Part 3 (2/2)

Free corn in old Rome bribed a mob and kept it pa.s.sive. By free books and what goes with them in modern America we mean to erase the mob from existence. There lies the cardinal difference between a civilization which perished and a civilization that will endure.

J. N. LARNED.

GOOD BOOKS

The library offers the advantages of good society to many who could not otherwise enjoy them. This is one of the most important influences that tells on individual character. A man is not only known by the company he keeps, but to a great extent he is made or unmade by his a.s.sociates.

A great part of what we learn and much of what we are is absorbed unconsciously from our environment.

Now books are written--at least the good books--by men and women of the better sort. They are people of marked intelligence and refinement. They have just views of truth and duty and are able to reveal to us many secrets respecting the life that is being lived around us. They are interpreters and guides in all lines of human activity and service. To be intimate with them is good society. If then we can bring all these choice spirits by their books into our village and introduce them to our children and our neighbors, even to the poorest, and let them talk to all who will listen, we have done something, we have done much to raise the tone of general intelligence and refinement.

Here is the great opportunity to reach the homes of the poor and the careless and even of the baser sort with new light. The books will interest and meet the craving for knowledge which everybody has, and then will come into confidential relations with many a reader, starting new trains of thought, suggesting new ideas, offering sympathy and kindling faith. The friendless will gain friends and these friends will do them good.

In such ways, this inst.i.tution, the public library, is calculated to enlarge and enrich the community's life.

WILLIAM R. EASTMAN.

PLACE AND PURPOSE OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY

The place now a.s.signed the public library, by very general consent, is that of an integral part of our system of public and free education. On no other theory has it sure and lasting foundation; on no other theory may it be supported by general taxation; on no other theory can it be wisely and consistently administered. A public tax can be levied for the maintenance of a public library only upon the principle which underlies all righteous public taxation, not that the taxpayer wants something and will receive it in proportion to the amount of his contribution, but that the public wants something of such general interest and value that all property-owners may be asked and required to contribute towards its cost.

The demand for intelligent and effective citizens.h.i.+p is increasing daily, for two reasons: First--The problems of public life and of public service, of communal existence, are daily becoming more complex, more difficult of satisfactory solution. Second--We are recognizing more clearly than ever before that our present success and prestige are due to the fact that more than any other people in the world's history have we succeeded in securing that active partic.i.p.ation and practical co-operation of the whole people in all public affairs. In the whole people are we finding and are we to find wholesomeness and strength.

But coincident with this discovery, this keen realization of the place and value of all in advancing the common interests of all, has come the feeling: First--That the common public schools must be made good enough for all; and, Second--That even at their best they are insufficient. The five school years (average) of the American child const.i.tute a very narrow portal through which to enter upon the privileges and duties of life, as we desire life to be to every child born under the flag. There is need of far more information, instruction, inspiration and uplift than can possibly be secured in that limited time.

Casting about for a satisfactory supplement and complement for the public schools, we find the public library ready to render exactly this service; to make it possible for the adult to continue through life the growth begun in childhood in the public school. Only in this way and by this means can we hope to continue the common American people as the most uncommon people which the world has yet known.

Henceforth, then, these two must go hand in hand, neither trenching upon the field of the other, neither burdening or hampering the other, each helping the other. The public school must take the initiative, determining lines of thought and work, developing in each child the power to act and the tendency to act, making full use of the public library as an effective ally in all its current work, and making such use of it as to create in each pupil the library habit, to last through life. The public library must respond by every possible supplementary effort, by most intelligent co-operation, by most sympathetic and effective a.s.sistance, and by giving pupils a welcome which they will feel holds good till waning physical powers make further use of the library impossible.

NATIONAL EDUCATION a.s.s'N REPORT, 1906.

The most imperative duty of the state is the universal education of the ma.s.ses. No money which can be usefully spent for this indispensable end should be denied. Public sentiment should, on the contrary, approve the doctrine that the more that can be judiciously spent, the better for the country. There is no insurance of nations so cheap as the enlightenment of the people.

ANDREW CARNEGIE.

PUBLIC LIBRARY IS PUBLIC CO-OPERATION

A public library is the flower of the modern forms of co-operation, which secures for the individual, luxuries which he could not afford otherwise.

Instead of buying so many books and magazines which wear out on the shelves after one reading, let us ”pool our issues” and put the mult.i.tude of small sums in one fund, buy the best at the lowest prices, and then use the volumes so bought for the good of all. We need spend no more money each year for literature, but we need to save the wastage due to unused books, foolish purchases, book agents, commissions, and needless profits--and we can have a public library without other cost.

A good public library in this town may help our neighboring farmers as well as our townspeople. They cannot support public libraries in their small communities. Their small school libraries give the children a taste for reading, but give them nothing to gratify that taste when they leave school. Let us join our forces for mutual advantage and get a better library and a wider community of interests.

WISCONSIN FREE LIBRARY COMMISSION.

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