Why do we need a public library? Part 4

USE OF LIBRARIES FOR REFERENCE

An ability to glean information quickly and accurately from books and periodicals, to catch a fact when it is needed and useful, is an indispensable factor in that self-education which all citizens should add to the education obtained in the schools. The schools cannot give a wide range of knowledge, but they can give the desire for knowledge, and the library can give the opportunity to gain it.

Nearly every branch taught in the schools may be lightened and made more interesting by supplementary information gained from a good library. The pupil who is studying the life of Washington should find many interesting facts concerning him and his time and a.s.sociates, not given in any of the formal biographies. He will find an article on Washington in the "Young Folks' Cyclopedia of Persons and Places," but if he knows how to use the index he can find fourteen other articles in the same volume in which Washington is mentioned. A large encyclopedia will give scores of facts wanted, under various articles treating of important events in the latter colonial and earlier national history of our country, in articles on places, customs, epochs, battles, and soldiers and statesmen who were Washington's contemporaries.

A teacher cannot train a large number of young people to habits of thorough investigation in a brief time, but she can easily train a few, one or two at a time, and they will help to train others.

F. A. HUTCHINS.

THE MODERN LIBRARY MOVEMENT

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 aspirations, still greater usefulness. It is a distinctive movement, because it recognizes, as never before, the infinite possibilities of the public library, and because it has done everything within its power to develop those possibilities.

Among the peculiar relations that a library sustains to a community, which the movement has made clear and greatly advanced, are its relations to the school and university extension. The education of an individual is coincident with the life of that individual. It is carried on by the influences and appliances of the family, vocation, government, the church, the press, the school and the library. The library is unsectarian, and hence occupies a field independent of the church. It furnishes a foundation for an intelligent reading of paper and magazine.

It is the complement and supplement of the school, co-operating with the teacher in the work of educating the child, and furnishing the means for continuing that education after the child has gone out from the school.

These are important relations. From the beginning the child is taught the value of books. In the kindergarten period he learns that they contain beautiful pictures; in the grammar grades they do much to make history and geography attractive; in the high school they are indispensable as works of reference.

Were it not for the library, the education of the ma.s.ses would, in most cases, cease when the doors of the school swung in after them for the last time; but it keeps those doors wide open, and is, in the truest sense of the word, the university of the people. The library is as much a part of the educational system of a community as the public school, and is coming more and more to be regarded with the same respect and supported in the same generous manner.

The public library of to-day is an active, potential force, serving the present, and silently helping to develop the civilization of the future.

The spirit of the modern library movement which surrounds it is thoroughly progressive, and thoroughly in sympathy with the people. It believes that the true function of the library is to serve the people, and that the only test of success is usefulness.

JOSEPH LEROY HARRISON.

THE PEOPLE'S UNIVERSITY

There is no inst.i.tution so intimately, so universally, so constantly connected with the life of the whole people as the free public library--no instrumentality that can do so much to civilize society. The public schools alone cannot accomplish the task of elevating mankind to even the most modest ideal of a well ordered society.

Our public schools have been the chief source of the greater general intelligence and hence the industrial superiority of our citizens over those of other countries. But the public schools cannot accomplish impossibilities. They are not to blame for the fact that they can reach the great majority during only six or eight years, or that only one and one half per cent of the children in the United States go through the high school. But wherever there is a public library, the teachers are to blame if they do not graduate all their pupils, at whatever age they may leave school, into the People's University.

General intelligence is the necessary foundation of prosperity and social order.

The public library is one of the chief agencies, if not the most potent and far-reaching agency, for promoting general intelligence.

Therefore, money devoted to the maintenance of a public library is money well invested by a community.

F. M. CRUNDEN.

PUBLIC LIBRARY, A PUBLIC NECESSITY

Any consideration of a public library project is complimentary to a community, showing, as it does, a sense of civic responsibility and a desire for future progress which are commendable. No town can hope to live up to its greatest possibilities without a public library, and none with a sincere desire need be denied the blessings which result from such an inst.i.tution.

There are few communities which would not provide for a public library, if its advantages were appreciated, for it is a remedy for many ills and is all-embracing in its scope. It vitalizes school work, and receiving the pupil from the school, the library continues his education throughout life. It is a home missionary, sending its messengers, the books, into every shop and home. With true missionary zeal, it not only sends help, but opens its doors to every man, woman and child. In most towns, there are scores of young men and boys whose evenings are spent in loafing about the streets, and to these the library offers an attractive meeting place, where the time may be spent with jolly, wise friends in the books. The library subst.i.tutes better for poorer reading, and provides story hours for the children who are eager to hear before they are able to read. It also increases the earning capacity of people, by supplying information and advice on the work they are doing.

Increased taxation is one of the greatest hindrances to the opening of a public library, but any inst.i.tution which enriches and uplifts the lives of the people, is the greatest economy. Any attempt to conduct civic affairs without a reasonable expenditure of money for such influences is the grossest extravagance. No economy results from ignorance and vice, and the public library has long since established its claim as one of the most potent remedies for such conditions.

It is no exaggeration to state that every dollar expended for library purposes is returned to the community tenfold, not necessarily in dollars and cents, but in the more permanent, more valuable a.s.sets of greater happiness, comfort and progress of the people. A city is the expression of every life within its borders, and every increase in progress and efficiency in the individual citizen, is progress for the whole.

The most valuable things usually are obtained at some sacrifice, and the many advantages from a public library are certainly worth paying for.

Hundreds of small cities and towns tax themselves for electric plants and count themselves fortunate. No one seems to regret this taxation for electric lights which illuminate the citizen's way at night. Should there not be an equal or greater readiness on the part of a community to establish a library and so illuminate the mental horizon of every citizen?

A public library is a necessity, not a luxury. Every community which realizes this and establishes a library, proclaims itself an intelligent, progressive town and one worth living in.

CHALMERS HADLEY.

The opening of a free public library is a most important event in any town. There is no way in which a community can more benefit itself than in the establishment of a library which shall be free to all citizens.

WILLIAM McKINLEY.

PUBLIC LIBRARY, A PUBLIC OPPORTUNITY

Modern industrialism exacts from the artisan and the worker in every branch, skill and knowledge not dreamed of years ago. He who would not be trampled under foot needs to keep pace with the onward sweep in his particular craft. The public library furnishes to the ambitious artisan the opportunity to rise. Upon its shelves he may find the latest and the best in invention and in method and in knowledge. Never in the history of the country has there been such a desire manifested among the adult population for continued education as may be noted to-day. Does it not speak eloquently of ambition to rise above circ.u.mstances--that same spirit that we have admired in our Franklins and our Lincolns and the long roll of self-made men whose lives we are proud to recall? And so library extension takes note of adult education, and combining its forces with university extension, realizes that broader movement variously termed home education, popular education and the people's college.

The library gives heed to the future, and thus does not neglect the child. The intelligent work of the children's librarian, supplementing the related work of the teacher, aims to develop the individual talent or dormant resource which finds no chance for expression where children are necessarily treated as ma.s.ses. And we may never know what society has lost by failure to quicken into life this dormant talent for invention, for art, for literature, for philosophy. "The loss to society of the unearned increment is trivial compared to the loss of the undiscovered resource." Had r.e.t.a.r.ding influences affected half a dozen men whom we could readily name--Morse, Fulton, Stephenson, Edison, Bell, Marconi--we might to-day be without the locomotive, the steamship, the telegraph, the telephone--the myriad marvels of electricity that to-day seem commonplaces. What we have actually lost during this great century of scientific development we can never know. Nor must we forget that invention is the result of c.u.mulated knowledge which the fertile brain of man utilizes in new directions, and that the preservation of the knowledge and experience of the centuries is the province of the public library, where all alike may have access to its riches. The ideal democracy is the democracy of knowledge and of learning.

The library endeavors, by applying the traveling library principle to collections of pictures, by means of the ill.u.s.trated lecture and otherwise, to cultivate among the people an appreciation of the beautiful and artistic that shall ultimately find expression in the home and its surroundings.

The library believes, too, that recreative reading is a legitimate function. We hold, with William Morton Payne, that a sparkling and sprightly story, which may be read in an hour and which will leave the reader with a good conscience and a sense of cheerfulness, has its merits. In this work-a-day world of ours we need a bit of cheer for the hours which ought to be restful as well as resting hours. Library extension is imbued with optimism; its broadening field is educational, sociological, recreative. Unblinded to the evils of the day, its promoters realize inability to amend them except by educational processes affecting all the people. They do not preach the gospel of discontent, but seek realization of conditions which shall bring about contentment and happiness. That, after all, for the welfare of the people, wants need be but few and easily supplied. He who has food, raiment and shelter in reasonable degree, access to the intellectual wealth of the world in public libraries, to the riches created by the master painters and sculptors, found in public galleries and museums, to the untrammeled use of public parks and drives, and the many other universal advantages which are now so increasingly many, need not envy the richest men on earth. Many a millionaire is poorer than the most humble of his employees, for excessive wealth brings its own train of evils to torment its possessor. Commercial success is a legitimate endeavor among men, and thrift is to be commended, but when these degenerate into greed, pity and not envy should be the meed of the man seized with the money disease.

HENRY E. LEGLER.

THE LIBRARY AND THE WORKERS

My opinion of the public library from a workingman's standpoint is, that it is the greatest boon that could possibly be conferred upon him. It places him at once upon the level with the millionaire, the student and the philosopher. It opens for him (whose poverty would otherwise debar him) the vast fields of literature. Here he may wander at will with the master minds of humanity, hand in hand with the great thinkers of the ages, open his mind and heart to the lessons taught by those great leaders of men who have conquered nations and shaped the destinies of the human race. Here he may a.s.sociate with the greatest, the wisest and the best. There is no limit to the possibilities of possessing knowledge which is power, without money and without price. The public library should be managed in the best interests of the workingman, and the books should be purchased mainly with his welfare in view. The capitalist can buy and own his own books. The workingman cannot do this. The children of the workingman must get from the public library the general books of reference which the business man has in his home. The children of the workingman must have these books in order properly to do their school work and thoroughly understand it. Their teachers require this. The children of the workingman have their schools as well as the library.

Their work in the schools and the work in the library go hand in hand, but the workingman himself has only the library for his school and must, of necessity, go there. His schoolroom is the reference room, for the knowledge he gains in that department he can at once put into practical use in any capacity in which he may be employed.

The question arises, having presented those opportunities to the workingman, will he take advantage of them? I answer, he surely will. It is now more than twenty years since I joined a labor organization, the "Stone-cutters' Union" of Minneapolis. Since that time I have always been affiliated with organized workingmen. During all these years the workingman has taken advantage of every opportunity to better the condition of himself, his fellow workman and his employer. He has learned to be more patient, more conservative and more trustworthy. His hours of labor have been shortened, his wages are higher, and labor-saving machinery has made his work lighter. He lives in a better home, his family is better provided for and, best of all, his children are better educated. What has wrought those great changes in the conditions of the workingman? What has enabled him to keep up with the swift march of progress during these many years? I will answer in one word, Education. Just such inst.i.tutions as the public library have made this possible, and the public library has given the largest share.

JOHN P. BUCKLEY.

A WORLD WITHOUT BOOKS

What if there were no letters and no books? Think what your state would be in a situation like that! Think what it would be to know nothing, for example, of the way in which American independence had been won, and the federal republic of the United States constructed; nothing of Bunker Hill; nothing of George Washington; except the little, half true and half mistaken, that your fathers could remember, of what their fathers had repeated, of what their fathers had told to them. Think what it would be to have nothing but shadowy traditions of the voyage of Columbus, of the coming of the Mayflower pilgrims, and of all the planting of life in the New World from Old World stocks, like Greek legends of the Argonauts and of the Heraclidae! Think what it would be to know no more of the origins of the English people, their rise and their growth in greatness, than the Romans knew of their Latin beginnings; and to know no more of Rome herself than we might guess from the ruins she has left! Think what it would be to have the whole story of Athens and Greece dropped out of our knowledge, and to be unaware that Marathon was ever fought, or that one like Socrates had ever lived!

Think what it would be to have no line from Homer, no thought from Plato, no message from Isaiah, no Sermon on the Mount, nor any parable from the lips of Jesus!

Can you imagine a world intellectually famine-smitten like that--a bookless world--and not shrink with horror from the thought of being condemned to it?

Yet the men and women who take nothing from letters and books are choosing to live as though mankind did actually wallow in the awful darkness of that state from which writing and books have rescued us. For them, it is as if no ship had ever come from the far sh.o.r.es of old Time where their ancestry dwelt; and the interest of existence to them is huddled in the petty s.p.a.ce of their own few years, between walls of mist which thicken as impenetrably behind them as before. How can life be worth living on such terms as that? How can man or woman be content with so little, when so much is offered?

J. N. LARNED.