Part 4 (1/2)

USE OF LIBRARIES FOR REFERENCE

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

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

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

F. A. HUTCHINS.

THE MODERN LIBRARY MOVEMENT

The modern library movement is a movement to increase by every possible means the accessibility of books, to stimulate their reading and to create a demand for the best. Its motive is helpfulness; its scope, instruction and recreation; its purpose, the enlightenment of all; its aspirations, still greater usefulness. It is a distinctive movement, because it recognizes, as never before, the infinite possibilities of the public library, and because it has done everything within its power to develop those possibilities.

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

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

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

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

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

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

JOSEPH LEROY HARRISON.

THE PEOPLE'S UNIVERSITY

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

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

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

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

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

F. M. CRUNDEN.

PUBLIC LIBRARY, A PUBLIC NECESSITY

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

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

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