ages, tales of piracies, murders, and love intrigues--the +yellow-covered literature of the world." + +Finally, the superintendent for 1873 says: "The whole system seems to +have come into general disfavor; and is, more than any other feature of +our school system, the one of which we are least proud." + +Now we come to the fifth stage in the evolution of libraries--that of +libraries fully endowed by private generosity, and thrown open to the +public on such conditions as the founders have been pleased to indicate; +sometimes called patronymic libraries. Notable specimens of this class +of libraries are the Astor, Cooper, and Lenox Libraries, of New York, +and the Peabody Library, of Baltimore. The note of this species of +library is this: it is for the use of the public entirely without cost +to the public. In short, it is a library completely endowed, not only as +to the original expense of its erection and equipment, but absolutely +for all subsequent expense in its increase and administration. +Concerning this species of library, I have this to say: It is a noble +use to make of private wealth; it does immense good; but it is not the +best final form of library evolution. And for two reasons: first, the +man who will completely endow a free public library does not arise in +every community; whereas, every community needs a free public library. +And, second, the wholesomest kind of a gift is not that which does it +all for the community and requires no exertion or sacrifice on their +part; but that which gives the community a good generous start, but +still leaves something for the community to do for itself. In other +words, the healthiest sort of help, whether for one man or for ten +thousand, is that help which helps a man to help himself. + +And this brings us to the sixth and final form of library development. +It is the one which is the resultant of the two grand ideas; primarily, +the recognition of the free public library as an essential part of the +system of public education and therefore as a legitimate subject for +public taxation. This idea is essential to the most satisfactory form of +a public library--the public must invest something in it. But this idea +can adjust itself to that other noble one--private liberality in aid of +the public. + +And it is in this final and most consummate form, combining private +help with public selfhelp, that many of the most successful libraries in +this country have been organized; and yet it is only since 1848 that +such libraries have been possible. For it was in 1848 that the first +state in our Union, Massachusetts, passed an act authorizing a +municipality to tax itself for the support of a free public library. +Since then many other states have followed with similar legislation. So +that it is only within the past thirty-five years that this grand result +has been reached: the systematic popularization of books under the +direction of the municipality, partially at least at the public expense, +and often in combination with private benefaction. + +Now, it is this grand result that you have reached here in West Bay +City. The library which you to-day dedicate to the perpetual service of +the people, and which we may believe will continue as long as society +lasts here to do its serene and beneficient work for the instruction and +delight of innumerable generations of mankind--this library represents +the latest, and I think we may say the most perfect and the final term +in a process of library evolution, which has been going forward on this +continent for more than two hundred years, and has involved, as we have +seen, countless struggles and failures and sacrifices for the production +of this single result. + +Ladies and gentlemen, may I venture to express the hope that this study +which we have now made of the process--the slow, costly, laborious +process--by which this brilliant result has been made possible and easy +for you, in West Bay City, is something which will enhance even your +pleasure in the acquisition of this noble library as well as your +appreciation of the princely act of Mr. Sage in his creative relation to +it? + +I trust it may enhance also your feeling of responsibility for the +perpetual success of this library in the purposes for which it has been +formed. This library has been well organized; but the working of it will +depend upon you. It is on one side of it a business concern; and like +any other business concern it will go to wrack and ruin unless it is +conducted on sound business principles, accurate accounting, sharp +supervision, punctuality, system, order, promptitude, energy. + +But more than ordinary business qualities are needed to make this +library all that it should be. Recognize the true function of the free +public library; it is a part of a large system of public education. It +is but a co-ordinate department of that larger institution for public +education--the people's university--including the ward schools and the +high schools. Some of the fruitfullest and best work of those schools +will be done in this library. + +Then, too, the public library stands for the wholesome truth that +education is never finished and should not stop when one stops going to +school. The boy and the girl who graduate at the school do not desert +the library; they keep up and carry forward their intellectual training +by a post-graduate course in the public library, for the rest of their +lives. + +Furthermore, the free public library supplements the work of the free +public schools by reaching those whom the schools never reached at all, +or only reached very slightly. + +And that public library is never a complete success, in which is not +present in the officers a spirit of courtesy toward readers, of +sympathy, of cheerfulness, of patience, even of helpfulness. Don't +permit your library ever to be a dismal, bibliographical cave, in charge +of a dragon. Let it always be a bright and winsome place, hospitable to +all orderly people; a place where even those ill-informed about books +will not be made embarrassed, but encouraged. Let it be one of the most +attractive places in town; let it outshine in attractiveness the vulgar +and harmful attractions of the bar-room and the gambling den; let it +grow up into the best life of the community, a place resorted to by all, +loved by all, a blessing to all. + + + + +THE LIBRARY AS A FIELD FOR PHILANTHROPY + + + At a dinner given to Andrew Carnegie by the Authors' League + in New York, he said: "They say I am a philanthropist. I am + no such foolish fellow." Nevertheless, to the _North + American Review_ for December, 1889, he contributed an + article, entitled "The Best Fields for Philanthropy," in + which he gives the Library first place. It is of course + impossible to tell whether the title was his or a suggestion + of the editor. The extract printed here is interesting as + embodying Mr. Carnegie's gospel of "help by self-help," but + also as giving credit to Enoch Pratt of Baltimore as an + earlier exponent of it. + + Andrew Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, Nov. 25, + 1835. He was brought by his family to Pittsburgh, Pa. as a + boy of 13, and after working as a weaver's assistant and a + telegraph messenger boy, became an operator, rose to be head + of his division, made money by organizing a sleeping-car + company and after the Civil War became an ironmaster, + retiring in 1901 as a multi-millionaire. Much of his fortune + he gave to build libraries, almost always on the condition + that the municipality should assure them a stated support. + He died in New York, Aug. 11, 1919. + +The reception given to the first paper[1] upon this subject, to which +our lamented friend, the late editor and proprietor of this _Review_, +was pleased to give the first place in the June number, has been most +encouraging to its author, as it would surely have been to the editor +had he been spared, for he was most deeply interested in the subject. + +[1] "Wealth" by Andrew Carnegie. In the North American Review, June, +1889. + + * * * * * + +Before entering upon the question which you have proposed, it may be +advantageous to restate the positions taken in the former paper, for the +benefit of those who may not have read it, or who cannot conveniently +refer to it. It was assumed that the present laws of competition, +accumulation, and distribution are the best obtainable conditions; that +through these the race receives its most valuable fruits; and, +therefore, that they should be accepted and upheld. Under these it was +held that great wealth must inevitably flow into the hands of the few +exceptional managers of men. The question then arose, What should these +do with their surplus wealth? and the "Gospel of Wealth" contended that +surplus wealth should be considered as a sacred trust, to be +administered during the lives of its owners, by them as trustees, for +the best good of the community in which and from which it had been +acquired. + +It was pointed out that there were but three modes of disposing of +surplus wealth, and two of these were held to be improper. First, it was +held that to leave great fortunes to children did not prove true +affection for them or interest in their genuine good, regarded either as +individuals or as members of the state; that it was not the welfare of +the children, but the pride of the parents, which inspired enormous +legacies, and that, looking to the usual results of vast sums conferred +upon children, the thoughtful man must be forced to say, if the good of +the child only were considered: "I would as soon leave to my son a curse +as to leave to him the almighty dollar." + +The second mode open to men is to hoard their surplus wealth during +life, and leave it at death for public uses. It was pointed out that in +many cases these bequests become merely monuments of the testators' +folly; that the amount of real good done by posthumous gifts was +ridiculously disproportionate to the sums thus left. The recent decision +upon Mr. Tilden's will, which is said to have been drawn by the ablest +of lawyers, and the partial failure of Mr. Williamson's purposes in +regard to the great technical school which that millionaire intended to +establish in Philadelphia, are lessons indeed for the rich who only +bequeath. + +The aim of the first article was thus to lead up to the conclusion that +there is but one right mode of using enormous fortunes--namely, that the +possessors from time to time during their own lives so administer them +as to promote the permanent good of the communities from which they have +been gathered. It was held that public sentiment would soon say of one +who died possessed of millions of available wealth which he might have +administered: "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced." + +The purpose of this article is to present some of the best methods of +performing this duty of administering surplus wealth for the good of the +people. The first requisite for a really good use of wealth by the +millionaire who has accepted the gospel which proclaims him only a +trustee of the surplus that comes to him, is to take care that the +purpose for which he spends it shall not have a degrading, pauperizing +tendency upon its recipients, and that his trust should be so +administered as to stimulate the best and most aspiring poor of the +community to further efforts for their own improvement. It is not the +irreclaimably destitute, shiftless, and worthless that it is truly +beneficial or truly benevolent to attempt to reach and improve. For +these there exists the refuge provided by the city or the state, where +they can be sheltered, fed, clothed, and kept in comfortable existence, +and--most important of all--where they can be isolated from the +well-doing and industrious poor, who are liable to be demoralized by +contact with these unfortunates. One man or woman who succeeds in living +comfortably by begging is more dangerous to society, and a greater +obstacle to the progress of humanity, than a score of wordy Socialists. +The individual administrator of surplus wealth has as his charge the +industrious and ambitious; not those who need everything done for them, +but those who, being most anxious and able to help themselves, deserve +and will be benefited by help from others and the extension of their +opportunities at the hands of the philanthropic rich. + +It is ever to be remembered that one of the chief obstacles which the +philanthropist meets in his efforts to do real and permanent good in +this world is the practice of indiscriminate giving; and the duty of the +millionaire is to resolve to cease giving to objects that are not proved +clearly to his satisfaction to be deserving. He must remember Mr. Rice's +belief, that nine hundred and fifty out of every thousand dollars +bestowed to-day upon so-called charity had better be thrown into the +sea. As far as my experience of the wealthy extends, it is unnecessary +to urge them to give of their superabundance in charity so-called. +Greater good for the race is to be achieved by inducing them to cease +impulsive and injurious giving. As a rule, the sins of millionaires in +this respect are not those of omission, but of commission, because they +will not take time to think, and chiefly because it is much easier to +give than to refuse. Those who have surplus wealth give millions every +year which produce more evil than good, and which really retard the +progress of the people, because most of the forms in vogue to-day for +benefiting mankind only tend to spread among the poor a spirit of +dependence upon alms, when what is essential for progress is that they +should be inspired to depend upon their own exertions. The miser +millionaire who hoards his wealth does less injury to society than the +careless millionaire who squanders his unwisely, even if he does so +under cover of the mantle of sacred charity. The man who gives to the +individual beggar commits a grave offence, but there are many societies +and institutions soliciting alms which it is none the less injurious to +the community to aid. These are as corrupting as individual beggars. +Plutarch's "Morals" contains this lesson: "A beggar asking an alms of a +Lacedaemonian, he said: 'Well, should I give thee anything, thou wilt be +the greater beggar, for he that first gave thee money made thee idle, +and is the cause of this base and dishonorable way of living.'" As I +know them, there are few millionaires, very few indeed, who are clear of +this sin of having made beggars. + +Bearing in mind these considerations, let us endeavor to present some of +the best uses to which a millionaire can devote the surplus of which he +should regard himself as only the trustee. + +_First_--Standing apart by itself there is the founding of a university +by men enormously rich, such men as must necessarily be few in any +country. Perhaps the greatest sum ever given by an individual for any +purpose is the gift of Senator Stanford, who undertakes to establish +upon the Pacific coast, where he amassed his enormous fortune, a +complete university, which is said to involve the expenditure of ten +millions of dollars, and upon which he may be expected to bestow twenty +millions of his surplus. He is to be envied. A thousand years hence some +orator, speaking his praise upon the then crowded shores of the Pacific, +may repeat Griffith's eulogy of Wolsey, "In bestowing he was most +princely: ever witness for him this great seat of learning." Here is a +noble use of wealth. + +We have many such institutions, Hopkins, Cornell, Packer, and others, +but most of these have only been bequeathed, and it is impossible to +extol any man greatly for simply leaving what he cannot take with him. +Cooper, and Pratt, and Stanford, and others of this class deserve credit +and the admiration of their fellows as much for the time and the +attention given during their lives, as for their expenditure, upon their +respective monuments. + +We cannot have the Pacific coast in mind without recalling another +important work of a different character which has recently been +established there, the Lick Observatory. If any millionaire be +interested in the ennobling study of astronomy,--and there should be and +would be such if they but gave the subject the slightest +attention,--here is an example which could well be followed, for the +progress made in astronomical instruments and appliances is so great and +continuous that every few years a new telescope might be judiciously +given to one of the observatories upon this continent, the last being +always the largest and the best, and certain to carry further and +further the knowledge of the universe and of our relation to it here +upon the earth. As one among many of the good deeds of the late Mr. +Thaw, of Pittsburg, his constant support of the observatory there may be +mentioned. This observatory enabled Professor Langley to make his +wonderful discoveries. The professor is now at the head of the +Smithsonian Institution, a worthy successor to Professor Henry. +Connected with him was Mr. Brashear, of Pittsburg, whose instruments are +in most of the principal observatories of the world. He was a common +millwright, but Mr. Thaw recognized his genius and was his main support +through trying days. This common workman has been made a professor by +one of the foremost scientific bodies of the world. In applying part of +his surplus in aiding these two now famous men, the millionaire Thaw did +a noble work. Their joint labors have brought great, and are destined to +bring still greater, credit upon their country in every scientific +centre throughout the world. + +It is reserved for very few to found universities, and, indeed, the use +for many, or perhaps any, new universities does not exist. More good is +henceforth to be accomplished by adding to and extending those in +existence. But in this department a wide field remains for the +millionaire as distinguished from the Croesus among milionaires. The +gifts to Yale University have been many, but there is plenty of room for +others. The School of Fine Arts, founded by Mr. Street, the Sheffield +Scientific School, endowed by Mr. Sheffield, and Professor Loomis's fund +for the observatory, are fine examples. Mrs. C.J. Osborne's building for +reading and recitation to be regarded with especial pleasure as being +the wise gift of a woman. Harvard University has not been forgotten; the +Peabody Museum, and the halls of Wells, Matthews, and Thayer may be +cited. Sever Hall is worthy of special mention, as showing what a genius +like Richardson could do with the small sum of a hundred thousand +dollars. The Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee, may be +mentioned as a true product of the gospel of wealth. It was established +by members of the Vanderbilt family during their lives--mark this vital +feature--during their lives; for nothing counts for much that is left by +a man at his death. Such funds are torn from him, not given by him. If +any millionaire is at a loss to know how to accomplish great and +indisputable good with his surplus, here is a field which can never be +fully occupied, for the wants of our universities increase with the +development of the country. + +_Second_--The result of my own study of the question, What is the best +gift which can be given to a community? is that a free library occupies +the first place, provided the community will accept and maintain it as a +public institution, as much a part of the city property as its public +schools, and, indeed, an adjunct to these. It is, no doubt, possible +that my own personal experience may have led me to value a free library +beyond all other forms of beneficence. When I was a boy in Pittsburg, +Colonel Anderson, of Allegheny,--a name I can never speak without +feelings of devotional gratitude,--opened his little library of four +hundred books to boys. Every Saturday afternoon he was in attendance +himself at his house to exchange books. No one but he who has felt it +can know the intense longing with which the arrival of Saturday was +awaited, that a new book might be had. My brother and Mr. Phipps, who +have been my principal business partners through life, shared with me +Colonel Anderson's precious generosity, and it was when revelling in +these treasures that I resolved, if ever wealth came to me, that it +should be used to establish free libraries, that other poor boys might +receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to +that noble man. + +Great Britain has been foremost in appreciating the value of free +libraries for its people. Parliament passed an act permitting towns and +cities to establish and maintain these as municipal institutions, and +whenever the people of any town or city voted to accept the provisions +of the act, the authorities were authorized to tax the community to the +extent of one penny in the pound valuation. Most of the towns already +have free libraries under this act. Many of these are the gifts of rich +men, whose funds have been used for the building, and in some cases for +the books also, the communities being required to maintain and to +develop the libraries; and to this feature I attribute most of their +usefulness. An endowed institution is liable to become the prey of a +clique. The public ceases to take interest, in it, or, rather, never +acquires interest in it. The rule has been violated which requires the +recipients to help themselves. Everything has been done for the +community instead of its being only helped to help itself. + +Many free libraries have been established in our country, but none that +I know of with such wisdom as the Pratt Library, of Baltimore. Mr. Pratt +presented to the city of Baltimore one million dollars, requiring it to +pay 5 per cent. per annum, amounting to fifty thousand dollars per year, +which is to be devoted to the maintenance and development of the library +and its branches. During the last year 430,217 books were distributed; +37,196 people of Baltimore are registered upon the books as readers; and +it is safe to say that 37,000 frequenters of the Pratt Library are of +more value to Baltimore, to the State, and to the country than all the +inert, lazy, and hopelessly-poor in the whole nation. And it may further +be safely said that, by placing within the reach of 37,000 aspiring +people books which they were anxious to obtain, Mr. Pratt has done more +for the genuine progress of the people than has been done by all the +contributions of all the millionaires and rich people to help those who +cannot help themselves. The one wise administrator of his surplus has +poured his fertilizing stream upon soil that was ready to receive it and +return a hundred-fold. The many squanderers have not only poured their +streams into sieves which never can be filled,--they have done worse; +they have poured them into stagnant sewers that breed the diseases which +afflict the body politic. And this is not all. The million dollars of +which Mr. Pratt has made so grand a use are something, but there is +something greater still. When the fifth branch library was opened in +Baltimore, the speaker said: + + "Whatever may have been done in these four years, it was his + pleasure to acknowledge that much, very much, was due to the + earnest interest, the wise councils, and the practical + suggestions of Mr. Pratt. He never seemed to feel that the + mere donation of great wealth for the benefit of his + fellow-citizens was all that would be asked of him, but he + wisely labored to make its application as comprehensive and + effective as possible. Thus he constantly lightened burdens + that were, at times, very heavy, brought good cheer and + bright sunshine when clouds flitted across the sky, and made + every officer and employee feel that good work was + appreciated, and loyal devotion to duty would receive hearty + commendation." + +This is the finest picture I have ever seen of any of the millionaire +class. As here depicted, Mr. Pratt is the ideal disciple of the "Gospel +of Wealth." We need have no fear that the mass of toilers will fail to +recognize in such as he their best leaders and their most invaluable +allies; for the problem of poverty and wealth, of employer and employed, +will be practically solved whenever the time of the few is given, and +their wealth is administered during their lives, for the best good of +that portion of the community which has not been burdened by the +responsibilities which attend the possession of wealth. We shall have no +antagonism between classes when that day comes, for the high and the +low, the rich and the poor, shall then indeed be brothers. + +No millionaire will go far wrong in his search for one of the best forms +for the use of his surplus who chooses to establish a free library in +any community that is willing to maintain and develop it. John Bright's +words should ring in his ear: "It is impossible for any man to bestow a +greater benefit upon a young man than to give him access to books in a +free library." Closely allied to the library, and, where possible, +attached to it, there should be rooms for an art gallery and museum, and +a hall for such lectures and instruction as are provided in the Cooper +Union. The traveller upon the Continent is surprised to find that every +town of importance has its art gallery and museum; these may be large or +small, but in any case each has a receptacle for the treasures of the +locality, which is constantly receiving valuable gifts and bequests. The +free library and art gallery of Birmingham are remarkable among these, +and every now and then a rich man adds to their value by presenting +books, fine pictures, or other works of art. All that our cities require +to begin with is a proper fireproof building. Their citizens who travel +will send to it rare and costly things from every quarter of the globe +they visit, while those who remain at home will give or bequeath to it +of their treasures. In this way these collections will grow until our +cities will ultimately be able to boast of permanent exhibitions from +which their own citizens will derive incalculable benefit, and which +they will be proud to show to visitors. In the Metropolitan Museum of +Art in this city we have made an excellent beginning. Here is another +avenue for the proper use of surplus wealth. + +_Third_--We have another most important department in which great sums +can be worthily used,--the founding or extension of hospitals, medical +colleges, laboratories, and other institutions connected with the +alleviation of human suffering, and especially with the prevention +rather than the cure of human ills. There is no danger of pauperizing a +community in giving for such purposes, because such institutions relieve +temporary ailments or shelter only those who are hopeless invalids. What +better gift than a hospital can be given to a community that is without +one?--the gift being conditioned upon its proper maintenance by the +community in its corporate capacity. If hospital accommodation already +exists, no better method for using surplus wealth can be found than in +making additions to it. The late Mr. Vanderbilt's gift of half a million +of dollars to the medical department of Columbia College for a chemical +laboratory was one of the wisest possible uses of wealth. It strikes at +the prevention of disease by penetrating into its causes. Several others +have established such laboratories, but the need for them is still +great. + +If there be a millionaire in the land who is at a loss what to do with +the surplus that has been committed to him as trustee, let him +investigate the good that is flowing from these chemical laboratories. +No medical college is complete without its laboratory. As with +universities, so with medical colleges; it is not new institutions that +are required, but additional means for the more thorough equipment of +those that exist. The forms that benefactions to these may wisely take +are numerous, but probably none is more useful than that adopted by Mr. +Osborne when he built a school for training female nurses at Bellevue +College. If from all gifts there flows one-half of the good that comes +from this wise use of a millionaire's surplus, the most exacting may +well be satisfied. Only those who have passed through a lingering and +dangerous illness can rate at their true value the care, skill, and +attendance of trained female nurses. Their employment as nurses has +enlarged the sphere and influence of woman. It is not to be wondered at +that a Senator of the United States and a physician distinguished in +this country for having received the highest distinctions abroad should +find their wives from this class. + +_Fourth_--In the very front rank of benefactions public parks should be +placed, always provided that the community undertakes to maintain, +beautify, and preserve inviolate the parks given to it. No more useful +or more beautiful monument can be left by any man than a park for the +city in which he was born or in which he has long lived, nor can the +community pay a more graceful tribute to the citizen who presents it +than to give his name to the gift. If a park be already provided, there +is still room for many judicious gifts in connection with it. Mr. +Phipps, of Allegheny, has given conservatories to the park there, which +are visited by many every day of the week, and crowded by thousands of +working people every Sunday, for, with rare wisdom, he has stipulated as +a condition of the gift that the conservatories shall be open on +Sundays. The result of his experiment has been so gratifying that he is +justified in adding to them from his surplus, as he is doing largely +this year. To any lover of flowers among the wealthy I commend a study +of what is possible for them to do in the light of Mr. Phipps's example; +and may they please note that Mr. Phipps is a wise as well as a liberal +giver, for he requires the city to maintain these conservatories, and +thus secures for them forever the public ownership, the public interest, +and the public criticism of their management. Had he undertaken to +manage and maintain them, it is probable that popular interest in the +gift would never have been awakened. + +The parks and pleasure-grounds of small towns throughout Europe are not +less surprising than their libraries, museums, and art galleries. We saw +nothing more pleasing during our recent travels than the hillside of +Bergen, in Norway. It has been converted into one of the most +picturesque of pleasure-grounds; fountains, cascades, water-falls, +delightful arbors, fine terraces, and statues adorn what was before a +barren mountain side. Here is a field worthy of study by the millionaire +who would confer a lasting benefit upon his fellows. Another beautiful +instance of the right use of wealth in the direction of making cities +more and more attractive we found in Dresden. The owner of the leading +paper there bequeathed its revenues forever to the city, to be used in +beautifying it. An art committee decides from time to time what new +artistic feature is to be introduced or what hideous feature is to be +changed, and as the revenues accrue they are expended in this direction. +Thus through the gift of this patriotic newspaper proprietor his native +city of Dresden is fast becoming one of the most artistic places of +residence in the whole world. A work having been completed, it devolves +upon the city to maintain it forever. May I be excused if I commend to +our millionaire newspaper proprietors the example of their colleague in +the capital of Saxony? + +Scarcely a city of any magnitude in the older countries is without many +structures and features of great beauty. Much has been spent upon +ornament, decoration, and architectural effect: we are still far behind +in these things upon this side of the Atlantic. Our Republic is great in +some things,--in material development unrivalled; but let us always +remember that in art and in the finer touches we have scarcely yet taken +a place. Had the exquisite memorial arch recently erected temporarily in +New York been shown in Dresden, the art committee there would probably +have been enabled, from the revenue of the newspaper given by its owner +for just such purposes, to order its permanent erection to adorn the +city forever. + +While the bestowal of a park upon a community as one of the best uses +for surplus wealth will be universally approved, in embracing such +additions to it as conservatories, or in advocating the building of +memorial arches and works of adornment, it is probable that many will +think we go too far, and consider these somewhat fanciful. The material +good to flow from them may not be so directly visible; but let not any +practical mind, intent only upon material good, depreciate the value of +wealth given for these or for kindred aesthetic purposes as being +useless as far as the mass of the people and their needs are concerned. +As with libraries and museums, so with these more distinctively artistic +works; these perform their great use when they reach the best of the +masses of the people. It is worth more to reach and touch the sentiment +for beauty in the naturally bright minds of this class than that those +incapable of being so touched should be pandered to. For what the +improver of the race must endeavor to do is to reach those who have the +divine spark ever so feebly developed, that it may be strengthened and +grow. For my part, I think Mr. Phipps put his money to better use in +giving the workingmen of Allegheny conservatories filled with beautiful +flowers, orchids, and aquatic plants, which they, with their wives and +children, can enjoy in their spare hours, and on which they can feed the +love for the beautiful, than if he had given his surplus money to +furnish them with bread, for those in health who cannot earn their bread +are scarcely worth considering by the individual giver; the care of such +being the duty of the state. The man who erects in a city a truly +artistic arch, statue, or fountain makes a wise use of his surplus. "Man +does not live by bread alone." + +_Fifth_--We have another good use for surplus wealth, in providing for +our cities halls suitable for meetings of all kinds, especially for +concerts of elevating music. Our cities are rarely provided with halls +for these purposes, being in this respect also very far behind European +cities. The Springer Hall, of Cincinnati, that valuable addition to the +city, was largely the gift of Mr. Springer, who was not content to +bequeath funds from his estate at death, but who gave during his life, +and, in addition, gave--what was equally important--his time and +business ability to insure the successful results which have been +achieved. The gift of a hall to any city lacking one is an excellent use +for surplus wealth for the good of a community. The reason why the +people have only one instructive and elevating, or even amusing, +entertainment when a dozen would be highly beneficial, is that the rent +of a hall, even when a suitable hall exists (which is rare), is so great +as to prevent managers from running the risk of financial failure. If +every city in our land owned a hall which could be given or rented for a +small sum for such gatherings as a committee or the mayor of the city +judged advantageous, the people could be furnished with proper lectures, +amusements, and concerts at an exceedingly small cost. The town halls of +European cities, many of which have organs, are of inestimable value to +the people, when utilized as they are in the manner suggested. Let no +one underrate the influence of entertainments of an elevating or even of +an amusing character, for these do much to make the lives of the people +happier and their natures better. If any millionaire born in a small +village, which has now become a great city, is prompted in the day of +his success to do something for his birthplace with part of his surplus, +his grateful remembrance cannot take a form more useful than that of a +public hall with an organ, provided the city agrees to maintain and use +it. + +_Sixth_--In another respect we are still much behind Europe. A form of +beneficence which is not uncommon there is providing swimming baths for +the people. The donors of these have been wise enough to require the +city benefited to maintain them at its own expense, and as proof of the +contention that everything should never be done for any one or for any +community, but that the recipients should invariably be called upon to +do part, it is significant that it is found essential for the popular +success of these healthful establishments to exact a nominal charge for +their use. In many cities, however, the school children are admitted +free at fixed hours upon certain days, different hours being fixed for +the boys and the girls to use the great swimming baths, hours or days +being also fixed for the use of these baths by ladies. In inland cities +the young of both sexes are thus taught to swim. Swimming clubs are +organized, and matches are frequent, at which medals and prizes are +given. The reports published by the various swimming baths throughout +Great Britain are filled with instances of lives saved because those who +fortunately escaped ship-wreck had been taught to swim in the baths, and +not a few instances are given in which the pupils of certain bathing +establishments have saved the lives of others. If any disciple of the +"Gospel of Wealth" gives his favorite city large swimming and private +baths (provided the municipality undertakes their management as a city +affair), he will never be called to account for an improper use of the +funds intrusted to him. + +_Seventh_--Churches as fields for the use of surplus wealth have +purposely been reserved until the last, because, these being sectarian, +every man will be governed by his own attachments; therefore gifts to +churches, it may be said, are not, in one sense, gifts to the community +at large, but to special classes. Nevertheless, every millionaire may +know of a district where the little cheap, uncomfortable, and altogether +unworthy wooden structure stands at the cross-roads, to which the whole +neighborhood gathers on Sunday, and which is the centre of social life +and source of neighborly feeling. The administrator of wealth has made a +good use of part of his surplus if he replaces that building with a +permanent structure of brick, stone, or granite, up the sides of which +the honeysuckle and columbine may climb, and from whose tower the +sweet-tolling bell may sound. The millionaire should not figure how +cheaply this structure can be built, but how perfect it can be made. If +he has the money, it should be made a gem, for the educating influence +of a pure and noble specimen of architecture, built, as the pyramids +were built, to stand for ages, is not to be measured by dollars. Every +farmer's home, heart, and mind in the district will be influenced by the +beauty and grandeur of the church. But having given the building, the +donor should stop there; the support of the church should be upon its +own people; there is not much genuine religion in the congregation or +much good to flow from the church which is not supported at home. + +Many other avenues for the wise expenditure of surplus wealth might be +indicated. I enumerate but a few--a very few--of the many fields which +are open, and only these in which great or considerable sums can be +judiciously used. It is not the privilege, however, of millionaires +alone to work for or aid measures which are certain to benefit the +community. Every one who has but a small surplus above his moderate +wants may share this privilege with his richer brothers, and those +without surplus can give at least part of their time, which is usually +as important as funds, and often more so. Some day, perhaps, with your +permission, I will endeavor to point out some fields and modes in which +these may perform well their part as trustees of wealth, or leisure, +according to the measure of their respective fortunes. + +It is not expected, neither is it desirable, that there should be a +general concurrence as to the best possible use of surplus wealth. For +different men and different localities there are different uses. What +commends itself more highly to the judgment of the administrator is the +best use for him, for his heart should be in the work. It is as +important in administering wealth as it is in any other branch of a +man's work that he should be enthusiastically devoted to it and feel +that in the field selected his work lies. + +Besides this, there is room and need for all kinds of wise benefactions +for the common weal. The man who builds a university, library, or +laboratory performs no more useful work than he who elects to devote +himself and his surplus means to the adornment of a park, the gathering +together of a collection of pictures for the public, or the building of +a memorial arch. These are all true laborers in the vineyard. The only +point required by the "Gospel of Wealth" is that the surplus which +accrues from time to time in the hands of man should be administered by +him in his own lifetime for that purpose which is seen by him, as +trustee, to be best for the good of the people. To leave at death what +he cannot take away, and place upon others the burden of the work which +it was his own duty to perform, is to do nothing worthy. This requires +no sacrifice, nor any sense of duty to his fellows. + +Time was when the words concerning the rich man entering heaven were +regarded as a hard saying. Today, when all questions are probed to the +bottom and the standards of faith received the most liberal +interpretations, the startling verse has been relegated to the rear, to +await the next kindly revision as one of those things which cannot be +quite understood, but which meanwhile--it is carefully to be +observed--are not to be understood literally. But is it so very +improbable that the next stage of thought is not to restore the doctrine +in all its pristine purity and force, as being in perfect harmony with +sound ideas upon the subject of wealth and poverty, the rich and the +poor, and the contrasts everywhere seen and deplored? In Christ's day, +it is evident, reformers were against the wealthy. It is none the less +evident that we are fast recurring to that position to-day; and there +will be nothing to surprise the student of sociological development if +society should soon approve the text which has caused so much anxiety: +"It is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich +man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Even if the needle were the small +casement at the gates, the words betoken serious difficulty for the +rich. It will be but a step for the theologian to take from the doctrine +that he who dies rich dies disgraced to that which brings upon the man +punishment or deprivation hereafter. + +The "Gospel of Wealth" but echoes Christ's words. It calls upon the +millionaire to sell all that he hath and give it in the highest and best +form to the poor, by administering his estate himself for the good of +his fellows, before he is called upon to lie down and rest upon the +bosom of Mother Earth. So doing, he will approach his end no longer the +ignoble hoarder of useless millions, poor, very poor indeed, in money, +but rich, very rich, twenty times a millionaire still, in the affection, +gratitude and admiration of his fellow-men, and--sweeter far--soothed +and sustained by the still small voice within, which, whispering, tells +him that, because he has lived, perhaps one small part of the great +world has been bettered just a little. This much is sure: against such +riches as these no bar will be found at the gates of Paradise. + + + + +THE IDEA OF A POPULAR LIBRARY + + The following seven papers give some fundamental ideas on + the functions of popular libraries. They are arranged in + chronological order, and, so grouped, span the gap between + 1851 and 1906, considerably more than half a century. The + first is interesting as presenting a discussion at the + inception of our first great public library, that of the + city of Boston, quoted from "The Life, Letters and Journals + of George Ticknor" (Boston, 1909). Ticknor's idea of a + popular library, given in a letter to Edward Everett, is + followed by Everett's answer. Some of the editor's comments + precede and conclude. Those interested may read on, in + Chapter XV, Vol. II of the "Life," and get a further idea of + Ticknor's zeal in promoting the Boston library and his + interest in making it as popular as possible, in distinction + to the idea of a library solely for scholars, upheld by John + Jacob Astor, in his New York gift of three years previous, + which Everett rather favored. + + George Ticknor was born in Boston, Aug. 1, 1791 and + graduated at Dartmouth in 1807. He was admitted to the bar + in 1813 but devoted his life chiefly to teaching and to + literature, serving as professor in Harvard in 1819-35. He + died in Boston, Jan. 26, 1871. A sketch of Everett appears + on page 127 of this volume. + + +The endowment of a great library in New York, given by Mr. John Jacob +Astor, at his death, in 1848, was much talked about; and men of forecast +began to say openly that, unless something of a like character were done +in Boston, the scientific and literary culture of this part of the +country would follow trade and capital to the metropolis, which was thus +taking the lead. Still, nothing effectual was done. Among the persons +with whom Mr. Ticknor had, of late years, most frequently talked of the +matter, Dr. Channing was dead, Mr. Abbott Lawrence had become Minister +to England, and Mr. Jonathan Phillips was growing too infirm to take +part in public affairs. The subject, however, kept its hold on Mr. +Ticknor's mind. + +His idea was that which he felt lay at the foundation of all our public +institutions, namely, that in order to form and maintain our character +as a great nation, the mass of the people must be intelligent enough to +manage their own government with wisdom; and he came, though not at +once, to the conclusion that a very free use of books, furnished by an +institution supported at the expense of the community, would be one of +the effective means for obtaining this result of general culture. + +He had reached this conclusion before he saw any probability of its +being practically carried out, as is proved by the following letter, +which he wrote to Mr. Everett, in the summer of 1851. A few months +before this date Mr. Everett had presented to the city--after offering +it in vain more than once--a collection of about a thousand volumes of +Public Documents, and books of similar character, accompanied by a +letter, urging the establishment of a public library. + + + To HON. EDWARD EVERETT. + + Bellows Falls, Vermont, July 14, 1851. + + MY DEAR EVERETT,--I have seen with much gratification from + time to time, within the last year, and particularly in your + last letter on the subject, that you interest yourself in + the establishment of a public library in Boston;--I mean a + library open to all the citizens, and from which all, under + proper restrictions, can take out books. Such, at least, I + understand to be your plan; and I have thought, more than + once, that I would talk with you about it, but accident has + prevented it. However, perhaps a letter is as good on all + accounts, and better as a distinct memorandum of what I + mean. + + It has seemed to me, for many years, that such a free + public library, if adapted to the wants of our people, would + be the crowning glory of our public schools. But I think it + important that it should be adapted to our peculiar + character; that is, that it should come in at the end of our + system of free instruction, and be fitted to continue and + increase the effects of that system by the self-culture that + results from reading. + + The great obstacle to this with us is not--as it is in + Prussia and elsewhere--a low condition of the mass of the + people, condemning them, as soon as they escape from school, + and often before it, to such severe labor, in order to + procure the coarsest means of physical subsistence, that + they have no leisure for intellectual culture, and soon lose + all taste for it. Our difficulty is, to furnish means + specially fitted to encourage a love for reading, to create + an appetite for it, which the schools often fail to do, and + then to adapt these means to its gratification. That an + appetite for reading can be very widely excited is plain, + from what the cheap publications of the last twenty years + have accomplished, gradually raising the taste from such + poor trash as the novels with which they began, up to the + excellent and valuable works of all sorts which now flood + the country, and are read by the middling classes + everywhere, and in New England, I think, even by a majority + of the people.[2] + + Now what seems to me to be wanted in Boston is, an apparatus + that shall carry this taste for reading as deep as possible + into society, assuming, what I believe to be true, that it + can be carried deeper in our society than in any other in + the world, because we are better fitted for it. To do this I + would establish a library which, in its _main_ department + and purpose, should differ from all free libraries yet + attempted; I mean one in which any popular books, tending to + moral and intellectual improvement, should be furnished in + such numbers of copies that many persons, if they desired + it, could be reading the same work at the same time; in + short, that not only the best books of all sorts, but the + pleasant literature of the day, should be made accessible to + the whole people at the only time when they care for it, + _i.e._ when it is fresh and new. I would, therefore, + continue to buy additional copies of any book of this class, + almost as long as they should continue to be asked for, and + thus, by following the popular taste,--unless it should + demand something injurious,--create a real appetite for + healthy general reading. This appetite, once formed, will + take care of itself. It will, in the great majority of + cases, demand better and better books; and can, I believe, + by a little judicious help, rather than by any direct + control or restraint, be carried much higher than is + generally thought possible. + +[2] Mr. Ticknor was much struck by the publication of a cheap edition +of Johns' Translation of Froissart, by the Harpers, of which he found +a copy in a small inn of a retired village of southern New York, in +1844; and he always watched the signs of popular taste, both in +publishers' lists and in the bookshelves of the houses which he +entered, in his summer journeys, or in his errands of business and +charity in the winter. + +After some details, of no present consequence, developing this idea, the +letter goes on:-- + + Nor would I, on this plan, neglect the establishment of a + department for consultation, and for all the common purposes + of public libraries, some of whose books, like + encyclopaedias and dictionaries, should never be lent out, + while others could be permitted to circulate; all on the + shelves being accessible for reference as many hours in the + day as possible, and always in the evening. This part of the + library, I should hope, would be much increased by donations + from public-spirited individuals, and individuals interested + in the progress of knowledge, while, I think, the public + treasury should provide for the more popular department. + + Intimations of the want of such public facilities for + reading are, I think, beginning to be given. In London I + notice advertisements of some of the larger circulating + libraries, that they purchase one and two hundred copies of + all new and popular works; and in Boston, I am told, some of + our own circulating libraries will purchase almost any new + book, if the person asking for it will agree to pay double + the usual fee for reading it; while in all, I think, + several, and sometimes many copies of new and popular works + are kept on hand for a time, and then sold, as the demand + for them dies away. + +Omitting other details, now of no importance, the letter ends as +follows:-- + + Several years ago I proposed to Mr. Abbott Lawrence to move + in favor of such a library in Boston; and, since that time, + I have occasionally suggested it to other persons. In every + case the idea has been well received; and the more I have + thought of it and talked about it, the more I have been + persuaded, that it is a plan easy to be reduced to practice, + and one that would be followed by valuable results. + + I wish, therefore, that you would consider it, and see what + objections there are to it. I have no purpose to do anything + more about it myself than to write you this letter, and + continue to speak of it, as I have done heretofore, to + persons who, like yourself, are interested in such matters. + But I should be well pleased to know how it strikes you. + +To this letter Mr. Everett replied as follows:-- + + + CAMBRIDGE, July 26, 1851. + + MY DEAR TICKNOR,--I duly received your letter of the 14th + from Bellows Falls, and read it with great interest. + + The extensive circulation of new and popular works is a + feature of a public library which I have not hitherto much + contemplated. It deserves to be well weighed, and I shall be + happy hereafter to confer with you on the subject. I cannot + deny that my views have, since my younger days, undergone + some change as to the practicability of freely loaning books + at home from large public libraries. Those who have been + connected with the administration of such libraries are apt + to get discouraged, by the loss and damage resulting from + the loan of books. My present impressions are in favor of + making the amplest provision in the library for the use of + books there. + + Your plan, however, is intended to apply only to a + particular class of books, and does not contemplate the + unrestrained circulation of those of which the loss could + not be easily replaced. + + That Boston must have a great public library, or yield to + New York in letters as well as in commerce, will, I think, + be made quite apparent in a few years. But on this and other + similar subjects I hope to have many opportunities of + conferring with you next winter. + +The difference of opinion, here made evident, as to the possibility or +safety of allowing books to circulate freely, was not removed by many +subsequent conversations, nor were the hopes of either of the gentlemen, +with regard to the establishment of a great library, raised even when, +in the early part of 1852, the mayor, Mr. Seaver, recommended that steps +be taken for such an object, and the Common Council, presided over by +Mr. James Lawrence, proposed that a board of trustees for such an +institution should be appointed. When, therefore, both Mr. Everett and +Mr. Ticknor--the latter greatly to his surprise--were invited to become +members of this board, they conferred together anew on the project; and, +although the mayor, on hearing Mr. Ticknor's views, was much pleased +with them, and urged him to take the place, yet he at one time +determined to decline the office, certainly unless the library were to +be open for the free circulation of most of its books, and unless it +were to be dedicated, in the first instance, rather to satisfying the +wants of the less favored classes of the community, than--like all +public libraries then in existence--to satisfying the wants of scholars, +men of science, and cultivated men generally. + + + + +THE FUNCTION OF A TOWN LIBRARY + + Nearly a quarter-century elapsed after Ticknor's letter, + just quoted, before the publication in book form of Josiah + P. Quincy's "Protection of Majorities and Other Essays" + (Boston, 1875), of which collection his paper on the + function of a town library forms a part. As stated in his + introduction, it appeared originally in _Old and New_, a + magazine already extinct when that introduction was penned. + + While asserting as strongly as Mr. Ticknor his belief in + making a library "popular," the writer denies that his + belief justifies the inclusion of fiction. His position + seems to be that, praiseworthy as much of it is, fiction + should not be supplied to the public from the public funds. + The present attitude, that this is a matter to be settled by + the public itself, is repudiated in set terms and with + somewhat picturesque illustrations, by Mr. Quincy. His + stalwart advocacy of the library as a supplement to the + school is what justifies the inclusion of his paper in this + collection. Those who desire to follow Mr. Quincy a little + farther may read the next paper in the above-named + collection entitled "The Abuse of Reading." + + Josiah Phillips Quincy was born in Boston, Nov. 28, 1829 + and graduated at Harvard in 1850, the son of the statesman + Josiah Quincy who was also president of Harvard. He was + admitted to the bar in 1854, but afterward engaged in + business and in farming, also writing freely on civic and + economic subjects. + +This is a one-sided paper. Something might be said on the other side; +but, as that is the popular side, it is likely to receive full justice. +In behalf of an unconverted minority, who should be represented through +the press, if nowhere else, I desire to register a dissent from the +prevailing opinion concerning the function of libraries sustained by the +taxation of towns and small municipalities. The importance of +stimulating thought upon subjects bearing ever so remotely upon our +fiscal requirements, I conceive to be far greater than may superficially +appear. For when the mass of our people clearly comprehend what +government should not be called upon to do for them, they will insist +upon its performing duties which are manifestly within its sphere of +action. Laboring men and women are to-day suffering from the +adulteration of their food and drink, and from a system of taxation +which oppresses them with weighty and unjust burdens. Their deliverance +can only come by dismissing legislators who are disciples of what may be +called the Todgers school of economy; that remarkable matron, as Dickens +tells us, caring little for the solid sustenance of her boarders, +provided "the gravy" was abundant and satisfactory. + +Upon what principle can the citizen, who thinks before he casts his +ballot, justify himself in voting increased taxes upon his neighbors for +the purpose of establishing a library? He must assume the necessity of +public schools, and then argue that he may vote for a library that will +supplement the elementary instruction which the town provides. And the +justification is ample. If our schools are so conducted as to awaken a +taste for knowledge and give a correct method in English reading, the +town library may represent the university brought to every man's door. +But suppose a large portion of the funds taken from tax-payers is +devoted to circulating ephemeral works of mere amusement. Is it not as +monstrous for me to vote to tax my neighbor to furnish the boys and +girls with "A Terrible Tribulation," or "Lady So-and-So's Struggle," as +it would be for the purpose of providing them with free tickets to +witness "Article 47" or "The Black Crook"? These romances and dramas (to +represent them in the most favorable point of view) are evanescent +productions, designed to meet the market demand for the intense and +spasmodic. Their claims to patronage from the public purse are precisely +similar. + +So far, the citizen has a right to object as a tax-payer. But, if he +were truly solicitous for the welfare of the community about him, the +protest might be far deeper. For the weak spot in our school system lies +just here: while claiming immense credit for giving most of our children +the ability to read, we show the profoundest indifference about what +they read. But this accomplishment of reading is a very doubtful good if +it goes no farther than to give a boy the satisfaction of perusing "The +Police Gazette," or introduces a girl to the immoralities of Mr. +Griffith Gaunt, and the adventures of a hundred other heroes of +characters even more questionable. By teaching our children to read, and +then setting them adrift in a sea of feverish literature which vitiates +the taste and enervates the character, we show an indifference about as +sensible as that of the old lady who thought it could not matter whether +her son had gone to the bosom of Abraham or Beelzebub, seeing that they +were both Scripture names. + +It is not difficult to conceive of communities, existing in Greenland +or elsewhere, which might legitimately tax the citizen to furnish his +neighbors with their novel-reading. But it can scarcely be disputed that +an increased facility for obtaining works of fiction is not the pressing +need of our country in this present year of grace. Dr. Isaac Ray, +perhaps our highest authority on morbid mental phenomena, concludes his +study on the effects of the prevalent romantic literature in these +words: "The specific doctrine I would inculcate is, that the excessive +indulgence in novel-reading, which is a characteristic of our times, is +chargeable with many of the mental irregularities that prevail among us +in a degree unknown at any former period." The late Dr. Forbes Winslow, +a physician of similar note in England, used still stronger language in +describing how fearfully and fatally suggestive to the minds of the +young are those artistically developed records of sin which form the +staple of the popular novel. In these days of disordered nerve centres, +and commissions to inquire into every thing, we neglect much valuable +information which lies upon the surface. It is well to bear in mind that +our eminent bibliographer, Mr. Spofford, has informed us that "masses of +novels and other ephemeral publications overload most of our popular +libraries"; and that our wisest physicians have agreed as to the +influence they exert. + +Of course these views will be met by a brusque statement that town +libraries must supply such books as people want, and that they demand +the current novels in unlimited quantities. But I repudiate the dismal +fallacy upon which such an argument is based. Plum-cake and champagne +would doubtless be demanded at a Sunday-school picnic, were these +delicacies placed upon the table; but, if the committee did not think it +necessary to supply them from the parish funds, is it certain that a +fair amount of cold beef and hasty-pudding would not be consumed in +their stead? And if a heartless man-government declined to furnish +Maggie and Mollie with "The Pirate's Penance" or "The Bride's Bigamy" +for their Sabbath reading, is it not possible that those fair voters of +the future might substitute Mrs. Fawcett's interesting illustrations of +political economy, or some outline of human physiology, their knowledge +of which would bless an unborn generation? + +I do not advocate the absurdity of a town library which should chiefly +consist of authors like Plato and Professor Peirce. No one can doubt +that the great majority of its volumes should be emphatically _popular_ +in their character. They should furnish intelligible and interesting +reading to the average graduate of the town schools. And there is no +lack of such works. The outlines of physical and social science have +been written by men of genius in simple and attractive style. History +and biography in the hands of their masters give a healthy stimulus to +the imagination, and tend to strengthen the character. The function of a +town library should be to supply reading improving and interesting, and +yet, in the best sense of the word, popular; and I maintain that this +can be done, without setting up a rival agency to the news-stand, the +book-club, and the weekly paper, for the circulation of the novels of +the day. + +There is a saying of Dr. Johnson, to the effect, that, if a boy be let +loose in a library, he is likely to give himself a very fair education. +But, in accepting this dictum, we must remember the sort of library the +doctor had in his mind. As known to him, it was based upon solid volumes +of systematized information. Besides these were the noblest poems of the +world, a very few great romances, and ponderous tomes of controversial +theology; good, healthy food, and much of it attractive to an unpampered +boy-appetite. + +But the range of a large library is by no means necessary to produce the +soundest educational results. Can it be doubted that familiar knowledge +of a small case of well-selected books--such, for instance, as the +modest stipend of a country clergyman easily collects--is better for boy +and girl than the liberty of devouring a thousand highly-flavored sweets +in the free library? At all events, a few old-fashioned people do not +question it. "A year ago," writes one of them, "Alice used to read +Irving and Spenser, and Tom was dipping into Gibbon and Shakespeare; +liking them well enough, yet preferring a game of base-ball to either, +as it was proper he should. But the town library was opened, and these +young people are found crouching over novels in out-of-the-way corners, +when they ought to be at play; or reading surreptitiously at night, when +they ought to be asleep." It is in vain to throw all the responsibility +upon parents. American parents are very busy, and somewhat careless. +Mrs. Fanny Firefly's highly-seasoned love-stories for girls, and Mr. +Samuel Sensation's boy-novels and spiced preparations of boned history, +are got up, like the port-wine drops of the confectioners, to tempt and +to sell. And they do their work. No one can examine the average boy and +girl of the period without being struck with their ignorance of the +great works of English literature which young people of a former +generation were accustomed to read with profit and delight. + +The function of a town library is to supplement the town schools; to +gratify the taste for knowledge which they should have imparted; and to +serve as an instrument for that self-education to which there is no +limit. But tax-payers are not bound to circulate twenty-seven thousand +novels against nineteen hundred volumes of biography and seventeen +hundred of history, according to the figures of one report; or to expend +two-thirds of the working force of their establishment in sending out +"novels and juveniles," according to the statement of another. In a +word, information, not excitement, should be imbibed from the atmosphere +of the town library. That prevailing infirmity of our time which seems +to substitute sensibility for morality should there find small +encouragement. But we shall never know what this institution might do +for a community, so long as the temptation of free novels is thrust in +the faces of all who enter. For it is not to be expected that our youth +fresh from school, moving among the countless agitations of American +life, will select reading that may require some mental exertion, so long +as mental excitement is offered them in unlimited amounts. + +I am well aware how much may be said for the story-tellers, and how many +people there are to say it; and, whenever there is danger of their being +unduly neglected, my voice shall be loudly raised in their behalf. But +one may allow the claims of the romances, from Scheherazade to Mrs. +Southworth, and yet maintain that the theory upon which the average town +library is run is faulty. There is no virtue in despising cakes and ale, +and the heat of ginger in the mouth may at times impart a wholesome glow +to the entire system. But it does not quite follow that it is the +function of American towns to supply these stimulants gratis, at the +expense of their tax-payers. While we consider the immense amount of +reading of a certain sort that a town library supplies, it is well to +remember that there are other sorts of reading it may possibly prevent. +For it may encourage reading precisely as prodigality encourages +industry. Luxury and profusion do indeed feed industry, and demoralize +it; but the industry which serves God by blessing man, they prevent from +being fed. I fear that in these days more noble capacities die of a +surfeit from too much poor reading, than starve from want of good books. +The valid defence of institutions working in the interest of State +education is this: they prevent a waste of power. When any one of them +can be shown to encourage waste of power, it needs looking after. In our +complex social condition, the real consequences of any government +interference extend far beyond its apparent consequences. An institution +may be very useful up to a certain point, and yet hurtful if allowed to +run its full course without restraining criticism. + +The managers of our smaller libraries are apt to be picked men, who +give unrequited labor and intelligence to their trust. But they are +chosen at town meetings,--and to a certain extent must carry out the +wishes of their electors. Upon this matter, as upon most others, it is +the duty of the thoughtful men and women to create a wholesome public +opinion. They must recognize the fact that the change from a few good +books to an unlimited supply of all sorts of books is by no means an +unmixed advantage to a community. While the results of town libraries, +taken in the aggregate, are undoubtedly good, it is our duty to consider +whether they ought not to be better. + + + + +THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY + + The public library had now passed the period of the merely + academic advocacy exemplified in the Ticknor letter of 1851. + It was an actual, functioning institution, and as such was + called upon to answer criticism and to justify its + existence. The atmosphere of apologetics begins to appear in + what its friends have to say about it. This is evident in + the extract from Col. Higginson's "Men and Women" (New York, + 1888) which immediately follows. The author's comparison of + the evolution of a library with that of a great railroad + system is perhaps the first hint of a comprehensive vision + of the library as something bigger than any individual town + or city institution and beyond it. + + Thomas Wentworth Higginson was born in Cambridge, Mass., + Dec. 22, 1823, and graduated at Harvard in 1841. He entered + the ministry in 1847 but retired in 1858 and served in the + Civil War. From that time until his death, May 9, 1911, he + devoted himself to literature, publishing a large number of + books. + + +Just as there is a good deal of anxiety wasted in regard to our free +public schools, especially on the part of those who have never entered +them, so there is some misplaced solicitude in regard to our libraries. +The free town or city library is one of the few things in our democratic +society that would have pleased the splenetic Carlyle, who mourned in +one of his early letters that every village in England had its jail, but +none its open library. It is a pity, therefore, when a man of high +standing and great influence writes of these institutions thus hastily +(I take the passage from a well-known literary journal): "Among the +forms of beneficence for which our own generation has been conspicuous +is the Free Library.... But it is, I apprehend, no exaggeration to say +that such well-meant generosity has _oftener than otherwise_ (the +italics are my own) been chilled and discouraged by its results. +Appreciative readers are few, the best books are largely let alone, and +the cost of the 'plant' and the taste which are put into it are often in +most painful contrast to the appreciation which they have received." +Now, while every count of this last sentence may be true indictment, it +is easy to show how little it sustains the verdict. "Appreciative +readers" are few in the most cultivated circles, if their appreciation +must be tested by "the best books" only. It is not easy even to know +what the best books are, if we may judge by the tiresome failures in +making out the list of them; and suppose that they were known, do we +find many clergymen or bishops who habitually read Plato, Aeschylus, and +Dante, rather than "Ben-Hur" or "The lady or the tiger"? It does not +therefore follow that people are unworthy of public libraries because +"the best books are largely let alone"; the question is whether even the +second best may not be good reading. We have the medical authority of +Hippocrates for saying that the second best medicine may be better than +the best, if the patient likes it best. So in regard to the fine +buildings, the success of republican government happily does not depend +on how far our citizens appreciate the architecture of the Capitol at +Washington and the State House at Albany; and it is surely the same with +libraries. Grant a few over-fine library buildings, built to please some +private benefactor; grant a few mismanaged public libraries--though +where these buildings or these libraries are I do not myself know--does +the kindly writer of these lines mean to be understood as saying that +"oftener than otherwise" our free public libraries are failures? + +If he does, it can only be said that this remark adds another to the +innumerable illustrations of that invaluable remark of Coleridge that we +must take every man's testimony to the value of that which he does not +know. All experience shows how easy it is to construct an institution +out of one's own consciousness and then condemn it; we see this daily in +what is written of our public school system. In General Butler's brief +career as Governor of Massachusetts he made a severe attack upon the +Normal Art School in Boston, and cited a pathetic instance of a fallen +girl who undoubtedly (as he urged) received her first demoralization +from the study of the nude in that school. It turned out on +investigation that he himself had never entered the school, and that the +young girl herself made no such charges; that there never had been any +studying from nude models in the school; that she had attended it but a +month or two, and this in its early days, when it did not possess so +much as a plaster cast of a human foot or hand. No matter; the charge +was reiterated up to the very end of His Excellency's career in office, +and is believed by many worthy people of this day. It is equally easy to +bring general charges against public libraries, and equally hard to +remove their impression, however unjust and even cruel they may be. + +What are the facts? There has just been a great Librarians' Convention +assembled from all parts of the country, and keeping together for many +days. Did a single speaker at that Convention take the ground that +"oftener than otherwise" the benefactors of public libraries were +chilled and discouraged? On the contrary, it was reported that such +benefactors were never so active, and their benefactions were never so +large. The tone was not one of discouragement, but of buoyancy and hope. +Every one admitted the vastness of the educational engine created by the +free library system; every one had his own suggestion by way of +improvement or development, but every one expressed a cordial faith in +the community, and reported encouragement in all work well done. The +simple truth is that the creation of a system of such libraries is like +the creation of a great railway system; it must be an evolution, not a +creation outright. The wisest librarian in America fifty years ago had +no more conception of the free library system of to-day than had +Benjamin Franklin of our postal methods; nor can any one now foresee +what fifty years of development will do for either. + +The truth is that every step in any great organization brings out new +possibilities, new dangers, and new resources. Side by side with the +perils of free libraries--as of too much light reading, and the absence +of proper appreciation of the best things--there are evoked resources to +meet these dangers. + +Outside the library there come up the "association to promote study at +home," and the vast Chautauqua "reading circles"--all these being +essentially based on the free library system, and implying it for their +full development. Inside the library there grow up such methods as those +of Mr. S.S. Green, City Librarian of Worcester, Massachusetts, whose +ways of making such an institution useful to all sorts and conditions of +the people may take rank with Rowland Hill's improvements in postal +service, as to their results on democratic civilization. He has +succeeded in linking the library and the public schools so closely that +he and the teachers acting in concurrence, indirectly control the +reading of the whole generation that is growing up in that city. The +details must be sought in his reports--as, for instance, one from the +Library Journal of March, 1887, which is printed as a leaflet; but the +essential thing in managing libraries, as in managing schools, is to +have faith in the community in which one lives, and to believe that +people do, as the Scripture has it, "covet earnestly the best gifts," if +you will only show them how those best gifts are to be obtained. Put +into school and library methods one-half the organizing ability brought +to bear on railways and telegraphs, and we shall stand astonished at the +results within our reach. Those already attained, if fairly looked at, +are sufficient to encourage any one. The writer has at two different +times and in two different States been a director in these institutions. +Whenever he needed a little stimulus toward doing his duty it was his +custom to go and look over the rack containing the books lately brought +back by readers. With all necessary deduction for the love of fiction--a +love shared in these days by the wisest and best--the proportion of +sensible and useful reading was always such as to vindicate the immense +value of the free public libraries. + + + + +TWO FUNDAMENTALS + + Mary Salome Cutler, now Mrs. Milton Fairchild, is the first + librarian to be quoted in this symposium. A sketch of her + appears in Vol. II. of this series. In the paragraphs quoted + below which form part of a paper read by Miss Cutler, then + vice-director of the New York State Library School, before + the Pennsylvania Library Club and printed in _The Library + Journal_ (October, 1896), appears a definite recognition of + the social character of the library's task. Her two + fundamentals--organization and human feelings--are both + decided elements in its socialization. + + +In considering library interests we do well, I think, not to confine +ourselves to the limited range of library subjects. + +That mysterious thing which we call society is growing more complex, +every part more curiously intertwined with every other part, each human +life bearing some relation to every other human life. Whether he will or +no, it is literally true that "no man liveth to himself alone." If it +were possible, then, as a part of this organism to discover some of the +laws which govern the whole, we might come back to our special domain +with an application of the laws which would have the force of freshness. +I believe that we gain an insight into these controlling principles only +by yielding to the tendency of solidarity, by opening ourselves to +surrounding influences, by living the fullest life of which we are +capable. I think I have seen the workings of two of these laws which +have a close relation to each other. If I am right your experience will +confirm mine, and we can together make the application to what concerns +us most--the library interests of to-day. + +In any undertaking results depend directly, and often largely, upon the +perfection of organization. Organization implies a mind which can grasp +the undertaking as a whole, follow it out, each step in detail, estimate +the various factors, personal and impersonal, provide for unforeseen +contingencies, and furnish the faith, the will-power, the personal +magnetism, whatever you choose to call it, in such measure as is needed +to carry it through. Such a mind sees the end at the beginning, and +thinks of it as already done while to others it may seem far off and +even impossible. Such thought, often the work of one mind, sometimes the +result of cooperation, is behind every piece of accomplished work. Other +elements may doubtless be essential, but there can be no adequate +results without organization. And, making allowance for other elements, +the perfection of results depends upon the perfection of +organization.... + +For the reason of this tendency we have not far to seek. I believe it is +found in the scientific spirit of the age, which is surely pervading +every sphere of human thought and activity. The careful investigation of +facts, the deduction of the law from the phenomena, the distrust of +chance and the loyalty to the law deduced, all of which evidence the +scientific spirit, mark alike the great financier, diplomatist, +inventor, philanthropist. + +In some undertakings organization alone will suffice. For example, +making a machine, laying out a railroad, compiling a volume of +statistics. In others there must needs come in what I will call the +human element, the consideration of people, not in masses, but as +individuals, that matchless, indescribable quality which we call human +sympathy.... + +Illustrations might be multiplied in educational, religious, and +philanthropic efforts where we work for the masses, and forget that each +one of the mass is a human being with passions, sensibilities, +aspirations like our own. This interest in the human being as such, +which is a gift to some, can be cultivated, but it can never be +simulated. The counterfeit always rings false. Joined to a good memory +for names and faces, it gives a person a power which can hardly be +estimated.... + +It seems to me that these two principles apply with tremendous and +unusual force to the problems of the modern library. I will speak of the +public library alone because it has a wider reach and a closer touch on +life. + +We will review in imagination the library situation in this country. We +take up Mr. Flint's Statistics volume for 1893; we sum up 593 free +libraries in the New England states, 520 in New York, Pennsylvania, and +New Jersey, 285 in the Southern states, 758 in the Western states, a +total of 2156 free libraries. + +We recall our friends in the American Library Association, who +constitute with some marked exceptions, who prefer to work alone, the +high-water mark of the fraternity. As their names pass before us we take +a measure of the men and women. We think of their libraries which we may +have visited, or, better still, which we have used as readers. In some +few cases we know the influence of these libraries in the town or city. +Take it for all in all we find a body of hard-working men and women +translating into practice noble ideals. As a result, the library is +beginning to get a hold upon the community. But it is only a beginning +and, compared with the possibilities, only a prophecy of what may and +will be. Are not the failures in our work due to the lack of the best +organization and the true human touch? + +A librarian is appointed, let us say, to an important post. He has +doubtless had experience in library work. He comes on to consult with +the trustees. They vote to send him on a trip for getting ideas from +other libraries. He probably has on his hands a beautiful building illy +adapted to library work. He carries the plans with him, and spends most +of the time with other members of the craft, in choosing the least of +several evils in placing the reference-room, catalog, charging-desk, +etc. He secures two or three assistants with training, experience, or +both, and fills the minor places with local help chosen by examination +or by luck or by personal favor. He learns in a general way the +character of the town and selects books with that in view. If there are +certain manufacturing interests or a particular foreign population, he +makes large purchases in those lines. He decides on a system of +classification, of cataloging, and on a method of charging. The books +are rushed through the various processes, though all too slowly for an +impatient public. In a few months at the latest the big educational +plant begins to be utilized. + +The circulation surprises the most sanguine, the average of fiction +drops a little below the usual mark, good service is done at the +information or reference desk by the enthusiastic man or woman having it +in charge, work is begun with the schools, and a little fraction of +teachers make the children know books because they know books +themselves. The rest go through the motions. The bookworm fills his +corner, the chronic grumbler has his little say, the usual number of +prize questions are answered. The library becomes the very bread of life +to those who are ready to receive it, and gives refreshment and +suggestion and inspiration to many more. The profession approves. At the +next A.L.A. meeting Mr. ---- is brought forward more prominently, and +the wise ones say, "I always thought he was a rising man." + +But only 20 per cent. of the population ever set foot within the +library, and when a stranger asks the way within a block of the +building, a fairly intelligent-looking workman does not appear to know +there is such a thing as the public library. + +In looking over the proceedings of the library association for the 18 +years of its existence, we are struck by the evidences of industry and +earnestness. There are papers and discussions on libraries and schools, +access to the shelves, bookbinding, systems of classification, +cataloging rules. The keynote is cooperation in securing, with an +enthusiasm which amounts to missionary zeal, the best and most uniform +methods, with special reference to mechanical devices. The very motto +smacks of arithmetic and commerce. "The best reading for the largest +number at the least cost." All this is good and proper in its place. +Wise methods are essential to the best results. But we sought in vain +all along the years for the philosophic insight which should grasp the +higher motive of our profession and connect it with the great struggles +of our modern life. After the Columbus year in the clearer air of the +mountain-top, the word for which we were waiting came. I wish it were +possible to stop right here and give you the papers of Mr. Larned and +Mr. Brett, which were read at Lake Placid, as well as the discussion +which followed. I must content myself by quoting Mr. Larned's last +sentence: "Those of us who have faith in the future of democracy can +only hold our faith fast by believing that the knowledge of the learned, +the wisdom of the thoughtful, the conscience of the upright, will some +day be common enough to prevail, always, over every factious folly and +every mischievous movement that evil minds or ignorance can set astir. +When that blessed time of victory shall have come, there will be many to +share the glory of it; but none among them will rank rightly before +those who have led and inspired the work of the public libraries." + +This leads us to the first great need of the profession to-day, that the +librarian should be in the noblest sense a large, man, that he should +add to executive and business ability and technical knowledge a broad +and generous culture in Matthew Arnold's sense of the word, "An inward +spiritual activity, having for its character increased sweetness, +increased light, increased life, increased sympathy." He must be an +omnivorous reader, skimming many books, and knowing by instinct which +books and which chapters and sentences to read carefully. He must study +from books and in life the great industrial, social, and religious +questions which stir our age. He must be a scholar without pedantry, a +man of the world without indifference, a friend of the people without +sentimentality. + +There follows naturally the second necessity, that the librarian should +be a careful student of his own town. He should know its history and +topography, its social, political, business, literary, and +ecclesiastical life. To this end he should have a personal acquaintance +with the city officers, the party bosses, the labor leaders, members of +the board of trade, manufacturers, leading women in society, with the +clergy, with the school superintendent and the teachers, with those who +shape the charitable organizations, with reporters, policemen, and +reformers. + +To what end? Broadly that he may catch the spirit of the civic life and +relate the library to the whole as the organs to the body. Specifically, +that he may reach the entire population through the natural leaders, +that he may select books, establish branches, open up new avenues of +communication between the library and the people. + +The church may be aristocratic, industry, trade, and politics a war, +the public school like the drinking-fountain, though planned for the +many scorned by the few. I believe it is possible for a man with a broad +and sympathetic knowledge of our age and an intimate knowledge of his +own city, to make of the public library the one common meeting-place, +the real focus of democratic ideas. The church and the school will reach +this in the future, the library may achieve it to-day. + +There is a third difficulty, which is a very real and palpable one. The +librarian himself may have a fairly high ideal of the library which is +shared by perhaps one or two assistants. The bulk of the work in a +library with a large circulation is done by young persons of less +opportunity and training. Each has a distinct part of the work to do +with little idea of its relation to the whole. Unfortunately the +loan-desk, registration-desk, and reading-room are usually manned in +this way. I have often stood amazed at the delivery-desk of librarians +whose names represent all that is best in the library profession. I +would not be understood as depreciating the work of the lower assistants +in our libraries. I know well that this service, as a whole, represents +an amount of faithfulness and devotion which it ill becomes me to +undervalue. The responsibility lies with the head of the library and the +failure comes from lack of organization. The appointing power should be +practically in his hands. The man whom we have described above does not +need to seek this power. It comes to him. It is surely possible to +secure for the library service young men and women, boys and girls, of +fair intelligence, quick wits, responsive minds, and human sympathies. +The making of these units into an organism is the severest test of a +librarian's power. The ability of a general is not enough. He must +himself have the real human touch or he cannot call it forth from +others. There must be the promptness, the accuracy, the despatch which +marks military discipline; there must be also an intelligent conception +of the purpose of the library, a strong sense of personal responsibility +and of the dignity and beauty of the public service. It is sometimes +said that spirit of the library should be that of a merchant and his +well-trained clerks, anxious to please their customers. It should be +rather the fine spirit of a hostess with the daughters of the house +about her greeting her guests. + +There is a fourth failure which is perhaps the root difficulty. It is +the failure to make the most of time. The day opens. The man hastens to +his place and finds a score of voices calling him to as many different +tasks. He hastily begins the one which seems to call the loudest, and +has just begun to gather up the threads of thought when there is a +peremptory call in another direction. And so he is driven through the +day, not controlling, but controlled, and constantly lashed by the +thought of neglected duties. By dint of keeping at it all through the +day and often into the night much work is done. The man gets and +deserves the reputation of a hard-working man, deliberately sacrificing +health, ease, leisure, and the joys of a scholar's life for the public +good. + +Now this is the first and natural result of the enlarged conception of a +librarian's work. The man is dazed by the sense of responsibility and +almost crushed by the demands upon his time apparently separate and +conflicting. But this should be considered only the first process from +which the strong man will speedily evolve a wiser way. The fatal mistake +lies in considering this first stage inevitable and final. If a man +tarries here it argues limitation, not power. There certainly are men +who stand high in public life as well as those holding less prominent +positions, who accomplish an enormous amount of work with a sense of +freedom and an impression of leisure. As I have observed individual +cases, I am led to the conclusion that the explanation lies not in a +stronger physique, or a stronger intellect, but in a better organization +of work with reference to time. There is no need more imperative than +this for all of us who are proud to be called busy people. The trouble +is, we think we are too busy to stop and plan. Our philosophic error +lies in believing that the work must all be done to-day. Nature herself +should teach us that the best work cannot be done in a hurry. + +We may not hope in this generation to understand well the working of +that complex, mysterious thing which we call human society, but we may +at least so relate ourselves and our libraries to it that we may live, +move, and grow together. + + "Not unrelated, ununified, + But to each thought and thing allied, + Is perfect Nature's every part + Rooted in the mighty Heart." + + + + +WHAT A LIBRARY SHOULD BE AND WHAT IT CAN DO + + No one has done more to inspire library workers with the + feeling that what they are doing is worth while than Dr. + Melvil Dewey, pioneer in this country of the modern library + and of the socialized library spirit. A sketch of Dr. Dewey + will be found in Vol. I. of this series. The following is + from the stenographer's report of a brief talk at the + Atlanta Conference of the American Library Association, as + printed in _Public Libraries_ (Chicago, June, 1899). + + +Atlanta has been known long in this country as a southern city that +believes supremely that education pays, and as the revelation has come +late in this century of what the library is or should be, and what the +library can do, on this line I will say a few words to you tonight. + +We have had an illustration in the recent war with Spain that education +pays, in what it means to have the man behind the guns trained. We have +an illustration in Mr. Carnegie's work, whose name has been mentioned +here in his competition with the rest of the world, illustrating another +peculiar American feature that American education pays in dollars and +cents; but it is a more recent conception of the part the library has in +a system of public education. It took a thousand years to develop our +educational system from the university down; first the university as the +beginning of all education, and then we must have the colleges to +prepare for the universities, the academies and common schools to +prepare for the colleges, and it is only in our own generation that we +have come to understand that we must begin with the kindergarten and end +in our libraries. + +I am really pleased tonight that the Young men's association has done +this generous work, and that Atlanta is going to pay the money from the +taxes. It would be no advantage to this city if your schools were +provided for you without charge to the people. Those who study the +question from the low plane of dollars and cents, without regard to the +higher things in life, have learned that no investigation pays well. In +many a community men are giving liberally to the schools, and are +beginning to give liberally to the libraries, and they do it because +they know it makes everything more valuable--it makes their business +more prosperous. + +The library is going through the same process the public school went +through. Henry Barnard, of Connecticut, visited 27 different states and +spoke before them to urge upon them the system of public education, and +to provide a guidance for the children. + +It is true that the educated parents are more likely to have children +educated highly, but there is no question whatever that the great +majority of the men and women who are to shape the future of this +country will be born in the humblest homes, and we come back to the +problem of the general education of all the people as the best possible +advancement and the chiefest defense of the nation; it is the concern of +the state because it is the duty of the state, because it pays, and +because the state does not dare any longer to neglect it. Therefore I +call your attention to the fact that we are repeating in libraries +exactly the process of the school, and that there were meetings to urge +the acceptance of them. There are few who doubt the wisdom of donating +money to support the free library, and when the history of the time is +written it will be marked as the history of free libraries. + +Why is it that the people are taxing themselves erecting beautiful +buildings, buying books, paying salaries, printing catalogs, incurring +all these expenses, paying out an amount of money that a short time ago +would have been thought only a dream? It is a recognition of its +necessity and importance. We understand that it is a good thing. + +A broad conception at the end of the century of the work of the schools +is simply this, to teach the children to think accurately, with strength +and with speed. If it is in the school that they get their start, then +where do they get their education? Tell me from your own experience, was +it from the school that you got most of your ideas? We had an experiment +some time ago, when the teachers of New York made an elaborate +investigation as to the teaching of boys and girls. The thing that +influenced those boys and girls most was the books they read. What, +after all, is the supreme end of education? I state that we should teach +them to think with accuracy and with speed, but I doubt if there is one +who denies the supreme necessity of the building of character. That is +what is winning in the peaceful conflicts of commerce. If you care to +analyze how character is built, follow it back briefly. Character comes +from habits, and habits from actions repeated, and actions from a +motive, and a motive from reflection. What makes me reflect? What makes +you reflect? What is the cause? Isn't it something that you have read in +a book, a magazine, or a paper? So the genealogy is this: reading begets +reflection, reflection begets motive, motive begets action, and action +begets habit, and habit begets that supreme thing--character. So we have +come to recognize that if we are to accomplish the chief end that is +before the people, we must strive to control the reading for others. + +Reading sometimes carries downhill, as it often carries upward, and +there is no way that we can reach the people except through the free +library and with proper help from the people. + +What Atlanta wants to make out of her citizens is not to train privates, +but to train officers. If you go out on the streets you can find a +thousand men to do the work of a laborer, where you can find only a few +to do the work that will demand five or ten thousand dollars. The world +is looking for that class of men. It is the highest salaried man that is +the hardest to find. If you would buy a machine, there enters into it +the material that is in it; the process of manufacture throughout which +has transformed it, and then the approved fitness for performing its +functions. The same way with a man--the native that is manufactured; +then comes the experience which proves the fitness for his work; and you +pay the salary for these things. And by means of our schools and +libraries we must reach these girls and boys. + +Thomas Edison and other great men say that their whole lives are +governed from reading a single book. So the province of the library is +to amuse, to inform and inspire. We have the old proverbs, As free as +air; As free as water; but the new one that is important to the race is, +As free as knowledge. The people of this state cannot afford to have any +boy in Georgia who is anxious to know more, how to make his life more +valuable, who wants inspiration and is ready to read, and not furnish it +to him. Education is the chief concern of the American people, and the +states that have done most for their education have been the most +prosperous. + +It is the concern of the richest as to what should be done for the +poorest; you should provide free schools and free libraries, or the +failure to do so will react in your own lives. If you say that this +ideal is too high, that the library has important functions, but it does +not take its place as the equal of the schools, it is because you have +not studied this question in all its details. When you do, you will be +forced to the conclusion that while we must say that this is the +inspiration of a dreamer, remember that it is the devotion of noble +minds that never falters, but endures and waits for all it can find, and +what it cannot find, creates. + + + + +THE PUBLIC LIBRARY IN AMERICAN LIFE + + As the last of this particular group of papers we reproduce + a view of our public library system by a foreigner who had + lived in this country long enough to appreciate it and who + was yet able to contrast it with the library systems of + European countries--Prof. Munsterberg of Harvard. + + Hugo Munsterberg was born in Danzig, Germany, June 1, 1863, + educated at Leipzig and Heidelberg, and after serving as + assistant professor at the University of Freiburg, became + professor of psychology at Harvard in 1892, where he served + until his death on Dec. 16, 1916. The subjoined extract is + from his book "The Americans" (New York, 1904). + + +The American's fondness for reading finds clearest expression in the +growth of libraries, and in few matters of civilization is America so +well fitted to teach the Old World a lesson. Europe has many large and +ancient collections of books, and Germany more than all the rest; but +they serve only one single purpose--that of scientific investigation; +they are the laboratories of research. They are chiefly lodged with the +great universities, and even the large municipal libraries are mostly +used by those who need material for productive labors, or wish to become +conversant with special topics. + +Exactly the same type of large library has grown up in America; and +here, too, it is chiefly the universities whose stock of books is at the +service of the scientific world. Besides these, there are special +libraries belonging to learned societies, state law libraries, special +libraries of government bureaus and of museums, and largest of all the +Library of Congress. The collection of such scientific books began at +the earliest colonial period, and at first under theological auspices. +The Calvinist Church, more than any other, inclined to the study of +books. As early as 1790 the catalog of Harvard College contained 350 +pages, of which 150 were taken up by theological works. Harvard has +to-day almost a million books, mostly in the department of literature, +philology, history, philosophy, and jurisprudence. There are, moreover, +in Boston the state library of law, with over a hundred thousand +volumes; the Athenaeum, with more than two hundred thousand books; the +large scientific library of the Institute of Technology, and many +others. Similarly, in other large cities, the university libraries are +the nucleus for scientific labors, and are surrounded by admirable +special libraries, particularly in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. +Then, too, the small academic towns, like Princeton, Ithaca, New Haven, +and others, have valuable collections of books, which in special +subjects are often unique. For many years the American university +libraries have been the chief purchasers of the special collections left +by deceased European professors. And it often happens, especially +through the gift of grateful alumni, that collections of the greatest +scientific value, which could not be duplicated, come into the +possession even of lesser institutions. + +In many departments of investigation, Washington takes the lead with +the large collection of the various scientific, economic, and technical +bureaus of the government. The best known of these is the unique medical +library of the War Department. Then there is the Library of Congress, +with many more than a million volumes, which today has an official right +to one copy of every book published in the United States, and so may +claim to be a national library. It is still not comparable to the +many-sided and complete collection of the British Museum; the national +library is one-sided, or at least shows striking gaps. Having started as +the Library of Congress, it has, aside from its one copy of every +American book and the books on natural science belonging to the +Smithsonian Institution, few books except those on politics, history, +political economy, and law. The lack of space for books, which existed +until a few years ago, made it seem inexpedient to spend money for +purposes other than the convenience of congressmen. But the American +people, in its love for books, has now erected such a building as the +world had never before seen devoted to the storing of books. The new +Congressional Library was opened in 1897, and since the stacks have +still room for several million volumes, the library will soon grow to an +all-round completeness like that at London. This Library has a specially +valuable collection of manuscripts and correspondences. + +All the collections of books which we have so far mentioned are +virtually like those of Germany. But since they mostly date from the +nineteenth century, the American libraries are more modern, and contain +less dead weight in the way of unused folios. Much more important is +their greatly superior accessibility. Their reading-rooms are more +comfortable and better lighted, their catalogs more convenient, library +hours longer, and, above all, books are more easily and quickly +delivered. Brooks Adams said recently, about the library at Washington +as a place for work, that this building is well-nigh perfect; it is +large, light, convenient, and well provided with attendants. In Paris +and London, one works in dusty, forbidding, and overcrowded rooms, while +here the reading-rooms are numerous, attractive, and comfortable. In the +National Library at Paris, one has to wait an hour for a book; in the +British Museum, half an hour, and in Washington, five minutes. This +rapid service, which makes such a great difference to the student, is +found everywhere in America; and everywhere the books are housed in +buildings which are palatial, although perhaps not so beautiful as the +Washington Library. + +Still, all these differences are unessential; in principle the academic +libraries are alike in the New and Old Worlds. The great difference +between Europe and America begins with the libraries which are not +learned, but which are designed to serve popular education. The American +public library which is not for science, but for education, is to the +European counterpart as the Pullman express train to the village +post-chaise. + +The scientific libraries of Boston, including that of Harvard +University, contain nearly two million printed works; but the largest +library of all is distinct from these. It is housed on Copley Square, in +a renaissance palace by the side of the Art Museum, and opposite the +most beautiful church in America. The staircase of yellow marble, the +wonderful wall-paintings, the fascinating arcade on the inner court and +the sunlit halls are indeed beautiful. And in and out, from early +morning till late evening, week-day and Sunday, move the people of +Boston. The stream of men divides in the lower vestibule. Some go to the +newspaper room, where several hundred daily newspapers, a dozen of them +German, hang on racks. Others wander to the magazine rooms, where the +weekly and monthly papers of the world are waiting to be read. Others +ascend to the upper stories, where Sargent's famous pictures of the +Prophets allure the lover of art, in order to look over more valuable +special editions and the art magazines, geographical charts, and musical +works. The largest stream of all goes to the second floor, partly into +the huge quiet reading-room, partly into the rotunda, which contains the +catalog, partly into the hall containing the famous frescoes of the Holy +Grail, where the books are given out. Here a million and a half books +are delivered every year to be taken home and read. And no one has to +wait; an apparatus carries the applicant's card with wonderful speed to +the stacks, and the desired book is sent back in automatic cars. Little +children meanwhile wander into the juvenile room, where they find the +best books for children. And everything invites even the least patient +reader to sit down quietly with some sort of a volume--everything is so +tempting, so convenient and comfortable, and so surpassingly beautiful. +And all this is free to the humblest working-man. + +And still, if the citizen of Massachusetts were to be asked of what +feature of the public libraries he is most proud, he would probably not +mention this magnificent palace in Boston, the capital of the state, but +rather the 350 free public libraries scattered through the smaller +cities and towns of this state, which is after all only one-third as +large as Bavaria. It is these many libraries which do the broadest work +for the people. Each little collection, wherever it is, is the center of +intellectual and moral enlightenment, and plants and nourishes the +desire for self-perfection. Of course, Massachusetts has done more in +this respect than any other ward in this respect. But there is no longer +any city of moderate size which has not a large public library, and +there is no state which does encourage in every possible way the +establishment of public libraries in every small community, giving +financial aid if it is necessary. + +Public libraries have become the favorite Christmas present of +philanthropists, and while the hospitals, universities, and museums, +have still no reason for complaint, the churches now find the +superfluous millions are less apt to go to gay church windows than to +well chosen book collections. In the year 1900 there existed more than +5383 public libraries having over a thousand volumes; of these 144 had +more than fifty thousand, and 54 had more than a hundred thousand +volumes. All together contained, according to the statistics of 1900 +more than forty-four million volumes and more than seven million +pamphlets; and the average growth was over 8 per cent. There are +probably to-day, therefore, fifteen million volumes more on the shelves. +The many thousand libraries which have fewer than 999 books are over and +above all this. + +The make-up of such public libraries may be seen from the sample catalog +gotten out by the Library Association a few years since, as a typical +collection of five thousand books. This catalog, which, with the +exception of the most important foreign classics, contains only books in +English, including, however, many translations, contains 227 general +reference books, 756 books on history, 635 on biography, 413 on travel, +355 on natural science, 694 on belles-lettres, 809 novels, 225 on art, +220 on religion, 424 on social science, 268 on technical subjects, etc. +The cost of this sample collection is $12,000. The proportions between +the several divisions are about the same in larger collections. In +smaller collections, belles-lettres have a somewhat greater share. The +general interest taken by the nation in this matter is shown by the fact +that the first edition of 20,000 copies of this sample catalog, of 600 +pages, was soon exhausted. + +The many-sidedness of this catalog points also to the manifold +functions of the public library. It is meant to raise the educational +level of the people, and this can be done in three ways: first, interest +may be stimulated along new lines; second, those who wish to perfect +themselves in their own subjects or in whatsoever special topics, may be +provided with technical literature; and third, the general desire for +literary entertainment may be satisfied by books of the best or at least +not of the worst sort. The directors of libraries see their duties to +lie in all three directions. The libraries guide the tastes and +interests of the general public, and try to replace the ordinary +servant-girl's novel with the best romance of the day and shallow +literature with works that are truly instructive. And no community is +quite content until its public library has become a sort of general +meeting-place and substitute for the saloon and the club. America is the +working-man's paradise, and attractive enough to the rich man; but the +ordinary man of the middle classes, who in Germany finds his chief +comfort in the Bierhalle would find little comfort in America if it were +not for the public library, which offers him a home. Thus the public +library has come to be a recognized instrument of culture along with the +public school; and in all American outposts the school teacher and +librarian are among the pioneers. + +The learned library cannot do this. To be sure, the university library +can help to spread information, and conversely the public library makes +room for thousands of volumes on all sorts of scientific topics. But the +emphasis is laid very differently in the two cases, and if it were not +so neither library would best fulfil its purpose. The extreme quiet of +the reference library and the bustle and stir of the public library do +not go together. In the one direction America has followed the dignified +traditions of Europe; in the other, it has opened new paths and +travelled on at a rapid pace. Every year discovers new ideas and plans, +new schemes for equipment and the selection of books, for cataloging, +and for otherwise gaining in utility. When, for instance, the library in +Providence commenced to post a complete list of books and writings +pertaining to the subject of every lecture that was given in the city, +it was the initiation of a great movement. The juvenile departments are +the product of recent years, and are constantly increasing in +popularity. There are even, in some cases, departments for blind +readers. The state commissions are new, and so also the travelling +libraries, which are carried from one village to another. + +The great schools for librarians are also new. The German librarian is +mostly a scholar; but the American believes that he has improved on the +European library systems, not so much by his ample financial resources +as by having broken with the academic custom, and having secured +librarians with a special library training. And since there are such +officials in many thousand libraries, and the great institutions create +a constant demand for such persons, the library schools, which offer +generally a three years' course, having been found very successful. + +Admittedly, all this technical apparatus is expensive; the Boston +library expends every year a quarter of a million dollars for +administrative expenses. But the American taxpayer supports this more +gladly than any other burden, knowing that the public library is the +best weapon against alcoholism and crime, against corruption and +discontent, and that the democratic country can flourish only when the +instinct of self-perfection as it exists in every American is thoroughly +satisfied. + + + + +BOOKS AND THE PUBLIC LIBRARY + + This paper and the two that follow it relate specifically to + reading as fostered by the public library and yet not + sufficiently to the provision of books to the public as a + definite library service to warrant postponing them to the + section relating to that branch of community service. They + have a somewhat academic or "literary flavor," and yet are + permeated not with the idea of "books for scholars" but with + that of "books for people"--the idea of reading as a + universal function--duty, pleasure and inspiration in + one--which is distinctly that of a socialized library. The + first paper is an address made by Lowell at the opening of + the new public library building at Chelsea, Mass., Dec. 22, + 1885. + + James Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 22, + 1819, and graduated at Harvard in 1838, succeeding + Longfellow as professor of Literature there in 1855. He + edited _The North American Review_ in 1863-72, served as + U.S. minister to Spain in 1877-80 and to Great Britain in + 1880-85. He died in Cambridge, Aug. 12, 1891. + + +"A few years ago my friend, Mr. Alexander Ireland, published a very +interesting volume which he called "The book-lover's euchiridion," the +handbook, that is to say, of those who love books. It was made up of +extracts from the writings of a great variety of distinguished men, +ancient and modern, in praise of books. It was a chorus of many voices +in many tongues, a hymn of gratitude and praise, full of such piety and +fervor as can be parelleled only in songs dedicated to the supreme +power, the supreme wisdom and the supreme love. Nay, there is a glow of +enthusiasm and sincerity in it which is often painfully wanting in those +other too commonly mechanical compositions. We feel at once that here it +is out of the fulness of the heart, yes, and of the head, too, that the +mouth speaketh. Here was none of that compulsory commonplace which is +wont to characterize those 'testimonials of celebrated authors,' by +means of which publishers sometimes strive to linger out the passages of +a hopeless book toward its _requiescat_ in oblivion. These utterances +which Mr. Ireland has gathered lovingly together are stamped with that +spontaneousness which is the mint mark of all sterling speech. It is +true that they are mostly, as is only natural, the utterances of +literary men, and there is a well-founded proverbial distrust of herring +that bear only the brand of the packer, and not that of the sworn +inspector. But to this objection a cynic might answer with the question, +'Are authors so prone, then, to praise the works of other people that we +are to doubt them when they do it un-asked?' Perhaps the wisest thing I +could have done to-night would have been to put upon the stand some of +the more weighty of this cloud of witnesses. But since your invitation +implied that I should myself say something, I will endeavor to set +before you a few of the commonplaces of the occasion, as they may be +modified by passing through my own mind, or by having made themselves +felt in my own experience. + +The greater part of Mr. Ireland's witnesses testify to the comfort and +consolation they owe to books, to the refuge they have found in them +from sorrow or misfortune, to their friendship, never estranged and +outliving all others. This testimony they volunteered. Had they been +asked, they would have borne evidence as willingly to the higher and +more general uses of books in their service to the commonwealth, as well +as to the individual man. Consider, for example, how a single page of +Burke may emancipate the young student of politics from narrow views and +merely contemporaneous judgments. Our English ancestors, with that +common-sense which is one of the most useful, though not one of the most +engaging, properties of the race, made a rhyming proverb, which says +that: + + "When land and goods are gone and spent, + Then learning is most excellent"; + +and this is true, so far as it goes, though it goes, perhaps, hardly +far enough. The law also calls only the earth and what is immovably +attached to it _real_ property, but I am of opinion that those only are +real possessions which abide with a man after he has been stripped of +those others falsely so called, and which alone save him from seeming +and from being the miserable forked radish to which the bitter scorn of +Lear degraded every child of Adam. The riches of scholarship, the +benignities of literature, defy fortune and outlive calamity. They are +beyond the reach of thief or moth or rust. As they cannot be inherited, +so they cannot be alienated. But they may be shared, they may be +distributed, and it is the object and office of a free public library to +perform these beneficial functions. + +"Books," says Wordsworth, "are a real world," and he was thinking, +doubtless, of such books as are not merely the triumphs of pure +intellect, however supreme, but of those in which intellect infused with +the sense of beauty aims rather to produce delight than conviction, or, +if conviction, then through intuition rather than formal logic, and, +leaving what Donne wisely calls + + "Unconscious things, matters of fact," + +to science and the understanding, seeks to give ideal expression to the +abiding realities of the spiritual world for which the outward and +visible world serves at best but as the husk and symbol. Am I wrong in +using the word _realities_?--wrong in insisting on the distinction +between the real and the actual? in assuming for the ideal an existence +as absolute and self-subsistent as that which appeals to our +senses--nay, so often cheats them in the matter of fact? How very small +a part of the world we truly live in is represented by what speaks to us +through the senses when compared with that vast realm of the mind which +is peopled by memory and imagination, and with such shining inhabitants! +These walls, these faces, what are they in comparison with the countless +images, the innumerable population which every one of us can summon up +to the tiny show-box of the brain, in material breadth scarce a span, +yet infinite as space and time? And in what, I pray, are those we +gravely call historical characters, of which each new historian strains +his neck to get a new and different view, in any sense more real than +the personages of fiction? Do not serious and earnest men discuss Hamlet +as they would Cromwell or Lincoln? Does Caesar, does Alaric, hold +existence by any other or stronger tenure than the Christian of Bunyan +or the Don Quixote of Cervantes or the Antigone of Sophocles? Is not the +history which is luminous because of an indwelling and perennial truth +to nature, because of that light which never was on land or sea, really +_more_ true, in the highest sense, than many a weary chronicle with +names, date, and place in which "an Amurath to Amurath succeeds"? Do we +know as much of any authentic Danish prince as of Hamlet? + +But to come back a little nearer to Chelsea and the occasion that has +called us together. The founders of New England, if sometimes, when they +found it needful, an impracticable, were always a practical people. +Their first care, no doubt, was for an adequate supply of powder, and +they encouraged the manufacture of musket bullets by enacting that they +should pass as currency at a farthing each--a coinage nearer to its +nominal value, and not heavier than some with which we are familiar. +Their second care was that "good learning should not perish from among +us," and to this end they at once established the Latin School in +Boston, and soon after the college at Cambridge. The nucleus of this +was, as you all know, the bequest in money by John Harvard. Hardly less +important, however, was the legacy of his library, a collection of good +books, inconsiderable measured by the standard of to-day, but very +considerable then as the possession of a private person. From that +little acorn what an oak has sprung, and from its acorn again what a +vocal forest, as old Howell would have called it--old Howell, whom I +love to cite, because his name gave their title to the 'Essays of Elia,' +and is borne with slight variation by one of the most delightful of +modern authors! It was, in my judgment, those two foundations, more than +anything else, which gave to New England character its bent and to +Boston that literary supremacy which, I am told, she is in danger of +losing, but which she will not lose till she and all the world lose +Holmes. + +The opening of a free public library, then, is a most important event +in the history of any town. A college training is an excellent thing; +but, after all, the better part of every man's education is that which +he gives himself, and it is for this that a good library should furnish +the opportunity and the means. I have sometimes thought that our public +schools undertook to teach too much, and that the older system, which +taught merely the three R's, and taught them well, leaving natural +selection to decide who should go farther, was the better. However this +may be, all that is primarily needful in order to use a library is the +ability to read. I say primarily, for there must also be the +inclination, and, after that, some guidance in reading well. Formerly +the duty of a librarian was considered too much that of a watchdog to +keep people as much as possible away from the books, and to hand these +over to his successor as little worn by use as he could. Librarians now, +it is pleasant to see, have a different notion of their trust, and are +in the habit of preparing for the direction of the inexperienced lists +of such books as they think best worth reading. Cataloging has also, +thanks in great measure to American librarians, become a science, and +catalogs, ceasing to be labyrinths without a clew, are furnished with +finger-posts at every turn. Subject catalogs again save the beginner a +vast deal of time and trouble, by supplying him for nothing with one at +least of the results of thorough scholarship, the knowing where to look +for what he wants. I do not mean by this that there is or can be any +short-cut to learning, but that there may be, and is, such a short-cut +to information that will make learning more easily accessible. + +But have you ever rightly considered what the mere ability to read +means? That it is the key that admits us to the whole world of thought +and fancy and imagination; to the company of saint and sage, of the +wisest and the wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moment? That it +enables us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest ears, and +listen to the sweetest voices of all time? More than that, it +annihilates time and space for us; it revives for us without a miracle +the Age of Wonder, endowing us with the shoes of swiftness and the cap +of darkness, so that we walk invisible like fern seed and witness +unharmed the plague at Athens or Florence or London, accompanying Caesar +on his marches, or look in on Catiline in council with his +fellow-conspirators, or Guy Fawkes in the cellar of St. Stephen's. We +often hear of people who will descend to any servility, submit to any +insult, for the sake of getting themselves or their children into what +is euphemistically called good society. Did it ever occur to them that +there is a select society of all the centuries to which they and theirs +can be admitted for the asking--a society, too, which will not involve +them in ruinous expense and still more ruinous waste of time and health +and faculties? + +Southey tells us that, in his walk, one stormy day, he met an old +woman, to whom, by way of greeting, he made the rather obvious remark +that it was dreadful weather. She answered, philosophically, that, in +her opinion, '_any_ weather was better than none!' I should be half +inclined to say that any reading was better than none, allaying the +crudeness of the statement by the Yankee proverb, which tells us that, +though 'all deacons are good, there's odds in deacons.' Among books, +certainly there is much variety of company, ranging from the best to the +worst, from Plato to Zola, and the first lesson in reading well is that +which teaches us to distinguish between literature and merely printed +matter. The choice lies wholly with ourselves. We have the key put into +our hands; shall we unlock the pantry or the oratory? There is a +Wallachian legend which, like most of the figments of popular fancy, has +a moral in it. One Bakala, a good-for-nothing kind of fellow in his way, +having had the luck to offer a sacrifice especially well pleasing to +God, is taken up into heaven. He finds the Almighty sitting in something +like the best room of a Wallachian peasant's cottage--there is always +something profoundly pathetic in the homeliness of the popular +imagination, forced, like the princess in the fairy tale, to weave its +semblance of gold tissue out of straw. On being asked what reward he +desires for the good service he has done, Bakala, who had always +passionately longed to be the owner of a bagpipe, seeing a half wornout +one lying among some rubbish in a corner of the room, begs eagerly that +it may be bestowed on him. The Lord, with a smile of pity at the +meanness of his choice, grants him his boon, and Bakala goes back to +earth delighted with his prize. With an infinite possibility within his +reach, with the choice of wisdom, of power, of beauty at his tongue's +end, he asked according to his kind, and his sordid wish is answered +with a gift as sordid. Yes, there is a choice in books as in friends, +and the mind sinks or rises to the level of its habitual society, is +subdued, as Shakespeare says of the dyer's hand, to what it works in. +Cato's advice, _cum bonis ambula_, consort with the good, is quite as +true if we extend it to books, for they, too, insensibly give away their +own nature to the mind that converses with them. They either beckon +upward or drag down. And it is certainly true that the material of +thought reacts upon the thought itself. Shakespeare himself would have +been commonplace had he been paddocked in a thinly shaven vocabulary, +and Phidias, had he worked in wax, only a more inspired Mrs. Jarley. A +man is known, says the proverb, by the company he keeps, and not only +so, but made by it. Milton makes his fallen angels grow small to enter +the infernal council room, but the soul, which God meant to be the +spacious chamber where high thoughts and generous aspirations might +commune together, shrinks and narrows itself to the measure of the +meaner company that is wont to gather there, hatching conspiracies +against our better selves. We are apt to wonder at the scholarship of +the men of three centuries ago and at a certain dignity of phrase that +characterizes them. They were scholars because they did not read so many +things as we. They had fewer books, but these were of the best. Their +speech was noble, because they lunched with Plutarch and supped with +Plato. We spend as much time over print as they did, but instead of +communing with the choice thoughts of choice spirits, and unconsciously +acquiring the grand manner of that supreme society, we diligently inform +ourselves and cover the continent with a network of speaking wires to +inform us of such inspiring facts as that a horse belonging to Mr. Smith +ran away on Wednesday, seriously damaging a valuable carryall; that a +son of Mr. Brown swallowed a hickory nut on Thursday; and that a gravel +bank caved in and buried Mr. Robinson alive on Friday. Alas! it is we +ourselves that are getting buried alive under this avalanche of earthy +impertinences. It is we who, while we might each in his humble way be +helping our fellows into the right path, or adding one block to the +climbing spire of a fine soul, are willing to become mere sponges +saturated from the stagnant goosepond of village gossip. + +One is sometimes asked by young people to recommend a course of +reading. My advice would be that they should confine themselves to the +supreme books in whatever literature, or still better to choose some one +great author, and make themselves thoroughly familiar with him. For, as +all roads lead to Rome, so do they likewise lead away from it, and you +will find that, in order to understand perfectly and weigh exactly any +vital piece of literature, you will be gradually and pleasantly +persuaded to excursions and explorations of which you little dreamed +when you began, and will find yourselves scholars before you are aware. +For remember that there is nothing less profitable than scholarship for +the mere sake of scholarship, nor anything more wearisome in the +attainment. But the moment you have a definite aim attention is +quickened, the mother of memory, and all that you acquire groups and +arranges itself in an order that is lucid, because everywhere and always +it is in intelligent relation to a central object of constant and +growing interest. This method also forces upon us the necessity of +thinking, which is, after all, the highest result of all education. For +what we want is not learning, but knowledge--that is, the power to make +learning answer its true end as a quickener of intelligence and a +widener of our intellectual sympathies. I do not mean to say that every +one is fitted by nature or inclination for a definite course of study, +or indeed for serious study in any sense. I am quite willing that these +should 'browse in a library,' as Dr. Johnson called it, 'to their +hearts' content. It is, perhaps, the only way in which time may be +profitably wasted. But desultory reading will not make a "full man," as +Bacon understood it, of one who has not Johnson's memory, his power of +assimilation, and, above all, his comprehensive view of the relations of +things. "Read not," says Lord Bacon, in his "Essay of Studies," "to +contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find +talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be +tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and +digested--that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be +read, but not curiously (carefully), and some few to be read wholly and +with diligence and attention. _Some books also may be read by deputy._" +This is weighty and well said, and I would call your attention +especially to the wise words with which the passage closes. + +I have been speaking of such books as should be chosen for profitable +reading. A public library, of course, must be far wider in its scope. It +should contain something for all tastes, as well as the material for a +thorough grounding in all branches of knowledge. It should be rich in +books of reference, in encyclopaedias, where one may learn without cost +of research what things are generally known. For it is far more useful +to know these than to know those that are _not_ generally known. Not to +know them is the defect of those half trained and therefore hasty men +who find a mare's nest on every branch of the tree of knowledge. A +library should contain ample stores of history, which, if it do not +always deserve the pompous title which Bolingbroke gave it, of +philosophy teaching by example, certainly teaches many things profitable +for us to know and lay to heart; teaches among other things how much of +the present is still held in mortmain by the past; teaches that, if +there be no controlling purpose, there is, at least, a sternly logical +sequence in human affairs, and that chance has but a trifling dominion +over them; teaches why things are and must be so and not otherwise; +teaches, perhaps, more than anything else, the value of personal +character as a chief factor in what used to be called destiny, for that +cause is strong which has not a multitude but one strong man behind it. +History is indeed mainly the biography of a few imperial men, and forces +home upon us the useful lesson how infinitesimally important our own +private affairs are to the universe in general. History is clarified +experience, and yet how little do men profit by it--nay, how should we +expect it of those who so seldom are taught anything by their own! +Delusions, especially economical delusions, seem the only things that +have any chance of an earthly immortality. I would have plenty of +biography. It is no insignificant fact that eminent men have always +loved their Plutarch, since example, whether for emulation or avoidance, +is never so poignant as when presented to us in a striking personality. +Autobiographies are also instructive reading to the student of human +nature, though generally written by men who were more interesting to +themselves than to their fellow-men. I have been told that Emerson and +George Eliot agreed in thinking Rousseau's "Confessions" the most +interesting book they had ever read. + +A public library should also have many and full shelves of political +economy, for the dismal science, as Carlyle called it, if it prove +nothing else, will go far toward proving that theory is the bird in the +bush, though she sing more sweetly than the nightingale, and that the +millennium will not hasten its coming in deference to the most +convincing string of resolutions that were ever unanimously adopted in +public meeting. It likewise induces in us a profound distrust of social +panaceas. + +I would have a public library abundant in translations of the best books +in all languages; for though no work of genius can be adequately +translated, because every word of it is permeated with what Milton calls +'the precious life blood of a master spirit,' which cannot be transfused +into the veins of the best translation, yet some acquaintance with +foreign and ancient literatures has the liberalizing effect of foreign +travel. He who travels by translation travels more hastily and +superficially, but brings home something that is worth having, +nevertheless. Translations properly used, by shortening the labor of +acquisition, add as many years to our lives as they subtract from the +processes of our education. + +In such a library the sciences should be fully represented, that men may +at least learn to know in what a marvellous museum they live, what a +wonder worker is giving them an exhibition daily for nothing. Nor let +art be forgotten in all its many forms, not as the antithesis of +science, but as her elder or fairer sister, whom we love all the more +that her usefulness cannot be demonstrated in dollars and cents. I +should be thankful if an every day laborer among us could have his mind +illumined, as those of Athens and of Florence had, with some image of +what is best in architecture, painting and sculpture to train his crude +perceptions and perhaps call out latent faculties. I should like to see +the works of Ruskin within the reach of every artisan among us. For I +hope some day that the delicacy of touch and accuracy of eye that have +made our mechanics in some departments the best in the world may give us +the same supremacy in works of wider range and more purely ideal scope. + +Voyages and travels I would also have, good store, especially the +earlier, when the world was fresh and unhackneyed and men saw things +invisible to the modern eye. They are fast sailing ships to waft away +from present trouble to the Fortunate Isles. + +To wash down the dryer morsels that every library must necessarily +offer at its board, let there be plenty of imaginative literature, and +let its range be not too narrow to stretch from Dante to the elder +Dumas. The world of the imagination is not the world of abstraction and +nonentity, as some conceive, but a world formed out of chaos by the +sense of the beauty that _is_ in man and the earth on which he dwells. +It is the realm of might be, our heaven of refuge from the shortcomings +and disillusions of life. It is, to quote Spenser, who knew it well, + + "The world's sweet inn from care and wearisome turmoil." + +Do we believe, then, that God gave us in mockery this splendid faculty +of sympathy with things that are a joy forever? For my part, I believe +that the love and study of works of imagination is of practical utility +in a country so profoundly material in its leading tendencies as ours. +The hunger after purely intellectual delights, the content with ideal +possessions, cannot but be good for us in maintaining a wholesome +balance of the character and of the faculties. I for one shall never be +persuaded, that Shakespeare left a less useful legacy to his countrymen +than Watt. We hold all the deepest, all the highest satisfactions of +life as tenants of imagination. Nature will keep up the supply of what +are called hard-headed people without our help, and, if it come to that, +there are other as good uses for heads as at the end of battering rams. + +I know that there are many excellent people who object to the reading of +novels as a waste of time, if not as otherwise harmful. But I think they +are trying to outwit nature, who is sure to prove cunninger than they. +Look at children. One boy shall want a chest of tools and one a book, +and of those who want books one shall ask for a botany, another for a +romance. They will be sure to get what they want, and we are doing a +grave wrong to their morals by driving them to do things on the sly, to +steal that food which their constitution craves and which is wholesome +for them, instead of having it freely and frankly given them as the +wisest possible diet. If we cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, +so neither can we hope to succeed with the opposite experiment. But we +may spoil the silk for its legitimate uses. I can conceive of no +healthier reading for a boy, or girl either, than Scott's novels or +Cooper's, to speak only of the dead. I have found them very good reading +at least for one young man, for one middle-aged man, and for one who is +growing old. No, no; banish the Antiquary, banish Leather Stocking, and +banish all the world! Let us not go about to make life duller than it +is. + +But I must shut the doors of my imaginary library, or I shall never +end. It is left for me to say a few words of fitting acknowledgment to +Mr. Fitz for his judicious and generous gift. It is always a pleasure to +me that I believe the custom of giving away money during their lifetime +(and there is nothing harder for most men to part with, except +prejudice) is more common with Americans than with any other people. It +is a still greater pleasure to see that the favorite direction of their +beneficence is toward the founding of colleges and libraries. My +observation has led me to believe that there is no country in which +wealth is so sensible of its obligations as our own. And, as most of our +rich men have risen from the ranks, may we not fairly attribute this +sympathy with their kind to the benign influence of democracy rightly +understood? My dear and honored friend, George William Curtis, told me +that he was sitting in front of the late Mr. Ezra Cornell in a +convention, where one of the speakers made a Latin quotation. Mr. +Cornell leaned forward and asked for a translation of it, which Mr. +Curtis gave him. Mr. Cornell thanked him, and added: "If I can help it, +no young man shall grow up in New York hereafter without the chance, at +least, of knowing what a Latin quotation means when he hears it." This +was the germ of Cornell University, and it found food for its roots in +that sympathy and thoughtfulness for others of which I just spoke. This +is the healthy side of that good nature which democracy tends to foster, +and which is so often harmful when it has its root in indolence or +indifference; especially harmful where our public affairs are concerned, +and where it is easiest, because there we are giving away what belongs +to other people. In this country it is as laudably easy to procure +signatures to a subscription paper as it is shamefully so to obtain them +for certificates of character and recommendations to office. And is not +this public spirit a natural evolution from that frame of mind in which +New England was colonized, and which found expression in these grave +words of Robinson and Brewster: "We are knit together as a body in a +most strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord, of the violation +of which we make great conscience, and by virtue whereof we hold +ourselves strictly tied to all care of each other's good, and of the +whole." Let us never forget the deep and solemn import of these words. +The problem before us is to make a whole of our many discordant parts, +many foreign elements, and I know of no way in which this can better be +done than by providing a common system of education and a common door of +access to the best books by which that education may be continued, +broadened, and made fruitful. For it is certain that, whatever we do or +leave undone, those discordant parts and foreign elements are to be, +whether we will or no, members of that body which Robinson and Brewster +had in mind, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, for good or ill. + +There is no way in which a man can build so secure and lasting a +monument for himself as in a public library. Upon that he may +confidently allow "Resurgam" to be carved, for through his good deed he +will rise again in the grateful remembrance and in the lifted and +broadened minds and fortified characters of generation after generation. +The pyramids may forget their builders, but memorials such as this have +longer memories. + +Mr. Fitz has done his part in providing your library with a dwelling. +It will be for the citizens of Chelsea to provide it with worthy +habitants. So shall they, too, have a share in the noble eulogy of the +ancient wise man: "The teachers shall shine as the firmament, and they +that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever." + + + + +THE INFLUENCE OF GOOD BOOKS + + The following paragraphs, which are from an address + delivered by Rev. Dr. Collyer at the opening of the Richard + Sugden Library at Spencer, Mass., are taken from a report in + _The Library Journal_ (September, 1889). The + autobiographical portions, perhaps, are little related to + the progress of libraries here in the United States, but + their interest is so great that more of them have been + included here than are strictly pertinent to our subject. + + Robert Collyer was born in Keighley, Yorkshire, Eng., Dec. + 8, 1823. He was apprenticed to a blacksmith as a boy of 14, + came to Shoemakertown, Pa., with his parents in 1850 and + followed there the trade of a hammermaker. Later he entered + the ministry of the Unitarian church and in 1860 founded + Unity church in Chicago. In 1879 he became pastor of the + Church of the Messiah in New York City, where he died in + 1912. + + +When Richard Sugden asked me to come to Spencer and say some word +which would fit this occasion, I wrote him by the next mail that I +should be ever so glad to come, and felt that it was a great honor to +receive such an invitation, and a great pleasure. Nor was the trouble of +much account--which touches us all who say Aye to such an invitation on +the impulse of the moment and then wonder how we shall make our promise +good. My old friend wanted me to come, and not another and better man, +and to say the word which was in my heart to-day, whatever this might +be; and this was enough, because I had read in the papers--what he was +far too modest to tell me, beyond the merest mention--about the gift of +Richard Sugden to his town, and so I said it makes no great matter what +any man may say, the thing he has done tells its own story, and tells it +more nobly than I could ever hope to do, more nobly and in this fashion +which shames my speech. For our words float away on the summer winds, to +be caught, it may be, and set in type and read by those who care for +such things, and then to die and be forgotten; but this your friend and +mine has done in Spencer will be eloquent with the silence which is +golden, and still tell its tale when we are all dead and dust who gather +here to-day. It is a poor and scant manhood which does not long now and +then to be remembered some little while after the grass grows green and +the daisies bloom on the grave. To have them speak of us at the +fire-side and in the workshop and the market, remembering what was +worthy in us and forgetting what was base, though there may be no more +to tell by comparison than Dr. Ripley told down in Concord, as he stood +by the dust of a man in his own town, and being sorely troubled to find +some real worth in the man's life he could dwell on for a moment, said, +"He was the best man I ever knew at a fire." I cannot even guess whether +Richard Sugden ever thought of this as one of the rewards which must +return to him for his gift to Spencer, and I love to think that to his +generous heart the work was its own reward. But I say, as we stand here +on this day of gift and dedication, that if this had been his sole +purpose, to be held in grateful remembrance of his fellow-townsmen and +their children through centuries of time, then he has taken out an +insurance that will stand good always and keep his memory green in the +town of Spencer. And not here alone, but far away across the sea in old +Yorkshire, where his home was in the old time before he came to this new +world to seek his fortune, and, far more and better than that, to earn +it honestly and well. The story will be told there long after to-day and +to-morrow, how one of the Sugdens who went out from among them gave this +gift, and then the kith and kin will hold up their heads and feel that +the fine old name has won still another patent of nobility. A poor youth +he was in the narrow, contracted, dear old land, where the poor were +held by a cruel bit. And a voice came to him, saying, "Get thee out from +thy kindred and thy father's house unto a land that I will tell thee +of"; and he followed the voice, as I did also, to the promised land; +carved out his fortune honest and fair, I say, but then could not be +content to enrich his own family alone, or, as so many do, to remember +his town in his will. He must build this noble structure, please God, in +his own lifetime, and convey it by free gift to you and yours forever; +and so the work is done, and so well done, to all seeming, that if you +care for the gift as your friend has cared for its creation, we may say, +as old Andrew Fairservice said of the cathedral in Glasgow, "Keep airn +and gunpooder aff it, and it will stand to the crack o'doom." + +My friend and yours is also an Englishman and a Yorkshireman, as you +know, by birth and breeding, as I am also, and I am the more glad and +proud of what he has done for that reason; because I still love old +England with a very tender love after these forty years of absence, as I +know he does also. But I have had to notice how very many of us who came +here from England to find a home in the American republic, and it may be +make their fortune, can find nothing so good in this new world as that +they left behind them, and no matter how much wealth they may win, they +do nothing as a rule for the town they live in, like this your friend +has done in Spencer. He could not be content to be a mere exile from +England, he must be a citizen of the United States and blend his life +with the life in this new world which has made him so much more of a man +than he ever could have been had he stayed on that hill-side in old +Yorkshire. This is the true home of his heart and life, here he won his +wealth and found ample room to grow to be the man you honor, and here is +one proof among many he has given in all these years, that while he was +born in England and is proud of it, though he may not say so, he was +born again in America, and does not love the old land less but the new +land more, as every man must who comes here to share your life, if he is +worth his salt. + +You will pardon me, I know, as you receive the gift, for this word in +praise of the giver, while he may find it hard to do so; but for that I +do not care, because in asking me to come here and say the word that was +in my heart he must run his risk and take it as it came to me, and +insisted on being said. Richard Sugden falls into line with our +home-born men far and wide, but especially in Massachusetts, who have +done or are ready to do some such thing as he has done now in +Spencer--building these public libraries in the towns where they live or +from which they went away to seek their fortune; public libraries, which +range with the schools and churches and the town halls; which are the +four-square defence of our life as citizens of the republic and of our +intelligence and virtue, when they are nobly maintained. They can do no +nobler thing. They are sure of their reward, also, if they want one, in +the grateful remembrance of their towns and cities, and open the way for +others again who wonder what they can do to the finest purpose; men who +have made their fortune and have not been struck by what we may call the +greenback paralysis, through which the hand that gets takes all the +strength from the hand that gives. What can we do better, they will say +in such a case, than this Richard Sugden has done for Spencer, and many +another man far and wide?--see to it that our town also shall have a +public library, which shall be its pride and joy, and make perfect so +far as we can the defence from ignorance and vice and crime; open a +fountain from which the waters of life may flow forever for those who +thirst for knowledge or whatever good books can give them? And, as I +have had to notice up among the mountains this summer how I would not +feel thirsty till I came to a clear, cool spring, but then would drink +to my heart's content, so such fountains as these will also create the +thirst they can so nobly allay, while still we keep on drinking in +answer to their perpetual invitation, as the years come and go. + +And now shall I tell you a very simple story touching my own life, +which will help to make good my thought of the worth of this you are +doing in Spencer through your free public library, and have been doing, +as I understand, these 30 years, which is in itself a great and singular +honor to your town, maintaining a free library and reading-room at your +own proper charges, for which your friend and fellow-citizen has built +this noble edifice, with some such feeling as he had in the old time who +built the temple that the ark of the covenant and the rod which budded +and the sacred books might have an abiding and splendid home. It was my +lot to be born as your friend was and mine, in a poor and small home, +with this thirst in my nature, as far back as I can remember, for +something to read. And I mind very well the first book I ever bought +with my own penny, the delectable history of Whittington and his Cat, +which cast such a spell over my imagination that when I went up Highgate +Hill over London the other summer, and saw the stone on which poor Dick +sat down to hear the bells ringing far below, which lured him back again +to fame and fortune, I found I was a small boy again reading my small +wonder-book, and the old stone divided the honors of a tender interest +with the red granite shaft set above the grave of the woman of finest +genius England has to her name, George Eliot, which is a few minutes' +walk away. + +There were a few books in our small cottage of three rooms, but these +were among the best in the English tongue, the Bible and Bunyan and +Goldsmith, with a few more I do not now remember, but these I read as +you drink at clear, cool springs. Then a man came along from over the +moors and brought Burns with him, and another brought Shakespeare. My +father borrowed these for me to read, and the world grew great and wide +and wonderful to me as I read them, while to this day I notice that I +care more for the history of England in Shakespeare's grand dramas than +I do for Hume and Froude and Macaulay, so great was the spell cast again +over my life. Then an old farmer came along with a couple of volumes, +and said, "Here, lad, I notice thou is fond o' good reading, and I think +thou will like to read these books." It was Irving's Sketch-Book and it +was Christmas day, and I was away from home then and lonesome, wanting +to be with my folks and to sit by the old fireside, but the magic wand +of Irving touched me and stole away all my tears. Still, as you may see, +this was only hand-to-mouth reading. I had never seen a public library, +but had heard of them and longed to find one somewhere, sometime, as, I +fear, I never had longed to find my way into heaven. Well, I heard of +one that had been started only three miles away, and so I went with my +heart in my mouth to see what I could find to read in the wonderful new +library. I can see the books now standing on the shelves in the small +upper room, and recall the old delight of my youth. I go into the Astor +Library now and then when I have time, rich in the lore of all the ages, +and have wandered through some of the finest in the world beside, but +that small room in Addingham is still the story of one's first love. +There were some 200 volumes, but here I was with all this wealth of +books at my command at about the cost of three days' work in a year. I +cannot tell you the story of that first grand passion and the delight of +it. I had found a library. I like that honest Dutchman, a fine old +scholar says, who told me that one page of Plato did him more good than +ten bumpers of wine, and that was the way I felt about those 200 +volumes. I had found out the unspeakable delight of drinking all my +heart could desire, and struck the matchless intoxication of noble and +wholesome books, that leave no headache or heartache when you are sober, +only it was a good while before I got sober. + +Then I came in due time to this new world and began to work again at the +anvil in Pennsylvania, my own proper business I expected to follow all +my life, and presently heard of a library in the small town of Hatboro, +six or seven miles away, six one way and seven the other. A fine old +farmer had found a long while ago that this was the noblest use he could +make of a good deal of his money, to build up a library away among the +rich green lands, and so there it was waiting for me with its treasure +of good books. I see them again as they stand on the shelves, and think +I could walk right in and lay my hands on those that won me most +potently and cast their spell again over my heart, though it is five and +thirty years since I was within the doors. I may mention Hawthorne among +them all as the author I found there for the first time who won my heart +for good and all, as we may say, and holds it still. Then I found a +great treasure in no long time in Philadelphia, that I could no more +exhaust than you can exhaust the spring we have been glancing at by +drinking, which dips down toward the deepness of the world. I was still +bound fast to the anvil, for this was our living, but there was my life, +so far as good books could make it, rich for me and noble in the great +library again seven miles away. So what matter about the hard day's work +at the anvil, while there was some new volume to read when the day's +work was done or old one to read with an ever new delight. My new book +or old one, with the sweet green lane in the summer time where I could +walk while the birds sang their mating song, and the fragrance of the +green things growing floated on the soft summer air, and the fireside in +winter with the good wife busy about the room, and the little ones +sleeping in their cribs, I look back to those times still and wonder +whether they were not the best I ever knew. I was reading some lines the +other day in an old English ballad written 300 years ago, and they told +the story of those times: + + "O for a booke, and a shadie nook, eyther indoore, or out, + With the green leaves whisp'ring overhede, or the streete cries all + about, + Where I maie reade, all at my ease, both of the New and Olde, + For a right good Booke, whereon to looke, was better to me than Golde." + +And so I touch the story of my own life for some poor evidence of what +good books can do for us and for the worth of what you have been doing +in Spencer all these years, and are made glad to day by this library +building which crowns the good endeavor; a place that will not shame but +will glorify your purpose and hold it to the noblest and best endeavors +you can make in the time to come, for such a shrine will be sure to draw +books to it always, worthy of its beauty and grace, and there will be +other men and women also to follow in the steps of Richard Sugden, and +bring to it costly works and rare and beautiful, worthy to be in the +palaces of kings while still you will see to it that the noble provision +of books for the general reading rests directly as it has done so long +on your own generous care. + +You have made this noble boon of good books easy and opulent for the +workingmen of Spencer. When I came to this new world and had not heard +as yet of that library among the green lands, but must have books on any +terms, and the terms were hard, and the good wife watching not the +dollars but the very cents because they must all be saved to furnish the +little home, I can well remember how I bought a book one day for half a +dollar, far too big to smuggle into the cottage, and hid it in the +bushes, watched my chances the next day, and got it in all safe and +sound; and some days after, when she caught me reading, and said, "Where +did you get that book, my dear?" I answered, "Why, I have had it for +some time"; and then she only said, "Indeed!" for she was patient with +me and good; and then, it was in what somebody calls our treacle moon. +The workingmen of Spencer fall on happy times. Here are books easy to +come at as the water you drink and the air you breathe and stores of +them which can never be exhausted. If it had come to pass thirty years +ago that some man delving in your wild hills had struck gold, and all +the eager manhood of New England had gone crazy to delve for gold where +Spencer stands, and had found it in mighty stores, I wonder whether that +would have been such a boon to Spencer and the world as this you have +done--establishing great industries and wholesome and good; beckoning +the working forces from far and wide to come here and take hold with you +on such terms as we can find nowhere else outside this new world. +Brother McGlynn, I remember, as we rode together to the funeral of Gen. +Grant, called out some half-dozen times, "God's world for the +workingman!" You did this who were the pioneers of the strong and +steadfast town, and then you said, We must have a free public library, +and pay the bills; we have got our churches started, and our schools, +and our place for town-meeting--the tap-root of the tree of liberty in +New England, a living tree, and no mere liberty-pole, and reaching down +200 years--now we must complete the walls of the city, which standeth +four-square, by a free public library, and so do what men may to +maintain a fair public virtue and intelligence within the lines of +Spencer; these men we employ shall have books to read of every kind any +man ought to read, and the ought shall be large and free and fair; and +so the thing was done. + +The thirty years have come and gone; the free public library has done +its noble and beautiful work. It is a new departure we touch to-day in +this ceremony of gift and acceptance. This library will grow always more +worthy the name your friend and neighbor has made for it from this time. +They say that in Scotland once a man sent for his minister and said, "If +I give L20,000 to the church do you think it will be reckoned in my +account when I get through down here?" And the minister said: "I do not +feel sure about that; but it is weel worth the experiment." I do feel +sure about this, and the worth of what you can do, to be placed to your +credit, not yonder but right here in the town of Spencer. There can be +no nobler investment, and but few as noble as this you have made these +thirty years for all who have the hunger and thirst in them good books +can satisfy; while still with poor Oliver in the story, we ask for more; +and they are not dead things, as Milton says, but contain a potency of +life as active as the soul from which they sprang: + + "Books are each a world; and those we know + Are a substantial world both pure and good; + Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, + Our pastime and our happiness will grow. + And books are yours + Within whose silent chambers treasure lies + Preserved from age to age; more precious far + Than that accumulated store of gold + And orient gems, which for a day of need + The Sultans hide deep in ancestral vaults. + These stores of truth you can unlock at will." + + + + +BOOKS AND LIFE + + The influence of books on the community has been used in + this address by Dean (now President) Birge as a basis for + discussing their reaction on special groups, especially + those differentiated by age and sex, and how far the library + should be guided by it and take advantage of it. It is + perhaps the best general treatment of the group features of + socialized library work by a speaker of authority, not a + professional librarian. + + Edward Asahel Birge was born at Troy, N.Y., Sept. 7, 1851, + graduated at Williams in 1873 and since 1875 has been a + member of the University of Wisconsin faculty, serving + successively as instructor in natural history, professor of + zoology, dean of the college of arts and sciences, acting + president, and finally in 1919, president of the University. + He has also served as a director of the Free Library at + Madison, and in 1906 was president of the Wisconsin Library + Association, before whom this address was delivered. + + +The aspect of the subject to which I would call your attention is the +often observed fact of the extent to which modern life in all of its +phases, is becoming based upon books. I say in all of its phases, for we +are concerned with the present extent of this relation between books and +life with its rapid increase, rather than with its existence. Ever since +the beginning of human society men have based their actions on the +teachings of experience. Part of these teachings each individual has +directly derived from his environment, and he has supplemented and +enlarged them by means of those coming from the remembered experience of +others, often belonging to an older generation. Later in history there +were added those teachings derived from books--from the recorded +experience of others. With that enlargement of the basis of human action +which comes from the remembered experience of others we, as librarians, +have nothing to do, and, indeed, there is little to say about it now +which could not have been said with equal propriety, one, two, or twenty +centuries ago. With books the case is different. The last century, the +last generation, the last decade--each has seen the transfer of the +basis of action from the oral to the printed word, which could be +paralleled by no other period of equal length in the history of +civilization. The story of this transfer from talk to print, from rule +of thumb to textbook, from tradition to school, from practise to +science, is long and intensely interesting. I can touch only a few +phases of it. + +First consider the lengthening of the school period for children. I do +not think it is possible accurately to compare the present length of +this period with that which existed a century or a half ago; nor would +such a comparison interest us. It is enough for our purpose to know that +years have been added to the school life of many thousands of the youth +of all classes. As a single illustration, consider the effect of the +high school, whose development into a large and popular institution, an +institution affecting great masses of the people, belongs almost wholly +to the period within the life of the generation now on the stage. A half +century ago the public high school was almost unknown and the private +academy reached very few persons. Only a generation ago the number of +students in secondary schools was hardly one-tenth of the present +number. The attendance on institutions of secondary grade has thus +increased five times as rapidly as the population. Within the past +fifteen years the attendance in the high schools of Milwaukee has more +than trebled, while only a little more than fifty per cent. has been +added to the population of the city. In Racine almost exactly the same +ratio holds, and so for many other cities of the United States, the +increase being least marked in New England cities, and greatest in the +cities of the West. + +The formative influence of the high school youth are far more +extensively and exclusively books than were those of his father or +grandfather, who probably began to learn his trade, or his business, at +about the age when his boy enters the high school, and who therefore, +during the period of adolescence, received his training from action +rather than from study, from oral rather than from printed experience. + +One may find to-day in the writings of many teachers jeremiads over the +shortness of the average school life of children. I would not contradict +their statistics and would join in their regrets, but the fact remains +that the most striking phenomenon in the life of the children of the +past thirty years is the extent to which their training has been +committed to the use of books and the rapid growth of the use of books +as the period has advanced. Few as the school years of the children now +are, those of any older generation have been fewer. This aspect of the +matter is the one that is of interest to us, and the school life of the +present, instead of arousing our regrets by its brevity, may well call +out our astonishment by its length, and demand the use of our best wits +to see the changes which have been caused in the life of the present and +to forecast those which in the future will flow from this fundamental +change in education. + +One of these correlated changes is already apparent--the extension of +the period of book learning for many thousands of persons into the +college and university course. + +In 1850 the total attendance on colleges in the United States was about +ten thousand. Half a century later, when the population of the country +had increased about three and one-third times, the college students had +increased in a tenfold ratio, or more than three times as rapidly as the +population. Even more significant is the growth of the number of college +students in more recent years. Since 1889 the number has more than +doubled, thus continuing in the latest years a ratio of growth with +reference to population quite as great as in earlier years. + +An equally significant, and quite as conspicuous change, is seen in the +growth of technical education. Thirty years ago, when I came to +Wisconsin, the university was graduating from two or three and a half +dozen engineers yearly, and these could not all find occupation in this +commonwealth, with a population then of more than a million people. Now +a hundred graduates go out at Commencement, while the population of the +state has little more than doubled, and while other engineering schools +of high rank have multiplied all around it. + +Nowadays the man of books, rather than the man of tradition is directing +the work of the world. In the copper mines of the north the +old-fashioned mine captain, who received his profession and his +traditions from his father, is disappearing and has almost vanished. His +place is taken by the graduate of a mining school, who interprets what +he sees, not by the light of the experience of his elders, communicated +to him orally, but by the far clearer light of the collective experience +of men embodied in books. + +When the capitalist now desires to explore for new iron mines he employs +not the old-fashioned prospector, but puts into the field a party of +young men often fresh from the geological laboratory. Thus science, +organized knowledge, book learning, is driving out with increasing +rapidity the picturesque figures of past times--times wholly past, +though only just behind us in years. That "bookish theoric," so detested +by Iago, is apparently firmly in control of affairs and has displaced +its predecessors and rivals. + +In countless other ways the same fact is shown. Half a century ago a +youth who desired to become a lawyer or a doctor entered the office of a +practitioner and learned his profession by practise and experience. Now +he goes to the school of law or medicine and gains his entrance to his +chosen calling by the way of books and laboratories. Even commerce and +trade, in which the rules of practical experience seem most firmly +entrenched, are shifting their basis to books, and schools of commerce +and trade schools are springing up on every hand to give youth a broader +foundation of knowledge than can be gained from practise. Still more +significant are the facts shown by the enormous development of +agricultural experiment stations, farmers' bulletins and farmers' +institutes. Agriculture, that calling which of all others is most +ancient and most conservative, is rapidly changing its basis from +tradition to books. Perhaps I ought not to say "most conservative," for +there is one calling which may better deserve the title--that of the +domestic industries practised by women. Yet even here a beginning of the +transfer, although a small one, has been made by schools of domestic +science. + +While this beginning is but small, and while the traditional professions +of women have not yet been greatly modified by books, the life of no +class of the community has been more profoundly affected by this general +change than has that of women. With the passing away of home industries +and with the great increase of wealth which the past century, or half +century, has seen, have come vastly increased opportunities to women for +leisure, for release from domestic duties, and for the prolongation of +school life. The statistics of high schools and colleges sufficiently +show the use which they are making of this leisure. Other facts are +equally obvious and significant as showing the transfer of the basis of +woman's life from domestic experience to books. The woman's club, I +suppose, may be said fairly to take the place of the sewing circle of +our mothers and grandmothers. The contrast even in the name is +significant, as marking the transfer of interest from the circle of +domestic experience to the wider domain of the recorded life of the +world, to the realm of books. + +Thus at whatever point we examine the life of the present, we find it +basing itself on books, both for action and enjoyment, and that in an +ever-increasing degree. This truth is peculiarly evident to you as +librarians, since the facts of your own profession and the rapid growth +of libraries and library work afford one of the latest phases of this +general movement. + +From 1875 to 1896 the number of libraries in the United States just +about doubled, increasing steadily, and adding, during this period, +about 2,000 libraries, or a little less than 100 per year. From 1896 to +1900, 1,350 libraries were added, or about 450 per year. From 1900 to +1903, 1,500 libraries were founded, or 500 per year. In the past ten +years the number of libraries must have doubled; a ratio growth at least +four times that of the population.... + +It is plain that the adjustment of the library to this movement of +men's minds towards books is the most important practical question for +all of us. Questions of management, of administration, of methods are +all of secondary importance beside this one--if, indeed they may be +called even secondary. For this change of base is a revolutionary +affair, not a mere matter of readjustment of detail, and it is no easy +task for the library to find itself in such a movement. Libraries are so +small a part of the national intellectual life, so small, in the mass, +for example, in comparison to the great universities, that their proper +influence and work are easily overlooked. There is sometimes danger that +they may be swept into currents guided by other forces rather than find +opportunity freely to contribute their own share to the movement. + +Let us turn then to the more practical side of the question, and ask how +the library is adjusting itself, in this changed relation of men, where +it has best succeeded, and where it still has most to do. Let us ask +where experience seems to promise successful solution of problems, and +where the problems are in that stage in which only doubtful success can +be expected from experiments, and final solution still lies far before +us. + +The library began as a place to keep books, permitting their use by the +public, but often under such restrictions as seem to indicate that this +service was granted "grudgingly and of necessity." Books and the high +life were in some obscure way correlated in the mind of the librarian, +and he too often seemed to feel that these were treasures not to be +shared by the many. The first change which came, therefore, as the +library was swept into the general intellectual current of time, was the +removal of restrictions on the use of books and their replacement by +devices intended to encourage and extend that use. A second step, and a +much more revolutionary one, has been to teach the community directly +the uses of books, and thus not merely to afford easy conditions for the +use of books on the part of those who want them, but to add a positive +force which will compel the books to go out in the community, there to +perform their present service and to create a demand for an increased +service in the future. + +This change marks a fundamental departure of the library from its old +basis, and one which will affect it greatly, for good and perhaps for +ill. The movement toward freedom of administration was really concerned +with small matters, and left unaltered the central plan and purpose of +the library. But with the assumption of direct educational work for +children, for women, for men, the library has entered upon a new epoch +in its evolution. It has taken up duties whose performance will demand +greatly enlarged resources--of space and of money, of books and of +working staff. And what is of even greater importance, the purpose, the +point of view, of those who control the library, and the temper of the +administration, will change, and ought to change, under the pressure of +these new duties. + +This positive and educational library work falls into two main +types--that for children, and that for adults--both men and women. It is +still in a tentative condition, in a formative and experimental period. +The results are still so few and recent that they do not admit any exact +formulation. They permit only general and suggestive statement. + +Work for children is, in some ways, the easiest educational attempt of +the library, since it runs parallel to the work of the schools, and +those for whom the work is done are easily reached and easily guided. +Its function is, of course, in part to supplement the school. It would +be, however, a great misfortune if it were looked upon merely as a +supplement to the school, as a means of providing reading which the +school ought to buy, but cannot afford. Its purpose is rather to begin +in childhood, both for pleasure and for profit, a voluntary association +with books which lie wholly outside of the school program. It aims to +begin the early formation of the habit of reading as distinguished from +study--a habit which will be permanent, instead of ending with the +period of formal instruction. It recognizes the fact that school life +must soon end, and that when the end comes, the important feature of the +child's intellectual condition is not so much the amount he has learned +as the temper and habit of his mind toward books. Has he merely learned +certain truths from books or are books open to him? It is of fundamental +importance to the community that the second alternative be secured. The +school libraries and children's librarians are, therefore, not to feel +that their duty is to supplement the school. That duty lies on a +different, and, in a way, a higher plane, in a more spiritual region. It +is their part to make the child a citizen of the world of books, and to +naturalize him so thoroughly that he will always remain a citizen. Thus +only can he share fully, not only in the high and permanent pleasures +that books afford, but also in that great movement of life toward books +which marks our time. + +From remarks which I have heard on various occasions, I believe this +extension of library service and library duties to youth has often been +misunderstood. Work with school children, whether done by the library +force as part of their duties, or by assistants especially engaged, has +seemed to many to be a somewhat unnecessary extension of the +library--something of a luxury. These added duties have often been +assumed by the libraries under special pleas, and for reasons temporary +in character. But in that wider view which I am trying to present, the +truth is recognized that the library is a permanent storehouse of books +for the community, to which the citizen of every class and age must +repair for knowledge not only interesting and useful but necessary to +the conduct of life. We recognize also that while the training of the +schools soon ceases for every individual, the service of the library +extends throughout life. We assert also that the possibilities of this +service must be taught to the members of the community from childhood, +and that the efficiency of the books will largely depend on the +efficiency with which this teaching is done. + +Especial care must be taken with children and youth toward the end of +the ordinary school periods--in the upper grades and in the high school. +Here it is that the transition to independent reading must come. The +children's room must not be merely an appendage to the kindergarten and +primary school, but the library must supply to youth of all ages not +only books, but inspiration in reading. The questions which arise in +work for children are many and often perplexing, but if these general +principles are accepted, they are, after all, questions of detail rather +than of principle. + +The library's influence over women has been the greatest in extent and +productive of the largest results; so much so that, in the opinion of +many critics of the public library, that institution is in danger of +becoming "feminized." I shall not attempt to discuss so large a subject +as that indicated by this fearful word, but it may not be unprofitable +to touch upon the causes which have given the work of the library for +women at once so great an extension and so great a success, as well as +some obvious limitations. I should place first among the causes, both +for the success and the limitation of this influence, the recent +acquisition by women of large opportunities for the intellectual life, +their natural conservatism, and their greatly increased leisure as +compared with men. That women read books, and read them in enormous +numbers, is granted, indeed asserted. That they read seriously I have +heard questioned and have always wondered at the doubt. It seems to me +rather that they never read in any way except seriously. How many +women--reading women, I mean--can put away an unfinished book without a +sense of guilt? How many can "browse about" in a library and enjoy doing +so? How many really like to read a dictionary or encyclopaedia without +ulterior designs upon an article for the women's club, or, at least, +without wanting to know something? These are all tests--unconscious, but +none the less excellent--of the real readers, of those to whom books are +alive and intimate friends. While I have no statistics at hand, I fear +that many women most devoted to libraries would fail to reach this +standard. The field of the intellectual life has been widely opened to +women so recently that they still feel a certain sense of duty along +with the privilege which is granted them in entering it, rather than a +complete sense of being at home there. The conservatism of women helps +this tendency to read seriously and for general purposes. The +traditional use of books as a means of culture appeals to their more +conservative mind as it does not to men. They are more easily induced to +read for reading's sake--they are willing to read the books one ought to +read. They are moved by considerations of mental improvement independent +of any result beyond the improvement itself. The library as a library +attracts them. Then, too, the amount of their reading and its character +is modified by the fact that women are so much more limited than men in +means to pass their leisure. Jerome K. Jerome (if correctly reported by +newspapers) recently pointed out that much so-called reading is no more +an intellectual process than is smoking a cigar, and that often we go to +books just as to the cigar, to pass the time and to prevent the +intrusion of disagreeable thoughts. Of course this is, and ought to be, +wholly true, and since with us the cigar is a masculine privilege, the +woman must take to books as the man takes to smoking, and even to +drinking. Speaking seriously, the library is to many women a relief from +care--the only distraction from the monotony of routine. It is a cheap +and easy thing to sneer at this use of books, but we who believe in the +friendship of books know that here lies one of the greatest blessings +they can give, as it is one of the greatest blessings of true +friendship. Nor do we wonder that the uncultivated, or the +half-cultivated, often choose their book friends from a class not +greatly above their own. + +On the other hand, women have hardly begun to use books on lines along +which we are seeking to get men to read--in directions connected with +their trade or profession. Domestic industries, so far as they are in +the hands of women, are still most wholly dependent upon tradition. They +are not exposed to competition. Failure or inefficiency does not put the +proprietor out of business. Their results are not measured in dollars +and cents. In a word, the whole line of motives which is forcing +masculine industries over to the basis of books is lacking in the chief +feminine occupations. We are now seeing only the feeble beginnings of +the attempt thus to transfer them from tradition to science. A long time +must pass, and social conditions greatly change, before the transfer is +made. Thus women are not forced from general to special lines of +reading, while they have greater motive for general reading than have +men. + +As a result, women are becoming, to a degree without example in the +past, the possessors and transmitters of the life of culture. I do not +believe that fewer men read good literature than formerly, but the +increase in masculine readers of this type has been so much less than +the increase in women readers that in comparison the number of men seems +to have shrunken greatly. Of course much of this reading by women for +culture is desultory and aimless, much is misdirected. But after all +deductions are made, it remains true that the knowledge of books seems +to be tending to become the possession of women rather than of men. It +has always belonged to a certain class of men--not a very large part of +the community--and it is still theirs; but its extension to other +classes has been along female lines rather than male, and its +transmission to the next generation seems only too likely to depend in a +large measure upon the female line. College statistics at present show +the same facts. Language, literature, and art are the chosen studies of +women. Men turn rather to science, economics, or politics--subjects +which, they suppose, bear directly on future plans for life. These great +subjects whose main purpose in education is the uplifting of the mind, +the widening of the mental horizon without direct reference to any +specific line of life--these appeal far more strongly to women than to +men, and their influence, in a rapidly increasing degree, will reach the +next generation through the mother rather than through the father. It +would be a pessimistic view which would say that modern society is +coming to depend on the mothers for the accumulation and transmission of +culture, while retaining in the male line the function of accumulating +and transmitting wealth, though much could be said for the thesis and a +very plausible argument could be constructed for it. + +If all this is true, it is inevitable that women should use libraries +far more than men. It is equally inevitable that in this large use much +should be trivial, much customary, much misdirected and unwise. Nature +has no means of reaching success except by the rule of natural +selection--the old-fashioned plan of "cut-and-try," and this means much +failure along the road of advance. We who see the work of the library +from our daily experience know how much it is contributing of culture, +how much of happiness, to the life of women, and through them to that of +the community. + +But men--why do they not use the library, say the critics, and what +shall the library do to increase its use by men? You have all read the +vigorous article that the _Independent_ published on this subject last +summer, which, with much of error, contains a good deal of truth in a +stimulating form. It presents a subject which must have a somewhat +larger treatment. + +It ought first to be said that in this and other articles on the topic +the terms _women_ and _men_ are by no means similarly used. The writers +are not concerned about men at large--the husbands and brothers of the +women who are said to visit the library--the women of comparative +leisure, who are seeking information on art, literature, or ancestry, +who are trying to get up a paper for the club, or who visit the library +for recreation. It is the plumber, the machinist, the grocer, whose +absence they deplore, and to whom they think the library ought to give +help. Not only so, but it is the plumber, rather than as a man, whose +presence is desired and who is to be aided. The library, says the +_Independent_ in effect, ought to teach the plumber how to "plumb"; +ought to furnish him with information which his boss is unable to give. +But this is a new function for libraries, however useful it may be, and +a function which libraries do not attempt for women. Dressmakers do not +(I speak under correction, but I think I am right) expect to secure at a +library a knowledge of how to fit a difficult customer, any more than do +tailors. Yet this sort of thing, we are told, the library ought to do +for men; and we are told in a tone which implies that here is an obvious +duty which only wilful ignorance can overlook. + +It ought rather to be recognized that in undertaking this work the +public library is entering a new and almost unexplored field of effort, +and also that it is trying to extend its influence to classes of the +community which it has not hitherto reached, and along lines of +knowledge which it has never seriously attempted to follow. In such a +work there must be many experiments and many failures, and the positive +results will be small for a long time.... + +The problem for the library, as regards men, is therefore twofold: 1. +Can men be induced to visit the library for general purposes, to use it +in ways similar to those for which women come to it? 2. How can the +wage-earners and handicraftsmen be induced to visit the library and use +its books for their practical advantage? + +Let us first consider the general question: Can we reach the men? The +women come to the libraries, say the critics, in shoals and droves, for +all sorts of intellectual purposes, good and bad. You catch the +children, they say, in school, when they cannot get away, and indeed are +glad of relief from lessons; but the men--can you reach them and affect +their lives? In reply we must say at once and frankly that no such large +volume of success with men is possible as has been the case with women. +The public library came to women at the precise moment when increased +education disposed them to use it, and increased leisure gave them the +opportunity. It fills a space in their lives which would be otherwise +void. But the present time is one of decreased leisure and increased +intensity of work for all classes of men. Perhaps I ought to except from +this statement the wage-earner, who as eight hour laws and customs come +into force will have more time for reading than the man of almost any +other class in the community. This movement toward lessened hours of +labor is more effective where libraries are best organized and therefore +presents an opportunity for the extension of library influence, both +general and special. The opportunity must be improved, yet neither the +wage-earner nor the business man will be easy to reach; neither has been +among the active patrons of the library in the past. Their lives are +already full, both with business and pleasure, and if the library is to +reach them, it must attract them on lines which appeal to them more +strongly than business or present pleasure. It must reach needs which +they know and feel to be real. + +I do not believe that men of the present generation will come to +libraries in great numbers for the purposes that attract women. We might +as well admit that they will not substitute the novel for the cigar, the +printed story for the companionship of the club. They will not read good +books because they ought to do so, and the number who will read them +because they like to do so is unfortunately not great. Men have not thus +acted since the world began, and man-like, they will not do so now, even +though such conduct on their part would help our library statistics very +greatly. Nor will any great number of them read in order to enlarge the +basis of life, for, in spite of the greatness of the movement toward +books, it affects at first hand only a few people in the community. The +mass of workmen, now and always, will get their knowledge from tradition +or at second hand. It will be the unusual man who will get his ideas +from books at first hand and thus improve his work and that of his +fellows. + +The problem is then to reach these few, and through them the community; +and this brings us to the second phase of the question. I do not find +that the problem has been solved; perhaps it is too recent. But +libraries have been attempting its solution by various methods and with +varying success. + +The first and most successful attempt is that of the large libraries, +like that of Pittsburgh and the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn, which +maintain a technical library for the men--a library adequately housed in +its own rooms and administered by a special librarian. These technical +libraries for working men succeed in their aim of reaching many of the +class for which they are established. They offer not merely an +opportunity for reading, but that guidance in the use of books which all +classes of the community need, if they are to use books for a serious +purpose. They show us that success in this line of effort may be reached +if the library has an income sufficient to enable it to undertake the +task on a large scale. + +This condition is, however, not that of most of the libraries which are +represented here. Our incomes are none too large for the work which we +must necessarily do for the general public. Such libraries must +ordinarily content themselves with offering to men opportunities for +reading without special guidance in the use of books. This work has been +attempted in a good many of the smaller libraries. They attempt to +provide masculine conditions for reading and reading material which will +appeal to men. The first includes a well-furnished, comfortable room for +men, where a man can come in his working clothes without feeling he is +out of place; smoking may be allowed or not--both plans are tried +without great difference in apparent result. The masculine reading +comprises newspapers and magazines; good books of literature which can +be left in the room (paper bound copies suggested); most important of +all are trade journals; if possible, files of the recent volumes of +these journals, selected according to the industries of each town; and +the most readable and most recent reference books on similar subjects. +In a word, a room is furnished with reading which will appeal to the +classes of men who do not ordinarily use libraries and who are not +greatly interested in literature. + +This plan is good one and ought to be tried, but I believe the +conditions are exceptional under which it will reach large numbers of +men. Inertia and habit will keep most of them away from the library. +They will see the daily papers at their wonted places of resort, and the +room, necessarily lacking in much of the freedom of the club, will fail +to attract very many of them. They will not form the habit of visiting +it, even though they might enjoy it if the habit were formed. It must +also be remembered that increasing numbers of the manufacturing concerns +are providing their employees with reading of this kind, and thus +limiting the use of the city library. + +In some libraries the attempt to reach men has gone still further and +has led to an inclusion of attractions which are ordinarily regarded as +outside the work of a library. They have attempted to combine to some +degree the privileges of a club with that of the public library. The +Stevens Point Library has a club room, equipped with billiard tables, +cards, etc., as well as with technical journals and similar books. This, +the librarian reports, is very successful in attracting boys, many of +whom learn to use the library. Men, however, do not come in large +numbers, as they do not care to use a place frequented by boys, and in +which smoking is not permitted. At Wausaukee a special room with games +and where lunch is served has been established at the library as a means +of furnishing a sort of club room for lumber men who come to the +village, especially on Sunday, and who have no other place of resort, +except the saloon. How far such methods are advisable as a part of +library work is a question which will often be asked during the coming +years and which only experience can answer. At present such enterprises +have not gone beyond the stage of early experiment. + +Summing up the result, I would frankly confess that the reports which I +have received are not numerous enough for a positive judgment, yet it is +my impression that where there is an income large enough to provide a +special librarian and a public large enough to warrant the expense, this +movement for special libraries for men is likely to succeed. It seems +also to be true that where the library provides the men with the +opportunity for reading only, and does not furnish guidance for readers, +no very large use is made of technical books and there is no greatly +increased use of the library in general. How to guide the reading seems, +therefore, to be the central factor in the solution of the problem. + +In a small town a special librarian is impossible, for financial +reasons, but there, as well as in large cities, lectures can be given +which deal with practical subjects and the aid to their knowledge which +the library affords. Many cities are giving such courses of lectures, +notably perhaps New York, and with considerable effect on the use of the +public library. I have no statistics regarding such lectures from the +various cities, but undoubtedly this method offers the easiest plan for +extending the use of the library in smaller cities and towns. I say the +_easiest_, and it will not be difficult to secure good lectures on +literature, history, or art, but lectures on the practical subjects are +much more difficult to obtain, since it is hard to secure lecturers who +know more about the trades than do the craftsmen who constitute the +audience. + +If these movements are to succeed, they must not be attempted in an +amateurish way. They must be well planned and well executed--planned and +executed with careful reference to the wants of the men of the +community. Above all, they must be persistently carried out with full +vigor year after year, even though results are apparently small. Their +purpose must be steadfastly maintained and the methods of execution +continually readjusted, as success or failure indicates. It is no light +or easy thing to change the habits of half the adult members of the +community--to cultivate the reading habit in those who have reached +maturity without acquiring it--and the work which the library proposes +for itself involves such a task. + +If men are to be reached at all it must be on a business basis, not on +that of occasional effort. Nor must the missionary spirit prevail, for +men, as a rule, do not wish to be reformed or to be helped. They must +find in the library a place which appeals to their sense of comfort and +which gives them things that they want, or, like other sensible people, +they will not use it. + +One word in closing this topic, and that in emphasis of what I have +already said. It is easier to keep a boy reading as he grows up than to +catch him again as a man after the library has lost him. Take a lesson +from the church. The boy who graduates from Sunday-school rarely returns +for a post-graduate course. In the wise administration of the work for +children and youth lies the main hope not of reaching, but keeping men +in the library. + +But it should be definitely understood that this enlargement of library +work which the times are forcing upon us means increasing expense, more +room, more books--which must be more frequently renewed--and a larger +library staff. It means the attempt to do efficiently several lines of +intellectual work for the public instead of purveying literature for +those who desire it. This new work the library can readily accomplish, +but not with the staff which was sufficient for the old duties. Any +library can provide, for example, the list of desiderata mentioned in +the _Independent's_ article, which could easily be extended. They can +all be furnished by the library as the public wants them and will pay +for them. They cannot be, and ought not to be, supplied by an already +overworked library staff of two or three persons. + +The library, therefore, should not enter upon these duties blindly or +ignorantly. It is a great task which is thus undertaken--to educate the +community to use books and to guide it in that use. Although small +beginnings are possible, the work will inevitably grow on our hands just +as that of the schools and colleges has done, and for similar reasons. +But whatever difficulties lie in the way of their performance, it is +plain that the library must assume these new duties. With many +experiments, with many failures, with many partial successes, the +library will extend its teachings, its conscious influences, until they +touch the life of the community at every point. + +In this rambling talk I have discussed library work as it looks forward +to new problems, and have devoted only a word, and that perhaps a rather +disparaging one, to the traditional use of the library. I would not +leave the subject in this way. For the traditional use of books remains +and will remain the center of library work and the main source of its +best influences. The problem of the library to-day, looked at from +within and not from without, and in relation to other agencies, is +essentially that which confronts the university. Both institutions once +stood for culture and for culture exclusively. Both are now challenged +by the spirit of the newer time and are called upon to justify +themselves as public utilities. This they must do, and that in full +measure, but there is a real danger that both, in the multiplicity of +the new duties thus forced upon them, may forget the weighty words, +"these ought ye to do and not leave the other undone." For, after all, +the highest public utility which the library offers, or can offer, is +the opportunity to cultivate the friendship of books. This utility is +none the less precious because it is intangible. Indeed, it is the +unique privilege of the library among municipal enterprises that it can +provide a service which aids the higher life of the citizen so directly +and so purely. In the spirituality of this function, the library stands +second only to the highest institutions of pure learning, and to the +church. + +No new undertaking, no extension of work, no plea of necessity can +warrant or justify any loss of power on this highest level. The problem +is not to discover how to sacrifice as little as possible of the old +spirit to the new duties, but to learn how through the new duties we may +make more wide-spread and more potent for good that oldest and best +inheritance from the past--the love of books. + +"The people's university," the library has been called, but it would be +as great a pity if the librarian so understood this term as to believe +that people came to the library only to learn, as it would be if any +went there who could not learn what they sought. That university which +is a place to study rather than a place to live is missing its best +possibilities, and in a similar way the library ought to be, first and +always, a place to read rather than a place to study. I would not go so +far as to say that I want to find it a place to "loaf," though I might +be provoked into saying so; but certainly it must be a place where I can +"invite my soul"--such a place as the world gives me elsewhere only in +the church or in the silence of nature. Trade journals and technical +works are of great use; books for women's clubs are good things; the +children's room is a necessity; but these of themselves no more make a +library than a kitchen, dining room and bedroom make a home. Out of such +utilities as these you may get a boarding house, but nothing better; the +family makes it a home. Those are wholly wrong who believe that standard +books are so cheap that anyone can buy them, and therefore the library +could conceivably get on without them. Without the best literature you +might get a very useful institution, no doubt, but not a library, for in +a library the great works of the great authors are the soul and theirs +is the spirit which enables the library not merely to contribute to the +advance of the community toward prosperity and intelligence, but also, +in some degree, to touch its higher life to finer issues. + + + + +THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY + +AN ADDRESS AT ITS DEDICATION + + This and the four addresses that follow it have little in + common except that all were delivered at the opening + exercises of libraries. Everett's address at the opening of + the Boston Public Library appropriately heads the group. The + reader will look in it in vain for any reflection of the + conservative opinions expressed in the letter to George + Ticknor printed on page 53 of this volume, unless perhaps in + the total absence of anything radical. It is typical oratory + of the day--ponderously graceful, if that is not a + contradiction in terms. + + Edward Everett was born in Dorchester, Mass., April 11, + 1794. He graduated at Harvard in 1811 and served there as + professor of Greek in 1819-25. He was a member of Congress + in 1825-35, governor of Massachusetts in 1836-40, minister + to Great Britain in 1841-45, president of Harvard, 1846-49, + U.S. secretary of state in 1852-53, and U.S. senator in + 1853-54. He died in Boston, Jan. 15, 1865. His reputation as + a scholarly orator was very high. + + +MR. MAYOR:-- + +In behalf of the Trustees of the City Library, I receive with extreme +pleasure the keys which you have placed in my hands. The completion of +the noble building, which the city government now confides to our care, +is an event to which the Trustees have looked forward with the greatest +interest, and which they now contemplate with the highest satisfaction. +They deem themselves especially honored in their connection with an +institution, for whose use this stately and commodious edifice has been +erected, and which they doubt not is destined to be instrumental of the +highest good to the community, and to reflect lasting credit upon the +liberality, public and private, with which it has been founded and +endowed. + +The city of Boston, owing to peculiar circumstances in its growth and +history, has been at all times, as I think, beyond most cities in the +world, the object of an affectionate attachment on the part of its +inhabitants; a feeling entitled to respect and productive of good, even +if it may sometimes seem to strangers over-partial in its +manifestations. It is not merely its commanding natural situation, the +triple hills on which it is enthroned, its magnificent bay and harbor, +and the group of islands and islets that sparkle like emeralds on their +surface; not merely this most admirable common, which opens before our +windows, delightful even at this season of the year, and affording us in +summer, in its noble malls and shady walks, all that the country can +boast of cool and beautiful and salubrious, transported to the heart of +the city, "the poor man's pleasure-ground," as it has been well called, +though a king might envy it;--nor the environs of our city of surpassing +loveliness, which enclose it on every side in kindly embrace; it is not +solely nor principally these natural attractions which endear Boston to +its citizens. Nor is it exclusively the proud and grateful memories of +the past,--of the high-souled fathers and mothers of the land, venerable +in their self-denying virtues, majestic in the austere simplicity of +their manners, conscientious in their errors, who, with amazing +sacrifices and hardships never to be described, sought out new homes in +the wilderness, and transmitted to us delights and blessings which it +was not given to themselves to enjoy;--of those who in succeeding +generations deserved well of their country,--the pioneers of the +Revolution, the men of the stamp act age, whose own words and acts are +stamped on the pages of history, in characters never to be effaced;--of +those who, when the decisive hour came, stood forth in that immortal +HALL, the champions of their country's rights, while it scarcely yet +deserved the name of a country; it is not exclusively these proud and +grateful associations, which attach the dutiful Bostonian to the city of +his birth or adoption. + +No, Mr. Mayor, it is not exclusively these, much as they contribute to +strengthen the sentiment. It has its origin, in no small degree, in the +personal relation in which Boston places herself to her children; in the +parental interest which she cherishes in their welfare, which leads her +to take them by the hand almost from the cradle,--to train them up in +the ascending series of her excellent free schools; watching over them +as a fond father watches over the objects of his love and hope; in a +word, to confer upon them a first-rate school education at the public +expense. Often have I attempted, but with very partial success, both in +this country and in Europe, to persuade inquiring friends from the +countries and places where no such well-organized system of public +education prevails, that our free schools do really afford to the entire +population means of elementary education, of which the wealthiest +citizen is glad to avail himself. + +And now, Mr. Mayor, the enlightened counsels of the city government are +about to give new strength to those ties of gratitude and affection, +which bind the hearts of the children of Boston to their beloved city. +Hitherto the system of public education, excellent as it is and wisely +supported by a princely expenditure, does but commence the work of +instruction and carry it to a certain point; well advanced, indeed, but +far short of the goal. It prepares our young men for college, for the +counting-room, for the office of the engineer, the _studio_ of the +artist, the shop of the artisan, the laboratory of the chemist, or +whatever field of employment they may be destined to enter, but there it +leaves them, without further provision for the culture of the mind. It +disciplines the faculties and forms a taste for the acquisition of +knowledge, on the part of our young men and women, but it provides no +means for their exercise and gratification. It gives them the elementary +education requisite for their future callings, but withholds all +facilities of access to those boundless stores of recorded knowledge, in +every department, by which alone that elementary education can be +completed and made effectual for the active duties of life. + +But to-day our honored city carries on and perfects her work. The +trustees, from their first annual report to the present time, have never +failed to recommend a first class public library, such as that, sir, for +whose accommodation you destine this noble building, as the completion +of the great system of public education. Its object is to give to the +entire population, not merely to the curious student, but to the +inquisitive member of either of the professions, to the intelligent +merchant, mechanic, machinist, engineer, artist or artisan, in short, to +all of every age and of either sex, who desire to investigate any +subject, either of utility or taste, those advantages which, without +such an ample public collection, must necessarily be monopolized by the +proprietors of large private libraries, or those who by courtesy have +the use of them; nay, to put within the reach of the entire community +advantages of this kind, far beyond those which can be afforded by the +largest and best provided private libraries. + +The trustees are anxious that the institution, whose prosperity they +have so much at heart, should continue to be viewed in this light; as +one more added to the school-houses of the city, at which Boston boys +and girls, when they have outgrown the other schools, will come to carry +on the education which has been there commenced; where Boston men and +women, "children of a larger growth," may come to acquire that +additional knowledge which is requisite for the most successful +discharge of the duties of the various callings of society,--which +opens, in its pursuit, the purest sources of happiness,--and which, +without reference to utility, contributes so materially to the grace and +ornament of life. + +I am aware that there is still floating about in the community a vague +prejudice against what is called book-learning. One sometimes hears +doubts expressed of the utility of public libraries; opinions that +they are rather ornamental than necessary or useful; and the fact that +our time-honored city, never indifferent to the mental improvement of +her children, has existed more than two centuries without one, is a +sufficient proof, that, until within a very few years, their +importance has not been practically felt. There is perhaps even now a +disposition to claim some superiority for what is called practical +knowledge--knowledge gained by observation and experience (which most +certainly the trustees would not disparage), and a kind of +satisfaction felt in holding up the example of self-taught men, in +supposed contradistinction from those who have got their knowledge +from books. No name perhaps is so frequently mentioned for this +purpose as that of Franklin, who, because he had scarce any school +education and never went to college, has been hastily set down as a +brilliant example to show the inutility of book-learning. It has been +quoted to me in this way, and to show that libraries are of no use, +within three days. + +Now, Mr. Mayor, I need not tell you that there never was a greater +mistake in point of fact. A thirst for books, which he spared no pains +to allay, is the first marked trait disclosed in the character of +Franklin; his success throughout the early period of his life can be +directly traced to the use he made of them; and his very first important +movement for the benefit of his fellow-men was to found a public +library, which still flourishes;--one of the most considerable in the +country. Franklin not a book-man! whoever labors under that delusion, +shows that somebody else is not a book-man, at least so far as concerns +the biography of our illustrious townsman. We happen to have a little +information on that subject, in a book written by Franklin himself. He +there gives a very different account of himself, and I would ask any one +who entertains the idea to which I am alluding, at what period of +Franklin's career he supposes this taste for books began to be +manifested by him; how soon he ceased to be a self-formed man? Perhaps +after he had struggled through the years of his youthful poverty, +escaped to Philadelphia, set up in business as a printer, and begun to +have a little money in his pocket. I need not tell you, sir, that it was +earlier than that. Was it, then, while he was the clever apprentice to +his brother, the editor of a journal, and wrote articles for its columns +in a disguised hand, and tucked them under the office door, enjoying the +exquisite delight of being ordered to set up his own anonymous articles; +was it then, at the age of fifteen or sixteen, that this fondness for +reading, under the stimulus of boyish authorship, disclosed itself? +Earlier than that. Well, then, at the grammar-school and Master +Brownwell's writing-school, which he attended from eight to ten (for +there are boys who show a fondness for reading, even at that tender +age); was little Benjamin's taste for books developed while yet at +school? Earlier than that. Hear his own words, which you will permit me +to read from that exquisite piece of autobiography to which I have +already alluded: "From my INFANCY I was _passionately_ fond of reading, +and all the money that came into my hands was laid out in purchasing +books. I was very fond of voyages. My first acquisition was Bunyan's +works, in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me +to buy R. Burton's _Historical Collections_. They were small chapman's +books and cheap, forty volumes in all. My father's little library +consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read. I +have often regretted [and this is a sentence that might be inscribed on +the lofty cornice of this noble hall] that at a time when I had such a +thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way.... +There was among them Plutarch's Lives, which I read abundantly, and I +still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of +Defoe's, called an _Essay on Projects_, and another of Dr. Mather's, +called an _Essay to do Good_, which"--did what, sir? For I am now going +to give you, in Franklin's own words (they carry with them the +justification of every dollar expended in raising these walls), the +original secret of his illustrious career--what was the effect produced +by reading these two little books of Defoe and Cotton Mather? "they +perhaps gave me a turn of thinking, which had an influence on some of +the principal future events of my life." Yes, sir, in the reading of +those books was the acorn that sprouted into that magnificent oak; there +was the fountain-drop which a fairy might have sipped from a buttercup, +from which has flowed the Missouri and the Mississippi,--the broad, deep +river of Franklin's fame, winding its way through the lapse of ages, and +destined to flow on, till it shall be ingulfed in the ocean of eternity. + +From his "infancy," sir, "passionately fond of reading," nay, with the +appetite of a vulture, with the digestion of an ostrich, attacking the +great folios of polemic divinity in his father's library. Not a dull +boy, either; not a precocious little bookworm; fond of play; doesn't +dislike a little mischief; sometimes, as he tells us, "led the other +boys into scrapes;" but in his intervals of play, in his leisure +moments, up in the lonely garret when the rest of the family were +asleep, holding converse in his childhood with the grave old +non-conformists, Howe and Owen and Flavel and Baxter,--communing with +the austerest lords of thought; the demigods of puritanism. + +Franklin not a book-man? Why, he goes on to tell us that it was "this +bookish inclination which at length determined his father to make him a +printer," against his own inclination, which was for the sea; and when +he had thus by constraint become a printer, his great consolation was, +as he says, that "I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with +the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small +one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my +chamber reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was +borrowed in the evening and was to be returned in the morning, lest it +should be found missing." + +Then he made the acquaintance of Mr. Matthew Adams, an ingenious, +sensible man, "who had a pretty collection of books." He frequented the +printing-office, took notice of the bright little apprentice, and "very +kindly proposed to lend me such books as I chose to read." Having taken +to a vegetable diet at the age of sixteen, he persuaded his brother to +allow him in cash half the price of his board,--lived upon potatoes and +hasty pudding,--soon found that he could save half even of that little +allowance (which could not have exceeded two-and-six-pence a week, +lawful money), and this poor little economy "was an additional fund for +buying books." What would the poor, underfed boy, who was glad to buy +books on the savings of his potato diet, have said could he have had +free access to a hall like this, stored as it soon will be with its +priceless treasures? + +Further, sir, while working as a journeyman in England, he says, "I +made the acquaintance of one William Wilcox, a bookseller, whose shop +was next door. He had an immense collection of second-hand +books."--(Somewhat, I suppose, like our friend Burnham, in +Cornhill.)--"Circulating libraries were not then in use, but we agreed +that on certain reasonable terms, which I have now forgotten, I might +take, read, and return any of his works. This I esteemed a great +advantage, and I made as much use of it as I could." + +Finally, sir, as I have already said, Franklin's first important +movement for the good of his fellow-men was the foundation of the public +library in Philadelphia. At his instance, the members of a little club +to which he belonged, tradesmen and mechanics of narrow means, threw +into common stock the few books which belonged to them. A subscription +was then obtained from fifty young men, principally tradesmen, of two +pounds each, and ten shillings _per annum_, and with this little fund +they began. "The books were imported, the library was opened one day in +the week for lending them to the subscribers, on their promissory notes +to pay double the value if not duly returned." "This was the mother," +says Franklin, "of all the North American subscription libraries, now so +numerous. It has become a great thing itself, and continually goes on +increasing. These libraries have improved the general conversation of +the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as +most gentlemen from other countries, and, perhaps, have contributed in +some degree to the stand so generally made throughout the colonies in +defence of their privileges." + +Those are the words of Franklin, Mr. Mayor, which I read from his own +book. Our excellent friend the President of the Commissioners (Hon. R.C. +Winthrop) has justly felicitated himself on having been the first person +publicly to raise his voice in this noble hall. He must be a happier man +than I who can speak an earlier or an abler word than his on any +occasion; but I claim the credit of having read from the first book +opened in this hall;--and what is more, sir, I mean to have the +satisfaction of presenting the first volume given to the library, since +this building came into the care of the Trustees. In your presence, Mr. +Mayor, and that of this vast assembly on this first of January, 1858, I +offer this copy of Franklin's Autobiography in Sparks's edition, as a +New Year's gift to the Boston Public Library. Nay, sir, I am going to do +more, and make the first, and perhaps the last, motion ever made in this +hall; and that is, that every person present, of his own accord, if of +age,--with the consent of parent or guardian, if a minor,--man, woman, +boy, or girl, be requested, on going home, to select one good book, and +in memory of the poor boy, who half-fed himself to gratify his taste for +reading, present it as a New-Year's gift to the Boston Public Library. I +make you that motion, Mr. Mayor, and I call upon all present to give me +their voices: especially I ask the cooperation of the fairer and better +part of creation. If nowhere else, woman's rights shall be respected in +this hall, while I have anything to do with it. I pray you, Mr. Mayor, +put the question, and then I'll finish my speech. + + His Honor the Mayor then rose and stated the question, which + was seconded by Mr. Winthrop. The mayor particularly called + on the ladies to vote, and a unanimous and emphatic aye + resounded through the vast hall. The negative was then + called and no response made. His Honor, amidst great + cheering and laughter, pronounced it a unanimous vote. Mr. + Everett resumed-- + +No, sir, if there is one lesson more than another directly deducible +from the life of Franklin, it is the close connection of a thoroughly +practical and useful life and career with books, libraries, and reading. +If there is a thing on earth which would have gladdened his heart could +he have anticipated it, it would be the knowledge that his native city, +in two generations after his death, would found a library like this, to +give to the rising generation and to the lovers of knowledge of every +age that access to books, of which he so much felt the want. And could +it be granted to him, even now, to return to his native city, which +dwelt in his affections to the close of his life, his first visit would +be to the centre of the ancient burial-ground, where in after-life he +dutifully placed a marble slab on the graves of his parents; his second +visit would be to the spot in Milk street where he was born; his third +to the corner of Union street and Hanover street, where he passed his +childhood, in a house still standing; his fourth visit would be to the +site of the free grammar school-house, where, as he says in his will, he +received "his first instruction in literature," and which is now adorned +with a statue which a grateful posterity has dedicated to his memory; +and his last and longest would be to this noble hall, where you are +making provision for an ample supply of that reading of which, "from his +_infancy_ he was _passionately_ fond." The trustees have done what they +could to connect some reference to Franklin with an institution which +would have been the object of his warmest affections, by providing that +every Franklin medal boy shall be entitled to its privileges; and +inasmuch as the accumulating fund which he bequeathed to the city, and +which now exceeds seventy thousand dollars, has proved almost wholly +unavailing for the primary object of the bequest, it deserves +consideration whether, when it has reached a sufficient magnitude, as it +will before the end of this century, the interest of the fund, if it can +be legally done, might not advantageously be appropriated, as a +permanent endowment for the support of the library. + +I have not proposed at this time, sir, on the part of the trustees, to +make a formal speech; I have preferred to let Benjamin Franklin speak +for us. This day belongs of right to the commissioners for building the +library, ably represented as they are, by our distinguished friend their +president, who has done such ample justice to the subject; and to you, +Mr. Mayor, as the organ of the city government, whom I cannot but +congratulate on closing your official career,--in all respects so +honorable to yourself and so acceptable to your fellow-citizens,--by an +act, I am sure, most grateful to your own feelings and most auspicious +of the public good. It is not yet the time for the trustees to speak. A +more fitting opportunity may hereafter present itself, when the books +shall be placed on the shelves, the catalogue printed, and the library +opened for public use. Occasion may then, perhaps, with propriety be +taken, to illustrate the importance and utility of such an institution; +to do justice to the liberality on the part of the city government and +the individual benefactors by which it has been founded, endowed, and +sustained; and especially to the generosity of our greatest benefactor +and esteemed fellow-countryman, Mr. Bates, whose letters announcing his +first munificent donation of fifty thousand dollars, alluding to his own +early want of access to books, assign that as the moving cause which +prompted his liberality. It will be the pleasing duty of those who may +then be intrusted with the administration of the library, to pay a +fitting tribute to so much public and private bounty. + +In the mean time, sir, we must throw ourselves on the patience and +considerateness of the city council and the community. Not much short of +sixty thousand volumes are to be brought together from four different +places of temporary deposit, and assigned to their final resting-places +in this hall and the circulating library below. Here they are to be +arranged on the shelves, the cards and slips which pertain to them, far +more numerous than the volumes themselves, reduced to alphabetical +order; a separate catalogue of each alcove prepared; and a comprehensive +catalogue of the whole collection, without which it will be little +better than an unmanageable mass, prepared and printed. Every thing +which could be done beforehand, has been anticipated; but much of the +work was of necessity reserved till the books should be placed on the +shelves. In the interval, and while this labor is going on, the library +in Mason street will be left in possession of the books most in request +for daily circulation, and will be closed at last only when it becomes +absolutely necessary that they also should be removed to the new +building. + +But it is time for me to conclude. The shades of evening are falling +around us; those cressets which lend us their mild and tasteful +illumination will soon be extinguished; and the first day of the +New-Year, rich in the happy prospects we now inaugurate, will come to a +close. May the blessing of Heaven give effect to its brightest +anticipations. A few more days,--a few more years,--will follow their +appointed round, and we, who now exchange our congratulations on this +magnificent New-Year's gift of our city fathers, shall have passed from +the scene; but firm in the faith that the growth of knowledge is the +growth of sound principles and pure morals, let us not doubt, that, by +the liberality of the city government and of our generous benefactors at +home and abroad, a light will be kindled and go forth from these walls, +now dedicated to the use of the FREE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY, which will +guide our children and our children's children in the path of +intelligence and virtue, till the sun himself shall fall from the +heavens. + + + + +THE NEW YORK FREE CIRCULATING LIBRARY + +ADDRESS IN ITS FAVOR AT A PUBLIC MEETING + + President Cleveland made this address on March 6, 1890, + while a resident of New York City in the interval between + his two presidential terms, at a meeting, at Chickering + Hall, called for the purpose of directing attention to the + work of the struggling Free Circulating Library and if + possible to raise funds for its support, which was only + partially insured by the City. Owing to increase in both + public and private contributions this library was enabled to + make rapid growth in the years immediately following until + in 1901, when it was merged in the Circulation Department of + the New York Public Library, it was operating eleven + branches with a circulation of over 600,000. This + institution was the pioneer of the popular, as distinguished + from the scholarly, library idea in New York. + + [Stephen] Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, N.J., + March 18, 1837, the fifth son of a Presbyterian clergyman. + He received a common-school education and after his father's + death went in 1855 to live with an uncle in Buffalo, N.Y. He + was admitted to the bar there in 1859, was assistant + district attorney in 1863-66, sheriff in 1871-74 and mayor + in 1882. In the latter year he was elected Governor of New + York and in 1884 President of the United States. He was an + unsuccessful candidate for re-election in 1888, but was + elected again in 1892. He died in Princeton, N.J., where he + had resided since his last presidential term, on June 24, + 1908. + +The words I shall speak on this occasion I intend rather as a pledge of +my adherance to the cause in which you are enlisted than an attempt to +say anything new or instructive. I gladly join with the enthusiasm of a +new convert in the felicitations of those who have done noble and +effective work in the establishment and maintenance in our city of a +free circulating library, and it seems to me they have abundant cause +for congratulation in review of the good which has already been +accomplished through their efforts and in the contemplation of the +further usefulness which awaits their continued endeavor. + +In every enlightened country the value of popular education is fully +recognized, not only as a direct benefit to its recipients, but as an +element of strength and safety in organized society. Considered in these +aspects it should nowhere be better appreciated than in this land of +free institutions consecrated to the welfare and happiness of its +citizens, and deriving its sanction and its power from the people. Here +the character of the people is inevitably impressed upon the government, +and here our public life can no more be higher and purer than the life +of the people, than a stream can rise above its fountain or be purer +than the spring in which it has its source. + +That we have not failed to realize these conditions is demonstrated by +the establishment of free public schools on every side, where children +are not only invited but often obliged to submit themselves to such +instruction as will better their situation in life and fit them to take +part intelligently in the conduct of the government. + +Thus, in our schools the young are taught to read, and in this manner +the seed is sown, from which we expect a profitable return to the state, +when its beneficiaries shall repay the educational advances made to them +by an intelligent and patriotic performance of their social and +political duties. + +And yet if we are to create good citizenship, which is the object of +popular education, and if we are to insure to the country the full +benefit of public instruction, we can by no means consider the work as +completely done in the schoolroom. While the young gathered there are +fitting themselves to assume in the future their political obligations, +there are others upon whom these obligations already rest, and who now +have the welfare and safety of the country in their keeping. Our work is +badly done if these are neglected. They have passed the school age, and +have perhaps availed themselves of free instruction; but they, as well +as those still in the school, should, nevertheless, have within their +reach the means of further mental improvement and the opportunity of +gaining that additional knowledge and information which can only be +secured by access to useful and instructive books. + +The husbandman who expects to gain a profitable return from his +orchards, not only carefully tends and cultivates the young trees in his +nurseries as they grow to maturity but he generously enriches and cares +for those in bearing and upon which he must rely for ripened fruit. + +Teaching the children of our land to read is but the first step in the +scheme of creating good citizens by means of free instruction. We teach +the young to read so that both as children and as men and women they may +read. Our teaching must lead to the habit and the desire of reading to +be useful; and only as this result is reached can the work in our free +schools be logically supplemented and made valuable. + +Therefore, the same wise policy and intent which open the doors of our +free schools to our young, also suggest the completion of the plan thus +entered upon by placing books in the hands of those who in our schools +have been taught to read. + +A man or woman who never reads and is abandoned to unthinking torpor, or +who allows the entire mental life to be bounded by the narrow lines of +the daily recurring routine of effort for mere existence, cannot escape +a condition of barrenness of mind, which not only causes the decay of +individual contentment and happiness, but which fails to yield to the +state its justly expected return of usefulness in valuable service and +wholesome political action. + +Another branch of this question should not be overlooked. It is not +only of great importance that our youth and our men and women should +have the ability, the desire, and the opportunity to read, but the kind +of books they read is no less important. Without guidance and without +the invitation and encouragement to read publications which will improve +as well as interest, there is danger that our people will have in their +hands books whose influence and tendency are of a negative sort, if not +positively bad and mischievous. Like other good things, the ability and +opportunity to read may be so used as to defeat their beneficient +purposes. + +The boy who greedily devours the vicious tales of imaginary daring and +blood-curdling adventure which in these days are far too accessible to +the young will have his brain filled with notions of life and standards +of manliness which, if they do not make him a menace to peace and good +order, will certainly not tend to make him a useful member of society. + +The man who devotes himself to the flash literature now much too common +will, instead of increasing his value as a citizen, almost surely +degenerate in his ideas of public duty and grow dull in appreciation of +the obligations he owes his country. + +In both these cases there will be a loss to the state. There is danger +also that a positive and aggressive injury to the community will result, +and such readers will certainly suffer deprivation to the happiness and +contentment which are the fruits of improving study and well-regulated +thought. + +So, too, the young woman who seeks recreation and entertainment in +reading silly and frivolous books, often of doubtful moral tendency, is +herself in the way of becoming frivolous and silly, if not of weak +morality. If she escapes this latter condition, she is certain to become +utterly unfitted to bear patiently the burden of self-support or to +assume the sacred duties of wife and mother. + +Contemplating these truths, no one can doubt the importance of securing +for those who read, as far as it is in our power, facilities for the +study and reading of such books as will instruct and innocently +entertain, and which will at the same time improve and correct the +tastes and habits. + +There is another thought somewhat in advance of those already suggested, +which should not pass unnoticed. + +As an outgrowth of the inventive and progressive spirit of our people, +we have among us legions of men, and women, too, who restlessly desire +to increase their knowledge of the new forces and agencies which at this +time are being constantly dragged from their lurking-places and +subjected to the use of man. Those earnest inquirers should all be given +a chance and have put within their reach such books as will guide and +inspire their efforts. If by this means the country shall gain to itself +a new inventor or be the patron of endeavor which shall add new elements +to the sum of human happiness and comfort, its intervention will be well +repaid. + +These considerations, and the fact that many among us having the ability +and inclination to read are unable to furnish themselves with profitable +and wholesome books amply justify the beneficient mission of our Free +Circulating Library. Its plan and operation, so exactly adjusted to meet +a situation which cannot safely be ignored and to wants which ought not +to be neglected, establish its claim upon the encouragement and +reasonable aid of the public authorities and commend it most fully to +the support and generosity of private benefaction. + +The development which this good work has already reached in our city has +exhibited the broad field yet remaining untouched and the inadequacy of +present operations. It has brought to view also instances of noble +individual philanthropy and disinterested private effort and +contribution. + +But it certainly seems that the time and money directed towards this +object are confined to a circle of persons far too narrow, and that the +public encouragement and aid have been greatly disproportioned to +private endeavor. + +The city of New York has never shown herself willing to be behind other +cities in such work as is done by our Free Circulating Library, and +while her people are much engrossed in business activity and enterprise +they have never yet turned away from a cause once demonstrated to them +to be so worthy and useful as this. + +The demonstration is at hand. Let it be pressed upon our fellow +citizens, and let them be shown the practical operation of the project +you have in hand and the good it has accomplished, and the further good +of which it is capable through their increased liberality, and it will +be strange if they fail to respond generously to your appeal to put the +city of New York in the front rank of the cities which have recognized +the usefulness of the free circulating libraries. + + + + +THE WADSWORTH ATHENAEUM + +ADDRESSES AT THE OPENING OF ITS LIBRARY IN HARTFORD, CONN., JAN. 2, +1893. + + These addresses, by Charles Dudley Warner and Charles H. + Clark, are reprinted from brief abstracts given in _The + Library Journal_ of January, 1893. + + Charles Dudley Warner was born in Plainfield, Mass., Sept. + 12, 1829 and graduated at Hamilton College in 1851. He + practised law in Chicago in 1856-60 and in 1861 became + managing editor of the Hartford, Conn., _Press_. In 1867 on + its consolidation with the _Courant_, he became co-editor. + He was made associate editor of _Harper's Magazine_ in 1884, + and died at Hartford, Oct. 20, 1900. He was widely popular + as an essayist, first gaining favorable notice by his "My + Summer in a Garden." + + +This building and its contents are contributory to the excellence and +enjoyment of life exactly as Bushnall Park is--not merely that it is a +place of rest and recreation, but it is a training in beauty, in the +appreciation of nobleness, and in the public and private refinement. +Culture is a plant of rather slow growth. I suppose there never was such +a change wrought, almost instantaneously, in a people as was wrought in +the American people by the opening and exhibition of the Philadelphia +Centennial of 1876. Its effect was at once apparent everywhere. But +knowledge precedes culture, culture being, after all, but another name +for educational taste. + +Now this institution is simply a means for the culture of the city of +Hartford, in all ways, because literature and art--not taken externally, +but absorbed as a part of our lives, not only of knowledge, but of +experience--are the things that make life worth living. + +No one can speak too highly of the offices of a great library. It was +one of our great essayists, you remember, who said that the +monastery--speaking of it with reference to its books--was the ark that +floated down over the tempest and darkness of the middle ages, in order +to carry classic learning to the fifteenth century. They were +repositories of learning. That is the old idea. And for a long +time--almost to our day--that was the notion of the library. It was a +place to put something away. It was not even like a market for the sale +of provisions or eggs; indeed, if they were eggs the librarians thought +it their duty to sit on them, with the idea that they might hatch out +other books. That was a noble thing to do. But much better than that is +to scatter these books abroad among the people, so that we shall not +have reproduction--an egg for an egg--but that these books will so +revivify the life that we shall have books new, that express the actual +conditions and that appeal to the human life as it is. This is the +modern idea of the library. This great collection, which is not to be +secluded, is to be carried and even forced upon the people, so that it +shall enter into and become a part of their daily lives. + +You remember, perhaps, what Milton says about the books, in that +noblest of noble defences of unlicensed printing, that "they are not +dead things. As good almost," he says, "kill a man as you kill a good +book. Who kills a man, kills a reasonable being, made in God's image. +Who destroys a good book destroys reason itself, kills the image of God +as it were, in the eye. Many a man," he goes on to say, "lives a burden +to the earth, but a good book is the precious life blood of a master +spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life; so +that if we slay a good book we would slay immortality rather than a +life." + + Charles Hopkins Clark, who immediately followed Mr. Warner, + was at this time editor in chief of _The Hartford Courant_, + of which Mr. Warner was co-editor. Mr. Clark was born in + Hartford April 1, 1848, graduated at Yale, and joined the + _Courant_ staff in 1871, becoming editor in 1890. + + +One of the earliest sins of my youth, or rather one of the earliest that +is burnt into my memory, was committed in the library of what was then +the Young Men's Institute. I spoke out loud! The rebuke that I received +sent me down the stairs overwhelmed with a sense of the enormity of my +crime, yet more than sustained by joy to think that I had escaped the +utter annihilation with which my reprimand was freighted. And I can say +that the awe with which I used to enter that chamber of silence, and the +fear with which I regarded the librarian were the common property of all +the young people of that somewhat remote period. But long since we found +out that the old librarian was one of the gentlest and most inoffensive +men, and that we had misunderstood him as completely as he had +misunderstood us. + +But I have no such gloomy recollection, nor to be honest, have I any +recollection at all of the Wadsworth Athenaeum gallery, because, like +everybody else who then lived in Hartford, I never went in there. The +door was often open and the only sentinel on guard had no more +formidable weapon than a pair of knitting-needles. But no one ever +crossed that threshold. The simple legend, traced on a placard at the +door, "Admission Ten Cents," did the business, or rather, to be more +elegant as well as accurate, prevented any business being done. The +people who came up the stone steps read the notice and turned off to the +left to the library or to the right to the Historical Society, where +entrance was free. I say free, but freedom must have its limits if we +are to have safety, so the tin sign on the outside of the door gave +notice to the always unwelcome boy that he could not go in until he +reached the mature age of twelve years. That was one of the things that +I wanted to grow to full manhood for. + +And I well remember my first visit there. As I walked slowly up the +stairs I wondered what venerable monument of patriotic achievement, what +new inspiration to love for our noble State whose history is such a +priceless treasure, what vision of heroic self-sacrifice in her behalf +would first burst upon my eager eyes when I should look around the hall. +I looked and lo! there in a glass jar stood the chaste but familiar +figure of Charles Hosmer's night-blooming cereus--the modest pioneer of +the canned-fruit industry in this community. + +I have made this brief review in order to suggest to you the state of +innocuous desuetude in which for more or less time the various miscalled +interests in this building had been lying for lack of any interest at +all. The library had a limited and dwindling clientage. The Athenaeum +was deserted. The Historical Society, with no funds and few friends, was +exhibiting a collection of animal, vegetable, and mineral curiosities, +while its real treasures of history and truth were by lock and key shut +off from the very public for whom they were collected and preserved. +Look at that picture, then look at this which greets us here to day. + +In these elegant and spacious buildings the whole public of Hartford is +welcome, without money and without price. The circulating library will +furnish every home with books, and Miss Hewins, who has devoted her life +to this town, is always ready to help the younger readers. The Library +of Reference, monument alike to Mr. Watkinson's liberality and Dr. +Trumbull's rare judgment and life-long devoted service as a librarian, +offers free to all students the authorities on every branch of +knowledge. The Historical Society, with improved facilities, has been +able to adopt a more liberal policy, and is widening its claim upon +public interest, and so increasing its usefulness, and, thanks largely +to the women of Hartford, the Art Gallery and Art School are ready to +spread their refining and wholesome influence all through this +community. + + + + +LIBRARIES AS LEAVEN + + This address was delivered at the inauguration of the Free + Public Library, Madison, Wis., by Prof. James D. Butler. + + James Davie Butler was born in Rutland, Vt., March 15, 1815, + and was graduated at Middlebury College, Vt., in 1836. He + entered the Congregational ministry, and held the chairs of + ancient languages in Wabash College, 1854-58 and the + University of Wisconsin, 1858-67, after which he devoted + himself to lecturing and writing until his death in Madison + in 1905. + + +My subject is "Libraries as Leaven," or the relation of libraries to the +increased diffusion of knowledge. + +What is a Library? It is the knowledge of all brought within the reach +of each one. It is an expanded encyclopaedia, or the books which are, or +ought to be, consulted in compiling a perfect encyclopaedia. + +Human knowledge--and hence the books in which it is treasured up--is +divided by some authors into forty departments. I have their names here +all written down--but I dare not read them. You would give no more +quarter to such a catalogue than the lover gave to the mercantile +inventory of his sweetheart's charms, when itemized as "two lips +indifferent red," "two gray eyes with lids to them," and so on. + +But all these forty classes of knowledge ought to be represented in a +library, and the more largely the better. They should also mingle there +in due proportion, "parts into parts reciprocally shot, and all so +forming a harmonious whole." "If the whole body were an eye, where were +the hearing?" + +I once lived in a town of a thousand families, where, through a legacy, +one copy of some single author was annually presented to each family. +But, with the same money, a thousand different works might have been +every year purchased, and all kept accessible by all the families. The +result would have been a feast as appetizing to all palates as the +miraculous manna which the rabbins tell us tasted to each Jew like that +particular dainty which he loved best. + +It is no objection to a library that no man will ever read it through. +No man will read through his dictionary, and time is not long enough for +a man to read all the words in the daily _Tribune_. Nor will any +customer exhaust a store. Yet he demands an assortment from which to +select the little that he needs. In every library most authors, bound up +in congenial calf, sleep soundly in their own sheets. Yet the dust of +dead men's bones, at the touch of genius, comes forth in a new life. How +much that is best in Macaulay and in Buckle is extracted from +bibliothecal rubbish--or reading which had never been read. Hence even +Samson could not say to the jaw-bone of an ass: "I have no need of you." +The wise thank God for fools. They get their living out of them, and +mostly out of the greatest fools. In truth, no library is large enough. +Guizot and Michelet complain of inability to consult certain books, even +in that Parisian library, where books are as plenty as water in the +deluge, and the shelves would reach from here to Milwaukee. + +A library should be a cosmos; but it is a chaos till arrangement, +catalogues and librarians bring us at once the volume we desire, and +which, without them, would be as hard to fish up as the Atlantic cable +lost in mid-ocean. + + "Thus warlike arms in magazines we place, + All ranged in order and disposed with grace: + Not thus alone the curious eye to please, + But to be _found_, when need requires, with ease." + +In some libraries, however, books are arranged on a system which seems +borrowed from Spanish hospitals, where patients are arranged according +to religious creeds, rather than bodily complaints. Every library has +more volumes than I can master; but no library though it be the conflux +of all civilizations, has so many volumes as I may need to consult. + +Chief Justice Story used to assert that no American could test the +accuracy of Gibbon without crossing the Atlantic. Such an assertion +would now, perhaps, be extravagant, yet many of Gibbon's references are +still hard to trace in America. One instance may be worth notice. Our +approaching national centenary leads us to curiosity in reference to the +secular feasts of the Romans. In Gibbon's account of the most famous +among them, a thousand years from the founding of Rome, the main +authority quoted is Zosimus. But the history of Zosimus you will seek in +vain throughout Madison libraries. You will not find his name in the +public collections of Chicago, or Cincinnati, or St. Louis, or San +Francisco. It is unlikely that any single copy of Zosimus has yet +penetrated west of our Atlantic slope. + +But how dare I thus speak about Zosimus? How is it possible for me to +know whether his history can, or cannot, be discovered, either on the +Pacific shore, or in the Mississippi valley? I know it, thanks to the +Library of Our Historical Society, and specifically to its goodly array +of bibliothecal catalogues. + +Why will not our Centenary Women's Club buy our Free Library a Zosimus? + +Free libraries, especially those maintained by public taxation, were +scarcely known before the last half of the nineteenth century. If in an +antiquarian mood, I could indeed bring forth curious details concerning +half a hundred in continental Europe, some of them running back several +centuries, but I forbear. The earliest British library law, similar to +ours in Wisconsin, dates from 1850. The earliest in Massachusetts--and I +suppose in America--was approved May 24, 1851. The first library opened +in consequence of this law was in New Bedford, March 3, 1853. The +grandest triumph under the Massachusetts law is in Boston. The free +library there stands to-day surpassed in volumes by only three or four +American libraries--say the Astor, Congress, and Harvard--while in +arrangement, architecture, and equipment it is pronounced by the most +enlightened foreigners unsurpassed by any library in the world. + +Our legislature in 1872 empowered the mayors and councils in towns and +cities to lay an annual tax of one mill on a dollar of the assessed +valuation, for establishing and maintaining free libraries. This law +will bear good fruit. Yet it is a step backward from the act of 1859. +That act created a library fund by setting apart for that purpose +one-tenth of the school-fund income, and imposing a tax of one-tenth of +a mill on all property. The sum of $88,784.78 had been thus accumulated +when the war of 1861 broke out,--and the money was used for military +purposes. It ought to be refunded by the State, or United States, and +expended for its original object. The great superiority of the law of +1859 lies in its extending to rural districts,--and so leaving no hamlet +unvisited--while the maxim of the present law is, "Coals to Newcastle, +owls to Athens, apples to Alcinous. He that hath--to him shall be +given." It gives a library to Madison, where 40,000 volumes were already +within reach, but nothing at all to five and twenty other places in Dane +County, whose need of books is ten times greater. But libraries bring +forth after their kind, and free libraries, we may hope, will become +co-extensive with free schools. + +Madison, to-day, in opening to all her sons and daughters a Free +Library, has outstripped every other municipality in the State. It is a +noble preeminence, and will do her honor to the end of the world. + +The Madison Free Library, it may be reasonably hoped, will approximate +to the bibliothecal ideal. It starts with an inheritance of 3,308 +volumes, accumulated during a score of years by the Madison Institute. +Its revenue is considerable, and it will grow in even pace with the +growth of the city. Nothing but Adam and Minerva was ever born of full +stature. The tax now assessed for it would impoverish no man till after +the lapse of thrice three thousand years. It was limited to less than a +third of what the law allows because we make the entering edge of a +wedge thin, and would learn wisdom from Satan who never makes his +temptations so bad at the beginning as at the end. Is is only the first +step that costs. The Free Library will be ready for windfalls, and so +surely as history repeats itself, they will pour cornucopias into its +lap. Of the million volumes in the British Museum, two out of every five +were gifts. No wonder. Book-gatherers abhor the breaking up of their +collections as we do the dissolution of the Union, or as abolitionists +did the snapping of family ties by slave-traders. Lest what they have +joined together shall be put asunder, they rejoice to lay up their +treasures in an institution which shall never die. Accordingly, in +tracing the origin of one hundred and eighty libraries in continental +Europe, it has been discovered that all of them, except sixteen, were +presented to the municipalities by book-lovers. + +Experience this side the Atlantic is thus far equally encouraging. I +will notice a single specimen. The Boston Free Library is mainly +contributed by individuals. One thousand volumes were given by Everett; +2,300 by Bowditch; 11,360 by Theodore Parker; 26,000 by Joshua Bates; +11,899 by the Old South Church, and those of greater rarity than any +other equal number of volumes. Then Ticknor and Prescott bestowed the +best Spanish library ever gathered by private men, and Wheelwright one +scarcely inferior, relating to South America. Of pecuniary benefactions, +I will only mention $10,000 from Lawrence, $30,000 from Phillips, and +$50,000 from Bates. But legacies to the Free Library have become so +common that we may confidently expect that, if any Bostonian shall die +and bequeath it nothing, the courts will decide the neglect of the +Library to be conclusive proof of insanity, and so will nullify his +will! On the whole, we cannot be too sanguine concerning the prospective +progress of our book-feast for the million. + +But a library, however perfect, and though freely open to all the world, +may be a light shining in a darkness which comprehendeth it not. Many +years ago, I was a student in such a library at Rome. It was larger than +any one in America at that time, and offered the best of all its stores +daily to everybody, and that without charge. Yet it was well-nigh a +solitude. The reason was obvious. My walk thither was through a gauntlet +of beggar-boys, and I once took with me an Italian primer, and cried out +that I would give something to any boy who could read. I held it up +before nineteen in succession, but no one could spell out a line. They +had eschewed not only writing as tempting to forgery, but reading also +as a black art. Had they been giants they could,--like the barbarians +who sacked Rome,--ruin, but not relish, the nectared sweets of books. To +them the collective wisdom of the world was as sunshine to the blind, or +as smoke in the nursery riddle,--"roomful, houseful, can't catch a +handful!" + + "Or like gospel pearls which pigs neglect + When pigs have that opportunity." + +But in regard to _our_ Free Library, I have better hopes, and beg your +leave to show _what use_, in my judgment, will be made of it. It will be +resorted to for _amusement_. Some will flit through it in the spirit of +the Viennese, who turn their central cathedral into a thoroughfare on +promenades and business walks. But such visitors will learn something in +glancing at the backs of books. Books, as well as men, have a +physiognomy. Here, as elsewhere, the admirers of Shakespeare will take +out his plays, return them with the leaves uncut, and then insist that +booksellers be instructed if Mr. Shakespeare writes any new book, to +forward it without further orders. Many will have no eyes except for the +volumes of _fiction_, and sometimes will rather run through these than +read them. Novels are a sort of cake, which, if eaten alone, is prone to +make mental dyspeptics. Yet most novel-readers will gain some profit +from our library. Some of them will here acquire a facility in reading +which for lack of practice has hitherto been unknown to them. No one has +really learned to read, until he has read to learn. Their interest in +stories will beguile the toil of becoming _ready_ readers, and their +range of reading will naturally widen. But if it does not, they may +learn much. Every good fiction is _true_, if not to particular fact yet +to general principles, to natural scenery, to human nature, to the ways +of human life, manners, customs, the very age and body of the time. Even +Tom Moore declares that "his chief work of fiction is founded on a long +and labourious collection of facts." Again, when worn out by work, when +care-crazed, and nerves are unstrung, who has not found in fiction--the +balm of hurt minds--a recreation, a city of refuge, a restorative. + + "Cups that cheer but not inebriate?" + +In this way our free library will be a new pleasure, and the founder of +it deserves the reward offered by the Sicilian tyrant, for such an +invention. Work was never so monotonous as now; accordingly, play ought +to be more than ever amusing. The Kilkenny cats, who devoured each other +all but the tails, left one orphan kitten which began to eat up itself, +but catching sight of a mouse was diverted from suicide. There is among +us more than one disconsolate kitten now destroying himself, who will in +our free feast of fiction espy a mouse which will reconcile him to life, +and save him from himself. The rationale of this solace is indicated +after a forcible, though rather a homely fashion, in the Chinese saying: +"A dog chasing game does not mind the fleas which he _barks_ at while he +lies in his kennel." "The labour we delight in physics pain." + +Again, in all great works of fiction the purpose is, while not +o'erstepping the modesty of nature, to show virtue her own feature, and +scorn her own image. Who can count the admirers of Scott and Dickens +that have learned from their portraitures moral lessons so well as never +to forget them;--to loathe the mean and aspire to the noble;--to shun +evil and cleave to good--in spite of temptations to one and from the +other? + +But, after all, our book-treasury will only now and then bestow its best +gifts on those who resort to it merely for pleasure. To most visitors of +this class it must remain no more than a telescope to a child, something +to play with rather than to look through. Accordingly, they no more +exhaust the capacities of books than the Irish made full proof of +potatoes while they cooked only the balls and left the tubers to rot in +the ground. + +But the Free Library will be resorted to for _instruction_. Few will +always hold the amusing button so close to their eyes that it will hide +the instructive sun. From the start it will be superior to every private +collection in the city, and its superiority will increase. Accordingly, +professional men will come thither to inform themselves either each in +his own specialty, or sallying on excursions from their home fields. +Besides the time-honoured and traditional three professions, editors and +teachers will be there, learning how to answer the hard questions of +pupils and subscribers. Each of these professionals will more or less +make known what he learns. The bibliothecal odor will be as plain upon +them as a certain other odor is upon those who emerge from the +smoking-car or saloon. "Dispensing native perfumes they whisper whence +they stole those balmy spoils." But the bibliothecal leaven will leaven +the community more _directly_. + +God has set geniuses as great lights in the firmament to give light and +delight as well on the earth. The circuit of such suns is unto the ends +of the heaven, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. More and +more pervasive is their influence, like the spring-time, which leaves no +corner of the land untouched. In a library every man will recognize some +supreme author transfiguring whatever he touches,--crystallizing into +diamonds by wit, turning to gold with poetry, and glorifying as with +tongues of angels by eloquence, and whom he hence worships as Scotchmen +do Burns and as all the world does Shakespeare. Less and less do men +entertain angels unawares, more and more are they ashamed to know the +world's books only by name. Nobody now asks concerning Paradise Lost, +"What does it prove?" + +Moreover, the Free Library will be patronized by the people in quest of +answers to multitudinous questions. Newspapers, whether in its +reading-room or out of it, will rouse in many directions a curiosity +they cannot satisfy, and so will urge to the library. There is a story +that an Englishman in a London library, after looking through an atlas, +said to a friend, "Help me find _Umbrage_ on the map! I read in my +gazette that the French have taken _Umbrage_. What a good-for-nothing +minister is ours--to leave _Umbrage_ so poorly defended that the French +could take it." That John Bull discovered in the library either +_umbrage_, or what was better for him--his own ignorance and the way to +remove it, "taking umbrage" against himself. His gazette probably +brought the same earnest inquirer to the library for _history_ as well +as for geography. A daily paper, which is the history of the world for +one day, leads backward, as a stream carries our thoughts to its +fountain. Whoever repairs to a library with one historical query will be +likely to repeat his visit, since newspapers, in the light of history, +will become more significant as the last chapter in a novel is more +interesting to those who have read the previous chapters, and so often +leads one back to them. Again, discussions are always arising, not +merely in formal debates, but as we sit in the house and walk by the +way. Some carry them on by assertions and counter-assertions--a strong +will and a strong won't--equally positive and ignorant, discussing and +sometimes leaving off the _dis_, till like Milton's devils they find no +end, in wandering mazes lost. Too often "It comes to pass that a +terrible oath, with a swaggering accent twanged off, gives an opinion +more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned it." Others +back up their opinions by _wagers_, in spite of a lurking feeling that + + "Bets are the blockhead's argument,-- + The only logic he can vent, + His minor and his major.-- + + 'Tis to confess your head a worse + Investigator than your purse, + To reason with a wager." + +But where standard books are at hand, investigation will often either +take the place of disputation, or bring strife to a speedy end. + +Let us hope those here seeking props for their arguments will never be +those jealous lovers of books who cannot use them without using them up, +or who spirit them away for themselves alone. Such abductors have +sometimes infested the libraries in the Capitol. Their thefts can be +justified only by that casuistry which holds stealing the relics of +saints for a pious fraud. But in truth the more holy the saint, the more +heinous the sacrilege of what Hood calls _Book_-aneering. + +Moreover, every _lecture_ delivered in the city will send some +investigators to the library, that they may confute, or confirm, or +amplify its teachings. A lecture that pops will not be as surely +_popular_ as formerly, if the library shall evince that what is true in +it is not new, and that what is new is not true, or that the speaker +draws on imaginations for facts and on facts for imaginations. + +Every meeting of our Women's Centennial Club will start inquiries which +cannot be answered without recourse to the library. + +It is certain that books of _travel_ will here be largely consulted. +Some of us purpose to go abroad. Such will read beforehand in order to +add a precious seeing to their eyes. They would dislike to have their +experiences those of a lady who when asked what she saw in Rome answered +"dirt," or of the London barber who at the coronation of Napoleon +remembered nothing except that the Emperor was well shaved, or of the +Bostonian fresh from the West who, when called on for his opinion of +Madison, said it would be a pretty fair Massachusetts village if it were +not spoiled by so many fresh water ponds around it. Others among us have +travelled already, and we shall be studious in the library that we may +ascertain what we ought to have seen--but did not, or the meaning of +what we did see, but which was Greek to us. The Shah of Persia noted in +his journal that of all the fine things in Europe the finest to his mind +was a show of wax work. His library would teach him better, and would +not laugh at him, as we do. A Vermont friend of mine, after his trip to +London, when asked whether he saw Westminster Abbey, confessed that he +did not, but added that Westminster Abbey was out of town at the time of +his visit. If he had free course in our library he would hardly excuse +himself in that way again. Soon after crossing the Mississippi at +Burlington, I heard a New York merchant, bound for California, +remarking: "How much geography one learns in travelling. Here is +Burlington. I always thought it in Illinois, but now I find it is in +Missouri." Library-reading may by this time have added insight to his +sight, and convicted him of the blunder which I suffered to pass +uncorrected, though we chatted 100 miles together. There are others of +us who, on hearing a traveller's tales, are curious to examine how far +we, like the old prophet, should count the way-faring man a fool, and +how far he uses his license to lie. Hence they will read that they may +make up their minds whether all MARK TWAIN'S caricatures have the ring +of truth. + +A German table d'hote of twenty courses will surfeit a careless diner +before it is half over, and yet fail to afford him either what he likes +best or what he should like best. Hence it compels guests to a careful +choice what they will partake of and what refuse of the blessing there +is no room to receive in its fulness. A similar influence will be +exerted by the free library where we fall into the embarassment of +riches. We shall be driven to select from its bill of fare, that is the +catalogue, that fraction which we can enjoy most and which will profit +us most. + + "Taste after taste upheld by kindliest change." + +Some persons, when they survey a library and perceive that they can +never read the hundredth part of its volumes, will be attracted to those +works which teach "what to read," or open a panoramic outlook on the +diversified regions of the bookish world. + + "Of all the best of man's best knowledges, + The contents, indexes and title-pages, + Through all past, present, and succeeding ages." + +Unless we thus liberalize our views we are likely to vegetate, like the +rhubarb pie plant, under a barrel, and see the world only through its +bunghole. Ignorant of bibliographical guides and hence at a loss how to +estimate books, the steward of a British nobleman sold as rubbish all +volumes in the library which lacked _covers_. One of those thus disposed +of, and bought by a pedlar for nine pence, proved to be the very +earliest issue of the British press, snapped up by the British museum +for L80, and could not now be bought for ten times that sum. In regard +to the _intrinsic_ value of books blunders more egregious are daily +made. Libraries were never so needful as now, for libraries and life +never lay so close to one another as now. Our familiar sights lead to +interest in recondite knowledge. Photography, gas, the locomotive, +kerosene, yes, every match that lights it, provokes questions in +chemistry, or philosophy, which not every library can answer. No one can +gaze at the dome of our Capitol without naturally falling into +architectural inquiries which draw him through a world of books that +expose the nakedness of his ignorance, yet never put him to open shame. +But the truth is too palpable to dwell on that in our day life touches +libraries at every point. + +In all libraries there are readers whose emblem is dead fish who follow +the stream, but thanks to various accidents, some of this class, ceasing +to be passive recipients, begin to investigate as active seekers. They +at once rise to a higher mental plane. The contrast between active +seekers and passive recipients is analogous to that between the +mountaineers and the maritime aborigines of California. The mountaineers +lived on grizzly bears--food which it was impossible to seize without +tasking their energies to the utmost. But tasking trains. The maritimes +lived on salmon, which were so abundant and so tame that they could be +caught by fishers who lay basking in the sun. But basking enervates. +Naturally enough no Indians are superior to the mountaineers who are +active seekers, nor yet inferior to the maritimes, who are passive +recipients. What investigators seek they will not find at once; they may +never find it. But they are sure to discover something better, so that +they will say with LESSING, in the library at Wolfenbuttel, "Were God to +hold truth in one hand and search in the other, and give me my choice, I +would say: Give me seeking without finding, rather than finding without +seeking!" + + "All things that are, + Are with more spirit chased than enjoyed." + Courtship once over, the novel ends. + +In the library where LESSING was made librarian--not that he might serve +the library, but that the library might serve him--I took in my hand +with reverence the inkstand out of which he distilled the essence of a +thousand books, and reformed German literature as radically as LUTHER +had reformed German religion. + +All truths being inter-dependent, every road will lead to the end of the +world, and so while studying one subject a man becomes interested in +others, and his range of inquiry expands. When he kindles one dry stick, +many green ones will catch, and his brightest blazes are lit up by +unexpected sparks. One quickly learns to love hunting, and before +working up many topics, he forms an investigating habit which will +perpetuate itself. Thus while seeking an oyster, he finds a pearl, like +SAUL who sought asses and found a kingdom. Henceforth he reads more by +subjects, each a cord to string pearls on, than by volumes, for he feels +that, + + "Unless to some particular end designed, + Reading is but a specious trifling of the mind, + And then, like ill-digested food, + To humors turns and not to blood." + +But less and less of that sort is his reading, though it range through +all time, and tax all the world. Such an inquirer will live longer than +METHUSELAH, for he will have more thoughts, yet he will wish each of his +minutes was a millenary. He will read with an appetite growing as long +as he lives; indeed reading will help him to live longer. A thousand +such readers feel what one has spoken out, saying: + +"In a library I was thrown, instead of worse society, into the company +of poets, philosophers and sages--to me good angels and ministers of +grace. From these silent instructors who often do more than fathers for +our interests, from these delightful associates I learned something of +the divine and more of the human religion. They were my interpreters in +the House Beautiful of God, and my guides among the Delectable Mountains +of Nature, + + Blessing be with them and eternal praise, + Who gave me nobler loves and nobler cares." + +Pre-eminently to the _young_ will the myriad-minded library be an oracle +in perplexities. They have been better trained in public schools than we +of the last generation were. They have broken ground in more various +studies, and their curiosity has been stimulated concerning more +questions. Each question, each study puts in their hand a new _key_ to +the locks which shut up libraries. Singers love to sing, and it is joy +for the just to do justice, so will our youth rejoice to use in the +library the skill they have acquired in school as naturally as when they +get jack knives they take to whittling. The public schools then find in +free libraries their fitting supplement, and complement. Schools without +libraries feed a prisoner with salted viands and then tantalize his +thirst with pitchers and bottles, all empty. The free school and the +free library will join hands like husband and wife in a well-matched +marriage. + + "He is the half-part of a blessed man, + Left to be finished by such as she; + And she a fair divided excellence, + Whose fulness of perfection lies in him; + But two such silver currents when they join, + Do glorify the banks that bind them in. + +Each befits the other, as ALEXANDER said concerning the finest poem and +the most costly casket in the world when he enshrined the Iliad in the +Persian box of gold and gems. Both are lotteries where tickets cost +nothing and everybody may draw all the prizes. + +In addition to this, the free library will be to some nothing less than +an _inspiration_. _To some_--I wish I could say _to all_, but alas, it +is only an "elect few" whom the library can inspire. Spectacles are +invaluable,--but only to those who have eyes. One Sultan never wore a +shirt that had not every word of the Koran written on it yet absorbed +little piety. AARON'S excuse for making only a golden calf was, that the +Jews did not bring him gold enough to make an ox. The cherubim who know +most can never equal the seraphim who love most. An ugly and stupid man, +walking with a lady on each arm, boasts that he is between wit and +beauty, but may not imbibe one particle of either. + +To some, however, a free library will make up for the lack of a liberal +education. More than that. It will furnish such an education every jot +and tittle of it, and that, in some sense, better than was ever bestowed +in a college, because acquired in the face of greater difficulties. +Libraries have often vouchsafed this priceless boon. That in Salem did +to BOWDITCH, the mathematician, in the last century, and to WHIPPLE, the +essayist, in this. The Edinburgh library made HUME an historian. Another +was inspiration to COBBETT. So was that of the Erfurt convent to LUTHER. +"It had purchased," says his biographer, "at heavy cost, several Latin +Bibles just printed for the first time in the neighboring city of Mainz. +When he first opened one of these tomes his eyes fell on the story of +HANNAH and SAMUEL. "O, God," he murmured, "could I have one of these +books I would seek no other worldly treasure." A great revolution then +took place in his soul. His happiest hours were in the library. +Concerning such a scholar-- + + "We cannot say: ''Tis pity + He lacks instructions,' for he seems a master + To most that teach." + +The influence of ancient Libraries on classical writers is manifest from +their quotations. PLUTARCH'S have been traced to 250 authors. PLINY'S to +2,000 works. Classical Libraries preserved in Constantinople, so long as +studied, made there a Goshen of light in the Dark Ages, and when carried +to Italy proved a Promethean spark to kindle occidental culture anew. It +is well known that inventions are oftenest struck out in the Patent +Office, the grand store-house of inventions. In the world of mind, as +well as of matter, new ideas are suggested where old ideas most +congregate, or are most communed with. According to CHAUCER, + + "Out of old fields, as man saith, + Cometh all the new corn from year to year, + And out of old books, in good faith, + Cometh all the new science that men lear." + +The idea of writing the "Life of COLUMBUS" first darted into the mind +of IRVING, when, in Madrid, he found himself surrounded by an unrivaled +magazine of materials made ready to his hand, and for which the world +had been ransacked. Thus the sight of means to make good books makes +good books made. + +Not only those volumes which compose the body of literature, but those +finer essences which form its soul,--the literature of power,--stamped +in Nature's mint of ecstasy--are marked all over with proofs of +familiarity with the best that had been achieved,--each in its own +department. Nobody has hesitated thus to affirm concerning VIRGIL, +DANTE, TASSO, MILTON. But it is commonly said that SHAKESPEARE was +_ignorant_. The truth is that no ignorant man, no ordinary, scholar can +understand his allusions, historical, romantic, classical, or those to +art, science, nationalities, customs--or even his words. He could get +more from a Library in a day than most men in a life-time, but he needed +it still. + +In speaking of SHAKESPEARE, I mean the man who wrote the Plays reputed +his, no matter whether that author was BACON, or JOHN SMITH, or even our +townsman GEORGE B. + +We ought to say that SHAKESPEARE was a universal man,--because he was +heir of all ages,--and his was universal knowledge, a knowledge which +neither can we fathom nor could he find without a library. + +His peculiarity was ability to discern the immortal part of books, or to +stamp what were otherwise perishable with his own immortality. Whoever +can do much without tools, can do more with them. Accordingly men do +their broken weapons rather use than their bare hands. Whoever can do +much without a library, can do more with a library. DAVID did much with +a sling, but more with better arms, and builded an armory on which there +hung a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. + +If then there be among us any one person endued with any spark of +Shakespearian or other genius he will find it kindling to a flame +through contact in this library with similar celestial fires. To such a +"meeting soul!" as MILTON calls it,--the library will prove a better +bonanza than has been prospected in our States of silver and gold. +Though having nothing he shall possess all things,--infinite riches in a +little room. + +Thus our Free Library will amuse, and instruct, and inspire. Over its +entrance I seem to read as on the front of the oldest in the world, the +inscription, "The healing of the soul," or the words of FRANKLIN to his +namesake town, "I give you books instead of a bell, sense rather than +sound." Let it have free course for a generation, calling to culture as +ceaselessly as a standing army calls to war, and this community will say +with SENECA, "Leisure without books and letters is mental death and +burial." + +The first public library in Ohio--just two years younger than the +State--was founded in Ames. It was bought by hunters who threw together +a lot of raccoon skins, sent them in a sleigh by one of their number to +Boston and there bartered them for books. They soon hunted Greek as +zealously as game, and while Ames remained a hamlet ten of them, or +their children, were among the early graduates of the State University. + +The influences of a library are _cumulative_, and sometimes become +manifest only after a long lapse of ages. The cuniform library of +Assyrian bricks, dating from pre-historic periods, burned up, buried and +forgotten just now emerges from its grave speaking in a voice heard +round the world, and no less authoritative than a second book of +Genesis. From its shelves more centuries look down upon us than upon +NAPOLEON at the Pyramids. + +Libraries are hemmed in by no lines of State, nation, race, language, +religion or century. Their field is the world. But ours is the +cosmopolitan age, and we are pre-eminently the cosmopolitan people. More +than any other people, then must we feel the need of libraries, which +are, of all institutions, the most cosmopolitan. Hence they will benefit +us most. + +Considerations like these demonstrate that free libraries tend to +_equality_ and _fraternity_. They are free lunches, crying to all: "Cut, +and come again!" As we all have equal rights at the polls and in court, +so have we in the free library. In church we each secure a blessing in +proportion to our capacity; so can we in the library. In both blessed +are they who hunger and thirst, for they shall be filled. In public +schools all can enjoy the best of teaching without money and without +price; so can they in the free library. Free libraries will create an +aristocracy--one open to talent and toil, but to nothing else; the +aristocracy of knowledge. Where street cars have been introduced, half +the private carriages are soon given up, so the establishment of free +libraries will lead many to refrain from large domestic collections as +superfluous, and to the transfer of many a private library to the public +shelves, where they will not only do more good, but will be better cared +for, better arranged, and more accessible than they now are even to +their owners. One millionaire as we walked into his library, said with a +sigh: "See how many gaps there are in my shelves! Five hundred of my +books are missing, lent and lost." "Lost!" cried I, half in joke, "say +rather found! lost to you, but found each by some one who will make the +most of them. Would to heaven these 5,000 were lost in the same way, +lost by you who have no time nor care for them, found by those who have +both. Nobody could steal them from you, but at most only from moths and +worms, dust and mould." Rich men who have bought libraries as luxuries +will learn that the way to save them is to lose them, and that their +books serve them best when deposited in free libraries. + +Many varieties of _sham_ equality result from outside pressure. In +Venetian gondolas all awnings are required to be black that no one may +outshine his neighbor. Under the first republic the French proscribed +all titles but citizen, and citizeness, which they gave to everybody. +Communists would make all men's shares in property equal. Endeavors of +this sort not only fail, but prove suicidal like the impetuous Irishman, +insisting that one man is as good as another, and _a great dey better +too_. The influence of Free Libraries, however is toward genuine and not +merely visible equality. Thanks to them the most expensive luxury of the +rich becomes the daily food of the poor, and the tree of knowledge no +more bears forbidden fruit. A volume which I can draw out of a library +at will is worth as much to me as if I owned it. In fact, though my +private library is not small, the books I read are more often borrowed +than my own. + +If I take out books from a library, I am doubly spurred to to make their +contents my own, because those books must be returned more promptly than +to the friend who neither exacts fines nor yet even notes in a book what +book we borrow. + +FRANKLIN tells us that "he often sat up reading, the greater part of +the night, when a book borrowed (he means _stolen_) from booksellers in +the evening, was to be returned in the morning lest it should be found +missing." In proportion as men make full proof of books, they become +alike _inside_, in real communion with great authors, in information, +taste, mental capacity, mastery of speech,--accomplishments which cannot +be lost, and which render each one more equal and congenial with his +fellows. Men will still differ by God, not by man. What then is the Free +Library less than the key stone in our Republican arch? + +When we would show attention to strangers, it has been a Madison custom +to take them into our cemetery. That grave yard is well worth showing. +But in time to come I trust we shall rather exhibit our Libraries, and +say; "These are our jewels." Not tombs, but living shrines that on the +living still work miracles,--the shrines where all the relics of the +saints full of true virtue are preserved, where the dead live and the +dumb speak--the dead sceptered sovereigns who still rule our spirits +from their urns. This sun of our intellectual worlds is + + "Made porous to receive + And drink the liquid light, firm to retain + Its gathered beams, great palace now of light, + Hither as to a fountain countless stars + Repairing in their golden urns draw light." + +Let us rejoice in it all glorious within, even as our Capitol and +University parks are without. + +A library,--the assembled souls of all men deem most wise, the only men +who speak loud enough for posterity to hear;--reminds me of that fresco +by RAPHAEL, which I admired most of all his Vatican masterpieces, +popularly styled "The School of Athens," and which I hope to see hung up +as the genius of our library hall, as I have seen it in many. In some +one of the fifty-two figures glowing with life in that picture, every +variety of culture has a representative. You see there the practical +man, like FRANKLIN'S Poor Richard, in Diogenes rough and ready by his +tub. Archimedes is drawing a diagram in the sand. On the broad steps of +a temple stand Ptolemy, with the terrestrial and Hipparchus with the +celestial globe. No sage is without a docile retinue. SOCRATES, with sly +humor, is humbling the self-sufficient ALCIBIADES that he may rouse him +to loftier aspirations. PYTHAGORAS is writing among disciples, one of +whom holds his musical scale, while above all, and in the midst of the +temple, appear ARISTOTLE, father of natural philosophy, pointing down to +the earth, and PLATO, the father of spiritual philosophy with hand +uplifted toward heaven, man as it were feeling for God. The culture +proffered in such a School of Athens, as RAPHAEL painted--and as an +ideal free library is to my mind, has its fittest emblem in the miracle +of architecture, the dome,--which is well said to unite clustered arches +and pillars and radiate in equal expansion towards every quarter of the +earth, while with every convergent curve it soars heavenward, buried in +air, and looking to the stars. + + "Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime." + + + + +THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY + + This section, devoted to the general relations of the + library and society, which opened with a historical account + by Prof. Moses Coit Tyler, may appropriately close with + another of similar tenor, contributed eleven years later to + _The American Magazine of Civics_ (New York, May, 1895) by + Prof. Henry H. Barber. It covers some of the same ground but + gives results to a later date, while it is still only + introductory to the social development of more recent years. + + Henry Hervey Barber was born in Warwick, Mass., Dec. 30, + 1835, graduated at Meadville Theological Seminary in 1861 + and after holding several Unitarian pastorates was professor + of philosophy and theology there from 1884 to 1904. He was + also editor of the Unitarian Review from 1875 to 1884. He + died about 1915. + + +No public institution has made greater progress during the last few +years or grown more rapidly in public interest and favor than the free +public library. The building of a magnificent structure in Chicago, +together with the excellent Newberry free reference library, and in +cooperation with the fast growing library of the Chicago University, +will make perhaps the most superb public provision for free literary +culture ever furnished by any municipality. Boston has lately +transferred its more than half a million volumes to the new and noble +public library building on the Back Bay. The newspapers of this last +week tell us that in New York Mr. Tilden is after all not to be finally +counted out; but that the two millions rescued from his estate by the +high sense of honor of one of his heirs is to be joined with the +invaluable Astor Library, and the choice Lennox Reference Library, and +all made free and available to the public--a property valued in the +aggregate at eight million dollars. These events, together with the +recent founding of the Carnegie free libraries in Pittsburg and +Allegheny, the not very remote establishment of the Enoch Pratt Free +Library in Baltimore, and the addition by Mr. Henry C. Lea to the +splendid Ridgway foundation in Philadelphia, constitute a series of +brilliant triumphs for the free public library, unparalleled in the +history of educational institutions, and seldom equalled, I must think, +in the intellectual progress of civilization. + +Nor do these metropolitan successes indicate, after all, the most +essential advance. The frequency with which private beneficence is +coming to the aid of public enterprise in smaller cities and country +towns, for the establishment and increase of these libraries; the recent +notable instances of stimulative auxiliary legislation; and the growth +of intelligent interest in new and widely scattered sections of the +civilized world, are equally significant, and perhaps even more widely +beneficent. It is the era of the free public library; and it is of +special interest to us to see that our community and our commonwealth +are moving in accord with this tide of new feeling and enterprise +concerning it. + +Of special interest, I say, to us as Pennsylvanians; for we are glad to +remember that it is here that the first impulse was given to the +foundation of the system of circulating libraries, the development of +which is the free public library in England and America. Benjamin +Franklin, after considerable effort, founded in 1732 the Philadelphia +Library Company, the "mother," as he himself calls it, "of all the +subscription libraries in North America." + +This library which Franklin started for the advantage of himself and his +fifty young business associates, in the early time, when, as he says, +"there was not a good bookseller's shop in any of the colonies to the +southward of Boston," and when most of the books had to be imported from +England, was followed soon by the establishment of more ambitious +similar libraries in Newport (1747) and Hartford (1774); and later in +many other places in England and this country. These were called public +libraries, though books could only be taken out by subscribers. +Probably, however, as in Philadelphia, the librarian could "permit any +civil gentlemen to peruse the books of the library in the library room." + +But it was in the formation of many so-called "Social Libraries" in the +smaller cities and country towns of New England and the Middle States, +early in the present century, that the foundations of the free municipal +library were laid. These subscription libraries, in their growth and in +their decay, no less than in the appetite for books they developed, +created a demand and at length a necessity for public provision for what +had come to be one of the prime intellectual needs of many communities. + +Meantime in Scotland, in 1816, Samuel Brown of Haddington, following in +part the methods of London booksellers, established a system of free +itinerating libraries, loaning without cost selections of fifty books in +each package to villages and neighborhoods that would engage to +circulate and take proper care of them. At the end of two years each +loan was called in, and another of different works sent in its place. +This scheme was for many years highly successful, and doubtless highly +useful; but seems to have failed soon after the death of its projector +and inspirer in 1839. The system had the earnest sanction of Lord +Brougham, and about 1825 was taken up in some parts of England; and, in +a modified form, has had a great success in Melbourne and its +neighborhood, in Australia. Stanley Jevons, whose article on the +rationale of free public libraries in his "Methods of Social Reform" is +one of the most interesting and valuable contributions to the literature +of this subject, commends it as the best form of extending free public +libraries in the rural portions of Great Britain, and he estimates that +there ought to be three thousand such literary itinerants in England and +Wales. + +This system was copied in this country in the School District Libraries +which were started in the state of New York in 1835, and a few years +afterward were in successful operation in Massachusetts and other New +England states, and in Michigan and Ohio at least, among states further +west. At first every school district raising thirty dollars the first +year and ten dollars thereafter, by tax or subscription, was assisted by +the state--I cite the Massachusetts statute--to a like sum; and a small +but choice selection of books sent to it for free circulation within the +district. A little later Massachusetts, at least, removed this +condition; and supplied every school district with such a library. These +libraries after remaining in use for a while, and generally being +thoroughly read, were exchanged among the districts. New books were thus +continually coming to new readers. This movement was earnestly forwarded +by that pioneer among American educators, Horace Mann, and during the +period of my boyhood was a godsend to the young people of New England. I +want to bless the memory of Samuel Brown, Father Page (a pioneer of the +system in New York), and Horace Mann for the gleams of literary light +thus cast across the bookless darkness of New England rural homes forty +to fifty years ago. This highly economical missionary agency of general +intelligence passed away in New England with the incoming of the more +satisfactory town system of free libraries. The cause of its decadence +elsewhere is not clear, but it has lately had a remarkable resurrection +in New York, as we soon shall see. + +The first free town library in America, or the world, supported by +municipal taxation, was established by the efforts of Abiel Abbot, D.D., +in Peterboro, New Hampshire, in 1833. A decayed social library and an +operatives' library, and perhaps some other small collections, were thus +gathered under the shelter of the town; and took on new life from its +fostering care, and the small annual appropriation for new books which +is the breath of life to all libraries. Here, as always, it was _a man_ +that inspired the advance movement and carried it on to successful +fulfilment. + +In 1849, New Hampshire passed a general law enabling towns and cities to +maintain free libraries by taxation; and in 1851 Massachusetts, which +had granted Boston in 1847 the right to establish such a library, passed +a similar general enabling act. Several other states followed almost +immediately, and nearly every northern and northwestern state, except +Pennsylvania, has since adopted the measure. In 1893, twenty states had +enacted similar statutes; and, in all, more than seven hundred free +libraries have been established under them. They have increased--as +might naturally have been expected--most rapidly in the portions of the +country where other library agencies, and where an efficient public +school system, have been longest and most efficiently at work. Thus, of +the seven hundred libraries, more than three hundred are in +Massachusetts (according to the returns of the Public Library Commission +for 1894), or 1,233 volumes for every thousand of population; in New +Hampshire something over one hundred (in 1894), or 464 volumes per +thousand of inhabitants. + +Great Britain has kept nearly equal pace with our foremost states in +free library legislation. A general enabling act to establish and +support free libraries for the people from municipal rates was passed by +Parliament in 1850, and accepted with great energy and enthusiasm by +many of the northern towns and cities. Eighty-six free libraries, not +including branches, had been opened before 1880; but, as in this +country, the conservatism of the southern portions of the country has +prevented their general establishment. For similar reasons only the +province of Ontario has made any considerable movement in this direction +in the Dominion of Canada. + +This hasty historical sketch would be very incomplete without some +account of the recent legislation, in several states, for the assistance +of the smaller towns and villages in the establishment and increase of +public libraries. This legislation has already had marvelous results. +Massachusetts, in 1890, appropriated one hundred dollars to any town +that would raise by taxation, or appropriate from the dog tax, or +otherwise raise, at least fifty dollars (or if its valuation was less +than one million dollars it should raise twenty-five dollars, or if less +than $250,000 it should raise at least fifteen dollars); and should +agree to take care of the books, and furnish the agency of distribution. +The sums granted by the state are in the hands of a board of +commissioners appointed by the governor (with the advice and consent of +the council); and so far these commissioners--librarians and +others--have been eminent citizens, serving without salaries, and having +only $500 in their hands annually for clerk hire and traveling expenses. +The commission is also required to give advice and information to +librarians and others concerning selection of books, cataloguing, and +administration; and to select and forward the books granted by the +state. + +Now for results. The commission has thus aided in establishing, in four +years, more than sixty free public libraries in small towns (out of one +hundred and four not thus supplied) and its action has shamed a few +larger towns into establishing them; so that now only two and three +fourths per cent of the population of the state, in forty-four small +towns, were in January, 1894, without their advantages. And this has +been accomplished with an entire expense to the commonwealth of less +than ten thousand dollars. _Per contra_, more than half a million +dollars were given by individuals in a single year for similar purposes +within the state. Certainly, this has been a most economical and +effective public outlay; free, too, from all suspicion of any one's +fattening by political jobbery. + +The record of New Hampshire is even more remarkable. This state passed a +law in 1891, similar to the one outlined above, and over eighty towns +accepted its provisions, and established free libraries within a +twelvemonth after it came in force. We are glad to read that the states +of Maine, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania are moving in the direction of a +measure that has proved so effective in its operation, and that must be +so widely beneficent. + +The state of New York has adopted another system to stimulate the +development of the free library. Her enabling act of many years ago +produced, as we have seen, comparatively small results; and in 1892 a +law was passed authorizing the Regents of the University of New York to +lend for a limited time--usually six months--selections of books from +the duplicate department of the state library, or from books purchased +for the purpose, to any public library in the state; or, where none +exists, to twenty-five petitioners in any town or village of the state. +A fee of five dollars is required, to cover cost of transportation, +catalogue, etc., for a loan of one hundred volumes, and a smaller sum +(three dollars) for a loan of fifty volumes. This plan, it will be seen, +is a revival of the old school district method; and of that instituted +by Samuel Brown in Scotland, and the later one found successful in +Australia. The antipodes have a fashion lately of suggesting valuable +object-lessons for social legislation. In small communities it has the +advantage of making books do manifold duty, and of meeting the wants of +varied communities and occupations. By judicious and varied selection, +clubs, classes, schools, and reading circles may be aided in special +courses and investigations. At the end of twenty months one hundred and +twenty-five of these free loan libraries had been sent out by the New +York Board of Regents; of which nearly one half (44) went to communities +without public libraries, the remainder going to libraries already +established (22), to university extension centers (18), and to academy +libraries open to the public (22). Eleven thousand nine hundred volumes +were thus made accessible to the public, with a total circulation of not +far from 25,000 volumes and 9,000 readers. This system, which seems even +more economical than the Massachusetts one, has greatly promoted +interest in good reading, and led to the establishment of several local +public libraries. The system is very elastic and is easily adapted to +the rapidly growing demands for its privileges. As a pioneer method, or +as auxiliary to municipal libraries, it promises excellent results. + +After this historical survey it would hardly seem necessary to dwell +upon the arguments in behalf of the free public library. "There is +probably no mode of expending public money," says Stanley Jevons, "which +gives a more extraordinary and immediate return in utility and innocent +enjoyment." He affirms that in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, and +some other great towns in England, as in similar communities in this +country, where such libraries have existed for years, there is but one +opinion about them. "They are classed with town-halls, police courts, +prisons, and poorhouses as necessary adjuncts of our stage of +civilization." A more natural, and certainly more cheerful, collocation +would class them with free schools, museums, and public parks, as Jevons +himself afterwards suggests. "The main _raison d'etre_ of free public +libraries, as indeed of public museums, art galleries, parks, halls, +public clocks, and many other kinds of public works, is the enormous +increase of utility which is thereby acquired for the community at a +trifling cost." He proceeds to illustrate by several instances what he +calls "the remarkable multiplication of utility" in the case of free +lending libraries by several instances. Every book, in the first year of +the Birmingham Free Library, was issued on an average seventeen times, +and the periodical literature turned over fifty times. In Leeds, every +book was used eighteen times. In larger libraries and in later use, of +course, the figures are less, averaging from three to ten times, the +whole cost of each issue averaging only from two to five cents. Similar +statistics may be found in the _Forum_ article already referred to in +regard to the manifold use of books furnished in New York. + +The comfort and moral economy of a cheerful, well-lighted reading-room, +too, is overwhelmingly illustrated. Mr. Jevons found that in Manchester +all persons of suitable age visited the free libraries on an average +thirteen times a year, of whom three fourths came to read in the +reading-rooms. Such a refuge from the perils of the saloon and the +street is an immense benefaction in any neighborhood. + +The relative cheapness of securing this means of general culture and +enjoyment, this efficient antidote to vice and ignorance, is strikingly +shown by comparing its cost with other items of governmental +expenditure, and the statistics of national luxuries and vices. The +eighty-six free libraries in the large cities of Great Britain cost not +more than half a million dollars per year--one fifth the cost of a first +class ironclad. The statistics I have given show that the cost of the +two war vessels just voted by Congress might be abundantly sufficient to +insure the organization on the Massachusetts plan of a free library in +every village and country town of the United States, not now accessible +to such a library. The expenditure for drink, for horse-racing, or even +for tobacco, for a single year, would royally equip and endow a public +library for every thousand people now without such privileges. As +post-office savings banks are, wherever established, a mighty engine for +teaching thrift, as public parks are an incalculable source of health +and enjoyment in our cities, so the public library, "the free literary +park," as Jevons calls it, is a most effective agency for the promotion +of culture and civilization. + +In the year 1851, George Ticknor, the distinguished author of the +"History of Spanish Literature" and a benefactor of the Boston Public +Library, wrote to Edward Everett: "I would establish a library which +differs from all free libraries yet attempted; I mean one in which any +popular books tending to moral and intellectual improvement shall be +furnished in such numbers that many persons can be reading the same book +at the same time; in short, that not only the best books of all sorts, +but the pleasant literature of the day, shall be made accessible to the +whole people when they most care for it--that is, when it is fresh and +new. I would thus by following the popular taste--unless it should +demand something injurious--create a real appetite for healthy reading. +This appetite once formed will take care of itself. It will in a great +majority of cases demand better and better books." + +Mr. Everett's conservatism doubted the wisdom of these principles for +the foundation of a library: but they are essentially those which have +proved sound in the free library system of England and New England, of +Australia and the Northwestern cities. In the light of fifty years' +experience, indeed, Everett's skepticism reads like Governor Berkeley's +report on education in Virginia, in which he thanked God that there were +no free schools in Virginia and hoped that there would be none for a +hundred years. The communities in which libraries, approaching George +Ticknor's ideal, have been longest established, would do without paved +streets or electric lights sooner than without these libraries, and they +support them by taxation as cheerfully as the public schools. Indeed, +the free library in not a few communities is reckoned an invaluable and +indispensable adjunct of the public school, the very crown of the system +of popular education. Such librarians as Green of Worcester, +Massachusetts, and Whitney of Watertown, and Hosmer of Minneapolis, keep +in touch with the work of the schools, and apprize the various classes +of pupils of new books especially valuable for their work. More than +this, they have regard to the needs of the various clubs, trades, and +professions, and keep their members aware of valuable books in their +special departments. But perhaps the most helpful service of all is +rendered by capable librarians in the constant advice given to +inexperienced readers, and the frequent bulletins sent out to stimulate +the interest and instruct the intelligence of the community. It is of +special interest to note that the demand for good reading has been +greatly increased wherever the public library has been administered in +this way. Indeed, booksellers and proprietary libraries have come to +favor the opening of the free library as largely increasing the demand +for their books. + +It is not strange that with this large and various capacity of social +service, the free library should be rapidly growing in public favor; nor +that private munificence should frequently come to the municipal +provision. There is no public object for which so generous gifts are +often made. In the year 1893, for instance, five hundred thousand +dollars were contributed to public libraries and the erection of library +buildings in Massachusetts alone. "There has been ready perception," +says Fletcher in his "Public Libraries in America," "of the truth that +one's memory cannot better be perpetuated than by association with an +institution so popular and at the same time so elevating and refining as +the public library. Memorial libraries are therefore very abundant, and +as expense has not been spared in the erection of such memorials, many +of our towns, even the smaller ones, are ornamented by library buildings +which are gems of architecture.... The fact remains, with all its +significance, that about the public library cluster naturally the +affections and the interest of the community. In its endowment, on the +one hand by private beneficence, and on the other by public taxation, is +illustrated that collaboration of the rich and the poor in the pursuit +of the highest ends which has in it the promise, and perhaps the +potency, of the solution of vexing social questions." + +The remembrance that these statements are only locally accepted, and +that large portions of England and the United States have hardly moved +toward the establishment of public libraries, may prompt a consideration +of certain objections which are still sometimes urged. Civilization +accepts its most benignant and effective agencies of progress only under +protest; and it is not, therefore, wholly inexplicable that fifty years +of unmixed and increasing success should have left some excellent and +otherwise intelligent people unconvinced of the beneficence of the free +public library. A friend of mine was enthusiastically setting forth the +advantages of such libraries, and their rapid multiplication and growing +service in New England, at the dinner table of one of the most +distinguished, philosophic, and progressive of contemporary Englishmen; +and was not a little surprised to be cut short with the decided comment, +"I do not believe in it." The Englishman's fastidious preference for +high fences and compartment railway carriages pervades all his +intellectual conceptions also; and makes him impervious even to Stanley +Jevons's overwhelming demonstration of the moral, social, and economic +utility of the free public library; impervious even to the appeal that +ignorance and narrow intellectual opportunity must be supposed to make +upon enlightened philanthropy. + +Mr. Herbert Spencer and the individualists oppose to the public +library, supported by taxation, their wellworn declamation about the +injustice of making one man pay for another man's culture and amusement; +and urge the dictum of _laissez faire_ in civilization and government. +But as the post-office and the public school have survived their +onslaughts we may not feel compelled to surrender the advantages of the +free library. For, as with the school, it is easy to show that mental +health and light are as primary interests of the community as material; +and that it is precisely because those most deficient are least sensible +of their defect that society must seek to remedy it. Mr. Spencer's +analogy between hunger for food and hunger for knowledge is utterly +fallacious. The physical appetite may be trusted to seek vigorously its +own supply; the intellectual appetite has most to be aroused where +intellectual starvation is most imminent; and it grows only by what it +feeds on. Men usually value most, indeed, what they work or pay for; but +it is precisely those who do not value good books at all who need to be +tempted and trained to their appreciation. And it is just the children +of those whose parents will not, or cannot, provide them wholesome +reading, that society cannot afford to let go wholly unprovided. + +The smallest fee here proves an effective bar, as the experience of all +subscription libraries proves. When the Springfield (Mass.) library was +made free, its circulation was trebled the first year--though the fee +had been only one dollar--and in a few years rose six or seven fold. +"The Mercantile Library of Peoria, Ill.," says Mr. Crunden, "turned over +to the city and made free, notes an increase in ten years, of members +from two hundred and seventy-five to four thousand five hundred, and of +issues from fifteen thousand to ninety thousand." So always. If the +dollar fee were removed from the circulation of the books of our +Meadville City Library, for instance, within five years they would go +into fifteen hundred families instead of less than three hundred, as +now; and the added twelve hundred families would be the very ones where +the books would be of highest service. And, perhaps, more beneficent +still would be the influence upon the vastly larger number who would +frequent the library, and grow intelligent through the multiplied use of +its reading facilities, and the help of its valuable reference +department. The reaction upon the general intelligence of the community +would make itself felt in the increasing intelligence of its working men +and the higher standard of life this would bring among them. In short, +it would insure economic progress. + +Besides the economic advantages, and much more important, the influence +of a well-furnished free library would tell in the training of citizens. +The discussion of economic and social questions, eager and often bitter +as it is, would become less crude and partisan in the knowledge of the +best books and magazine articles upon the topics involved. The reading +of history, biography, and travels would exert a broadening, +enlightening, and often inspiring influence. To make wholesome +literature more accessible than dime novels would save many boys and +girls from ruin, rouse many dormant intellects to higher life, and +supply effective rivals to the saloons and other low resorts. +Philanthropy and religion alike demand the wide opening of such an +"effectual door" to the opportunities of the higher life. + +It is sometimes objected that the records of all public libraries show +that the lightest literature is most read, that fiction constitutes one +half or three fourths of the books circulated. But besides the obvious +consideration that only wholesome fiction finds place in all +well-appointed public libraries, Horace Greeley's view has much to +commend it, viz.: that all pure reading, however light, tends to develop +a taste for more vigorous and instructive literature. Besides, it may +well be urged that fiction is not only the current form of literary art, +but also the effective vehicle of current social theories, +philanthropies, and reforms; and that much of the most earnest thinking +and serious moral purpose of this age is embodied in it. Under such +intelligent and careful selection as the public opinion of the community +may provide for, the public library will furnish a healthful substitute +and corrective for the unappointed and vagrant reading of that large +section of young people most in need of guidance. + +I have left myself but a moment to suggest one or two practical +questions that may need consideration in the establishment of a new +system of free public libraries in communities or a commonwealth. Next +to thorough discussion of their proved beneficence, an efficient +enabling act is certainly the first desideratum, in any state still +without it, so that towns and cities may tax themselves for this +purpose. And it is most important that this act be not so narrowly +limited that communities shall be unable to attempt anything worth +while. Better wait five years, or ten years, more for the statute that +will enable our communities to put themselves in line with the most +advanced in the country in this respect, than to enact a starveling and +ineffective statute that shall + + "Keep the word of promise in our ear, + And break it to our hope," + +as has already sometimes happened. The public appropriation is so +limited by penny-wise legislation in a number of states as to discourage +all action, and kill all interest in the matter. + +In the same way, it is to be hoped that these states will accompany +their enabling acts by auxiliary legislation similar to that in +Massachusetts and New Hampshire; or, perhaps still better, patterned +upon that of New York. It is difficult to decide upon the comparative +advantages of these two systems. That of Massachusetts seems to me +better for permanent results; but that of New York seems likely to be +more immediately effective in stirring the sluggish interest of +indifferent communities. Both are wonderfully economical in money, and +both have great effectiveness when worked by the intelligent interest of +even a few enthusiastic friends of the free library movement in any +community. It would seem that even a governor who thinks five million +people cannot afford $25,000 for the "Birds of Pennsylvania" might +consent to spend a fifth of that sum per year to begin a work that would +not end, if once well begun, without putting a new and most effective +agency of social culture and even economic progress within the reach of +every boy and girl in the state. + +The machinery through which to plan and begin this great and hopeful +experiment should be carefully considered. Massachusetts's unsalaried +commission of eminent citizens, New York's Board of University Regents, +alike insure that in those commonwealths the work will be carried on +under the most hopeful and efficient conditions. Some such unpartisan +and public-spirited agency is absolutely demanded for the success of the +movement in a state that has to begin it _de novo_; and the _personnel_ +of the agency is the most important point in any legislation initiating +it. + +There is also a difference of opinion as to whether school boards, or +boards specially constituted for the purpose, should have charge of +public libraries. My opinion is decidedly in favor of the latter; for +while school boards would bring the library, as is most desirable, into +closer relation with the public schools, an independent board, chosen, +perhaps, by the school board in connection with the city council, as +sometimes in Massachusetts, would be likely to bring more ability, +independence, and careful consideration to the affairs of the library, +and to separate it more completely from injurious partisan and personal +politics. + + + + +THE COMMUNITY'S SERVICE TO THE LIBRARY + + The Public Library, like the Public School, is the creature + of the community, which owes it provision for keeping it in + condition to render the service for which it was created. + This duty of course, includes adequate financial support but + does not end here. Among the most important adjuncts to such + support are the aid that can be given by enlightened public + opinion and by organized groups in the maintenance of + liberal and helpful policies, and the appointment of a + governing board equally conscious of its responsibilities + and its limitations. + + + + +THE RELATION OF THE STATE TO THE PUBLIC LIBRARY + + This statement of first principles was made by Melvil Dewey + at the Second International Library Conference, held in + London, July 13-16, 1897, and is reprinted from the + Transactions and Proceedings of the Conference (London, + 1898). In reading this address, it must be kept in mind that + it was made to Englishmen, whose conception of the functions + of a public library were then, as now, much more + conservative than ours. A sketch of Dr. Dewey will be found + in Vol. I. of this series. + + +We have been listening to an admirable account of the development of the +library movement from earliest times to the present day, and I venture +to believe that when the history of the age in which we live is written, +and is looked back upon by those who shall come after, it will be known +distinctively as the "Library Age." + +Libraries of one sort or another have existed from the beginning of +human history, and we are now well into the fifth century since the +invention of printing; so that it would seem as if there had been +abundant time for library development. But so great an institution as +the modern library is of slow growth. It has taken a thousand years to +develop our school system from university down to kindergarten. The +public library is much more rapidly going through corresponding stages +in order to come to its own. The original library was a reservoir, +getting in and keeping safely, a storehouse for posterity. That was and +is a great function, for which I have profound respect. Then, after many +centuries, came another library epoch, for which we all feel still +greater respect. The cistern was made a fountain; giving out was seen to +be more important than getting in. The library is no longer merely a +passive receptacle, but becomes an aggressive educational force in every +community. The reservoir will not become a stagnant pool, for, in its +branches and deliveries, the public library has mains and pipes laid +through every street, and reaching almost to the door of every +householder. And we live now not in the age of the reservoir, but in the +age of the fountain. In our zeal and admiration, however, we are apt to +forget that there is yet another and even more important stage to reach. +In my own city, some time ago, we spent half a million dollars in +providing an ample supply of water. But we found that we had really +opened convenient communication with the cemetery by water, for the +quality of the new and abundant beverage was such that our death-rate +steadily rose. The burning question became qualitative, not +quantitative, and we are now spending our money on efficient filtration. +Of course no library intends to circulate injurious books, but equally +no town intends to distribute harmful water. We are concerned more with +the results than with the intention. The mortality tables make plain the +physical defect, but alas! science has as yet devised no instruments +delicate enough to record the greater danger to the individual and the +State from poison in the great current, which has come to be a mighty +flood, of modern reading matter. The most hopeful, and perhaps the only +practicable, method of guarding against this serious danger is through +the public library, which must now in the last days of this eventful +century recognise the gravity of the new responsibility which it cannot +shirk. Before another audience I might dwell at length on what this +problem of selection means, but the representative librarians of the +world will understand my claim that, wonderful as was the development +from the cistern to the fountain, its importance is overshadowed by this +great question of excluding the pernicious, which I sum up in the word +filtration. This is the great problem of the modern library, and its +solution must depend largely on the State. + +It is often said that the modern periodicals and newspapers are our +greatest danger; but this, of course, is true only of the sensational +and other objectionable types. I yield to none in my high appreciation +of what the best kind of newspaper may do in its capacity as the +strongest ally of the public library and of the public school. I am +confident that early in the next century such journals will be +recognised as a distinct part of our educational machinery, but I am +equally clear that the worst journals, conducted merely as money-making +enterprises, and catering to the worst instead of to the best elements +of both society and individuals, are the most potent factors for evil, +and the greatest enemy which the ideal librarian has to combat in +carrying forward his best work. They leave their habitual readers with +neither time nor taste for anything above their own low plane. The mind +will inevitably rise or fall to the level of its habitual reading, and +we apostles and missionaries of the book have no more disheartening +outlook than on the readers whose literary atmosphere is limited to the +modern sensational newspapers. But the apologists for such reading say +that the history of their own times is of more importance to them than +any other history; should they not, therefore, become as familiar as +possible with it? But when a man, on account of "pressure of business," +never looks inside any good book, yet has time to read everything in the +newspapers, he is--well, specialising too much in "history." How many +men and women there are, who, from year's end to year's end, read +nothing but the so-called history of their own times, and who can tell +you nothing better than which dog won the last fight! It is a good thing +to know the history of our own times; so is a pinch of salt a good thing +on one's breakfast potato, but it is not necessary to drink a barrel of +sea water each morning in order to get it. + +It is highly desirable that I should know the geology and topography of +my own State, but I can learn all that is worth knowing without creeping +on hands and knees with nose close to the ground over the barnyards and +dump heaps of our commonwealth, under the vain delusion that I am +exhaustively studying its geology. We must join this battle squarely. +The eternal conflict of good and the best with bad and the worst is on. +The librarian must be the librarian militant before he can be the +librarian triumphant. At the end of another century, when a conference +like this is held, our descendants will look back with wonder to find +that we have so long been satisfied to leave the control of the +all-pervading, all-influencing newspaper in the hands of people who have +behind them no motive better than the "almighty dollar." The solution of +our difficulties lies in recognition by the State that public libraries +are not only good things, but that they are an absolutely necessary part +of our educational system. We started with the university, but found +that we had to put under it the college. Then we went a step further, +and had the academy and high school to prepare for the college; the +primary and grammar schools to prepare for the high school; and now we +have the kindergarten under the primary school. I am not giving a +chronology, but simply pointing out that during these centuries +educators have constantly been facing the question of adequate provision +for meeting completely the public wants. We have at last reached step by +step from the university to the nursery, and have provided a series of +schools covering the entire field. Yet, with all this, we have not +attained the full system of education that we ought to attain, and every +thoughtful person is now asking, "What next?" + +Huxley has well said that a system of education which in the early years +trains boys and girls to read and then makes no provision for what they +shall read during all the rest of their lives, would be as senseless as +to teach our children the expert use of the knife, fork, and spoon, and +then make no provision for their daily food. The whole history of +education has been a series of broadening conceptions. I can recall no +case in which the ideal has narrowed, but step by step we have come to a +general recognition that education is for poor as well as rich, for +plebeian as well as prince, for black and white, for native and +foreigner, for brilliant or backward, for women as well as men, for +deaf, dumb, and blind, and all defectives and delinquents, who in the +old conception were left without the pale. It is almost within our +memory that we have come to substantial agreement that the State owes an +elementary education to every boy and girl born within its limits, not +alone as a right to the child, but as a matter of safety and practical +wisdom on the part of the State; and this broader conception is followed +closely by a second and still broader one, that every boy and girl is +entitled not only to an elementary, but to something also of higher +education. I have met no competent student of this subject who dares +deny that hereafter the State must recognize that education is not alone +for the young, for limited courses, in schools which take all the time +of their pupils, but that it must regard adults as well; and not alone +for short courses, but all through life--not in our recognised teaching +institutions alone, but in that study outside of office or working hours +that may be carried on at home. I may sum it up in the one sentence, +"Higher education, for adults, at home, through life." + +In this home education, which must hereafter be recognised side by side +with school education, the library is the great central agent round +which study clubs, reading circles, extension teaching, museums, and the +other allied agencies must cluster. A statesman solicitous for the +future welfare of his country will find his most fruitful field in +protecting and guiding the reading of the people. It is what a man reads +that shapes his future, which depends, not at once upon the rostrum and +the pulpit, but on the book and the newspaper. In education we recognise +that the supreme end is the building of character, but many of us have +never thought clearly how directly this character-building rests upon +the public library. It is reading that begets reflection, reflection +begets motive, motive begets action, and action begets habit, and habit +begets character; and who here dares question this, that it is not the +air nor the water, nor yet the "roast beef of Old England," not its +history nor traditions nor laws nor geographic location, but +_character_, that has made the Anglo-Saxons, England and her daughters +across the seas, the most wonderful people of the earth. It is not +brawn, but brain. The dogs and horses might have the physical qualities, +but it is the mind and soul, and those elements of true greatness which +can best be instilled into a people through the reading of good and +great books, that have made a race of which we are justly all so proud. +One of the wisest of Frenchmen said of the Franco-Prussian War, when the +needle-gun was suggested as the explanation of German victory, "No; it +was not the needle-gun, nor the German soldier who held it, nor yet the +German schoolmaster who trained the soldier, but it was the German +university that made the schoolmaster." + +"Knowledge is power," and it is knowledge that has made England and +America great. Think of the men who read the poorest newspapers, but +know nothing of our best books. Can the State afford to make other +things free, and not make free true and useful knowledge as preserved in +books? Can the State recognize the necessity for free schools, and fail +to provide free access to the best reading in all realms of knowledge? + +"Free as air," was the old-time strongest expression. Then men learned +how absolutely essential to physical well-being was abundance of water, +and our language records in its favourite expression, "free as water," +the meaning of the untold millions that civilization has spent to supply +all people freely with this essential. We are learning the greater +lesson about the necessity of free knowledge more slowly, because +intellectual and spiritual things are not so readily discerned by our +mortal eyes, and it takes more time to read even those messages that God +has written very large for those who have eyes to see; but the time is +not far distant, mark my words, when our speech will again record the +general acceptance of a great truth in the common phrase, as "free as +knowledge." We should make the public understand the relation of the +school system to the library system; that the library is not merely a +collection of books, or a storehouse, but an aggressive and active +source of education, side by side with the free schools. If the issue +came--but, thank God, it never will--between giving up either the +library or the free school, I am not sure that I would not choose for +the welfare of the country the public library rather than the school. +This may sound strange from one who has given his life to education, but +I believe that even without our schools nearly every boy and girl would +somehow learn to read; and when I soberly consider the influence on +lives and characters and on the State, it seems probable that, +infinitely valuable as is the work of our free schools, it would be +exceeded by what could be done by a system of free public libraries, +reaching every boy and girl and man and woman in the community, and so +administered as to provide each freely from childhood to the grave with +the best reading in every field of interest and activity. + +The State, whatever it may or may not do, should recognise the library +as being as essential to public welfare as is the school, and it should +give it as careful protection from dangers without and within as it +gives to institutions like banks and insurance companies. The State +should protect the library against unjust laws, improper interference, +or pernicious influence of any kind from without. It should guard it +also against misconduct, incapacity, or neglect on the part of its +trustees, officers, or employees. Beside the direct appropriations for +its support, it should grant the most liberal powers for holding +property given by individuals for the public benefit, and, above all, +should grant entire exemption from taxation. To tax a free public +library for doing its beneficent work is theorising gone mad. It is as +absurd as for a missionary to refuse admission to his preaching, or for +the manager of a theatre in which a fire has just started to shut out +every fireman till he had presented the conventional coupon for a +reserved seat. The example first set by my own State (New York) in the +statute which I had the honour of drawing ought to be followed +universally. We created a public libraries department, to devote its +entire attention to advancing the best interests of public libraries. It +would take the entire morning to sketch to you the various forms of +beneficent work which we have found practicable. We help to establish +new libraries, reorganise old ones, revise methods, select books, lend +single books or entire libraries, grant books or money up to $200 yearly +to any library raising an equal sum from local sources, and, by means of +correspondence, personal inspection, and steady work in a dozen +directions, help every community to get the greatest practical good from +the labour and money given to its free library. We have now about five +hundred travelling libraries moving about in all parts of the State. The +public library is rapidly becoming universal. For the Government not to +recognise it in its own organisation is as absurd as it would be to have +a standing army and no war department, or schools dotted all about the +state and no department of education. Time forbids more than the mere +naming of what is needed, but the first great step in summing up the +relation of the State to public libraries is the establishment of a +public libraries department, in charge of a strong man who appreciates +the almost limitless opportunities for usefulness which this new field +affords. + +Our discussions this morning took such a turn that you could almost +hear behind them, like the recurring motive of one of Wagner's operas, +the question, "Who shall be greatest among librarians?" In our State +Library School I give each year a course of five lectures on the +qualifications of a librarian, and point out under a half-hundred +different heads the things we should demand in an ideal librarian; but +when we have covered the whole field of scholarship and technical +knowledge and training, we must confess that overshadowing all are the +qualities of the man. To my thinking, a great librarian must have a +clear head, a strong hand, and, above all, a great heart. He must have a +head as clear as the master in diplomacy; a hand as strong as he who +quells the raging mob, or leads great armies on to victory; and a heart +as great as he who, to save others, will, if need be, lay down his life. +Such shall be greatest among librarians; and, when I look into the +future, I am inclined to think that most of the men who will achieve +this greatness will be women. + +It is well to hold up high ideals, but it would be a sad mistake to +underrate the services of the noble men and women who in some, perhaps +many, respects fall far short of the standards we lay down, and yet who +have done, and are doing well, much of the world's best work. Let us +dwell on what has been well done, not on what has been omitted or on +what might have been done by other men in other circumstances. + +I remember, some twenty-five years ago, reading in George Eliot's +_Romola_ these words, which we should remember when thinking of any +great librarian who of necessity fails in some respects to meet all our +ideals: "It was the fashion of old, when an ox was led out for sacrifice +to Jupiter, to chalk the dark spots and give the offering a false show +of unblemished whiteness. Let us fling away the chalk, and boldly say +the victim was spotted; but it was not therefore in vain that his mighty +heart was laid on the altar of men's highest hopes." + + + + +METHODS OF SECURING THE INTEREST OF A COMMUNITY + + This paper by Wm. E. Foster, Librarian of the Providence + Library, appears in the double number of _The Library + Journal_ for September-October, 1880. Written forty years + ago it is more advanced from the standpoint of + socialization, especially as regards group-action, than some + pronouncements that one might hear to-day. A sketch of Mr. + Foster appears in Vol. I. of this series. + + +This mainly resolves itself into a consideration of direct and indirect +methods. The one attempts only to supply the public with what it wants; +the other, striving after the truest improvement of the readers, in time +secures, with the growth of intelligent appreciation, an interest even +more active, and vastly more permanent, than the other. No library may +safely disregard either class of methods, and their proper adjustment is +a point which may very profitably engage much of the librarian's +attention. + +It is true that the first of these is not likely to escape his +attention. "What the public wants" is a consideration which will meet +him frequently, from one end of the year to the other. No one needs to +be told, for instance, that the public wants to be amused. Doubtless the +class of books described as "humorous" would constitute, to a large body +of readers in any one of our cities, the true ideal of a collection of +books. The taste for imaginative literature begins early and lasts long, +with a large number of readers. "Something new" is a phrase whose +attractiveness is not far from universal. Still further, if it is a +question between a "true account," which deals with stirring adventures, +and another "true account," whose pages are devoted to an impassive +statement of scientific facts, there is not much question which will +find the most readers among the general public. "What the public wants," +then, as regards the choice of books, while it certainly does not +indicate a high degree of enlightenment, has perhaps the merit of being +true to nature. + +There are certain points of administration, also, in which the interest +of the public is concerned. It is in favor of having the library as near +its place of residence as possible; and here, unfortunately, "the +public" is a plural personage which cannot all be suited at once. It is +in favor of that method of obtaining the privileges of the library which +requires the least trouble and inconvenience on its part, and seldom +sees the need of a careful verification of the applicant's identity. It +is in favor of the fewest restrictions on access to the books, and on +the time for keeping them. It is in favor, decidedly, of that "charging +system" which will deliver the book soonest. It is in favor of finding +the library open on all days and at all hours, sometimes even not +regarding the specified hours announced as worthy of consideration. In +short, while it is by no means difficult to persuade the public of the +reasonableness of a particular restriction, yet its first thought is +undeniably largely influenced by selfish considerations. + +Nor is the larger part of the public any more fond of bestowing deep and +painstaking thought upon the books which it reads, and of carrying the +mind systematically through a complicated mental process. It is not +improbable that some readers would be glad of some method of using books +which should save them the trouble of any mental process. And, while +these readers are so much averse to any troublesome efforts toward +improvement on their own part, it would be scarcely reasonable to look +for any very intelligent supervision by them of the reading of their +children, or of the pupils in the schools. Here, again, what the public +wants is "the royal road"--some "short and easy method." + +That library, then, which would awaken and develop a lively interest +among its readers in the miscellaneous public, cannot certainly complain +of a lack of methods by which to secure such interest. It may include in +its selection of books a suitable percentage of fiction, and humorous +works. It may infuse "new blood" into the library by frequent and +regular purchase of the latest publications. It may add largely to the +department of voyages and travels, of books copiously illustrated,--of +popular literature, in short. It may place its main building in the +center of population, and establish branches for the accommodation of +outlying localities. It may recognize the desirableness of "the least +red tape" in registering readers, of open book-shelves, of expeditious +serving of readers, and long periods of time for the use of the library +and the retention of books. It may furnish its readers with explanations +and directions for obtaining and using the books which shall require the +least difficulty in understanding and applying them. It may, and it +should, recognize the value of all these principles, and the library +which fails to act on them does so at its peril. Yet these points do not +comprise all that demand attention; and the effectiveness of even these +is due to the limits which are set to them. A certain amount of fiction +is well enough, but to enlarge this department at the expense of all +others would clearly defeat the library's purpose. Diminution of +restrictions in the use of books is certainly agreeable to the public, +but the removal of all restrictions would result in such a loss of books +as would soon work its own cure. + +The question, "What does the public want?" is not the only, nor, in +fact, the chief question to be borne in mind in the conduct of a +library. One has only to keep his eyes open to see how suggestive as to +methods is this other question: "Of what service may the library be?" +And it is safe to say that one who has not given the subject attention +will be surprised to find at how many points a collection of books, and +the thought there contained, touch human life. Here is a machine-shop +with its hundred or more workmen, many of whom are anxious to study some +mechanical work. The library has such works, and is glad to supply them. +Here again is a society of natural history, whose members are +systematically studying some department of natural science. To them, +also, the library willingly offers its resources in that department. +With no less willingness it offers its cooperation to those who are +following a course of public lectures on some topic of political science +or of art, to a college class studying topically some epoch of history +or period of literature; or to a public-school teacher, with a class in +geography; or a parent desiring some suitable reading for a child. Or, +with no specified class of persons in view, it seeks to make its +collection generally available, by regular references to its resources +on matters of current and universal interest. + +Much more effective, however, than the best of such attempts at reaching +classes of readers will be the aid rendered to individual readers. Not +general and indefinite, but specific and direct assistance, is here +given, and, although at first this kind of work might seem to be +impracticable in a large library, yet one who tries it will be +interested to see how far such individual methods may be introduced. The +librarian almost mechanically learns "to pigeon-hole" in his mind the +peculiar tastes and lines of reading of single readers, and, when the +occasion presents itself, can bring to their notice books and articles +which they are glad to obtain. More than one librarian makes it a +regular practice, in adding new books to the library or in collecting +material bearing upon some one topic, to drop a postal to this and that +reader who, he knows, will be glad of just this information. The more +the conducting of a library can be made an individual matter, bringing +particular books to the notice of particular readers, the more effective +it becomes. + +It remains to consider what may be called the "general effect" of such +individual efforts, continued from one year to another. They will +certainly result in giving the public a large amount of assistance. +Being exerted in connection with the whole community, they cannot fail +to leave an influence, like the school, the church, or the +newspaper,--an influence moreover, which, if wisely directed, and +intelligently shaped, will make the public library idea appreciably felt +in the civilization of the country. + +Nor can it fail to have a reflex influence in securing the interest of +the public. If methods of the former class were able, by their direct +agency, to accomplish practical results, even more significant and more +permanent are those reached indirectly by this method. No class of +people will be so truly attached to the institution, by active interest, +as those who feel that they have been personally aided and improved +through its agency. The former methods are directly adapted to secure +popularity, the latter to win gratitude; and if it should ever become +necessary to choose one of these, at the expense of the other, there can +be little room for hesitation. The growth of public sentiment in +communities like Boston and Worcester, where public libraries have been +administered on these principles, and with these ends in view, for a +series of years, is very instructive. Public sentiment, like confidence, +is "a plant of slow growth"; but experience shows that when the +conviction has once thoroughly penetrated a community that an +institution like this is sincerely aiming to serve the public, a hold on +its sympathy and interest has been acquired not easily to be shaken. It +should be the aim of each librarian to make the usefulness of his +institution so manifest that the public will as soon think of dispensing +with the post-office as with the library. + + + + +FINANCIAL SUPPORT + + The justification for taxing the members of a community to + support a Public Library, although rarely questioned to-day + was argued with heat in former times. Earlier, there was the + same difference of opinion with regard to the public + schools. In order to obtain the argument in opposition, in + its best form, we have had to draw from a British source, + which we consider it proper to quote here because it + elicited a reply from an American librarian which will + immediately follow: + + + + +FREE LIBRARIES + +(AN ARGUMENT AGAINST PUBLIC SUPPORT) + + This paper, by M.D. O'Brien, forms Chapter IX of the + compilation of essays entitled "A Plea for Liberty" edited + by Thomas Mackay (3rd ed. London, 1894). The sub-title of + the book, "an argument against socialism and socialistic + legislation," gives its viewpoint. There is a formidable + introduction by Herbert Spencer in which he condemns even + the extremely limited state support given at that time to + general education in England as a "tyrannical system tamely + submitted to by people who fancy themselves free." Mr. + Spencer ends by asserting that the end, if this sort of + thing is to go on, "must be a society like that of ancient + Peru, dreadful to contemplate, in which the mass of the + people, elaborately regimented in groups, ... were + superintended in their private lives as well as in their + industries and toiled hopelessly for the support of the + governmental organization." + + +A Free Library may be defined as the socialists' continuation school. +While State education is manufacturing readers for books, +State-supported libraries are providing books for readers. The two +functions are logically related. If you may take your education out of +your neighbour's earnings, surely you may get your literature in the +same manner. Literary dependency has the same justification as +educational dependency; and, no doubt, habituation to the one helps to +develop a strong desire for the other. A portion of our population has +by legislation acquired the right to supply itself with necessaries and +luxuries at the cost of the rates. The art of earning such things for +themselves has been rendered superfluous. Progress therefore halts +because this all-important instinct has fallen into disuse. At a point +the rates will bear no more, and those who depend on them for their +pleasures are doomed to disappointment. The identity of principle +exemplified alike by compulsory education and compulsory libraries, +logically involves the justification or condemnation of both; and, let +us disguise the unpleasant truth in as many sounding phrases as we +please, the fact remains that the carrying out of this socialistic +principle means pauperism pure and simple. Have we forgotten the evils +that resulted from the application of this principle under the old poor +law? or do we imagine that when an evil changes its outward appearance +it changes its inner essence also? The harm done to the national +character by a policy of this nature varies in intensity in proportion +to the necessity of the want supplied. If the thing supplied at public +cost is really necessary and eagerly accepted by the people, it becomes +more readily a potent cause of dependency, and a heavy and at length an +insupportable charge on the ratepayers. This was the experience of the +old poor law. The cost of national education is fast approaching to the +same state of things, and the problem will one day have to be faced: +'How is the burden of the cost of education to be returned to the +shoulders of those who are responsible for it?' In this paper we are +concerned with a smaller question. A very inconsiderable section of the +people really want the Free Library; the question at the polls is +generally treated with apathy, and only a very small proportion of the +ratepayers record their votes one way or the other. As a matter of fact +the Free Library is forced upon the public by a number of doctrinaire +believers in the superhuman value of a mere literary education. It is +not a popular want. The vast majority of people have still a greater +faith in the training which results from practical contact with the real +facts of life, and still only regard book-learning as a useful +supplement, easily obtainable by those who really desire it and are +likely to profit by it. + +The history of the Education Acts is very analogous. The literary +classes became alarmed at the ignorance of the poor, and instead of +allowing the efforts of philanthropists, aided by the growing +appreciation of education amongst the labouring class--already giving +great promise of providing a true and voluntary remedy for the supposed +evil--to work out a system of education on natural and healthy lines of +spontaneous evolution, a course which would have added dignity and +stability to the domestic life of the parents and given a real and +technical system of education to the children--instead of this, the +hasty politician rushed forward crying. 'The people do not want +education, so we must compel them.' The compulsory and demoralizing +character of the means reacts on the otherwise advantageous nature of +the end, and the result is a mind-destroying system of cram for the +children; summons, fines, and police for the parents. This is how the +politician makes education a lovely and desirable thing. It is almost +impossible to over-estimate the evils resulting from the State not +allowing teachers and parents to adjust the educational arrangements so +as to meet the felt requirements of the case. This communal despotism +strikes at the very foundation of personal virtue, viz. the home, the +instrument by which nature lifts human character above the non-moral +sensuousness of the animal world. Let us never forget that the human +mind is made up of lower and higher elements, and that the removal of +personal duties--the practice-ground of the virtues--favours the +development of the lower factors of character at the expense of the +higher, of weeds at the expense of flowers. + +What else can possibly result from the carrying out of a principle which +means the public feeding, clothing, and lodging of children under +official superintendence and control? Will it be contended that State +officers can know better than parents what is really needed for +children? Yet this is what our Free Educationalists are leading us to. +The system which robs the parent of one of the noblest motives to +effort--the desire to give a good education to his children--which +weakens the sense of duty and takes away a wholesome stimulus to the +mental and moral faculties, is only the beginning of an evil that +menaces civilization and threatens to swallow up all natural +distinctions and relationships in a low and promiscuous communism. This +bribe of parental irresponsibility--this patent method of shirking +duties--which the politician offers us in exchange for our manhood, is a +scheme for encouraging the race to cast itself forth into the moral +darkness of a world where the parents are all childless and the children +all orphans. + +The Free Library, however, has not yet reached the same degree of +compulsion as the Free School. A majority of the local public must vote +for it before it can be established; or rather, we should say, there +must be a majority favourable to it amongst _those who do take the +trouble to record their votes_: usually only a very small proportion of +the electorate think it worth while to cross the street in order to pay +a visit to the poll. When the Library is established, its real +popularity is to be measured by the fact that its books are borrowed by +only about one per cent. of the population. We make bold to say that if +it ever becomes popular, it will be an extremely mischievous +institution. As yet it is merely a plaything for a number of +well-meaning busybodies, and an occasional convenience to a few +middle-class readers. The limited amount generally spent upon it +prevents it from doing anything more than minister to the sensational +indulgences of a very limited section of the reading public. If the +working classes of the country ever really become students, it will be +impossible to supply them with adequate store of books from the rates: +if this is attempted, it can only be at a time when books will be but a +small item in the expenditure which a dominant State Socialism seeks to +lay on the public purse. On the one hand will stand a class whose only +plan for satisfying their wants is the imposition of a new tax, and on +the other a harried remnant of ratepayers, both soon to be overwhelmed +by the near approach of national bankruptcy. + +Want is the spring of human effort. Self-discipline, self-control, +self-reliance, are the habits which grow in men who are allowed to act +for themselves. The meddlesome forestalling of individual effort, which +is being carried into mischievous excess, is going far to bind our +poorer classes for another century of dependence. + +Let us run, as rapidly as possible, through a few of the pleas set up +by the advocates of this form of municipal socialism. Good books, it is +said, are out of the reach of the working man. Whether this is true as +regards books we shall see, but obviously it would be easy to make out a +much stronger case for many other forms of amusement which are far more +popular with the million than books; yet no one seriously proposes that +the amusements of the poorer classes can _all_ be supported by the +rates. But a glance down the lists of some of our publishers will show +any one that the statement is not true--is the very reverse of truth. +When books like 'Pilgrim's Progress,' 'The Vicar of Wakefield,' +'Rasselas,' 'Paul and Virginia,' Byron's 'Childe Harold,' 'Lady of the +Lake,' 'Marmion,' and others, can be purchased from Messrs. Dicks at +twopence each; when all Scott's novels can be obtained from the same +publishers for threepence per story; when, from the same source, any of +Shakespere's plays can be got for a penny each, it will not do to say +that the best kind of literature is unpurchasable by a class that spends +millions a year on alcohol, as well as thousands on tobacco and other +luxuries. Three or four pence, which even comparatively poor people +think nothing now-a-days of spending on an ounce of tobacco or a pipe, +will buy enough of the best literature to last an ordinary reader at +least a week or a fortnight. And when the book is read, there is the +pleasure to be derived from lending or giving it to a friend, and of +accepting the loan or gift of his in return; a custom that largely +obtains in country districts where no socialistic collection of unjustly +gotten books exists to hinder the development of personal thrift or +poison the springs of spontaneous generosity. Lying on the table where +this is written is a list of the works published in Cassell's National +Library. How some of the old book-lovers who are gone--who lived in the +days when the purchase of a good book involved some personal +sacrifice--would have appreciated this valuable library! Here are 208 of +the world's best books, each one of which contains some 200 pages of +clear readable type. The published price is threepence each; but a +discount of twenty-five per cent. is allowed when four or five or more +are purchased. It would be a waste of space to give the entire list; but +a few typical examples may be taken. Here are the Essays of Lord +Macaulay; here are works by Plutarch, Herodotus, Plato, Xenophon, +Lucian, Fenelon, Voltaire, Boccaccio, Gothe, and Lessing--in English, of +course. Here is Walton's 'Complete Angler,' Goldsmith's 'Plays,' Bacon's +'Wisdom of the Ancients' and 'Essays.' Here are works by Burke, Swift, +Steele and Addison, Milton, Johnson, Pope, Sydney Smith, Coleridge, +Dickens, Landor, Fielding, Keats, Shelley, Defoe, Dryden, Carlyle, +Locke, Bolingbroke, Shakespere, and many others. All Shakespere's plays +are here complete, and each play is accompanied by the poem, story, or +previous play on which it is founded. Here, for example, is the last of +the series as yet published, 'All's Well that Ends Well'; it contains a +translation of the story of Giletta of Narbona from Painter's 'Palace of +Pleasure'; it is worth threepence to a student, if only for showing the +difference between raw material and finished product. Hundreds of new +novels, including some of those of Thackeray, Kingsley, Dickens, Lytton, +and other well-known authors, are to be obtained in most places for +4-1/2_d._, and their secondhand price is less still. Considering the +marvellous cheapness of good books, it is difficult to understand how +any one can either blackmail his neighbour for them, or encourage +working-men to do so. If a man will not deduct a few coppers now and +then from his outlay in other luxuries to purchase literature, he cannot +want literature very badly; if he does not value books sufficiently well +to buy them with his own earnings he does not deserve to have them +bought for him with other people's earnings. That poor women and others, +who are often the sole support of a large family of children, should +have their hard earnings confiscated to maintain readers--many of them +well-to-do--in gratuitous literature, is an injustice not to be +palliated by all the hollow cant about culture and education so freely +indulged in at the present time. Some time ago there was a discussion on +'the sacrifice of education to examination.' There is another question +quite as serious--the sacrifice of justice to so-called education. + +Let us next consider the educational value of this institution. + +It is hardly necessary for us to say that we have no objection, either +for ourselves or for our neighbours, to novel-reading. On the contrary, +we regard it as a legitimate form of recreation. All we argue is that it +is not a luxury which should be paid for out of the rates. Now, to +listen to the advocates of Free Libraries one would imagine that these +institutions were only frequented by students, and that the books +borrowed were for the most part of a profound and scholarly character. +But the very reverse of this is the case. The committee of the Blackpool +Free Library, in their Report for the year 1887-8, say:--'Works of +fiction and light literature enjoy the greatest degree of popularity, +each book circulating eleven times in the year, while _the more +instructive books in the other classes circulate only once during the +same period_.' According to this Report, out of a total average daily +issue of 150 volumes, 137 are works of fiction and light literature. The +average issue of history, which is the next largest item, is only 9 per +diem. + +No wonder is it, after such results as this, that the Committee should +express the opinion 'that the rich stores of biography, history, +travels, and works of science and art which have been added in recent +years are deserving of greater attention than has hitherto been given to +them.' + +Although the nominal and frequently exceeded limit is now one penny in +the pound, there is no knowing how soon it may be raised. Already one of +the members of the Library Association of the United Kingdom, a body +composed to a considerable extent of librarians whose bureaucratic +instincts naturally impel them to push their business by all possible +means, has awarded a prize of ten guineas for a draft Library Bill, +which, among other things, permits a twopenny instead of a penny rate. +'But,' says the _Daily News_ of Oct. 4th, 1889, 'the feeling appeared to +be unanimous that it would be _unwise_ to put this forward as a part of +the Association's programme, as it would enormously increase the +opposition to the adoption of the Act in new localities.' No regard for +the ratepayers' pockets holds them back; but only a fear of injuring +business by frightening the bird whose feathers are to be plucked. Were +it not for this the Bill would be pushed forward, and those ratepayers +who have voted for the adoption of the Act in the belief that no more +than one penny can be levied, would have the rate suddenly doubled over +their heads without knowing it. Perhaps, after all, it would serve them +right. + +The intervention of this Association in the conduct of the agitation for +Free Libraries is instructive, and points to the fact that if we admit +the principle that the wants of the poorer classes generally are to be +supplied from the rates, it is not the poorer classes themselves who are +allowed to say what form the gift shall take. On the contrary the law is +manipulated by a number of amiable enthusiasts who succeed in foisting +their own fad on the public charges. If the working classes were allowed +to choose the application of _1d._ or _2d._ in the pound it would not go +to Free Libraries. + +The enormous amount of light reading indulged in by the frequenters of +Free Libraries leads us to expect that these places are largely used by +well-to-do and other idlers. And this is exactly what we find. Free +Libraries are perfect 'god-sends' to the town loafer, who finds himself +housed and amused at the public expense, and may lounge away his time +among the intellectual luxuries which his neighbours are taxed to +provide for him. Says Mr. Mullins, the Birmingham librarian, 'No +delicacy seemed to deter the poor tramp from using, not only the +news-room, but the best seats in the reference library _for a snooze_. +Already the Committee had to complain of the use of the room for +_betting_, and for the transaction of various businesses, and the +exhibition of samples, writing out of orders, and other pursuits more +suited to the commercial room of an hotel.' And referring to another +Free Library, the same authority continues:--'In the Picton Room of the +Liverpool Library, alcoves were once provided with small tables, on +which were pens, ink, &c., but it was found that pupils were received in +them by tutors, and much private letter-writing was done therein; so +that when a respectable thief took away L20 worth of books they were +closed. + +After the nonsense usually indulged in by the officials of literary +pauperism such candour as this is positively refreshing. It is seldom +the high priest allows us to look behind the curtain in this fashion. As +a rule, the admission is much less direct, and can only be gathered from +a careful analysis of the statistics. According to the Bristol Report +for last year, there were 416,418 borrowers during the twelve months +preceding December 31, 1889: of these 148,992 are described as having +'no occupation.' The Report of the Atkinson Free Library of Southport +informs us that out of the 1283 new borrowers who joined the library +last year, 536 are written down as of 'no occupation.' At the same town, +in the years 1887-8, there were 641 who, according to the report, were +without any occupation, out of a total of 1481. According to the annual +Report of the Leamington Free Public Library for 1888-9, 187 made a +return 'no occupation,' out of a total of 282 applicants. In the +Yarmouth Report for the same year, out of a total of 3085 new borrowers, +1044 are described as of 'no occupation'; the report for the previous +year states the proportion as follows:--Total of borrowers, 2813; 'no +occupation,' 1078; in the year before that the total was--3401; 'no +occupation,' 1368. + +Some reports give a fuller analysis of the different classes of people +who use the libraries to which they refer. In the Wigan Report for last +year we are told that 13,336 people made use of the reference library in +that town during 1888-9. The largest items of this amount are given as +follows:--Solicitors, 1214; clergy, 903; clerks and book-keepers, 1521; +colliers, 961; schoolmasters and teachers, 801; architects and +surveyors, 418; engineers, 490; enginemen, 438. At Newcastle-on-Tyne, +last year, there were 11,620 persons used the reference library, and +only 3949 of these were of 'no occupation.' Yet, notwithstanding the +numerical weakness of the latter, they managed to consult nearly half +the books that were consulted during that year. The total number +consulted was 36,100; and 16,800 were used by people who had 'no +occupation.' And this is legislation for the Working Classes! + +There is little doubt that at least forty-nine out of every fifty +working-men have no interest whatever in these institutions. For one +penny they can buy their favourite newspaper, which can be carried in +the pocket and read at any time; whereas if they wanted to see a paper +at a Free Library they would generally have to wait half an hour or an +hour in a stuffy room, without being allowed to speak during the time. +The following sensible remarks are from the pen of one who has risen to +an honourable position from a very humble beginning without the aid of +either Free Libraries or Free Schools:-- + + Not long ago a conference of working men was held at Salford + to consider the question of rational amusement, when, in + reply to a series of questions, it was stated that Free + Libraries were not the places for poor, hard-working men, + who had social wants which such libraries could not gratify. + It was argued that people who went to work from six in the + morning till six at night did not want to travel a mile or + so to a Free Library. Music, gymnastics, smoking and + conversation rooms, and other things were suggested, but in + summing up the majority of replies, it appeared that + amusement rather than intellectual improvement, or even + reading, was what was most wanted by men after a hard day's + toil. This appears to have been realised in the erection, + according to Mr. Besant's conception, of the Palace of + Delight in the east end of London. + +The truth is that a Free Library favours one special section of the +community--the book-readers--at the expense of all the rest. The +injustice of such an institution is conspicuously apparent when it is +remembered that temperaments and tastes are as various as faces. If one +man may have his hobby paid for by his neighbours, why not all? Are +theatre-goers, lovers of cricket, bicyclists, amateurs of music, and +others to have their earnings confiscated, and their capacities for +indulging in their own special hobbies curtailed, merely to satisfy +gluttons of gratuitous novel-reading? A love of books is a great source +of pleasure to many, but it is a crazy fancy to suppose that it should +be so to all. If logic had anything to do with the matter we might +expect to hear proposals for compelling the attendance of working men at +the Free Library. But surely in this nineteenth century men might be +trusted to choose their own amusements, and might mutually refrain from +charging the cost thereof to their neighbours' account. This pandering +to selfishness is bad for all parties, and doubly so to the class it is +specially intended to benefit. + +The following imaginary dialogue will perhaps serve to show the inherent +injustice of literary socialism. + +_A_ and _B_ earn _1s._ each by carrying luggage. Says _A_ to _B_: 'I am +in favour of circulating books by means of a subscription library; from +this _1s._ I therefore propose to deduct _1d._ in order to compass my +desire. There is my friend _C_, who is of the same opinion as myself, +and he is willing to subscribe his quota to the scheme. We hope you will +be willing to subscribe your mite, but if not, we intend to force you to +do so, for, as you know, all private interests must give way to the +public good.' + +'Perhaps so,' replies _B_,'but then, you see, I have my own opinions on +the subject, and I do not believe that your method of supplying +literature is the best method. Of course I may be wrong, but then I am +logically entitled to the same freedom of thought and action as you +yourself are. If you are entitled to have your views about a "Free" +Library and to act upon them, I am equally entitled to the same liberty, +so long as I don't interfere with you. I don't compel you to pay for my +church, my theatre, or my club; why should you compel me to pay for your +library? For my own part I don't want other people to keep me in +literature, and I don't want to keep other people. I refuse therefore to +pay the subscription.' + +'Very well,' rejoins _A_, 'if that is the case I shall proceed to make +you pay; and as I happen to represent a numerical majority the task will +be an easy one.' + +'But are we not man and man,' says _B_,'and have not I the same right to +spend my earnings in my own way as you have to spend yours in your way? +Why should I be compelled to spend as you spend? Don't you see that you +are claiming more for yourself than you are allowing to me, and are +supplementing your own liberty by robbing me of mine? Is this the way +you promote the public good? Is this your boasted free library? I tell +you it is founded upon theft and upon the violation of the most sacred +thing in this world--the liberty of your fellow man. It is the +embodiment of a gross injustice, and only realises the selfish purpose +of a cowardly and dishonest majority.' + +'We have heard all this before,' replies _A_, 'but such considerations +must all give way before the public good. We are stronger than you are, +and we have decided once and for all that you shall pay for a "Free" +Library; don't make unnecessary resistance, or we shall have to proceed +to extremities.' + +And, after all, the so-called Free Library is not really free--only so +in name. If the penny or twopenny rate gave even the shabbiest +accommodation to anything like a fair proportion of its compulsory +subscribers, there would not be standing room, and the ordinary +subscription libraries would disappear. According to Mr. Thos. +Greenwood, who in his book on 'Free Libraries' has given a table of the +daily average number of visitors at the different Free Libraries +distributed up and down the country, there is only one per cent., on an +average, of visitors per day of the population of the town to which the +library belongs accommodated for a rate of one penny in the +pound,--sometimes more, sometimes less;--but the general proportion is +about one per cent. Now what do these facts mean? If it costs one penny +in the pound to acommodate so few, what would it cost for a fair +proportion to receive anything like a share that would be worth having? +Even now it is a frequent occurrence for a reader to wait for months +before he can get the novel he wants. Says Mr. George Easter, the +Norwich librarian:--'Novels most read are those by Ainsworth, +_Ballantyne_, _Besant_, _Braddon_, _Collins_, _Craik_, Dickens, Fenn, +Grant, _Haggard_, _Henty_, _C. Kingsley_, _Kingston_, _Edna Lyall_, +Macdonald, Marryat, Oliphant, Payn, Reade, Reid, Verne, Warner, _Wood_, +_Worboise_, and _Young_; of those underlined (in italics) the works are +nearly always out.' The fact is, the Free Library means that the many +shall work and pay and the few lounge and enjoy; theoretically it is +free to all, but practically it can only be used by a few. + +While there is such a run on novels, solid works are at a discount. At +Newcastle-on-Tyne during 1880-81 we find that 2100 volumes of Miss +Braddon's novels were issued (of course some would be issued many times +over, as the whole set comprised only thirty-six volumes), while Bain's +'Mental and Moral Science' was lent out only twelve times in the year. +There were 1320 volumes issued of Grant's novels, and fifteen issues of +Butler's 'Analogy of Religion'; 4056 volumes of Lever's novels were +issued, while Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' circulated four times; +4901 volumes of Lytton's novels were issued, while Locke 'On the +Understanding' went eight times. Mill's 'Logic' stands at fourteen +issues as against Scott's novels, 3300; Spencer's 'Synthetic Philosophy' +(8 vols.) had forty-three issues of separate volumes; Dickens' novels +had 6810; Macaulay's 'History of England' (10 vols.) had sixty-four +issues of separate volumes. Ouida's novels had 1020; Darwin's 'Origin of +Species' (2 vols.) had thirty-six issues; Wood's novels, 1481. Mill's +'Political Economy' had eleven issues; Worboise's novels, 1964. Smith's +'Wealth of Nations' (2 vols.) had fourteen issues; Collins' novels, +1368. + +'No worse than in other libraries,' it may be said; 'knowledge is at a +discount: sensation at a premium everywhere!' Perfectly true; but are +people to be taxed to give facilities for this? Novel reading in +moderation is good: the endowment of novel reading by the rates is +bad--that is our contention. And when it is remembered that any book +requiring serious study cannot be galloped through, like a novel, in the +week or fourteen days allowed for use, it becomes at once evident that +this gratuitous lending system is only adapted for the circulation of +sensation, and not for the acquirement of real knowledge. And this is +the sort of thing people allow themselves to be rated and taxed for! +This is progressive legislation, and its opponents are backward and +illiberal! + +Free Libraries are typical examples of the compulsory cooperation +everywhere gaining ground in this country. Like all State socialism they +are the negation of that liberty which is the goal of human progress. +Every successful opposition to them is therefore a stroke for human +advancement. This mendacious appeal to the numerical majority to force a +demoralising and pauperising institution upon the minority, is an +attempt to revive, in municipal legislation, a form of coercion we have +outgrown in religious matters. At the present time there is a majority +of Protestants in this country who, if they wished, could use their +numerical strength to compel forced subscription from a minority of +Catholics, for the support of those religious institutions which are +regarded by their advocates as of quite equal importance to a Free +Library. Yet this is not done; and why? Because in matters of religion +we have learnt that liberty is better than force. In political and +social questions this terrible lesson has yet to be learned. We deceive +ourselves when we imagine that the struggle for personal liberty is +over--probably the fiercest part has yet to arise. The tyranny of the +few over the many is past, that of the many over the few is to come. The +temptation for power--whether of one man or a million men--to take the +short cut, and attempt by recourse to a forcing process to produce that +which can only come as the result of the slow and steady growth of ages +of free action, is so great that probably centuries will elapse before +experience will have made men proof against it. But, however long the +conflict, the ultimate issue cannot be doubted. That indispensable +condition of all human progress--liberty--cannot be permanently +suppressed by the arbitrary dictates of majorities, however potent. When +the socialistic legislation of to-day has been tried, it will be found, +in the bitter experience of the future, that for a few temporary, often +imaginary, advantages we have sacrificed that personal freedom and +initiative without which even the longest life is but a stale and empty +mockery. + + + + +ARGUMENTS FOR PUBLIC SUPPORT OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES + + A rejoinder to the preceding paper was made by William E. + Foster, of the Providence Public Library, before the + American Library Association at its conference held in San + Francisco, Cal., in 1891. It may be considered as giving the + normal American view as contrasted with the + ultra-conservative attitude of Mr. O'Brien. A sketch of Mr. + Foster appears in Vol. I. of this series. + + +The rise of the public library system both in this country and Great +Britain, during the past half-century, has been almost coincident with +the very noteworthy reexamination of every phase of social economy now +so powerfully influencing the thought of the world. In this discussion +the contributions of Kaufmann, of Fawcett, of Graham, of Jevons, and +above all, of Herbert Spencer, have been more than influential--they +have been almost epoch-making--and whatever view one may hold in regard +to the social question, in its various phases, one cannot fail to +acknowledge the deep debt which we owe to these profound thinkers. + +No book, from Mr. Spencer's point of view, which has appeared within +recent years, is worthy of a wider reading than the volume entitled "A +plea for liberty; an argument against socialism and socialistic +legislation," which appeared about the beginning of the present year. In +it thirteen writers, whose point of view is very nearly identical, have +discussed in successive chapters such topics as postal communications, +electric communication, investment, improvement of workingmen's homes, +free libraries, education, and other subjects, in their relation to the +question, "What action shall the State take in regard to them?" The +underlying purpose of the book is thus expressed in the words of Mr. +Mackay, the editor of the volume:--"If the view set out in this volume +is at all correct, it is very necessary that men should abandon the +policy of indifference, and that they should do something to enlarge the +atmosphere of liberty. This is to be accomplished not by reckless and +revolutionary methods, but rather by a resolute resistance to new +encroachment and by patient and statesmanlike endeavor to remove +wherever practicable the restraints of regulation, and to give full play +over a larger area to the creative forces of liberty, for liberty is the +condition precedent to all solution of human difficulty." Surely this is +a statement of the case which must powerfully appeal to all thinking +men, and lead them to reexamine, at least, the principles on which State +support of the various institutions referred to is based. + +In such a spirit, a reexamination of the argument for public support of +public libraries must be regarded as entirely germane to the objects +which the American Library Association has at heart. In such a spirit +the present paper proposes to weigh once more the principles which +underlie our American library system, and the considerations brought +forward by Mr. O'Brien in the chapter devoted to "Free libraries" in the +volume referred to. + +The half-century of discussion of "socialism and socialistic +legislation" already referred to has made few things so clear as the +fact that the arguments employed on any subject--social subjects in +particular--are weakened in almost the exact ratio in which they are +allowed to be tinged by passion and excited feeling. It must therefore +be regarded as unfortunate that Mr. O'Brien's chapter suffers most +emphatically from comparison with the generally high level of calm and +unimpassioned argument, characterizing the larger portion of the book. +Whether this is to be explained on the basis of the apocryphal legal +maxim, "When you have no case, abuse your opponent," or whether Mr. +O'Brien entered the lists fresh from some too recent participation in a +personal contest over the question, we do not undertake to inquire. The +fact remains that not only do the writers of the other chapters of the +book appear from a careful reading to state their arguments more +effectively, but that the reader is also impressed with the fact that +they have a case which admits of more effective argument. + +Let us glance in succession at the points which Mr. O'Brien has aimed +to make. They may be grouped in general under two heads; first, those +which relate to the injury (in Mr. O'Brien's view) inflicted on the +individual user of a free library from having it aided by public +support, and second, those which relate to the tax-payer's grievance (in +Mr. O'Brien's view) in helping to support it. The former is of course +the side of the question most germane to the general purpose of the +book, and it is therefore an occasion for surprise to notice that in Mr. +O'Brien's enumeration of arguments those coming under the other class +outnumber it in the ratio of six to one. First of all, to use Mr. +O'Brien's own language "the argument that if readers were left to pay +for their own books, not only would books be more valued, but the moral +discipline involved in the small personal sacrifice incurred by saving +for such a purpose would do infinitely more good than any amount of +culture obtained at other people's expense." And he takes occasion to +suggest that "possibly the advocates of literary pauperism will see +little force in" this argument. Possibly; we are not familiar with the +train of reasoning which leads to an advocacy of "literary pauperism." +For ourselves, we have been accustomed, long before the appearance of +Mr. O'Brien's chapter, to attach exceptional importance to the principle +which he has here indicated, somewhat awkwardly, to be sure. There can +be no doubt that the appreciation of any object is in almost the exact +ratio of the effort expended to procure it. This is why teachers and +librarians--in American communities, at least--have so often had +occasion to rejoice at seeing a taste not only for reading, but for +owning books inspired in a young man or woman by access to a noble +collection of books for the use of the public. For "owning books," we +say; but the limits of a collection so owned are too soon reached in the +case of even the best-endowed pockets of individual readers. Were the +intelligent teacher who takes an interest in the reading and +intellectual growth of the pupils, from the various walks in life +represented in our schools, to find a pupil whose interest in pursuing +further some lines of thought therein suggested, extended no further +than to the books at home on his own book-shelf, we cannot doubt that it +would give occasion to question the efficacy of the teaching imparted. +Mr. O'Brien's objection to the enjoyment of these reservoirs of +enlightenment, by a portion of the community, where the community as a +whole is responsible for their support, is as if a man should be told +that he would do well not to walk abroad at night by the light of the +public street lamps, but rather enjoy the light kindled in his own +house. The latter is certainly important, but not even Mr. O'Brien's +reasoning is likely to persuade us that it precludes the former. Mr. +O'Brien, in the second place, deeply feels for the reader who, in being +brought in contact with the benefits of the library, is, he thinks, +subjected to a wrong system of education. To quote his language: "Just +at the time when a child is beginning to form his tastes, just at the +period when the daily habituation to the simple duties of farm life +would lay the foundation both of sound health and practical knowledge, +he is taken out of the parent's control, and subjected to a +mind-destroying, cramming process, which excludes practical knowledge +and creates a dislike for all serious study." One is compelled on +reading this extraordinary deliverance to cast one's eye to the heading +at the top of the page, "Free Libraries," and ask what this formidable +indictment--not one count in which has any bearing on libraries--can +mean in this connection. The only conclusion possible is that it was +written with a view to appearing in some other chapter of the book. + +But Mr. O'Brien's concern is manifested also for the taxpayer, who +unites in the public support of the library. If we understand him +correctly, his contention is that the enormity of this tax consists +largely in the reprehensible nature--as represented in his pages--of the +institution itself. For from this short chapter one gradually frames a +picture of the free library as a place which tramps frequent for +sleeping off the effects of dissipation; as a place used by commercial +travellers for exhibiting their samples; as a place from which in one +instance "a respectable thief took away L20 worth of books"; as a place +used in an almost exclusive degree for reading fiction; as a place where +the time prescribed for keeping books makes 'serious study' impossible;" +and, more serious than all the rest, as a place which, he says, "favors +one special section of the community at the expense of all the rest." +Let us do Mr. O'Brien the justice to add that for the first three of +these counts he gives "chapter and verse" for his charges, quoting, +namely, from various (English) library reports. No one will therefore +wish to dispute his well-fortified statement that in such and such an +instance an unseemly incident occurred. But even a child can assuredly +see the difference between a statement of an isolated occurrence and an +inference that it is a necessarily characteristic and inherent quality +of the institution in question. Were this latter true, then we might +well cry out for abolishing our churches, sidewalks, and railway +stations, for in them these very same three things respectively are +known at some time to have been done. In the last three of these counts, +however, we have only Mr. O'Brien's assertions as the basis, and we are +obliged to add also that even these are found to be conflicting. On one +page his language shows that he is pained that a certain percentage of +readers in the libraries named should prefer to call for works of +fiction. Can it be that he has forgotten this, when on another page he +cites it as a grievance that "it is a frequent occurrence for a reader +to wait for months before he can get the novel he wants"! On page 333, +after quoting, from the annual report of one of the English libraries, +the statement as to the use of works of fiction, nothing but a resort to +italics can sufficiently emphasize his lamentation that "the more +instructive books in the other classes circulate only once during the +same period." Mr. O'Brien is not the only observer who has failed always +to observe, when commenting upon percentages of fiction, that "any book +requiring serious study cannot be galloped through, like a novel, in the +week or fourteen days allowed for use," yet who would have believed that +"out of his own mouth" would he be so completely answered, for this +remark, as well as the one which it answers, is found in his decidedly +interesting chapter (p. 348). But here it is evident that the bearing of +the two upon each other was not in his mind in writing it, for his +purpose in the sentence last quoted was plainly to make it appear that +the customary regulations of public libraries were such as to render +"serious study" impossible. + +The limitation of "a week or fourteen days" for a book of the kind +which he here indicates--he instances by name Kant's "Critique of pure +reason" and Smith's "Wealth of nations"--is practically unknown in +American public libraries. In most of those known to the present writer +a book of this kind can be charged in the first instance for fourteen +days and then renewed, making twenty-eight days in all, and in still +others for a longer period. It can then, after being returned to the +library--to give any other reader who may need it a chance at it--be +taken out again after remaining on the shelves twenty-four hours, for +another twenty-eight days' use by the same reader. The annual report of +an American library which lies before us contains a case in point. +Speaking of Bryce's "American Commonwealth," it states: "Of this, seven +copies were added in succession." It names 101 as the total of the +issues of this work during the year; but considering the truth expressed +in Mr. O'Brien's own very just words, that "any book requiring serious +study cannot be galloped through, like a novel," the statement is added +that "such a record, for a book like this, constantly in the hands of +readers, may be contrasted with the more than ten times greater number +of times that some work of fiction might be read through, returned and +taken out again, requiring but a part of a day's attention." In fact, +101 is very likely to be the total number of issues possible in the case +of seven copies of this book, while 700 would probably fall far short of +the total possible issues of the same number of copies of a story like +"The Wreck of the Grosvenor." Again, Mr. O'Brien not only tells us that +"a free library favors one special section of the community" at the +expense of all the rest, but throughout his chapter recurs again and +again to the case of the "workingman." On page 330, for instance, we are +solemnly told: "If the workingman cannot come by his books honestly, let +him wait until he can." This is indeed somewhat summary, particularly +when, being interpreted, it is found to mean, Let there be no free +libraries supported by the public. And yet, on page 344, with no less +certainty, we are assured that "there is little doubt that at least +forty-nine out of every fifty workingmen have no interest whatever in +these institutions." + +Where the deliverances from one and the same source are so +contradictory, the impartial inquirer will doubtless feel like looking +for some other source of information. From the materials accessible to +the present writer in regard to American libraries--and the new edition +of Mr. Greenwood's "Public libraries" appears to tell the same tale in +regard to Great Britain--the interest of workingmen in the opportunities +afforded by public libraries is everywhere emphatically shown; but he +who sets out with the purpose of showing that there is any one exclusive +class to whom the public library is of service and to no other--be that +class workingmen, or students, or manufacturers, or scientists--will +find the facts singularly obstinate and unresponsive to his purpose. The +truth is--Mr. O'Brien's confident assertion to the contrary--that there +is no more "universal" and non-partisan institution than a public +library. This is undoubtedly the highest among its several claims to +public support. Few among the objects to which the public funds have +been appropriated, in American cities, have met with so hearty and +unquestioning approval as the public parks, and it is right that it +should be so. Yet there are whole classes in every community who not +only never do enjoy the public parks, but never care to enjoy them. Even +the public schools are for a certain fraction of the population +only--the younger portion. In contrast with both of these, the public +library extends its resources to the children and the adults alike. +Perhaps, however, the fundamentally important question of universality, +in the sense of non-partisanship, is one which is seldom appreciated in +its full force, as applied to a public library. An independent position, +one entirely free from bias, a non-partisan attitude, in fact, is an +ideal repeatedly set before the conductors of a school or a newspaper. +In both these cases, however, there is too often an element of practical +difficulty in carrying these praiseworthy intentions into practice, +which is almost completely wanting in the case of a public library. The +policy of the latter, is, in its very essence, catholic. It places on +its shelves the volumes which represent, not one side, but both, or +rather all sides of any subject on which the sentiment of the public +divides; and thus, whether the user be Democrat or Republican, +protectionist or freetrader, Catholic or Protestant, the aspect which +this collection of books presents to him is no less free and +uncircumscribed than the illimitable aid. + +Again, it is important that the relation of a public library to the +question of entertainment should be clearly understood. Entertainment is +not an element totally foreign to the purposes of a public library--the +same kind of public benefit accrues in this case as in the case of +public parks--but in the light of the infinitely more important +functions which it renders, this must of necessity occupy a subordinate +place. The primary function of a library is to render a service, to +supply a need, to respond to a demand. In this respect its value to the +community is of the same description as the postal system, the bank at +which one may cash a check, or the reservoir from which one may "turn +on" a supply of water. + +One of the points which Mr. O'Brien aims to make, and which proceeds +from a manifest confusion of thought, can be appropriately noticed here. +His contention is that a public library is for the "class" who may be +designated "book-readers," that these form but a small percentage of any +community, and that therefore it is obviously wrong that the library +should receive public support. This is ingenious, as is also his +eloquent, though somewhat contemptuous setting of their supposed special +needs over against those of others. "Are theatre-goers, lovers of +cricket, bicyclists, amateurs of music, and others to have their +earnings confiscated," merely that the "book-reader" may gratify his +peculiar craving? Like many other ingenious theories, however, it leaves +out of account certain fundamentally important bearings of the subject. +There can be no doubt that in any community "the book-reader" is not +synonymous with the entire population. Some of the population are +children in arms; some have never learned to read; the sight of some who +have learned has failed; others again are too fully occupied to find +time for it; others find their inclination drawn more strongly in other +directions; others still have more or less to do with reading, yet are +not, in the strict sense, "book-readers." Yet we shall err very widely +if we lose sight of the fact that even those who do not personally +perform the role of the "book-reader" do nevertheless benefit by the +existence of the library, by proxy. The young child is read to, by his +mother; or is cared for by her, by methods learned through her use of +books. The busy "captain of industry," whose large profits are due to a +skillful application of scientific principles, may find his own time so +closely occupied by details of administration that, personally, he +seldom opens the treatises which bear upon the subject, but he expects +to keep abreast of the ever unfolding science, by the consultation not +only of such works as private ownership may provide, but the more nearly +complete collection in a great public library. + +This principle of "community of interest" and interdependence has an +even wider bearing; for it applies not only to the family and the +business firm, but to the community as a whole. A public library +report now before the writer contains several instances of this kind. +Speaking of the systematic efforts made to build up an approximately +complete collection of works on industrial and decorative subjects, +the report states that in this way "the library is gradually becoming +the possessor of a scientifically selected set of volumes and plates +which cannot fail to leave a distinct impress on the character of the +work done in the various industries of the city." Another portion of +the same report illustrates the direct service rendered by such an +institution to the interests of the municipality. To quote the +language there used, "Instances of the last named, both striking and +tangible, are of by no means exceptional occurrence, sometimes an +application of this kind being presented from more than one city +official on the same day," the foregoing having reference to the city +in question. "A well-authenticated instance," it continues, "in one of +the largest cities of the country, of the saving of a sum of many +thousand dollars, in the matter of a contract, due to the opportunity +for consulting the requisite data comprised in works of authority in +the public library of that city, is but an indication of the +possibilities of a public library." + +It is fitting that where funds are to be appropriated, collected by +taxes levied on the tax-paying population, there should be possible so +tangible a presentation as the above, of the direct relation of the +institution supported, to the question of "profit and loss," as +affecting those who are taxed. And yet it is well to remember that it is +as true now as twenty centuries ago, that "man does not live by bread +alone;" and that the public support of the institutions referred to can +be justified by other arguments than that of the material interests just +cited. + +No aspect of the library's operation is more full of interest than +that which takes account of its uplifting influence. The analogy between +its service and that of the postal system has been noticed; but it has a +no less real analogy to the work of the school, the pulpit, or the +press--yet without the propagandist principle which so often attaches to +these latter--namely, in the principle of growth or advance. In the +earlier portion of this paper a little space was devoted to showing that +in the nature of the case the number of copies of any work of fiction +used in the course of a year would immensely out-number those which +could possibly be read in the more solid departments of reading. Even +were the constituency of the library confined to a selected few, to +whose minds the higher class of reading was congenial, this would be the +case. Nor should we forget that the ground of distinction between a +"public" library and any other, as the library of a scientific society, +a debating society, a theological school or a teachers' club, is that +its constituency _is_ not thus limited to a selected class but is broad +as humanity itself, with all its enormous inequalities of condition, +taste, and mental growth. Like a mirror, therefore, the recorded +classified circulation reflects this variety. Even with this apparently +almost unmanageable unevenness, appreciable improvement in standards of +reading is by no means an unknown experience. There lies before the +writer, for instance, a library report which is able to make such a +statement as this: "The fiction percentages of the seven successive +years, beginning with 1883 and ending with 1889, show an uninterrupted +decline, as follows: 70+, 66+, 62+, 61+, 58+, 56+." But it must be +remembered also that figures such as these, though they may tell a part, +and a very gratifying part, of the advances which individual readers +have been helped to make, fall very far short of expressing the whole. +It would be entirely possible for individual after individual thus to +advance from good to better, and from better to best, and yet the +figures which express the aggregate use of the year remain stationary +(or even retrograde), because the constituency of a public library +(particularly in a large city) is all the time being reenforced by new +readers. And these new readers comprise both those who are children in +age and those who are children in mental growth, who begin at the foot. +When, therefore, there is anything more than a preserving of a uniform +level--as in the noteworthy figures above quoted--it stands for a very +striking advance indeed, on the part of a very large portion of the +community. Probably every librarian in charge of a public library in a +large city has had an opportunity of observing these advances in +innumerable individual instances. And this class of results, while +distinctly following the "order of nature," does not by any means come +about through a view of library administration which regards either +books, readers, or librarian as inert masses. Much of it is the result +of individual interest expressed by the librarian in some reader, whose +mind receives an awakening impulse. + +More than one well authenticated instance exists of an individual +beginning life as a newsboy or an elevator-boy, and through his use of a +public library finding his intellectual powers unfolding until he has +entered one of the learned professions. The relation of the library +system to the school system opens an almost boundless field of thought, +and it is a fact of deep significance that the profound principle +involved in it, after having engaged the attention of English and +American libraries for years, has been recognized in the educational +steps recently taken by the government of Japan, where the two systems +are placed on a plane of equality. In the experience of one of the +American libraries already referred to, almost the chief hope of the +library for the future is placed upon "a class of readers," every year +largely increasing in numbers, who comprise the "graduates from the +various institutions of learning" in the city, and whose "lines of study +and reading" "may be characterized as a carrying forward of those +impulses in the direction of right reading which were received in school +and college." The library has a no less direct relation to the needs and +ambitions of those who have received the invaluable training of "the +practical duties of the world," to use Mr. O'Brien's phrase, and it +responds with equal readiness to these. There is concentrated in the +contemptuous phrase, "book-learning," a popular judgment of condemnation +which is for the most part just, on the spurious variety of knowledge +which knows the expression of certain principles in books, but knows +nothing of their practical embodiment in the life and work of this +world. We are glad to observe that Mr. O'Brien's antipathy to this +pseudo-knowledge is almost as profound as our own, but his expression of +it seems singularly out of place in a philippic against public +libraries; for one will seek far before finding an institution more +perfectly suited to be a corrective of such a tendency than the modern +public library. Does any one claim that the public school system +sometimes has an unfortunate tendency to repress individuality and turn +out a set of pupils of uniform mould? If so, the public library supplies +a means of supplementing and complementing this uniformity by its +infinite variety and universality, and it is continually doing this, +indeed. Does any one regret that the school system at its best reaches +but a fraction of the population and that fraction for but a few short +years of their life, and that in too many instances there is a tendency +on the part of even these few, educated in the schools, to conceive of +their education as "finished," and allow the fabric to become hopelessly +ravelled? If so, the public library stands to these members of the +community in an almost ideal relation, not only fulfilling very +perfectly Mr. Carlyle's characterization of a "collection of books" as +"the people's university," but in the peculiarly wide range shown in the +demands made upon it, almost as properly rendering it the people's +workshop, or laboratory. + +The same library report which has several times been cited printed +several years since a record of the inquiries made on specific subjects +during a single month, which throws significant light upon this subject. +Another report of the same library declares that "few can adequately +conceive to what extent the inquiries made at the library have become +specialized, and require trained facility and research" on the part of +the library staff. The library thus becomes a laboratory, in which the +reader gains not only the specific information, but the method. + +An observation of popular movements in their relation to political or +economic principles reveals few facts so plainly as that an almost +insuperable narrowness of view is, in much the greater number of +instances, the barrier to advance in those questions decided mainly by +the popular voice. Why then should any one wish to perpetuate the +conditions which make this possible? In Mr. O'Brien's view the +workingman,--and we ought not to forget how large a percentage of the +community this word "workingman" represents, both in England and +America,--will be a fortunate man when the contents of free libraries +are no longer rendered everywhere accessible to him by public support, +for then the workingmen "for one 'penny' can buy their favorite +newspaper, which can be carried in the pocket and read at any time"! It +is well nigh incredible that an ideal such as this should be looked +forward to by thinking men. Whatever may be the fact in regard to the +workingmen of Great Britain,--and Mr. O'Brien of course knows them +better than we do,--it may confidently be asserted that the American +workingman would strike no such false note. Mr. Lowell in one of his +admirable orations quotes from a Wallachian legend of a peasant who was +"taken up into heaven" and offered his choice among the objects to be +seen there. He chose a half worn-out bagpipe, and with this returned to +the earth. "With an infinite possibility within his reach, with the +choice of wisdom, of power, of beauty, at his tongue's end, he asked +according to his kind, and his sordid wish is answered with a gift as +sordid." The newspaper is well enough in its way,--even a "penny +newspaper,"--but to condemn whole masses of the population to limit +themselves to this, is to incur the condemnation of Mr. Lowell's fine +scorn when, in another portion of the oration just referred to, he says: +"It is we who, while we might each in his humble way be helping our +fellows into the right path, or adding one block to the climbing spire +of a fine soul, are willing to become mere sponges saturated from the +stagnant goose-pond of village gossip." It is more. It is to help +develop a community from whom in the end every spark of uplifting +influence shall have vanished. Does any one say that this is a result +impossible of attainment by any people? The scientifically true, yet +brutally summary record given by the distinguished European savant, +Elisee Reclus, of a certain European stock which has found and occupied +virgin soil in the South of Africa, is a sufficient answer. "In +general," he says, "the Boers despise everything that does not +contribute directly to the material prosperity of the family group. They +ignore music, the arts, literature, all refining influence, and find +little pleasure in anything," except solid amassing of wealth. + +A few additional points remain to be noted. It is an entirely pertinent +question whether every public library in England and America improves +its high privilege, uses to the full the peculiar opportunities open to +it, places itself in close communication with the public school system, +with the university extension movement, and with the influences +continually at work in industrial and artistic development. And we need +not hesitate to answer in the negative. Yet the significant fact is, +that everywhere the tendency is in this direction with a stronger and +stronger momentum. The advance made in this country, within the last +decade even, in this direction, is among the most striking phenomena of +the time; and no less striking is the almost overwhelming percentage of +the body of librarians in this country whose entrance upon the work from +a deep-seated love for it, rather than as furnishing a means of +livelihood, supplies one of the strongest guarantees against the +invasion of the perfunctory spirit in the future. Again, it is equally +pertinent to ask whether, granted that the benefits of such an +institution as the public library are unquestioned, dependence may not +be placed on funds entirely unconnected with those of the public, for +its support. It would ill become the citizen of a country where private +munificence has accomplished so much in channels of public spirit, to +overlook these noble memorials of enlightened private action. Yet it +remains true, nevertheless, that were dependence to be placed on these +alone, a map of the country on which public libraries should be dotted +down would show as partial and inadequate a supply furnished to the +community, as the very instructive "annual rainfall map" published by +the government shows in the matter of rain. What we are accustomed, in +the eastern portion of this country, to consider the rain--in its +universal beneficent service and in its indispensableness--that also is +to be associated with the "reservoirs" comprised in these public +collections of books. For, after all, valuable as are the books +themselves, even in their material aspect, as pieces of handiwork, still +more in the specific items of information and admonition contained in +them, yet in the deeper view these are but symbols of their real +significance and service. To place one's self in communication with them +as contained in these libraries, is to bring ourselves in contact with +the stored-up thought of the world thus far. We have just adverted to +the fundamental bearing which this has upon the deeper or spiritual side +of man's life. But the two-sided character of these collections of books +follows us even here, for their indispensableness in the material point +of view is almost as striking, and this, not only whether we consider +the statesman planning measures of public weal, while neglecting to +inform himself of the recorded conditions which necessarily must +determine such measures; or whether it be the inventor spending long +years of his too brief life in perfecting a machine which his +consultation of the recorded patent would have shown him some one else +had anticipated him in thinking out; or whether it be the day laborer +submitting without an effort to violations of his rights, which a single +glance at the recorded statutes would have shown him he had a remedy +for. + +How like all this is to the supposed state of things which one of the +most suggestive writers of our day has thus expressed: "Our early +voyagers are dead: not a plank remains of the old ships that first +essayed unknown waters; the sea retains no track; and were it not for +the history of these voyages contained in charts, in chronicles, in +hoarded lore of all kinds, each voyager, though he were to start with +all the aids of advanced civilization," would be in the helpless +position of the earliest voyager. + +Once more, each reader of the strongly written book which we have been +considering should ask the question for himself, whether all of the +various propositions maintained therein necessarily stand or fall +together. Because the compiler has chosen to bracket together two such +headings as "Free libraries" and "The state and electrical +distribution," it certainly does not follow that the argument which +carries conviction in the one case must in the other also. We shall not +be suspected of having our judgment in this regard swayed by the natural +weakness with which, to use Mr. O'Brien's illustration, the shoemaker is +inclined to think that "there is nothing like leather," if we suggest, +what the public at large in this country is very plainly persuaded of, +that, for one person who has appreciated the need for public action in +the latter case there are thousands in the former. The writer lives in a +city in which for more than eleven years the public library was +administered by funds not in the least degree derived from municipal +appropriations. Yet the character of its service to the public had so +widely impressed itself upon the community that, largely from sources +outside of the library board, a movement arose for recognizing the +closeness of the relation, by public support. A report by a committee of +the city government, recommending this course, significantly declares: +"Your committee are unanimously of the opinion that this public library, +already existing in the city, is a useful and a necessary adjunct to the +educational system sustained by the city in its public schools, and +properly appeals to the treasury for an appropriation towards its +support." After eleven years' opportunity for observation and +comparison, such a judgment as this has the merit of deliberation and +conviction. + +It is true that by far the greater part of the considerations which +lead the present writer to find Mr. O'Brien's view untenable are drawn +from observation and experience of conditions existing in this country. +Yet it is to be noted that his position is also contested, so far as +Great Britain is concerned, by an article in the March number of The +Library (of London), which shows, not only that our English cousins are +fully able to take care of themselves, but also that on many of the +questions of fact, about which his arguments turn, he is painfully wide +of the mark. Few students of social conditions have left so noteworthy +an impress on contemporary thought as the late William Stanley Jevons. +Of the free public library he held a view radically opposed to that of +Mr. O'Brien, believing it to be "an engine for operating upon" the +community, in ways at once protective and ennobling. As to the +universality of its beneficent service, he was equally convinced, +declaring not only that "free libraries are engines for creating the +habit and power of enjoying high-class literature, and thus carrying +forward the work of civilization which is commenced in the primary +school," but also that they are "classed with town halls, police courts, +prisons, and poor-houses, as necessary adjuncts of our stage of +civilization." The experience of one community or one nation is +repeatedly serviceable to another; but, after all, it is the local +conditions which must finally determine in any case. Even if a different +conclusion were to be reached in this matter in Great Britain, it would +still remain true that for us in America it is one of the highest duties +of self-preservation to keep alive the uplifting influences represented +in the public support of these institutions. The future of this country, +even more than its past, will be irrevocably committed to the democratic +principle in government. As is the people--in the widest sense of the +word--so will be the national life and character. In the future, even +more than in the past, crudity, narrowness, well-meaning ignorance, and +low standards of taste and ethics will, unless met with corrective +tendencies, color our national life. The public school and the public +library--"instruments equal in power to the Dionysiac theatre, and +vastly greater in their range of power," to quote the language of one of +the most thoughtful of our men of letters--will stand more and more, in +our American communities, as such corrective tendencies. + + + + +PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THE PUBLIC + + One of the first clear statements of the Public Library as a + business enterprise, involving certain amounts invested by a + city with the expectation of certain definite returns. The + paper refers particularly to the San Francisco Public + Library, of which the author, Frederic Beecher Perkins, was + then librarian but its conclusions are general, and hold + good to-day. It was read at the Lake George Conference of + the American Library Association, in September, 1885. + + Frederic Beecher Perkins was born in Hartford, Conn., Sept. + 27, 1828, a grandson of Lyman Beecher. He left Yale in + sophomore year to study law and was admitted to the bar in + 1851, but graduated at the State Normal School in 1852 and + devoted himself to literary and educational work. In 1880-87 + he was librarian of the San Francisco Public Library. He + died in Morristown, N.J., Jan. 27, 1899. He was the father + of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. + + +There are in the United States about 5,000 public libraries of 300 +volumes or more. Returns of their present conditions are very imperfect, +and must therefore be summed in the following crude way:-- + + Annual cost much more than $1,500,000 + The books in them are many more than 13,000,000 + Books added yearly are many more than 500,000 + Books used yearly are many more than 10,000,000 + +These institutions, therefore, represent a large money investment, and +a very extensive and active educational agency. Not all of them by any +means are "free public libraries,"--_i.e._, libraries supported by taxes +or endowments for the use of all. But a considerable portion of them +are. It may now be justly said that no town of importance is respectably +complete without a free public library any more than any town whatever +without a school. + +The San Francisco Free Public Library was founded in 1879, and was +advancing with creditable speed towards a size and usefulness +corresponding to the position of San Francisco, among American cities, +until the present city government suddenly cut down its annual +appropriation to bare running expenses, leaving no allowance for buying +new books, or even for replacing old ones worn out. + +This library is not a collection of mummies of deceased learning, which +will be no drier in a thousand years than they are now. It has thus far +consisted of live books for live people. But a library of this +practically useful kind, if it stops buying new books, quickly becomes +dead stock,--unattractive, obsolete, useless. In _belles-lettres_, +literature, history, mechanic arts, engineering, applied science, all +alike, it is equally indispensable to have the new books. The +photographer, the druggist, the electrician, the machinist, the +manufacturing chemist, as much as or more than the reader of novels, +poetry, travels, or history, want this year's discoveries, for last +year's are already obsolete. Next year it will not be Mr. Blaine's book +that will be most called for,--that will be a year old,--but General +Grant's book. But a thousand examples would not make the case clearer. +This prohibition of new books, perhaps on pretence of economy, would be +the natural first step of shrewd opponents intending to close the +library entirely as soon as the books are dead enough. It is girdling +the tree now, so as to destroy it more early next year. It is understood +that at least two prominent members of the present city government +(Supervisor Pond and Auditor Strother) are distinctly opposed to the +library, and to free public libraries, on principle. It is not known +that any member of it is a particularly energetic friend of the +institution. The library staff is small in number (seven boys and eight +adults); the salaries (omitting the librarian's) exceptionally scanty, +and even this small patronage and expenditure is wholly controlled by +the Board of Trustees, and wholly out of reach of the Board of +Supervisors. When this is remembered it is easy to understand both the +probable firmness of any opposition, and the probable lukewarmness of +any friendship to the library in the latter body. This is perfectly +natural. All governing bodies try to keep and increase their authority +over persons and payments. They never let go of them when they can help +it. And, accordingly, the Supervisors insisted on controlling all the +expenditure and management of the library, until a decision of the +Supreme Court of the State forced the control out of their hands. + +Whether the actual closing of the library is intended or not, the +obvious first step towards it has been taken, and its closing will +follow in due season, if the policy is continued. If the voters of San +Francisco choose to have it so, there is no more to be said, for it is +their library. Probably they could lawfully divide up the books among +themselves, and so close out the enterprise. The dividend, now, would be +not far from one volume to each household in the city. But, if they wish +the library to continue, this early notice is due them. + +Further: the custom here, in respect to the contents of municipal public +documents, prevents such discussions of library questions as are usual +in the annual reports of other city libraries; so that, if a view of +principles and practices in and about such institutions as a class, and +of their application in this instance, is to be laid before the public +at all, it must be submitted, as in this paper, unofficially. + +The following table shows the financial, and some of the literary, +relations between public libraries and cities in San Francisco, in four +other large cities, and in six small cities. The cases were taken +promiscuously as they came to hand, of the latest dates available, but +all are within a few years. New York has no free public library; +movements to establish one there have repeatedly been contemplated, but +have been abandoned, because the men who could have set up the library +would not encounter the practical certainty of its becoming one more +corruptionist engine in the hands of the city rulers. Philadelphia has +none, for reasons not known to the present writer, but, very likely, the +same as in New York. St. Louis has none now, although its excellent +Public School Library may, very likely, become one. New Orleans has +none, apparently, because it doesn't want any. Louisville has none, +because the devil cannot set up a true church; the enormous lottery +swindle which was worked off there a few years ago was ostensibly to +establish and endow one, but where did the money go? + + Assessed Being, + Population Value in Whole Gives its of + Cities (1880) Millions City Library whole + (1880) Tax tax + + Boston 362,000 $613 $7,261,741 $120,000 1/60 + Chicago 503,000 118 3,776,451 54,330 1/75 + Cincinnati 255,139 169 1/3 4,070,225 49,016 1/82 + Lynn 38,274 22 1/2 332,481 5,730 1/58 + Milwaukee 115,587 55 3/4 902,537 17,697 1/51 + New Bedford 26,875 25 3/4 390,208 5,148 1/76 + Newburyport 13,537 7 1/2 105,686 1,661 1/64 + Springfield, Mass. 33,340 29 1/2 307,434 8,231 1/37 + Taunton 21,213 15 3/4 213,912 5,195 1/41 + Worcester 58,291 39 1/2 557,193 14,860 1/38 + San Francisco 233,959 225 2,252,000 18,000 1/125 + + Vols. Being And per + Vols. per Circulation per $1.00 Volumes + Cities in soul per year soul of added + Library (about) (about) salaries yearly + + Boston 438,594 1 1/5 1,056,906 3 14 16,478 + Chicago 111,621 1/5+ 664,867 1 1/3 23 1/4 5,280 + Cincinnati 153,870 3/5+ 730,544 3 26 1/6 4,120 + Lynn 32,006 4/5 90,330 2 1/3 36 1,264 + Milwaukee 24,481 1/5 83,052 3/4 16 2,778 + New Bedford 45,000 1 4/5 71,798 3 ... 2,448 + Newburyport 17,828 1 1/3 ... ... ... 441 + Springfield, Mass. 48,832 1 1/2 57,152 1 3/4 14 3/4 1,797 + Taunton 21,197 1 58,920 2 9/10 31 1/2 1,971 + Worcester 61,204 1+ 194,321 3 1/3 26 6/7 3,105 + San Francisco 62,647 1/4+ 326,000 1 1/4 36 [3]3,883 + +[TN: Table split for text version] + +[3] Next year NONE except gifts. + +The six small cities tabulated are all in Massachusetts, because the +latest and fullest reports came to hand from them. + +Of various comparisons which could be formulated from the above figures, +the following are the most pertinent now:-- + +(1) Of the five large cities listed, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, and +Milwaukee give from one fifty-first part to one eighty-second part of +their tax levies for their libraries; San Francisco, one one-hundred and +twenty-fifth part. + +(2) Of the actual sums so set apart by these cities, Boston, with half +as many more people, gives nearly seven times as much; Chicago, with +twice as many, gives three times as much; Cincinnati, with one-tenth +more gives two and two-thirds times as much; Milwaukee, with one-half as +many, gives nearly as much ($300 less). + +(3) Accordingly, San Francisco would expend every year for its library, +if it were as liberal as Boston, about $84,000; if as liberal as +Chicago, $27,000; and so on. + +(4) The actual comparative size of their libraries is: Boston seven +times as large as San Francisco; Chicago nearly twice; Cincinnati twice +and a half; Milwaukee only is smaller, being somewhat more than +one-third as large. + +(5) The rate of increase is: from 16,478 volumes a year at Boston, to +2,778 at Milwaukee; and in San Francisco, for the coming year none (for +the loss in worn-out volumes will more than equal any probable total of +gifts), none at all. + +(6) The number of volumes circulated in a year for each dollar of +salaries paid is in San Francisco more than twice as great as in Boston +or Milwaukee, and decidedly larger than in Chicago or Cincinnati. It may +be added, although the figures are not in this table, that a much more +striking evidence of the stringent economy of the library administration +here is the fact that there is paid at the Boston Public Library in +salaries, in the cataloging department alone, without allowing anything +for printing, nearly as much as the whole of this year's library +appropriation by the city of San Francisco. + +(7) Similar comparisons with the six smaller cities listed would give +results generally similar, but showing a still more liberal rate per +head and dollar of expenditure for libraries. + +In addition to this exposition of comparative parsimony a feature of it +should be remembered which might easily escape notice: that, while the +money for running expenses is all gone at the end of the year, nearly +all of the allowance above running expenses remains represented by +valuable property. Thus, if the year's allowance for this library had +been $28,000, instead of $18,000, it would not have cost a cent more to +run the library and at the year's end about $10,000 worth of books would +remain added to the permanent property of the city. + +Another result of this policy is to prevent printing any catalogue of +the recent additions to the library; so that there is practically no +access, and there will, for the present, continue to be none, even for +the public who own the books, to all additions to this library since +June, 1884, being several thousand titles. It is needless to point out +that if there were to be the hypothesis of an unfriendly purpose +entertained against the library, that purpose would be served as +directly by suppressing the names of books in the library as by +preventing the addition of new ones, or by the replacing of those worn +out. + +These brief statements sufficiently show what our city is doing, and +what other cities are doing, for or against public libraries. It is not +within the scope of this paper to inquire after the real reason for the +stop put to the progress of the San Francisco Free Public Library. One +hypothesis is, that, instead of any unfriendly intention against the +library itself, the step was taken to help in persuading the public that +the "dollar limit" to the rate of city taxation is too low, and that our +citizens must submit to a higher rate. As the money saved is only +$6,000, the economy is not great in itself, being about one +four-hundredth part of the city tax levy. If the proposed effect was +expected to be produced by continuously annoying and dissatisfying the +citizens there is more reason in the scheme; for the library is +frequented by more than a thousand persons daily; between 26,000 and +27,000 cards have been issued to authorize the home use of books; and +there are always at any given moment from 5,900 to 6,000 volumes from +the library in use in as many homes all over the city. To inconvenience +and disoblige so large a constituency as this may naturally produce some +effect. This paper need not attempt to decide whether that effect would +naturally be approval or disapproval of the treatment of the library, +enthusiasm in favor of, or against, the proposed increase of taxation, +unpopularity or popularity of the institution itself, or of those whose +action so effectually cripples its usefulness. Nor will it discuss the +still larger question of the "dollar limit" itself,[4] however +decisively important all these inquiries are for the future of the +library, and however interesting and clear the arguments and conclusions +on those subjects may be. But what it may properly do is, to state, +without any pretence of novelty, but simply in order to refresh the +public memory, the chief heads of a doctrine of her public libraries +from a practical point of view. + +First (to limit the discussion). What a free public library is _not_ +for. + +It is not for a nursery; a lunch-room; a bed-room; a place for meeting a +girl in a corner and talking to her; a conversation-room of any kind; a +free dispensary of stationery, envelopes, and letter-writing; a free +range for loiterers; a campaigning field for mendicants, or for +displaying advertisements; a haunt for loafers and criminals. Indeed, +not to specify with inelegant distinctness, a free public library, like +any other similarly commodious place of free public resort, would, if +permitted, be used for any purpose whatever, no matter how private or +how vicious, which could be served there more conveniently than by going +to one's own home, or than by having any home at all. It would be so +used systematically, constantly, and to a degree of intolerable +nuisance; and its purification from such uses, if they have been set up, +will be met with clamor, abuse, and with any degree and kind of even +violent resistance which may be thought safe, or likely to succeed. Let +it not be supposed that this is an imaginary picture. It is in every +point taken from actual and numerous instances, and could be illustrated +by a sufficiently ridiculous series of single adventures, by any +librarian of large experience. Open public premises for some of the +purposes above specified might conceivably be properly supplied by the +public. What is here affirmed is, that public libraries are not at +present proper for them. + +[4] San Francisco is at present taxed on a precise scale of one dollar +to the hundred dollars of value, and on an annual total valuation of +$200,000,000, which is, however, in practice somewhat, but not +largely, exceeded. + +Second. What such a library _is_ for. + +Its first object is to supply books to persons wishing to improve their +knowledge of their occupations. Such books as Nicholson's, Burns', +Riddell's, Tredgold's, Dwyer's, Waring's, Holly's, and others, on +practical architecture, building, or departments of them; the numerous +collections of plans and details of domestic and other architecture; +Masury's house-painting; Kittredge's metal-worker's pattern-book; +Percy's, Phillips', and other books on metallurgy and mining; Dussance, +Piesse, and others on soap-making, perfumery, and other branches of +applied chemistry; Lock on sugar-refining; many manuals of brewing and +distilling; Noad, Hospitalier, Preece, etc., on applications of +electricity; Burgh's, Roper's, and other hand-books and more advanced +works on steam engineering generally, locomotives, marine engines, etc.; +Gaskell's, Hill's, and other business manuals; hand-books of +correspondence, book-keeping, phonography; in short, text-books, both +elementary and advanced, in all sorts of commercial and industrial +occupations, are of the first importance in a free public library, and +are constantly and eagerly used in this one. The study of such books +puts money directly into the student's pocket, promotes his success in +life, and the prosperity of the city. A good and active public library +raises the value of every piece of real estate in the city, by thus +making the city more profitable (in dollars) to live in; because it +enables the intelligent and studious to earn more. + +Second in importance is the supply of books to those who wish to acquire +or pursue an education, or to complete or continue a knowledge of +general literature; and, third, the accommodation of students working +out special lines of research. + +Fourth. Such is the more solid usefulness of a public library. The rest +of its distributing work, whatever its intrinsic usefulness, is at least +as indispensable, and is always numerically the most popular. This is +the supply of light literature to readers for rest or amusement. Whether +books of this class constitute one-half the library or (as in this one) +one-tenth of it, it may be depended on that from one-half to four-fifths +of all the reading done will be done from that part. The justification +of the supply of such books by a free public library is, that it is +important also, if not likewise, to afford mental relaxation, as it is +to feed mental effort; that even light reading is a very important +improvement over and safe-guard from street life and saloon life; that +such books introduce to a more useful class of books by forming the +habit of reading; and that the public, who pay for the library, choose +to have books of this sort as much as, if not even rather more than, the +more useful sort. + +Fifth. There is another department of usefulness for public libraries, +quite unknown until within a few years, which makes them actual and +vital members of the public-school system, and additionally justifies +the term "People's Universities," which has often been applied to them. +This is the arrangement at the library of courses of illustrative study +and reading for teachers or pupils, or both. A series of such books as +relate to one or another part of the school course is laid out at the +library; the teachers, and perhaps sometimes one of the higher classes, +examine them along with the librarian, and such information as they +afford is used to fill out and illustrate the outline in the school-book +for the fuller information of the pupils. + +This practice is perhaps easiest in history and geography. It is easy to +see how a capable teacher could intensify the interest and enrich the +minds of a class about the geography of the East Indian archipelago, by +introducing them to the vivid narrative and abundant illustrations of +Wallace's most entertaining and instructive book on that region. How, +for instance, Palgrave's "Year in Arabia," Palmer's "Desert of the +Exodus," Lady Duff Gordon's "Letters from Egypt," O'Donovan's "Merv +Oasis," Atkinson's and Kennan's books on Siberia, Huc's "Travels in +Tartary and in China," and hundreds of other books, each for its +locality, all over the world, could be used to give a child clear +notions and strong impressions of savage or civilized landscapes and +people. It is not too much to say that the study of geography in the +public schools of San Francisco, illustrated as it could easily be from +books of travel now in the public library, could be made from beginning +to end as fascinating as any romance, while it would store the +children's minds with a kind and quantity of distinct knowledge about +the earth and its people as much beyond the results of ordinary +geographical study as gold is better than mud. It would be easy to +furnish similar specifications for the study of history, of natural +science, and other branches. This is no mere speculation. This system of +instruction is regularly practised by Mr. Green, of the Worcester Free +Library (the originator and pioneer in it); by Mr. Poole at Chicago, and +elsewhere, and with complete success. Besides its immediate result in +vivifying and enriching the pupil's minds, this method affords a +training in habits of reading of the very best kind, by teaching +research, the habit of selecting books, and the practice of comparative +thinking. + +To sum up: A free public library-- + +1. As to manners--is a parlor, not a bar-room; a place where not only +working men and business men, but ladies and young girls can safely and +conveniently come and abide. While not expressly a school of manners and +morals, it is much and closely concerned in maintaining a high standard +in both. + +2. As to objects--is to furnish good books, not bad ones; to satisfy +within this limit all demands on it as far as may be; and in particular +to be progressive; that is, to supply for intelligent readers what they +most require,--the _new_ good books. + +3. As to method--should keep the books in the best possible condition +for the longest possible term of use, and should not allow them to be +scattered, lost, abused, mutilated, or stolen. + +Lastly. It is needless to add, under these heads, any of the numerous +technical details which crowd the work of an active library; but this +exposition would be inexcusably imperfect without a reference to the +absolute indispensableness of proper quarters in order to successful +library administration. Only the merest reference need now be made to +the professional immorality of notorious localities close around this +library in its present place. Something more may be said of the +unbusinesslike payment by the city of a heavy insurance on $50,000 worth +of its property, which must be paid, because the library is in the same +building with a theatre. Theatres burn down on an average once in +seventeen years; and a theatre risk, although not absolutely uninsurable +like a gunpowder mill, is what insurance men call "extra hazardous;" so +that not only is the insurance rate high, but the destruction by fire of +the library (in its present location) may be looked upon as certain, the +only question being, How soon? + +A difficulty less obvious and less dangerous, but still a source of +constant friction and annoyance, is the present arrangement of the +library as one collection, with but one place for delivering books. In a +small library, with a small business, this difficulty becomes nothing; +but in one as large and as energetically active as this it is a serious +disadvantage. Such a library imperatively requires division into two +libraries or sections, one to contain all books deliverable without +discrimination; the other, all books calling for special care and +precaution of any kind. The receipt and delivery desks of these two +sections should be separate, and before and behind them there should be +plenty of room. In the present library, which is in one large undivided +hall, the space is insufficient, both for the public and for the library +staff; and books of the two classes above described are intermingled all +over the shelves. The result is, crowding, interruption, delay, error, +confusion, and dissatisfaction. Very many books might be trusted with a +studious mechanic or a literary student which it would be a folly to +deliver into the hands of a small boy or girl. Many other extremely +desirable objects would be gained by the occupancy of properly arranged +library quarters; but of these only two need be mentioned here; separate +quarters could be provided for students who need special facilities and +assistance, and there could be such arrangements that ladies using the +library need not crowd and struggle about among impatient children and +miscellaneous masculine strangers. + + + + +THE LEVY OF LIBRARY TRIBUTE + + The above title was constructed by the editor from a + sentence in the presidential address of Henry M. Utley + before the American Library Association at its Denver + conference of 1895. President Utley himself gave it no + title, but it is an examination of the claims of the library + to public support, with a conclusion that those claims are + justified only by regarding the library as an educational + institution, using this term in its broadest sense. + + Henry Munson Utley was born at Plymouth, Mich., Aug. 5, + 1836. He served on the staff of the Detroit _Free Press_ in + 1861-66, was city editor of the _Post_ and _Post-Tribune_ + until 1881, and then, after holding the secretaryship of the + Detroit Board of Education, became in 1885 librarian of the + Public Library, in which post he served until his death on + Feb. 16, 1917, becoming librarian emeritus in 1913. + + +We are met for the seventeenth Conference of the American Library +Association in the Capital city of the Centennial State. It is a +pleasing co-incidence that the Association and the State celebrate the +same natal year. Within the memory of some of us the whole region of +which this city is now the metropolis was a wilderness. The century was +fairly begun when Lieut. Pike led his little band to the sources of the +Arkansas and made his futile attempt to scale the lofty peak which now +bears his name. Forty years later came the explorations of Fremont, and +then fifteen years elapsed before the tide of immigration set in. The +desert of that day has been converted into prosperous farms. Thriving +towns have sprung up in the mountain fastnesses, at the gateway to which +sits this Queen City of the plains, displaying all the evidences of +wealth, culture, and refinement to be found in the proud cities to the +eastward. + +This rapid and wonderful transformation has been the work of human hands +guided by intelligent brains and an indomitable spirit of pluck and +perseverance. We are accustomed to think of this combination as purely +American. In many of its characteristics it certainly is so. And in no +respect more distinctively so than in the cause in which we are most +interested. Not all the older commonwealths, even on this side of the +Atlantic, have yet accepted the theory that the education of the citizen +is the concern of the state. But in all this newer portion of our +country this doctrine has been incorporated into the fundamental law. +The ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory northwest of +the Ohio river declared that for obvious reasons schools and the means +of education shall be forever encouraged. The twenty states now +organized within this and the subsequently acquired territory to the +westward have all accepted to the fullest extent the doctrine of the +ordinance. They have not only carried it into practical effect by +general laws providing for free public schools for children, for +universities and institutions of higher learning for the education of +youth, but have also provided for the establishment and maintenance of +free public libraries at the general expense and for the common use of +all the people. + +Let us consider very briefly the theory upon which the state assumes to +levy tribute upon the property of individuals to provide means for +maintaining libraries. By what right does the state tax the man of +wealth to put miscellaneous books into the hands of the man who pays no +tax? + +So far as primary education is concerned, the basis seems clear. The +free state which depends for its very existence upon the intelligence of +the masses of its citizens must, as a measure of self-defense, provide +the facilities by which all may become intelligent. Self-preservation is +the supremest natural law. Whatever has a right to exist has a right to +do that which is necessary to preserve its existence. The free state +which rests on the suffrage of its citizens is bound in duty to itself +to see to it that popular education, which is essential to its +perpetuity, is universal. Ignorant men are not competent to take care of +themselves and their households, still less to direct the destinies of +an empire. The state has, therefore, the right, not only to provide the +means of education, but to compel education. Laws are in force which +require certain attendance upon the schools. These rest on the theory +that the interest of the state in the education of the individual +surpasses that of the individual, and therefore, the state cannot, in +justice to itself, treat education purely as a matter of individual +concern. + +It is a notorious fact that the average person does not perceive the +importance of self-cultivation. As the vineyard left to itself is soon +choked out with weeds and chapparall, so man if left to himself lapses +naturally into his primitive condition. The state cannot leave him to +himself, but must interpose to make it certain that he acquires the best +degree of information which his natural abilities and the time not +necessary to his self-support shall permit. Neither can the state leave +the matter of providing facilities and inducements to education to +private enterprise, nor to the church, which has been the foremost of +all organizations to appreciate its importance. While the state +recognizes these agencies and accepts them as satisfactory, so far as +they go, it nevertheless fully equips schools of its own, in pursuance +of its inherent right and duty, which cannot be relinquished to any +other agency. + +The extent to which the state shall go in the matter of educating its +citizens has been the subject of much discussion. There are those who +maintain that as the education of the individual proceeds his concern in +his own development increases, until finally, if his education proceeds +far enough, his concern in his own development surpasses that of the +state, and he must thenceforth be left to equip himself entirely at his +own expense. If that point is marked by the line between primary and +secondary, or between secondary and higher education, there is where the +state is in duty bound to stop. The extent of the interest of the +community as compared with that of the individual is held to grow less +and less and finally to disappear as he advances. + +But the better judgment of our time repudiates this theory, and holds +apparently that there is no limit to the concern of the state in the +mental progress of the individual. Ian Maclaren in his touching story of +"Domsie" quotes John Knox as saying: "Ilka scholar is something added to +the riches of the commonwealth." It can probably be demonstrated by the +rules of accounts that as a business investment the state is wisely +spending money in the education of the people. The cost is more than +returned to it in the material development which an enlightened +citizenship ensures. If we contrast our own country, where education is +free, with some older countries where it is yet held to be a matter of +minor concern, or if we contrast some of the states of this republic +with others of corresponding age, we shall see at a glance a wide +difference in material resources and prosperity. In one the industrial +arts are far advanced, there is intellectual activity, the average +citizen is well clothed, well housed, and enjoys many luxuries; in the +other, the methods and life of a past century prevail and poverty and +ill-living are the rule. This, if not the highest motive, is an +incidental one of considerable importance for doing at the common +expense that which is for the common good. + +But the maintenance of the public library is not based on the +communistic idea. A former president of this association, speaking at +the Lake George Conference, said: "The socialists and communists are all +friends of the library, for we give them the books they want, and they +hold that it is not only the duty of the government to educate the +people, but to furnish them with reading. If the library ever shall have +enemies they will be the rich, who do not enjoy being taxed for the +benefit of the public, and have libraries of their own. Its defenders +will be men of broad views, scholarly people, and behind them, with +votes, the middle and poorer classes." + +While it may be true, in a certain sense, that socialists and +communists approve the public library because it appears to give them +something which they desire at the public cost, that scheme, on its true +ground, is as far removed as possible from any such theory of +maintenance by the state. The essential principle of communism is that +the members of the community shall hold their property in common for the +common use and benefit. This principle flourished in the village +community in which each individual was allotted his certain proportion +of the lands owned in common. There are at this day a sporadic few who +advocate government ownership of railroads, and some would even include +all the great instrumentalities of commerce and production. But the +rational majority hold that the state of society is best which makes the +individual a free and independent member of the community. His ambitions +and energies are best stimulated by his opportunities to prosper for +himself. Civilization and enlightenment are advanced by the efforts of +the master spirits of the race. The only demand which the individual can +justly make on the community, with its government as the common agent of +all, is that it shall not merely protect him in his rights as a free and +independent citizen, but that it shall assure him the opportunities for +the fullest exercise of his talents, and shall also, as a measure of +common interest, provide the facilities for his very highest mental +equipment. In this latter service of the state there is nothing whatever +of the communistic idea. + +The public library is not a public charity. There may be some who regard +it as in the nature of a free soup-house which caters to the appetite +for mental pabulum more or less wholesome. Most communities make some +provision for those who are mentally or physically unfitted to care for +themselves and who have no estate nor natural relations upon whom they +can rely for support. So the state builds and maintains hospitals and +almshouses. This it does simply as a duty of humanity. The instincts of +the race and the teachings of an enlightened civilization assure us that +a universal brotherhood makes all human creatures kin. As individuals we +owe a certain duty to all other individuals, and as organized society we +must see to it that the welfare of all is conserved. But there is no +duty of kindness or good-will which requires the furnishing of reading +matter for the use of the whole community. + +The public library is not provided for the mere intellectual enjoyment +of the citizens. The municipal corporation uses public funds to buy and +beautify parks and boulevards. The purpose of these is to promote the +public health and comfort, and incidentally to cultivate the aesthetic +sense. The state has a direct interest in the health of its citizens. It +must rely on their physical strength for defense in time of peril or +invasion. Therefore it must have a care that their physical welfare is +promoted. Wholesome food, gentle exercise, a cheerful and contented +mind, have much to do with soundness of body, and so food-inspection and +open-air recreation are justified at the common expense. + +Art-museums and public concerts are sometimes maintained out of the +general treasury. The only basis on which this expense can be justified +is that their purpose is educational. The welfare of the state depends +not alone on the ability of its citizens to merely read and write and +solve problems in simple arithmetic. Our nature is many-sided and its +full and perfect development must be sought in many directions. The +aesthetic is not less real than the practical. The finer qualities of +the mind have weightly influence upon national progress and destiny. The +state has a right to do for its citizens the things which will best +serve its ultimate interests. + +Universities and higher institutions of learning maintained at public +cost now train those who have the means and opportunities to take +advantage of their curricula for the most advanced degrees, and through +their post-graduate courses offer facilities for spending the good part +of a lifetime in the immediate pursuit of knowledge. But in the nature +of things the number of those who can give time to these higher courses +is limited. The argument has sometimes been employed against high +schools and universities that they are maintained at great cost for the +use of a comparatively trifling portion of the community. Statistics are +quoted to show that of the whole number of children in the primary +grades less than 25 per cent. go through the grammar grades, and that of +the small number who enter the high school grades hardly one in ten +finishes them, while of these but an infinitesimal number go on to and +through the university. + +It is not due to lack of capacity wholly, or lack of interest, that so +many students fall by the wayside, but mainly to the fact that their +services are necessary in the productive channels of business. Yet, in +spite of the comparatively few who are able to take advantage of them, +the state considers it a duty to foster, and the community cheerfully +bears the burden of maintaining, the higher institutions of learning, +because the benefits which they confer are easily recognized. To +compensate in some degree those who are not able to pursue in organized +institutions studies untimely stopped by the necessities of active life, +the community provides the free library. This is the people's +university, close to the door of every citizen, in which all who have +the inclination and energy to do so may pursue through their whole lives +the studies which most interest them. + +The function of the public library is purely and wholly educational. In +this case the term is to be construed in its most comprehensive sense. +It does not merely include development of the intellect; it involves all +the varied human relations. We owe duties to our Maker, to ourselves, to +those who are dependent upon us, to our neighbors, to society, and to +the state. In all these delicate and intricate relations we must be +taught, and as the world advances, our civilization becomes more complex +and our relations more involved, the character and quality of our +education becomes the more important. The school and the college have +merely laid the foundation. If they have done their full duty they have +done little more than set the student on the high road. The sequel rests +with himself. The public library puts into his hands books, which +contain the combined wisdom and experience of all who have gone before, +and wherein are preserved the best thoughts of the best men and women of +all time. They who pass judgment upon what shall and what shall not be +admitted to the shelves of a public library must bear in mind that, +strictly construing the function of the library to be educational, there +is yet very wide latitude in respect to the things which people may +safely and wisely learn. + +In this aspect of the case, those who are charged with the management +and control of libraries have imposed upon them a very grave +responsibility. They are not merely the custodians of the books which +the public purse has bought; they are commissioned to guide in the path +of highest progress. In this light, the function of the librarian +assumes the halo of a holy office. He who discharges it earnestly and +faithfully may do much to help forward the enlightenment of his +generation. + +The sum of the whole statement, briefly, is this: There is no limit to +the concern of the free state in the education of its citizens. It is as +much bound to provide libraries in which the adult may continue his +studies as it is to maintain schools in which as a child he may begin +them. The day is not distant when this duly will be universally +recognized in this country. In most of the states compulsory education +laws prevail. In at least one, every town is required by law to +establish and maintain a free public library. In this respect, New +Hampshire is only leading the way in which others will shortly follow. + +Then organized society can truthfully say to the individual, in the +language of Professor Hoffman in his "Sphere of the State": "We have +done what we could to develop and strengthen all your powers. We have +taught you to the best of our ability to know yourself and to understand +your relations to your fellows. Now, so long as you conduct yourself as +a child of the day and not of the night, all the rights and privileges +of the brotherhood are yours. But if you choose to walk in the darkness +rather than in the light, if you trample under foot our laws, if you +raise your hand against every man, let the curse of your wrong doing +fall upon your own head, not on ours." + + + + +ALTERNATIVES TO TAX-SUPPORT + + + In the case of a public library, that is, of one intended to + be used by all the members of the community, as + distinguished from a subscription library, alternatives to + public support have usually been in the nature of expedients + to tide matters over until the library could be turned over + to the municipality. The next two papers are early + discussions of some of these alternatives. + + + + +IF NOT A TAX-SUPPORTED LIBRARY, WHAT? + + The following paper contributed anonymously to _The Iowa + Library Quarterly_ (Des Moines, April, 1903) tells how local + library associations have been formed in that state, in + small towns where public support, for the moment, has been + deemed impossible or inadvisable. + + +The fact that a majority of the states of the Union have by legal +enactment provided for free public libraries supported by tax indicates +the general acceptance of the belief that such an institution is for the +public good and its support as an educational institution is as +desirable as the support of the public schools. + +More and more has it come to be recognized that if the ideals and +aspirations of youth are to be aroused and directed early in life by the +reading of inspiring books, the state may well foster this institution +which provides such literature. + +The Code of Iowa provides that towns and cities shall have power to +provide for the foundation and maintenance of a free public library by +voting upon the question, "Shall a free public library be established" +at a general or special election, and further providing that a tax not +exceeding two mills on the dollar of the taxable valuation of such city +or town may be levied for its support. This places the library on a firm +footing as a public educational institution, even though its income from +the tax may be small. + +There are, however, some towns in the state that find it impossible or +unwise at present to secure this support of the library by a tax and +hence they ask, "If not a free public library supported by tax, what +shall we attempt?" This inquiry is practical. The desire is earnest in +many places to support a library by some other means than a tax until +such time as sentiment will be strong enough to vote favorably upon it, +hence the best method of conducting it needs to be considered. + +The beginning of such a work must be made by a few, earnest people who +thoroughly believe in the need of a public collection of books, not +alone for the value it will be to them personally, but what it may do +for the many who are unable to own books for themselves. Club women are +often the most active factors in inaugurating such a movement and +sometimes the Woman's Club alone espouses the cause of the library and +provides for the purchase of books and the running expenses of the +library. It would seem, however, after observation of various efforts, +more or less successful, along this line, that it is much better to +secure the cooperation of all clubs and other organizations in the town, +thus disarming any outside criticism or antagonism from those outside +the one club. + +A library association, which includes all persons in the town who are +desirous of having a public library, seems to be the better form for the +organization to take, though a city federation of clubs has proven a +successful agency in many towns. The difficulty of providing funds for +conducting such a library on an absolutely free basis is evident, but to +make membership in the association, with the payment of an annual +membership fee, the condition of borrowing is to bar from the use of the +books the people who need them most. + +In organizing a library association it will be necessary to decide what +the policy is to be in this respect. Shall the library be solely for +those who join the association and pay this fee, or shall this be an +altruistic movement for the betterment of the town, making the use of +the books free to all? If the latter plan is decided upon it will be +necessary to provide by subscription of citizens or by entertainments +and otherwise, a larger fund for the support of the library, and such an +undertaking should be well considered for it often becomes burdensome. + +If an association is formed with an annual membership fee which entitles +the member to the use of the books, those who feel unable to pay this +annual fee may be loaned books upon the payment of a small fee for the +loan of a single book. + +The reading room feature is of great importance and whatever plan may +be adopted regarding the loan of the books for home use there is no +reason why the use of the reading room, the periodicals and the books in +the room should not be absolutely free to all who will come there to use +them. To make the reading room the brightest and most attractive spot in +town for the boys who are inclined to be on the street of evenings is a +possibility for any library association, if a few earnest women will +give time and effort toward this end. + +The actual expenses incurred in such a venture are room rent, furniture, +heat, light, services of a librarian and the purchase of books and +periodicals, but a systematic effort to interest the people of the town +often results in the donation of the use of a room and the other +necessities. It is not desirable to solicit donation of books. The +random inclination of people to pass on to the public library books they +do not care for on their own library shelves is damaging to the library +receiving them. In another column the report of the Audubon Club +mentions this point. The books should be selected with the greatest +care. + +The most important feature of such an enterprise is to have some one in +charge of the room who shall be suited to the work,--a woman of culture +and character, of pleasing manners and one who loves children and +delights in aiding readers. Such a librarian gives an "atmosphere" to +the whole undertaking. + +In many towns club women and others who are interested have volunteered +to serve as librarians, without compensation, and if a head librarian is +selected to whom these volunteer workers shall report and who is +responsible for the work, this arrangement seems a good one until such +time as funds will permit of the employment of a paid librarian. + +At Audubon, Exira, Glenwood, Guthrie Center, Laurens, Leon, Tama and +other places in the state, the women are most courageously carrying on +this work, with the hope that the town will eventually take the +responsibility off their shoulders by voting a tax to support the +library. + +If any attempt has been made to vote a municipal tax and it has failed, +or if there seems to be little sentiment in favor of the measure, there +is no need to feel disheartened. A beginning may be made by securing a +travelling library of 50 volumes from the Library Commission at Des +Moines, without other cost than transportation, and these books, may be +exchanged for a similar collection every 3 months, thus making 200 +volumes accessible during the year. + +This collection with the few books the local association is able to buy +and a few good magazines should make it possible to open the room for +reading and the issue of books two afternoons and evenings each +week--preferably Wednesday and Saturday. + +The small beginning will gather to itself strength if the workers are +persistent; the collection of books will increase, sentiment will grow +more favorable and eventually the movement will be popular. + +In making such a beginning the Iowa Library Commission should be called +upon for the use of the traveling library, form of constitution and +by-laws, book lists and other printed matter, and the secretary will be +glad to render any assistance possible in forwarding such an enterprise +in any town in the state. + + + + +CO-OPERATION BETWEEN LIBRARY AND COMMUNITY + + A paper that originally appeared in _The Springfield + Republican_, Dec. 1, 1899, and was reprinted in Home + Education Bulletin No. 31 of the University of the State of + New York. The author, Miss M. Anna Tarbell of Brimfield, + Mass. + + +The use of the word cooperation in connection with the public library +implies that the library is not simply a collection of books, that it is +not a passive institution, a repository of treasure, but an active +institution reaching out to bestow benefits. The library spirit means +not only cooperating with all uplifting forces in the community, but +creating and stimulating such forces. The library spirit seeks to carry +brightness into gray and toilworn lives, to give broad vision in place +of the narrow and distorted view, to awaken generous sympathies and +noble thoughts in place of sordid desires and petty interests. Imbued +with this spirit, the librarian will be a lover of humankind, +sympathetic, earnest, self-sacrificing, a true missionary, enthusiastic +withal and eager to seize upon ways and means by which the library may +more and more be made to enrich human life. But however abundant in +resources the library, and however zealous and efficient the librarian, +there is a limit to the work that can be accomplished on the library +side for the promotion of intellectual life and general culture. There +needs to be a larger and more intelligent demand on the community side +for the supply which the library offers. To stimulate this demand there +is needed the cooperation of those people and those institutions in the +community that possess special opportunities for increasing the use and +influence of the library, or in any way making human life wiser, better +and happier. This cooperation may be both direct and indirect, since all +culture influences are by nature cooperative with that of the library. I +shall dwell specially on the need of stimulating cooperation on the side +of the community, for the reason that the library has already taken the +initiative, and because library privileges are so abundant in +Massachusetts, so freely offered and eagerly extended, without a +proportionate response to these privileges on the part of the public. + +While dwelling most upon the importance of its educational influences, I +would not underrate the province of the library in providing +entertainment and recreation, which have their culture value. But the +following are impressive words from the editor of the New England +magazine in its current number: "Education in a democracy is so +fundamental that education may almost be looked upon as another way of +spelling democracy." "We are to consider more carefully the educational +function of everything which affects the mind of the people: the church, +the newspaper, the library, the platform." + +Considering cooperation with the library on the part of individuals, we +naturally think first of those who are connected with the library by +virtue of their office, namely, the library trustees. The trustees have +special opportunities for increasing the use and usefulness of the +library on account of their acquaintance with, and influence upon, the +library on one hand, and their daily intercourse with the public on the +other. There has so far come to my notice such assistance by the +trustees as inviting people, specially newcomers, to the library, +carrying books to outlying schools, personal assistance in the library +and collecting historical material for preservation in the library. It +is true that the literal requirements of the office of library trustee +are only those of a conservative nature, just as the duties of the +librarian were formerly considered to be those of the careful custodian, +but as the library spirit gains ground and the conception of the library +as an active mission grows, we may look forward to the day when every +town will be sure of having six or nine persons, as the case may be, not +only engaged in improving the character of the library, but in promoting +its increased and more effective use, a standing committee for the +culture interests of the town. This cooperation will be promoted by +trustees attending the meetings of library clubs, joining the clubs and +assisting them, as well as by giving the librarian every encouragement +to do so, such as granting leave of absence and possibly paying +expenses. The _Library journal_ and _Public libraries_ should be on the +subscription list of every library, and trustees as well as librarian +need to keep informed of progress in the library world. + +There are other people in every town who would be willing to assist in +the work of the library, or help people to get books or encourage more +and better reading if asked to do so by the librarian. To seek out such +persons, then, is the duty and opportunity of the librarian in this work +of cooperation. Suggestions regarding "Volunteer aids in library work" +are admirably given in the report of the state library commission for +this year in the bound volume, _Public libraries of Massachusetts_, and +should be read by librarians and trustees and shown to all patrons of +the library who are available for assistance. + +Surely the home should cooperate with the library by the example of the +reading habit, and by the direction of the reading of the children; +while it would be an excellent thing for parents to pursue lines of +reading that would keep them in touch with the children's studies. As it +is, I fear librarians will bear out the recent statement of a school +supervisor that "The home is not even inclined to supervise the +children's reading, and, the selection of books being left largely to +themselves, many boys and girls read books not proper for them to read." + +The church, the school and the library are institutions which naturally +constitute a triple alliance. Cooperation between the library and the +schools, which has received so much consideration and is being so +rapidly developed, I need not dwell upon. But there is need for +increased cooperation between the church and the library. This +cooperation should be both direct and indirect. Ministers should feel a +responsibility for the intellectual, as well as spiritual, welfare of +the people. They should show that intelligence and breadth of mind make +a better and more efficient Christian, and that the church will become a +greater power if its members read and think. The minister has had +special privileges for his own culture, and he has peculiar +opportunities for recommending books, guiding library taste, and +directly increasing the use of the library. There should be some kind of +study club connected with every church, and those young people who have +finished their school course should be taught their moral obligation to +cultivate their God-given mental powers and grow in intelligence and +wisdom. + +To advance the special interests of the church along intellectual +lines, the library should be provided with books that will improve +Sunday school work, aid in the study of the Bible, and the growth of +intelligence on religious subjects. It should be provided with up to +date histories of Bible times in the light of archeological discoveries, +with works of modern reverent scholarship concerning the Bible, and +books which record the development of religious thought. Much excellent +study is being done by members of the women's missionary societies. It +is very desirable that these women cooperate with the librarian in the +selection of standard works revealing conditions in the countries +studied. + +Among organizations, women's clubs have probably done the most to assist +library interests. This is especially true in some of the western +states, notably in Wisconsin. Literary and other study clubs which +prevail in New England are certainly in their nature cooperative with +the library, while they might be of more direct assistance to it. The +library, of course, should give these societies all possible +encouragement and help. The clubs will react favorably on the library in +creating a demand for books which will improve the character of the +accessions to the library. Where a study club does not exist, the +librarian should help to form one. It is possible that there is a +tendency to exclusiveness in women's literary clubs. If the number limit +keeps out those desirous of joining, or those who need encouragement in +literary interest, a branch club for their benefit should be formed. +Besides working for their own improvement, the members of study clubs +should have a missionary spirit and should feel a responsibility for the +intellectual welfare of the town. A woman's literary club is capable of +being a strong ally of the public library. + +The newly developing local history societies and the public library are +naturally allied, and promise to be of increasing mutual benefit. The +library should buy town histories and books needed by the historical +society, while the latter will contribute to the library records, maps +and published memorials. Further, the historical society, by sustaining +lectures in which the principles of colonial development are illustrated +by local annals, should develop a perception and interest which will be +manifested in a demand for volumes of history now lying dusty on the +library shelves. + +The grange is another organization whose objects affiliate it with the +library, since the grange movement is an important culture movement. +There is opportunity for more active cooperation between the library and +the grange. The grange, and also the farmers' clubs, should be asked to +recommend the best works upon agriculture, while the lecturer of the +grange and the committee of the farmers' clubs should confer in advance +with the librarian as to material needed in carrying out their literary +programs. More than one other organization might be mentioned which +would help the library and be helped by it through increased +cooperation, thereby extending the influence of both. It is the sense of +obligation and responsibility that needs to grow. + +The public press is an agency which certainly ought to be a firm ally of +the public library, cooperating with it directly and indirectly. +Newspapers should be ever ready to give space to any matter that will +bring the library to the attention of the public, and they should also +keep the public informed of progress in library interests. Deeper than +this, the press should constantly exemplify and teach culture ideals, +the true mission of journalism. + +The hope of stimulating greater cooperation between the community and +the public library seems to me to lie largely in the library club or, +better, library association, movement. First, local library clubs should +increase in number, becoming more truly local, thus exerting a stronger +influence upon the libraries in the section represented and coming into +closer relation with the community. The membership should include people +who are neither librarians nor trustees, but whose sense of +responsibility will be awakened as their interest is increased. The +district represented should not be so large as to prevent meetings being +frequently held in the same vicinity. These local clubs should be in +close relation with the state club or association, and the state library +commission. The local clubs will do the actual close work, while having +the support, advice and assistance of the state club and state +commission. The local clubs will give information as to conditions and +needs, and will be agencies for the application of progressive ideas. +The study of conditions, of what may be called the environment of +libraries, comes within the province of library-club work. The study of +the conditions and needs of the small towns and rural communities is of +leading importance. From what other source except from the library +movement with a greater development of its possibilities is help for +those towns to come? The initiative in personal effort to give +advantages for want of which some of the small towns are suffering has +been taken by the women's education association in the loan of their +traveling libraries accompanied by personal visits and the study of +conditions and needs. + +But there is another want besides that of books in the small villages +and towns. There is needed not only the printed page, but the speaking +voice, the influence of personality through lectures. A story from +experience will illustrate this need. A few years ago there was held in +our town an exhibition of antiquities which awakened intense interest on +the part of old and young. This interest made a good opportunity for the +study of colonial history, which a few of us carried on. Certain books +not in our library were needed, although the library is a good one and +well equipped in American history. Our want came to the knowledge of +Miss Chandler, chairman of the library committee of the woman's +education association, and out of this grew, another year, a special +library lent to us upon American history which formed a valuable +supplement to the works contained in our library in that department. At +both times, when we had the exhibition and when we received the +traveling library (which we still possess, having bought the books) I +realized the opportunity and need of lectures. What a strong combination +the group would have made--the exhibition, the working library, a +lecture course. This would have been in reality an adaptation of the +idea of university extension, which I believe could be developed by the +library club movement. Each town would have its standing library +committee composed of members of the local library club, and several +towns in the district represented by the club would form a convenient +circuit. But if this scheme, which I believe to be feasible, can not be +immediately developed or applied, there should be no delay on the part +of those interested in library work in Massachusetts in considering some +plan of promoting popular education, the leading object today of library +work, through lectures of some kind, if not sustained courses having +continuity of subject. + +Two difficulties meet this need of lectures in the smaller and poorer +towns and in many villages, that of the expense of securing the best +talent (and nothing short of excellent ability will serve), and that of +knowing where to find available speakers. The last difficulty can be met +by organizing a committee who will search out those who can be secured +to speak under the auspices of the libraries of the small towns. A plan +for bringing the expense within the means of the people of those towns +might also be developed. One source of help might be found in the +increase of the powers of the state library commission. In Wisconsin the +efficiency and powers of the state commission have been extended by the +passage of a bill through the legislature increasing the appropriation +awarded the commission and adding to its duties. The commission is +empowered to hold library institutes in various parts of the state, and +to encourage the growth of study clubs connected with the traveling +libraries. To carry out the duties of the commission, among which is +mentioned "to aid in building up a better system of popular education," +the additional sum of $3500 is awarded to the commission. Why should not +Massachusetts aid in building up a better system of popular education by +helping to provide speakers for the smaller villages and towns where +needed, thus supplementing and aiding the work of the public libraries? +It is possible that a beginning could be made through the establishment +of library institutes. If it should be considered wise to establish +library institutes in this state, as important a feature of them as +instruction in library matters would be lectures for the public on +literary and educational subjects of a popular nature. The first step to +be taken is for a committee representing the three existing library +clubs and the Massachusetts library commission to consider what plans +are most feasible, not only for the improvement of library work, but +also for increasing the intelligent and effective use of the library by +creating new ideals of popular education in the community, and thus +bring about cooperation in its deepest sense. + + + + +BOARDS OF TRUSTEES + + + A board of trustees, or of directors or commissioners, is + the representative of the community in its control of the + library and in the formal service rendered by the community + to the library. The relationship was familiar in other + public institutions at the time that public libraries began + to be established, and its duties, responsibilities and + limitations in this instance were regarded as being the same + as in others. They were therefore not widely discussed, and + the work of library trusteeship is still too little + systematized. + + The Trustees' Section of the A.L.A., founded in order that + Library trustees might gather yearly to discuss their + peculiar problems, has always been scantily attended. The + Indiana Trustees Association is the only prosperous body of + the kind in the United States, but its success might well + prove suggestive to library trustees in other states. The + three following papers were all read at a single library + conference in 1890, which may show that there was then some + degree of awakening to the necessity for discussing this + phase of library administration. + + + + +LIBRARY WORK FROM THE TRUSTEES' STANDPOINT + + A few first principles by the president of the Board of what + was at that time the St. Louis Public School Library, since + 1893 the St. Louis Public Library. The Rev. Mr. Learned read + this paper at the Fabyan's Conference of the American + Library Association, in 1890. + + John Calvin Learned was born in Dublin, N.H., Aug. 7, 1834. + He engaged in teaching, went to Missouri in 1856 and in 1859 + entered Harvard Divinity School. After graduation he was + pastor of a Unitarian church in Exeter, N.H., and in 1870 + took charge of the newly-organized Church of the Unity in + St. Louis where he remained until his death, Dec. 8, 1893. + He was a member of the Board of Managers of the Public + School Library from 1884 to 1892 and its president for half + that period. + + +An old play has it that "trustees are not to be trifled with" and, as +they are not only allowed but invited to come among the librarians to +assert their rights and their authority, why should they not do it +vigorously? Did they not originate the librarian? "Shall the thing +formed say to him that formed it, 'Why hast thou made me thus?'" + +Yet to assume such creative power must load us down with +responsibilities--greater, I fear, than some of us have joyfully +accepted. In fact, do not trustees incline, as a rule, to throw too much +of the burden of library administration upon the librarian? If the +incumbent of this office is fairly willing and capable, is he not +suffered to do pretty much as he pleases, except it may be with regard +to such large measures as the construction of buildings and the +management of investments? + +Proportioned to the authority of trustees, however, is their +responsibility. To whom much is given, of them much is required. And the +position of the better sort of trustee valuable to the best work of the +librarian, is not that sinecure seat sometimes depicted. He must +constantly stand as the able and ready advisor of the librarian, and for +the honor and defence of the library. He will be made the court of +ultimate appeal in many matters, both practical and curious. He will +receive letters from all sorts of people, some with gifts in their +hands, and some with complaints on their lips; some seeking favors, +possible and impossible. Col. Higginson's humorous way, recently, of +introducing Phillips Brooks as the man whom nobody in the Cambridge +library could find out the height of, until at last the inquiry was +brought to him as trustee to answer, may illustrate the point. + +Lately an article in one of the English reviews treats of the "Perils of +Trustees." And while no statute makes us responsible,--as innocent +parties were held to be under British law, in the failure of the Glasgow +Bank,--yet the library trustee carries risks, both moral and financial, +and the place should be offered to none who will not give it a +_bonafide_ service. There is no room for a mere figure-head or +ornamental name on a working library board. Every member of a directory, +rightly organized, should take his share in the administration, and have +some knowledge of what goes on in the library world. + +It is true there have been instances where some ambitious and +irrepressible spirit has exceeded his official duties and privileges; +has been disposed to dictate the whole policy of the library, reducing +the librarian's office to that of a mere secretary. I knew a director in +a large library who resigned because he could not buy the books and +write all the reports. He hungered for more to do. But I have known more +than one to keep himself as far away from the board as possible, after +one or two sessions of three or four hours each, in the necessary +deliberations of the book committee. + +Edward Everett Hale says that the great essential for the directors or +trustees of any institution is, that they "keep their end in sight," as +Dr. Watt's hymn reads. If it is an institution to help old women, or +save poor children, or find situations for the idle, does it really do +it? Or is it so taken up with the mechanism of the concern, so absorbed +and happy over methods and details, that it loses sight of the object? +This is especially to be considered in the management of a public +library. What is the library for? Is it accomplishing its work? Is it +doing its utmost to promote the virtue, refinement, and intelligence of +the community? + +A library may be likened to a bank where literary reserves are kept. It +is organized to promote the circulation of a sound literary currency. +The directors must see to it that, though there may be counterfeit and +worthless money in the vaults, the cashier or librarian must pay over +the counter for general circulation such only as will maintain the +institution's standard of credit and confidence in the community. The +gold basis must be maintained, and no "wild-cat" bills pass out through +the window. + +It grows increasingly evident that very few libraries in the world can +indulge in the luxury or licence of buying all books written. The +ambition to supply any man with any work he calls for must therefore be +held in check. Thus it becomes increasingly important that much care and +deliberation be exercised in the choice of books to be bought, whether +to complete deficient departments or for the daily circulation. The +purchase of poor books makes a market for poor authorship. Hereafter, +less than ever should libraries be the dumping place for indiscreet +publishers, for questionable or incompetent authors. The public library +exists for civilization, that is, for moral ends. It is the record and +history of civilization, as well as the ally of progress. It is the +"friend and helper of all those who seek to live in the spirit." For +this reason, therefore, the character of the books in a library is of +more importance than mere numbers; and the value of a library to the +community may be imperfectly shown by the statistics of circulation. No +aim can be higher, however, than having a good library, to make its +resources known, and to multiply readers in the remotest and obscurest +parts of our towns and cities. + + + + +Trustees of Free Public Libraries + + In introducing this topic, Mr. C.C. Soule, who spoke as a + trustee of the Brookline Public Library, said that he had + found little or nothing about it in existing library + literature, and that his paper had been shown to a + considerable number of both trustees and librarians and + modified in accordance with their views. His analysis of the + subject is somewhat closer than President Learned's. + + Charles Carroll Soule was born in Boston June 25, 1842 and + graduated at Harvard in 1862. After serving in the Civil + War, which he left as a captain of Massachusetts volunteers + he became a publisher and after 1889 was president of the + Boston Book Co. He was an active member of the American + Library Association. He died at his home in Brookline, Jan. + 7, 1913 + + +This paper considers the constitution of elective boards of trustees of +free public libraries, intrusted with the appointment of librarians and +full control of their libraries. + +The subject can be naturally treated under the following heads: Size of +the board; term of office; qualifications for the position; duties; +individual and collective; organization; and relations with the +librarian. + + +1. SIZE OF THE BOARD + +The weight of opinion seems to be in favor of small boards; and in +small towns, where the duties are light, three trustees will usually +work more harmoniously and effectively than a larger number. But in +large towns and cities a more numerous board has two advantages--there +is more chance of securing among its members one or two men who are +exceptionally active, intelligent, judicious, and interested in library +science; and the board may be more thoroughly representative of +different sections of the town and different elements in the population. + + +2. TERM OF OFFICE + +The usual and undoubtedly the best composition of a board of library +trustees is to divide it into groups, one group going out of office each +year. This provision secures stability by preventing sudden changes of +the whole board by intrigue or popular caprice, and is intended to allow +opportunity for gradual change whenever it is needed. + +But does this provision alone insure sufficient change to prevent +stagnation? The position of trustee of a library is so pleasant and +honorable, that the incumbent may wish to retain it indefinitely. The +men selected as trustees may be personally so worthy and popular that +their townsmen are reluctant to retire them compulsorily, even when the +feeling is prevalent that others might serve more acceptably. To effect +a change under such circumstances requires an effort approaching +revolution, with danger of that discord and bad feeling which are so +unfortunate in library management. + +Would it not be wise, in view of this possible danger, to follow the +example of the graduates of Harvard College in electing overseers, and +provide by law that no trustee shall hold office for more than (say) +three successive terms of three years, or nine years in all? While a +library might thus lose occasionally an active and efficient trustee +(who could still be reelected after being only a year out of office), +would it not gain much more than it could lose, in keeping that close +contact with popular needs and with new ideas, which is so healthy and +stimulating in the management of all public institutions? + + +3. QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE POSITION + +The ideal qualifications for a trustee of a public library (a fair +education and love of books being taken for granted) might be summarized +somewhat thus:-- + +Sound character; good judgement and common-sense; public spirit; +capacity for work; literary taste; representative fitness. + +Men of character and position in the community are usually selected as +trustees; but it may be assumed somewhat too confidently that, because a +man has been prominent in political or business or social circles, he +will make a good trustee. It is a mistake to put in such a position any +man who has outlived his public spirit and energy. + +Library taste is placed low on this list of qualifications, because in +any administrative position, even in connection with a library, capacity +and willingness to work, united with common-sense and a fair education, +are much more useful than a taste for literature without the practical +qualities. And of the different grades of literary taste, general +culture and a wide range of reading are generally more serviceable to a +public library than the knowledge of the scholar or the specialist. + +In selecting men of prominence for trustees, there is danger of +excluding too rigidly the younger men who might contribute to the +strength and efficiency of the board. There is so much activity and +progress in the library work of this generation, that the adage "Old men +for counsel, young men for action" is not wholly inapplicable to the +choice of trustees, whose work requires counsel and action in nearly +equal degrees. + +With a large board it would seem wise to select members with some +reference to representation of different sections of the town, and +different occupations, interests, or nationalities among the +inhabitants. This tends to prevent dissatisfaction, and to adapt the +purchase of books and the general policy of the library to the needs of +the whole community, rather than to the wishes of special classes. + +Neither politics nor religious opinion should of course enter into the +choice of library trustees, except so far as it is unwise to constitute +a board exclusively from one party or one denomination. + + +4. DUTIES, INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE + +As an individual, the trustee of a public library ought to realize that +he holds a high and sacred trust from the people; that he has been +elected to preserve and extend the privileges and benefits afforded by +the library in its modern development as "The People's University"; that +library science is not to be comprehended by intuition, but can be +learned only by intelligent observation and study; and that he has no +right to accept or hold the position unless he can take a lively +interest in the library, be constant in attendance at meetings and +diligent in committee work, keep himself informed of the current library +ideas by reading every number of the _Library journal_, and, if +possible, by visiting other libraries than his own, and watch keenly the +tastes and requirements of the constituency he represents. + +The collective duties of the board includes the care of investments and +funds, the careful and economical supervision of expenditures, the +determination of the policy of the library toward the public and in its +interior administration, the general direction of the choice and +purchase of books, the selection of the librarian and his assistants, +constant and critical observation of their work, occasional reckoning up +of work done and progress made, comparison of results with those reached +in other libraries, as a confirmation of merits and a corrective for +errors, and such active work of detail as will assist the librarian in +performing his duties. + + +5. ORGANIZATION + +A large board ordinarily transacts business through a chairman, a +secretary, a treasurer, and one or more committees. + +The chairman has few active duties, but the position requires judgment +in appointing committees, and tact in conducting meetings. The place is +perhaps the highest public honor in small towns, and is usually and +properly given to some trustee eminent for character and public +services. + +In Mr. Perkins's article, "How to make Town Libraries Successful," in +the "Government Report of 1876 on Public Libraries," it is suggested +that the librarian should act as secretary to the board of trustees; +but, aside from the fact he usually has more than enough work to do in +his own department, is it not at least doubtful whether an official, +whose conduct may at any time be a proper subject for confidential +discussion before the board, should serve as their secretary, and so be +obliged to be present throughout all meetings? The duties of a secretary +may properly provide occupation for some member of the board. + +The treasurer, if he holds funds in his hands, should always be put +under bond. No matter how trustworthy he may be, it is a sound principal +that no official should handle public money without giving bond. His +successor may not be so careful or so honest, and, unless the precedent +is established while the danger of loss seems small, it will be +difficult and invidious to insist upon a bond when occasion may require +it. If no trustee is willing to accept the position of treasurer with +bond, it is usually possible to leave the library funds in the hands of +the already bonded town treasurer, and draw on them as needed to pay +bills. + +As to committees, it is better to have as many as can actively be +employed, in order to enlist the cooperation or advice of every trustee. +In large boards, even with small libraries, four standing committees can +find occupation; namely, executive, book, finance, and progress. + +The executive committee can take charge of the daily work of the +library, of purchases, and of the care of the building. They should be +efficient men, with prompt business habits, with an active interest in +the library, with leisure to attend to their duties during library +hours, and with sufficient discretion to sift and formulate business to +be presented at the meetings of the trustees. While discharging their +executive duties promptly and thoroughly, they ought to be careful not +to assume too much of the power and responsibility which properly belong +to the full board, whose will they are appointed to execute. + +[In very large libraries, these duties of an executive committee are +sometimes subdivided among additional committees on building and +grounds, on purchase of supplies, on reading-room and so on, as +different departments increase in importance.] + +Inasmuch as the range of reading, the literary taste, and the critical +faculty, which qualify a man to select books for popular use, are not +necessarily united with executive ability, it will often be best to +intrust the choice of books to a book committee, selected for that +purpose alone. This is a sufficiently important duty to occupy all the +spare time of a committee, even where the initiative is taken by the +librarian, and appeal on doubtful points is made to the full board. + +The duties of a finance committee are often confined to a perfunctory +and occasional examination of accounts, but they may be made very +important. To make and watch investments, to provide that money on +deposit shall always draw the best interest, to see that purchases of +books and supplies are made on the most favorable terms, to keep close +watch on all the controllable expenditures, to examine and verify bills, +and to audit carefully the treasurer's accounts, will give full +employment to a good committee of business men. + +In addition to these obviously useful committees, there is another,--a +"Committee on Library Progress"--which often serves to increase the +activity and efficiency of the library. Constituted from among the +younger or more active men, and from those trustees who can find +opportunity for visiting other libraries, such a committee can do good +work in watching the experiments made elsewhere; in placing before the +board information in regard to improved methods of library work; in +comparing the library with other libraries similarly situated; and in +encouraging their own librarian, if he be progressive, or in stimulating +him, if too conservative. In short such a committee, if both active and +wise, could keep even the smallest town library in the full tide of +modern progress. + +It will be best not to leave too much discretion or power permanently to +any committee, but to require all committees to report their acts and +plans frequently for the approval or criticism of the full board. + + +6. RELATIONS WITH THE LIBRARIAN + +The relations of the trustees with the librarian will vary greatly +according to circumstances. Some general principals may be suggested, +subject always to "the exceptions which prove the rule." + +First of all, it should be borne in mind that the trustees are the +responsible managers of the library, and that so far as they chose to +act, the librarian is only their agent, bound in honor to carry out +their wishes promptly, thoroughly, and cheerfully. + +If they are fortunate enough, however, to have a first-class librarian, +with superior ability, training, knowledge, energy, wisdom, and tact, +the trustees ought to leave the management of the library practically to +him, working only to lighten his labors and strengthen his hands. + +But if--as sometimes may happen--the librarian has human limitations, +and while strong in some directions is weak in others, it is the part of +the trustees to try to supplement, without impeding, his abilities. If, +after ascertaining his limitations, they decide that he is the best +librarian that they can get, under the circumstances of the case they +should note in what lines he needs help, and select for committees the +trustees best fitted to do the part of library work which he cannot +satisfactorily perform. + +If, however, the librarian has executive ability, it will be wise for +the trustees to let him control the selection, management, and dismissal +of all his assistants; if he has good judgement and what may be called +"the librarian's faculty," it will be wise to let him arrange the +methods and details of library work; if he has literary taste, it will +be especially wise to allow him at least the initiative in the choice +and purchase of books, for he has (or ought to have) constant contact +with the public and an intelligent knowledge of their wants. + +Although it may not be considered best for the librarian to act as their +secretary, the trustees should take him into their confidence, consult +him freely, and invite his presence during some part of each board +meeting and of all committee meetings where his advice might be of +service. The librarian can properly reciprocate by allowing the board +and the committees frequent opportunities for private conference and +"executive session," unembarrassed by his presence. + +In brief, while the trustees cannot forget that they control both +library and librarian, they should remember that the librarian is chosen +to be their expert advisor and their executive officer, and, so long as +he fills these positions satisfactorily, they ought not to hamper or +interfere with, so much as to assist and sustain him by their actions. + +The relations of an active librarian with an active board of trustees +demand discretion and consideration on both sides. But if the librarian +is sensible, and not too sensitive, and the trustees are reasonably +harmonious and judicious, the cooperation herein outlined may be carried +out with success. + + + + +THE DUTIES OF TRUSTEES AND THEIR RELATIONS TO LIBRARIANS + + Although Mr. S.S. Green says that he has prepared this paper + "from the standpoint of a librarian," he is competent to + speak from that of a trustee also, for he served as both, + having been a trustee of the Worcester Public Library for + some time when he was chosen its librarian. A sketch of + Samuel Swett Green will be found in Vol I. of this series. + + +In the symposium in which we are now engaged, I understand that I am to +consider the subject which we are talking about from the standpoint of a +librarian. + +The position can be stated in a few words. + +A librarian should be regarded as holding relations to his trustees +similar to those held by the agent of a factory or the cashier of a bank +to the governing board of the factory or bank. + +Some cashiers and some agents have more power than others. The power +conferred depends upon the knowledge, training, experience, industry, +enterprise, good judgment, and ability of persons holding such +positions. + +If the board of trustees of a library is more competent to manage its +affairs than the librarian, and if it is ready to give the time that is +necessary to the discharge of the duties of management, it has a perfect +right to do so, and the librarian need then only be a clerk. + +So, too, if on any board of directors there is one man of leisure who +has especial qualifications for conducting the affairs of a library, the +board may delegate to him the performance of the more intellectual +portions of the work of the librarian. + +Even, however, in such cases as those the individuality of the +librarian should be considered, because, although his position may be +very humble, yet he can do better work if allowed to work in his own +way, rather than in accordance with the provisions of rules laid down by +others which he is required to strictly observe. + +When a librarian is accomplished, it will be found wise for a board of +trustees or directors to ascertain his views on most subjects before +acting, and it will generally appear manifest that it is well to give +very careful consideration to those views. + +A board which encourages its librarian to initiate measures, will +administer its trust more satisfactorily than it can if it reduces him +to the position of a mere executive officer, who is only to carry out +the plans which it has formed. + +I should say that the wisest course for a board of trustees to pursue is +to let a good librarian do pretty much as he thinks best, only keeping a +watchful eye on him for the purpose of seeing that things are not going +wrong under his conduct of affairs. It is better, generally speaking, +for a board to change its librarian than to undertake to manage matters, +unless its members are willing to give much time and thought on the +subject. + +Mr. Greenough, at that time the President of the Board of Trustees of +the Boston Public Library, said to me, just after Mr. Windsor gave up +his position of Superintendent of that library, that he wished in his +successor the qualities of a librarian (using that designation in a +restricted sense) and not those of a superintendent, and that the title +of the new officer would be librarian and not superintendent. + +Mr. Greenough had had a long connection with the Boston Public Library +as a trustee and as President of the Board of Trustees, and felt that he +knew, better than any person whose services the library was likely to +secure, how to conduct its affairs. + +Judge Chamberlain, Mr. Windsor's successor, accepted the situation and +stated in an early report, in substance, that the duty of a librarian is +merely to carry out the wishes of the board of trustees. + +But Mr. Greenough became disabled after a while, and Judge Chamberlain +gained experience; and I venture to say, during the latter portion of +the short time which he was connected with the Boston Public Library, he +found that in the long run a librarian must take upon himself the lion's +share in the entire management of a library. Now that Judge Chamberlain +has resigned his place, the Trustees of the Boston Public Library are +understood to be looking around for an accomplished superintendent. + +The ideal executive head of a large public library--let me say it +emphatically--should have the qualifications of both librarian and +superintendent. Perhaps, in the case of some of the largest libraries, +it is well to have both a superintendent and a librarian; but when such +a distribution of duties becomes desirable, it is certain that the +superintendent should have something of the spirit of a librarian, and +as much of his technical knowledge as possible, and that the librarian +should be often consulted in regard to questions of management, and +have, himself, no mean qualifications as an executive officer. + +A good librarian should be allowed to make experiments (observing, of +course, reasonable limits), without consulting the board of trustees, +with the purpose of satisfying himself as to the desirability and +feasibility of adopting new methods, and of obtaining evidence that will +enable the board to form intelligent opinions in regard to the value of +changes recommended by him. + +Experiments may often be undertaken, with good prospect of success, by +persons familiar with kinds of work which a board of trustees, +acquainted with such kinds of work, would not care to try, but which, +nevertheless, it is very important should be tried. + +A librarian should have the appointment of his assistants in his own +hands, and should himself consult heads of departments in the choice of +persons to serve under them. + +He should be allowed to buy such books as are needed between meetings of +library committees and boards of trustees, just as a trusted cashier is +permitted to loan money to a bank's customer between meetings of its +board of directors. Both the librarian and the cashier should, of +course, give an account of such proceedings to the committee or board +over him at the meeting next after the transactions. + +Generally speaking, a competent librarian should be allowed large +freedom, and held responsible for wisdom in management. + +On the other hand, the board of trustees should insist upon the +observance by the librarian of such forms as have been adopted as +safe-guards. + +While it should allow much liberty to its executive officer, it should +also see to it that he keeps the machinery, by which work is done, in +order; so that, if in the exercise of a careful oversight, it shall +become advisable at any time for it to resume the power conferred on the +librarian, it may be able to do it promptly. + +Trustees and directors may render services of the greatest value to +libraries and librarians. + +Not long ago I had upon my board of directors an influential member, who +used to say regularly at the first meeting, after new men came on it, +"Gentlemen, our only duty is to support the librarian." + +That is saying too much, certainly. It is, however, the duty of a board +of trustees to second heartily a librarian in his efforts to make his +administration energetic, useful, and progressive, and to do all that it +can to secure patient and generous consideration by town and city +governments, and by citizens, of all wise measures which he may adopt. + +Trustees are very influential in working individually to obtain for a +library the support in money which is needed. + +They can be of great service in showing their appreciation of good work +done by the librarian, by word and act. + +It is almost too much to expect of a board of trustees that it should +look out to see to it that a librarian receive a proper salary, and that +his compensation be increased as his services grow in value, without +being reminded that the remuneration is inadequate by a communication +from that officer. Still it is very desirable that, when a communication +is made, it should be sympathetically considered, and that members of +the board should point out to one another the excellence of the services +rendered by the librarian instead of expecting him to enlarge upon their +value himself. + +It should be understood, also, that it is a librarian's duty to state +fully the worth of the services of his assistants, and seek adequate +compensation for them. + +A board of trustees can do much, and should always do as much as +possible, to keep the interests of a library and of a librarian from +being sacrificed to supposed exigencies of politics. + +In some portions of the country the appointment and removal of +librarians for political reasons has become a scandal. + +A board of trustees owes it to its librarian to protect him from the +vagaries of impracticable men who may by some chance become members of +the board. + +For example, it should quietly vote down unwise propositions, as they +are made by fussy or narrow men; by those persons who, while they are +self-confident, are also ignorant; by men who are so constituted as +always to oppose or hold back, or go ahead recklessly; and by such +persons as wish to have a hand in doing everything which it is the duty +of the librarian to do, and yet are unwilling to give any time or +thought to the conduct of affairs. + +There is a tendency in many boards of trustees, when a single member is +urgent in opposition to some measure proposed by a librarian, and the +other members have no positive opinions regarding the matter, to yield +to the objector. + +Such oppositions may afford a proper excuse for the delay, but should +not be allowed to become permanently efficacious in preventing the +execution of a project, without the librarian has been given ample +opportunities, for explaining the grounds of his recommendation. The +librarian should always be treated as a cooperator, and not as an +unintelligent servant. It would always be unwise in him to press the +adoption of measures until their wisdom is generally recognized by the +trustees. Still his reasons for advising action should be ascertained +and duly considered. + +A board of trustees will always do well to have the librarian present at +its regular meetings. His knowledge and experience will be found of +value. + +His plans will be the better understood. He, too, by being present will +not only comprehend better than in any other way the wishes of the board +of trustees (and its members), but, that which is of great importance +will catch the spirit which animates it, and become aware of the general +principles which it desires should underlie the administration of the +institution. + +Trustees should bear in mind that unnecessary delays are to be avoided, +and that, in order to keep the members of a community in a contented +frame of mind, their wants must not only be supplied, but supplied +promptly. + +Trustees should remember that it is important to give librarians and +some of their assistants time in which to aid users of libraries, +instead of keeping every attendant constantly employed about routine +work. + +Trustees should guard themselves against the notion that library work +is easy, and that it is only the occupations which they are usually +engaged in, in which employment is wearing and hard. + +It must not be supposed, from anything which I have said, that the +position of a director or trustee of a library is, in the opinion of +librarians, a sinecure. + +Our idea is far from this, as will be seen if the remarks already made +are carefully considered. + +It should be said in conclusion, that one of the most important duties +of trustees is to look around among libraries in different towns and +cities, to read library reports and accounts of meetings of librarians, +with the purpose of finding out whether they are getting as much and as +good service from librarians in the communities whose interests they +have to look after, as citizens are obtaining in places where libraries +and their management have attained a high standard of excellence. + +With the same end in view, they should see to it that librarians are +provided with the current issues of the best library journals and with a +collection of the best bibliographical works. + +They should also put themselves, and insist upon librarians putting +themselves, into vital relations with other libraries, and with the +whole body of librarians. + +Librarians should never forget that the real authority in a library +rests with the board of trustees, or fail to render immediate and +cordial submission to its directions. + +They should also seek and accept with gratitude all practical +suggestions that may be made to them by trustees or other persons. + +When any members of the board of trustees are specialists, they should +be urged to give the library the benefit of their special knowledge, by +proposing for purchase lists of books known to them to be of particular +value. + +I wish to add to what I have written, the statement that I have always +been very fortunate in having over me a body of directors of unusually +good judgment, and of the kindest disposition toward me. + +In fact, the remarks which I have made regarding the duties of trustees +have been suggested to me by observation of the happy results which have +followed the administration of the affairs of my own library, by a board +of directors who have governed themselves by rules almost identical with +those which I have recommended for use by boards of trustees and +directors generally. + + + + +THE LIBRARY'S SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY + + + This division of the subject is that which has been most + discussed, and its subject matter is that in which most + progress has been made. It is creditable to libraries that + what they do for the public has extended and developed to a + marvelously greater degree than what the public does for + them. Whether it is equally creditable to the public "is + another story." The first seven papers reproduced bear on + the subject of library service in a somewhat general manner + and are arranged chronologically. + + + + +SOME POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO PUBLIC LIBRARIES + + This is probably the first treatment of the subject in this + country, and is the leading article in the second number of + _The American Library Journal_, as it was then called. The + writer, William F. Poole was at the time librarian of the + Chicago Public Library. He mentioned objections only to + explain them away. It will be noted that none of them would + be described at present as "popular," and that only the + third is now much heard. + + William Frederick Poole was born in Salem, Mass., 1821, and + graduated at Yale in 1849, where as librarian of the + Linonian and Brothers Library he founded Poole's Index to + Periodical Literature, by which his name is chiefly + remembered. He was librarian of the Chicago Public Library + in 1873-87, and at his death, March 1, 1894, he was + librarian of the Newberry Library, Chicago, whose building + he designed on the departmental system, of which he was an + earnest advocate. He was the second president of the + American Library Association, serving in 1885-87. + + +In this paper I shall use the term "public libraries" as meaning free +municipal libraries organized under State laws and supported by general +taxation. This definition will exclude from our notice a large number of +libraries established on other foundations, some of them richly endowed +and partially accessible to the public. + +The rapid increase in the number and importance of public libraries, +both in this country and in England, is perhaps the most marked feature +of educational development during the past twenty-five years; for within +that brief period the first of them was opened to the public. + +My subject, as announced in the programme, requires me to speak of +popular objections; yet I must confess that popular appreciation of +these institutions, where they have been established, would have +furnished a more attractive theme. As their foundation involves +taxation, that prolific source of political controversy, it is somewhat +remarkable that in the eleven States of our Union where public-library +statutes have been enacted, so little public discussion has occurred, +and so few objections have been offered. I have heard of no instance +where such a bill was proposed in a State legislature and was defeated. +That all the Northern States, where general education and the +common-school system are established, have not by legislation provided +also for the public library--the natural ally and supplement of that +system--is doubtless owing to the fact that the people have not asked +for such legislation. The unanimity of the vote by which towns have +accepted taxation for the support of public libraries is significant. +The Commissioner of Education at Washington recently made inquiries on +this point, and received replies from 37 towns and cities. In 32 of +these the vote was unanimous; in 5 there was a divided sentiment, but +the vote was 1730 in favor to 515 against taxation. The vote of the +rate-payers in some English towns and cities where free libraries have +been established was as follows: + + Ayes. Noes. + + Manchester 3962 40 + Winchester 337 13 + Bolton 662 55 + Cambridge 873 78 + Oxford 596 72 + Sheffield 838 232 + Kidderminster 108 11 + Blackburn 1700 2 + Dundee, no dissentient. + +By the latest statistics of the Bureau of Education, it appears that +there are 188 public libraries in eleven of the United States. Of these +five are Eastern States--Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts +and Connecticut; five are Western States--Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, +Wisconsin, and Iowa: and one is a Southern State--Texas. Eight of these +States have passed public-library statutes within the past ten years. In +the number of libraries the States rank as follows: Massachusetts, 127; +Illinois, 14; New Hampshire, 13; Ohio, 9; Maine, 8; Vermont, +Connecticut, and Wisconsin, 4 each; Indiana, 3; Iowa and Texas, 1 each. +In the number of volumes they rank as follows (in round numbers): +Massachusetts, 920,000; Ohio, 144,000; Illinois, 77,000; New Hampshire, +52,000; Maine, 34,000; Indiana, 26,000; Vermont, 16,000; Connecticut, +15,000; Texas, 10,000; Wisconsin, 6000; Iowa, 1000. The aggregate number +of volumes in these libraries is 1,300,000, and their annual aggregate +circulation is 4,735,000 volumes. It is noticeable that no one of these +libraries is in New York, Pennsylvania, or any of the Middle States. The +representatives from those States in this Conference may be able to +account for this hiatus in the statistics of the Bureau of Education. + +In this brief sketch of the statistics of our American public libraries +we have not found much evidence of popular objections to their inception +and organization. In England, however, where the questions of national +schools, secular schools, and parochial schools are still mooted, the +idea of levying a general tax for the support of a library free to all, +and furnished with books adapted to the capacities of all classes, was +not in harmony with the traditions and public policy of that people. In +1848, the same year that the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the +suggestion of Josiah Quincy, Mayor of Boston, passed an act authorizing +the city of Boston to maintain a public library, Mr. William Ewart, +member of Parliament, moved in the House of Commons for a committee of +inquiry respecting libraries. Such a committee was raised, and Mr. Ewart +was appointed chairman. Much evidence was taken; a report was made; and +in February, 1850, a bill was introduced into the House of Commons +enabling town councils to establish public libraries and museums. "Our +younger brethren, the people of the United States," says the report, +"have already anticipated us in the formation of libraries entirely open +to the public." The bill proposed limited the rate of taxation to one +halfpenny in the pound; required the affirmative vote of two thirds of +the rate-payers; restricted its operation to towns which had at least +ten thousand inhabitants; and provided that the money so raised should +be expended only in building and contingent expenses. This bill, meagre +indeed compared with the later enactments of Parliament, met persistent +opposition from the conservative benches. An ex-Chancellor of the +Exchequer objected because it did not give sufficient powers to form a +library; and he should object to it more strongly if it did. Who was to +select the books? Was every publication that issued from the press to be +procured? or was there to be a censorship introduced? Another member +claimed that the bill would enable a few persons to tax the general body +of rate-payers for their own benefit, and the library would degenerate +into a political club. Col. Sibthorp thought that, however excellent +food for the mind might be, food for the body was more needed by the +people. "I do not like reading at all," he said, "and hated it when I +was at Oxford." Lord John Manners said he could not support the bill, +because it would impose an additional tax upon the agricultural +interest. Mr. Spooner feared these institutions might be converted into +normal schools of agitation. Sir Roundell Palmer--since the Lord +Chancellor of England--was most apprehensive that the moment the +compulsory principle was introduced, a positive check would be imposed +upon the voluntary, self-supporting desire which existed among the +people. A division being taken on the bill, there were 118 ayes and 101 +noes. The bill passed the House of Commons in July, and the House of +Lords, without opposition, in August, 1850. + +The Manchester, Liverpool, and Bolton free libraries were immediately +organized under this act, the cost of the books being defrayed by public +subscription. In 1853 similar legislation was extended to Scotland and +Ireland. In July, 1855, the new libraries having gone into operation +with the most encouraging results, a new and more liberal library act +was passed, by a vote of three to one, which raised the rate of taxation +from a halfpenny to a penny in the pound, and allowed the income to be +expended for books. Its provisions were made to include towns, boroughs, +parishes, and districts having a population of 5000 inhabitants, and +permitted two adjoining parishes, having an aggregate population of five +thousand, to unite in the establishment of a library. + +In 1866 the library act was again improved by removing the limit of +population required, and reducing the two-thirds vote on the acceptance +of the library tax to a bare majority vote. Provision was also made for +cases in which the overseers of parishes refused or neglected to call a +meeting of the rate-payers to vote on the question. Any ten rate-payers +could secure the calling of such a meeting, and the vote there taken was +made binding and legal. + +The English free-library system is now so firmly established that it +will not be changed except to expand and enlarge it. Its chief +supporters are the middle classes, and artisans and laborers, who, with +their families, are its most numerous patrons. + +The recent extension of suffrage in England has strengthened the system. +No candidate for official position who opposed it could hope for +success. It has been found that free libraries have not degenerated into +political clubs and schools of agitation. No trouble has arisen in the +selection of books, and no censorship of the press was required. It was +at first supposed that all books relating to religion and politics--the +subjects on which people quarrel most--must be excluded. The experiment +of including these books was tried in the Manchester and Liverpool +libraries, where the books were purchased by private subscription, and +no controversy arising therefrom, all apprehension of evil from this +cause was allayed. Parliament doubled the rate of taxation, and +permitted the purchase of books from the public funds. The adoption of +the compulsory system has not imposed a check on the voluntary and +self-supporting desire of possessing books which existed among the +people. It has strengthened that desire; and ample proof of this +statement could be furnished if the prescribed limits of this paper +would permit. + +It is singular that objections to public libraries have come mainly from +men--as we have seen from the debate in the British Parliament--who are +educated, and in general matters of public welfare are intelligent above +their fellows. These objections, however, were uttered before the +persons making them had given the subject any attention, and hence they +were disqualified from entertaining an opinion. + +Nearly all the objections to public libraries which have been expressed +in this country--and these appear more frequently in private +conversation than in the public prints--may be classed under three +heads: + +1. The universal dread of taxation. Libraries cost money. In every city +and town of the land there is a feeling that the present rate of +taxation is all that the property and business of the place will bear. +This feeling existed before the taxes were one half their present rates. +There is a generous rivalry among our cities and towns in the +maintenance of good schools; and localities which furnish the best +facilities for education are regarded as the most desirable places for +residence. Viewed simply as a matter of public economy, no city can +afford to dispense with its educational system, or to permit it to +degenerate. The public library also should be maintained as the +supplement of the public school, carrying forward the education of the +people from the point where the public school leaves it. + +2. There are certain theoretical objections offered to the establishment +and maintenance of public libraries. One is that the library tax bears +unequally upon the people. Some persons do not care to read books, and +others prefer to pay for their own reading. The same objection is quite +as valid against any system of public education. To lay the burden of +education uniformly upon property, and to tax the owner who has no +children, or, having children, prefers to educate them at private +schools, is another glaring instance of inequality. No taxation for the +maintenance of public health, the introduction of water and gas, the +construction of roads, bridges, and sewers, bears equally upon every +member of the community. If perfect equality in the distribution of +these burdens were a necessity, an organized municipality would be an +impossibility. + +Perhaps the most popular objection to public libraries is the one urged +by the few disciples of Herbert Spencer--that government has no +legitimate function except the protection of person and property, as the +original compact of society is simply for the purpose of protection. All +else is paternal, pertains to the commune, and tends to perpetual +antagonism. The government may support a police, courts of justice, +prisons, penitentiaries, and similar institutions, and can do nothing +else. + +How are the people under this theory to be educated? The reply is +explicit: Unless they will educate themselves, they are not to be +educated. How is the public health to be maintained? It is not to be +maintained by any interference of government. Who is to build bridges +and sewers and lay out public parks? Nobody. Imagine, if it be possible, +a community where such a Utopian theory was carried out. Such a +government fortunately does not, and never did, exist on the face of the +globe. The "general welfare"--which includes protection--is expressly +stated in the preamble of the national constitution to be the purpose of +our government, and the same expression is found in nearly all the state +constitutions. What ever the people desire, and whatever will, in their +judgment, conduce to the general welfare, is a legitimate subject for +governmental action. "The only orthodox object of the institution of +government," says Mr. Jefferson, "is to secure the greatest degree of +happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it." +Herbert Spencer wrote his "Social Statics" before the British Parliament +passed an act for the support of public libraries. Mr. Ewart's bill was +then before Parliament; and Mr. Spencer, in that work, took occasion to +fling a sneer at it. In the preface of his American edition, written in +1864, he states, without remodelling the text, that "the work does not +accurately represent his present opinions." + +3. The third and last class of objections to public libraries to which +I shall direct your attention relates to the kind and quality of books +circulated. These objections, which are usually made by educated and +scholarly persons, are based on an entire misconception of the facts in +the case. The objectors do not divest themselves of the old idea that +libraries are established for the exclusive benefit of scholars; whereas +the purpose of these is to furnish reading for all classes in the +community. On no other principle would a general tax for their support +be justifiable. The masses of a community have very little of literary +and scholarly culture. They need more of this culture, and the purpose +of the library is to develop and increase it. This is done by placing in +their hands such books as they can read with pleasure and appreciate, +and by stimulating them to acquire the _habit_ of reading. We must first +interest the reader before we can educate him; and, to this end, must +commence at his own standard of intelligence. The scholar, in his pride +of intellect, forgets the progressive steps he took in his own mental +development--the stories read to him in the nursery, the boy's book of +adventure in which he revelled with delight, and the sentimental novel +over which he shed tears in his youth. Our objector supposes that the +masses will read books of his standard if they were not supplied with +the books to which he objects; but he is mistaken. Shut up to this +choice, they will read no books. When the habit of reading is once +acquired, the reader's taste, and hence the quality of his reading, +progressively improve. + +The standard histories, technical works of science, and even +Shakespeare's plays and Milton's "Paradise Lost," are sealed books to a +larger portion of every community than are willing to acknowledge the +fact. "When a Boy," said John Quincy Adams, "I attempted ten times to +read Milton's 'Paradise Lost.' I was mortified, even to the shedding of +tears, that I could not conceive what it was that my father and mother +so much admired in that book. I smoked tobacco and read Milton at the +same time, and for the same motive: to find out what was the recondite +charm in them that gave my father so much pleasure. After making myself +sick four or five times with smoking, I mastered that accomplishment; +but I did not master Milton. I was nearly thirty years of age when I +first read 'Paradise Lost' with delight and astonishment." + +If our objectors mourn over the standard of books which are read by the +public, they may be consoled by the fact that, as a rule, people read +books better than themselves, and hence are benefited by reading. A book +of a lower intellectual or moral standard than the reader's is thrown +aside in disgust, to be picked up and read by a person still lower in +the scale of mental and moral development. + +I do not lament, or join in the clamor sometimes raised, over the +statistics of prose fiction circulated at public libraries. Why this +lamentation over one specific form of fiction? The writers of such prose +fiction as is found in our libraries were as eminent and worthy men and +women as the writers of poetical fiction, dramatic fiction, or, I might +add, the fiction which passes in the world as history and biography. +History professes to relate actual events, biography to describe actual +lives, and science to unfold and explain natural laws and physical +phenomena. Fiction treats these and other subjects, mental, moral, +sentimental, and divine, from an ideal or artistic standpoint; and the +great mass of readers prefer to take their knowledge in this form. More +is known to-day of the history and traditions of Scotland, and of the +social customs of London, from the novels of Sir Walter Scott and +Charles Dickens than from all the histories of those localities. Fiction +is the art element in literature, and the most enduring monuments of +genius in the literature of any people are works of the imagination. + +It is said that there is much poor fiction, and the statement is true. +So there are many poor pictures and poor statues, wretched chromos and +more wretched plaster casts. That these productions find purchasers is +evidence that there are persons whose ideal standard of excellence is +even below these feeble efforts, and they are educated thereby. + +But there are novels, we are told, which are immoral and positively +debasing. So there are immoral paintings and indecent plastic objects. +The act of photography, I am told, is debased to the lowest purposes. +Nobody would think of objecting to art because it can be and is +degraded. The librarian who should allow an immoral novel in his library +for circulation would be as culpable as the manager of a picture gallery +who should hang an indecent picture on his walls. + +Young people, again, we are told, read too many novels. So they eat too +much, play too much, go too often to the lake to bathe, remain too long +in the water, and do too much of everything in which they take special +delight. The remedy is not to deprive children of these pleasures, but +that parents and guardians should regulate them. I have never met a +person of much literary culture who would not confess that at some +period in his life, usually in his youth, he had read novels +excessively. His special interest in them suddenly ceased. He found +himself with a confirmed habit of reading, an awakened imagination, a +full vocabulary, and a taste for other and higher classes of literature. +A novel was read occasionally in later life, as recreation in the midst +of professional or technical studies. My observation addressed to this +point, and extending over a library experience of thirty years, has +confirmed me in the belief that there is in the mental development of +every person who later attains to literary culture a limited period when +he craves novel-reading, and perhaps reads novels to excess; but from +which, if the desire be gratified, he passes safely out into broader +fields of study, and this craving never returns to him in its original +form. + +Again, and finally, we are told that the reading of fiction should be +discouraged because it is not _true_. What department of literature is +true? Is it history? Whose history of the United States, for instance, +is the true history? Is it Bancroft's? Mr. Bancroft for forty years has +been changing the plates of his work to an extent that in pages we can +scarcely recognize the original text, and lately he has revised the +whole in the new Centennial edition. The accurate student of specialties +in American history will talk to you by the hour of mis-statements and +errors found in this new issue. Whose history of the reigns of Henry +VIII. and of Queen Elizabeth is the true one? Is it Hume's, Turner's, +Lingard's, or Froude's? "Do not read to me history," said a sick +monarch, "that I know is a lie. Read to me something that is true." Is +biography true? Which of the score of lives of Mary Queen of Scots is +the true biography? Is theology true? Whose is the true body of +divinity? Is science true? Why was it necessary to rewrite all the +science in the eighth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, for the +ninth edition? Homer's Iliad, Dante's Divine Comedy, Shakespeare's +Hamlet and Othello, do not require to be rewritten every ten or twenty +years. The Vicar of Wakefield, Ivanhoe, and Robinson Crusoe have held +and will hold their own from generation to generation without revision, +because they are _ideally true_ pictures of human life and human nature. +Shall we say that in literature and science there is nothing true but +fiction and the pure mathematics? + +In the public libraries which are growing up in our land, fully four +fifths of the money appropriated for books is spent in works adapted to +the wants of scholars. In the larger libraries the proportion is even +greater. It is hardly becoming for scholars, who enjoy the lion's share, +to object to the small proportional expenditure for books adapted to the +wants of the masses who bear the burden of taxation. + +Mr. Edward Edwards, of the Manchester Library, speaking, in 1859, of +novels and romances--which he circulated more freely than is done in any +American library--remarked as follows: "It may be truthfully said that +at no previous period in the history of English literature has prose +fiction been made, in so great a degree as of late years, the vehicle of +the best thoughts of some of the best thinkers. Nor, taking it as a +whole, was it ever before characterized by so much general purity of +tone or loftiness of purpose." + + + + +HOW TO USE A LIBRARY + + The substance of two addresses made at Pittsfield, Mass., + and printed in _The Library Journal_ for February, 1884. Mr. + Hubbard's advice with regard to children's reading was + followed long ago by specialization in work with children. + That with regard to adult fiction remains unheeded. Some + day, possibly we shall have "adults' librarians" and + training for "work with adults." + + James Mascarene Hubbard was born in Boston in 1836. He was + made assistant librarian of the Boston Public Library in + 1884 and also reorganized the Berkshire Athenaeum of + Pittsfield, Mass., in the same year. + + +Among all the pictures of Abraham Lincoln none perhaps are more +interesting than two which represent scenes at the beginning and at the +end of his life. In the first, a lad of thirteen or fourteen, he is +reading by the light of a fire in his father's log hut. In the second, +he is reading the Bible to his sons in a room in the White House. This +Bible, which lies before the President in the latter picture, with a +catechism and a spelling-book, were the only books in that frontier +cabin when he learned to read. Though his father could neither read nor +write, yet he took the greatest interest in getting books for his son, +so that when he was eighteen his library consisted of the Bible, +Pilgrim's Progress, Aesop's Fables, Weem's and Ramsay's Lives of +Washington, a Life of Clay, the Autobiography of Franklin, and a copy of +Plutarch. It is note-worthy that the one which influenced him the most +strongly, after the Bible, was the Life of Washington. At the very +crisis of his career, when on his way to the national capital to take +the leading part in crushing out the rebellion, he reverted to those +early days, and recalled the burning thoughts which filled his mind +while reading of the sufferings and sacrifices endured for the sake of +freedom by the great patriot leader and his followers. + +Lincoln's experience was, of course, no solitary one, but it doubtless +had a great effect when it became generally known. It filled many men's +imaginations with pictures of obscure lads with latent powers for noble +deeds in danger of being stunted or wholly destroyed for want of proper +nourishment, and they gave freely and generously that these "village +Hampdens," these hearts "pregnant with sacred fire," might not live +useless and ignoble lives for want of books alone. Hence to-day a large +section of our country is dotted over with libraries, in which the +collective wisdom and experience of the world, as it were, are gathered +for the use especially of the youth of the nation. + +But, as is inevitable with the blessing of abundance, has come its +danger also. Lincoln's naturally great intellectual powers were +strengthened by their being at first exercised upon a few subjects. The +possession of a book being an era in his early life from its rarity, he +read and re-read each one which he got, so as almost to learn it by +heart before he read another. So the vivid impressions received from the +lives of Washington and the other great heroes of history ran no risk of +being dissipated before they could have their full effect upon his mind +and heart. This, however, is our danger in this day of public libraries +and cheap literature, that the mental strength of our youth will be +weakened through the too much reading of a multitude of books. As the +waters of a brook when confined to a narrow channel may have power +enough to set in motion a thousand spindles, but if suffered to spread +over the ground are not able to turn a child's toy wheel, so with the +powers of the mind. When directed to a few objects they may be capable +of the greatest and most beneficent results, but when allowed to exhaust +themselves upon a multitude they are in danger of becoming sterile and +unfruitful. With Lincoln then, and with many a frontier and backwoods +boy now, the question was and is, How shall I get a book? With a greater +number to-day, however, the more important question is, Which book shall +I choose? + +Before attempting to aid any one to answer this question for himself, +let me briefly advert to the fact that there are two kinds of reading +for each of us, and two corresponding uses, therefore, of the +library--the reading for amusement and the reading for profit. In regard +to the former, I can say but a word, as it is a subject by itself. And +that word is, let this reading be the best possible, and do not let it +occupy too much of your spare time. Books read simply for amusement have +on most a greater power to elevate or degrade than any others, and more +care should be taken in selecting them than in the choice of those to be +read for instruction. Read then, and put into the hands of the young the +best fiction, and shun those writers, whatever their power or their +popularity, who reproduce in their books the slang and vulgar speech of +the streets and paint realistic scenes of vice and crime. + +The answer to the question, How or what shall I read? must necessarily +be as varied as the tastes, the talents, and the circumstances of +readers vary. The general aim, however, should be the same in all. We +should read in order to do well whatever we have to do in life. Now this +implies something more than the reading simply to increase one's +knowledge--certainly a worthy aim, but not the highest. The field of +knowledge is so broad and the time for reading so short that we must +necessarily choose those subjects, the knowledge of which will make us +better fitted for our work in life. And the mere seeking for knowledge, +which is the sole end of much reading, does not imply, but may even +prevent the attaining that higher end, the cultivation of our nobler +powers, as the imagination and the sympathies, and the gaining the power +of appreciating what is highest and best in literature and life. For +instance, one may be conscious of a total lack of a love for any great +writer. To him Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, and their peers are +but names. Now it may be that the best use to which such an one can put +a library is to make at least the attempt to understand and enjoy some +great author. It will be no easy task, but one needing and worthy the +hardest study. To take, as an illustration of one method, a lesser poet, +read carefully and thoughtfully Matthew Arnold's introduction to his +edition of the selected poems of Wordsworth. Whenever he refers to a +poem, read it before going farther and re-read it until the thought of +the poet as indicated by the commentator is reasonably clear. Then read +in the same manner what Coleridge, Shairp, F.W. Robertson, or any other +good critic has written upon Wordsworth. And, above all, sometimes read +the poems as nearly as possible in the same circumstances under which +they were written--in the forest, by the brook-side, in the solitudes of +the mountains, or on a bridge in the heart of a great city. If this fail +to awaken an interest in Wordsworth, try some other author in a similar +way, and it is impossible that of all who have stirred men's hearts +through the ages, no one can be found to arouse your sympathies. And +when the right author is at length found, you live on a higher plane +than before. This great poet, philosopher, or dramatist has become your +friend and familiar companion--a gain far greater than the acquirement +of any mere book knowledge. + +The greater part of another person's life may be spent in sordid +surroundings, with companions and in an occupation tending to depress +and degrade the better nature. I can easily conceive that it might be +the highest duty of such an one to remain ignorant of much useful +knowledge in order to quicken the imagination, to enlarge the tastes, +and heighten the enjoyments. So that when the day's work is done, he may +exchange the sordid companions, suggestive only of mean thoughts and low +aims, for intercourse with men of purest and noblest nature--men, too, +it may be, who have lived, thought, and written under circumstances as +depressing as those in which he lives and works. So there may be some +one who regretfully feels that in Nature there is nothing which gives to +him, as to others, the keenest pleasure, refreshing him when wearied, +encouraging him when downcast. Who sees nothing in the skies save signs +of the coming storm, nothing in the trees or flowers, the rivers or the +hills, save something relating to his material comfort or discomfort. +The best use to which this man could put a library and his reading hours +might be to study the works of the great interpreters of nature, as +White of Selborne, Ruskin, or Emerson. And if they should open his eyes +so that he can look "through Nature up to Nature's God," his gain is +immeasurable. + +Now, in neither of these instances is the increase of knowledge the aim +set before the reader, but the development of some dwarfed faculty whose +growth is necessary to the leading of a noble life. But where the +increase of knowledge is the direct end sought, the value of the +knowledge in itself must not be that alone which decides one in the +choice of books, or incites him to reading, but the use to which it can +and ought to be put. An employer of labor, for instance, one who is +immediately responsible for the welfare of a large number of workmen, +cannot, with any true conception of his duty as a master, devote his +time for reading to acquiring a knowledge of history, science, or +literature, if he know nothing of the principles underlying the +relations of capital to labor, if he is ignorant of the dangers, the +temptations, the needs and rights of his workpeople. However +well-informed on other subjects, he has read to far less advantage than +if his books had been chosen with a direct purpose to fit him to do his +duty as a master. So many a parent ought, for a time at least, to read +with a view wholly to prepare himself for the wise moral and mental +training of his children. And on the other hand a man should read the +history of his country, not merely that he may not blush from conscious +ignorance of it, but that, knowing what his heritage of freedom cost to +obtain, he may also come to the conviction that it is not his to enjoy +simply, but it is a sacred trust to be accounted for, however humble his +position. It could not be more humble than Lincoln's, and yet none can +doubt that to the spirit in which he read American history was largely +due his future fitness for the great work which God gave him to do. + +To what highest and most profitable use can I put my reading? is the +question then which each one should ask himself, and according as the +answer is, so should the choice be made. It may be that one will read +that he may understand better his duties and privileges as a citizen; +another, that he may be a just master, or an intelligent and faithful +workman; still another, that she may be a wise parent; while a fourth +may have the strong conviction that everything else should be laid aside +for the study of one of the masterpieces of the world's literature, that +he may develop his higher faculties and become a man thinking lofty +thoughts and capable of noble deeds. + +But there is a very large class of readers, especially of a public +library, to whom what I have just said will be of but little use. And as +it is upon them that the choice of books has the greatest influence for +good or evil, it is to speak of their interests that I turn with the +deepest solicitude. This class may be subdivided into two classes--the +children of intelligent parents who are capable of directing their +reading, and those children who have none to guide them in their choice. +As regards the former, one of the greatest dangers of the public +library, in my opinion, is that many parents throw off all +responsibility as to the books their children read upon those who have +charge of the library. A generation ago, all the books, as a rule, which +the young read were bought especially for them by their parents or +friends, with more or less care in the selection. Of course under these +circumstances they had a general knowledge of what their children read. +Now a great many parents neither know, nor do they apparently seem to +care to know, what books fall into their children's hands, so long as +they are from the public library, which is supposed to be a guarantee +for their fitness for young readers. Without entering here upon the +important question as to what books should or should not be put in a +public library, it is enough to say that no intelligent parent, with a +right idea of his duty toward his children, can properly lay this +responsibility upon persons, however carefully chosen or however +faithful in the discharge of their duties. The capacity of children for +receiving good or bad impressions from books differs, as their features +and forms vary. The same story might prove harmless to one boy and give +a moral twist to another's mind from which he might never recover. One +girl might receive from a book a hundred evil suggestions, hopelessly +depraving her imagination, while upon another it might not leave a +single evil trace. Now, it is not possible for the most scrupulous +librarian to discriminate between these two, and refuse the book to the +one and freely give it to the other. And therefore no library with a +large and miscellaneous collection of stories and novels can be safe for +children freely to use except under the careful supervision of their +parents. The only safeguard of which I know is for parents to read much +with their children, to interest themselves in their books, and to talk +with them about them. Those stories, for instance, against which there +has been such an outcry of late years, would have but small power to +hurt that boy to whom a father had taken the pains to point out the +absurdities, the unrealities, the false ideas and aims of which they are +accused. + +But in our cities and large towns there can be no doubt that the +greater number of the younger readers of a public library belong to the +second of the two classes referred to--those who have none to guide them +in the choice of their books. The most of these come, of course, simply +for amusement, without a thought of any better use of the library. But a +few come with other and higher aims. Some, with no specially strong +tastes or more than ordinary capacities, merely wish to read that which +will cultivate their minds and increase their knowledge, or will be +profitable to them in their work. A very few there are, however, in +every large town, with intellects of no mean order and strong ambitions, +who turn to the library instinctively for that which will satisfy the +cravings of their intellects and the promptings of their ambitions. A +youth with the instincts of a Lincoln or a Webster comes to read the +history of his country. Another, with the latent powers of a Nasmyth, a +Stevenson, or an Arkwright, wants the books which will give full play to +his inventive faculties. Another finds a strange and irresistible +attraction in natural phenomena, in the habits of plants and animals, in +the formation of the rocks and the hills, in the aspects of the skies +and the movements of the stars. Now, it will depend very much upon the +first choice of their books, and the subsequent direction of their +reading, whether they will become men useful to the communities in which +they live and add substantial material to the sum of human knowledge, as +statesmen, inventors, naturalists, or astronomers. The danger is that, +for lack of proper guidance and restraint, they will dissipate their +mental energies and lose sight of all high aims by too much and too +vague reading. If the public library is to be in fact, what it is in +theory, an educating power second only to the church and the school, and +supplementing the work of both, there must be some method devised by +which such readers as these may be helped to choose the right books. +Without such aid, given continually and systematically, the library +fails in the principal end for which it was founded--the elevation and +instruction of the people. We might as well turn our children into a +school-house, fully furnished with books and apparatus, but with only a +janitor to see that no injury is done to them, and expect the children +to make a wise use of their opportunities, to take up and pursue the +proper studies without the aid of a master, as to give children the free +range of a great library and expect them undirected to make a wise use +of its advantages as a means of education. It is, therefore, in my +opinion, a most pernicious error to encourage young people, of the lower +classes especially, to come to a library, and to give them poor stories +in the mistaken belief that, the taste for reading being developed, they +will naturally and surely rise from these to better books. Such a belief +is contrary to all our experience of human nature. With careful guidance +and restraint a boy may be brought from the Dime novel to read Scott and +Macaulay. But without this restraint and guidance, where one will rise, +a hundred, a thousand rather, will remain at the level from which they +started, or more naturally sink to still lower depths. + +The question is, Can anything be done to help the young who throng our +public libraries to read well and wisely? Shall these boys and girls, +with their unknown powers both for good and evil, be left to grope +helplessly amid these treasures of wisdom and knowledge which our +libraries contain, or shall the attempt at least be made to give them a +kindly and intelligent guidance? This work, of such incalculable +importance, I hasten to say, is already well done to a certain extent by +a few librarians in the country. But it is a work which requires time, +patience, tact, an insight into character, and a very varied and +extensive knowledge. It is evident that the librarians who combine these +requisites are few in number. It is a work which cannot be done by them +as a class. Nor can it be done by the ordinary catalogues, however +skilfully prepared. For it is evident that there needs to be some +personal knowledge of each reader's capacities in order to help him +intelligently and profitably. Nor is it something which the +school-teachers, willing though many of them are, can do, except in a +limited degree, as many of those who need help are not school-children. +There are, however, a few persons in every town fitted by their +education and their circumstances in life for this work, and it is to +them we must finally appeal. + +The most practical plan, presenting on the whole the fewest +difficulties, seems to be the following: Let those persons who are +willing to make the attempt to give this instruction in reading choose +each a subject, as general History, the History of the United States, +Science, Travels, Biography, Fiction, or Children's stories, and see +what their public library contains on these subjects. In due time notice +could be given that all persons wishing help in the choice of books in +any of these subjects could be aided by applying to the librarian. He +would refer the inquirer to that person who has chosen this subject, who +will naturally endeavor to find out something of the character, +circumstances, and abilities of the applicant before selecting the books +best fitted in his or her opinion for him to read. No doubt, at first, +there would be few to apply, and mistakes would be made from lack of +experience. But, if only one reader was substantially aided, if only one +bright youth was rescued from the danger of dissipating his energies by +aimless or depraving reading, all the labor would be amply rewarded, to +say nothing of the benefit which the guide himself, in preparing for his +work, would receive. I do not believe, however, that the applicants for +guidance would be few, when it was known among the work-people of our +mills, our shops and stores, among the poor, that every one coming to +the library asking for aid would find some one ready, as it were, to +take him by the hand, and lead him from book to book, so long as he +needed help. I am confident that it would be an invaluable service if +some one or two persons should take the pains to become acquainted with +the character of the books for the children and the novels contained in +a library. There are many parents who feel instinctively the truth of +the words of F.W. Robertson, that "a man's character and mind are +moulded for good or evil far more by the forms of imagination which +surround his childhood than by any subsequent scientific training." Many +an anxious but ignorant parent who sees in her boys and girls a craving +for books, at which she rejoices with trembling, would turn with +heart-felt gratitude--I speak with the fullest confidence, because I +speak from experience--to one who would give them advice as to the books +which their children might safely read and those which they should shun. + +It is only by some such means as this that the public library can be +made a real educating power for the masses. In far too many places, now, +it is simply a place where children can get story-books at the public +expense. This cannot long continue, and I believe that the greater part +of the libraries which continue to do this work without an effort to +fulfil their higher mission, will surely and inevitably die, as the +District School and Agricultural libraries died fifty years ago. The +responsibility rests with the people of each place where there is a +public library, as to which of two ends shall be reached. It may be +merely a means for furnishing amusement for an hour, or it may be a +central beacon from whence the rays of light shall stream into every +house. + + + + +ADAPTATION OF LIBRARIES TO CONSTITUENCIES + + Prepared by Samuel S. Green, then librarian of the + Worcester, Mass. Public Library and a member of the State + Library Commission, for the World's Library Congress held at + the Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893) and printed in the + government report thereon. The "adaptation" favored by Mr. + Green consists in weeding out unfitting books. Melvil Dewey, + as editor of this volume of papers, tells us in a foot-note + that in the discussion of Mr. Green's paper, this process + was not generally approved except as the first step in a + transfer to other libraries. President Eliot's suggestion of + reservoir libraries for storage is a later stage, in the + same line of thought. A sketch of Mr. Green appears in Vol. + I. of this series. + + NOTE.--With this paper should be read those pages of the + Chicago discussions in which it was pointed out by leading + librarians that to weed out safely would require much costly + expert service; that the most hurtful criticism would be + attacks after inevitable cases where some one would greatly + wish a book that had been withdrawn as useless; that the + printed catalogs already circulated would be made + untrustworthy by parting with any volume included; that what + one wise and learned man would throw out as trash, another + equally wise and learned would consider specially valuable + because of differing personal equations. In short, that + however excellent in theory, it was perhaps the most + difficult thing in librarianship to put successfully in + practice. + + While few favored "weeding out" simply to gain room by + getting rid of books little wanted, many believe in + transferring to other libraries which have a distinctly + greater need of them.--M.D. + +A resident of a Massachusetts town to which the Commonwealth was about +to give $100 worth of books came to secure my influence as a member of +the State free public library commission to have a large part of the +$100 spent for rare and expensive books on Massachusetts history. As a +large and valuable library made up principally of books of that class +was soon to be given to another small town in the same county, it would +have been manifestly unwise to grant this request. It seems unwise also +to place a students' library in a small town where there are few who +will use it. It would be better to give the library to a flourishing +institution at a county seat, on condition that it shall be open for +free consultation by all residents of the county, and that, under proper +rules, books may be lent from it to inhabitants of smaller towns for use +at home. + +In this way the library would be so placed that most persons wishing to +make investigations would have the books near home, and the +comparatively few investigators in the smaller towns, such as the man in +the town first mentioned, would also have their interests provided for. + +The trustees of the Thomas Crane Public Library at Quincy, Mass., have +concluded, utilizing the experience of many years, that a working +library of 15,000 volumes is sufficient to supply the general wants of +the 20,000 residents of the city. It is proposed not to let the library +grow beyond 20,000 volumes while the wants of the city remain what they +are, and when it exceeds that number of volumes to cut it down by taking +out books that never have been needed in a popular library like that in +Quincy or that have become useless. It having become evident that an +addition would presently have to be made to the building if the recent +rate of increase should continue, it seemed best to the trustees to +begin at once to reduce the size of the library. They proceeded, under +the able leadership of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, to remove from the +library large numbers of Government documents, unnecessary duplicates, +books of an outgrown ephemeral interest, and those unsuited to the +locality. Twenty-one hundred and forty-five volumes were removed +immediately. The Quincy library, by adopting this course, relieves +itself from very considerable prospective expenses and secures money to +use in increasing its usefulness. + +Part of the plan is to keep the printed catalogs of the small library up +to date and to scatter copies of them widely throughout the city by +selling them at a nominal price. It is always expensive to prepare and +print a good catalog; it is very expensive to issue new editions +frequently. Still, if a popular library is to do its work well it must +introduce its constituents to its books by means of frequent revised +editions of a good, printed catalog. + +The Thomas Crane Library has been famous for the excellence of its +annotated catalog and for lists of books on special subjects for the use +of school children. It proposes in future to use more money than in the +past in making, printing, and keeping up to date good catalogs, and, in +order to make it practicable to do so, to keep down the number of +volumes in the library, thus reducing the expenses of cataloging, and +also to save money in housing its books. That is to say, it is acting on +the well-established principle that a small library well cataloged, if +at all adapted in the number of its volumes to the size of a town, is of +incalculably greater advantage to its constituency than one many times +larger but poorly equipped with catalogs. + +It is a distinctive feature of the Quincy plan not to make the library a +special reference library. That city is very near Boston and Cambridge, +which it is well known are richly supplied with large general and +numerous special libraries. + +When a man appears in Quincy who wishes to make a minute inquiry on some +special subject, it is proposed to refer him to the great libraries in +the neighboring cities, and to confine the efforts of the trustees of +the Quincy library to supplying the general wants of its constituency. +Here, then, is a bold attempt at adapting a library to its constituency. +Shall it be seconded? + +Many will hold it unwise to discuss such a subject publicly. Remembering +many ill-judged efforts at economy by ignorant, uneducated, or +parsimonious men in town meetings and on library boards, they will +pronounce it hurtful to libraries to point out to such men that some +library experts consider it well to keep down expenses for cataloging +and housing books by weeding out libraries. Perhaps they are right. +Whether they are so or not, however, their objection is too late. The +matter now under consideration is undergoing public discussion, and it +is important that men having special knowledge of library matters should +contribute now the results of their experience. Unreasonable men in town +meetings and in boards of trustees must be answered, and reasonable men +and women need to understand thoroughly the subject in order that their +answers may be discriminating and wise. + +Once, when the Librarian of Congress asked that an addition be made to +the library rooms, a member is said to have urged that instead of +enlarging the Capitol, the library should be weeded out. Such a plan +would be regarded generally as exceedingly foolish. + +There must be in many parts of this broad land large and growing +libraries which will aim to gather very large general and special +collections not limited to books of intrinsic merit. Such libraries will +have to get many books of little value in themselves to enable students +to study subjects historically. It would indeed be very silly to weed +out the Congressional Library. Somewhere there should be accessible (and +where better than in that library?) every book, pamphlet, and map +published in the United States. The Congressional Library should be a +great national library like the Bibliotheque Nationale and the British +Museum. + +The Quincy plan would not work well even in a place the size of +Worcester, Mass., with a population of only 90,000 or 95,000, and but 44 +miles from Boston, for it is a center of important educational +institutions and of inquirers, and therefore needs large reference +libraries. Cambridge, though very much nearer Boston than Quincy, +becomes, because of Harvard University, a center where there must be a +large library. It is too great an inconvenience for Harvard professors +and students to rely, except for book rarities, on libraries even so +near as those in Boston. + +On the other hand, consider the John Adams Library at Quincy. It was +collected by President John Adams in Europe and America, and undoubtedly +contains many valuable books. But is it in place in Quincy? It was +formerly kept in the Adams Academy, but not proving useful there, it was +transferred to the Thomas Crane Public Library, where it now is. Mr. +Charles Francis Adams recently said that he only knew of this John Adams +Library having been consulted once in forty years, and that then he was +himself the consulter. It is more convenient for Mr. Adams to make his +many researches in the great libraries in Boston and Cambridge than in +Quincy, and his opinion is that this library should be given to the +Boston Public Library, where it would be of great value in supplementing +the collections, and would be readily accessible to the class of +students who would use it. Perhaps, however, Quincy would be unwilling +to give up this library, which marks its connection with a very +distinguished man. While it is a distinctive feature of the Quincy plan +not to make the public library a special reference library, its success +depends on having large reference libraries near at hand. In one respect +it encourages making the library a special library, namely, on local +interests and history. As to the saving in expense possible under the +Quincy plan, while money is saved which would ordinarily be used in +housing books and in other ways, increased expenditure, it should be +remembered, is contemplated in frequent issues of improved catalogs. As +I shall soon show, the plan, if well carried out, requires other +expenditures. + +There are many small libraries which do not need weeding. If a library +needs weeding, as many undoubtedly do, will it be weeded out wisely? + +Broad-minded intelligence is needful for this kind of work, as well as +education and experience in library work. An expert is as much needed in +this work of weeding out as in selecting books for a library at its +start. Great harm might result from injudicious discarding. + +Another objection likely to be made to the Quincy plan is that it would +often be difficult to decide how large a library is needed in a town or +city, and that this difficulty would be magnified in a growing town. +Still, if a thing is desirable it should be done in spite of +difficulties. Foresight must be exercised and generous provision made +for the probable growth of towns, and the number of volumes changed as +changes in the size of population or other considerations demand. +Supposing a mistake has been made, the weeding has been made with the +accessibility in view of large and special libraries in towns and cities +near by. Those towns and cities will still remain near to the town which +has grown unexpectedly large; their libraries will still be accessible +for reference. The difference between the old state of things and the +new is likely to be that the books will be used more under changed +circumstances than formerly. + +But how provide under the Quincy plan for students who can not afford +time and money to frequent the large libraries even in towns or cities +near by; and supposing this number of special inquirers becomes +considerable, can you hope that they will receive a cordial welcome and +sympathetic assistance in large neighboring libraries? Dangers here +hinted at must be guarded against. Librarians and trustees should be on +the lookout for inquirers and help them to get at the books needed. + +It is proposed to help them by preparing and issuing often improved +printed catalogs. Personal assistance would also evidently be needed +under the new plan. In some cases it would be necessary to buy books. In +others the investigator might be introduced to the officers of the +library, or by some influential person to the officers of a large +neighboring library with reference to his being allowed to borrow if he +could not use books on the premises. The same thing might perhaps be +better accomplished by a loan from the large to the small library. The +small library might have to pay for this privilege. It might be +desirable, if an investigator had leisure but not money, for the small +library to pay his car fare to the town where the library to be +consulted is situated. + +Large libraries as now constituted are very obliging, and continually +extend courtesies to smaller institutions. The people of Worcester, for +example, every week, and sometimes oftener, have books borrowed for +their use from the Surgeon-General's library, Washington, from Harvard, +the Boston Athenaeum, Columbia, Yale, and other libraries. Many +institutions are already extending gratuitously such privileges. + +Supposing it were to become the custom of small libraries to send books +and pamphlets which they can get, but do not need, to large neighboring +libraries where they would be useful. Such action would lead to an +exchange of various civilities. Then, too, as the desirability of having +large libraries help smaller ones by loans of books becomes more and +more obvious, will not persons of means give money to the former to +enable them to do this kind of work for small towns generally or for +particular towns in which they may be specially interested? + +Mr. Adams's advice to libraries is, not to accumulate books +promiscuously, but to practice a systematic differentiation in +collecting. Books which cumber the shelves of one library may be of the +greatest value in another. The public documents only of its own town and +State, and a few of the national documents relating to matters of +general interest, are in place in the library of a small town. But all +public documents have come to be of the greatest service in large +libraries and in libraries connected with important educational +institutions. Even those which seem driest, because exclusively of +statistics, are much in demand in colleges where students of history and +political economy are required to examine original sources. + +Mr. Charles A. Cutter said several years ago, regarding the proper +disposition of pamphlets, that local pamphlets should be given to local +libraries, professional or scientific pamphlets to special libraries, +miscellaneous and all sorts of pamphlets to larger general libraries. +This is excellent advice. + +Even large general libraries practice differentiation, many of them +excluding professional books and leaving special libraries in their +neighborhood to accumulate them. A State library may properly make a +specialty of public documents, and perhaps law books, and pay little +attention to accumulating other books. A general subscription library +with a constituency mainly of people of leisure may find it more useful +to collect books in belles-lettres, biography, history, travel, etc., +than to buy many dealing with industrial subjects. But a public library +in a great manufacturing town, or a special library for architects and +engineers, must specialize on technical books. + +It is not proposed to destroy books taken out of libraries where they +are not needed, but to place them within reach of those most needing +them, either through other libraries or auction rooms or secondhand +bookstores. No countenance would be given to such a proceeding as that +of the administrators of the estate of the well-known collector of old +books, Mr. T.O.P.H. Burnham, who are said to have sent a ton or more of +material from his stock to the paper mill.[5] + +The people of Worcester act more wisely. They empty their attics into +the rooms of the American Antiquarian Society or those of the local +Society of Antiquity. Housekeepers there, too, dispose similarly of such +books as turn up in spring cleaning and are found to be in the way. An +extensive system of exchange is in operation under the auspices of the +former society, and books and pamphlets sent to the rooms of either +society, find their way to persons and libraries where they are needed, +and the two antiquarian societies enrich their collections by the +exchanges made. + +[5] It is conceivable that after a lifetime of buying whole attics of +rejected books and preserving those which no one would buy at any +price, out of an immense stock there might be a ton of duplicate +schoolbooks, incomplete volumes, and other books and pamphlets which +could not even be given away to any library; since the large libraries +would have copies and the smaller ones would not esteem them worth +shelf room.--M.D. + +Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson recently stated that a trustee of the +Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, told him that he spent a considerable part +of his time in refusing gifts offered to the museum. This trustee is +probably wise in declining gifts. There are many books and pamphlets +offered to libraries which they would not find useful. These should be +accepted only on condition that they may be placed wherever they will be +most valuable. + +Differentiation is specially desirable in the smallest libraries. When +but little money is available for buying books the small amount should +be spent with closest regard to actual needs of the constituency. Not +infrequently intelligent entertainment and elementary instruction will +be the principles that should guide in selecting books for small +libraries. With intelligent cooperation several small neighboring towns +might adopt to advantage the suggestion that each of them spend a few +dollars a year on a specialty, such as botany, geology, zoology; every +town taking a different specialty and all lending to one another. + +This paper favors in the main the selection of books with special +reference to the actual existing needs of the users of the library. Such +an institution as the flourishing public library of Providence, R.I., +might properly, if allowable for any library in cities of moderate size, +add to its general work some specialty of limited interest. Mr. Foster, +its librarian, has recently stated, however, that he thinks that +notwithstanding the reputation which the famous Harris collection of +poetry gives to the library throughout the country, it is the best for +that library to devote itself almost exclusively to supplying the +general needs of Providence. + +In conclusion, it may be stated that Mr. Adams does not claim that the +plan of weeding out libraries adopted at Quincy has never been thought +of before. He was not indebted to any book for the idea, but it had +occurred to other persons before. Action upon it had always been +recommended. Mr. Adams has taken the bull by the horns. He has put the +plan in execution and to a considerable extent has systematized it. He +has also called attention to it and made it a living subject for +discussion. + + + + +RELATION OF FREE PUBLIC LIBRARIES TO THE COMMUNITY + + Presentations of Library questions to the general reading + public from authoritative sources are exceptionally hard to + find, even at the present day. The one reprinted below was + contributed to _The North American Review_ for June, 1898, + by Herbert Putnam, then librarian of the Boston Public + Library. + + Herbert Putnam was born in New York, Sept. 20, 1861, the + youngest son of the founder of the publishing house. He + graduated at Harvard in 1883 and studied law. He served as + librarian in Minneapolis, first of the Atheneum and then of + the Public Library in 1884-91, meanwhile being admitted to + the bar in 1886. He practised law in Boston in 1892-95, but + in the latter year became librarian of the Boston Public + Library, serving until appointed in 1899 Librarian of + Congress. His administration has been marked by the + development of this institution along the line of service of + a national library. During the great war he was Director of + Library War Service. + + +Free libraries have existed for less than a half a century. Their +establishment assumed that books are beneficial: but it involved also +the assertion that it is the proper function of government to supply +books to such of its citizens as may require them at the expense of the +community as a whole. + +Libraries of this special type do not yet form the major portion of the +institutions supplying books on a large scale to groups of persons. +Under the head of "Public, Society and School Libraries," these +institutions in the United States aggregate 8,000 in number, with +35,000,000 volumes, with $34,000,000 invested in buildings, with +$17,000,000 of endowments, and with over $6,000,000 of annual income. Of +these the free public libraries supported by general taxation number +less than 2,000, with 10,000,00 volumes, and with less than $3,500,000 +of annual income. They are, however, increasing with disproportionate +and amazing rapidity. In Massachusetts, but 10 of the 353 cities and +towns, but three-fourths of one per cent. of the inhabitants now lack +them. One hundred and ten library buildings there have been the gift of +individuals. No form of private memorial is now more popular; no form of +municipal expenditure meets with readier assent. Nor are the initiative +and the expenditure left wholly to local enterprises. The Commonwealth +itself takes part: extending, through a State Commission, State aid in +the form of books and continuing counsel. And Massachusetts is but one +of eight States maintaining such commissions. New York State, in its +system of traveling libraries, has gone further still in supplementing +initial aid with a continuing supply of books, and even photographs and +lantern slides, purchased by the State and distributed through the +Regents of the State University from Albany to the remotest hamlet. + +The first stage of all such legislation is an enabling act--authorizing +the establishment of a library by the local authorities; the next is an +act encouraging such establishment by bounties; and New Hampshire has +reached a third by a law actually mandatory, requiring the local +authorities to establish free libraries in proportion to their means and +the population to be served. This seems to mark the high-water mark of +confidence in the utility of these institutions. It indicates that free +public libraries are to be ranked with the common schools, as +institutions indispensable to good citizenship, whose establishment the +State for its own protection must require. + +So the movement has progressed, until now these 2,000 public +libraries combined are sending out each year over 30 million books, to +do their work for good or ill in the homes of the United States. The +entire 2,000 result from one conviction and a uniform purpose. Yet +among them there is every variety in scope and in organization. There +is the hamlet library of a hundred volumes, open for a couple of hours +each week in some farm house, under a volunteer custodian, maintained +by the town, but enlisting private contribution through bazaars and +sociables--sending out its books by the local provision dealer to its +remote and scattered constituents. There is the library of the great +city, with elaborate equipment and complex organization to meet a vast +and complex need. Such a library as you may find at Chicago; a city +which, though it has two great endowed reference libraries, still +considers its million and a half people entitled to a municipal +library, with a two million dollar building, studded with costly +mosaics, and aided by forty branches and stations in bringing the +books nearer each home. Or such a library as exists at Boston; +organized as a City Department, under Trustees appointed by the Mayor, +maintained, like the schools, or the police, or the fire department, +by general taxation; with a central building which has cost the city +two and one-half million dollars, with ten branch libraries and +seventeen delivery stations scattered through the city and reached +daily by its delivery wagons; with 700,000 books; and accommodations +for over 2,000 readers at one time; including in its equipment such +special departments as a bindery and a printing office; requiring for +its administration over 250 employes, and for its maintenance each +year a quarter of a million dollars, in addition to the proceeds of +endowments; and representing in its buildings, books and equipment an +investment of over five millions of dollars, the interest on which, at +four per cent., to the expenditure for maintenance, is equivalent to +an annual burden of $450,000 for its creation and support. + +When this function was first proposed for a municipality, the argument +used was that in this country books had come to be the principal +instruments of education; that the community was already supporting a +public school system; that this system brought a youth to the threshold +of education and there left him; that it qualified him to use books, but +did nothing to put books within his reach; and finally that it was of +"paramount importance that the means of general information should be so +diffused that the largest possible number of persons should be induced +to read and understand questions going down to the very foundation of +social order, which are constantly presenting themselves, and which we, +as a people, are constantly required to decide, and do decide, either +ignorantly or wisely." + +A glance at the libraries now in operation in the United States shows +that the ends proposed for them fall far short of the service which they +actually perform. They begin with the child before he leaves school; +while he is still in his elementary studies they furnish to him books +which stir his imagination, and bring the teaching of the text books +into relation with the art and with life. They thus help to render more +vivid the formal studies pursued; but they also prepare the child to +become an intelligent constituent hereafter. This work cannot begin too +early, for four-fifths of the children pass out into active life without +reaching the high schools. It need not be deferred, for now the number +is almost countless of books that touch with imagination and charm of +style even the most elementary subjects; and the library can add +illustrations which through the eye convey an impression of the largest +subjects in the most elemental way. + +If the library begins with the citizen earlier than was foreseen, it is +prepared to accompany him further than was thought necessary. It +responds not only to the needs of the general reader, but also to those +of the student and even, to the extent of its means, to those of the +scholar engaged in special research. The maintenance of universities at +the common expense is familiar in the West; it is less so in the East. +And there is still contention that institutions for highly specialized +instruction should not be charged upon the community as a whole. But no +one has questioned the propriety of charging upon the community the +support of a library whose leading purpose may be the encouragement of +the higher scholarship. + +Finally, to the services just above described the public library has +added another: the supply of books for proposes purely recreative. This +service, if anticipated, was certainly not explicitly argued for; nor +was it implied in Edward Everett's prediction that the public library +would prove the "intellectual common" of the community. The common that +Mr. Everett had in mind was a pasturage, not a baseball ground, or +lover's walk, or a loafing place for tramps. + +But as regards certain of the books customarily supplied, the ordinary +public library of to-day is furnishing recreation rather than +instruction. In fact, if we look at the history of free public libraries +in this country, we find that the one point of practice on which they +have been criticised is the supply of merely recreative literature. The +protest has come from thoughtful persons, and it means something, +lightly as it has been waved aside. + +The excuse that used to be given for the supply of inferior books was +that they would entice to the use of the better books. There was to be +reached a mass of persons of inferior taste and imperfect education. +These persons must be introduced gradually to an acquaintance with the +better class of reading through the medium of the familiar. And, at all +events, it was better that they should read something than not read at +all. + +I am not quite so confident of the regenerating virtue of mere printed +matter as such; and I am confident that the reading of a book inferior +in style and taste debases taste, and that the book which sets forth, +even with power, a false view of society does harm to the reader, and is +so far an injury to the community of which he is part. But even granting +the premises, the conclusion is doubtful. We do not deliberately furnish +poor art at public expense because there is a portion of the public +which cannot appreciate the better. Nor when the best is offered, +without apology, does the uncultured public in fact complain that it is +too "advanced." Thousands of "ordinary" people come to see and enjoy the +Abbey and Chavannes and Sargent decorations in the Boston Public +Library. No one has yet complained that the paintings are too advanced +for him. The best of art is not too good for the least of men, provided +he can be influenced at all. Nor are the best of books too good for him, +provided he can be influenced, and provided they are permitted, as are +the pictures to make their appeal directly. They must not be secluded +behind catalogs and formal paraphernalia. The practice which admitted +the scholar to the shelves, and limited the general reader to the +catalogues, gave the best opportunity to him who least needed it. The +modern practice sets before the reader least familiar with good _titles_ +a selection of good _books_. It places them on open shelves where he can +handle them without formality. The result is almost invariably, that he +is attracted to a book in advance of his previous tastes. Perhaps a +chance paragraph appeals to some experience or ambition, or an +illustration stirs his imagination. The books themselves draw him +outside of his previous limitations. + +In the place, therefore, of books inferior in quality, the more modern +public library seeks to attract by the freest possible access to books +of the best quality. Not that this practice is universal. But the +opinion and tendency are in this safe direction. + +However, quality assumed, the general question as to the reading of +recreative literature remains. What shall we say of the fact that sixty +per cent. of the circulation of the free public libraries still consists +of fiction? + +In the first place, that this percentage takes no account of reference +use, which is almost wholly of serious literature; second, that as to +home use the ratio in circulation of fiction to serious literature does +not represent a similar ratio of trivial to serious service. Fiction is +the small coin of literature. It must circulate more rapidly to +represent the same volume of real business done. A volume of fiction may +be issued, returned and reissued three times while a biography or +history or work of science is issued once. It will then count +seventy-five per cent. in the circulation. But the serious book has +during the entire period been out in the hands of the reader; and the +service which it has performed--the period of attention which it has +occupied--equals that of the novel in its three issues. And, finally, +there is to be considered the influence of the best fiction toward +general culture (if the library is not merely to inform but also to +cultivate)--in broadening the sympathies, giving a larger tolerance, a +kindlier humanity, a more intelligent helpfulness; in affording the rest +that is in itself an equipment for work, and the distraction that may +save from impulse to evil. + +However, the amount of fiction circulated in proportion to the total +work of the library is on the average steadily decreasing. At the same +time the quality is improving; in part through critical selection, in +part as a happy result of the fact that the inferior novels are also, as +a rule, inferior books, so poorly manufactured that libraries cannot +afford to buy them. + +But there is standard fiction and current fiction; and it is the current +fiction that constitutes by itself a special problem still perplexing. +It is a problem that concerns not the uneducated child, nor the +illiterate adult; it is caused by the people of intelligent education +who are avid to read the latest novel by Mr. X. or Mrs. Y. while it is +still the latest novel by Mr. X. or Mrs. Y. It is being talked about at +dinner or afternoon tea. Well-informed people are reading it; to read it +is a social necessity. + +The reason that presses the public library to supply promptly every +most recent book in the domain of scientific literature is apparent +enough. Such literature contributes facts which are the data for action. +But novels in general belong to the literature of power. Their purpose +is not to furnish information but to give pleasure. Literature of this +sort adds no new fact, nor is it superseded, nor does it lose any of its +value by lapse of time. To assume that it does would be to assume that +beauty of form could become obsolete. This is not so in painting, in +sculpture, in architecture; why should it be so in prose fiction, in +poetry, in the drama? Was there, in fact, an aesthetic value in the +Canterbury Tales in 1380, in Hamlet in 1602, in Ivanhoe in 1819, that is +not to be found in them in 1898? + +But a large portion of latter day fiction is fiction with a purpose; +another way of saying that it is a work of art composed for the +dissemination of doctrine. This element promotes it at once to the +dignity of a treatise; a new view of politics, a new criticism of social +conditions, a new creed! Here is something that concerns the student of +sociology. And surely his needs are worthy of prompt response. + +In fact, his needs and the general curiosity do get prompt response, and +the new novels are freely bought. How freely I have recently sought to +ascertain. I asked of some seventy libraries their yearly expenditure +for current fiction in proportion to their total expenditure for books. +The returns show an average of from ten to fifteen per cent. In one case +the amount reached fifty per cent., in others it fell as low as two per +cent. The ratio for fiction in general is much higher on the average; +but fiction in general includes Scott and Thackeray and other standards, +an ample supply of which would not usually be questioned. At Providence +and Worcester, two of the most active and popular of public libraries, +the purchases of fiction, current and standard, formed last year but +seven and eleven per cent., respectively, of the entire expenditure for +books. + +At Boston there were selected but 178 titles of current fiction (out of +nearly 600 read and considered). But some dozen copies were bought of +each title, so that the entire purchases reached 2,300 volumes and cost +about $2,300. This was about six and a half per cent. on a total +expenditure for books of $34,000. At St. Louis the practise is to buy +but two copies out of the general funds to be circulated free. Nearly a +hundred more are added which are rented out and thus pay for themselves. + +The statistics do not seem to show that the initial expenditure for +current fiction is very alarming. But the purchase price of these books +is but a fraction of the expense of handling them. They cannot be +supplied in adequate quantities; for while the frenzy of curiosity +persists, an adequate supply is beyond the resources of any library. But +since the attempt to supply is futile the pretense is injurious. The +presence of the titles in the catalogues misleads the reader into a +multitude of applications which are a heavy expense to the library +without benefit to him. And the acquisition of the single book means to +the library the expense of handling a hundred applications for it which +are futile to one that can be honored. In this sense a current novel +involves perhaps a hundred times the expense of any other book in being +supplied to but the same number of readers. + +The British museum acquires the new novels as published; but it +withholds them from the readers until five years after their date of +publication. It is my personal belief that a one year limitation of this +sort adopted by our free libraries generally would relieve them of +anxiety and expense and their readers of inconvenience and delusion. + +But as regards current light literature in general it is worth while to +consider whether the responsibility of public libraries has not been +modified by the growth and diffusion of the newspaper and periodical +press. In 1850, when the free public library was started, the number of +newspapers and periodicals published in the United States was about +2,500; now it is nearly 20,000. The total annual issues have increased +from 400 million to over 4-1/2 billion copies. + +The ordinary daily of 1850 contained perhaps a single column of literary +matter. To-day it contains, for the same price, seven columns. In 1850 +it gave no space to fiction; now it offers Kipling, Howells, Stockton, +Bret Harte, Anthony Hope, Crockett, Bourget and many others of the best +of the contemporary writers of fiction. + +Then there are the cheap magazines, which tender a half dozen stories +for the price of a cigar or a bodkin. There are, also, the cheap +"libraries," which have flooded the United States with engaging +literature available to almost any purse. + +In short, conditions have altered. A vast mass of light literature is +now cheaply accessible to the individual which formerly could be +acquired only painfully or at great expense. Why then should the public +libraries struggle to supply it in book form at the public expense? + +But as to a certain percentage of current light literature there is an +embarrassment that I have not touched. It is the embarrassment of making +selection without giving offense. All cannot be bought. A choice must be +made. With reference to standard literature authoritative judgement is +not difficult to obtain. But here there has been no lapse of time to +balance opinion. An anticipatory estimate must be attempted and +attempted by the library itself. + +Now, if the library decide against the book it is very likely held to +blame for "dictating" to its readers. "It is one thing," says a journal +commenting on an adverse decision, "it is one thing to consider this +novel pernicious, but it is another and more serious thing for the +foremost library in the country maintained at public expense, to deny to +a large and respectable portion of the public an opportunity to judge +for itself whether the work of a man of (this author's) calibre is +pernicious or not." + +The author in this case was, of course, not Mr. X., but rather Mr. A., +an already known quantity. + +So a library is not to be permitted to apply a judgement of its own! It +is not protected by the fact that this judgment coincides with the +judgment of professional critics--so far at least as these may be +ascertained. The author may have turned perverse and written a book +distinctly bad. Yet this book is to be bought and supplied to enable +each member of the public to form a judgment of his own upon it. And it +is to be so bought out of public funds entrusted to the library for +educational purposes. Censorship has to us an ugly sound; but does the +library act as censor when it declares a book beyond its province? Does +it dictate what the people shall read when it says, "We decline to buy +this book for you with public funds"? + +This is a question which is far larger than the selection or rejection +of a novel or two. It involves the whole question of authority, and it +concerns not merely the extremes, but the varying degrees of worth in +literature. Most departments of educational work are founded upon +principles, cautiously ascertained, and systematically adhered to. Their +consistent maintenance upon principle is the easier because each other +such department deals with a special constituency, limited either in age +or perhaps in sex, or at least in purpose, and one which accepts as +authoritative the system provided for it. The free public library, +however, has to satisfy a constituency practically unlimited, including +every age of both sexes, whose intellectual need ranges from that of the +most illiterate to that of the most highly accomplished, whose education +in books ranges from that of the person who has never entered a library +to that of the scholar whose life has been a perpetual training in the +use of the library; the assertive classes, the bashful classes. And if +toward this vast and heterogeneous constituency it seeks to assume the +position of an educator, it finds that its authority is one which the +constituents themselves are unanimously unwilling to concede. Each +constituent deems himself not a beneficiary accepting some service, but +a proprietor demanding it. Now, within each community there are persons +who would have every kind of printed matter published. If, therefore, a +public library exists simply to respond to the demands of its readers, +we must have, instead of an educational system devised by experts and +administered with reference to general principles, a system fluctuating +with each eccentric requirement of individuals, indefinite in number, +various in taste and culture, inexpert, except as each may be competent +to judge his own need, incapable of expression in the aggregate, and as +individuals without responsibility for the general results. + +If, on the other hand, an authority is to be vested in the library, what +limits shall it set upon itself, upon what principles of discrimination +shall it proceed, in what directions may it expediently control? I but +state the problem. I shall not endeavor to answer it. But it is one of +the most important involved in the relation of the public library to the +community. + +From such questions an ordinary educational institution stands aloof. It +is content to represent the judgment of the majority in matters of +morality and to inculate the lesson of tried truths as against untried +fancies in matters of opinion affecting the social order. It thus throws +its influence in favor of the established order of things. But its +right, nay, its duty, to do this is unquestioned. Nor is it regarded as +disparaging the opinion which it does not teach. + +But a public library is not so exempt. In addition to the doctrine +which is accepted, it is held to have a duty to the opinion which is +struggling for recognition. As to minority opinion, it is not so much a +university as a forum. Nay, it is to give every advantage to minority +opinion, for--in our resentment of intolerance--minority opinion is not +merely tolerated, it is pampered. + +Now, it is not for libraries or librarians to act as censors and +denounce this or that publication. Yet it is to be remembered that a +library which circulates a book helps to promulgate the doctrine which +the book contains. And if public libraries circulate books which teach +restless, irreverent or revolutionary doctrines, they offer us the +incongruity of a municipality aiding in the propagation of ideas which +are subversive of social order. + +On the other hand, if there is to be exclusion on such grounds, where is +the line of exclusion to be drawn? Shall we say at doctrines which, if +carried into action, would be criminal under the law? Would the public +rest content with this? + +Moreover, the principle of exclusion accepted, who is to apply it? Whose +judgment shall determine whether the particular book does or does not +offend? Shall the library determine? But will it not then be "dictating" +to its readers? Will it not be unduly discriminating against a certain +class of opinion when it has undertaken to represent impartially all +shades of opinion? Will it not offend the remonstrant against the +existing order of things who has a grievance, and, therefore, a right to +be heard; and the defender of the existing order of things who must know +the opinion in order to combat it; and the student of sociology whose +curiosity reaches all extremes and regards them simply as phenomena upon +which he is entitled to be informed? + +I believe that it will. And yet I do not see how the library can escape +exercising judgment. For there is no other responsible authority which +can be brought to exercise it. We must then expect numerous decisions +which will offend a portion of the community. They will usually be on +the conservative side--of exclusion. And it is for those who believe +that a public library should be a conservative influence in the +community to see that it has the authority and is protected in its +exercise. + +Not that in respect of the violent books there is great injury in +present conditions. In the public libraries of to-day there exists no +doubt material sufficiently anarchic to upset society, if it could have +its will upon society. The fact is, that though there is plenty in +literature that is incendiary, there is little in our community that is +inflammable. + +The good that the libraries do is obvious and acknowledged. They +represent the accumulated experience of mankind brought to our service. +They are the custodians of whatever is most worthy of preservation in +our own life and literature. They are the natural depositories of what +we have of memorial and of records; the original entries of legislation +and of achievement. They must render history available; they must +adequately exhibit science; they may help to refine by the best examples +in each art, and in this they may also contribute to the industrial life +of the community by educating the artisan into an artist, his craft into +an art. And through record and description of processes and inventions +they may contribute to the foundations of great industries. They touch +the community as a whole as perhaps does no other single organized +agency for good. They offer to the shyest ignorance equality with the +most confident scholarship, and demand no formal preliminary which might +abash ignorance. + +They have a profound duty--not generally appreciated--to help render +homogeneous the very heterogeneous elements of our population. Thirty +per cent. of it has come to us from an alien life and alien +institutions. One-third of the people in our six leading cities are of +foreign birth; seventy-one per cent. were either born abroad or born of +foreign parentage. In the assimilation of this foreign element no single +agency is perhaps so potent as our public libraries. + +The public libraries deem themselves the allies of formal educational +processes; but also the direct educators of that part of the community +not subject to the formal processes. It is this latter responsibility +which has led them to attempt a broader service than the mere supply of +books. A book is not the only nor necessarily the most effective vehicle +for conveying knowledge. There are illustrations which more directly +convey an impression, and often as fully state a fact. And photographs +and process reproductions are now part of the equipment of a public +library almost as conventional as books. Within the past year 10,000 +such have been added to the collections of the Boston Public Library; +not as works of art (they are for the most part cheap silver prints and +the Art Museum is but a hundred feet distant); nor merely as aids to the +study of the fine arts and the useful arts, but also as convenient +auxiliaries to the study of history, of literature and institutions. And +they are used by individuals and by classes not as a substitute for the +text, but as helping to render vivid the lesson of the text. + +With these go lectures in exposition. Every building of importance +recently designed for the uses of a public library includes an art +gallery and a lecture hall. What an immense augmentation of function +this implies! It implies that the library is no longer merely an +aggregate of books, each passive within rigid limits; but that it is an +active agent having under its control material which is kept plastic and +which it moulds into incredibly varied shapes to suit incredibly varied +needs. + +The experience of the Boston Public Library shows that in the case of +books each increase of facilities creates an increased demand. The +trustees of 1852 boasted that they were providing for as many as fifty +readers at a time; the trustees of 1887 thought themselves venturesome +in providing for 500 readers at a time; and within a month after the new +building was opened it was forced to accommodate over 700 at a time. +Every week over 30,000 persons enter the Central Library building, and +every year 1,200,000 volumes are drawn for home use by the 65,000 +card-holders. Yet these figures represent still but a portion of the +persons reached and the work to be done. Nor can facilities for +distribution keep pace with the need. For a city of a half million +people spread over an area of forty square miles adequate library +facilities cannot ever be provided. A municipality which even +approximates the adequate in providing buildings, equipment, +administration and general literature at the public expense must still +look to private gift for the specialized material necessary to a great +reference collection. That the Boston Public Library is next to the +British Museum in Shakespeariana is, to be sure, the result of a special +expenditure by the city. But the larger part of its special collections +which have given it distinction as a great scholars' library, has come +from private gift; the Ticknor collection of Spanish literature, the +Bowditch collection of mathematics, the Chamberlain collection of +autographs, the Brown collection of music and many others. And a city +which erects for its public library a building which is monumental is +putting forward the most attractive invitation to private gift. The +gifts which have come to Boston as the direct result of the new building +have already reached a twelfth of its cost. + +With proper organization and a liberal co-operation between municipal +and private effort the opportunities for service are almost limitless. +The risk is the greater of attempts at service either legally +inappropriate or practically inexpedient, and the risk is not lessened +by a popular appreciation which is more enthusiastic than it is apt to +be discriminating. There is, therefore, the greater need of +discrimination on the part of the library itself and of an authority +which will protect its exercise. This authority can be conferred only by +intelligent public opinion on the part of those who are capable of +appreciating constitutional limitations. + + + + +THE PUBLIC LIBRARY: ITS USES TO THE MUNICIPALITY + + Written for the National Municipal League and printed in + _The Library Journal_ for June, 1903, eight years after the + author, Dr. John S. Billings, had begun his service as + director of the New York Public Library; largely a defence + of libraries against certain objections. The statement of + the part played by "sentiment" in popular institutions, and + its justification, are striking and true. + + John Shaw Billings was born in Switzerland County, Ind., in + 1839, graduated from Miami University in 1857, studied + medicine and after serving as a surgeon in the Civil War, + was assigned to the Surgeon General's Office in Washington, + of whose library he compiled the 16-volume Index Catalogue. + After service in Johns Hopkins and Pennsylvania Universities + he was chosen in 1895 director of the newly established New + York Public Library, where he served until his death in + 1913, planning and supervising the construction of its + central building. + + +The great majority of cities of 25,000 inhabitants and upward in the +United States have public libraries of some sort, and the same is true +of many of the smaller cities. Many of these libraries have been founded +on gifts of individuals, some have developed from subscription +libraries, but the majority are now supported mainly or entirely by +funds appropriated by the city government. A considerable number are +still in the formative stage, this being true of those for which +buildings are being erected from funds provided by Mr. Carnegie and for +several hundred others for which he will probably provide buildings in +the near future. + +There may be excessive and unjustifiable taxation for the support of a +public library--the amount which the city can afford for this purpose +should be carefully considered in connection with its needs for a pure +water supply and good sewage disposal, for means of communication, for +the care of the sick poor and for public schools. Each case must be +judged by itself; the only general rule I have to suggest is that in the +department of education the claims of the public library for support are +more important than those of municipal college or high school. The +people who have no taxable property, and who therefore often erroneously +suppose that they contribute nothing toward the payment of the taxes, +are usually quite willing to have a higher tax rate imposed for the +purpose of securing for themselves and their families free library +facilities--although in exceptional cases religious or sociological +opinions may lead them to oppose it. + +A considerable number of taxpayers on the other hand, are more or less +reluctant to have their assessments increased for this purpose, and +their arguments should be considered and met. They are: + +1. That they should not be taxed for things they do not want and never +use. + +2. That furnishing free books tends to pauperize the community and to +discourage the purchase of books for home use. + +3. That there is no evidence that free public libraries improve the +community materially or morally. + +4. That the greater part of the books used are works of fiction and that +these are injurious to the readers. + +5. That most of the arguments used in favor of free public libraries are +merely sentimental and emotional. + +The first of these reasons would apply also to taxes for public schools, +street paving, sewerage, and many other items of municipal expenditure +and has no weight. + +With regard to the second argument it is not a sufficient reply to say +that every one pays through the taxes, for this would apply equally well +to free lodging houses, free lunchrooms and soup kitchens, free fuel, +etc., all of which it generally believed tend to pauperize a city, +except in great and special emergencies. The proper answer is that the +free public library is an important and, indeed, necessary part of the +system of free education which is required to secure intelligent +citizens in our form of popular government, and that while in a few very +exceptional cases free schools and free libraries may tend to +improvidence or indolence or even to certain forms of crime, these rare +cases are of no importance in comparison with the benefits which +education confers upon the immense majority of the community and with +the fact that without free schools and libraries a large part of the +people will not be sufficiently educated to be useful citizens. + +With the regard to the third count, the public library, again, may be +considered together with the public school. While it is difficult to +trace to either specific instances of material or moral improvement, it +is certain that the general diffusion of intelligence which both +certainly effect does result beneficially in these directions. +Communities with flourishing free schools and libraries are usually more +prosperous and better than those without such facilities, and, while +there is doubtless room here for a confusion of cause and effect, it is +probable that there is both action and reaction. Prosperity calls for +increased facilities for education and these in turn tend to make the +community more prosperous. + +That the majority of books withdrawn from public libraries are works of +fiction cannot be denied. Many librarians are wont to deplore this fact, +and most libraries endeavor in one way or another to decrease the +percentage of fiction in their circulation. + +The proportion of recreative reading in a public library is necessarily +large. In like manner, the greater proportion of those who visit a +zoological or botanical garden do so for amusement. Yet the information +that they secure in so doing is none the less valuable and both are +certainly educational institutions. So if in the public library a large +number of its users get their history, their travel and their biography +through the medium of recreative readings we should not complain. Were +it otherwise these readers would probably lack altogether the +information that they now certainly acquire. + +Taking up the final count in the indictment, it is doubtless true that +sentimental and emotional considerations have had much to do with +library development. They have furnished the initial motive power, as +they have for free schools, for the origin and progress of democratic +government, and for most of the advances of civilization. They often +precede deliberate, conscious reasoning and judgment, yet they are often +themselves the result of an unconscious reasoning process producing +action of the will in advance of deliberate judgment. Sometimes they are +pure reflexes, like winking when the eye is threatened by a blow. The +free public library can neither be established nor maintained usefully +without their aid, but their methods--or want of method--must be +carefully guided to produce good results. + +The sentiment that we ought to establish institutions for the diffusion +of knowledge is the expression of a real economic need and should be +directed and encouraged and not suppressed. Logic is a useful steering +apparatus, but a very poor motive power. + + + + +THE LIBRARY: A PLEA FOR ITS RECOGNITION + + Delivered by Frederick M. Crunden before the Library Section + of the International Congress of Arts and Science, held in + connection with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. + Louis in 1904, closes with a summary of the public library's + functions that remains measurably true to-day, although, of + course, it could now be somewhat expanded. + + A sketch of Mr. Crunden appears in Vol. I. + + +The Louisiana Purchase Exposition is an epitome of the life and activity +of the world--from the naked Negrito to the grande dame with her +elaborate Paris costume, from the rude wigwam of the red Indian to the +World's Fair palace filled with the finest furniture, rugs and +tapestries, sculpture and painting, and decorations that the highest +taste and finest technique can produce--from the monotonous din of the +savage tom-tom to the uplifting and enthralling strains of a great +symphony orchestra--from fire by friction, the first step of man beyond +the beast, to the grand electric illumination that makes of these +grounds and buildings the most beautiful art-created spectacle that ever +met the human eye. And to all this magnificent appeal to the senses are +superadded the marvels of modern science and its applications--the +wonders of the telescope, the microscope and the spectroscope, the +telegraph, in its latest wireless extension, the electric motor and +electric light, the telephone and the phonograph, the Roentgen ray and +the new-found radium. + +And now after this vision of wondrous beauty, this triumph of the grand +arts of architecture and sculpture and landscape--of all the arts, fine +and useful--has for six months enraptured the senses of people from all +quarters of the globe, the learned men of the world have gathered here +to set forth and discuss the fundamental principals that underlie the +sciences, their correlations and the methods of their application to the +arts of life--to summarize the progress of the past, to discuss the +condition of the present and attempt, perhaps, a forecast of the future. + +In the scheme of classification, our subject appears in the last +department that concerns itself with man's purely mundane affairs, and +is the last section in that department. It thus appears properly as a +climax and summary of the arts and sciences intelligible to man in his +present stage of existence; and if the problem of the future life is +ever solved this side of the grave, the knowledge conserved and +disseminated by the library will be the starting-point and the +inspiration of the advance, as it has been of all progress since the art +of written speech was invented. "The library is the reservoir of the +common social life of the race. It is at once the accumulator and the +transmitter of social energy." Without the library the highest social +culture is impossible; and a most moderate degree could be achieved by +very few. + +Under the main division, "Social Culture," the library is one of the +five sections in the Department of Education. In education are summed up +all the achievements of the past and the possibilities of the future. In +the words of Wendell Phillips, "Education is the one thing worthy the +deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man." "Education," exclaims +Mazzini, "and my whole doctrine is included and summed up in this grand +word." It is practically a truism that Jules Simon utters when he says +"Le peuple qui a les meilleures ecoles est le premier peuple; s'il ne +l'est pas aujourd'hui il le sera demain." + +Under this Department of Education, with its grades, the School, the +College and the University, the Library is assigned the last section. It +belongs there in chronological order of development as an active factor +in popular instruction and enlightenment; and, furthermore, the +presentation of its claims and functions comes naturally after those of +the other factors in education, because it is an essential coadjutor and +supplement to each and all. It is a summary and a climax. There have +always been libraries, and they have always been a factor in education; +but the public, free, tax-supported library is but just half a century +old, and could hardly be considered out of the long clothes of infancy +till the year 1876; while its general acceptance as an essential +supplement to the public school and a co-ordinate factor with the +college and university may be considered the accomplishment of the last +decade. There are still teachers who look on general reading as an +interference with school work and an extra burden on their shoulders. + +We start, then, with the axiomatic proposition that all human progress +depends on education; and no elaborate demonstration is necessary to +show that the library is an essential factor in every grade of +education. + +Higher education, certainly, cannot dispense with the library. The +well-known dictum of Carlyle, "The true university of modern times is a +collection of books," was accepted as a striking statement of a man with +rhetorical habit, without, perhaps, a realization of its full +significance. It has been recently expanded into a more express and +specific tribute to the importance of the library in university +education. In an address delivered in St. Louis and afterwards published +in the _North American Review_, President Harper said: + +"The place occupied by libraries and laboratories in the educational +work of to-day, as compared with that of the past, is one of commanding +importance. Indeed, the library and the laboratory have already +practically revolutionized the methods of higher education. In the +really modern institution, the chief building is the library. It is the +center of institutional activity.... That factor of college work, the +library, fifty years ago almost unknown, to-day already the center of +the institution's intellectual activity, half a century hence, with its +sister, the laboratory, almost equally unknown fifty years ago, will +have absorbed all else and will have become the institution itself." + +As to the value of the library in elementary education Doctor Harris +says: + +"What there is good in our American system points towards the +preparation of the pupil for the independent study of the book by +himself. It points towards acquiring the ability of self-education by +means of the library." + +I might quote similar utterances from many other eminent educators as to +the value--the necessity--of the library in early education; but I can +think of no stronger summing-up of the subject, nor from higher +authority, than this statement from President Eliot: + +"From the total training during childhood there should result in the +child a taste for interesting and improving reading, which should direct +and inspire its subsequent intellectual life. That schooling which +results in this taste for good reading, however unsystematic or +eccentric the schooling may have been, has achieved a main end of +elementary education; and that schooling which does not result in +implanting this permanent taste has failed.... The uplifting of the +democratic masses depends on this implanting at school of the taste for +good reading." + +To persons who have given little thought to educational questions these +utterances will have the weight that attaches to the highest authority; +but we need no university president or national commissioner to tell us +these facts. We have learned them from our own experience; and, +enlightened as we now are, it seems to us strange that question could +ever have been raised as to the essential character of the library in +elementary education. Yet there are some of us, I am sure, who can +recall painful consequences from putting into practice an educational +theory not generally accepted by the pedagogues of our childhood days. + +We know that higher education is impossible without a library, for the +library is the storehouse of the world's knowledge, the record of +humanity's achievements, the history of mankind's trials and sorrows and +sufferings, of its victories and defeats and of its gradual progress +upwards in spite of frequent fluctuation and failure. In this chronicle +of the past lie lessons for the present and the future; from the lives +of storied heroes comes the inspiration that leads the race onward and +upward. A university without a library would of necessity have a very +small and weak faculty--only the few professors who could be induced to +go where the most important instrumentality of their work was lacking: +the university that has an adequate library includes in its faculty the +professors of all other universities and all the great teachers of all +countries and ages. + +But is it worth while to consider a university without a library? Can +there be such an institution? + +In higher education, then, the library is a necessity. In elementary +and secondary education it is no less essential, if the most is to be +made of the few years that the average child spends in school and if he +is to be started on a path of self-culture. On this point Stanley Jevons +says: + +"In omitting that small expenditure in a universal system of libraries +which would enable young men and women to keep up the three R's and +continue their education, we spend L97 and stingily decline the L3 +really needed to make the rest of the L100 effective." + +At the International Library Conference in London, in 1897, one of the +most distinguished American librarians, who has been an administrator in +a large educational field outside of the library, expressed his view of +the supreme importance of the library in a scheme of popular education +by saying that if he had to choose between the public school and the +public library--if he could have only one--(though the alternative is +one that never will or can be presented), he would keep the library and +let the school go. For, he argued, every child would learn to read +somehow; and, with a free library that actively sought him, he would be +better off than if he had a school to teach him to read, but no books to +read after he had learned. But however divergent might be opinions +regarding this impossible alternative, there is no doubt that the public +library, with enlarged functions and activities, has at least equal +potentialities with the school. Whether the formal instruction of the +school or the broader education of the library is of greater value, +depends on what is the chief aim. If it is merely to make breadwinners, +the school may be the more useful, though in this, too, the library is +an efficient coadjutor; but if our purpose is to make men and women, +citizens of a progressive nation, active members of an aspiring society, +the library may fairly claim at least equal rank with the school. For +the school wields its direct influence over the average child but a few +years; the library is an active influence through life. + +Again, more than ninety-five children out of every hundred leave school +before they are sufficiently mature to comprehend those studies which +open their eyes to the universe, which bear upon their relations to +their fellow-men, upon their duties as citizens of a state, as members +of organized society. These are the studies that deal with the most +important problems that mankind has to solve. They cannot be taught to +children; they cannot be taught--dogmatically--at all. They involve the +consideration of burning questions, subjects of bitter controversy--the +world-old battle between conservatism and innovation which, as Emerson +says, "is the subject of civil history." They cannot be taught by any +teacher, they cannot be taught by any text-book or by any one book. +Their adequate consideration calls for the reading of many books--books +of the present and the future as well as the past. The electrician who +allows himself to be guided by the treatises of twenty years ago would +have no standing; neither has the economist or sociologist who has not +kept up with the literature of the last thirty years--or the last three +years. It would be of no particular advantage for all of us to be +electricians. We can safely trust that field to experts; but it is +extremely desirable that every man should comprehend the great issues of +economics and politics. The school cannot even PRESENT the important +problems of sociology; the university cannot adequately do so without +the library. On no other subject is the wide reading that Matthew Arnold +enjoins so necessary. And no other subject is of such momentous +importance to mankind; for the betterment of social conditions is a +necessary forerunner and foundation of moral and religious progress. And +that cannot be true religion which does not lead to social betterment. +In that noblest aspiration ever put into the mouth and mind and heart +(too often, alas, only the mouth!) of man we are taught to pray not that +we may be transplanted to a better world, but that God's kingdom may +come and His will be done in this world. + +We are not likely to abate our eagerness in the pursuit of knowledge of +physical science, for the zeal of the scientist is stimulated by the +spur of commercialism; and, though it seems impossible, the twentieth +century may bring forth as wonderful discoveries and inventions as the +nineteenth. But, to take the advance just now most sought, can any one +raise the question as to which would be of greater benefit to St. Louis, +to reach Chicago in an hour by airship or to take six or ten hours for +the trip and find there--and everywhere--a contented body of workmen +supplying us with the necessities of life and a set of managers carrying +on the transportation system that we already have on equal terms to all +people? What the world's progress most needs is "evening up." The +advancing column presents a very ragged front, with physical science and +its applications so far ahead that they have almost lost sight of social +science in the rear. It would be no great disadvantage to the world--to +the progress of mankind as a whole--if the swift-footed legion of +applied science would merely mark time for a period, while attention +should be given to a better organization of the vast human army. The +objective point would be reached as soon, for a nation is like a railway +train; it can go no faster than its hindmost car. But this is not likely +to happen at present. Applied science has every stimulus from within and +without, every reward intrinsic and extrinsic; while progress in the +social and political sciences must carry the dead weight of the inertia +of conservatism and also meet the active and intense opposition of +vested interests, which have ever the single purpose of preserving the +status quo, no matter how unjust or maleficent. + +The solution of these all-important problems cannot be found in the +school, where immature minds are taught merely how to use the tools of +knowledge; these questions cannot be settled by the small number of +university students; they must be solved by the education of the masses, +by instilling in them in their early school years a desire for knowledge +and a love for good reading, which will lead them to continue their +education by means of the library. The education of the mass of the +voters who determine the character of a democratic government, must not +be left to the party organ or the stump speaker. The great social and +political questions should be studied and pondered in the quiet of the +closet and not decided, without previous thought, amid the hurrahs of +the hustings. + +To make the public library realize fully its possibilities as the +People's University calls for more than the opportunity which every +public library now offers; it requires active effort to reach out and +bring the people to the library by the fullest co-operation with the +school and by means of attractive lecture courses, which shall stimulate +reading and guide it in profitable channels. But the beginning of this +work--the inculcation of a taste for good reading--lies with the school, +with the library's co-operation, especially during the years from six to +ten or twelve, those years when nearly all the children come under the +school's influence and when the habit of reading can be most easily +formed. + +If charged with placing undue stress upon the value of the library, I +might urge its comparative newness and its consequent lack of +recognition; and, as an evidence of the latter, I might point to the +fact that in this great educational exposition, while one vast palace is +given up to exhibits of the school, the library has with difficulty +secured a part of a room in the Missouri State Building for an exhibit +of its activities in the great work of education, in which, as I am +trying to show, its potentialities are as great as those of the school. +As our Board of Directors said, in its appeal to the exposition +Directors for a separate library building: + + "The library, besides being the most efficient and most + economical agency for popular education, represents all the + fair will have to show. It stands for the sum total of human + knowledge. It is the instrumentality through which knowledge + has been conserved and cumulated. Only through the library + can civilization continue to advance.... Books are the most + potent factors in progress. Without books we should have had + no powerful locomotives to show, no wireless telegraphy, no + wonder-making machinery, no beautiful buildings, no + impressive statuary, no paintings to arouse wonder and yield + delight--no World's Fair to draw distinguished scientists + and educators from all over the world." + +By way of introduction to the comprehensive addresses of the two +distinguished delegates who have travelled four or five thousand miles +to lay before this Section, and, through publication, before the world, +the past history and the present problems of the library, it has seemed +to me appropriate that, as chairman, I should present a brief plea for +the consideration of the library as one of the greatest factors in human +progress. It has existed, though not in its present form or with its +present functions, from the dawn of recorded civilization. It is itself +the record of civilization; and without it there can be no records and +no civilization. It is the repository, the custodian, the preserver of +all the arts and sciences and the principal means of disseminating all +knowledge. With the school and the church it forms the tripod necessary +to the stable equilibrium of society. Let me briefly summarize the +functions of the public library. + +1. It doubles the value of the public school instruction, on which is +expended more than ten times the cost of the library. + +2. It enables the children who leave school at an early age (an +overwhelming majority) to continue their education while earning their +living. It provides for the education of the adults who have lacked or +failed to utilize early opportunities. This is of special importance in +a country like the United States, where one of the greatest political +problems is the assimilation of a vast influx of ignorant foreigners of +all races and languages. + +3. It supplies books and periodicals needed for the instruction of +artisans, mechanics, manufacturers, engineers, and all others whose work +requires technical knowledge[6]--all persons on whom depends the +industrial progress of the community. + +4. It furnishes information and inspiration to ministers, teachers, +journalists, authors, physicians, legislators--all persons on whose work +depend the intellectual, moral, sanitary, political and religious +welfare and advancement of the people. + +5. It is the stimulus and the reliance of the literary and study clubs, +which, especially among the women, have done much not only for +individual self-culture but also for civic enlightenment and social +betterment. This represents its numerous post-graduate courses, which +are taken by constantly increasing numbers. + +6. It has philosophers and theologians to explain and expound and to +exhort those who are willing to listen; but, far better, it has poets +and dramatists and novelists--who compel a hearing and impress on heart +as well as mind the fundamental truths of morality and religion. + +7. It is also a school of manners, which have been well defined as minor +morals. The child learns by example and by the silent influence of his +surroundings; and every visit to a library is a lesson in propriety and +refinement. The roughest boy or the rudest man cannot fail to be +impressed by the library atmosphere and by that courtesy which is the +chief element in the "library spirit." + +8. It imparts, as the school cannot, knowledge of one's self, and of +one's relations to one's fellow-man, and thus prepares the individual +for citizenship and fellowship in organized society and leads him to be +an active force in social advancement. + +9. It elevates the standard of general intelligence throughout the +community, on which depends its material prosperity as well as its moral +and political well-being. + +[6] The information furnished by a book in the Cincinnati Public +Library once saved that city a quarter of a million dollars. This in +numerous instances, but on a smaller scale, is a part of the everyday +work of the library. + +10. But not last, if an exhaustive list were aimed at--nor least it +supplies a universal and urgent craving of human nature by affording to +all entertainment of the highest and purest character, substituting this +for the coarse, debasing, demoralizing, amusements which would otherwise +be sought and found. Further, it brings relief and strength to many a +suffering body and cheer and solace to many a sorrowing heart. It is +instruction and inspiration to the young, comfort and consolation to the +old, recreation and companionship to all ages and conditions. + +I close as I began: + +Education is the greatest concern of mankind; it is the foundation of +all human progress. The library is an essential factor in all grades of +education; and it is the agent plenipotentiary in the betterment of +society and the culture and cheer of the human soul. "The highest gift +of education is not the mastery of sciences, but noble living, generous +character, the spiritual delight that comes from familiarity with the +loftiest ideals of the human mind, the spiritual power that saves each +generation from the intoxication of its own success." + + + + +THE LIBRARY AS A FACTOR IN MODERN CIVILIZATION + + Read by President Faunce of Brown University, at the + Narragansett Pier Conference of the American Library + Association in 1906. Elaborates the library's three gifts to + the nation--"knowledge, perspective and ideals." + + William Herbert Perry Faunce was born in Worcester, Mass., + Jan. 15, 1859, graduated at Brown University in 1880, + entered the Baptist ministry, and after holding several + pastorates became in 1899 president of his alma mater. He is + known as an effective writer and speaker, especially on + religion and education. + + +We have long been accustomed to speak of three great factors in modern +civilization--the school, the church, and the home. Must we, in view of +such a significant meeting as this, add a fourth factor--the library? +The modern library has in some places become a true school; in other +places it has radiated something of the refinement for which we once +looked to the home, and something of the idealism which is a peculiar +gift of the church. The library is vastly more than a collection of +books: it is a social, civilizing, moralizing force. We expect to find +the library building in every city and town as much as to find the spire +of the church or the flag of the schoolhouse. The visitor to Boston +to-day finds the public library as commanding a pile as Trinity Church, +and far more imposing than any schoolhouse. The visitor to New York +finds the new public library building climbing into a mass and dignity +as great as that of any cathedral. No smallest village is now complete +without its library, and when some future Goldsmith shall sing the +praise of another "Deserted village," he will point out not only with +the "noisy mansion" of the school-master, not only the church adorned +with the meek and unaffected grace of the rural pastor, but the loaded +shelves, the catalogs and reference lists, the chairs and tables, and +the zeal unaffected, though not always meek, of the modern librarian. + +These libraries have sprung into being throughout the land without +specific legislation and without deliberate propaganda. The church +missionary societies of the country have adopted the avowed policy of +planting a church in every community, and appointing superintendents of +missions to see that this is done. Every state in the Union has its laws +for the establishment and maintenance of schools. But these multiplying +libraries have come into being without enactment of law or the preaching +of the crusade. They have spread from sea to sea by a happy contagion, +they have become a noble American epidemic. The great inarticulate +thirst for knowledge has demanded satisfaction, and created its own +supply. Our wisest directors of public sentiment and philanthropic +endeavor have realized that through the library may come a charity that +does not pauperize, a help that induces self-help, light to irradiate +the dark places of civilization, inspiration for every calling, and +access and power to every worthy institution and noble cause. What then +is the specific function of this new and powerful institution in modern +life? What is the contribution of the library to modern civilization? + +The library makes to the nation three gifts: the gift of knowledge, the +gift of perspective, the gift of ideals. Putting the matter in another +way, we may say it gives us facts, relations, values. + +The library is primarily to conserve and disseminate knowledge. Indeed, +the old conception of the library was purely that of a place of storage +for written or printed material. No one thought of taking out a book +from a mediaeval library any more than of removing a statue or painting +from an art gallery. And still to-day the function of the library as a +storehouse is most important. Modern democracy holds that knowledge is +not for a few bright minds of each generation, not for an intellectual +elite; but all that is knowable is to be made accessible to all that +desire to know. If we allow knowledge to come only to a chosen few of +each generation, how can we know that we have chosen the right ones to +receive it? The genius that might turn the stream of history may be born +in the lowliest cabin on the prairie, or in the darkest tenement of the +great city. There may not be a village Hampden in every village, but +there may be an Edison, a Fulton, an Eli Whitney, an Andrew Carnegie, a +Carl Schurz in any village in America. Only when we make knowledge +accessible to all shall we know what minds and hearts are among us. + +But we must discriminate. The books which no longer convey knowledge, +which state theories no longer held, and propound as facts things no +longer believed; in other words, antiquated books of knowledge should be +sharply separated from books abreast of modern thinking. Those books +which have ceased to be of any use to mankind (except for antiquarian +purposes) or which never were of any use to mankind--and their name is +legion--have their place in a museum, but not in an working library. In +an arsenal we keep only weapons now serviceable in actual war, and +relegate flint-locks, catapults, and bows and arrows to the museum. No +arsenal in the world would be large enough to accommodate weapons for a +modern regiment mingled with all the weapons of all past generations. It +is time for some one to say frankly that there is no inherent sanctity +in paper and printer's ink. It may have been true in Milton's day that a +book was usually the precious life-blood of a master spirit; but to-day +a book is often the product of the least erected spirit that fell. An +almanac put forth to advertise some nostrum, or a novel prepared purely +as a piece of merchandise, does not acquire dignity or value simply +because bound in leather and placed on the shelf with "Paradise Lost." + +We must apply to our libraries some higher standard than that of size. +We never estimate the Uffizzi or the Louvre by the number of paintings +they contain, yet we continue to grade modern libraries by the number of +volumes groaning on dust-covered shelves. A library of five thousand +well selected books may be of far more service than one of one hundred +thousand composed largely of books outgrown and forgotten. Our public +libraries must distinguish sharply between the library and the museum, +to the advantage of both. + +Secondly: Perspective. The library aims to show us facts in their large +and permanent relations. There is no virtue in mere knowledge of facts +(any more than in vast numbers of volumes). Most facts are not worth +knowing, still less worth preserving. Doubtless the letter "p" occurs a +certain definite number of times in "Idylls of the King," and it may be +that some deluded mortal in prison or asylum has ascertained that +number; but we do not care to know that fact or have any one else know +it. The exact number of grains in some ant-hill is doubtless +discoverable, but only a lunatic would care for the discovery. Most +facts in nature and in history are in our present stage of development +without value. Only when these facts are collected, classified, seen in +relation, and translated into truth do they become of value to men. + +For this reason the library must encourage, slow, patient, thoughtful +reading. We have long been told that a taste for reading is worth ten +thousand a year. Whether this is true or not depends altogether on what +sort of reading is referred to. The habit of letting the mind lie +passive while some scribbler plays upon it is not worth ten thousand a +year. The habit of letting the mind become a waste basket for sensation +and scandal is not worth ten thousand a year. The habit of reading as a +substitute for thinking is worth nothing, but is sheer damage to mental +fibre. The university library is even more important than the university +laboratory. In the laboratory we verify the theory which is far more +likely to be discovered in the library. The new discovery is a new +combination of old ideas, and such mental combination comes to us more +easily when we are dealing with thoughts than with things. + +Our students need to use books not only as tools, but as friends. In the +old days, when the reading of college students was far more promiscuous +than to-day, they were accustomed to regard books almost as personal +acquaintances, and there was a genuine exchange of reaction of writer +and reader. Such reading was indeed very desultory, but, as our +professor of English literature is accustomed to say, "it was immensely +fattening." Now, on the other hand, the college student goes to the +library with a list of references, using many books, but becoming really +acquainted with none. He opens one work at volume 2, page 193, another +at volume 4, page 315, and, having extracted the precise bit of +information he desires, has no further use for the author in question. +This modern method of reading is far more accurate and definite than the +older method, and is obviously effective in securing results. But it +must be supplemented by the "browsing" of former days, by the large +horizons which come from being set free in the companionship of great +minds. + +Thirdly: Ideals. Our libraries must not be only storehouses of +knowledge, but reservoirs of power. The great books of all time give us +contact with inspiring personalities, shining examples, with the great +leaders of men. The trophies of Themistocles will not suffer us to +sleep. When such books come into many a shut-in life, to many a boyhood, +cabined and confined, the limitations of the farm and factory are +forgotten, the mind expands to a kinship with past and future, and the +reader in some village library may become the prophet of the new +century, and the leader of the modern world. + +More than that: the literature of power creates the climate in which we +live. It shapes our ideals of success, of power, of beauty, of goodness. +Fiction and poetry, if they thus create aspiration and give us +standards, may be more useful than all encyclopedias or text-books, for +they deal with the sources and the goal of all human action. + + + + +THE PROVISION OF BOOKS + + + The seven addresses or papers just preceding relate to the + general services of the library to the community. The twelve + that now follow analyze this into four types of special + service, as already suggested--the provision of books, the + collection of information, the control and guidance of + reading and community-centre service. The next three papers + treat of the provision of books. + + + + +THE LIBRARIAN AND HIS CONSTITUENTS + + That the choice of books is the most important of the + librarian's duties and that "his best effort" should be + given to it, is the thought of an institutional librarian, + R.B. Poole of the New York Y.M.C.A. This view should + interest those who think that administrative problems and + socialization are elbowing the books into the background. + + Reuben Brooks Poole was born in Rockport, Mass., in 1834, + and graduated at Brown University in 1857. After serving as + a teacher he became librarian of the Y.M.C.A. library in New + York City, where he remained until his death on April 6, + 1895. He was president of his state library association in + 1894. + + +By constituents is not meant political constituents. It is unfortunate +for any librarian when he holds his office in a public library as a +political favor, and library appointments should be as far removed as +possible from all party influences. A public library, like any other +public property, is susceptible of being used as a tool, and may easily +degenerate into a political job, unless specially protected by its +charter. New York city has one such library. The library exists for the +librarians; its constituents--not readers--are of the school of +politics. The example, it is to be hoped, is a unique one in our +country. + +A brief retrospect of the libraries and librarians of the past may help +us to more fully comprehend the situation of the librarian and his +constituents of to-day. + +The monk represented the librarian of the Middle Ages. He was not by +profession a librarian, and yet the valuable service he rendered to +literature entitles him to the name. He was at once chorister, master of +ceremonies, transcriber, illuminator, and collector. Professedly the +monk was a religious ascetic. He retired from the world to devote +himself to religion, to a life of self-denial. His language was the +Latin; the books or manuscripts that surrounded him were works of the +Fathers, books of devotion, service-books, and the classics. These were +just in keeping with his life and thoughts. A congenial occupation was +thus opened to him. The hours of the cloister were made shorter as the +monk duplicated and reduplicated some dainty missal, or some commentary +of Augustine, or painted a miniature of the Virgin or of the apostles. + +However much we may differ in opinion as to the service rendered to +religion by the monasteries of the Middle Ages, as librarians we have a +fellow-feeling with these toiling monks, and are grateful to them for +the service they have rendered the libraries of to-day by their +preservation of works that otherwise would have been destroyed. There is +nothing in the book-making arts of to-day to compare with the artistic +skill displayed in the illuminations and miniature-painting which enrich +and beautify the manuscripts of those times. + +The monastic libraries were small, and the readers few. Books were +loaned from monastery to monastery. They were distributed once a year, +at the Lenten season. As each borrower returned his book he was +catechised as to its contents, if the examination was satisfactory he +was allowed another book for the coming year; if not, he must take his +old book again. + +One not a member of the order of St. Benedict, or an _attache_ of Cluny +or Canterbury, could procure the coveted treasure, sometimes, by +pledging to return with the manuscript borrowed a full transcription. + +Library economy in these ages was very simple. Catalogues were little +more than inventories, and no discordant notes were chanted, in duets or +solos, over systems of classification. The absolute or fixed system of +shelving was in vogue, the books being held in their places by chains. +The survival of this feature exists in the attachments of the modern +city directory. + +But, not to linger longer in cloisters or abbeys, we come to the age of +printing and to the foundation of the modern libraries of Europe; the +treasures in the monastic libraries contributing to form their vast +collections. + +The monk's occupation as a librarian was gone, and he was succeeded by +the collector, the keeper, the scholar. In the centuries immediately +succeeding the invention of printing there was a growing diffusion of +knowledge by means of libraries. We smile at the restrictions imposed, +and look upon them as so many fetters on the intellect. It is, however, +to be borne in mind that at this time books were costly and rare, and on +this account were guarded with great jealousy. + +When the Bodleian library was founded it was stipulated by law that +under no pretence should any book be lent to any one, no matter what his +station. A Fellow of Corpus Christi College could not enter the sacred +alcoves alone, and he was under oath not to remove a book. The books +were there for use, there can be no question; and in the Bodleian, to +which we have just referred, a person could have six books at a time to +consult, and the library was open for six hours during the day. + +About 1650 Humphrey Chetham bequeathed L1,000 for a public library in +Manchester, England. He was a firm adherent of the fixed location. "My +mind and will is," he says, "that care be taken that none of said books +be taken out of the said library at any time, and that the said books be +fixed or chained." After specifying certain religious books, and +annotations on the Bible, he adds, "and other books proper for the +common people." It was two hundred years after this, in this last half +century, before the Public Libraries Act was introduced into the English +Parliament; and from this period we may date a new era, both in England +and in this country, in the dissemination of books and improved library +methods. The last decade, commencing with the formation of the A.L.A. +and the beginning of our second century as a nation, has witnessed +results hitherto unachieved in library economy. It is not necessary to +enlarge here upon the work that has been accomplished. The important +thing to note is that the librarian of to-day should be _en rapport_ +with all that pertains to his profession. He should acquaint himself +with schemes of classification, and elect from them that which is best +adapted for the purposes of his own library. He should adopt the best +system for charging, acquaint himself with the most approved library +appliances. Whether he adopt the classed catalogue, the dictionary, the +alphabeto-classed, or any other form, let it be one that shall be +abreast of the progress that has been made in this department of library +science. The librarian can scarcely keep pace with his fellow-librarians +unless he receives the right hand of fellowship of the American Library +Association, and is a reader of the _Library journal_ or the _Library +notes_, just launched and designed to cruise along the coast into the +smaller ports. The advantages which the librarian receives from these +sources will qualify him better for his profession, but the greater +advantage will accrue to his readers: knowledge will be made more +available, and a bright, cheerful atmosphere will pervade the alcoves of +his store-house. + +The librarian of to-day is developing to the full the utilitarian +principle. He is practical,--practical in his library management, +practical in his choice of books. His constituency is either a +particular class or the great public. To supply the masses with reading, +and to make books helpful in all the vocations of life, is the +librarian's aim. It is just here that we need to emulate our +predecessors, the monks and the collectors and bookworms of the +sixteenth and succeeding centuries. + +He must have the spirit of the collector, the animus of the scholar. He +must not forget that he is an antiquarian in his zeal for utility. His +constituency is not confined to the present; he is building for +posterity as well. His library will live after him. He therefore needs +to be a wise master-builder. + +If the choice of books is in the librarian's hands, or if he occupies an +important position in connection with the selection, his best effort +should be given to this department. The responsibility is not small. He +will find it more difficult often to reject than to select. He must +consult the wants of his readers; but there is a limit to that. +Everything that is in print may be called for, but that is no reason why +it should be honored with a place in a library. The librarian's personal +equation is not to be the standard, but the foundation principles of +morality, truth, and sound sense must guide him. No quarter should be +given to books of doubtful morality. Fiction now finds a place in most +libraries open to any extent to the public, and this class of books +forms so large a part of the circulation of many libraries that it is +becoming a question of no small importance as to how far public funds +should be expended for such books as afford little else than pastime. A +public library is a public educator. It is not a sluice into which every +publisher may dump his entire wares; as educators, librarians and +managing boards have the right to maintain the purity of their +collections, and to protect them from inundations of worthless books. + +The librarian should be alert to supply his readers with all they +require that will be helpful, as we have said; but, more than this, he +should lead them. He may do so by procuring works of standard worth, new +and old, that represent the best thought in any department of literature +or science. + +Unless he has something of the spirit of the collector very much will +elude his grasp, and be, perhaps, utterly lost to his library. There are +the limited editions, now so limited in number; the privately printed +book; the first numbers of periodicals; the first reports of societies; +local histories and genealogies; memorial volumes, and the like,--works +whose value is enhanced by time. + +A librarian, to be successful, must be a lover of books. The novice, in +applying for a librarianship, often puts it down as one of his cardinal +qualifications that he is fond of reading. To the active, toiling worker +this is not suggestive of business. A love of books very naturally +suggests a taste for reading, except when bibliomania is in the blood. A +true friend of books is not such because his collection embraces +Elzevirs and Aldines, or because they are in Grolier or Bedford +bindings, or printed on Whatman or Holland paper,--these are matters of +just pride,--but because the army of silent authors, marshalled under +his leadership, will diffuse light and knowledge wherever they go. The +librarian imbued with this spirit, if he finds time to read, will +reflect what he has read. It is to be feared that the librarian who +reads in these times is the exception; and yet there can be no question +that, if he could have each day an hour or two for reading,--time enough +to acquaint himself with the thought of the times, and occasionally +commune with the authors of the past,--his efficiency would be greatly +enlarged, and his readers would have a supplemental catalogue in him, +corresponding, to some extent, to the good work contemplated by our +Cooperative Committee. + +There are in every library very many books that are what we might term, +to use a mercantile phrase, dead stock. From the very necessities of the +case there must be many books that will be called for only at great +intervals, while others never have a friendly consultation. But, aside +from these, libraries will often have works of great practical value +that are standing idle, because it is not generally known that the +library possesses them. There may be a choice lot of works on +electricity, a rare collection on ceramics, a fine selection of +engravings, representative works in the various industrial arts; the +call for them not being popular and large, they might be brought to the +notice of a larger constituency by calling the attention of certain +readers to them, or by sending a polite invitation to some manufacturing +firms, to some professional electricians, or to art schools and +scientific schools. + +Periodicals, before the days of Poole's Index, were sealed books. +Libraries have been wonderfully expanded where this index is used. +Further cooperation in this direction, as planned by the Cooperative +Committee, should receive hearty encouragement. The books of a library +may be further enlarged in their use by publishing, on the library +bulletin, the works in the library that illustrate important events, +after the admirable plan initiated by Mr. Foster, of Providence. + +If the librarian has not the time at his command to read he has rare +opportunities for reading character; and to be on good terms with his +varied constituency he will have to be like St. Paul,--all things to all +men. He must be polite, accommodating, possess his soul in patience, and +be unselfish in his devotion to his readers. Generally, his contact with +his constituency will be pleasant and agreeable, but he will have to +deal with certain typical characters that will vex and fret him. + +There is the rummager, who snarls at all catalogues, and wants the +freedom of the library, not for studious research, but to gratify his +bookish propensity. "Five minutes with authors" is his watchword. + +The crank, who has been defined as a person with an idea, without brains +to carry it out, is a frequenter of libraries. His inquiries are for +what the library does not possess. This affords him a text for lecturing +the librarian and the managers. If the librarian's sentiments are not in +accord with that idea of his he threatens to expose him in the +newspapers. + +The curiosity-hunter is another representative reader. He is brother to +the rummager, but he does not despise catalogues. They exhibit the +oddities of the library, at least the odd titles, such as Luther's +"Vagabonds and Beggars," "The Foundling Hospital for Wit," or "The +History of the Tread-mill." He passes quickly from one to the other, +gleaning here and there till curiosity is satiated. + +Another reader helps the librarian materially in his statistics; if he +calls for one book he calls for an armful. The subject he is +investigating may require all the light the library can focus upon it; +but he disposes of his armful so quickly that the query is, by what +alchemy knowledge is appropriated so rapidly. It must be put to the +credit of this age. + +The intelligent tramp is another _habitue_ of libraries. He is sometimes +a desultory reader, sometimes he is a specialist, and he investigates +with a profound air the most difficult problems; but that is as far as +he goes. He is constitutionally lazy. He has some love for literature +and science, but a far more appreciative love of leisure. He does +nothing, produces nothing. + +Then there are walking encyclopaedias. You cannot name any author or work +that they have not an acquaintance with. They can talk glibly on any +subject; they absorb like sponges, but they give out nothing. They have +a passion for reading; but they either do not, or will not, make their +knowledge available to others. The colored man who not long since +applied to me for something on the toothache, as he was to deliver a +lecture upon this interesting topic, was not of this non-productive +class. If his monograph has been published it will be a good book for +close classification. + +The librarian who feels the obligations of his position realizes that +his influence as an educator is far-reaching, telling effectively upon +the community in which he lives, and destined to extend far down the +years to come. It becomes him, therefore, to fully equip himself for his +work, and to give to his constituents the results of his ripest +experience and his most unselfish attention. + + + + +THE USEFULNESS OF LIBRARIES IN SMALL TOWNS + + A few books in a small town may exert as much influence as + many books in a large one; and the personal influence of + their custodian and administrator may count for more. An + early statement placing emphasis on this fact by Miss West + of the Milwaukee Public Library (now Mrs. Henry L. + Elmendorf) appears in the subjoined paper read at the + Buffalo Conference of the American Library Association in + 1883. + + Theresa West Elmendorf, who as the writer of this paper was + Theresa Hubbell West, was born at Pardieville, Wis., Nov. 1, + 1855, educated in Milwaukee and served on the staff of the + public library of that city, being deputy librarian in + 1880-92 and librarian in 1892-96. In that year she married + Henry L. Elmendorf, then librarian of the Buffalo Public + Library, and since his death in 1906 she has been + vice-librarian there. In 1911 she was chosen president of + the American Library Association--the first woman to hold + this office. + + +There is still, as in the days when the story of the "wicked and +slothful servant," who contemptuously hid his one talent in a napkin, +was told, something discouraging in the sight of incomparably greater +opportunities than our own in the hands of another. + +The librarian of a small town or village may not cherish the envy of +the man in the parable in his heart, and yet feel a certain depression, +a sense that the small things he is striving--perhaps with all his +might--to accomplish amount to very little, as he listens to plans for +the construction of a building which will commodiously and conveniently +house two millions of books; as he ponders over a printed scheme which +will intelligently order upon the shelves a hundred thousand volumes, +and is yet so flexible, so elastic, that this number may be indefinitely +increased with no confusion, no necessity for rearrangement; as he sees +a method of charging which has been slowly evolved to meet the +ever-varying, ever-increasing needs of a circulation whose daily issues +are counted by thousands. + +Possibly this feeling has something to do with the small representation +in this Association of the hundreds of lesser libraries which are +scattered through the land. Whether it has, or not, the fact of this +meagre representation remains, and remains to be regretted. That such a +state of things is to be deprecated by the society goes without saying. +Every new member, in one way or another, brings an added power and +influence, which is by no means always to be measured by the size of the +library which he represents, or the active part he bears in the +deliberations. He may even be utterly silent, and yet an actual force; +for no speaker fails to feel the inspiration which radiates from an +attentive and enthusiastic listener. In ordinary society the +accomplishment of being "a good listener" is one of the most enduring of +charms. It does not lose its power among librarians. The prosperity of a +paper as truly as a jest's "lies in the ear of him that hears it, never +in the tongue of him that makes it." + +To ask these unattached librarians, if perhaps an echo may reach them, +to consider whether their isolation from their profession is not only a +deprivation to themselves which they can illy afford, but a retarding of +the progress of the true library spirit as well, and to suggest a +thought which may possibly prove a stimulus to counteract the +discouragement and depression before spoken of, is all that I have even +hoped to accomplish in the few words which have, somewhat too +ambitiously, been called a paper on "The usefulness of libraries in +small towns." + +In regard to the interest and profit of these meetings to the lesser +libraries, I have heard it asserted, and it is, I think, true, that the +papers and discussions were almost exclusively directed to the +consideration of the aims, methods, and needs of great libraries. If the +fact needs explanation, or justification, an ample one is found in the +register of the names of the composing members, with their positions. +That there would be a ready and cordial response to any general call for +the discussion of topics specially pertinent to small libraries is not +to be doubted. Over the editorial columns of one of our most-used +periodicals runs the legend, "Every man is a debtor to his profession." +It was a most wise choice of mottoes by our friend, the editor and +publisher, for in no profession is it more true than in our own. The +constant missionary work which Boston and Chicago, and indeed every +library of any repute in the country, has done and is doing, is proof +enough that the obligation is appreciated. If the smaller libraries want +the discussion of simpler, less technical methods, they have, probably, +but to ask. + +It may be objected that the great obviously includes the small, and +that plans and methods which are good and suitable for the former need +but to be reproduced in miniature for the latter. It is true, that, in +many departments, the accident of size makes little or no difference in +library economy; but in the administration of affairs, in the machinery +of running, the director of a municipal library has many and +accumulating cares, of which his less burdened rural brother need never +feel the weight. Prof. John Fiske, some years ago, at the time when he +was assistant librarian of Harvard University, very graphically +described a portion of the perplexing duties which fall to the lot of +even a university librarian, striving to correct the erroneous but too +prevalent notion that such a position is a sinecure. He confined himself +to an enumeration and description of the duties which are essentially +professional, the multiplicity of details of the ordering, classifying, +and cataloging of books. In this direction there is a difference only in +amount between the greater and the less. But, in addition to all that +Prof. Fiske described, a city librarian must needs oversee as well the +thousand and one minutiae which go to make up the sum of a day's work in +a circulating library. He must provide for the accurate identification +and registration of his borrowers,--no light task when they number tens +of thousands of the floating population of a western city, which has +more active duties for her police than the following up of delinquent +patrons of the public library. He must see to it that the thousands of +books which flow over his counters are unerringly charged, and that +tardy borrowers are warned of their remissness. These are but a few of +the numberless details, many of which are trivial in the extreme, but +which all go toward the making up of such a day's work as "none but he +that feels it knows." As a machine increases in complications a +constantly greater percentage of power is consumed in overcoming +friction. This attention to the routine of daily work, which forms much +of the severest, because least satisfying, work which a librarian does, +may be compared to the friction of machinery; and just in the proportion +that the power of his mind and the strength of his body are taxed in +this direction, by just so much are they reduced for other duties, the +importance of which is specially prominent in the minds not only of the +profession, but of the public as well,--an actual knowledge of the books +which the library buys, and the exertion of an active personal influence +in raising the standard of literature which is drawn from the library. + +It is precisely in this line of personal influence that there seem to me +to be special encouragements to the librarians of small towns, that +here, notwithstanding their limited resources, they have peculiar +opportunities for attaining an almost ideal standard of excellence in +the quality of their work. + +It would be unjust to say that a city librarian actually works harder +than his country brother. The duties of the former are mainly those of +guiding, overseeing, and correcting the work of others. The latter, with +his own hands and brain, does most of the work himself. It is as if the +one were architect solely, and the other not only architect, but mason +and carpenter as well. One of the severest trials of the lot of a city +librarian, in the West at least, is that he must work through many +assistants who are not only utterly lacking in any real love or +enthusiasm for their work, but who are many times illy-educated as well. +The remedy for this state of affairs is not likely to be found until our +boards of trustees take for their careful consideration the reply of a +certain irate domestic to her remonstrating mistress: "You can't expect +a good cook and all the Christian virtues for two dollars a week!" If +the necessities of the work do not require the employment of more than +one, two, or, at most, three assistants, the subtle electric current of +the librarian's own enthusiasm may suffer the subdivision without being +utterly dissipated. He can actually do much of the work himself. He +comes into contact with his clientage, which is not so large but that he +may hope to become personally acquainted with many of them, and, +learning their tastes and needs, easily become their trusted friend and +guide. His catalog, too, is his own work, and it is perhaps safe to say +that no one ever properly appreciates a catalog but its maker. Certainly +no one else ever handles it with equal ease and intelligence. + +I am afraid the catalog has never been made, and never will be, over +which the ignorant and indolent will not be perplexed and deceived; and, +after all is said, it is to the ignorant to whom the gospel of the +public library is specially sent. If the cataloger himself is constantly +at hand to explain intricacies, to supplement deficiencies, with his own +perfect knowledge of his library, to answer even foolish and stumbling +questioners patiently and intelligently, he may make the puzzling way of +finding and getting a book so plain that "The wayfaring man, though a +fool, need not err therein." + +That this personal influence, when exerted, bears fruit, and that right +soon, has been proved again and again. The following is from the last +report of one of the largest libraries in the country: "The increasing +public interest in the more scholarly books of the Library, and the +large accession of visitors to the reference tables, are to be +attributed partly to the Saturday-morning classes which have been +conducted at the Library for the past four months." If such work makes +so immediate and appreciable an impression upon a circulation which is +numbered by hundreds of thousands, is there not a hopeful outlook, +indeed, for small workers? + +One has said that "A library is, after all, very much what its +librarian makes it." There are too many conflicting individualities at +work in a municipal library to make this, to any considerable extent, +true; but in a small town or village the personal equation of the +librarian may easily become the exponent of the power of the library. + + + + +ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF +PENNSYLVANIA + + Dr. Talcott Williams, the orator of this occasion, Feb. 7, + 1891, was at that time a journalist in Philadelphia. He has + always been a welcome writer and speaker on literary themes. + + Talcott Williams was born in Abeih, Turkey, July 20, 1849, + the son of an American missionary. He graduated at Amherst + in 1873 and in that year entered journalism, becoming later + an editorial writer on several large dailies until 1912 when + he was made director of the School of Journalism of Columbia + University, New York City. + + +For the first and for the last time, the voices of men are heard in +this place, dedicated to the more eloquent silence of books. Nowhere is +man more and men less than in the library. In the presence of books +individual learning pales. The scholar dies; the library lives. Yet only +in part. In this bookish age, we fondly impute immortality to books. +Nothing could be more false. Few books have the power of an endless +life. Against these books of power stand a great multitude of books of +use, which perish with the using. The vast mass of books, like the +thoughts in our daily lives, sink into the background of the +recollection of the race and furnish the soil from which fresh growths +spring. Few there are who have written books of power. Not a score in +all. Poets for the most part. High priests forever after the order of +humanity, whose flaming message burns from age to age in the great tree +of human existence, consuming and unconsumed. These books of power which +live that humanity may not die, and books of use that die that others +may live, divide literature between them. They constitute the warp and +woof out of which the university weaves the higher education. In its +last analysis a liberal training is the mastery of books of use and a +glad yielding to the mastery of books of power. + +Controversy over the classics, wrangling over Greek, vain jangling over +required and elective courses--these are details. Direct contact between +the growing minds of each generation and the great minds of the +race--this is essential. We smile at the space given Confucius in +Chinese education; the Koran in Mohammedan schools; but this is only a +perversion of the sound instinct which everywhere puts the young to +school to the teachers of the race. Unless your education does this, it +stands where the electric telegraph did before its wires were +grounded--its batteries and instruments, its poles and wires useless +until they were in direct contact with the elemental source of electric +energy in the earth itself. So-called and mis-called practical systems +of education, _realschulen_, which omit these eternal realities of the +race, find when they have stuffed their pupils with the facts of the day +that they are still insulated from the thinkers of all time. Fortunately +for us and for our education, these books of power exist in more than +one language and are accessible through more than one channel of +learning. Thanks to the matchless translation of the Bible, one +incomparable group of books of power is taught in every Sunday-school, +though I doubt if this will be held sufficient reason for neglecting +their study in every university. Greek holds another group. But it is +the pitiful pedant's plea to urge their study because Greek is +difficult. It is not because Greek is Greek, but because Homer is Homer +that Chapman "spake out loud and bold" of the solitary text-book which +has held its own for 2500 years, and links, as may it forever link, this +university with the school of Athens. + + "Yet still your Homer, living, lasting, reigning, + And proves how truth builds in poets feigning." + +It is because these books of power hold the truth that makes men free, +working thoughts that perish never, that they live when the tongues in +which they speak are dead. Books of power which transmit the spiritual +life of the race keep the self-same spirit through all the +transmigrations of speech. The scriptures of the race, no less than the +scriptures of religion, enjoy a pentecostal gift of tongues, and are +heard by every man in his own language. Where such books are few in +number, which a shelf or two will hold, there is a liberal education, +and no elective course which permits their exclusion offers intellectual +salvation. Some such books every race has found in its own literature as +it reached the full stature of universal humanity, as our own +English-speaking race, well-nigh within this generation, has discovered +in adding Shakespeare to our general schooling. By the production of +such books of power nations are justly measured. This is the wisdom +which keepeth a city from destruction. The ship of state, however +weighted with worldly wealth, moves a trackless keel through the waters +of history unless some poet wings its course with "the proud, full sail +of his great verse." We have all heard to-day from one whose lifelong +devotion has raised him to the foremost rank of scholarship. + + "Weave a circle around him thrice + And close your eyes with holy dread, + For he on honey-dew hath fed + And drunk the milk of Paradise." + +The study of such books is possible without any aid or apparatus +whatever; so near is the diviner of letters to every one of us. But the +first office which the library discharges in a university is in +providing the limitless and manifold interpretation which the ages have +builded about these great books of power. Better than all other books as +are the books of power when read without study, they are infinitely +bettered by all study. The literature of interpretation is only second +in value to the literature of inspiration. The study even of books of +power tends to become scholastic, narrow, provincial, letterwise, and +spiritually dead, unless it is quickened and corrected by the fruits of +the entire field of critical science. For lack of this more than one +sacred book has met a fate which makes one feel, as well kill a book as +give it a good name. Even in the teaching of books of power--which of +all teaching needs but a soul and the book to awake eternity--the +scholar is saved from himself by the library. He learns that with all +the inspired prophets of the race no scripture is of private +interpretation, that only time unlocks the weaving of these deeper +oracles of humanity, because they spake not of themselves, but for the +spirit of man. Nor need we fear that they will be smothered by their +interpretation. The mountains bear easily the weight of forests they +uprear, and at the last and highest, no tree ascends above the snow-line +of eternal thought. + +But such ascents are as little the normal work of the university as of +the road-builder. Its course lies chiefly along the broad highways of +learning. Not books of power, but books of use, which sum first general, +and then special and professional knowledge, occupy the greater portion +of its time, just as the most saintly of mortals devotes more of his +days to earning his living than to saving his soul. If the study of +books of power is rendered more valuable by a library, the adequate +teaching of books of use without one is impossible. Every text-book is a +compromise between what is known and what can be taught. Two classes, I +know, the publishers and the public, cherish the belief that there are +text-books which sum current knowledge on this subject and that; but +there are none. Every text-book is out of date the day after it goes to +the printer, and the day before it gave out, not what is known, but the +view of what is known then in vogue. It measures the advancing tides of +learning by a gauge itself incessantly changing. We love to speak of +authorities and standards. We delude ourselves. The whole field of +letters and of learning is in a perpetual flux, whose only complete +record is the library. We know that in science discovery succeeds +discovery. There is nothing certain about a scientific book except that +it will be wrong in five or ten years. Only now and then does some +law-giver in science, some Newton or Darwin, descend the mount of +discovery, bearing eternal and lasting laws of nature, writ by Nature's +God. But in literature we dream of permanent reputation. Here, too, +"Every century gives the last the lie." All the lesser priests of +letters stand at shrines like that of Nemi and the Golden Bough, + + "Beneath Aricia's trees, + Where the ghastly priest doeth reign, + The priest who slew the slayer + And shall himself be slain," + +Every new book enters the arena about to die. The friendly verdict but +deters fate; it does not avert it. The lesser criticism of letters must +be done anew for every crop of readers, and in fifteen or twenty years +most essays are left behind. The procession of novels passes almost as +rapidly. Few are read for thirty years, no English novels have held a +popular place for past half a century, and a decade before the centenary +of Waverly it begins to be whispered that Scott is no longer read by the +young. Every generation must have its own translations of the classics, +or reprints of those which have been forgotten. Morals, philosophy, and +religion must be rewritten for it. Even histories, which linger a little +longer on the stage than all the rest, yield to inexorable change. It is +barely a century since Gibbon launched his mighty fleet, freighted with +the fall of empire. It has long ridden the seas, but I think we are all +well aware that its masts are already low on the horizon. No one author, +no one work, can longer satisfy the world for the story of ten centuries +of the race. For most of us these changes do not exist. Unconsciously we +go on down the stream with the favorites of our youth and forget that +both are growing old together. If literature is to be taught as it is, +and not as it seems, to take one pregnant illustration, true of all +studies, teacher and taught must have instant and vital access to that +great body of books to which in every subject a text-book is but a rude +and makeshift guide. The present can only be understood by the past, and +both are needed to prophesy of the future. When this library has been +enlarged to the utmost bounds of our anticipation, it will still have +its limits to the specialists--joints in its armor of learning. Even at +the British Museum I was told and discovered that no man is long at work +without wanting some book with which it is unprovided. + +But if teaching requires this great array, much more does the wider +work of the college professor. To look upon him as set only to teach, to +hear recitations, is as narrow and barren a view of his work as to think +of the farmer as only occupied in feeding his calves. If a university is +in the highest sense to be a teaching body, it must cultivate knowledge +as well as pupils. Its professors must do more than harvest the learning +and teach the discoveries of other discoverers. They must produce and +discover. The spirit of genius bloweth where it listeth, but those books +of use which play their part in giving each generation its critical +standards, its histories, and the results of research are born only in +full libraries. If a university is deficient in them, the lack is apt to +be in that laboratory of learning, its library. Unless a university is +producing these, it is teaching only its matriculates when it ought to +be teaching the public. + +Much may be done, much accomplished, in the university without the +library. Professional schools may multiply and grow, for in these men of +professional learning supply the lack of books. It is even possible to +carry on much research and produce valuable results along any narrow +rising line of discovery in some science, which, like the coral, has but +its growing edge alive, and for the rest is dead and under water. But if +a university is to fill the whole round and play part in society, it +must enjoy, employ, and extend the organized memory of man as +represented in a great library. As the chief value of this lies, not in +any view of its mere bulk and size, but in its relation to the +recollection of the race, so the work of the university pivots on its +ability to make vital the study of books of power, without which all +learning and letters and science are but a vain show. Better, a thousand +times better, the solitary study which brings men face to face with the +spirit of man in these great movements than any university study which +dwarfs to routine or degrades to mere rote these great works. For the +object of all our study is not knowledge, but wisdom, and we move to +dwindling ends if we search out all the secrets of matter and forget the +secrets of the spirit. The great round of studies which make up the +university, its libraries and laboratories, the accumulation of the past +and the discovery of the future, these are each and all but the +scaffolding by which the race rises to those conceptions of the Divine +and the spiritual uttered and summed in its books of power. Listening to +their teaching we may even learn that the ascent of man is more +important than his descent, his future of more consequence than his +origin--that it is his birth, and not his death, which is a sleep and a +forgetting. + +But books of use and books of power--the indiscriminate eulogy of books +and reading has ceased to be possible even at the opening of a building +dedicated to both. Their criticism has begun. Books are no longer the +unique property of the scholar. We all buy books. Most of us read them. +Many of you write them. The use of books is the one side of learning on +which we all claim an opinion. Yet owned, read, written, or wholly laid +aside in a busy life, the use of books, which each of us knows, is +individual and personal. Standing to-day in the home of a collection +which, we trust, is to be one of the larger libraries of learning, +landmark, and lighthouse at once, recording the past and lighting the +pathless future, this individual and personal use is inevitable before +us, cramping and limiting our conception of the relations, the aims, and +the ends of a great library. Its very beginnings about us raise a doubt +as to the wisdom of these endless accumulations of print. The peril of +the mere aggregate was, perhaps, never plainer than in these days, when +the great glacier of democracy slides on, making high places low and low +high--one would be glad to believe, preparing the pathway of a new +lordship of learning, but one is fain to fear making easy the track and +broad the road for an evil over-lordship of mediocrity in learning and +in literature. Our own democracy we are assured, has ceased to read +anything but fiction, and demands this, not book-meal, but piece-meal, +in monthly, weekly, or even daily doses. + +The vast book-stack of the modern library, in which volumes lose their +individuality as completely as urns in a columbarium, and like them but +too often hold naught but dead and forgotten dust, is far removed from +the still air of delightful studies which we associate with our own +loved libraries. "I seldom go there," says Emerson of the University +Library he used, "without renewing my conviction that the best of it all +is already within the four walls of my study at home." The ablest of +American editors recently urged in the most brilliant of American +newspapers that the Library of Congress should be reduced to a sound +working collection of 50,000 volumes, and the rest of its treasures +dissipated or stored. I have myself heard the suggestion in regard to +this library, and from one of academic connection, that its future +usefulness would be increased if its future bulk were restricted. +Whether we listen to the philosopher, the editor, or the university +trustee; whatever fanned and winnowed opinions we apply to the great +threshing floor on whose round the feet of the ages slowly tread out the +wheat from the chaff in the garnered harvest of human thought, the +remnant will be small--measured by high thought or narrow utility. The +mere mass of our libraries already overtaxes our utmost ability to +classify, to catalogue, and to administer. As we watch their bulk grow, +on whatever side of the great altar of learning we worship, our fears +increase that these heaped offerings will stifle the sacred fire. This +weighty weapon of letters forged by generations, this mighty armor and +panoply of learning on whose myriad rivets so many hammers have rung, +has outgrown the individual, and we begin to doubt its ultimate value to +society. + +Thus men ever err in their early thought on the new duties and fresh +responsibilities created for men by associate man. In the field of +organized life the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. +The body is more than an aggregate of cells. The soul wiser than all its +faculties. A nation more puissant than any census of its citizens. Man +more than men. The secret of this supremacy over the sterile synthesis +of sense, the root and germ mastery over the mere mechanics of life, and +the bald and barren arithmetic of existence, lies in the capacity to +know the present and to remember the past--in consciousness, out of +which conscience grows, and in memory, Mnemosyne, mother of all the +Muses and parent of all learning. Rightly in all history do we measure +the value of every human society to Humanity by its power to awake to +its own existence and be aware of its own past. This is the + + --"mystery in the soul of state + Which hath an operation more divine + Than breath or pen can give expression to--" + +This exalts the microscopic municipalities of Greece. This abases the +dumb millions of Asia. Our own articulate millions, deficient in much, +have done most for the world, not by material development, but by +demonstrating that 62,000,000 spread over a continent can enjoy a +consciousness as constant, continuous, and complete as the handful of +citizens in the market-place of a Greek city, less in population that +the ward in which we stand, smaller in area than the open spaces about +this University. This general capacity to think as one and remember as a +whole differences modern societies from all the past, save that of +Greece. This has brought the awakening of nations in this century, a +mightier resurrection with power than the awakening of men in the +sixteenth century. With the future awakening of man the work will be +complete. Until it is, national consciousness and national memory, +creating conscious national life, are the determining conditions of +human progress. The problem which Greece solved by making its +communities small, the modern world triumphantly meets by making them +large and live. It secures this through the newspaper, the print of the +present, which sets at one in consciousness vast masses of men which are +set apart in space. For generations separated in time, the library, the +print of the past, preserves for society the sacred oracles of memory. +Misunderstood, misappreciated, placed in opposition, treated as +antagonists, the editor assuring us that the newspaper has superseded +the printed book, the librarian hesitating to cumber his shelves with +the fugitive issues of the newspaper, these twin and vital organs in +society still supplement and correlate each other. + +The newspaper is the library of the moment, the library is the newspaper +of all time. We open a newspaper to learn what we are as a nation. We +enter a library to learn what we were. The revelations of neither are +altogether satisfactory. We object to the library because it does not +tell enough of the past. Too often we object to the newspaper because it +tells too much of the present. The faults and shortcomings of the past, +however plainly told, rouse no unpleasant sense of responsibility. In +our own individual experience we have each of us had our private and +personal quarrel with consciousness and memory for setting in too clear +a light the sins and duties, the lacks and demands of the past and +passing day. The revelation is no pleasanter when consciousness, memory +and responsibility are social and national. Yet it is only by accepting +both a complete social consciousness and a complete social memory that a +society can be created whose ultimate end is the highest development of +each of its individuals, whose service is the highest duty of all its +members. Lavish margin of error in the newspaper too often leads us by +some slain truth to ask with the soldier at Philippi: + + "Messenger of error-- + Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men + The things they are not?--" + +But like Cassius, the truth is self-slain and dies among its friends. +It still remains true that the newspaper is oftener challenged for +telling what is unpleasant than for recording what is untrue, and the +refined and cultured soul, which objects to the newspaper because it +reeks with the ill news of society for whose ills no man can avoid his +just share of responsibility, but imitate the Pharaoh, who slew the +messengers of evil and sunk in wilful ignorance to an ignoble grave. + +The nation which lives by the newspaper will lose touch with the past. +The nation which lives in the library will want knowledge of the +present. We know all too much as Americans of the peril of thinking by +the newspapers. German thought has run in the seclusive channel of the +academic library to the lack and loss of civic consciousness. Germany +was the last of modern states to act as a people. We were the first, the +balance and connection between the newspaper and the library, news and +liberal letters, the reporter and the professor, cuts up by the roots +the frequent conception of the library as a place occult, withheld, +untrod; shut apart from practical ends, the grant of society to the +scholar--useful to letters, useless to life. This "idol of the +market-place" falls to pieces confronted by the facts of social +structure. As well might the brain be held silent, the voice of memory +dumb, the light of consciousness in darkness by the side of the brute +mechanical forces of the body; silence, seclusion, separation from the +active life of society, these may be for the exchange and the +market-place, the railroad and the factory, vast, dumb mechanic +processes which perish in producing, but not for the library--not here, +not here. These walls ring with war. They sound with the conflicts of +the race. Here, rather than in any arsenal is heard + + --"the infinite fierce chorus, + The cries of agony, the endless groan, + Which, through the ages that have gone before us, + In long reverberations reach our own." + +Thus much for the library in organized society. Long since have we +known of books as the counsellors and comforters of men. To us all they +have been teachers, to each of us companions. That great majority, +greater in wisdom no less than in number, in which by the iron decrees +of fate so many are called and so few are chosen to lasting immortality, +holds all of whom living the world was not worthy, but of whom dead it +slowly seeks to be. Here and here alone in all shapes and forms, we +build the sepulchres of the prophets whom our fathers crucified and here +doubtless our children will build the sepulchres of those who in our day +are despised and afflicted of men for the truth's sake. In joy and in +grief, in life and in death some book supports, sustains, and soothes +each of us, and in this library the very light has been trained to teach +us at every window and door that we might enter it to pass within the +presence of the mighty dead, to enjoy the companionship of that great +company no man can number of wise men made perfect by time. + +But to the seeing eye and the hearing ear, awake and attentive to all +that a library is, not for men but for man, not for individuals but for +the race, a greater than Solomon is here, and a mightier shape fills +these halls and looks down from these shelves than all the trooped and +illustrious dead. These books, shelf on shelf, these volumes, which fit +subject by subject into the storied arch of human knowledge, resting one +side on metaphysics and the other on history, the science of mind and +the science of man, seem existent human memory. The complete library +would round and fill the record of the race. At best, we have but a +beggarly fragment. If a single copy of each of the 13,000,000 volumes +which dropped from the press in 450 years were by some glad miracle +multiplying knowledge gathered in one place, human memory would be +unbroken for this short span of its long stay on the globe. Of +13,000,000 but 1,000,000 rest in the largest library on earth in +Bloomsbury Square, and not a half are gathered in all known libraries. +But such as it is, large or small complete or incomplete, a great +library to its capacity gives, as this has begun to do, the only measure +we have of the recollection of the race. Here we stand face to face not +with men or nations, race or people, but with man. Blindly our humanity +still struggles to shape its thought, dumb, inarticulate, unconscious, +travelling in darkness and laboring in pain, century by century, and +generation by generation, in the slow pilgrimage toward the conscious +and consecration before it. The thunder of its power who shall know? Who +shall sound its depths or scale its heights? Who shall know it in all +its compass and sound, measure the confines thereof or prophesy its far +final coming? These are all hid in the inscrutable decrees of God from +the sight of men, but here, here and in places like this there rises +before us like an exhalation of the past in these volumes, in this +library, the majestic and visible memory of man. + +Rightly here, as in that larger treasure house in London, have we +gathered museum and library under the same roof. These shapeless +fragments worked by the early cunning of savage man, these inscribed +marbles and sculptured slabs, these tablets and relics of another and a +distant life, these all, each in its place, play their part in the +recorded memory of the race. Out of every fragment from every book +shines this Ancient of Days, who before Abraham was and after us shall +be. Who and what are we, creatures of a day, toilers of an hour, to be +measuring by our experience the metes and bounds in the manifestations +of his mighty memory. Rather let our labor be given to render complete +and to transmit unbroken our share in this great heritage by preserving +the universal printed record of the life about us. The librarian falling +far short of the honor and amplitude of his office, standing between the +living past and the slowly dying life of the present, now and then +apologizes for saving every empty volume, because none but prescient +omniscience can tell which of 10,000 titles will be demanded by some +solitary reader a century hence. How petty the plea, how narrow the +argument, how infinitesimal the claims of this distant reader who after +all may never appear! But how simple, how sufficient, how adequate +becomes the reason for the preservation of every volume when we remember +that it, too, is a part of this vast image of human memory seated by the +slow river of time, more vocal than that of Memnon, older and younger, +and with every fresh sunburst of genius breaking into fresh song! + +In high reason has our own Historical Society gathered every volume +which fell in this State and city from the press of the last century. +Only thus can the span of human memory be set forth without a single +forgetful flaw. If the like effort is made here to fill a like +responsibility for the passing moment to the future, it is possible that +the Historical Society of another century will not find it necessary to +pay $700 for an almanac which might once have been had for a penny, and +yet how grievous the gap in the continuous and social memory of this our +city if the solitary copy left of Bradford's Almanac, the first product +of our press, had not found a secure resting-place. + +A great library, therefore, does not merely transmit the memory of the +past; it is daily providing memory for the future, safe preserved +"against the wreckful siege of battering days." For the individual no +worse hap can fall than loss of memory. All other powers may remain. +This lost, all are worthless. Stripped of memory, the soul has no future +and no past, naught save an infructuose now. Nor less, the race. The +destruction of the Alexandrian Library, whether with Abulfaraj we +attribute it to the intelligent Moslem, or with Gibbon to the ignorant +monk, was not the loss of so many books and parchments. It was the +paralysis of a great lobe of human memory, fatal lesion had fallen on +the localized organ of recollection in the brain of humanity. If we had +the 200 plays of Aeschylus, the 160 of Sophocles, the last books of +Livy, the missing annals of Tacitus, which this library held, the +stature of these writers would not be increased. Like the greater peaks +of every chain they already rise as they recede. It is only the +foot-hill that needs bulk. These, and lost books like them, would fill +for us the full measures of classic memory. As library after library +perished and book after book shared the fate of those fathered by +Ptolemy, the wreck and loss of human memory went on. The ages that we +call dark lacked not in men of action. Those ages of faith had their men +of thought matching any before or after. They laid for us the +foundations of a civil liberty more indestructible than that of Rome. +The piers of that great arch of law along which our rights daily travel +in safety were built by them. Their architecture and their sculpture +equals any. Their knowledge of the earth, as a whole, was immeasureably +in advance of classic conception. They furnished in Dante one of the two +or three poets for all time, and in the Roman Church they gave the race +a creation and conception of whose future it would be a rash man who +ventured to say that it was destined to be less than its past, imperial +as its history has been. These ages were dark, not from lack of light +and of leading, but from lack of memory. The ages had lost touch of the +elbow in their march through the dark defile of time. The Renaissance +was less the revival of human knowledge than the recovery of human +memory. Age was joined again to age in the unbroken sequence of +continuous recollection, and Greece laid her hands to transmit an +Apostolic succession of memory on the bowed and studious head of the +modern world. + +To play its part in transmitting and preserving human memory this +library is tonight opened and dedicated. Our Library Committee, and you, +sir, its head, who have shown us that whole libraries of comment may be +condensed into a volume by your magic alembic, providing for criticism a +new instrument of precision akin to the measurements and the analysis of +the exact science--you, sir, in the loving care you have given this +building, have not been providing a retreat for scholars; you have built +and fashioned here another refuge and stronghold, fortified + + "Against confounding Age's cruel knife + That he shall never cut from memory." + +The architect of this building has not wrought in mere brick and stone; +he has added to those shrines and centres of human memory to which its +treasures gravitate for their security and convenience. This university, +in receiving this building from its Finance Committee, which has raised +its cost, and whose head first suggested its erection, is placed in a +position where it can discharge not only the first duty of a university, +to which it has always been true, of thinking for the community, but the +second, which is like unto it, of remembering for society. + + + + +COLLECTION OF INFORMATION + + + One of the functions of the modern library is that of a huge + cyclopedia, kept continually up to date by the acquisition + of new material--books, periodicals, prints, pamphlets, + clippings, publicity matter and manuscripts. It is the + cyclopedia on cards long advocated by Dr. Dewey, except that + the cards are in its catalogue and do not contain the + information directly but serve only as keys to it. In this + kind of service the library is for the moment getting away + from books and nearer to the worker, whether at home, in + school or laboratory, or in commerce and industry. + + + + +LIBRARIES AS BUREAUS OF INFORMATION + + Early material on this ancient function of libraries, so + widely extended and developed of late, is hard to find. Only + two papers are given here. The first, by Samuel S. Green, is + part of an address delivered at the dedication of the Haston + Free Public Library Building in North Brookfield, Mass., + printed in _The Library Journal_ for July, 1896. A sketch of + Mr. Green appears in Vol. I. of this series. + + +The ideal library is one which invites everybody who has a question to +ask, which books contain answers to, to come to the library and put his +question, with the assurance that he will be kindly received, his +question sympathetically considered, and every effort made to find the +answer desired. + +I cannot better illustrate what I mean by saying that libraries should +be bureaus of information than by giving instances of inquiries recently +made in the library under my charge and explaining how those inquiries +were met. I will select questions which were answered by sending out of +town for books, and thus illustrate in addition the fact that libraries +administered on advanced principles help one another. + +A man came to me not long since and asked by what means he could +dissolve a certain gum which he mentioned. I had the United States +Dispensatory brought. The man did not find the answer wished for in that +work, but did find a reference to a volume of the _Pharmaceutical +Journal_. We did not have a set of that periodical; so I said that I +would send away to borrow the desired volume. I sent to the librarian of +the medical library in Boylston place, Boston, for it. He sent it to me +immediately by express. That volume contained some of the information +desired by the inquirer, but not all that he wanted. There was another +volume of the same periodical which he thought would contain the facts +which he was in search of. I sent for that, promising to return both +volumes at once. The second volume was immediately received. That +contained just what was wanted. + +By doing work like this a librarian may do much to add to the prosperity +of the industries of a town. + +Another man came to me to inquire whether we had a catalog of a certain +southern society which purported to do hospital work. + +I found that we had no catalog of the society named. It appeared that +the applicant for information had been asked to contract to do $4000 +worth of work for a society of the name mentioned and wished to learn +something about its standing. I told him that if I were in his place I +should write to a gentleman in Washington, whose name I gave him, who +knows all about medical institutions and hospitals throughout the +country, to ask him about the society; I offered to write, myself, as +the applicant felt timid about writing. + +I did write and soon had the answer that the correspondent would advise +the Worcester man to be very cautious about entering into a contract, +for he knew nothing about the existence of such a society. I hope that I +helped to save a Worcester business man from loss on this occasion. + +Again, a boy who came into Worcester to school called at the library to +ask me what I could tell his brother about a school for instruction in +tanning leather in Freiberg, Saxony. Did it receive Americans? what was +the cost of attending its sessions? what was its curriculum? etc., were +questions asked. + +I had no pamphlet to give the required information, but suggested that +the Commissioner of Education at Washington be written to, to find out +what information could be found in the library of his office. I found +that it would be necessary for me to write the letter; so I wrote it. +Soon the answer came giving the information desired and stating the +address of the school. The answer was passed over to the applicant, with +the suggestion that if further information were desired he should write +to the officers of the school. + +I remember doing much to start in her studies a resident of Worcester +who has since become a distinguished Russian scholar, by helping her to +get a Russian-German dictionary from abroad and by borrowing Russian +books for her to read from Harvard College Library. + +Three students of the Chinese language have received assistance at my +library, one a missionary at home on leave, the other two students under +the late Chinese professor of Harvard University, from dictionaries and +other books borrowed for their use. + +I have had occasion to hunt up books in the language of the Exquimaux +for the use of an investigator in Worcester. I could not find the books +in the libraries of Harvard University or Columbia College, and tried +the libraries of other centres of learning without success, when I +remembered that Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull, the well-known Indian scholar +and historical student, had brought together a fine collection of +philological works in the Watkinson Library at Hartford, Connecticut. +The librarian of that library wrote me after a few days, saying that he +had the books and would send them at once. He apologized for not +despatching them before, saying that the library did not allow books to +be taken out. He had waited to consult the president. The president had +said that they must set aside the rule if Mr. Green and the library in +Worcester wanted the books, for it was evident that they were needed for +some important purpose. We got the books and they were used in the +preparation of a learned paper. + +Now, for closing illustrations, let me show you how libraries at great +distances help one another. I will choose the relations of the library +in Worcester to the Public Library of Denver, Colorado. Mr. Dana, the +librarian of that library, sent to me to borrow one of the publications +of the Browning Society of London. It was sent to him by registered mail +and returned, safely, in the same way. + +Next he wanted, for some student of mining, an extract from one of the +volumes of the _Comptes Rendus_ of the French Academy. The extract was +copied from the volume and sent to him. There has since occurred the +following transaction. A gentleman in Chicago had written to Mr. Dana, +in Denver, to ask him whether he knew of a translation of the report of +a government railroad commission in Holland which had recently been +engaged in considering what kinds of paint are best to use in preserving +iron, and whether he could tell him where to find the results of certain +experiments which had been made in one of the bureaus of the U.S. Navy +Department. Mr. Dana passed along the question to me, knowing that I had +often to answer questions of that kind. In order to find an answer to +the first question, I at once set a young man at work looking at the +indexes of the late volumes of the _Railroad and Engineering Journal_, +and soon an important article was unearthed giving the results of the +investigations of the Dutch commission. This piece of information was +sent to Denver. I then wrote to Mr. Henry C. Baird, the Philadelphia +publisher, to see if he knew of the publication of a translation of the +report. He wrote back that he did not know of the publication of such a +translation, but that there was a long article on paints useful in the +preservation of iron in one of the most recently issued volumes of +Spons's "Receipts." He promised, however, to make further inquiries. So +he went to the rooms of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences and +inquired there what gentleman in the city was most likely to have the +information sought for. He was referred to some one connected with the +Pennsylvania Railroad Co., who told him that he was not aware that the +report had been translated, but referred the inquirer to an elaborate +article extending through several numbers of the well-known periodical, +_Iron_. Mr. Baird transmitted the information he had got to me and I +sent it and other pieces of information gained since my last letter to +the library of Denver. The information sent to Denver was sent to +Chicago. So by the aid of two far separated librarians a person in +Chicago, an intermediate city, distant from the homes of both, received +information which he desired through Denver, Worcester, and +Philadelphia. For an answer to his second question, this inquirer from +Chicago was referred to the Navy Department at Washington. + +A clergyman in Colorado Springs, and this is a final illustration, +applied to the librarian of the same public Library in Denver for an old +book by Goldwin Smith. He referred him to me. I knew him, having met him +on my way to California. To my surprise I found we did not own the book. +So I wrote to Mr. Winsor, the Librarian of Harvard University, and told +him that the applicant could be trusted and would make good use of the +information afforded him, and that he needed the book in preparing a +course of lectures which he was to give at once at Colorado College in +Colorado Springs. Then I asked Mr. Winsor if he felt at liberty to lend +the book. The next thing I heard in regard to the matter, a letter came +from the gentleman in Colorado Springs thanking me for the aid rendered, +and saying that Mr. Winsor had sent the book and that it had reached him +just in time to use in preparing a lecture. The library in the United +States which was earliest in the field in doing the work of lending to +other libraries systematically and on a large scale, in so far as I +know, was that of the Surgeon-General's Office in Washington, long +administered so intelligently and with so keen an eye for usefulness by +Dr. John S. Billings. + +Now, how can libraries in towns of the size of North Brookfield become +bureaus of information? + +Let them approach as nearly as they can to the ideal of seeing to it +that everybody needing information gets it. + +The first thing to do is to let it be understood that a library desires +to have inquirers come to it for information, and that its librarian is +ready to take time to find out whether the library contains books which +will give the information desired. + +If it does not have the needed books, the librarian tries to think where +they can be had. Does anybody in town own them? If not, can they be had +from a library in a neighboring town? + +If these resources are not adequate, then let the librarian send to the +nearest large centre to borrow books from the library there to answer +the questions asked. Worcester would be the natural centre for North +Brookfield to send to. + +Individuals should not send to Worcester, but the librarian, having +exhausted resources at hand, should send for the books, the library +agreeing, of course, to make good damage and loss and pay the cost of +carriage. An out-of-town librarian does not know the individual users of +a library in a smaller town, but the librarian in that town does know +his constituency and for whom it is safe to borrow books. Libraries +should lend to one another, but the work of lending should be +systematic. + +As a member of the Free Public Library Commission of Massachusetts, I +wish to say that the commission likes to come into close contact with +the libraries of the state, and that the smaller libraries may from time +to time find it helpful to put questions to its chairman at the state +house in Boston, in person, through a representative, or by letter, +about library administration. + +People are breaking away from their leaders to-day. There is an +immense amount of crude thought and imperfect information in every +community. I verily believe that not least among the instrumentalities +by which thought may be matured and knowledge completed are public +libraries when administered as bureaus of information by accomplished +and earnest librarians, who will act as sympathetic friends and advisers +to inquirers and help them to look at all sides of questions and form +well-grounded judgments. + + + + +THE LIBRARY FRIEND + + Not all the information required of the Public Library is + asked by those engaged in laboratory research or by experts + in commerce and industry. Much of it is homely stuff, + greatly desired and more or less easy to find. Much of it + can be given offhand by the capable reference assistant, who + thereby becomes what the writer of this article calls a + "library friend" to her neighborhood. + + Miss Winifred Louise Taylor was born in Freeport, Ill., Feb. + 24, 1846. In 1874 she organized the first circulating + library in Freeport and acted as librarian for twelve years. + It was eventually incorporated in the Freeport Public + Library. In 1900-01, Miss Taylor was in charge of the + information desk at the Pratt Institute Free Library, + Brooklyn. For many years she gave much of her time to work + in the prisons, and in 1914 she published "The Man Behind + the Bars," describing some of this work. + + +"The library friend" is the term that seems best to apply to that +member of the modern library's staff whose work is a development of the +service ordinarily rendered through the "information desk." +Information-desk service as usually conceived, it is not; for the +library friend deals with the tendencies, tastes, and aspirations of +readers as much as if not more than with the definite question and +answer respecting facts. The office indeed may be regarded as finding +its first expression in the circulating libraries maintained by +subscription in many of the smaller cities twenty-five years and more +ago, when the free public library of to-day was comparatively rare. In +those libraries every subscriber knew the librarian, and the librarian +was personally acquainted with every book on the shelves. To bring the +books and readers into congenial relationship was the business and +usually the pleasure of the librarian. The personal element was the +heart from which the circulation of the books radiated--if the presiding +personality lacked vitality and enthusiasm the library was a failure. + +With the era of the democratic free libraries, with their more rapid +growth, with their doors open to men, women and children of all classes, +the human element, the personal relation of librarian to the reader +suffered a gradual eclipse, until, in some libraries more perfectly +developed on the technical side, the personal equation vanished +altogether. The library became a great machine, into which a number was +dropped, and out of which a book was dropped like corn from the hopper. +We all know how formidable this mechanism is to those unaccustomed to +modern library methods. To the uninitiated the card catalog is an +abomination, an unsolved problem, a delusion and a snare. The boy who is +interested in athletics, fumbling over the card catalog in Micawber-like +fashion, hits upon the title "Morning and evening exercises"; he +straight away hands in the number thinking he has found a prize. It is +discouraging and depressing when the machine shoots out to him a volume +of devotional compilations. He has tried his luck and it has failed, and +as he was reminded only last week that a book cannot be exchanged the +same day on which it is drawn out he retires with "Morning and evening +exercises," a sadder, but not a wiser boy. It is in accord, therefore, +with the process of library evolution that a closer personal relation +between reader and librarian should be developed through some such +medium as is here outlined under the designation "the library friend." + +One of the library problems just now is this: given on the one side +100,000 books and on the other 50,000 people. How is each individual to +be brought into contact with the particular book that he wants? Where +open shelves are practicable a great advantage--to the discriminating +reader, an inestimable advantage, is gained; but the majority of +librarians have not room to throw any department open to the public; and +even among open shelves the person whose judgment of books is wholly +untrained often misses what he is looking for. + +The assistance given by the reference room is invaluable. There no one +goes away unsatisfied; but the reference room reaches only those in +pursuit of a definite subject. Beyond its range is the drifting, aimless +reader, the searcher after something he knows not what. The dull, the +diffident, the beginners in the use of libraries, those who read purely +for amusement and those who want the new books--new spelled with a +capital n and book with a small b--old persons, those whose eyesight is +defective and whose glasses strike the card catalog at the wrong angle, +foreigners who use English with difficulty and diffidence--all these +gather together in the delivery room at once, and efficient as the +assistant may be--and sometimes they effect miracles--it is impossible +for them to give the different individuals the help each one needs. In +the libraries where the human element is most withdrawn the case of +these people is hard. + +To bring the personal relation again into the library and to develop it +with the growth of the needs of the public, with this end in view, a +number of libraries have introduced the information desk. By common +consent, perhaps in the eternal fitness of things, this position so far +seems to have been relegated to woman. + +"She is a reading lady, and far gone in the pleasures of friendship." +So wrote Sir Roger De Coverley of the object of his affections, and no +one could more felicitously describe two of the qualifications for the +one presiding at the information desk. A reading lady she must be; and +it is no less important that she be far gone in friendship for the +public. To study their needs; to be receptive as wax to their impress, +and responsive with heart and soul as well as with mind. This all around +sympathetic power is the fundamental requisite of true service in this +position. She may be a person of many words or of few; a good listener +she must be. Success depends less upon temperament or gifts than upon an +attitude of inward receptivity and outgoing friendliness--the attitude +that radiates a home-like atmosphere and insensibly sets the stranger at +ease. Emerson quaintly described certain faces as "decorated with +invitation." This style of decoration will be permanently in fashion in +this position if the invitation from the heart is a magnet strong enough +to draw within its circle those who are in need of help. It is most +necessary, also, that a certain poise be preserved. To be ready but not +over anxious to assist; to be responsive but not intrusive; to be +suggestive but never insistent; to recommend books without forcing one's +own literary tastes or standards upon others; while helping new comers, +to seek to make them independent in their use of the library instead of +leading them to rely on some one else to do the work and use all the +judgement for them, all this requires a nice adjustment of balances. And +it is well to have on hand the tact which is the art of lessening social +friction, and the sense of humor so invaluable as a lubricator in human +relations. When any one comes to the information desk with a grievance, +irritated, if not angry, to be met with simple good nature, and not to +be taken too seriously, and yet to find instant readiness to adjust the +cause of annoyance if possible, soon dissipates the feeling of +antagonism or injury. Such encounters ought not to tax one's patience. +They sometimes turn out to be rather interesting. + +Nor need stupidity tax one's patience. What more pathetic than the +isolation of one who is slow to perceive and to grasp? It is a terrible +handicap. To rescue the dull from their dullness should be the first +impulse, and shallow is the sympathy that does not reach out to such +instinctively. It is not enough to be able also to unlock the resources +of the individual. + +People come to libraries from all sorts of homes. To the man or woman +living in the midst of ugly and sordid surroundings, where the days are +crowded with drudgery, the weekly visit to the library becomes a social +event; it is a lift into a fresh atmosphere, into another plane of life. +A passing greeting from the information desk gives a sense of welcome +and of relationship to the reading public. Five or ten minutes of +cordial contact, a brief conversation with one unrelated to their world +of worries, is a refreshing experience. To be recognized as a thinking, +reading being, with opinions about books, instead of a human machine for +cooking, scrubbing and sewing, or money-getting, puts new life into one. + +But this social side of the work of the information desk must rest on +the solid foundation of practical qualifications. One must possess the +knowledge of a wide range of books, the power of concentration on the +one person or the one subject in hand, and the mental alertness that +perceives when another person is waiting. The more perfect the +understanding of the system of classification of the books and of all +the technical side of library work, the more effective will be the +service at the information desk. There the resources of the library +should be at command, and should be reached rapidly and accurately. When +any imaginable or unimaginable question may be asked at any moment, from +"May I use your pencil?" up through the whole range of history, art, +literature, politics, science or religion, one must know the ground +thoroughly in order to meet these demands. Topics requiring special +research are passed on to the reference room, but the inquirer should be +put on the right track when he wants but a single book from the delivery +room. + +The new-comer must be instructed in intelligent use of the catalogs and +helped towards self-reliance from the start. The young people must be +assisted in making out their first lists, and these lists should +represent a variety of authors, in order that the author who pleases can +be followed up independently through the card catalogs. A well selected +first list for boys or girls should place at their command a range of +50, 60, or 100 books. It is surprising how few writers are known to the +average boy or girl who comes to the public library for fiction. The +field of the boy is often bounded by Alger, Ellis, Optic, and Henty, +while the girls may know only Sophie May and Miss Olcott. Beyond are +unknown seas. One of the early developments at the information desk will +be carefully-selected lists of books for boys and girls. They grow under +one's hand as the young people in turn recommend additions. This sense +of co-operation wins the confidence of those who are quick to suspect +and ward off any lurking desire for their improvement on the part of the +library. Notwithstanding that the starting point must always be the +taste and inclination of the reader, it is a simple matter to keep the +pressure in the right direction. Carefully-selected fiction lists for +older readers also meet a want. Such lists do not include the works of +the standard, voluminous writers known to every one. Into them are +gathered some of the old favorites of a generation ago, or later novels +which may have happened to miss fame and yet possess an abiding charm +and the indispensable element of interest. There are hundreds of such +books, perennially delightful, novels just now submerged under the +continually rising tide of new fiction. It is a piece of pure good +fortune for the reader who turns in despair from the pursuit of "David +Harum," "Eben Holden," or "Janice Meredith," to find a fresh range of +unheard-of novels of equal or more than equal interest. This enlargement +of their circle of congenial authors is welcomed with every grateful +appreciation. A list of good short stories is another resource, and one +of cheerful books for invalids; stories that are neither morbid nor +tragic. Young working men who can come to the library only at evening +are glad of assistance in selecting books related to their work and they +are quick to respond to any evidence of sympathetic interest in their +pursuit. Young girls employed during the day who wish to make up for the +lack of opportunities in school are eager and grateful for advice in +outlining courses of reading and study; those studying music are glad of +guidance into the more interesting pathways of musical literature, or it +may be the amateur in some branch of art who reveals a cherished +ambition in the hope of obtaining help in this direction, and +delightfully friendly relations spring into being while these various +lists are under way. + +Often the chance encounter, the mere passing remark, brings the happy +inspiration as to just the right books, as when one catches a glimpse of +a deep enthusiasm for nature surviving in the breast of a man through +fifty years spent between city walls. To introduce him to Richard +Jeffries, most intense, nearest to nature's spirit, and least known of +nature's lovers, is to enrich the remaining years of this man's life. + +All who go to the library go as seekers. Some are seeking merely +entertainment, others are searching for knowledge, but many are +struggling with the deep problems that beset us all, perhaps in moral or +spiritual darkness, and looking only for light. If one's heart is with +the people, nothing so quickens perception as sympathy. One notes the +trend of the reading of the individual, and often what he is seeking is +intuitively divined. Perhaps the simple remark, "If you can tell me just +what you want I may be able to find it for you," results in a frank +statement of the difficulty, or an outburst of sudden confidence is +given from the impulse that makes it often easier to confide in a +stranger than in a relative. And it counts for a good deal just then if +the one at the information desk knows what writer has felt and thought +most deeply and has written most clearly and helpfully on that subject. +Few are the needs of the human heart or mind that are really beyond the +reach of help from books--books in which we find the reflection of our +every mood, the expression in our inmost aspiration, the conservation of +the feeling, the experience and the wisdom of the race. + + + + +CONTROL AND GUIDANCE OF READING + + + Border regions are those of greatest interest, for they are + regions of contact and therefore places where things happen. + This is a border region between the field of the librarian + and that of the teacher. Its activities are the sole + justification for the name "library teacher" bestowed upon + assistants in many of the homelier city districts. Here the + librarian must tread warily. He can not push or pull; he + must effect what he desires by making it attractive to the + reader. In the five following papers this function is + somewhat elaborated--a very modern phase of library work and + one most nearly concerned with its socialization. + + + + +PROBABLE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL OUTCOME OF THE RAPID INCREASE OF PUBLIC +LIBRARIES + + A paper by Rev. Dr. Pierce, then editor of _Zion's Herald_, + a Methodist publication, read at the Lake George Conference + of the American Library Association in 1885. Notably free + from the caution and hesitancy then often appearing in the + public utterances of the clergy regarding popular libraries, + and full of belief that their power of guidance would make + them "powerful elements of culture." + + Bradford Kinney Pierce was born in Royalton, Vt., February + 3, 1819, and graduated at Wesleyan University in 1841. + Entering the Methodist Episcopal ministry, he was also + occupied for many years as teacher and editor, being agent + of the Sunday School Union in 1845-56, editing _Zion's + Herald_ in 1872-88 and then serving as librarian of the Free + Library at Newton, Mass., in addition to his other duties, + until his death, April 19, 1889. He has been called "the + Nestor of New England Methodism." + + +The free public library is now becoming the favorite posthumous +beneficiary of our men of wealth. Heretofore it has hardly been esteemed +respectable in the vicinity of Boston for a man of fortune to die +without leaving a generous bequest to Harvard College or to the +Massachusetts General Hospital. The city and town library is now +beginning to share liberally in these testamentary benefactions. The +college requires too considerable a sum in our days to be often +adequately endowed by the estate of one patron, but the library can be +established and be quite amply appointed by the accumulation of one +public-spirited citizen, and be made to become his most-honored and +permanent memorial. Every town of any size in our New England and +Northern States either has, or will soon have, one of these people's +universities, through the individual gift of a generous citizen, or by +public establishment. + +This general gathering of large bodies of books in all our principal +towns, opened freely to all ages, can but produce a manifest influence +for good or evil in the community. The familiar and forcible response to +the objection made to the establishment of so many small colleges in the +land, rather than securing their consecration and abundant endowment and +appointment in a few centres, is that the "fresh-water institution," so +called, brings the opportunities for a liberal culture near to thousands +who could not otherwise be prompted to make the incident sacrifices to +secure an advanced education. The immediate presence itself of the +institution is an inspiration to study. So the presence of the numerous +libraries, with their wide-open doors to all, and their attractive +shelves, becomes a powerful incitement to those who otherwise would +hardly think of seeking enjoyment or profit in reading. The statistics +of these city and town libraries fully confirm this _a-priori_ +presumption as to their influence in awakening and cultivating an +interest in books among all classes. And this influence of books upon a +reading community is very powerful. It is more subtle than human +companionship. The latter strongly affects and moulds the character; but +books reach us at lower depths. They inspire us more profoundly; they +touch our whole being, intellect, heart, and executive purpose; they +imperceptibly create or modify our ethical standards; they become our +models of life and conduct; they lay hold of our highest and most sacred +sentiments and color our views of the life beyond. + +It can but be, where the circulation of these volumes reaches nearly +all our families and enters into the thoughts and emotions of every day +of the year, that manifest results for the better or the worse will +follow. Many thoughtful persons have been honestly anxious in reference +to the result of the experiment. The public press has sent out its +serious forebodings from the pens of those who have taken depressing +views of the matter, and alarming tracts have been published, giving +painful criticisms upon the contents of certain libraries, the nature of +special volumes found upon their shelves, and the amount of circulation +of works of fiction of not the most elevating, or even wholesome, +character. To all this we answer that these criticisms, whether well +founded or not, have not been without their influence in calling +attention to the most intelligent of our institutions. Their officers +are cultured gentlemen and ladies, clearly apprehending the relation of +the library to the intellectual and moral development of the community +and its true office in administering to the improvement, as well as +enjoyment, of its patrons. It is more and more becoming an educating +rather than a simply entertaining institution. It is every day becoming +more widely recognized that it is not intended to be a competitor with +the circulating library, but rather an antagonist, winning the patrons +of the latter to the reading and study of a higher order of literature. +While the majority of library managers do not take the extreme view that +has been strongly advocated by some quite intelligent library trustees, +that the public funds should not be used for the purchase of fiction, +which may be considered an intellectual luxury, but only for improving +and educating literature, they do seek to carefully sift the lighter +issues of the press, securing the best and the purest of this character. +They also study at the same time, through their accomplished officers +and assistants, in the use of the local press, through the cooperation +of the teachers of the schools and the leaders of public opinion, with +the aid of parents, to awaken especially in the minds of the young +people a taste for regular and substantial courses of reading in the +various departments of science, history, and _belles-lettres_. The +success that has attended these efforts is full of encouragement. Our +superintendents and librarians do not simply remain at their desks, or +stand behind their tables to respond to the call for books, but make +themselves felt in the community, aiding in the investigations of +students, assisting in the search for authorities, facts, and +illustrations, suggesting plans for interesting the youthful readers in +scientific or literary studies, and calling attention to the rich +accumulations upon the library shelves. The annual reports of these +institutions are constantly showing improvement in the character of the +reading in their several communities,--a gradual decrease in the lighter +works, and an increase in the call for books of art and science, of +travel and biography, of poetry and philosophy. A significant falling +off in the number of books taken from the library, in many places, is +noticed, while the patronage of the library is manifestly increased. The +works that are now selected are substantial, requiring thought and time +in reading. They cannot be hurried over in a day like the light novel, +and hence the decrease in the number of volumes read is a most +gratifying evidence of improvement in the quality of the reading. + +The free library is becoming the effectual antagonist, also, of the +superficial news and story papers. Their "name is legion." They assault +the eye with their staring illustrations, and tempt the reader by their +cheapness. Especially at the close of the week, supplies of this trash, +with periodical sheets of a little higher order, but still superficial, +have been heretofore laid in for the hours of respite from labor on the +Sabbath. This light, disconnected, desultory reading, carried on through +all the unoccupied hours of the week, while it secures a smattering of +information, can but be of a very vicious intellectual tendency, not to +speak of its moral influence. The free library and its reading-room +offer without expense the perusal of the best periodical literature in +the land, and permit and tempt their patrons to secure, for the +unemployed hours of the approaching Sabbath, works of deep interest and +of an improving character. + +We are confident that this multiplication of well-selected and +constantly growing collections of standard and current literature is +full of promise of good, and, as generally managed among us, is attended +with small and easily corrected evils. It is inspiring the establishment +of literary and scientific clubs, awakening the ambition and inventive +powers of our mechanics, encouraging a liberal and cultivating course of +reading among our school students, and affording an immeasurable amount +of pure and refining enjoyment throughout the community. We look upon it +as one of the significant and powerful elements of a higher and general +culture among the people, and prophetic of far greater and better fruits +in the future. + + + + +POSSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN MANUFACTURING COMMUNITIES + + "A love of reading as a keynote to broader culture," and how + the librarian may guide reading by stimulating that love--a + paper by Mrs. Sanders of the Pawtucket Public Library (long + lovingly known among librarians as "Mawtucket of + Pawtucket"). + + Minerva Amanda Sanders was born in Providence, R.I., Feb. 1, + 1837. About 1876 she became librarian of the subscription + library in Pawtucket, R.I., organized in 1852, which + preceded the present free library; and when about six months + later it was turned over to the town, she continued in + charge, serving until her death, March 20, 1912. Mrs. + Sanders did notable pioneer work in her profession, + especially in the adoption of free access to books and in + work with children. This paper was read at the Thousand + Islands Conference of the American Library Association in + 1887. + + +Sir John Herschel, in an address to the working people of Windsor and +Eton upon the occasion of opening a public library for their use in +1839, said:-- + +"If I were to pray for a taste, which should stand me in stead under +every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and +cheerfulness to me through life, and as a shield against its ills +however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a +taste for reading. + +"Give a man this taste and a means of gratifying it, and you can hardly +fail of making a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands a +most perverse selection of books. + +"You place him in contact with the best society in every period of +history; with the wisest, the wittiest, with the tenderest, the bravest, +and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. + +"You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The +world has been created for him. It is hardly possible but the character +should take a higher and better tone from the constant habit of +associating in thought with a class of thinkers, to say the least of it, +above the average of humanity. + +"It is morally impossible but that the manners should take a tinge of +good breeding and civilization from having constantly before one's eyes +the way in which the best-bred and the best-informed men have talked and +conducted themselves in their intercourse with each other. + +"There is a gentle but perfectly irresistible coercion in a habit of +reading well directed, over the whole tenor of a man's character and +conduct, which is not the less effectual because it is really the last +thing he dreams of. + +"It cannot, in short, be better summed up than in these few words: It +civilizes the conduct of men, and suffers them not to remain +barbarians." + +Recognizing this love of reading as the keynote to broader culture and a +higher standard of morals, one by one, during the last half-century, +libraries have been thrown open to the public that were before only +accessible to the scholar (and often grudgingly even to him) and new +libraries established, till, in every community, a free public library +is as much a necessity to-day as its churches or its schools. + +Even in the troublous days of the Revolution our forefathers were +awaking to this demand, for in 1776 there were 29 "partially public +libraries in the colonies"; in 1800 there were 49; in 1876 the number +had increased to over 3,000; while to-day we number between 5,000 and +6,000 public libraries, comprising a total of over 20,000,000 volumes. + +The influence of a public library is contingent upon many +circumstances--its community, its finances, and largely upon its +management. Possibilities which may be developed in one library, in +another remain unnoticed; while something of equal importance is made of +incalculable benefit to its own community. Thus, though working on a +general principle, each library independently works out the problem of +the greatest good to the greatest number of its own patrons. Happily, +therefore, there is no cause for the rivalry and jealousies that disturb +the harmony of so many fraternities. + +It is my pleasure and privilege to live in a manufacturing community; to +watch the development of practical ideas; to follow the progress of +mechanical improvement, and witness with pride their results, for the +distinctive feature of Pawtucket is the variety of its industries. + +We remember with pride our parentage and the honor due to it; but surely +when Samuel Slater, after a weary time of toil and discouragement, +perfected the first power machinery for cotton spinning in this country, +and with a pardonable pride saw it in successful operation in the first +bona fide cotton mill in the United States, which still stands in the +centre of our city--(I speak with authority though I am fully aware that +this is a case parallel to the "Seven Grecian cities striving for Homer +dead.")--When, as I said, this was accomplished in 1791, there was no +power of the imagination that could have foreseen the change from the +little mill village on the Blackstone River, with its few hundred +inhabitants, to the present city of 25,000, 13,000 of whom are engaged +in industrial pursuits, its 70 schools, its 600 manufacturing +establishments, embracing the greatest variety of industries. + +But Pawtucket is only one of many thriving manufacturing communities. + +Waltham, Mass., the adoptive parent of the American Watch Co., which had +in 1865 a population of but 7,000, now numbers over 16,000, with not +less than 7,000 employes, 2,500 of whom alone are employed by the +American Watch Co. + +Lowell, Mass., according to the census of 1883, had a population of +66,000, one third of whom were employed in its 300 manufactories. + +Manchester, N.H., with a population of 40,000, employs 15,000 persons in +its 102 manufactories. + +And so I might go on enumerating special statistics, but these are +simply representative communities. It is sufficient for my purpose to +say that there are in the United States about 254,000 manufacturing +establishments, employing nearly 3,000,000 persons, at an average wage +of $1.15 per working day. + +It is to this great class that we look for much of the prosperity of +our country; for we find that the value of the product of the +manufactures of the United States for the last ten years was +$5,400,000,000. + +It is also an important factor in our government, for the pride and +principle of our country is "Vox populi, vox Dei." + +In these days when skilled labor is at a premium, when issues are +constantly arising requiring the best legislative ability, and the +demand for both is far greater than the supply, how are we to meet it? +The reply comes from far and near, "Educate the people." Yes, educate +the people! for they are very ready to be educated, many of them +striving with a self-denial known only to themselves to give to their +children the education that was denied them; our schools of to-day are +showing good work from the sons and daughters of these parents, and its +influence is blessing their homes. + +But many are denied that privilege, and cannot afford to spare their +children's wages for even the three months covering the compulsory law +of education. + +At the average wage a private library though small is unattainable; a +newspaper may be a luxury indulged in. Where, then, is the royal road to +learning? We do not hesitate to say the free public library is that +long-sought highway. Then open wide the doors; let us stock our shelves +with the best mechanical and scientific works; see that each craft is +especially represented; supply the works on the leading questions of the +day, also works pertaining to the civil government. In this we must not +be partisan; these subjects must be considered in all their bearings, +and in the broadest manner. + +The biographies of working men who have attained honor by their +practical worth and perserverance either in mechanical, civil, or +military service must have a prominent place; history and travel will +receive their share of attention; while we will not forget that the +working man and woman must have some amusement and recreation, and that +"strong meat" is not always desirable; our fiction department must be +supplied with all that is bright, fresh, inspiring, and helpful, but +nothing that will create a craving for greater stimulant, or tend in the +least degree to weaken the moral character; for the office of a public +library is to develop to its fullest capacity the best powers of a +community. The extent of such development must depend largely upon the +manner of its use. + +Believing that the first entrance into a library should bring with it +that most delightful sensation, the companionship of books, we have at +our own library, contrary to the custom which now obtains, thrown open +our shelves to the public, with the title and name of author plainly +printed on each volume so that literally "he who runs may read." + +An old man said to me a few days since: "I get little time for reading +now, but I love to come in and look at the books; they bring to mind +many a thing that I read long ago, and I carry it with me all the day +through; 'tis an education just to be with them." You say, How can this +be done without loss of books? + +Ten years of experience has taught us that there is a point of honor in +these working people in this regard, with which we must come in contact +to fully appreciate; we have lost no more books with our open system +than other libraries with their closed shelves. + +Understanding fully the value of a catalogue, especially a closely +classified one, to the scholar; to an uneducated man it is a labyrinth +through which he gropes till in despair he either lays it aside or +appeals for help. What is a catalogue to a man who asks for "a book on +birds," and when we direct an attendant to give him a certain work on +ornithology, quickly replies, "'Tis not that I want; 'tis a book on +birds;" or the girl who wants an "adequate book" to furbish up her +society manners. Not one in ten persons comes to a library with a +definite object. + +Roaming at will among the books, the sight of Blaikie's "How to get +strong" has been the first step toward the recovery of health otherwise +lost; John B. Gough's "Darkness and daylight" has brought in the same +way happiness to a wretched household; while Andrew Carnegie's +"Triumphant Democracy" has awakened in more than one citizen an interest +and pride in his native or adopted country heretofore unknown. + +There are the contents of the shelves to select from; no fear of any one +leaving the library without a book; whereas, after presenting from the +catalogue a list of books to be returned as "not in," he either "hasn't +time," or "will make no further trouble," and passes out unsatisfied. + +I have already said that a possibility in one community may be +impracticable in another; with us this open system has proved an +unqualified success. + +A community of this class is not aggressive; on the contrary they are +in a library rather shy. They should be met with prompt service, and the +courtesy of the drawing-room. Make them welcome as they enter the +library; it is their own; help them to cultivate a personal pride in it; +ascertain their tastes, (many of them will surprise us), and call their +attention to such works as will gratify them, gradually leading them to +higher standards when it is necessary. + +If they are seeking special subjects and need our help, let us exhaust +our references. To "give to him that asketh" and "the Lord loveth a +cheerful giver" should be a librarian's watchword. + +What does it matter if half of the pleasures, and all of the ills of our +patrons be poured into our ears? It only brings us nearer to them, and +shows us how to be more helpful, and widens the influence of our work. + +'Tis a wise community that enables its trustees to give to their +librarian sufficient clerical assistance to allow him to mingle with the +people, to learn their habits and tastes, to direct their reading +(especially of the young), and to assist them in their researches; for +we all know that peculiarly inherent weakness of human nature, to seek +for information from the highest source, and to be better satisfied, +even though the same help may be rendered us by a subordinate. + +The reading-room in connection with a public library may be made an +important agent in the education of a community, especially of its young +men and children. + +After a day of hard work, what are the homes to which many of these +young men return? The accommodations of a cheap boarding-house, which +means a room generally occupied by two or more, with barely furniture +for necessity to say nothing of comfort. + +What inducement has he to spend his evenings at home? Where, then, will +he go? Into the street, to drift into the place offering the most +attraction for the least money; alas! too often at the bitter cost of +misery to himself and sorrow for his friends hereafter. + +This, then is our work, to make our reading-rooms so attractive that +they will be drawn hither. Have them well lighted, well heated and +ventilated, supplied with the daily papers of our own and other cities, +also the current magazines. We cannot afford to be niggardly in this +work. Let us supply our tables with illustrated mechanical and art +works, also the best literature of the day. The more freedom that we can +give, the better the results. The young man will pass in and out at his +pleasure, spending an hour or two with whatever pleases him best, till +the reading-room largely takes the place of home, and reading becomes a +part of his daily existence, the beneficent effect of which he will +carry through life. + +There are lying on our tables week after week by actual count 600 +papers, magazines, and books, from "Baby Days" to "The Cathedrals of the +World," free to the public. This has ceased to be an experiment, for +during the ten years our losses have not amounted to $10; and there are +days when nearly if not quite 500 persons sit at our tables. + +The greater possibilities, however, are with our children, the future +parents and guardians of our commonwealth. What are we doing for them as +public libraries, as educators? Working hand in hand with the schools +faithfully and well, as shown by the valuable and interesting reports +published in the Library journal, without which we would know as little +of the library work outside our own as we would know of the outside +world without our newspaper. Long may it live! + +Does our responsibility rest here? What of the multitude of waifs worse +than homeless, without restraining or guiding influence, to be thrown +into the community to swell the numbers of paupers and criminals, many +of whom, yes, the majority of whom, have the same gentle instincts and +latent ability as our own little ones so tenderly nurtured. + +We may say this is the work of charitable institutions and humane +societies; not so; this is essentially our work. We call ourselves +educators, and have the honor to be recognized as such; the work of a +public library is to teach, to elevate, to ennoble, there is no limit to +its possible influence. + +Must we wait, then, until our children (for they are all ours as a +community) are fourteen years of age or upwards before we begin to teach +them the first principles of right living, of mental growth, of love to +their neighbor? + +We maintain that we cannot begin too early, and that this is a part of +library work from which we get the greatest percentage of reward. Again +I ask, What are we doing for these children, the future pride or +dishonor of our communities? + +Brockton, Mass., has a reading-room to which children are admitted, and +which they are encouraged to visit, so well patronized that it will soon +double its seating capacity. + +Waltham, Mass., has taken a step in the right direction. The trustees of +the public library have supplied two tables in their waiting room with +Wide awake and St. Nicholas for the children. + +Lowell, Mass., admits children during the day, and supplies them with +juvenile magazines. Manchester, N.H., admits children to the +reading-room; but unfortunately, from various causes, they are unable to +offer the necessary attractions, and few visit it. + +Newport, R.I., can only furnish St. Nicholas for want of money, but +children may come and go at their pleasure. + +Olneyville, R.I., is offering every inducement that their means will +allow to draw children to their reading-room; and to interest and +instruct them seems to be the object of those in charge. + +Willimantic, Conn., admits children at the age of 12 years. + +Somerville, Mass., supplies juvenile magazines, and has no limit to age. + +Springfield, Mass., also admits children at all ages. + +The Boston Public Library, the parent of the public libraries of New +England, true to its paternal instinct, begins to exert its influence +over the children at the earliest years. + +There are doubtless others from whom we would be glad to hear, but I +confess that, after visiting and inquiring among public libraries +concerning this work, I became disheartened and ceased investigation, +for the popular verdict seems to be "Children and Dogs not allowed." + +With our experience in this work with the children since the opening of +our library in 1876, and knowing the possibilities only waiting for +development, I am emboldened to speak earnestly. + +Let us gather the children in; give "milk for babies," in the +illustrated books which they may understand though they cannot read; +juvenile magazines and literature of a healthy nature to counteract the +pernicious trash that is flooding our communities. + +It is only necessary to refer you to the specimens of flash literature +which our boys have relinquished to us, with pale faces and trembling +hands, after reading from the scrapbook here on exhibition the cuttings +from the newspapers of the day showing the bad influence of the dime +novel. It tells its own story far better than I can tell it, and the one +in whose mind this great remedial agent originated is daily blest in +seeing the good results of his experiment. + +Help the children to begin early to understand that even they are of use +in a community; awaken their pride and ambition in the right direction, +and their future is assured. + +If there are those who doubt the practicability of this work, and, like +Hosea Bigelow, would + + "Give more for one live bobolink + Than a square mile of larks in printer's ink," + +come and see our "Flower Band," numbering 200 children, gathered from +the little girls and boys who frequent our library and reading-room, +from five years of age to fourteen; from the little fellow who brings +three wilted daisies, or a rose without a stem, to the dainty miss with +a bouquet from the greenhouse. + +Their badges signify a pledge to bring flowers once a week (if +possible), and to respond to a call to distribute them in any place +where they will add a bit of brightness to a shadowed household; also to +seek out such homes and report them. Several names have been already +stricken from our list, of those who have died leaving a blessing for +these little missionaries. + +The influence of this work upon the children and the community cannot be +told. It must be seen to be appreciated. + +I have endeavored to show that upon the influence of the public library +working in harmony with the spirit of the churches and the schools, with +the single object of the highest welfare of the people, depends much of +the prosperity, morality, and culture of our industrial communities--I +might also say of our country; but when we consider that there are less +than 6,000 public libraries in the United States, are we not tempted to +say in the words of old, "What are they among so many?" + +But let us remember that the same spirit that gave power to feed the +multitude from the "five loaves and fishes" still lives in the hearts of +men to animate them to good works, as shown by Messrs. Ames, Hail, +Pratt, Carnegie, Osterhout, Newberry, and a host of others whose names +are yet to be engraved as public benefactors on the tablets of public +libraries. + +May God speed the work! + + + + +PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS OF JOSEPH N. LARNED + + The need of stronger forces in popular education--the + failure of the press--the library's opportunity, as it + appeared to a scholarly librarian of the so-called "old + school" in 1894. + + Joseph Nelson Larned was born in Chatham, Ontario, May 11, + 1836, and was educated in the public schools of Buffalo, + N.Y. He served on the editorial staff of the Buffalo + _Express_ in 1859-72, was superintendent of education in + Buffalo in 1872-73 and superintendent of the Buffalo Library + from 1877 until it became the Public Library in 1897, after + which he devoted himself to literature until his death in + 1913. His best known work is his History for Ready Reference + and Topical Reading. He was president of the A.L.A. in + 1893-94. + + +It was my misfortune to be absent from the meeting at which you did me +the honor to elect me to this place, and I had no opportunity, either to +give my advice against that action, or to thank you for the distinction +with which it clothes me. The advice I would have given is now belated; +but my thanks have lost no warmth by the delay, and I pray you to accept +them with belief in their sincerity. At the same time I shall venture to +draw from the circumstances a certain claim upon your generosity. If it +happens to me to be tripped in some of these tangles of procedure which, +in such meetings as this, await the stumbling feet of an untrained +presiding officer, be good enough to remember the warning I would have +given you if I had had the opportunity. + +We are gathered for the sixteenth meeting of the American Library +Association, in the eighteenth year of its existence. Our league of the +libraries is young; its history is unpretentious; but it is the history +of a movement of higher importance to the world that many others that +have marched with trumpets, and drums. Eighteen years ago, the +conception of the Library militant, of the Library as a moving force in +the world, of the Librarian as a missionary of literature, was one which +a few men only had grasped; but with which those few had already begun +the doing of a revolutionary work. To-day such ideals are being realized +in most corners of the American republic. The last generation, and the +generations before the last, were satisfied with the school as an agent +of popular education. In our time we have brought the library to the +help of the school, and the world is just opening its eyes to perceive +the enormous value of the reinforcement that is gained from this new +power. + +And the discovery has come none too soon; for a desperate need of more +and stronger forces in the work of popular education is pressing on us. +If we reflect on the social conditions of the present day, and review a +little the working of the ferments in civilized society during a few +years last past, we shall marvel, I think, at the timeliness of the +movement which brings the public library, just now, to the front of +action among the instruments and agencies of popular education. It is +our fortune, good or ill as we may regard it, to be unmistakably passing +through one of the greater crisies of human history. In the last +century, modern democracy got its political footing in the world. Its +birth was older, and it had been cradled in divers nursing places, +Swiss, Dutch, English, and New English; but last century it stepped into +political history as the actor of the leading part; as the sovereign of +the future, mounting his throne. From the moment it came on the stage, +all wise men knew that its need above every other need was education. +They made haste, in our country, to build school-houses and to set the +school-master at work; seeing plainly that all they might hope for and +strive for in the future would depend on the intelligence that could be +put into the brain of this omnipotent sovereign who had risen to rule +the world. + +Well, the schools and the school-masters served their purpose +reasonably well for a reason. Democracy was fairly equipped with a +spelling-book and a quill-pen for the duties and responsibilities of a +simple, slowly-moving time. The mass of its members, the every-day +people of the farm and the shop, read the pamphlets and the weekly +gazettes of their day, and were gently drawn, with unconfused minds, +into one or the other of two straightly opposed political parties which +sought their votes. If they lacked knowledge, there was a certain +ingenuousness in their character which paid respect to the opinions of +men who had more. If blundering in politics occurred, it was blundering +leadership, for the most part, and more easily corrected than perversity +in the ranks. So the reign of democracy was successful enough while +society kept the simpler state. + +But that simpler state is gone. We who are beyond middle age may say +that we have seen it disappear. We have witnessed a miraculous +transformation of the earth and of the people who dwell on it. We have +seen the passing of Aladdin, who rubbed his magical electric lamp as he +went calling Afreets from the air to be the common servants of man. A +change has been wrought within fifty years that is measureless, not only +in itself, but in its effects on the human race. The people who whisper +in each other's ears across a continent; who know at noon-time in +Nebraska what happened in the morning at Samarcand; the people to whom a +hundred leagues are neighborhood, and a thousand but easy distance; for +whom there is little mystery left on the face of the earth, nor anything +hidden from their eyes; these people of our day are not in the likeness +of the men and women who ambled horseback or rode in coaches from town +to town, and who were content with a weekly mail. The fitting and +furniture of mind that would make a safe member of society and a good +citizen out of the man of small horizons, who lived the narrower life of +a generation or two ago, are perilously scant for these times. + +It is true that all the wonderful quickening of life which has occurred +carries something of education in itself, and that men learn by living +under the conditions of the present day; but the learning caught in that +way is of the dangerous kind. It is the delusive knowledge of the +surface of things; the deceitful lore which breeds mischievous beliefs +and makes them fanatical. It goes but a little way, if at all, toward +the saving of society, as against the unrest, the discontent, the +desire, which torment such an age of revolution as ours. + +And the threatening fact is this: that ignorant opinions have acquired +at the present day a capacity for harm enormously increased over that of +the elder times. They share the magnified potency that is given to all +things, good or ill, by the science of the modern man. Its million +tongues are lent to them for propagation; but that is a matter of small +seriousness compared with the boundless ease of combination which it +offers to them at the same time. It is in that appalling facility of +alliance and organization, which present conditions have given to men +and women of every class and character, for every kind of aim and +purpose, that the greatest peril of society lies in our day. A peril, +that is to say, so long as society has no assurance that the leagues and +confederacies formed within its bosom will be prevailingly well +instructed and intelligently controlled. + +As a serious danger this is something quite new. It has come upon us +within recent years. I can remember a state of things in which it was +difficult for a man in common life to join himself with other men, much +beyond his own neighborhood, in any effectual way, excepting as he did +it on the lines of an old political party or an older church. But, +to-day, leagues, unions, federations, associations, orders, rings, form +themselves among the restless, unstable elements of the time as clouds +are formed in the atmosphere, and with kindred lightning flashes and +mutterings of thunder. Any boldly ignorant inventor of a new economical +theory or a new political doctrine, or a new cornerstone for the fabric +of society, can set on foot a movement from Maine to California, between +two equinoxes, if he handles his invention with dexterity. This is what +invests popular ignorance with terrors which never appeared in it +before, and it is this which has brought the real, responsible test of +democracy, social and political, on our time and on us. + +Democracy, in fact, has remained considerably, hitherto, an unworked +theory of society, even in communities which have supposed themselves to +be democratically constituted. It has remained so through want of +conditions that would give a clear sound to the individual voice and +free play to the individual will. Those conditions are now arriving in +the world, and the democratic regime is consequently perfecting itself, +not politically alone, but economically, and in all the social relations +of mankind. + +So it is not exaggeration to say that we have come to a situation in +which society must fight for its life against popular ignorance. The old +agencies of education are inadequate, when the best has been made of +them. The common school does not go far enough, and cannot. Its chief +function is to prepare a soil in the young mind for the after +seed-planting which will produce fruits of intelligence. Unsupplemented, +it is well-nigh barren of true educational results. The higher schools +and colleges reach too small a number to count for much in a problem +which concerns the teaching of the universal millions. What agency, +then, is there, that will prepare the democracy of the present and the +future for its tremendous responsibilities? + +Some may say, the newspaper press: and I would rejoice if we could +accept that reply. For the press is an educating power that might +transform the civilization of the world as swiftly in mind and morals as +steam and electricity have transformed its material aspects. There is +nothing conceivable in the way of light and leading for mankind which a +conscientious and cultivated newspaper press might not do within a +single generation. But a press of that character and that effect seems +possible only under circumstances of disinterestedness which are not +likely to exist. The publication of a newspaper may sometimes be +undertaken as a duty, but not often. As a rule it is a business, like +any other, with the mercenary objects of business; and as a rule, too, +the gain sought is more readily and more certainly found by pandering to +popular ignorance than by striving against it. A few newspapers can +secure a clientage which they please best by dignity, by cleanness, by +sober truthfulness, and by thoughtful intelligence, in their columns; +but the many are tempted always, not merely to stoop to low tastes and +vulgar sentiments, but to cultivate them; because there is gravitation +in the moral as well as the physical world, and culture in the downward +way is easier than the upward. + +The vulgarizing of the news press has been a late and rapid process, +nearly coincident in cause and event with the evolution of this modern +democracy which it makes more problematical. We need not be very old to +have seen the beginnings: the first skimming of the rich daily news of +the world for the scum and froth of it; the first invention of that +disgusting brew, from public sewers and private drains, with which the +popular newspapers of the day feed morbid appetites. We can recall the +very routes by which it was carried from city to city, and taken up by +journal after journal, as they discovered a latent, un-developed taste +for such ferments of literature in the communities around them. The +taste was latent, potential; it did not exist as a fact; it was not +conscious of itself; it made no demands. The newspapers deliberately +sought it out, delved for it, brought it to the surface, fed it, +stimulated it, made it what it is to-day, an appetite as diseased and as +shamefully pandered to as the appetite for intoxicating drams. + +And, so far as I can perceive, this action and reaction between what is +ignorant and vulgar in the public and what is mercenary and unscrupulous +in the press will go on until popular education from other sources puts +an end to it. For it is the saving fact that there are other sources; +and foremost among them are the public libraries. If it has been our +privilege to see, and for some in our circle to bear a part in, the +beginnings of the active educational work of the libraries, I am +persuaded that it is only the beginnings we have witnessed as yet. I am +persuaded that the public library of the future will transcend our +dreams in its penetrating influence. Consider for a moment what it is, +and what it offers to the energies of education which a desperate +necessity is awakening and organizing in the world! It is a store, a +reservoir, of the new knowledge of the latest day and the ripened wisdom +of the long past. To carry into the memory and into the thought of all +the people who surround it, in a town, even some little part of what it +holds of instructed reasoning and instructed feeling, would be to +civilize that community beyond the highest experience of civilization +that mankind has yet attained to. There is nothing that stands equally +beside it as a possible agent of common culture. It is the one fountain +of intellectual life which cannot be exhausted; which need not be +channeled for any fortunate few; which can be generously led to the +filling of every cup, of every capacity, for old or young. There is +little in it to tempt the befouling hand of the politician, and it +offers no gain to the mercantile adventurer. For those who serve it on +behalf of the public there are few allurments of money or fame. Its vast +powers for good are so little exposed to seduction or corruption that it +seems to give promises for the future which are safer and surer than any +others that society can build hopes upon. + +In this view, those who serve the public libraries have a great +responsibility laid on them. They hold in their hands what would give to +civilization an ideal refinement if it could be distributed and +communicated to all. As we know very well, that is impossible. There is +a part of mankind, in every community, which never will feel, never can +be made to feel, the gentle attractiveness and influence of books. The +fact is one not to be disputed or ignored. At the same time it is a fact +to be treated practically as though it did not exist. It is our business +to assume that the mission of good books, books of knowledge, books of +thought, books of inspiration, books of right feeling, books of +wholesome imagination, can be pushed to every hearth, and to every child +and parent who sits by it. And it is our business to labor unsparingly +toward the making of that assumption good, without reckoning any +fraction of hopelessness in it. + +That is the business to which we are appointed in this world. Let us be +careful that we do not misconceive it in one most important particular! +It is not the mission of _books_ that we are charged with, but the +mission of _good books_. And there lies a delicate, difficult, very +grave duty in that discrimination. To judge books with adequate +knowledge and sufficient hospitality of mind; to exercise a just choice +among them without offensive censorship; to defend his shelves against +the endless siege of vulgar literature, and yet not waste his strength +in the resistance--these are really the crucial demands made on every +librarian. + +For the first condition of successful work is a good tool; and our tools +are not _books_, but _good books_. These given, then follow those +demands on us which we sometimes discuss as though they came first of +all: the demands, that is, for a perfected apparatus in the working +library, for a tireless energy in its motive forces, and for a large +intelligence in the directing of them. + +Not many years ago, our missionary undertakings from the library seemed +to be bounded by its own walls. The improving, annotating, and +popularizing of catalogues; the printing and distributing of bulletins +and reference lists; the surrounding of readers and seekers in a library +with willing help and competent suggestion; these labors seemed, only a +few years ago, to include almost everything that the librarian most +zealous as a missionary could do. But see what doors have been opening +in the last few years, and what illimitable fields of labor now invite +him! Through one, the great army of the teachers in the common schools +is coming into co-operation with him. Through another, he steps into the +movement of university extension, and finds in every one of its servants +a true apostle of the library mission of good books. From a third, he +spreads his beneficient snares about a city in branches and delivery +stations; and by a fourth he sends "traveling libraries" to the ends of +his State. + +The arena of our work is large enough already to make claims on every +faculty and power we can bring to it; and yet our plainest duty is to +enlarge it still. I think we may be sure that there are portals yet to +open, agents yet to enlist, alliances yet to enter, conquests yet to +make. And in the end--what? + +Those of us who have faith in the future of democracy can only hold our +faith fast by believing that the knowledge of the learned, the wisdom of +the thoughtful, the conscience of the upright, will some day be common +enough to prevail, always, over every factious folly and every +mischievous movement that evil minds of ignorance can set astir. When +that blessed time of victory shall have come, there will be many to +share the glory of it; but none among them will rank rightly before +those who have led and inspired the work of the public libraries. + + + + +THE LIBRARY AS AN INSPIRATIONAL FORCE + + What a librarian may do to direct the attention of his + readers to the really great writers and thinkers--a plea for + original work and for innovation in the library--a note + frequently heard in 1920, but new in 1899 when Mr. Foss, + librarian and popular poet, sounded it in _Public Libraries_ + for March. + + Sam Walter Foss was born in Canadia, N.H., June 19, 1858, + graduated at Brown University in 1882 and served on the + editorial staff of various papers. In 1895 he left that of + the _Boston Globe_ and from 1898 to his death, Feb. 26, + 1911, he was librarian of the Somerville, Mass., Public + Library. He published several volumes of popular verse. + + +A library has no especial reason for self-felicitation simply because it +distributes a large number of books. In fact, it is possible for it to +give out a very large number of books and do more harm than good. The +test question to ask is: Is it grinding out a product of enlightened and +symmetrical men and women? Is it transforming the community into +intellectual, thoughtful, better equipped, more roundly developed +citizens? Is it making life any ampler, is it making men any manlier, is +it making the world any better? If there is any library that cannot +answer these questions affirmatively, its librarians are doddering their +lives away in useless activity, and receiving a salary without rendering +any real service in return. The activities of such a library are useless +contortions, and the taxpayers have a right to protest its further +existence. + +What can a librarian do to make his library an inspirational force? In +the first place he must be as accessible as a turnpike road. It seems to +me that he can do more good by talking to people than in any other way. +To do this, of course, it is a prerequisite that he should know +something. I have no faith in the miserable heresy that a librarian who +reads is lost. A librarian who does not read would better not be found +in the first place. A librarian who does not read is simply a stable +keeper for books. He may see to it that they are well blanketed, +groomed, and put in the proper stalls, and that the various implements +about his stable are kept in good order; but such a librarian will never +be mistaken for an intellectual giant in his community. Let him know the +books he handles so that he can talk with schoolgirls about Sophie May +and Virginia Townsend, and with boys about Henty and Brooks and Knox and +Butterworth. Let him be able to discuss Herbert Spencer and David Harum +with equal zest, and know something about Kant and a good deal about +Kipling, and venerate Marcus Aurelius, and not despise Mark Twain. His +mind should be a live coal in its love for books, and then nestle up to +other minds and let them get ignited also. + +But it may be said that a librarian hasn't the time for such extensive +reading. Did you ever know a boy who couldn't find time to play? One +always finds time to do the thing he loves to do; and a man who has a +genuine love for reading will find time for it even in a library. + +One of the greatest longings that any soul can have is a longing for +some one to talk with who is interested in identical subjects. + +A librarian, through personal intercourse, can become a powerfully +educative influence in his community, and start intellectual impulses +that will not subside during his lifetime, but go on widening and +blessing indefinitely. Let him become the father confessor of minds in +his town or city; the priest of the intellect, to whom all men shall +bring all their mental problems, all their dubious enigmas of the brain. +He will not be able to solve all their puzzles or untie all their knots; +but perhaps he will be able to hold the candle for a little while, while +they struggle with the knots themselves. Let him always hold the candle, +and talk pleasantly while he is holding it. + +This matter of being pleasant in a library is really the first and +great commandment. There should be an air of welcome inside that is +pleasanter than the sunshine outdoors. The deathlike stillness and +tomblike hush, the sepulchral gloom, the graveyard silence that +sometimes prevails in libraries, should not be encouraged. Make people +feel at home. The library here can learn a good lesson from the barroom. +There are no signs up in a barroom intimating that loud talking is not +allowed, nobody walks on tiptoes, everybody is welcomed heartily and +encouraged to stay, and men find a sympathetic friendliness there who +find it nowhere else. John Wesley said we should not allow the devil to +monopolize all the good tunes. The library should not allow the barroom +to monopolize all the spirit of human friendliness and good cheer. I am +sincerely glad that the old type of librarian is passing out--a man so +dignified that children were afraid of him, whose face was so long that +his chin dragged on the floor. We want human men with blood in them in a +library; men who like men and love children; men who can make themselves +agreeable to men, women, children, and dogs. Let us make life as +pleasant in a library as a mother's twilight hour with her children, and +we shall raise up great families for the afterdays, who shall look back +upon us as their intellectual parents, and rise up after we are gone and +call our memories blessed. + +There are three classes of books--books that give pleasure, books that +give information, and books that give inspiration. The first class has +its thousands of readers, the second its hundreds, and the third its +tens. It is a good thing to read books for pleasure--it is the most +innocent kind of drunkenness I know about; but that reading books merely +for pleasure may develop into a kind of intellectual dissipation is +something that we know from experience; for who is there of us who has +not sinned? But reading books merely for pleasure is something we should +outgrow in childhood, just as we do stilts and marbles and the game of +tag. It is a better thing to read books for information. It is one of +the healthiest joys of the normal mind to be forever learning something; +forever learning and forever coming to the knowledge of the truth. It is +the best thing, however, to read books for inspiration. And this is a +class of readers into which many of the frequenters of the public +libraries never graduate. Ah! the pity of it! Books that lift us out of +ourselves and the fogs and fumes and dust of our little treadmill +routines into the ampler ether of loftier altitudes--into the grandeurs +of life! Emerson and Shakespeare and Wordsworth and Whitman--do men love +such as these and remain little men? No, this is the meat from which +giants are grown; here is the food for souls. Now it seems to me it is +the duty of the good librarian, one who believes in the august nature of +his profession, to lead up his readers by all devices within his power, +by imperceptible gradations, through the books that please and the books +that inform, to the books that inspire. And the librarian who drops a +boy before he learns to love John Milton has only brought him half his +journey, and has dropped him before he has reached the destination to +which his fare was paid. + +Why do not people read the best books? One reason is they never see +them. It is a librarian's business to keep them in sight, his next +business is to read them himself, and his next business is to talk about +them whenever he can get an audience of fifty, or five, or one; to write +about them in his monthly bulletins and let every man know he can get +them, and welcome, by stretching out his hand. We all know how Tom +Sawyer got his fence painted. He made all the boys in his neighborhood +believe that fence painting was great fun. The librarian should make all +the boys in his neighborhood believe that reading the best books is +genuine pleasure. They can be brought to an appreciation of this +pleasure as one is brought to the height of a tableland of a great +continent, by gradations so gradual that they seem to be walking on a +flat surface. + +I believe that the great destiny of the public library is as yet but +faintly foreseen. The plain truth is that the library has not tried yet +to do its best. It has opened it doors and let people come in, if they +so desire, or if they happen to be passing that way. No successful +auctioneer does business according to any such method. On the contrary +he lifts up his voice to all it may concern, and to all that do not care +that there are about to be great bargains at his place. The business man +who opens his store and then forever holds his peace has his solitude +very infrequently interrupted by customers. The church that has no +missionary spirit is as tepid as the old church of Laodicea. The +schoolmaster whose pupils absent themselves too frequently collects his +daily audience, even if he has to call in the services of the truant +officer. All this is written with something of the same wisdom. I do not +believe it should always wait for people to come to it; it should go to +the people. Every family in every city or town where there is a library +should be offered a library card, or as many cards as it has adult +members. Sometimes there is so much red tape prerequisite to obtaining a +library card that a bashful man does not dare to make the attempt. Let +us not shut the people off from the books that they have paid for by a +barbed wire fence of red tape. Let every man or woman, yes, or child, +too, that is old enough, be personally canvassed and offered a library +card. Then sell him a catalog at cost price, or better still, at less +than cost, and tell him how to use it. Ah, but our trustees will say, +this will cost something. Yes, it will cost something, but it will be a +tremendously profitable investment, and pay immense dividends later on +in a more intelligent citizenship and wiser and happier men. + +From all this I wish it might be inferred that no librarian can be too +great for his position. It is not easy for him to have too much +knowledge, too much tact, too much consecration to his work, too exalted +an estimate of his possibilities. He should not have a mind with a +flange on it, so that it forever runs on the small rail along the dusty +roadbeds of routine. Let him originate, let him innovate, let him blaze +his path with the pioneers--let him think. + + + + +THE USE OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY + + Part of an address by President Angell of the University of + Michigan--educator, diplomat and statesman--at the + dedication of the Ryerson Library Building in Grand Rapids, + Mich., Oct. 8, 1904. To advise a reader, Pres. Angell + thinks, one must know something of his personal aptitudes. + General advice about "good reading" is seldom of great + service. A modern note by a great man. + + James Burrill Angell was born in Scituate, R.I., Jan. 7, + 1829, graduated at Brown University, and after studying + abroad, became eminent as an educator, holding first a + professorship in his alma mater and then serving + successively as president of the Universities of Vermont and + Michigan. He was U.S. minister to China in 1880-81 and + served on important international commissions. His works on + international law and on education are standard. He died on + April 1, 1916. + + +Now that your benefactor has so nobly done his part, it remains for the +city to see that the library is maintained and managed in an effective +manner. It would not only be an act of ingratitude, but it would be a +mockery, if in such an edifice as this we should not find a good and +growing and well administered library. There is no more important +commission in your city than the commission charged with the care of +your library. Let us hope that they will always be chosen with special +regard to their fitness for their official duty and without regard to +their party affiliations. + +Especially is wisdom needed in the selection of your books. It is not +so difficult to choose books for the cultivated and scholarly readers. +But in a city library you must provide for all your population. +Particular care should be had to procure books attractive and useful to +your artisans and mechanics and common laborers. They should be led to +feel that this is the place where they can most profitably spend a spare +hour and can find something to bring new brightness into their +monotonous lives. The efforts which you have already initiated to make +the library serviceable to the pupils in your schools must now be +redoubled. The teachers and the library authorities must always contrive +to cooperate heartily. The multiplication of libraries in this country +has already elevated the work of the librarian to the dignity of a +distinct profession. And no profession promises to be more useful. In +addition to the proper organization and care of the library, the +influence which a competent librarian can wield in his guidance of the +reading and studies of the young is seldom outweighed by that of the +teacher or the preacher. In no manner can a generous appropriation of +funds for the support of a library be more wisely expended than in +securing a competent librarian. + +Judging by my own experience and by my observation of others, I doubt +whether the guide books which have been written to tell one what works +to read have been of great service. The simple reason why they are not +very helpful is that to advise one what to read, you should know +something of his aptitudes and taste and something of his plans of life. +General advice is a shot in the air. It may hit nothing. + +But a competent person may give helpful counsels to the young +concerning useful methods of reading whatever one does read, and may +indeed specify what are some of the best books on certain topics. A good +librarian, if leisure enough is left him, may attract and help willing +auditors by occasional lectures or informal talks on how to read in a +library. But personal suggestions, to meet particular needs, are the +most fruitful of good. And just here the school teachers, if competent +to advise, can be of the utmost service. In no way can the library be +made so valuable as by the hearty and systematic co-operation of the +librarian and the teachers. It would be very useful if they could from +time to time meet to confer upon the best methods of securing harmonious +action. For it is the generation now coming on to the stage who are +chiefly to profit by the use of this library. It is through them that +the city is to receive its chief benefit. To incite them to read, to +train them to right habits of reading, to inspire them with high ideals +of what one should seek and love in reading, should be the aspiration of +parents and teachers, if this library is to yield its largest harvest of +good. + +Like all good things, this library may to some persons bring no good; it +may even be made an instrument of harm. It may bring no good, because it +may be utterly neglected. No doubt there are many families who have +never drawn a book from its shelves. It may bring no good, it may even +cause intellectual, not to say moral injury, if it is misused. It is +possible to choose from any great library such passages from works and +to peruse them in such a spirit as to gratify and stimulate prurient +desires, or if one does not descend to so unworthy and shameful an act, +one may read in such a manner as to be guilty of intellectual +dissipation. What we may call the desultory readers are exposed to this +danger. They pick up whatever book or magazine comes first to hand, +provided they are sure that it makes no tax upon their mental powers. +They spend their time dawdling over a chapter of this book, then over a +chapter of that, as men of the town now join this gay companion for an +hour and then another for the next hour for frivolous talk and +profitless gossip, and so wander aimless through the day without any +fruitage to show for their time. They lose the power, if they ever had +it, of consecutive study and thought and discourse on any theme +whatever. + +I do not mean to intimate that we should never come to this library to +read for pleasure and entertainment. One of the great and proper uses of +books is to refresh and amuse us in our hours of weariness and +depression. Like the society of our choicest friends, they may wisely be +sought for the sole purpose of diverting our minds from the flood of +cares and troubles which come in upon all of us. The library may well be + + "The world's sweet inn from care and wearisome turmoil." + +Or in our happy and merry moods we may seek congenial company in the +creations of Cervantes and Moliere and Shakespeare and Dickens and Mark +Twain. Reading for pastime is a commendable occupation, if wisely +followed. Lowell in his paradoxical style tells us that what Dr. Johnson +called browsing in a library is the only way in which time can be +profitably wasted. But to browse profitably one should have an appetite +only for what has some merit. I have known lads born with a literary +instinct as unerring as that of the bee for finding honey, to have the +free run of a large library and come out with a wonderful range of good +learning. Such instances show the unwisdom of having the same rules to +guide every one in his reading. In such cases as those just cited, the +example and taste of the parents often determine the success of the +experiment. The books they talk about fondly at table and quote from +freely and appositely are likely to arrest the attention of the child. +Therefore we may say that the home as truly as the school may largely +determine what advantage shall be gained in this library. Parents who +for their children's sake are careful what guests they admit to their +house and what companionships they counsel the children to form may well +consider what reading comes under their roof and what literary tastes +they encourage in their household. + +In these days when reviews and magazines and school histories of +literature abound, there seems ground for one caution to youthful +readers. It is, not to be content with reading about great books and +great men, but to study the works themselves of great men. Many of the +outlines of English literature, for example, which pupils in school are +required to study, contain dates and names and brief descriptions of +masterpieces, and from the nature of the case can contain little else. +But cramming the memory with these is not learning the literature. +Reading, mastering, and learning to appreciate and love the great works +of a great author is better than to learn the dry facts in the lives of +a score of authors. So our magazines and reviews treat us to criticism +sometimes wise, sometimes unwise, of many authors. But all these are of +little value until the works themselves of the authors have been +studied. With the works the biographies of the authors should be read in +order to appreciate the conditions under which the works were produced. +But far better is it to gain a thorough acquaintance with one great +writer's life and works than to learn a few fragmentary facts at second +hand about the lives and writings of many. + +One of the most difficult questions to settle in these days in the +selection of books for a library or in directing the reading of the +young is, how large shall be the proportion of fiction in a library or +in the reading of any one. Just now we are flooded with fiction, +stretching from the short story of the magazine to the two-volume novel. +I observe that nearly two-thirds of the volumes drawn from this library +in 1901-02 are classed under the two heads of juvenile fiction and +fiction. And I suppose the experience of other popular libraries is +similar to yours. This shows at least that there is a great craving for +fiction. That craving a library like this must to a fair degree strive +to meet. Nor need we regret that there is a strong desire for sterling +works of fiction. They stimulate and nourish the imagination. They give +us vivid pictures of life. They portray for us the working of human +passions. They give a reality to history. Sometimes they cultivate a +taste for reading in those who would otherwise be inclined to read +little, and so lead them to other branches of literature. But, on the +other hand, I think it must be confessed that a great deal of the +fiction which is deluging the market is the veriest trash, or worse than +trash. Much of it is positively bad in its influence. It awakens morbid +passions. It deals in most exaggerated representations of life. It is +vicious in style. + +It is a most delicate task for the authorities of a library like this to +draw the line between the works of fiction which should be and those +which should not be found on its shelves. As to the individual reader, +the best we can do is to elevate his taste as rapidly as we can by +placing in his hands fiction attractive at once in its matter and in its +style. We must hope that with the cultivation of taste to which our best +schools aspire, we can rear a generation which will prefer the best +things in literature to the inferior. That is the reason why the +teachers of languages and literature in our schools should be not mere +linguists, but persons of refined literary taste, who will imbue their +pupils with a love for the truest and highest in every literature which +they can read. + +I would like to commend to my young friends who desire to profit by +the use of this library the habit of reading with some system and of +making brief notes upon the contents of the books they read. If, for +instance, you are studying the history of some period, ascertain what +works you need to study and finish such parts of them as concern your +theme. Do not feel obliged to read the whole of a large treatise, but +select such chapters as touch on the subject in hand, and omit the rest +for the time. Young students often get swamped and lose their way in +Serbonian bogs of learning, when they need to explore only a simple and +plain pathway to a specific destination. Have a purpose and a plan and +adhere to it in spite of alluring temptations to turn aside into +attractive fields that are remote from your subject. If in a note book +you will on finishing a work jot down the points of importance in the +volume and the references to the page or chapter, you will frequently +find it of the greatest service to run over these notes and refresh your +memory. If you are disposed to add some words of comment or criticism on +the book, that practice also will make you a more attractive reader, and +will make an interesting record for you to consult. + + + + +COMMUNITY CENTER SERVICE + + + This is the newest phase of library work and the most + convincing evidence of its socialization. There is little in + print about its early stages; its classics are still in the + making. We quote only three papers here. + + + + +THE LIBRARY AS A SOCIAL CENTRE + + The opening address at the Red Wing meeting of the Minnesota + Library Association, Oct. 12, 1905, by Miss Countryman, + librarian of the Minneapolis Public Library. The "public," + Miss Countryman thinks, "is no indefinite, intangible + somebody; it is just 'we'"--the statement of library + socialization in a nutshell. + + Gratia Alta Countryman was born at Hastings, Minn., in + November, 1866, and graduated, with the B.S. degree, at the + University of Minnesota in 1889. In that same year she + entered the service of the Minneapolis Public Library, and + she was assistant librarian at the resignation of Dr. James + K. Hosmer in 1904, succeeding him as librarian. + + +During these latter days of enormous library activity, we have been +conscientiously examining the functions of a library; we have been +trying all sorts of methods to popularize it, to advertise it. We have +asked for and listened to the criticism of outsiders, and by the light +thrown upon it through this prism have separated our work into its +elemental parts and seen its various hues. + +We used to erect a library as an altar to the gods of learning; now, to +use Mr. Dana's words, we erect it as an altar to the "gods of good +fellowship, joy and learning." So you see, our ideals are constantly +rising, our horizons ever broadening, and our work continually +increasing, both in extent and in depth. We might well have considered +our hands fairly full to have dealt alone with this god of learning, but +we find ourselves embracing the opportunity for additional service to +the gods of good fellowship and joy. + +It might do us good to consider tonight what we are doing for the cause +of learning, what the library has done to increase serious reading and +study, and how it may further the educational work of the world. This +question is ever present with us, and can stand any amount of +discussion. But it is the gods of good fellowship and joy that we are +discussing tonight, the library not as a center of learning but as a +social center. + +We are dealing with a small crowd of people whom we call "our public." +Who are the public? Why, you and I, and my family, and others just like +us. They want just the same things that we do, and to be accommodated in +just the same way that we do. The public is no indefinite, intangible +somebody, it is just "we." + +We talk about the people being hungry for books and information. Have +you found it so? Then why do we have free libraries and free schools? +People are willing to sacrifice for something that they are very hungry +for. Do you hunger and thirst to read Homer and Shakespeare, and Emerson +and Arnold, and good histories and literature? Do you, when you are +tired after a day's work, take home a scientific work or a treatise on +civics? No, you are just a little sample of the public, and you think +you need to read a pleasant, entertaining, restful book. You aren't +hungry for information, and, as a matter of fact, the person who +delights in study and has a fine taste for the best in literature has +one of the "gifts extremely rare." Most of us are practical, everyday, +working people, with a very limited time for reading, and this public +whom we serve is just like us. A few of them will love to read the best, +many of them will want information at intervals, a large proportion want +recreative reading, and the vast majority use the library not at all. +Now the former, who want and love the library, you need not be troubled +about. They will naturally come to the library, and you will find +pleasure in serving them. But these latter classes who either come for +pleasure or come not at all must be drawn and held through the social +instincts, and through their desire for pleasure. Every human being must +have social life. We seek company and companionship with whom we can +find mutual pleasure. We may find it in friendly gatherings, social +clubs, or music or conversation or games, but social pleasure of some +sort is sought by all of us, great and small, in town and country alike. +In the city there is usually plenty of opportunity--I might almost say +that there is a surfeit--and one must pick and choose. But in the towns +and villages it is often different; good amusement and profitable +pleasures are not always to be had, and being social beings, the social +craving is satisfied with whatever means may be at hand. Young people +especially can not isolate themselves, or live unto themselves. Just +where is the library going to stand in this matter? Is there anything +which we can do to satisfy these natural desires and to enter more +vitally into the lives of the people? This is the question to take home +and think about. + +As individuals, we are coming to have an enormous interest in other +human lives, there is a sense of social obligation upon us; we have come +to know that personal righteousness is not all that is required of us, +but that we must help to realize the social righteousness. The library +has the duty of being all things to all men. It is no longer simply a +repository of books, it is exactly what Mr. Carnegie calls it, the +cradle of democracy, filled with the democratic spirit, and it +endeavors, as far as circumstances permit, to minister to all the needs +of the community in which it dwells. The library stands for progress, +the progress of its town, and this does not mean increasing the material +prosperity of the people, though that may follow, but it chiefly means +the raising of the moral, social and intellectual standards of all its +people, and helping men and women to be more effective in every way. The +library does not exist for one side only of the life of the people, but +for every side, and if it fails to provide for those who seek amusement, +it shirks a duty and renounces a privilege. The sooner we unveil the +"gods of joy and good fellowship" in our library the better; the sooner +we make the library a centre for all the activities among us that make +for social efficiency the better. + +Of course there are natural limitations to the kind of work which a +library can do, and in helping to further the spirit of good fellowship +and to furnish pleasure, we must keep within such limits as are +consistent with the spirit of a library. The library can appeal to +people in other ways than by books alone, as we shall consider later, +yet as books are our chief tools, it is natural to think first of giving +pleasure by that method. One of our chiefest ways of late years has been +through the children's room. The children get book instruction and +supplementary reading and enforced book interests, all of which are +needed for their development, in the schoolroom. But in the children's +room at the library furnished especially for them, with low tables, +picture books and low shelves containing fairy stories and all their +favorite authors, they settle down to satisfy their own especial +individual tastes. Then there is the story hour, of which we shall hear +to-morrow. Many of the children have never learned the pleasure of +reading. They do not belong to cultured homes and the presence of books. +Many of them never heard a Mother Goose jingle or a nonsense verse, and +a book is an unlearned delight. But what child, even of this kind, does +not love to hear stories, and listening breathlessly, would not come +again and again. Somehow it seems as if we could not discharge our +social obligation until we had gone into the by-ways and hedges and +gathered in these scraps of society, and taught them the pleasures of a +book. The children, once acquainted with the library, will always count +it among their friends, and it will forever remain a social centre to +them. + +We grown ups are not so different from the children; we, too, like a +story, and we, too, want to read the things that cheer and entertain us. +We agreed a moment ago that we, as well as our public, were liable to +leave the serious books for the infrequent study hour and to spend our +leisure evenings with the fascinating novel. Well, I do not know of any +better way to give amusement and pleasure than to furnish the people +with the books they want, in which they can be interested and absorbed. +The "cares that infest the day" will fold their wings better under the +spell of a good story than any other way. I think we need not be +frightened when libraries are accused of being only fiction +distributors, for it is a library's function to amuse as well as to +instruct, and if people will seek amusement through the library, so much +the better for the people. It is natural that the people should feel a +curiosity about the newest book and want to read what other people are +talking about. This adds also to pleasant social intercourse, and gives +people a common subject of conversation. Fiction is bound to be more and +more an interpretation of life by which we see the motives and the +currents in other souls. We need not be afraid to supply good, wholesome +fiction and to use it in establishing social relations with our people, +so that the adults as well as the children shall feel a real pleasure in +coming to the library. + +Many of our libraries are now housed in beautiful buildings, in which +case, the building as well as the books becomes a means of social +influence. If there is need of a home for social intercourse and +amusement, the library may legitimately attempt to furnish such a home +within its walls. If there are social or study clubs, organized labor +guilds or missionary societies, or any other organizations, encourage +them to meet at the library, find out what they need, let them find out +that the library is their cooperative partner. And so with the schools +and industries, of which I have not time to speak. The whole building at +all times should be managed in the broadest spirit of hospitality; the +atmosphere should be as gracious, kindly and sympathetic as one's own +home. Then do away with all unnecessary restrictions, take down all the +bars, and try to put face to face our friends the books and our friends +the people. Introduce them cordially, then stand aside and let them make +each other's blessed acquaintance. + +Some have tried smoking rooms, had boy's club rooms and games, and many +have tried simply to make the rooms homelike and cheery, and all of +their experience is valuable to us. + +It may be that no one of the plans used by other libraries may fit your +case, for it is not necessarily good for you because some one else has +used it successfully. But with any plan do not expect immediate results, +for almost everything that succeeds permanently has a slow, gradual +development; that which flashes up quickly usually dies down suddenly. +Be willing to work out a good plan if you have one, and be willing to +study your people and all of their interests before you shape your +plans. + + + + +THE LIBRARY AND THE SOCIAL CENTRE + + By a great expert in library field-work as done by one of + our most active library commissions. Miss Lutie E. Stearns, + of whom a sketch will be found in Vol. I. of this series, is + now a lecturer at large, but at the writing of this paper, + which is reprinted from _The Wisconsin Library Bulletin_ for + May, 1911, she was in the service of the Library Commission + of that state. + + +It is coming to be an axiom in library economy that "the worth of a book +is in its use." For this reason, librarians everywhere are devoting +themselves to what is called "library extension" through the building of +branches, and the establishment of deposit stations in schools, +factories, stores, club-houses, police stations, fire-engine houses, +etc. Experience has shown that where no efforts are made along the line +of library extension only 10 per cent. or at the most 20 per cent. of +the people are reached in any given community. If we wish to have +wholesome literature become "the burden of the common thought" we must +place good books within easy reach of all. Libraries should be quick to +realize that the social centre offers a most excellent opportunity to +reach those that might not otherwise take the time to avail themselves +of library privileges. The free public library should therefore be made +an important part of social centre work through active and sympathetic +cooperation. + +Where libraries can afford proper facilities, there is no reason why +the library building should not serve as the social centre for the +community, as this institution differs from the schoolhouse, in cities +where parochial schools exist, in being neutral on the religious +question and therefore acceptable to all denominations. Wherever the +social centre may be, whether in library building or schoolhouse, strong +emphasis should be placed on the use of books. A special librarian, of +peculiar fitness, should be appointed either by the library or the +social centre authorities. This man or woman should be earnestly +altruistic in his or her desire to fit the right book to the right +person at the right time. It may be that this will mean the issuance of +a primer in English to an adult Slav who has recently arrived in this +country, or it may be the loan of a novel more wholesome in tone though +just as sentimental as one by Bertha M. Clay, the author requested. +Again, the leader of the boy gang may be persuaded to give up the +reading of the lurid "nickel library" in favor of Custer and Grinnell's +truthful Indian experiences. Such selection involves a wide range of +books in the social centre library, from well-bound and attractive +editions of the classics down to the latest, most wholesome novel. The +boys that frequent the gymnasium may be won by Barbour's latest football +story. The raffia worker should find interest in Priestman's +Handicrafts. An up-to-date and authoritative encyclopedia, a good +dictionary, a World almanac, and other popular reference books should be +supplied and instruction given in their use. Debating material should be +sought and every inducement offered for individual research. + +Those who cannot afford to take correspondence courses in the various +trades and crafts should find material in the social centre library for +self-education. James Russell Lowell has said that the best part of +every man's education is that which he gives himself, and it is for this +that the library at the social centre should furnish the opportunity and +the means. Again, there should be books of a cheerful sort for tired +workers so that, as in William Morris's Earthly Paradise, they may + + "Forget six counties overhung with smoke, + Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke." + +Wholesome novels should be found in plenty for both men and women, +together with books that inspire with courage for life's daily round, +such as Hugh Black's Work, Gannett's Blessed be drudgery, Hyde's Art of +optimism, Emerson's Character and heroism, and Wagner's Courage. Each +book in the library's collection should serve one or all three +purposes--to inform, to inspire, or to refresh. + +The rules for the issuance of books should be made as simple as +possible. Borrowers should not be restricted to one book at a time if +more can be used; that is, a novel should be loaned with a book for +study. No guarantee should be required except the borrower's signature. + +A reading room should be made an attractive feature in connection with +the issuance of books. The library and reading room should be well +lighted and heated, and order and quiet should be insisted upon. The +reading table should be supplied with an abundance of the best of the +popular magazines. The Technical World, Popular mechanics, Amateur work, +and the Scientific American, will be found to be strong magnets for +attracting the interest of the boys and young men. The World's work, +Collier's weekly, and the American magazine, are the three great +exponents of optimism in our national life which should find a place on +the reading room tables, as should McClure's, Everybody's, Hampton's, +Scribner's, Harper's, Century, and the Atlantic. In the small towns the +local paper and one or two of the near-by metropolitan dailies should +also be taken. + +Attractive libraries and reading rooms make less attractive the +seductions of other places. George Eliot said long ago, "Important as it +is to direct the industries of men, it is not so important as to wisely +direct their leisure." It is indeed true, as a critic of our national +life has said, that "The use of a nation's leisure is the test of its +civilization." To win people to a love of good literature, to bring back +the old days of reading and meditation, are two of the great problems +that confront the present-day librarian. In the words of one earnest +library worker, "The modern library movement is a movement to increase +by every possible means the accessibility of books, to stimulate their +reading and to create a demand for the best. Its motive is helpfulness; +its scope, instruction and recreation; its purpose, the enlightenment of +all; its aspiration, still greater usefulness." + + + + +WHERE NEIGHBORS MEET + + Extracts from a special report on the social work of the St. + Louis Public Library made in 1917 by Margery Quigley, then + librarian of its Divoll Branch. + + Margery Closey Quigley was born in Los Angeles, Cal., Sept. + 16, 1886, and graduated from Vassar College. She entered the + service of the St. Louis Public Library in February, 1909, + studied at the New York State Library School in 1914-15, and + in August, 1918, became librarian of the Free Library in + Endicott, N.Y. + + +The experience of the St. Louis Public Library goes to prove that no +matter what the neighborhood may be, and however well-supplied it +already is with meeting places, there is always room for the library +auditorium and club rooms without subtracting in any way from the +business of the other agencies. In fact, they seem to increase each +other's use. + +Of our six branch buildings, one is located in the heart of the older +ghetto, one in Carondelet, two in purely residential neighborhoods, one +at the Soulard civic center, where nine or ten European languages are +represented, and the sixth in the older German section of the north +side, near the river. + +About each branch is the full quota of meeting places required by any +given neighborhood--moving-picture houses, community halls to let for +dances and entertainments, churches, saloons, Turnvereins, settlements, +club houses, running the gamut from "lid clubs" to the Artists' Guild, +Masonic temples and public schools, which are now managed on the +community-center plan. Several of the branches have all these within a +radius of five or six blocks, and still they must show the +"standing-room-only" sign to many of the clubs that apply for the use of +the library halls. + +The remarkable feature of this wider use of the library is that in +spite of the increase of meetings, there has been no spirit of +competition. Between the community halls and the library, for example, +there has been no rivalry for statistics of use. Cabanne branch, in the +heart of perfectly equipped institutions which foster all sorts of +clubs, shows more than 52 meetings a month during the last nine months, +while our report of 1907 said of this branch: "There has been an average +of nearly six meetings a month in the building." + +Neighborhood clubs meet in the halls which best suit their purposes, and +no agency seeks to move any one of them to a different roof. In the +Crunden Branch neighborhood, the Socialists meet in a synagogue and a +Yiddish church meets in the library. + +The city recreation department reports that the library's work and the +department's community work at the Patrick Henry School and on the +playgrounds, far from duplicating one another are supplementary. + +In giving the free use of its meeting-rooms to any reputable group of +persons, the St. Louis Public Library acts upon two principles which it +cannot emphasize strongly enough. They are the same on which it buys its +books; first, that the library stands for no propaganda but seeks to +house all opinions, and second, that it makes no obvious attempt to +reform or "uplift." + +Although the books it buys must meet a certain standard in style and +content, the day is past when library assistants seek to force down +readers' throats books which "will be good" for them. In the same way, +the meeting which it shelters must meet the standards of the community; +but the Library has ceased to initiate or direct clubs and meetings, +cultural or otherwise. + +Community work can be successful only when it embodies the spontaneous +expression of the neighborhood's own demand, whether it is from +children, or women, or men. A chain of suffrage groups was successful, +if numbers were an indication, in one neighborhood and a failure in +another--from the same cause. In a neighborhood of illiterate foreign +women with large families, one suffragist lecturer on the common law of +England was greeted by an audience consisting of one deaf old lady and +fifty Jewish children under twelve, who had heard that candy was to be +given away. + +Many of the meetings that wither and die are conceived in the finest +spirit of service. If they aim to interest the whole neighborhood, +irrespective of cliques and prejudices, they almost always fail--if, as +we Americans are supposed to do, we figure failure and success in terms +of quantity. Utopian schemes cannot long survive to-day, housed or not +in the scholarly and friendly surroundings of the library. A united +Ukraine cannot absorb the attention of its supporters half as +continuously as the possibility of a new job in Ford's factory, and a +"decent dancing club" cannot always endure in the face of profits to be +made from a river excursion. + +Probably of all municipal institutions, the library, while maintaining +its dignified and quiet atmosphere, may become the least formal and most +neighborly. It is a library truism that a librarian can tell from +repeated experiences just when a borrower is calling at the library to +announce her engagement or to proclaim that his new job has been +secured. Countless other bits of everyday news are exchanged over the +desk with real profit to the library and to the visitor. We feel in St. +Louis that the so-called wider use of the plant is only a tangible +expression of this same friendly relationship, justified on the one hand +by its economy and on the other, and to a far larger extent, by its +contribution to the community's legitimate social life. + +Very fortunately for the tax-payer, and for the average reader, the +public library does not look upon its branches as intellectual clinics +for the poor. Like the public schools, its problem is to serve "all the +children of all the people," and consequently in localities other than +those where foreigners live, the same sort of branch building is +erected, with an auditorium open under the same regulations and used to +meet the needs of the particular neighborhood. The so-called "middle +class" has as fair a chance and as "good a time" in the library +auditoriums as the foreign poor. + +When there are public meetings at the Carondelet library, speakers from +other parts of the city invariably come late. They begin their addresses +with long apologies, saying that they have never been in the +neighborhood before, and did not know where to find the library. They +always seem amazed at the size and beauty of the building, and comment +particularly on the pleasant club-rooms. One West End woman could not +say enough in praise of everything, repeating continually, "and all this +down here!" + +Practically this same comment is made again and again in the main +library, and in the other branches throughout the city. "All this down +here," is equally true of seven auditoriums, each with a seating +capacity of 200, and of club rooms and offices to the number of fifteen. +In these halls were held, during the past year, practically as large a +number of meetings as our equipment will permit. Omitting the meetings +at Crunden and Soulard, practically all are held by the average sort of +person--average financially, socially and intellectually. The very +absence of the feeling that the club must make money, or must at least +pay expenses, probably accounts for the long list of small clubs and +board meetings which could almost as easily meet in the homes of +members. + +There are those who think that no one uses the auditoriums except very +wealthy club-women, who set up Christmas trees for the poor. There is no +more truth in this than there would be in saying that all the +inhabitants of St. Louis are either immigrants or millionaires. In the +total number of meetings at the library, what Ida Tarbell has termed +"the shirtwaist crowd," is far in the majority. At practically every +branch, the Simon-pure woman's clubs form at least fifteen per cent. of +all the meetings. At the Cabanne branch, about fifty per cent. are made +up of women. The Barr Branch Mothers' Circle, The Queen Hedwig Polish +Women, and the Carondelet Women's Club are three names out of a list +running almost to a hundred. + +The masculine of "shirtwaist crowd" is "shirtsleeves crowd"; and this is +equally well represented upon the schedules of all the branches. Miss +Griggs, of the Barr Branch, writes: + +"We seem now to have a number of new meetings that are held for +discussion--but not many for study--casual, one-meeting-only affairs. +For instance, the Royal Arcanum met to discuss what could be done about +the increased rates. All the premiums were raised and those for older +men raised far out of reason, so all the older members had a meeting +down here, to discuss what action they could take. I am glad people come +casually that way--and feel that we are open for something beside the +regular study meetings. They sit around very informally, smoke, come in +and out down stairs and do not have any very formal session. + +"In common with the other branches, Barr has had political meetings. +Some have been held just before elections and have been quite warm. On +one occasion, the library was made a buzzing community center by a +series of bombs that were set off in the street. Other and quieter +meetings have been held by party committees, judges of elections and the +like. The State Socialist party has twice held its conventions here, and +each time the session lasted for four days. The meetings were opened +with hymns, and the delegates had all-day sessions, from 9:00 a.m. to +9:00 p.m. I think most of the partisan leaders feel that they are a +little handicapped when they meet in the library--still, they come back +occasionally. + +"There are coming to be more purely social meetings of younger grade +pupils. In some cases, these children are not organized, but merely +claim to be in order to get the halls. In other cases, relatives who +come with them to make application are frank to confess that they want +the hall to avoid inconvenience at home, especially the protracted +house-cleanings which are the pre-requisite at most home parties. One +mother said that the last time there was a birthday party in her house, +the man who lived upstairs, after rapping repeatedly on the floor to +stop the children's noise, came down and said, that 'the party would +simply have to bust up.' She wanted to hold this party in the library, +because her husband had such a bad temper, that she was sure he would +murder the man if such a thing happened again, and, of course, it +_would_ happen again, for no children's party would ever be quiet enough +to suit the man upstairs. + +"Adult clubs as a whole ask very little of us beyond the occasional use +of the telephone, and they often come and go without our being conscious +of them. This is especially true of day-time meetings. It must be +admitted, that in addition to those who are very friendly and those who +do not make either criticism or appreciation articulate, there are some +who break the monotony of the librarian's existence by thinking 'they +owns the place,' to quote the janitor. The younger social meetings need +considerable attention, too. They overflow upstairs, are always noisy +and sometimes not as agreeable as they should be. A member of a new club +of girls said, 'I guess we rented this building for the evening--we can +make as much noise as we please.'" + +Within certain limits, particularly the powder-cans and lead pencils of +the staff, we want the clubs to think that they do own the place. The +surest proof that the St. Louis plan works, is to have the scions of our +democracy feel that they are getting their money's worth from the +institution that their taxes support. + +A group of young socialists was formed too late in the season to secure +a regular meeting night. They finally decided that they would have to be +satisfied with meeting, for the winter, at K----'s--a delicatessen store +a few blocks away. K----'s has an advertisement every week in the Jewish +Record, inviting men to come and read the papers there and make use of +the free meeting-room. Like all Jewish delicatessens, this shop contains +everything that any patron is willing to buy, and in addition, +elaborates the coffee-house idea into any shape that circumstances may +suggest. When the young men said individually on later occasions that +they were not contented at the delicatessen, they always added, "It's +because we feel so at home at the library; because we've always gotten +books out there." The next winter their application was handed in +several months in advance. + +In a neighborhood where conditions are the exact antithesis of +Crunden's, the same feeling exists. Miss Pretlow was talking one evening +to a young man who belonged to a group giving a dancing party at Cabanne +Library. She said that she could not but remark how well-dressed and +well bred and altogether prosperous the dancers were. They very +evidently could have met in any one of a number of large homes or could +have paid for one of the best halls in the city; so she said to the +young man, "How is it you do not rent Blank's Hall, but use the Library +instead? I know it can't be the difference in cost that influences you." +The young man answered in very evident astonishment: "Why, we like this +place; we all grew up in this Library." + +When adolescents of both sexes meet together, their meetings are purely +for a good time. Their behavior is extremely immature from the social +side; either very wooden or very uncontrolled. This is the period when +the librarian must insist upon strict chaperonage, and it is also the +period when resentment of discipline, or even of suggestion, runs high. +They would no more follow the advice of the Librarian in the matter of +invitations, introduction of wall-flowers and how a dance is to be "run +off" generally, than they would copy her taste in dress, which they +invariably consider very "old-maidy." The standards to which social +clubs adhere rigidly are those observed in places of commercialized +amusement. One group of boys met to teach each other dancing, where the +girls would not see them. As it was a case of the blind leading the +blind, a volunteer who had been teaching folk-dancing to the girls all +winter, offered her services. After one trial she was _persona non +grata_, because she wouldn't let them "rag." + +Some of the dances are quite grim. One will not hear a note of laughter +all the evening. Five or six girls will often come together. Those who +know boys will dance with them, and between dances will not make the +slightest effort to introduce their friends to possible partners. The +friends, instead of resenting this inactivity, often sit all the evening +on the side lines watching and chewing gum, apparently perfectly +satisfied. + +At the opposite pole is the wild desire for "rough house." In the early +stages of auditorium work and before these days of H.C.L., pieces of +cake have occasionally gone flying across the hall. + +As soon as branch libraries recognized these facts, and it was very +soon, the application for dances became fewer and of better quality. +Leavings from other club rooms no longer apply, and disgruntled alumni +associations in schools have ceased to contemplate a move to the nearest +branch library. + +No effort has been made to advertise the club rooms, beyond these +statements of the branch librarians in passing, except the exhibiting of +the rooms themselves to visitors who "stop in to show our library to +cousin Sarah, from Davenport," or Illinois, or Oklahoma, as the case may +be. Word-of-mouth publicity accounts for the gradual steady growth in +the use of the rooms. One of the many examples began with a stenographer +who sewed, "in secret," as she said, at noon in the club room. She was +embroidering an engagement present for one of the girls in her office. +Needless to say, she scattered information about the rooms, and the +rules governing them, wherever any one would listen. Eventually a Sunday +School class, to which her cousin belonged, gave a St. Patrick's Day +party in the library. As an indirect result, a School Patron's +Association now holds five or six meetings each Spring, to make +preparations for its annual picnic. So the ball of publicity rolls along +of its own momentum. + +At branch libraries, the auditorium and study rooms are as a rule +closely connected architecturally with the reading rooms, and club +members usually pass through the main part of the library to reach the +meetings. One or two at least from each group stop to chat with the +workers, or to read. At Crunden the assistants say that whenever a +Yiddish meeting is to begin at nine, the men come at eight and read. +Then there are the isolated individuals from the club who stumble on the +resources of the library quite by accident, and later grow +communicative. Occasionally some one rushes up stairs to borrow the +telephone book, and when, after an unsuccessful quest, he is offered the +city directory by the librarian, he finds it hard to realize that any +library can contain a book as useful as that. One man who saw a magazine +lying on the desk while he was asking to be directed to the auditorium, +said, "I had no idea the library handled magazines." + +Libraries try as faithfully to reach every one as if they were +commercial enterprises, but there will always be a certain number of +persons who have never been in a library building, not to speak of +knowing the location of the nearest branch and realizing its resources. +A Harvard graduate said he had walked past a branch every day for a year +and had thought it was a branch post-office. If there were no other +arguments in favor of adding auditoriums to the library's list of +activities, there is this: that they introduce to the library large +groups of people who have had no connection with it before. The horse at +least has been led to the water. + +If clubs meet regularly, there is always a small proportion who make +meeting-night their library night. They consequently read and want to +calculate all fines with reference to the night of the last meeting. I +once heard one young woman telling another how she finally had her +reading "doped out into a system," by beginning on her seven-day book +just as soon as she reached home after the meeting, and using the +fourteen-day book only on the street cars. + +With the establishment of libraries in small towns and rural +communities, there is at present a tendency to make social centers out +of library buildings, even at the sacrifice of the books, rather than to +establish libraries in connection with social activities. This is also +true in those cities where "field-houses" in parks are well developed. +Without holding a brief for either school, we may properly emphasize +three principles. The first is that a librarian holds her position by +virtue of being a librarian, and that her duty and training require her +full time for the purpose for which she is employed--the fitting of the +proper book to the individual. The second is that if the community needs +to have the social center stressed more than the books, a social worker +must direct the center and the librarian must contribute in a +subordinate capacity to make the center a success. For example, the St. +Louis Public Library has equipped a room with books and is furnishing an +attendant at a colored social center in a church building at Garrison +and Lucas Avenues, but it does not thereby put forward any claim to +control and stimulate the social activities of the neighborhood. The +third principle is that if the library plant is already in operation, it +is a waste to exclude neighborhood groups from rooms not being used +directly for the reading and circulation of books, inasmuch as overhead +expenses continue. + + + + +WHAT OF THE FUTURE? + + A forecast, not of library progress alone, but of + civilization itself, by one who declares himself "a + simple-minded visionary optimist." It is of the warp and + woof of visions like this that the fabric of a better world + is woven. Frederick Morgan Crunden, who delivered this + address at the public session of the Philadelphia Conference + of the American Library Association, 1897, was not, it is + true, the technical founder of the St. Louis Public Library, + but in his thirty-year administration of it, he originated + and kept in motion the forces that have given it the + position that it now holds in the community. These forces + and their results were both social, and his address forms a + fitting conclusion to this compilation of material on "The + Library and Society." A sketch of Mr. Crunden appears in + Vol. I of this series. + + +The present Victorian jubilee has naturally brought out a fresh group of +reminiscences comparing conditions at the beginning of the reign with +those now existing. The most striking contrast between the two periods +lies in the advances made in the material comforts of life--improvements +in lighting and heating, in locomotion and intercommunication. The +progress of applied science has been so rapid that some of its most +notable achievements have come within the memory of young persons still +at school. Telephonic conversation between New York and St. Louis is +only a thing of yesterday; aerial navigation is evidently near at hand; +and already daring scientists speak hopefully of electric communication +with the planets. + +But it is not only in this line that the world has advanced. To note +great changes in social customs, we need not go back to the last +century. Sir Algernon West in a recent magazine article refers to the +matter-of-course manner in which his chief was in the habit of +announcing to the head clerk that he would not be at the office the +following day, as he was to dine out that evening. As an indication of +the social changes brought about in his lifetime, he quotes this +significant sentence of Mr. Charles Villiers: "In his young days," said +Mr. Villiers, "every young man, even if he was busy, pretended to be +idle; now every young man, even if he is idle, pretends to be busy." +There is great import in this. When every member of society is usefully +employed, our social problems will be well on the way to solution. + +To note progress in another direction we need not turn back to the acts +of the 14th century, which made it a crime to give or receive more than +the wretched wage fixed by law. At the beginning of the Victorian era +boys and girls as young as six years worked in mines and factories +longer hours than are now required of strong men; and the masses of +people were compelled to pay an artificially high price for their bread, +in order to increase the unearned wealth of the few. + +And in our own country we need not go back to the Salem witchcraft or +the persecution of the Quakers. There are still eye-witnesses to tell us +that men and women in this "land of the free," were lawfully sold like +cattle or flogged to death at the will of their owners. It was a few +months after Queen Victoria's accession to the throne that Elijah Parish +Lovejoy was killed for daring to say that human slavery was wrong--for +advocating, not forcible abolition, but gradual emancipation as "the +free, voluntary act of the master, performed from a conviction of its +propriety." For maintaining his right to express his opinions on this or +any other public question, he was driven from place to place and finally +shot down in cold blood. In the city where 60 years ago he fell, a +martyr to the cause of free speech, a stately monument--one of the most +imposing in the country--was the other day dedicated to his memory. No +American better deserves a monument. No leader in the Revolution or the +Civil War was a greater hero. In my opinion, the unquestioned courage of +the great Union commander is dwarfed and paled by the simple heroism of +this young preacher-editor, who gave his life to a greater cause than +even the preservation of the Union. Yet for some years after his death, +in many cities of this country, it would have been hazardous for a man +to utter his eulogy. + +Here, then, is a marked advance. But we have not yet obtained entire +freedom of speech on live topics. Was it not as late as last year that +we hear of two librarians holding opposite political views, whose +positions were rendered insecure by an unfortunate misadjustment of +longitudes and political opinions? And not many miles from here a score +of good, earnest men were jailed for advocating, disinterestedly, and at +considerable self-sacrifice, a method of taxation that did not meet the +approval of the city authorities. Still we have made great progress +toward a broad tolerance. We not only permit the practice of all +religious forms, but we even allow a man to deny himself the +consolations of religion in any form if he chooses to do so. + +In science, at least, there is absolute freedom of thought and +expression. One may publish arguments to prove that the world is five +thousand, or five hundred million years old, and no one will molest or +denounce him; or he may announce a new theory of the universe with our +moon as the stationary centre, and no state or church will +anathematize him or compel him to recant. It is not till he enters the +field of politics, i.e., the discussion of economic and sociological +questions with a view to immediate practical results, that the +advocate of new ideas reaches the danger-point. Here he finds vested +interests--self-styled "vested rights," but as often vested wrongs--on +guard and alert to repel intrusion and resist inquiry. These summon to +their aid the legions of unreasoning conservatism; and the innovator +is made to feel the truth of the saying that there is no pain so keen +as the pain of a new idea--from which, therefore, mankind has always +shrunk, as a child shrinks from the surgeon's knife. We have passed +the period of rack and stake; but social and business ostracism are +pretty effective, while occasionally there are suggestions of +tar-buckets or bullets. For the most part, however, we content +ourselves with denouncing the proposer of any marked departure from +existing political or sociological conditions as a "socialist," a +"communist," and an "anarchist," using these terms indiscriminately as +abusive epithets without any definite knowledge of their meaning. From +the beginning of time every social advance--and until recently every +forward step in science or religion has been regarded as menacing the +very foundations of society. The Reform Act of 1832, which simply took +the first step towards correcting the grossest political abuses, was +looked upon by the Duke of Wellington and other good men as +threatening the very existence of the kingdom. The condition of +affairs then existing, they considered, if not the best possible, at +any rate vastly better than the political chaos that would be sure to +result from change. Speaking on this blind conservative opposition to +the Reform Bill, Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, said: + +"All the resistance to these natural changes can effect is to derange +their operation, and make them act violently and mischievously instead +of healthfully, or at least harmlessly. The old state of things is gone +past recall, and all the efforts of all the tories cannot save it; but +they may by their folly, as they did in France, get us a wild democracy +or a military despotism in the room of it, instead of letting it change +quietly into what it is, merely a new modification of the old state. One +would think that people who talk against change were literally as well +as metaphorically blind, and really did not see that everything in +themselves and around them is changing every hour by the necessary law +of its being. + +"There is nothing so revolutionary, because there is nothing so +unnatural and so convulsive to society, as the strain to keep things +fixed, when all the world is, by the very law of its creation, in +eternal progress; and the cause of all the evils of the world may be +traced to that natural but most deadly error of human indolence and +corruption--that our business is to preserve and not to improve." + +In his retrospect of the Victorian reign, in the June Review of Reviews, +W.T. Stead says: "It is to the stoutest conservatives of our time almost +inconceivable that rational beings could ever have defended the system +that prevailed in Britain sixty years ago." + +I am no more assured of the rising of to-morrow's sun than I am that to +the stoutest conservatives of 1950, it will appear "almost inconceivable +that rational beings could ever have defended the system" that prevails +in America to-day. They will, however, resist further progress as +doggedly as do the conservatives of to-day, even while these see plainly +how absurd was the attitude of their predecessors of sixty years ago. +Your genuine conservative ever holds doggedly to things as they are. He +clings tenaciously--and vainly. He belongs to a party whose defeat all +history teaches is foredoomed. Now he stands for the divine right of +kings; and notwithstanding he is a man of irreproachable character and +able, moreover, to show that he is much less autocratic than most of his +predecessors, he loses his crown and his head. Again, he stands for the +parent country's unlimited power of taxation, and he forfeits his most +flourishing colonies. At another period he urges long sufferance as a +justification for continuing--even extending--the crime of slavery, and +he meets defeat amid slaughter and devastation. No repetition of the +lesson will ever teach him to consider what is abstractly right--what +ought to be without reference to what is. + +But the conservative has to be, in accordance with the law of nature, so +poetically announced in the song of Willis in Iolanthe: + + "That every boy and every gal + That's born into this world alive, + Is either a little Liberal, + Or else a little Conservative!" + +Or, as Emerson's prose expresses it-- + +"The two parties which divide the state--the party of conservatism and +that of innovation--are very old and have disputed the possession of the +world ever since it was made. This quarrel is the subject of civil +history. The conservative party established the reverend hierarchies and +monarchies of the most ancient world. The battle of patrician and +plebeian, of parent state and colony, of old usage and accommodation to +new facts, of the rich and the poor, reappears in all countries and +times.... + +"There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, +joined with a certain superiority in its fact. It affirms because it +holds. Its fingers clutch the fact, and it will not open its eyes to see +a better fact. The castle which conservatism is set to defend is the +actual state of things, good or bad. The project of innovation is the +best possible state of things. Of course conservatism always has the +worst of the argument, is always apologizing, pleading a necessity, +pleading that to change would be to deteriorate. It must saddle itself +with the mountainous load of the violence and the vice of society, must +deny the possibility of good, deny ideas, and suspect and stone the +prophets; while innovation is always in the right, triumphant, +attacking, and sure of final success." + +But though doomed to defeat, conservatism is not to be denounced or +condemned. It is not without its uses. It often keeps us from following +untried paths that open out alluring but end in thickets or quagmires. A +brake is sometimes as necessary to safety as motive power is to +progress. But the usual tendency of conservatism is to keep the brakes +on all the time, causing either stagnation, retrogression, or a +smash-up. The real revolutionist is the rock-ribbed conservative. It is +the boulder blocking the onward flow of the stream that causes the eddy +and the whirlpool. + +Those who think on this subject and who really desire the improvement of +society--unfortunately a very small class--are divided over the question +whether mankind shall progress by the path of individualism or by that +of collectivism. Extremists assure us that these paths go in opposite +directions, or traverse each other at right angles. The truth is they +run parallel; and we have been travelling both, now advancing more on +one and then on the other, towards the ultimate goal of humanity--the +perfection of society through the elevation of the individual, the +perfection of the individual through the improvement of society. Each +helps the other; neither can be independent of the other. It often +happens that organized society cannot await the slow process of +individual perfection. It must accelerate the operation by changing +standards and ideals. There is no telling how long it would have +required to convince each individual slave-owner of the wrong of human +slavery, or each individual mine and factory owner of the wickedness of +child-labor. Society had to take the matter in hand and force individual +development--in one case by law, in the other by the sword. Many +thoughtful persons are raising the question whether society has not more +work of this kind ahead of it. There can be no individual perfection or +progress under certain social conditions. Ceremonious politeness was not +to be expected among the victims of the Black Hole of Calcutta. +Starvation has often led to cannibalism among men who would shrink with +horror from the thought of it under ordinary conditions. Society can +create conditions favorable or unfavorable to the improvement of the +individual. + +The inevitable outcome of the struggle between individualism and +collectivism is the triumph of each in its own proper field. + +A line drawn from the past to the present shows the trend of the future. +We find this embodying two distinct, and apparently contradictory, +tendencies--one towards greater individual freedom, the other towards a +constant extension of the principle of cooperation, or collectivism. +That is, organized society leaves ever greater freedom to the individual +in all those things that concern only him, while at the same time it +extends farther and farther its supervision and performance of those +things that pertain to the welfare of all, and which society can do for +the individual better than he can do for himself. A man may kiss his +wife on Sunday without scandal or fear of prosecution; and he may dress +in any manner he pleases within the bounds of convention, which is still +an unreasoning tyrant. He is generally glad to avail himself of the more +convenient water-supply provided by the community; but he may, if he +wishes, have a well in his yard, until, with the growth of the city, +this becomes a menace to his neighbors' health; then it must be closed. +He may still mould his own tallow candles and use no other light if he +prefers; but cooperation among consumers supplies him with a much +superior illuminant; and when this cooperation is extended to embrace +all the citizens--i.e., when gas or electricity is furnished by the +municipality, the cost is reduced, and he becomes a partner in the +profits. + +Of the benefits of municipal cooperation we had a signal illustration in +the introduction of municipal sprinkling in St. Louis. Formerly, the +occupant of a fifty-foot lot paid a private contractor from $6 to $12 a +season, while he suffered from the dust blown from his neighbors' +frontage and from unsprinkled streets all over the city. Now the owner +of a fifty-foot lot pays about $1 a year and enjoys sprinkled streets +throughout the whole city. Municipal cooperation in libraries brings the +same kind of benefits. The average well-to-do reader, instead of a +five-dollar subscription fee, pays a dollar tax; and for that not only +he and his family, but also the families of his neighbors, have access +to a superior library. And it is almost as necessary for your comfort +that your neighbor's children have access to a library as for your own. + +While social evolution tends to relieve the individual of the +compulsion of law, and also to lessen the pressure of public opinion, in +those affairs that pertain only to his own life, correlatively his +action is more and more restricted in so far as it affects his neighbors +and society in general--though here, too, law and custom tend more and +more to individual freedom. It was once regarded as a public scandal not +to go to church; and 50 years ago in St. Louis Unitarians were shunned +as suspicious characters. But pari passu with the growth of individual +liberty has grown the recognition of the duty of society to see that all +persons have equal liberty--to protect the weak against the strong. +Nothing in Victoria's reign has done more for the progress of England +than the series of acts that have been passed to curb the greed of mine +and factory owners, to prevent them from coining the muscle and manhood +of Britain into gold--in a way that, at one period, threatened to +exhaust the vitality of the race--to kill the goose that lays the golden +eggs. + +The whole history of mankind is a continuous struggle of the weak and +ignorant many to secure the rights withheld from them by the superior +strength and cunning of the few. The oppression and injustice of the +past are apparent to all; but many of us, like the conservative +antagonists of Cobden and Bright, fail to see anything seriously wrong +in the present; and, like them, we fear change. But it is the part of +wise men to welcome change as the natural order of the universe--to see +that it is a change for the better. + +It does not by any means follow that every new idea is a good one, that +every proposed change would be an improvement. But as progress is the +law of the universe, it rests with the old order to show why it should +be continued. Wisdom, therefore, urges us to give careful consideration +to new ideas, however contrary they may be to prevalent opinions, +bearing in mind the frequent lesson of history that "the stone which the +builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner," and +approaching all questions in the spirit of St. Paul's injunction: "Prove +all things; hold fast that which is good." For all political and social +problems, which are the burning questions of to-day, there is, it seems +to me, a simple test in Herbert Spencer's "first principle": "Every man +may claim the fullest liberty to exercise his faculties compatible with +the possession of like liberty by every other man." Legislation that +does not square with the self-evident truth and justice of this dictum +is bad legislation, and must prove maleficent to the nation, state, or +city that enacts it. I need not offer any modern instances. + +Reasoning in reverse order, i.e., from effect to cause, we may be sure +that when we see in a country abounding in natural resources, as ours +is, inhabited by the most intelligent, energetic, and resourceful people +the world has ever seen--when we see in such a country millions of +willing workers in enforced idleness; when, to account for the idleness +and its attendant want and destitution, we are offered the absurdity of +"over-production" of the very things for which millions are suffering; +when we see men and women who toil not revelling in luxury, while others +who labor sixteen hours a day are barely able to keep body and soul +together, we may know absolutely, without further investigation, that +there is something fundamentally wrong in our social organization. + +This is not the time or place to point out these wrongs specifically, or +to advance, even in the most general terms, what, after much thought, I +believe to be the remedies. I merely urge the thoughtful study of social +problems without bias or prejudice. This state of openmindedness is not +easy to achieve. We think that we think our own thoughts; but as Tarde, +the French psychologist, says: "What the individual hypnotizer is to his +sleeping and abnormally plastic subject, such, almost precisely, is +society to the waking and normally plastic man."[7] + +On the solution of social problems, Ibsen says: "There is only one thing +that avails--to revolutionize people's minds." This was a difficult task +about so plain a matter as the Copernican system, which was opposed by +the combined learning and piety of Europe. How much more difficult must +it be when the change affects the every-day life of every individual? As +Nitti says: "Had the propositions of Euclid affected economic interests +they would still appear doubtful hypotheses of arduous solution." + +[7] "As, then, in philosophy the first step is to begin by doubting +everything, so, in social philosophy, the first step is to throw aside +all supposed absolute rights."--JEVONS. + +The public library is destined to play an important part, to exercise +an incalculable influence in the solution of the social problems of +to-day, and through this on the future of the nation and the race. The +wisdom needed for this task is not to be obtained from schools or +colleges, but from the higher education of mature minds--the masses of +the people--which the public library alone can give. The preparation for +this higher education of the masses devolves on the schools and +colleges. Their curricula should be so arranged as to arouse "historic +consciousness" in the youngest child, to awaken social consciousness, +and to provide for its continuous development by starting every boy and +girl on a career of self-culture--by matriculating every child in the +People's University, the Public Library. In affairs that concern society +as a whole, it is better to trust the well-informed common-sense of the +people than the learning of the schoolmen. + +It is not knowledge of mathematics or physics, or Greek and Latin, or +modern languages; it is not the study--academic study--of history, or +philosophy, or even political economy, that will solve the great social +problems that now confront us. These will help in various degrees, +directly or indirectly, some more, some less, some, perhaps, not at all. +A knowledge of the general course of history is essential; some +acquaintance with philosophy is useful; dogmatic theology serves only to +confuse, but the true religion that lies in a vital acceptance of +Christ's two commandments as a summary of the law and the prophets--that +is the greatest aid of all. Such, however, is the influence of +established order on men's minds that no investigation will avail +without a determination to take nothing for granted, to re-examine what +have been considered basic principles, to accept no postulates that do +not square with reason and justice. This cannot be done by confining our +reading to the accepted standards of a generation or a century ago. We +must keep abreast of the thought of the time; we must keep our eyes and +ears, and still more our minds, open; we must scorn no aids to +enlightenment; but we must do our own thinking; we must consider the +idea, not the source from which it came, remembering that good may come +out of Nazareth; we must live up to the motto; "Truth for authority, not +authority for truth," and we must "lend a hand." + +My faith in the efficacy of the education offered by the public library +is not without foundation. In more than one case I have seen a course of +lectures or the reading of a single book lead to a course of reading in +economics and sociology, which has entirely changed points of view. New +ideals, higher standards, have made new men with higher lines of action. +Their natures have not been changed, but their visions have been +clarified. + +One of the stock arguments which conservatism always brings out to give +a final quietus to any proposal for social reform, is--"Oh, that's +impossible; you'd have to change human nature!" This mental attitude, +which, I am sorry to say, is the prevailing one with the great majority +of mankind, is admirable satirized in some verses which I had great +pleasure in printing in the April number of the St. Louis Public Library +Magazine: + + There was once a Neolithic Man, an enterprising wight, + Who made his simple instruments unusually bright, + Unusually clever he, unusually brave. + And he sketched delightful mammoths on the border of his cave, + To his Neolithic neighbors who were startled and surprised, + Said he: "My friends, in course of time we shall be civilized! + We are going to live in cities and build churches and make laws! + We are going to eat three times a day without the natural cause! + We're going to turn life upside down about a thing called Gold! + We're going to want the earth, and take as much as we can hold! + We are going to wear a pile of stuff outside our proper skins; + We're going to have Diseases! and Accomplishments!! and Sins!!! + Then they all rose up in fury against this boastful friend + For prehistoric patience comes quickly to an end. + Said one, "This is chimerical! Uptopian! Absurd!" + Said another, "What a stupid life! Too dull, upon my word!" + Cried all, "Before such things can come, you idiotic child, + You must alter Human Nature!" and they all sat back and smiled! + Thought they, "An answer to that last it will be hard to find!" + It was a clinching argument--to the Neolithic Mind! + +Yes, great progress and reform can be accomplished without changing +human nature. The elemental forces in the heart of man are the same now +as in the earliest recorded ages, and they are likely to remain the same +for all time to come. We cannot change the elements of man's nature; but +by changing conditions we can improve the product of reaction. We can +elevate conduct by elevating ideals. There was a time when the man who +could wield the heaviest battle-axe was the greatest man; and there are +still circles in which Corbett and Fitzsimmons are regarded as the +greatest men of the present day. But the men who now excite most general +admiration are our "captains of industry," the men who succeed in +getting money and the luxury and power it commands. How shall we elevate +our national ideals? + +Selfishness is a mainspring of human action. A like motive, desire for +happiness, sets men to fighting dogs and to founding hospitals. Nero +found pleasure in one way, Marcus Aurelius in another. Charles I. and +Louis XVI. were not bad men; but they were controlled by outgrown +standards. Elizabeth, Napoleon, Peter, and Catherine of Russia sought +their own pleasure in accordance with their personal characters and the +standards of their times. But how much higher and purer pleasure the +devotion of their talents to the service of their fellowmen brought to +Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln, Cobden, Bright and Gladstone--and +John Pounds! + +False standards, low ideals, now lead many good men to find their +pleasure, not in cruelty, not in sensuality, but in the accumulation of +wealth, partly for the luxury, chiefly for the power it brings. +"Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer." + +With the spread of intelligence and thought, and the consequent +elevation of popular ideals, men possessed of millions will not seek to +add to their large legitimate gains by legalized robbery from their +fellow-citizens; and people calling themselves Christians will not +rejoice in the distress and starvation of their fellow-men across the +ocean. Men will still be selfish but their selfishness will at least be +on a higher plane--less intense, less destructive of essential rights. + +How shall we most speedily bring about this desired consummation? By +what agency can we most effectively elevate our national ideals? By +extending and improving our system of popular education, by reversing +the usual order and beginning where school curricula now end, by placing +our school-children from their earliest years in close and familiar +contact with the life and thought of the race as expressed in +literature, by exciting in every child admiration and emulation of the +world's true heroes, by feeding the imagination and cultivating the +moral faculties, by putting every child into the way of acquiring a +social and a historic perspective. + +I suppose I am one of those simple-minded visionary optimists of whom +Prof. Royce speaks. But I do not "dislike" economic facts in the sense +of ignoring them, and I am not blind to the persistence of the elemental +forces of human nature. But as the abolition of slavery changed men's +mental attitude towards this social crime, without at all changing human +nature, just so I believe that the adoption of other social reforms +would in a generation cause all men to look with horror and wonder upon +social injustice that nearly every one now ignores or regards as +irremediable and inevitable. I share Ruskin's scorn of the word +"Utopian." "A thing is either possible or impossible." As Carlyle says, +"The actual final rights of man lie in the far deeps of the ideal. Every +noble work is at first impossible." In the A.L.A. we have heard the word +"Utopian," or its equivalent, on more than one occasion met by the +motto, "Hitch your wagon to a star"; and we have seen the impracticable +an accomplished fact. + +If time permitted I might risk ridicule by presenting some features of +the vision that I see with the eye of faith in an all-wise and +all-powerful Creater and belief in human perfectibility as an infinite +progress. + + "Die Zukunft decket + Schmerzen and Gluecke + Schrittweis' dem Blicke; + Doch ungeschrecket, + Dringen wir vorwaerts." + + "New occasions teach new duties; + Time makes ancient good uncouth! + They must upward still and onward + Who would keep abreast with truth." + + + + +INDEX + + + Abbott, Abiel, library pioneer, 172. + + Adams, Brooks, quoted, 81. + + Adams, Charles Francis, trustee of Crane Library, Quincy, 308. + + Adams, John Quincy, quoted, 294. + + Adams, Matthew, lends books to Franklin, 133. + + Adams library, Quincy, Mass., 310. + + Adaptation of Libraries to Constituencies, + paper, by S.S. Green; in full, 307. + + Addingham, Eng., home of Robert Collyer, 105. + + Addison, Joseph, quoted, 389. + + Address at the dedication of the Library of the + University of Pennsylvania, + by Talcott Williams; in full, 365. + + Alexander the Great, quoted, 161. + + Alexandrian Library, destruction of, 377. + + Allegheny, Pa., gift of conservatories, 42. + + Alternatives to tax-support; general editorial introduction, 251. + + American Antiquarian Soc'y, 313. + + American Library Ass'n, + work of, 70; + catalogue praised. + + American Magazine of Civics, article from, 169. + + "Americans," book by Munsterberg, chapter quoted, 79. + + Americans as lovers of books, 18. + + Americanization, a library function, 326. + + Ames, Ohio, Public Library, 26, 164. + + Anderson, Col. James, praised by Carnegie, 39. + + Angell, James Burrill, + address at Grand Rapids library opening; in part, 425; + sketch of, 425. + + Arbor, Mich., library, 27. + + Arguments for public support of public libraries, + paper by William E. Foster, in full, 215. + + Arnold, Matthew, + introduction to Wordsworth's poems, 299; + quoted, 338. + + Arnold, Dr. Thomas, on the Reform Bill, 456. + + Art Gallery and School, Hartford, Conn., 148. + + Art School, Boston; B.F. Butler's attack on, 65. + + Art works as donations, 44. + + Association Libraries, 21. + + Astor, John Jacob, library gift, 49. + + Astor Library, 30, 105. + + Atkinson Free Library, Southport, Eng., 208. + + Atlanta Conference, talk by Melvil Dewey at, 75. + + Auditoriums as donations, 45. + + Author's League, N.Y., Carnegie dinner, 33. + + + Bacon, Francis, quoted, 94. + + Baird, Henry Carey, quoted, 384. + + Bakala, Wallachian peasant, legend of, 92. + + Baltimore, Md., + Enoch Pratt Library, 39; + Peabody Institute, 30. + + Barber, Henry Hervey, + article by, 169; + sketch of, 169. + + Barnard, Henry, anecdote of, 76. + + Barr Branch, St. Louis, 446. + + Baths as donations, 45. + + Bellevue Hospital, N.Y. City, gift to, 42. + + Bequests, effect of, 34. + + Bergen, Norway, parks in, 43. + + Berkeley, Gov., opposes free schools, 176. + + Billings, Dr. John Shaw, + article on public libraries, in full, 329; + biog. sketch of, 329; + pioneer in interlibrary work, 385. + + Birge, Edward Asahel, + address at Madison, in full, 109; + sketch of, 109. + + Birmingham (Eng.) Free Library, 41, 175, 207. + + Blackpool Free Library report, quoted, 206. + + Blair, Rev. James, library of, 20. + + Boards of Trustees; + general editorial introduction, 265. + _See also_ TRUSTEES. + + Bodleian Library, rule of, 353. + + Boers, characterized, 227. + + Bolton (Eng.) Free Library founded, 290. + + Book Committee of library board, 275. + + Book-readers, who are? 222. + + Book-selection, 351. + + Books and Life, address by Edward A. Birge; in full, 109. + + Books and the Public Library, + address by James Russell Lowell, in full, 87. + + Books, cheapness of, 204. + + Booklovers among the colonists, 19. + + Boston Art Museum, 313. + + Boston Common Council advocates library, 53. + + Boston, libraries in, 80. + + Boston Public Library; address at its dedication, by Edw. Everett, 127. + + Boston Public Library, 280, 317; + children in, 408; + its building, 81; + gifts to, 153; + facilities of, 327; + fiction purchases in, 321; + praised, 151; + George Ticknor on, 50; + statistics in 1885, 234. + + Bowditch mathematical collection, Boston, 327. + + Bradford, Wm., booklover, 19. + + Brashear, John, 37. + + Bright, John, quoted, 41. + + Bristol, Eng., library report quoted, 208. + + British + education acts, 202; + library law, earliest (1850), 39, 151, 172, 289; + amendment of (1866), 290. + + British Museum, fiction policy, 322. + + Brockton, Mass., reading-room in, 407. + + Brougham, Lord, approves travelling libraries, 171. + + Brown music collection, Boston, 327. + + Brown, Samuel, founds Scottish itinerating libraries, 171. + + Brown, Squire Sam, buys books for "Coon-Skin Library," 26. + + Brown University, paper by Pres. Faunce, 343. + + Brownwell's writing-school, attended by Franklin, 131. + + Browsing commended, 346. + + Burnham, T.O.P.H., book-collector, anecdote of, 313. + + Burton, R., Historical Collections bought by Franklin, 131. + + Business enterprise, library as a, 231. + + Butler, Benj. F., his attack on the Boston Art School, 65. + + Butler, James Davie, + address by, at Madison, Wis., 140; + biog. sketch of, 149. + + Byrd, William, library of, 20. + + + Cabanne Branch, St. Louis, 446., 448. + + California, + anecdotes of pioneers, 159; + school libraries in, 28. + + Calvinism as encourager of reading, 80. + + Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 63, 335, 465. + + Carnegie, Andrew, + article by, 33; + sketch of, 33; + praised by Melvil Dewey, 75; + quoted, 433; + library gifts, 329. + + Carondelet Branch, St. Louis, 445. + + Cassell's National Library, praised, 205. + + Castine, Me., library, 25. + + Catalogues, uses of, 91, 405. + + Censorship, do libraries exercise it? 323. + + Chamberlain, Mellen, Supt. Boston Public Library, 280. + + Chamberlain autograph collection, Boston, 327. + + Charity, so-called, 36. + + Charleston, S.C., Library Society, 24. + + Chaucer, Geoffrey, quoted, 162. + + Chelsea, Mass., address by Lowell at library-opening, 87. + + Chetham, Humphrey, library founder, 353. + + Children + in reading-rooms, 407; + reading of, 303; + work with, 115, 318, 435; + pioneer work of Mrs. Sanders, 401. + + Chicago, library growth in, 169. + + Chicago Public Library, 317; statistics in 1885, 234. + + Churches as objects of philanthropy, 46. + + Cincinnati, O., Springer Hall, 45. + + Cincinnati Public Library, 26, 341 (note); + statistics in 1885, 234. + + Circulation, + proposed by Ticknor, 51; + expediency doubted by Everett, 53. + + Clark, Charles Hopkins, + opening address at Hartford library, 145; + biog. sketch, 147. + + Classics, meaning of term, 5. + + Cleveland, Grover, + address in favor of the N.Y. Free Circ. Lib'y, 139; + biog. sketch of, 139. + + Clinton, De Witt, advocates libraries, 27. + + Club, library as a, 122. + + Club-rooms, use of, 449. + + Colden, Cadwallader, library of, 20. + + Coleridge, Samuel T., quoted, 64. + + Collection of Information: general editorial introduction, 379. + + College, increased attendance, 110. + + College libraries, 20. + + Collyer, Robert, + address given in full, 101; + sketch of, 101; + his story of his own life, 104. + + Colonies, libraries in the, 402. + + Colorado, school libraries in, 28. + + Columbia medical school, Vanderbilt gift to, 42. + + Committees of Library Board, 275. + + Community Center Service; editorial paragraph, 431. + + Community relations, general, 15. + + Community's Service to the Library; editorial introduction, 183. + + Connecticut, school libraries in, 28. + + Conservatism, deplored, 457. + + Contents, Table of, 7. + + Control and Guidance of Reading; general editorial introduction, 395. + + "Coon-Skin Library," Ames, Ohio, 26. + + Co-operation Between Library and Community; + paper by M. Anna Tarbell; in full, 257. + + Cooper Union, N.Y., 30, 41. + + Cornell, Ezra, + bequest, 37; + anecdote of, 98. + + Cost of libraries, 176. + + Cotton mill, first in U.S., 403. + + Countryman, Gratia Alta; + paper on social centres, in full, 433; + biog. sketch, 433. + + Crane Library, Quincy, Mass., 308. + + Crunden, Frederick Morgan, + paper by, in full, 333; + address on library's future, 453; + quoted, 179. + + Crunden Branch, St. Louis, 444. + + Curtis, George William, quoted, 98. + + Cushman, Robt., booklover, 19. + + Cutler, Mary Salome, paper by, 67. + + Cutter, Charles A., quoted, 312. + + Cyclopedia on cards, proposed, 379. + + + Dana, John C., + on interlibrary loans, 383; + quoted, 433. + + Dances at libraries, 449. + + Davenport, John, booklover, 19. + + Defoe, Daniel, "Essay on Projects," read by Franklin, 132. + + Democracy applied to books, 23; an "unworked theory," 414. + + Detroit Society Library, 27. + + Dewey, Melvil, + on the relation of the state to the library; in full, 185; + editor of Library Congress papers, 307; + talk at Atlanta given in full, 75; + advocates card encyclopedia, 379. + + Dickens's novels commended, 294. + + District School Libraries. + _See_ SCHOOL DISTRICT LIBRARIES. + + Dix, John A., establishes libraries, 27. + + Donne, Dr. John, quoted, 89. + + Dresden, beautification of, 43. + + Drury, Gertrude G., aid acknowledged, 5. + + Dudley, Gov., booklover, 19. + + Duties of trustees, 273; + and their relations to librarians; paper by S.S. Green, in full, 279. + + Easter, George, quoted, 211. + + Education Acts, Great Britain, 202. + + Education, + lengthening of, 110; + from libraries, 78, 115, 238, 244, 305, 331, 334, 440. + + Educational influence of the librarian, 420. + + Edwards, Edward, quoted, 296. + + Eliot, Charles W., + suggests reservoir libraries, 307; + quoted, 335. + + Eliot, George, quoted, 192, 441. + + Elmendorf, Mrs. Henry L., paper by, 359; + biog. sketch of, 359. + + Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quoted, 337, 371, 389, 457. + + Endowment of libraries, 30. + + England, + _see_ BRITISH. + + Entertainment a function of libraries, 221, 318, 331, 421, 427. + + Everett, Edward, + letter to, from George Ticknor, 50; + answer, 53; + dedication address of Boston Public Library; in full, 127; + biog. sketch of, 127; + opinions on libraries, 176. + + Evolution of libraries (Dewey), 185. + + Ewart, William, moves library inquiry in House of Commons, 289. + + Ewing, Thomas, quoted, 26. + + + Fairchild, Mrs. Milton, paper by, 67. + + Fairservice, Andrew, quoted, 103. + + Faunce, William Herbert Perry, + paper by, 343; + sketch of, 343. + + "Feminization" of the library, 116. + + Fiction, + use of in libraries, 154, 224, 294, 320, 331, 428; + circulation discussed, 180; + discouraged by J.P. Quincy, 55; + commended by Lowell, 97; + policy of British Museum, 322. + + Finance Committee of library board, 275. + + Financial Support; general editorial introduction, 199. + + Fiske, John, quoted, 361. + + Fletcher, William I., quoted, 177. + + Flint, Mich., library, 27. + + "Flower Band" in Pawtucket, 409. + + Foss, Sam Walker, + paper on inspiration, in full, 419; + sketch of, 419. + + Foster, William E., + paper on securing community interest; in full, 193; + paper advocating public support of libraries in full, 215; + quoted, 314, 356. + + Franklin, Benjamin, + autobiography quoted, 131; + Everett's gift of autobiography to Boston Public Library, 134; + anecdote of, 19; + founds Phila. Library Co., 21, 170; + education of, 130; + quoted, 22, 165. + + Free access, adopted by Mrs. Sanders, in Pawtucket, R.I., 401, 405. + + Free Libraries: + an argument against public support, by M.D. O'Brien, 201. + + Free Public Library, + essay by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, in full, 63; + article by Henry H. Barber, in full, 169; + evolution of, 30. + + Freedom of thought, 455. + + Freeport, Ill., Public Library, 387. + + Freiberg, Saxony, tanning school, 382. + + Froissant, read in rural N.Y., 51. + + Function of a Town Library, paper by Josiah P. Quincy, in full, 55. + + Future of the library, 453. + + + Georgetown, S.C., library in, 24. + + Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 18. + + Gilbert, W.S. ("Iolanthe") quoted, 457. + + Grant, Ulysses S., funeral of, 108. + + Glasgow cathedral, anecdote of, 103. + + Grand Rapids, Mich., address at dedication of building, 425. + + Greece, smallness of, 372. + + Green, Samuel Swett, + paper on duties of trustees, in full, 279; + on adaptation of libraries to constituencies, in full, 307; + address at library-openings, in full, 381; + pioneer in library educational work, 239; + praised by Col. Higginson, 66; + praised, 177. + + Greenough, William W., Pres. Boston Public Library Board, 280. + + Greenwood, Thomas, quoted, 211. + + Griggs, Lilian (Barr Branch, St. Louis) quoted, 446. + + + Hale, Edw. Everett, quoted, 268. + + Harper, William R., quoted, 335. + + Harris Collection of poetry, 314. + + Harris, William T., quoted, 335. + + Harrison, William Henry, a founder of Vincennes Library, 27. + + Hartford, Conn., addresses at opening of Wadsworth Athenaeum Library, 145. + + Harvard College library, 20, 80. + + Harvard University + donations, 38; + bequest of John Harvard, 90; + rule for trustee's terms, 272. + + Haston Library. N. Brookfield, Mass., address at dedication, 381. + + Hatboro, Pa., library in, 106. + + Hawthorne, Nathaniel, praised, 106. + + Herschel, Sir John, quoted, 401. + + Hewins, Caroline, praised, 148. + + Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, + essay by, 63; + sketch of, 63; + quoted, 268, 313. + + Hingham, Mass., library, 25. + + Historical Evolution of the Free Public Library in America and its + True Function in the Community; sketch by Moses Coit Tyler, 17. + + Historical Society, Hartford, 148. + + History defined, 95. + + Home use, + advocated by Ticknor, 51; + doubted by Everett, 53. + + Homer, praised, 366. + + Hood, Thomas, quoted, 157. + + Hooker, Thos., booklover, 19. + + Hosmer, James K., + praised, 177; + resigns, 433. + + Hospitals as donations, 41. + + How to Make Town Libraries Successful; paper by F.B. Perkins, cited, 274. + + How to Use a Library, addresses by James M. Hubard; in full, 297. + + Howell, James, old writer, 90. + + Hubbard, James Mascarene, + addresses by, 297; + sketch of, 297. + + Huxley, Thomas, quoted, 188. + + + Idea of a Popular Library, letter from George Ticknor, 49. + + If Not a Tax-Supported Library, What? + paper in _Iowa Library Quarterly_; in full, 253. + + Ignorance, power of to-day, 413. + + Illinois, school libraries in, 28. + + Increase of libraries, results of, 97. + + _Independent, The_, quoted, 119. + + Indiana, + school libraries in, 28 + Trustee's Association, 265. + + Indigo Society Library, S.C., 24. + + Influence of Good Books, address by Robert Collyer; in full, 101. + + Information Bureau, library as an, 381. + + Information-desk work, 387. + + Inspiration from libraries, 419. + + Insurance of a library, 240. + + Interlibrary loans, 312, 381. + + International Library Conference, London, Second, 185. + + International Congress of Arts (1904), paper before, 333. + + Iowa, + school libraries in, 28; + Library Commission, 246; + Library Code, 253. + + _Iowa Library Quarterly_, paper from, in full, 253. + + Ireland, Alexander, book praised, 87. + + Irving, Washington, + commended, 105; + anecdote of, 163. + + + Jefferson, Thomas, quoted, 293. + + Jerome, Jerome K., quoted, 117. + + Jevons, William Stanley, + approves free libraries, 230; + commends travelling libraries, 171; + quoted, 175, 336, 461. + + Johns Hopkins bequest, 37. + + Johnson, Samuel, quoted, 58. + + + Kalamazoo, Mich., library, 27. + + Kansas, school libraries in, 28. + + Kentucky, school libraries in, 28. + + Kittery, Me., "Revolving Library," 25. + + Knox, John, quoted, 245. + + + Laboratories as donations, 41. + + Lancaster, Mass., library in, 25. + + Langley, Samuel P., discoveries of, 37. + + Larned, Joseph Nelson, + A.L.A. address, in full, 411; + biog. sketch of, 411; + quoted, 70. + + Lawrence, Abbott, 50, 52. + + Lawrence, James, pres. Boston Council, 53. + + Lea, Henry C., library gift, 170. + + Leamington Free Library (Eng.), 208. + + Learned, John Calvin, paper by, in full, 267; + sketch of, 267. + + Lecture courses in libraries, 123, 157, 262. + + Lenox Library, N.Y., 30. + + Lessing, quoted, 159. + + Levy of Library Tribute, paper by Henry M. Utley; in full, 243. + + Librarian and his Constituents, paper by Reuben B. Poole; in full, 351. + + Librarian, + qualities necessary in, 71, 281, + his relations with his Board, 271, 279; + "who reads," 420. + + Libraries as Bureaus of Information; address by S.S. Green; in part, 381. + + Libraries as Leaven, inauguration address + at Madison, Wis., Public Library, by James D. Butler, 149. + + Libraries, + growth of in U.S., 113; + as donations, 39. + + Library; a plea for its recognition, + paper by Frederick M. Crunden; in full, 333. + + Library and Society; general introduction, 13. + + Library and the Social Centre; paper by Lutie E. Stearns, in full, 439. + + Library as a Factor in Modern Civilization, + paper by W.H.P. Faunce; in full, 343. + + Library as a Field for Philanthropy, article by Andrew Carnegie, 33. + + Library as a Social Centre; paper by Gratia A. Countryman; in full, 433. + + Library as an Inspirational Force; + paper by Sam Walter Foss; in full, 419. + + Library Association of the United Kingdom, opposed, 207. + + Library associations, local, 253. + + Library buildings, imposing, 343. + + Library Commission, + Iowa, 246; + Massachusetts, 181, 263, 385. + + Library Friend, paper by Winifred L. Taylor; + in full, 387. + + _Library Journal_ recommended to trustees, 274. + + Library of Congress, 79; + advice to "weed out," 309; + "weeding out," 371. + + Library Schools in U.S., 84. + + Library Work from the Trustees' Standpoint, + paper by John C. Learned; in full, 267. + + Library's Service to the Community; general editorial introduction, 285. + + Lick Observatory donation, 37. + + Lincoln, Abraham, educated by reading, 297. + + Liverpool Free Library, 208; + founded, 290. + + Logan, Jas., library of, 20. + + London _Daily News_, quoted, 207. + + London Library Conference (1897), 337. + + Loomis, Elias, Yale donor, 38. + + Louisville, Ky., no free public library in (1885), 233. + + Lovejoy, Elijah P., death of, 454. + + Lowell, James Russell, + address by, 87; + sketch of, 87; + quoted, 226, 440, + (Hosea Bigelow), 409. + + Lowell, Mass., + statistics of, 403; + reading-room in, 407. + + Luther, Martin, quoted, 162. + + Lynn, Mass., library statistics (1885), 234. + + + McGlynn, Father, quoted, 108. + + Mackay, Thomas, editor of "Plea for Liberty," essays, 201. + + Madison, Wis., + library, inauguration address, 149; + Boston man's opinion of, 157. + + Maine, school libraries in, 28. + + Manchester (England) + Free Library founded, 290, 353; + library use in, 175. + + Manchester, N.H., statistics of, 403. + + Mann, Horace, + advocates libraries, 28; + favors school libraries, 172. + + Manners, Lord John, opposes British library act, 290. + + Manufacturing towns, libraries in, 401. + + Marietta, Ohio, library, 26. + + Massachusetts, + passes first free library act, 31, 172, 289; + growth of libraries in, 173; + Library Commission, 181, 263, 385; + school libraries in, 28, 171. + + Mather, Cotton, + "Essay to do good," read by Franklin, 132; + library of, 20. + + Mazzini, on education, 334. + + "Mawtucket of Pawtucket," 401. + + Meadville City Library, 179. + + Medical Schools as donations, 41. + + Melbourne, Australia, travelling libraries in, 171. + + "Men and Women," by T.W. Higginson, essay reprinted from, 63. + + Men, library work with, 120. + + Methods of securing the interest of a community, + paper by Wm. E. Foster; in full, 193. + + Metropolitan Museum, N.Y., 41. + + Michigan, + libraries in, 27; + failure of district libraries, 29. + + Milk St., Boston, Franklin's birthplace, 135. + + Milton, John, quoted, 108, 146. + + Milwaukee, + school attendance in, 110; + library statistics (1885), 234. + + Minnesota, school libraries in, 28. + + Minnesota Library Association, paper at, 433. + + Missouri, school libraries in, 28. + + Monks as librarians, 351. + + Moore, Tom, quoted, 154. + + Morris, William, quoted, 440. + + Mullins, Mr., Birmingham, Eng., librarian, quoted, 207. + + Municipal Cooperation in St. Louis, 459. + + Munsterberg, Hugo, + chapter quoted in full, 79; + sketch of, 79. + + + Nashville, Tenn., Vanderbilt Univ., 38. + + National Municipal League, article written for, 320. + + New Bedford, Mass., + library opened, 151; + statistics (1885), 234. + + New books, necessity of, 232. + + New England town meetings praised, 108. + + New Englanders, practicality of, 90. + + New Hampshire + library law, 172; + mandatory, 316; + library growth in, 174. + + New Jersey, school libraries in, 28. + + New Orleans, wishes no free library, 233. + + New York City, no free public library in (1885), 233. + + New York Free Circulating Library; + address in its favor by Grover Cleveland; in full, 139. + + New York Public Library, 139. + + New York Society Library, 25. + + New York State, + libraries in, 27; + failure of district libraries, 29; + public libraries department, 191; + travelling libraries in, 174, 191. + + Newburyport, Mass., library statistics (1885), 234. + + Newcastle-on-Tyne library, 209. + + Newport, R.I., library at, 25. + + News, triviality of, 93. + + Newspapers + as aids to libraries, 261; + influence of, 186, 415. + + Nitti, quoted, 461. + + _North American Review_, quoted, 33. + + North Brookfield, Mass., opening address at Haston Library, 381. + + Northwest Territory, ordinance of 1787, 244. + + Norwich, Eng., library report quoted, 211. + + Notes, making of, on books, 429. + + + Objections to libraries classified, 291. + + O'Brien, M.D., + argument against public support of libraries; in full, 201; + answered by W.E. Foster, 215. + + Ohio, school libraries in, 28. + + _Old and New_, paper quoted from, 55. + + Olneyville, R.I., reading room in, 408. + + Oregon, school libraries in, 28. + + Organization of trustees, 274. + + Osborne, Mr., gift to Bellevue Hospital, N.Y., 42. + + Osborne, _Mrs_. C.J., Yale donor, 38. + + + Packer, Asa, bequest, 37. + + Page, Father, N.Y. library pioneer, 172. + + Palmer, Sir Roundell, opposes British library act, 290. + + Paradise Lost, J.Q. Adams on, 294. + + Parks as donations, 42. + + Peabody Library, Baltimore, 30. + + Peabody Museum, Harvard, 38. + + Penn, William, booklover, 19. + + Pennsylvania Library Club, paper reprinted, 67. + + Pennsylvania University Library, address at dedication; in full, 365. + + "Peoples University," library as the, 126. + + Peoria, Ill., Mercantile Library, 179. + + Periodicals, use of, 356. + + Perkins, Frederic Beecher, + paper given in full, 231; + biog. sketch of, 231; + quoted, 274. + + Peterboro, N.H., free library, 172. + + Philadelphia Centennial, effects of, 145. + + Philadelphia, no public library in (1885), 233. + + Philadelphia Liby Co., founded by Franklin, 21; 133. + + Phillips, Jonathan, 50. + + Phillips, Wendell, on education, 334. + + Phipps, Henry, partner of Carnegie donations to Allegheny, 42, 38. + + Pierce, Bradford Kinney, + paper by, in full, 397; + biog. sketch of, 397. + + Pittsfield, Mass., library addresses at, 297. + + Pittsburgh technical room, 121. + + "Plea for Liberty," essays, + extracts from, 201; + quoted, 216. + + Plutarch, quoted, 36. + + Political meetings in a library, 446. + + Poole, Reuben Brooks, + paper on choice of books, in full, 351; + biog. sketch of, 351. + + Poole, William Frederick, + paper on objections to libraries, 287; + sketch of, 287; + library study plan, 239. + + Poole's Index, 287; + value of, 356. + + Portland, Me., library, 25. + + Possibilities of Public Libraries in Manufacturing Communities; + paper by Minerva A. Sanders; in full, 401. + + Pratt, Enoch, praised by Carnegie, 33. + + Pratt Institute technical room, 121. + + Pratt Library, Baltimore, 39. + + Preface, 5. + + Presidential Address (A.L.A.), by Joseph N. Larned; in full, 411. + + Pretlow, Mary D. (Cabanne Branch, St. Louis), quoted, 448. + + Private libraries in the colonies, 20. + + Probable Intellectual and Moral Outcome of the + Rapid Increase of Public Libraries; + paper by Rev. Dr. B.K. Pierce; in full, 397. + + "Protection of Majorities and Other Essays," by J.P. Quincy, quoted, 55. + + Providence, R.I., Public Library, 25, 84, 314. + + Provision of Books; general editorial introduction, 349. + + Public Library and the Public, + paper by Frederic Beecher Perkins; in full, 231. + + Public Library in American Life, + extract from book by Hugo Munsterberg, 79. + + Public Library; its Uses to the Municipality, + article by Dr. John S. Billings; in full, 329. + + Public Library, functions classified, 340. + + Public, desires of, 193. + + Public Support of libraries + opposed, 201; + advocated, 215. + + Putnam, Herbert, + paper on libraries and the community; in full, 315; + biog. sketch of, 315. + + + Qualifications of a librarian (Dewey), 191; + (Green), 281; + of trustees (Green), 272. + + Quigley, Margery Closey; + report on social centre work in St. Louis; in part, 443; + biog. sketch, 443. + + Quincy, Josiah, suggests Mass. library act, 289. + + Quincy, Josiah P., + paper in full, 55; + biog. sketch, 55. + + Quincy, Mass. Crane Library, 308; + plan of "weeding out," 309; + Adams collection, 310. + + + Racine, Wis., school attendance in, 110. + + Raleigh, Sir Walter, 18. + + Raphael, Italian artist, 166. + + Ray, Dr. Isaac, quoted, 57. + + Reade's "Griffith Gaunt" condemned by J.P. Quincy, 57. + + Readers, classes of, 301. + + Reading, + encouragement of, 346; + of librarians, 420. + + Reading-rooms, 411; + as educators, 406. + + Reclus, Elisee, quoted, 227. + + Recreation, + _see_ ENTERTAINMENT. + + Redwood Library, Newport, 25. + + Reference work, 389. + + Reform Act (British) of 1832, 455. + + Relation of Free Public Libraries to the Community, + article by Herbert Putnam; in full, 315. + + Relation of the State to the Public Library; + statement by Melvil Dewey; in full, 185. + + Reservoir libraries, suggested by Pres. Eliot, 307. + + "Revolving Library" of York and Kittery, Me., 25. + + Rhode Island, school libraries in, 28. + + Richard Sugden Library, Spencer, Mass., opening address, 101. + + Ripley, George, anecdote of, 102. + + Rousseau, "Confessions," favorite of Emerson, 95. + + Ryerson Library Building, Grand Rapids, Mich., + address at dedication, 425. + + + St. Louis, + fiction purchases in, 321; + no free public library in (1885), 233. + + St. Louis Library School, 5. + + St. Louis Public Library, + social centre work at, 443; + Library Board quoted, 340; + _Public Library_ Magazine quoted, 463. + + St. Louis World's Fair, 333. + + St. Paul, quoted, 460. + + Salem, Mass., Social Library, 25. + + San Francisco Public Library, + paper about, 231; + statistics (1885) 234. + + Sanders, Minerva Amanda, + paper by, in full, 401; + biog. sketch of, 401. + + Scholastic libraries in the colonies, 20. + + School and library co-operation, 426. + + School attendance, increase of, 110. + + School District libraries, 27; + failure in N.Y. and Mich., 29; + described by Barber, 171. + + School _versus_ library, 337. + + Schools, free, opposed, 201. + + Scotland, travelling libraries in, 171. + + Scott's novels commended, 294. + + Seaver, Mayor, advocates library in Boston, 53. + + Seneca, quoted, 164. + + Sentiment, part played by, in public institutions, 329. + + Sever Hall, Harvard, 38. + + Shakespeare, William, 163. + + Shakesperiana in libraries, 327. + + Sheffield Scientific School, 38. + + Sibthorp, Col., opposes British library act, 290. + + Simon, Jules, on education, 334. + + Smith, _Capt_. John, booklover, 19. + + Smoking in libraries, 122. + + Social Centre, + library as a, 433, 439; + in St. Louis, 443. + + Social consciousness, growth of, 13. + + Social Libraries, + foundation of, 170; + in Salem, Mass., 25. + + Social meetings in a library, 447. + + Socialism opposed, 201. + + Socialization, trend toward, 15. + + Society Library, N.Y. City, 25. + + Some Popular Objections to Public Libraries, + paper by William F. Poole, in full, 287. + + Soule, Charles Carroll, + paper by, 271; + sketch of, 271. + + South Carolina, colonial libraries in, 24. + + Southey, Robert, quoted, 92. + + Southport, Eng., free library, 208. + + Spencer, Herbert, + opposes free education, 201; + opposes free libraries, 178, 292; + quoted, 460. + + Spencer, Mass., Sugden Library, 101. + + Spenser, Edmund, quoted, 97. + + Spofford, A.R., quoted, 57. + + Springer Hall, Cincinnati, 45. + + Springfield, Mass. library statistics (1885), 234. + + _Springfield Republican_, paper from, 257. + + Stages of libraries, six, 17. + + Stanford, Leland, bequest, 37. + + Statistics of American libraries + (1876), 289; + (1885), 234. + + Stead, William T., quoted, 456. + + Stearns, Lutie E., paper on social centres, in full, 439. + + Stevens Point Library, 123. + + Story, Chief Justice, quoted, 150. + + Street, Augustus, Yale donor, 38. + + Subscription libraries, 21. + + Sugden, Richard, + gives library to Spencer, Mass., 101; + sketch of, 102. + + Sunday opening, Allegheny parks, 43. + + Swimming pools as gifts, 46. + + + Tarbell, Ida, quoted, 446. + + Tarbell, M. Anna, paper by, in full, 257. + + Tarde, Gabriel, quoted, 461. + + Taunton, Mass., library statistics (1885), 234. + + Taxation, dread of, 291; + for library support, 243, 330; + use for fiction circulation opposed, 60. + + Taylor, Winifred Louise, paper by, in full, 387; + biog. sketch of, 387. + + Teacher, librarian as a, 395. + + Teaching, N.Y. investigation of, 77. + + Technical rooms + in libraries, 121; + use in libraries, 238. + + Technical training, growth of, 110. + + Term of office of trustees, 272. + + Thaw, William, Pittsburgh donor, 37. + + Ticknor, George, + extract from "Life and Letters" given at length, 49; + sketch of, 49; + letter to Edward Everett, 176. + + Ticknor Spanish collection, Boston 327. + + Tilden, Samuel J., + bequest, 169; + will-contest, 34. + + Tom Sawyer's fence, 422. + + Translations commended, 96. + + Travelling Libraries, + Scotch, 171; + Australian, 171; + New York state, 174, 191, 316. + + Treasurer of Library Board, 274. + + Trumbull, J. Hammond, librarian, 148. + + Trumbull collection, Hartford, 383. + + Trustees, + Boards of, 265; + duties of, 279; + standpoint in library work, 261; + A.L.A. section, 265. + + Trustees of Free Public Libraries, + paper, by Charles C. Soule, in full, 271. + + Two Fundamentals, paper by Mary Salome Cutler Fairchild, 67. + + Tyler, Moses Coit, + paper by, 17; + sketch of, 17. + + + Union St., Boston; + Franklin's house, 135. + + Unitarianism in St. Louis, 460. + + Universities, foundation of, 36. + + University + libraries in U.S., 80; + without a library, 370. + + Use of the Public Library, address by James B. Angell; in part, 425. + + Usefulness of Libraries in Small Towns, + paper by Theresa West (now Mrs. Elmendorf) in full, 359. + + Utley, Henry Munson, + paper by, in full, 243; + sketch of, 243. + + + Vanderbilt gift + to Columbia, 42; + to Vanderbilt University, 38. + + Vested rights, influence of, 455. + + Victorian Reign, retrospect of, 456. + + Villiers, Charles, quoted, 454. + + Vincennes, Ind., library, 26. + + Virginia, school libraries in, 28. + + + Wadsworth Athenaeum, 147; + addresses at the opening of its library in Hartford, Conn., 145. + + Wallachian legend, 92, 226. + + Waltham, Mass., statistics of, 403. + + Warner, Chas. Dudley, + opening address at Hartford library, 145; + biog. sketch, 145. + + Washington, Life of, inspiration to Lincoln, 297. + + Washington, D.C., libraries of, 80. + + Watkinson, library donor, 148. + + Watkinson Library, Trumbull collection, 383. + + Wausaukee Library, 123. + + Wellington, Duke of, opposes Reform Bill, 456. + + Wesley, John, quoted, 421. + + West, Sir Algernon, quoted, 453. + + West, Theresa, + _see_ ELMENDORF. + + What a Library Should be and What It Can Do; talk by Melvil Dewey, 75. + + What of the Future? address by Frederick M. Crunden; in full, 453. + + Where Neighbors Meet; St. Louis report by Margery Quigley, in part, 443. + + Wigan, Eng., Library report quoted, 208. + + Wilcox, William, English bookseller, friend of Franklin, 133. + + William and Mary College library, 20. + + Williams, Roger, booklover, 19. + + Williams, Talcott, + address at library dedication, in full, 365; + biog. sketch of, 365. + + Williamson bequest to Phila., 34. + + Winslow, Edward, booklover, 19. + + Winslow, Dr. Forbes, quoted, 57. + + Winsor, Justin, + Sup't Boston Public Library, 280; + promotes interlibrary loans, 384. + + Winthrop, Robert C., quoted, 134. + + Winthrops, the, booklovers, 19. + + Winyard, S.C., library, 24. + + Wisconsin Library Ass'n, address before, 109. + + Wisconsin + Library fund used for military purposes, 151; + school libraries in, 28. + + Wisconsin University, 109. + + Women + as library founders in Michigan, 27; + library work with, 116; + clubs in libraries, 440; + aids to libraries, 260. + + Worcester, Mass., + library statistics (1885), 234; + Public Library, 66, 239, 279; + disposition of old books in, 313. + + Wordsworth, William, + quoted, 89; + poems of, 299. + + Workingmen and libraries, 209. + + World's Library Congress of 1893, paper read at, 307. + + Wyer, James I., Jr., suggestion acknowledged, 5. + + + Yale + Art School, 38; + college library, 20. + + Yarmouth, Eng., Library report quoted, 208. + + York, Me., "Revolving Library," 25. + + Yorkshire, Eng., home of Richard Sugden, 103. + + Young Men's Institute Library, Hartford, Conn., 147. + + Young Men's Society Library, Detroit, 27. + + + _Zion's Herald_, paper by editor, 397. + + Zosinius, history, inaccessible, 151. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes + +This book consists of multiple contributions by various authors. +Inconsistencies in the spelling of Proper Names have been retained. +Other instances of questionable spelling and even more questionable +grammar have been retained. However, the following typographical +corrections have been made. + + Page 8 + ("Orations and Speeches, Boston, 1859; Vol. III. + ("Orations and Speeches", Boston, 1859; Vol. III. + + Page 56 + taxation of towns and small muncipalities. + taxation of towns and small municipalities. + + Page 57 + physicians have agreed as to the influence they exert + physicians have agreed as to the influence they exert. + + Page 91 + short-cut to learning, but that there may be, and is, such a short cut + short-cut to learning, but that there may be, and is, such a short-cut + + Page 98 + most strict and sacred bond and convenant of the Lord, of the violation + most strict and sacred bond and covenant of the Lord, of the violation + + Page 135 + every Frankln medal boy shall be entitled to its privileges; and + every Franklin medal boy shall be entitled to its privileges; and + + Page 141 + the daily recurring routine of effort for mere existence, canont escape + the daily recurring routine of effort for mere existence, cannot escape + + Page 170 + brillant triumphs for the free public library, unparalled in the + brilliant triumphs for the free public library, unparalleled in the + + Page 210 + the task will be an easy one." + the task will be an easy one.' + + Page 245 + secondary, or betwen secondary and higher education, there is where the + secondary, or between secondary and higher education, there is where the + + Page 272 + year. This provision secures stability by preventing suddent changes of + year. This provision secures stability by preventing sudden changes of + + Page 292 + maintenance of public health, the introducation of water and gas, the + maintenance of public health, the introduction of water and gas, the + + Page 295 + whole in the new Centennial edition. The accurage student of specialties + whole in the new Centennial edition. The accurate student of specialties + + Page 317 + with a two millon dollar building, studded with costly mosaics, and + with a two million dollar building, studded with costly mosaics, and + + Page 320 + who are avid to read the latest novel by Mr X. or Mrs Y. while it is + who are avid to read the latest novel by Mr. X. or Mrs. Y. while it is + + Page 325 + denounce this or that publication. Yet is is to be remembered that a + denounce this or that publication. Yet it is to be remembered that a + + Page 326 + cheap silver prints and the Art Museum is but a hundred feet distant; + cheap silver prints and the Art Museum is but a hundred feet distant); + + Page 334 + deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughful man." "Education," exclaims + deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man." "Education," exclaims + + Page 336 + But is it worth while to consider a unversity without a library? + But is it worth while to consider a university without a library? + + Page 372 + panolpy of learning on whose myriad rivets so many hammers have rung, + panoply of learning on whose myriad rivets so many hammers have rung, + + This exalts the miscroscopic municipalities of Greece. This abases the + This exalts the microscopic municipalities of Greece. This abases the + + Page 375 + its compass and sound, measure the confines thereof or phophesy its far + its compass and sound, measure the confines thereof or prophesy its far + + Page 381 + part of an address delivered a the dedication of the Haston + part of an address delivered at the dedication of the Haston + + Page 402 + "It is morally impossiblle but that the manners should take a tinge of + "It is morally impossible but that the manners should take a tinge of + + Page 404 + practical worth and preserverance either in mechanical, civil, or + practical worth and perserverance either in mechanical, civil, or + + Page 406 + "'Tis a wise community that enables its trustees to give to their + 'Tis a wise community that enables its trustees to give to their + + Page 412 + well for a reason. Democrary was fairly equipped with a spelling-book + well for a reason. Democracy was fairly equipped with a spelling-book + + Page 440 + boys that frequent the gymnasium may be won by Barbour's lastest + boys that frequent the gymnasium may be won by Barbour's latest + + Page 463 + a final quietus to any propsal for social reform, is--"Oh, that's + a final quietus to any proposal for social reform, is--"Oh, that's + + Page 467 + Boston Public Library; address at it dedication, by Edw. Everett, 127. + Boston Public Library; address at its dedication, by Edw. 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