Chapter XIV: Part 14

We are not likely to abate our eagerness in the pursuit of knowledge of physical science, for the zeal of the scientist is stimulated by the spur of commercialism; and, though it seems impossible, the twentieth century may bring forth as wonderful discoveries and inventions as the nineteenth. But, to take the advance just now most sought, can any one raise the question as to which would be of greater benefit to St. Louis, to reach Chicago in an hour by airship or to take six or ten hours for the trip and find there--and everywhere--a contented body of workmen supplying us with the necessities of life and a set of managers carrying on the transportation system that we already have on equal terms to all people? What the world's progress most needs is "evening up." The advancing column presents a very ragged front, with physical science and its applications so far ahead that they have almost lost sight of social science in the rear. It would be no great disadvantage to the world--to the progress of mankind as a whole--if the swift-footed legion of applied science would merely mark time for a period, while attention should be given to a better organization of the vast human army. The objective point would be reached as soon, for a nation is like a railway train; it can go no faster than its hindmost car. But this is not likely to happen at present. Applied science has every stimulus from within and without, every reward intrinsic and extrinsic; while progress in the social and political sciences must carry the dead weight of the inertia of conservatism and also meet the active and intense opposition of vested interests, which have ever the single purpose of preserving the status quo, no matter how unjust or maleficent.

The solution of these all-important problems cannot be found in the school, where immature minds are taught merely how to use the tools of knowledge; these questions cannot be settled by the small number of university students; they must be solved by the education of the masses, by instilling in them in their early school years a desire for knowledge and a love for good reading, which will lead them to continue their education by means of the library. The education of the mass of the voters who determine the character of a democratic government, must not be left to the party organ or the stump speaker. The great social and political questions should be studied and pondered in the quiet of the closet and not decided, without previous thought, amid the hurrahs of the hustings.

To make the public library realize fully its possibilities as the People's University calls for more than the opportunity which every public library now offers; it requires active effort to reach out and bring the people to the library by the fullest co-operation with the school and by means of attractive lecture courses, which shall stimulate reading and guide it in profitable channels. But the beginning of this work--the inculcation of a taste for good reading--lies with the school, with the library's co-operation, especially during the years from six to ten or twelve, those years when nearly all the children come under the school's influence and when the habit of reading can be most easily formed.

If charged with placing undue stress upon the value of the library, I might urge its comparative newness and its consequent lack of recognition; and, as an evidence of the latter, I might point to the fact that in this great educational exposition, while one vast palace is given up to exhibits of the school, the library has with difficulty secured a part of a room in the Missouri State Building for an exhibit of its activities in the great work of education, in which, as I am trying to show, its potentialities are as great as those of the school. As our Board of Directors said, in its appeal to the exposition Directors for a separate library building:

"The library, besides being the most efficient and most
economical agency for popular education, represents all the
fair will have to show. It stands for the sum total of human
knowledge. It is the instrumentality through which knowledge
has been conserved and cumulated. Only through the library
can civilization continue to advance.... Books are the most
potent factors in progress. Without books we should have had
no powerful locomotives to show, no wireless telegraphy, no
wonder-making machinery, no beautiful buildings, no
impressive statuary, no paintings to arouse wonder and yield
delight--no World's Fair to draw distinguished scientists
and educators from all over the world."

By way of introduction to the comprehensive addresses of the two distinguished delegates who have travelled four or five thousand miles to lay before this Section, and, through publication, before the world, the past history and the present problems of the library, it has seemed to me appropriate that, as chairman, I should present a brief plea for the consideration of the library as one of the greatest factors in human progress. It has existed, though not in its present form or with its present functions, from the dawn of recorded civilization. It is itself the record of civilization; and without it there can be no records and no civilization. It is the repository, the custodian, the preserver of all the arts and sciences and the principal means of disseminating all knowledge. With the school and the church it forms the tripod necessary to the stable equilibrium of society. Let me briefly summarize the functions of the public library.

1. It doubles the value of the public school instruction, on which is expended more than ten times the cost of the library.

2. It enables the children who leave school at an early age (an overwhelming majority) to continue their education while earning their living. It provides for the education of the adults who have lacked or failed to utilize early opportunities. This is of special importance in a country like the United States, where one of the greatest political problems is the assimilation of a vast influx of ignorant foreigners of all races and languages.

3. It supplies books and periodicals needed for the instruction of artisans, mechanics, manufacturers, engineers, and all others whose work requires technical knowledge[6]--all persons on whom depends the industrial progress of the community.

4. It furnishes information and inspiration to ministers, teachers, journalists, authors, physicians, legislators--all persons on whose work depend the intellectual, moral, sanitary, political and religious welfare and advancement of the people.

5. It is the stimulus and the reliance of the literary and study clubs, which, especially among the women, have done much not only for individual self-culture but also for civic enlightenment and social betterment. This represents its numerous post-graduate courses, which are taken by constantly increasing numbers.

6. It has philosophers and theologians to explain and expound and to exhort those who are willing to listen; but, far better, it has poets and dramatists and novelists--who compel a hearing and impress on heart as well as mind the fundamental truths of morality and religion.

7. It is also a school of manners, which have been well defined as minor morals. The child learns by example and by the silent influence of his surroundings; and every visit to a library is a lesson in propriety and refinement. The roughest boy or the rudest man cannot fail to be impressed by the library atmosphere and by that courtesy which is the chief element in the "library spirit."

8. It imparts, as the school cannot, knowledge of one's self, and of one's relations to one's fellow-man, and thus prepares the individual for citizenship and fellowship in organized society and leads him to be an active force in social advancement.

9. It elevates the standard of general intelligence throughout the community, on which depends its material prosperity as well as its moral and political well-being.

[6] The information furnished by a book in the Cincinnati Public Library once saved that city a quarter of a million dollars. This in numerous instances, but on a smaller scale, is a part of the everyday work of the library.

10. But not last, if an exhaustive list were aimed at--nor least it supplies a universal and urgent craving of human nature by affording to all entertainment of the highest and purest character, substituting this for the coarse, debasing, demoralizing, amusements which would otherwise be sought and found. Further, it brings relief and strength to many a suffering body and cheer and solace to many a sorrowing heart. It is instruction and inspiration to the young, comfort and consolation to the old, recreation and companionship to all ages and conditions.

I close as I began:

Education is the greatest concern of mankind; it is the foundation of all human progress. The library is an essential factor in all grades of education; and it is the agent plenipotentiary in the betterment of society and the culture and cheer of the human soul. "The highest gift of education is not the mastery of sciences, but noble living, generous character, the spiritual delight that comes from familiarity with the loftiest ideals of the human mind, the spiritual power that saves each generation from the intoxication of its own success."

THE LIBRARY AS A FACTOR IN MODERN CIVILIZATION

Read by President Faunce of Brown University, at the
Narragansett Pier Conference of the American Library
Association in 1906. Elaborates the library's three gifts to
the nation--"knowledge, perspective and ideals."

William Herbert Perry Faunce was born in Worcester, Mass.,
Jan. 15, 1859, graduated at Brown University in 1880,
entered the Baptist ministry, and after holding several
pastorates became in 1899 president of his alma mater. He is
known as an effective writer and speaker, especially on
religion and education.

We have long been accustomed to speak of three great factors in modern civilization--the school, the church, and the home. Must we, in view of such a significant meeting as this, add a fourth factor--the library? The modern library has in some places become a true school; in other places it has radiated something of the refinement for which we once looked to the home, and something of the idealism which is a peculiar gift of the church. The library is vastly more than a collection of books: it is a social, civilizing, moralizing force. We expect to find the library building in every city and town as much as to find the spire of the church or the flag of the schoolhouse. The visitor to Boston to-day finds the public library as commanding a pile as Trinity Church, and far more imposing than any schoolhouse. The visitor to New York finds the new public library building climbing into a mass and dignity as great as that of any cathedral. No smallest village is now complete without its library, and when some future Goldsmith shall sing the praise of another "Deserted village," he will point out not only with the "noisy mansion" of the school-master, not only the church adorned with the meek and unaffected grace of the rural pastor, but the loaded shelves, the catalogs and reference lists, the chairs and tables, and the zeal unaffected, though not always meek, of the modern librarian.

These libraries have sprung into being throughout the land without specific legislation and without deliberate propaganda. The church missionary societies of the country have adopted the avowed policy of planting a church in every community, and appointing superintendents of missions to see that this is done. Every state in the Union has its laws for the establishment and maintenance of schools. But these multiplying libraries have come into being without enactment of law or the preaching of the crusade. They have spread from sea to sea by a happy contagion, they have become a noble American epidemic. The great inarticulate thirst for knowledge has demanded satisfaction, and created its own supply. Our wisest directors of public sentiment and philanthropic endeavor have realized that through the library may come a charity that does not pauperize, a help that induces self-help, light to irradiate the dark places of civilization, inspiration for every calling, and access and power to every worthy institution and noble cause. What then is the specific function of this new and powerful institution in modern life? What is the contribution of the library to modern civilization?

The library makes to the nation three gifts: the gift of knowledge, the gift of perspective, the gift of ideals. Putting the matter in another way, we may say it gives us facts, relations, values.

The library is primarily to conserve and disseminate knowledge. Indeed, the old conception of the library was purely that of a place of storage for written or printed material. No one thought of taking out a book from a mediaeval library any more than of removing a statue or painting from an art gallery. And still to-day the function of the library as a storehouse is most important. Modern democracy holds that knowledge is not for a few bright minds of each generation, not for an intellectual elite; but all that is knowable is to be made accessible to all that desire to know. If we allow knowledge to come only to a chosen few of each generation, how can we know that we have chosen the right ones to receive it? The genius that might turn the stream of history may be born in the lowliest cabin on the prairie, or in the darkest tenement of the great city. There may not be a village Hampden in every village, but there may be an Edison, a Fulton, an Eli Whitney, an Andrew Carnegie, a Carl Schurz in any village in America. Only when we make knowledge accessible to all shall we know what minds and hearts are among us.

But we must discriminate. The books which no longer convey knowledge, which state theories no longer held, and propound as facts things no longer believed; in other words, antiquated books of knowledge should be sharply separated from books abreast of modern thinking. Those books which have ceased to be of any use to mankind (except for antiquarian purposes) or which never were of any use to mankind--and their name is legion--have their place in a museum, but not in an working library. In an arsenal we keep only weapons now serviceable in actual war, and relegate flint-locks, catapults, and bows and arrows to the museum. No arsenal in the world would be large enough to accommodate weapons for a modern regiment mingled with all the weapons of all past generations. It is time for some one to say frankly that there is no inherent sanctity in paper and printer's ink. It may have been true in Milton's day that a book was usually the precious life-blood of a master spirit; but to-day a book is often the product of the least erected spirit that fell. An almanac put forth to advertise some nostrum, or a novel prepared purely as a piece of merchandise, does not acquire dignity or value simply because bound in leather and placed on the shelf with "Paradise Lost."

We must apply to our libraries some higher standard than that of size. We never estimate the Uffizzi or the Louvre by the number of paintings they contain, yet we continue to grade modern libraries by the number of volumes groaning on dust-covered shelves. A library of five thousand well selected books may be of far more service than one of one hundred thousand composed largely of books outgrown and forgotten. Our public libraries must distinguish sharply between the library and the museum, to the advantage of both.

Secondly: Perspective. The library aims to show us facts in their large and permanent relations. There is no virtue in mere knowledge of facts (any more than in vast numbers of volumes). Most facts are not worth knowing, still less worth preserving. Doubtless the letter "p" occurs a certain definite number of times in "Idylls of the King," and it may be that some deluded mortal in prison or asylum has ascertained that number; but we do not care to know that fact or have any one else know it. The exact number of grains in some ant-hill is doubtless discoverable, but only a lunatic would care for the discovery. Most facts in nature and in history are in our present stage of development without value. Only when these facts are collected, classified, seen in relation, and translated into truth do they become of value to men.

For this reason the library must encourage, slow, patient, thoughtful reading. We have long been told that a taste for reading is worth ten thousand a year. Whether this is true or not depends altogether on what sort of reading is referred to. The habit of letting the mind lie passive while some scribbler plays upon it is not worth ten thousand a year. The habit of letting the mind become a waste basket for sensation and scandal is not worth ten thousand a year. The habit of reading as a substitute for thinking is worth nothing, but is sheer damage to mental fibre. The university library is even more important than the university laboratory. In the laboratory we verify the theory which is far more likely to be discovered in the library. The new discovery is a new combination of old ideas, and such mental combination comes to us more easily when we are dealing with thoughts than with things.

Our students need to use books not only as tools, but as friends. In the old days, when the reading of college students was far more promiscuous than to-day, they were accustomed to regard books almost as personal acquaintances, and there was a genuine exchange of reaction of writer and reader. Such reading was indeed very desultory, but, as our professor of English literature is accustomed to say, "it was immensely fattening." Now, on the other hand, the college student goes to the library with a list of references, using many books, but becoming really acquainted with none. He opens one work at volume 2, page 193, another at volume 4, page 315, and, having extracted the precise bit of information he desires, has no further use for the author in question. This modern method of reading is far more accurate and definite than the older method, and is obviously effective in securing results. But it must be supplemented by the "browsing" of former days, by the large horizons which come from being set free in the companionship of great minds.

Thirdly: Ideals. Our libraries must not be only storehouses of knowledge, but reservoirs of power. The great books of all time give us contact with inspiring personalities, shining examples, with the great leaders of men. The trophies of Themistocles will not suffer us to sleep. When such books come into many a shut-in life, to many a boyhood, cabined and confined, the limitations of the farm and factory are forgotten, the mind expands to a kinship with past and future, and the reader in some village library may become the prophet of the new century, and the leader of the modern world.

More than that: the literature of power creates the climate in which we live. It shapes our ideals of success, of power, of beauty, of goodness. Fiction and poetry, if they thus create aspiration and give us standards, may be more useful than all encyclopedias or text-books, for they deal with the sources and the goal of all human action.

THE PROVISION OF BOOKS

The seven addresses or papers just preceding relate to the
general services of the library to the community. The twelve
that now follow analyze this into four types of special
service, as already suggested--the provision of books, the
collection of information, the control and guidance of
reading and community-centre service. The next three papers
treat of the provision of books.

THE LIBRARIAN AND HIS CONSTITUENTS

That the choice of books is the most important of the
librarian's duties and that "his best effort" should be
given to it, is the thought of an institutional librarian,
R.B. Poole of the New York Y.M.C.A. This view should
interest those who think that administrative problems and
socialization are elbowing the books into the background.

Reuben Brooks Poole was born in Rockport, Mass., in 1834,
and graduated at Brown University in 1857. After serving as
a teacher he became librarian of the Y.M.C.A. library in New
York City, where he remained until his death on April 6,
1895. He was president of his state library association in
1894.

By constituents is not meant political constituents. It is unfortunate for any librarian when he holds his office in a public library as a political favor, and library appointments should be as far removed as possible from all party influences. A public library, like any other public property, is susceptible of being used as a tool, and may easily degenerate into a political job, unless specially protected by its charter. New York city has one such library. The library exists for the librarians; its constituents--not readers--are of the school of politics. The example, it is to be hoped, is a unique one in our country.

A brief retrospect of the libraries and librarians of the past may help us to more fully comprehend the situation of the librarian and his constituents of to-day.

The monk represented the librarian of the Middle Ages. He was not by profession a librarian, and yet the valuable service he rendered to literature entitles him to the name. He was at once chorister, master of ceremonies, transcriber, illuminator, and collector. Professedly the monk was a religious ascetic. He retired from the world to devote himself to religion, to a life of self-denial. His language was the Latin; the books or manuscripts that surrounded him were works of the Fathers, books of devotion, service-books, and the classics. These were just in keeping with his life and thoughts. A congenial occupation was thus opened to him. The hours of the cloister were made shorter as the monk duplicated and reduplicated some dainty missal, or some commentary of Augustine, or painted a miniature of the Virgin or of the apostles.

However much we may differ in opinion as to the service rendered to religion by the monasteries of the Middle Ages, as librarians we have a fellow-feeling with these toiling monks, and are grateful to them for the service they have rendered the libraries of to-day by their preservation of works that otherwise would have been destroyed. There is nothing in the book-making arts of to-day to compare with the artistic skill displayed in the illuminations and miniature-painting which enrich and beautify the manuscripts of those times.

The monastic libraries were small, and the readers few. Books were loaned from monastery to monastery. They were distributed once a year, at the Lenten season. As each borrower returned his book he was catechised as to its contents, if the examination was satisfactory he was allowed another book for the coming year; if not, he must take his old book again.

One not a member of the order of St. Benedict, or an _attache_ of Cluny or Canterbury, could procure the coveted treasure, sometimes, by pledging to return with the manuscript borrowed a full transcription.

Library economy in these ages was very simple. Catalogues were little more than inventories, and no discordant notes were chanted, in duets or solos, over systems of classification. The absolute or fixed system of shelving was in vogue, the books being held in their places by chains. The survival of this feature exists in the attachments of the modern city directory.

But, not to linger longer in cloisters or abbeys, we come to the age of printing and to the foundation of the modern libraries of Europe; the treasures in the monastic libraries contributing to form their vast collections.

The monk's occupation as a librarian was gone, and he was succeeded by the collector, the keeper, the scholar. In the centuries immediately succeeding the invention of printing there was a growing diffusion of knowledge by means of libraries. We smile at the restrictions imposed, and look upon them as so many fetters on the intellect. It is, however, to be borne in mind that at this time books were costly and rare, and on this account were guarded with great jealousy.

When the Bodleian library was founded it was stipulated by law that under no pretence should any book be lent to any one, no matter what his station. A Fellow of Corpus Christi College could not enter the sacred alcoves alone, and he was under oath not to remove a book. The books were there for use, there can be no question; and in the Bodleian, to which we have just referred, a person could have six books at a time to consult, and the library was open for six hours during the day.

About 1650 Humphrey Chetham bequeathed L1,000 for a public library in Manchester, England. He was a firm adherent of the fixed location. "My mind and will is," he says, "that care be taken that none of said books be taken out of the said library at any time, and that the said books be fixed or chained." After specifying certain religious books, and annotations on the Bible, he adds, "and other books proper for the common people." It was two hundred years after this, in this last half century, before the Public Libraries Act was introduced into the English Parliament; and from this period we may date a new era, both in England and in this country, in the dissemination of books and improved library methods. The last decade, commencing with the formation of the A.L.A. and the beginning of our second century as a nation, has witnessed results hitherto unachieved in library economy. It is not necessary to enlarge here upon the work that has been accomplished. The important thing to note is that the librarian of to-day should be _en rapport_ with all that pertains to his profession. He should acquaint himself with schemes of classification, and elect from them that which is best adapted for the purposes of his own library. He should adopt the best system for charging, acquaint himself with the most approved library appliances. Whether he adopt the classed catalogue, the dictionary, the alphabeto-classed, or any other form, let it be one that shall be abreast of the progress that has been made in this department of library science. The librarian can scarcely keep pace with his fellow-librarians unless he receives the right hand of fellowship of the American Library Association, and is a reader of the _Library journal_ or the _Library notes_, just launched and designed to cruise along the coast into the smaller ports. The advantages which the librarian receives from these sources will qualify him better for his profession, but the greater advantage will accrue to his readers: knowledge will be made more available, and a bright, cheerful atmosphere will pervade the alcoves of his store-house.

The librarian of to-day is developing to the full the utilitarian principle. He is practical,--practical in his library management, practical in his choice of books. His constituency is either a particular class or the great public. To supply the masses with reading, and to make books helpful in all the vocations of life, is the librarian's aim. It is just here that we need to emulate our predecessors, the monks and the collectors and bookworms of the sixteenth and succeeding centuries.

He must have the spirit of the collector, the animus of the scholar. He must not forget that he is an antiquarian in his zeal for utility. His constituency is not confined to the present; he is building for posterity as well. His library will live after him. He therefore needs to be a wise master-builder.

If the choice of books is in the librarian's hands, or if he occupies an important position in connection with the selection, his best effort should be given to this department. The responsibility is not small. He will find it more difficult often to reject than to select. He must consult the wants of his readers; but there is a limit to that. Everything that is in print may be called for, but that is no reason why it should be honored with a place in a library. The librarian's personal equation is not to be the standard, but the foundation principles of morality, truth, and sound sense must guide him. No quarter should be given to books of doubtful morality. Fiction now finds a place in most libraries open to any extent to the public, and this class of books forms so large a part of the circulation of many libraries that it is becoming a question of no small importance as to how far public funds should be expended for such books as afford little else than pastime. A public library is a public educator. It is not a sluice into which every publisher may dump his entire wares; as educators, librarians and managing boards have the right to maintain the purity of their collections, and to protect them from inundations of worthless books.

The librarian should be alert to supply his readers with all they require that will be helpful, as we have said; but, more than this, he should lead them. He may do so by procuring works of standard worth, new and old, that represent the best thought in any department of literature or science.

Unless he has something of the spirit of the collector very much will elude his grasp, and be, perhaps, utterly lost to his library. There are the limited editions, now so limited in number; the privately printed book; the first numbers of periodicals; the first reports of societies; local histories and genealogies; memorial volumes, and the like,--works whose value is enhanced by time.

A librarian, to be successful, must be a lover of books. The novice, in applying for a librarianship, often puts it down as one of his cardinal qualifications that he is fond of reading. To the active, toiling worker this is not suggestive of business. A love of books very naturally suggests a taste for reading, except when bibliomania is in the blood. A true friend of books is not such because his collection embraces Elzevirs and Aldines, or because they are in Grolier or Bedford bindings, or printed on Whatman or Holland paper,--these are matters of just pride,--but because the army of silent authors, marshalled under his leadership, will diffuse light and knowledge wherever they go. The librarian imbued with this spirit, if he finds time to read, will reflect what he has read. It is to be feared that the librarian who reads in these times is the exception; and yet there can be no question that, if he could have each day an hour or two for reading,--time enough to acquaint himself with the thought of the times, and occasionally commune with the authors of the past,--his efficiency would be greatly enlarged, and his readers would have a supplemental catalogue in him, corresponding, to some extent, to the good work contemplated by our Cooperative Committee.

There are in every library very many books that are what we might term, to use a mercantile phrase, dead stock. From the very necessities of the case there must be many books that will be called for only at great intervals, while others never have a friendly consultation. But, aside from these, libraries will often have works of great practical value that are standing idle, because it is not generally known that the library possesses them. There may be a choice lot of works on electricity, a rare collection on ceramics, a fine selection of engravings, representative works in the various industrial arts; the call for them not being popular and large, they might be brought to the notice of a larger constituency by calling the attention of certain readers to them, or by sending a polite invitation to some manufacturing firms, to some professional electricians, or to art schools and scientific schools.

Periodicals, before the days of Poole's Index, were sealed books. Libraries have been wonderfully expanded where this index is used. Further cooperation in this direction, as planned by the Cooperative Committee, should receive hearty encouragement. The books of a library may be further enlarged in their use by publishing, on the library bulletin, the works in the library that illustrate important events, after the admirable plan initiated by Mr. Foster, of Providence.

If the librarian has not the time at his command to read he has rare opportunities for reading character; and to be on good terms with his varied constituency he will have to be like St. Paul,--all things to all men. He must be polite, accommodating, possess his soul in patience, and be unselfish in his devotion to his readers. Generally, his contact with his constituency will be pleasant and agreeable, but he will have to deal with certain typical characters that will vex and fret him.

There is the rummager, who snarls at all catalogues, and wants the freedom of the library, not for studious research, but to gratify his bookish propensity. "Five minutes with authors" is his watchword.

The crank, who has been defined as a person with an idea, without brains to carry it out, is a frequenter of libraries. His inquiries are for what the library does not possess. This affords him a text for lecturing the librarian and the managers. If the librarian's sentiments are not in accord with that idea of his he threatens to expose him in the newspapers.

The curiosity-hunter is another representative reader. He is brother to the rummager, but he does not despise catalogues. They exhibit the oddities of the library, at least the odd titles, such as Luther's "Vagabonds and Beggars," "The Foundling Hospital for Wit," or "The History of the Tread-mill." He passes quickly from one to the other, gleaning here and there till curiosity is satiated.

Another reader helps the librarian materially in his statistics; if he calls for one book he calls for an armful. The subject he is investigating may require all the light the library can focus upon it; but he disposes of his armful so quickly that the query is, by what alchemy knowledge is appropriated so rapidly. It must be put to the credit of this age.

The intelligent tramp is another _habitue_ of libraries. He is sometimes a desultory reader, sometimes he is a specialist, and he investigates with a profound air the most difficult problems; but that is as far as he goes. He is constitutionally lazy. He has some love for literature and science, but a far more appreciative love of leisure. He does nothing, produces nothing.

Then there are walking encyclopaedias. You cannot name any author or work that they have not an acquaintance with. They can talk glibly on any subject; they absorb like sponges, but they give out nothing. They have a passion for reading; but they either do not, or will not, make their knowledge available to others. The colored man who not long since applied to me for something on the toothache, as he was to deliver a lecture upon this interesting topic, was not of this non-productive class. If his monograph has been published it will be a good book for close classification.

The librarian who feels the obligations of his position realizes that his influence as an educator is far-reaching, telling effectively upon the community in which he lives, and destined to extend far down the years to come. It becomes him, therefore, to fully equip himself for his work, and to give to his constituents the results of his ripest experience and his most unselfish attention.

THE USEFULNESS OF LIBRARIES IN SMALL TOWNS

A few books in a small town may exert as much influence as
many books in a large one; and the personal influence of
their custodian and administrator may count for more. An
early statement placing emphasis on this fact by Miss West
of the Milwaukee Public Library (now Mrs. Henry L.
Elmendorf) appears in the subjoined paper read at the
Buffalo Conference of the American Library Association in
1883.

Theresa West Elmendorf, who as the writer of this paper was
Theresa Hubbell West, was born at Pardieville, Wis., Nov. 1,
1855, educated in Milwaukee and served on the staff of the
public library of that city, being deputy librarian in
1880-92 and librarian in 1892-96. In that year she married
Henry L. Elmendorf, then librarian of the Buffalo Public
Library, and since his death in 1906 she has been
vice-librarian there. In 1911 she was chosen president of
the American Library Association--the first woman to hold
this office.

There is still, as in the days when the story of the "wicked and slothful servant," who contemptuously hid his one talent in a napkin, was told, something discouraging in the sight of incomparably greater opportunities than our own in the hands of another.

The librarian of a small town or village may not cherish the envy of the man in the parable in his heart, and yet feel a certain depression, a sense that the small things he is striving--perhaps with all his might--to accomplish amount to very little, as he listens to plans for the construction of a building which will commodiously and conveniently house two millions of books; as he ponders over a printed scheme which will intelligently order upon the shelves a hundred thousand volumes, and is yet so flexible, so elastic, that this number may be indefinitely increased with no confusion, no necessity for rearrangement; as he sees a method of charging which has been slowly evolved to meet the ever-varying, ever-increasing needs of a circulation whose daily issues are counted by thousands.

Possibly this feeling has something to do with the small representation in this Association of the hundreds of lesser libraries which are scattered through the land. Whether it has, or not, the fact of this meagre representation remains, and remains to be regretted. That such a state of things is to be deprecated by the society goes without saying. Every new member, in one way or another, brings an added power and influence, which is by no means always to be measured by the size of the library which he represents, or the active part he bears in the deliberations. He may even be utterly silent, and yet an actual force; for no speaker fails to feel the inspiration which radiates from an attentive and enthusiastic listener. In ordinary society the accomplishment of being "a good listener" is one of the most enduring of charms. It does not lose its power among librarians. The prosperity of a paper as truly as a jest's "lies in the ear of him that hears it, never in the tongue of him that makes it."

To ask these unattached librarians, if perhaps an echo may reach them, to consider whether their isolation from their profession is not only a deprivation to themselves which they can illy afford, but a retarding of the progress of the true library spirit as well, and to suggest a thought which may possibly prove a stimulus to counteract the discouragement and depression before spoken of, is all that I have even hoped to accomplish in the few words which have, somewhat too ambitiously, been called a paper on "The usefulness of libraries in small towns."

In regard to the interest and profit of these meetings to the lesser libraries, I have heard it asserted, and it is, I think, true, that the papers and discussions were almost exclusively directed to the consideration of the aims, methods, and needs of great libraries. If the fact needs explanation, or justification, an ample one is found in the register of the names of the composing members, with their positions. That there would be a ready and cordial response to any general call for the discussion of topics specially pertinent to small libraries is not to be doubted. Over the editorial columns of one of our most-used periodicals runs the legend, "Every man is a debtor to his profession." It was a most wise choice of mottoes by our friend, the editor and publisher, for in no profession is it more true than in our own. The constant missionary work which Boston and Chicago, and indeed every library of any repute in the country, has done and is doing, is proof enough that the obligation is appreciated. If the smaller libraries want the discussion of simpler, less technical methods, they have, probably, but to ask.

It may be objected that the great obviously includes the small, and that plans and methods which are good and suitable for the former need but to be reproduced in miniature for the latter. It is true, that, in many departments, the accident of size makes little or no difference in library economy; but in the administration of affairs, in the machinery of running, the director of a municipal library has many and accumulating cares, of which his less burdened rural brother need never feel the weight. Prof. John Fiske, some years ago, at the time when he was assistant librarian of Harvard University, very graphically described a portion of the perplexing duties which fall to the lot of even a university librarian, striving to correct the erroneous but too prevalent notion that such a position is a sinecure. He confined himself to an enumeration and description of the duties which are essentially professional, the multiplicity of details of the ordering, classifying, and cataloging of books. In this direction there is a difference only in amount between the greater and the less. But, in addition to all that Prof. Fiske described, a city librarian must needs oversee as well the thousand and one minutiae which go to make up the sum of a day's work in a circulating library. He must provide for the accurate identification and registration of his borrowers,--no light task when they number tens of thousands of the floating population of a western city, which has more active duties for her police than the following up of delinquent patrons of the public library. He must see to it that the thousands of books which flow over his counters are unerringly charged, and that tardy borrowers are warned of their remissness. These are but a few of the numberless details, many of which are trivial in the extreme, but which all go toward the making up of such a day's work as "none but he that feels it knows." As a machine increases in complications a constantly greater percentage of power is consumed in overcoming friction. This attention to the routine of daily work, which forms much of the severest, because least satisfying, work which a librarian does, may be compared to the friction of machinery; and just in the proportion that the power of his mind and the strength of his body are taxed in this direction, by just so much are they reduced for other duties, the importance of which is specially prominent in the minds not only of the profession, but of the public as well,--an actual knowledge of the books which the library buys, and the exertion of an active personal influence in raising the standard of literature which is drawn from the library.

It is precisely in this line of personal influence that there seem to me to be special encouragements to the librarians of small towns, that here, notwithstanding their limited resources, they have peculiar opportunities for attaining an almost ideal standard of excellence in the quality of their work.

It would be unjust to say that a city librarian actually works harder than his country brother. The duties of the former are mainly those of guiding, overseeing, and correcting the work of others. The latter, with his own hands and brain, does most of the work himself. It is as if the one were architect solely, and the other not only architect, but mason and carpenter as well. One of the severest trials of the lot of a city librarian, in the West at least, is that he must work through many assistants who are not only utterly lacking in any real love or enthusiasm for their work, but who are many times illy-educated as well. The remedy for this state of affairs is not likely to be found until our boards of trustees take for their careful consideration the reply of a certain irate domestic to her remonstrating mistress: "You can't expect a good cook and all the Christian virtues for two dollars a week!" If the necessities of the work do not require the employment of more than one, two, or, at most, three assistants, the subtle electric current of the librarian's own enthusiasm may suffer the subdivision without being utterly dissipated. He can actually do much of the work himself. He comes into contact with his clientage, which is not so large but that he may hope to become personally acquainted with many of them, and, learning their tastes and needs, easily become their trusted friend and guide. His catalog, too, is his own work, and it is perhaps safe to say that no one ever properly appreciates a catalog but its maker. Certainly no one else ever handles it with equal ease and intelligence.

I am afraid the catalog has never been made, and never will be, over which the ignorant and indolent will not be perplexed and deceived; and, after all is said, it is to the ignorant to whom the gospel of the public library is specially sent. If the cataloger himself is constantly at hand to explain intricacies, to supplement deficiencies, with his own perfect knowledge of his library, to answer even foolish and stumbling questioners patiently and intelligently, he may make the puzzling way of finding and getting a book so plain that "The wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein."

That this personal influence, when exerted, bears fruit, and that right soon, has been proved again and again. The following is from the last report of one of the largest libraries in the country: "The increasing public interest in the more scholarly books of the Library, and the large accession of visitors to the reference tables, are to be attributed partly to the Saturday-morning classes which have been conducted at the Library for the past four months." If such work makes so immediate and appreciable an impression upon a circulation which is numbered by hundreds of thousands, is there not a hopeful outlook, indeed, for small workers?

One has said that "A library is, after all, very much what its librarian makes it." There are too many conflicting individualities at work in a municipal library to make this, to any considerable extent, true; but in a small town or village the personal equation of the librarian may easily become the exponent of the power of the library.

ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

Dr. Talcott Williams, the orator of this occasion, Feb. 7,
1891, was at that time a journalist in Philadelphia. He has
always been a welcome writer and speaker on literary themes.

Talcott Williams was born in Abeih, Turkey, July 20, 1849,
the son of an American missionary. He graduated at Amherst
in 1873 and in that year entered journalism, becoming later
an editorial writer on several large dailies until 1912 when
he was made director of the School of Journalism of Columbia
University, New York City.

For the first and for the last time, the voices of men are heard in this place, dedicated to the more eloquent silence of books. Nowhere is man more and men less than in the library. In the presence of books individual learning pales. The scholar dies; the library lives. Yet only in part. In this bookish age, we fondly impute immortality to books. Nothing could be more false. Few books have the power of an endless life. Against these books of power stand a great multitude of books of use, which perish with the using. The vast mass of books, like the thoughts in our daily lives, sink into the background of the recollection of the race and furnish the soil from which fresh growths spring. Few there are who have written books of power. Not a score in all. Poets for the most part. High priests forever after the order of humanity, whose flaming message burns from age to age in the great tree of human existence, consuming and unconsumed. These books of power which live that humanity may not die, and books of use that die that others may live, divide literature between them. They constitute the warp and woof out of which the university weaves the higher education. In its last analysis a liberal training is the mastery of books of use and a glad yielding to the mastery of books of power.

Controversy over the classics, wrangling over Greek, vain jangling over required and elective courses--these are details. Direct contact between the growing minds of each generation and the great minds of the race--this is essential. We smile at the space given Confucius in Chinese education; the Koran in Mohammedan schools; but this is only a perversion of the sound instinct which everywhere puts the young to school to the teachers of the race. Unless your education does this, it stands where the electric telegraph did before its wires were grounded--its batteries and instruments, its poles and wires useless until they were in direct contact with the elemental source of electric energy in the earth itself. So-called and mis-called practical systems of education, _realschulen_, which omit these eternal realities of the race, find when they have stuffed their pupils with the facts of the day that they are still insulated from the thinkers of all time. Fortunately for us and for our education, these books of power exist in more than one language and are accessible through more than one channel of learning. Thanks to the matchless translation of the Bible, one incomparable group of books of power is taught in every Sunday-school, though I doubt if this will be held sufficient reason for neglecting their study in every university. Greek holds another group. But it is the pitiful pedant's plea to urge their study because Greek is difficult. It is not because Greek is Greek, but because Homer is Homer that Chapman "spake out loud and bold" of the solitary text-book which has held its own for 2500 years, and links, as may it forever link, this university with the school of Athens.

"Yet still your Homer, living, lasting, reigning,
And proves how truth builds in poets feigning."

It is because these books of power hold the truth that makes men free, working thoughts that perish never, that they live when the tongues in which they speak are dead. Books of power which transmit the spiritual life of the race keep the self-same spirit through all the transmigrations of speech. The scriptures of the race, no less than the scriptures of religion, enjoy a pentecostal gift of tongues, and are heard by every man in his own language. Where such books are few in number, which a shelf or two will hold, there is a liberal education, and no elective course which permits their exclusion offers intellectual salvation. Some such books every race has found in its own literature as it reached the full stature of universal humanity, as our own English-speaking race, well-nigh within this generation, has discovered in adding Shakespeare to our general schooling. By the production of such books of power nations are justly measured. This is the wisdom which keepeth a city from destruction. The ship of state, however weighted with worldly wealth, moves a trackless keel through the waters of history unless some poet wings its course with "the proud, full sail of his great verse." We have all heard to-day from one whose lifelong devotion has raised him to the foremost rank of scholarship.

"Weave a circle around him thrice
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise."