Part 12 (1/2)

It is well to hold up high ideals, but it would be a sad mistake to underrate the services of the n.o.ble men and women who in some, perhaps many, respects fall far short of the standards we lay down, and yet who have done, and are doing well, much of the world's best work. Let us dwell on what has been well done, not on what has been omitted or on what might have been done by other men in other circ.u.mstances.

I remember, some twenty-five years ago, reading in George Eliot's _Romola_ these words, which we should remember when thinking of any great librarian who of necessity fails in some respects to meet all our ideals: ”It was the fas.h.i.+on of old, when an ox was led out for sacrifice to Jupiter, to chalk the dark spots and give the offering a false show of unblemished whiteness. Let us fling away the chalk, and boldly say the victim was spotted; but it was not therefore in vain that his mighty heart was laid on the altar of men's highest hopes.”

METHODS OF SECURING THE INTEREST OF A COMMUNITY

This paper by Wm. E. Foster, Librarian of the Providence Library, appears in the double number of _The Library Journal_ for September-October, 1880. Written forty years ago it is more advanced from the standpoint of socialization, especially as regards group-action, than some p.r.o.nouncements that one might hear to-day. A sketch of Mr.

Foster appears in Vol. I. of this series.

This mainly resolves itself into a consideration of direct and indirect methods. The one attempts only to supply the public with what it wants; the other, striving after the truest improvement of the readers, in time secures, with the growth of intelligent appreciation, an interest even more active, and vastly more permanent, than the other. No library may safely disregard either cla.s.s of methods, and their proper adjustment is a point which may very profitably engage much of the librarian's attention.

It is true that the first of these is not likely to escape his attention. ”What the public wants” is a consideration which will meet him frequently, from one end of the year to the other. No one needs to be told, for instance, that the public wants to be amused. Doubtless the cla.s.s of books described as ”humorous” would const.i.tute, to a large body of readers in any one of our cities, the true ideal of a collection of books. The taste for imaginative literature begins early and lasts long, with a large number of readers. ”Something new” is a phrase whose attractiveness is not far from universal. Still further, if it is a question between a ”true account,” which deals with stirring adventures, and another ”true account,” whose pages are devoted to an impa.s.sive statement of scientific facts, there is not much question which will find the most readers among the general public. ”What the public wants,”

then, as regards the choice of books, while it certainly does not indicate a high degree of enlightenment, has perhaps the merit of being true to nature.

There are certain points of administration, also, in which the interest of the public is concerned. It is in favor of having the library as near its place of residence as possible; and here, unfortunately, ”the public” is a plural personage which cannot all be suited at once. It is in favor of that method of obtaining the privileges of the library which requires the least trouble and inconvenience on its part, and seldom sees the need of a careful verification of the applicant's ident.i.ty. It is in favor of the fewest restrictions on access to the books, and on the time for keeping them. It is in favor, decidedly, of that ”charging system” which will deliver the book soonest. It is in favor of finding the library open on all days and at all hours, sometimes even not regarding the specified hours announced as worthy of consideration. In short, while it is by no means difficult to persuade the public of the reasonableness of a particular restriction, yet its first thought is undeniably largely influenced by selfish considerations.

Nor is the larger part of the public any more fond of bestowing deep and painstaking thought upon the books which it reads, and of carrying the mind systematically through a complicated mental process. It is not improbable that some readers would be glad of some method of using books which should save them the trouble of any mental process. And, while these readers are so much averse to any troublesome efforts toward improvement on their own part, it would be scarcely reasonable to look for any very intelligent supervision by them of the reading of their children, or of the pupils in the schools. Here, again, what the public wants is ”the royal road”--some ”short and easy method.”

That library, then, which would awaken and develop a lively interest among its readers in the miscellaneous public, cannot certainly complain of a lack of methods by which to secure such interest. It may include in its selection of books a suitable percentage of fiction, and humorous works. It may infuse ”new blood” into the library by frequent and regular purchase of the latest publications. It may add largely to the department of voyages and travels, of books copiously ill.u.s.trated,--of popular literature, in short. It may place its main building in the center of population, and establish branches for the accommodation of outlying localities. It may recognize the desirableness of ”the least red tape” in registering readers, of open book-shelves, of expeditious serving of readers, and long periods of time for the use of the library and the retention of books. It may furnish its readers with explanations and directions for obtaining and using the books which shall require the least difficulty in understanding and applying them. It may, and it should, recognize the value of all these principles, and the library which fails to act on them does so at its peril. Yet these points do not comprise all that demand attention; and the effectiveness of even these is due to the limits which are set to them. A certain amount of fiction is well enough, but to enlarge this department at the expense of all others would clearly defeat the library's purpose. Diminution of restrictions in the use of books is certainly agreeable to the public, but the removal of all restrictions would result in such a loss of books as would soon work its own cure.

The question, ”What does the public want?” is not the only, nor, in fact, the chief question to be borne in mind in the conduct of a library. One has only to keep his eyes open to see how suggestive as to methods is this other question: ”Of what service may the library be?”

And it is safe to say that one who has not given the subject attention will be surprised to find at how many points a collection of books, and the thought there contained, touch human life. Here is a machine-shop with its hundred or more workmen, many of whom are anxious to study some mechanical work. The library has such works, and is glad to supply them.

Here again is a society of natural history, whose members are systematically studying some department of natural science. To them, also, the library willingly offers its resources in that department.

With no less willingness it offers its cooperation to those who are following a course of public lectures on some topic of political science or of art, to a college cla.s.s studying topically some epoch of history or period of literature; or to a public-school teacher, with a cla.s.s in geography; or a parent desiring some suitable reading for a child. Or, with no specified cla.s.s of persons in view, it seeks to make its collection generally available, by regular references to its resources on matters of current and universal interest.

Much more effective, however, than the best of such attempts at reaching cla.s.ses of readers will be the aid rendered to individual readers. Not general and indefinite, but specific and direct a.s.sistance, is here given, and, although at first this kind of work might seem to be impracticable in a large library, yet one who tries it will be interested to see how far such individual methods may be introduced. The librarian almost mechanically learns ”to pigeon-hole” in his mind the peculiar tastes and lines of reading of single readers, and, when the occasion presents itself, can bring to their notice books and articles which they are glad to obtain. More than one librarian makes it a regular practice, in adding new books to the library or in collecting material bearing upon some one topic, to drop a postal to this and that reader who, he knows, will be glad of just this information. The more the conducting of a library can be made an individual matter, bringing particular books to the notice of particular readers, the more effective it becomes.

It remains to consider what may be called the ”general effect” of such individual efforts, continued from one year to another. They will certainly result in giving the public a large amount of a.s.sistance.

Being exerted in connection with the whole community, they cannot fail to leave an influence, like the school, the church, or the newspaper,--an influence moreover, which, if wisely directed, and intelligently shaped, will make the public library idea appreciably felt in the civilization of the country.

Nor can it fail to have a reflex influence in securing the interest of the public. If methods of the former cla.s.s were able, by their direct agency, to accomplish practical results, even more significant and more permanent are those reached indirectly by this method. No cla.s.s of people will be so truly attached to the inst.i.tution, by active interest, as those who feel that they have been personally aided and improved through its agency. The former methods are directly adapted to secure popularity, the latter to win grat.i.tude; and if it should ever become necessary to choose one of these, at the expense of the other, there can be little room for hesitation. The growth of public sentiment in communities like Boston and Worcester, where public libraries have been administered on these principles, and with these ends in view, for a series of years, is very instructive. Public sentiment, like confidence, is ”a plant of slow growth”; but experience shows that when the conviction has once thoroughly penetrated a community that an inst.i.tution like this is sincerely aiming to serve the public, a hold on its sympathy and interest has been acquired not easily to be shaken. It should be the aim of each librarian to make the usefulness of his inst.i.tution so manifest that the public will as soon think of dispensing with the post-office as with the library.

FINANCIAL SUPPORT

The justification for taxing the members of a community to support a Public Library, although rarely questioned to-day was argued with heat in former times. Earlier, there was the same difference of opinion with regard to the public schools. In order to obtain the argument in opposition, in its best form, we have had to draw from a British source, which we consider it proper to quote here because it elicited a reply from an American librarian which will immediately follow:

FREE LIBRARIES

(AN ARGUMENT AGAINST PUBLIC SUPPORT)

This paper, by M.D. O'Brien, forms Chapter IX of the compilation of essays ent.i.tled ”A Plea for Liberty” edited by Thomas Mackay (3rd ed. London, 1894). The sub-t.i.tle of the book, ”an argument against socialism and socialistic legislation,” gives its viewpoint. There is a formidable introduction by Herbert Spencer in which he condemns even the extremely limited state support given at that time to general education in England as a ”tyrannical system tamely submitted to by people who fancy themselves free.” Mr.

Spencer ends by a.s.serting that the end, if this sort of thing is to go on, ”must be a society like that of ancient Peru, dreadful to contemplate, in which the ma.s.s of the people, elaborately regimented in groups, ... were superintended in their private lives as well as in their industries and toiled hopelessly for the support of the governmental organization.”

A Free Library may be defined as the socialists' continuation school.

While State education is manufacturing readers for books, State-supported libraries are providing books for readers. The two functions are logically related. If you may take your education out of your neighbour's earnings, surely you may get your literature in the same manner. Literary dependency has the same justification as educational dependency; and, no doubt, habituation to the one helps to develop a strong desire for the other. A portion of our population has by legislation acquired the right to supply itself with necessaries and luxuries at the cost of the rates. The art of earning such things for themselves has been rendered superfluous. Progress therefore halts because this all-important instinct has fallen into disuse. At a point the rates will bear no more, and those who depend on them for their pleasures are doomed to disappointment. The ident.i.ty of principle exemplified alike by compulsory education and compulsory libraries, logically involves the justification or condemnation of both; and, let us disguise the unpleasant truth in as many sounding phrases as we please, the fact remains that the carrying out of this socialistic principle means pauperism pure and simple. Have we forgotten the evils that resulted from the application of this principle under the old poor law? or do we imagine that when an evil changes its outward appearance it changes its inner essence also? The harm done to the national character by a policy of this nature varies in intensity in proportion to the necessity of the want supplied. If the thing supplied at public cost is really necessary and eagerly accepted by the people, it becomes more readily a potent cause of dependency, and a heavy and at length an insupportable charge on the ratepayers. This was the experience of the old poor law. The cost of national education is fast approaching to the same state of things, and the problem will one day have to be faced: 'How is the burden of the cost of education to be returned to the shoulders of those who are responsible for it?' In this paper we are concerned with a smaller question. A very inconsiderable section of the people really want the Free Library; the question at the polls is generally treated with apathy, and only a very small proportion of the ratepayers record their votes one way or the other. As a matter of fact the Free Library is forced upon the public by a number of doctrinaire believers in the superhuman value of a mere literary education. It is not a popular want. The vast majority of people have still a greater faith in the training which results from practical contact with the real facts of life, and still only regard book-learning as a useful supplement, easily obtainable by those who really desire it and are likely to profit by it.