Chapter XII: Part 12

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.