The Library and Society Part 4

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 a.s.sociation, who const.i.tute with some marked exceptions, who prefer to work alone, the high-water mark of the fraternity. As their names pa.s.s 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sistants 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 cla.s.sification, 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 a.s.sociation 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 cla.s.sification, 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 n.o.blest 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 a.s.sistants. 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 a.s.sistants 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 a.s.sociation, 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 ill.u.s.tration in the recent war with Spain that education pays, in what it means to have the man behind the guns trained. We have an ill.u.s.tration in Mr. Carnegie's work, whose name has been mentioned here in his compet.i.tion with the rest of the world, ill.u.s.trating 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 a.s.sociation 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 a.n.a.lyze 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 cla.s.s 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sistant 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 munic.i.p.al 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 Inst.i.tute 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 inst.i.tutions.

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 Inst.i.tution, few books except those on politics, history, political economy, and law. The lack of s.p.a.ce 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 ma.n.u.scripts 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 surpa.s.singly beautiful.

And all this is free to the humblest working-man.

And still, if the citizen of Ma.s.sachusetts 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, Ma.s.sachusetts 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 a.s.sociation a few years since, as a typical collection of five thousand books. This catalog, which, with the exception of the most important foreign cla.s.sics, 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 subst.i.tute 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 cla.s.ses, 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.