Part 5 (2/2)
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
SHALL WE BE LOYAL TO THE CITY OF OUR HOME?
The opportunity is at hand to answer this question. A generous gift is offered, shall we accept it? We can have ---- dollars for a public use, if we will promise to support the use to which this money is dedicated.
Shall ---- have a free public library? It is up to us, her citizens.
We have pa.s.sed the stage of a country town and are ranked and cataloged as a modern, progressive city, enjoying many of the advantages of the larger cities. Why is this true? Because the progressive spirit and sentiment have always triumphed in her onward march. Because, inspired by a public spirit, her people have joined hands, and shoulder to shoulder labored for all that pertains to religious, moral, social, industrial, educational and material development. Let us keep marching on.
Many towns in the state, nearly all those in the counties surrounding us, are accepting Carnegie gifts for libraries. Will it not humiliate and degrade us in the eyes of the people of the state if we decree against a public library? Let us not detract from our well deserved and established reputation for progressiveness by such a mistake. We appeal to public spirit; to pride of city; to pride of home, and urge you to register your vote in favor of this enterprise.
IOWA LIBRARY COMMISSION.
The system of free public libraries now being established in this country is the most important development of modern times. The library is a center from which radiates an ever widening influence for the enlightenment, the uplift, the advancement of the community.
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN.
THE SCHOOL'S GREATEST BOON
The greatest boon that the system of public schools, or the college, or the university, can confer upon any boy or girl is to teach him or her to use a great collection of literature, to teach them how to read; and to plant within their hearts an irresistible impulse and an indestructible delight in so doing. What profits it a man to learn how to read if he does not read? For what purpose is the mind trained and developed by the process of systematic study in the schools if it is not inspired to go farther into the realms of knowledge? Is it a rational procedure for one, upon the completion of his course of training, to discontinue all further investigation and to lay aside what little love for learning and literature and philosophy and science that may have been aroused in his bosom by school or college inspirations? And how is this advancing and widening of one's horizon by means of the acc.u.mulated stores of knowledge gathered by the previous generations of the world's strong thinkers and beautiful writers to be secured, other than by a collection of good books, by a library?
C. C. THACH.
BOOKS AND STUDY WORK
Have our missionary societies access to Bliss's ”Encyclopedia of Missions,” or to Dennis's great ”Missions and Christian Progress”? Do our Bible students know Moulton's ”Literary Study of the Bible”?--a book so illuminating as to seem almost itself inspired. How many of the members of the young people's societies of our churches have access to a standard concordance, Bible dictionary, or a dictionary of sects and doctrines? Has the W. C. T. U. the reports of the Committee of Fifty, that great committee of master minds, who made exhaustive investigation and authoritative reports on the various aspects of the liquor question?
Have the Masons a history of free-masonry? Has the Shakespeare Club books on Shakespeare, and is the Political Equality Club acquainted with standard works on political science and the franchise? Who has a good ”Cyclopedia of Quotations,” or a ”Reader's Handbook,” where we can satisfy our curiosity regarding allusions to ”Fair Rosamond,” ”Apples of Hesperia,” ”Atlantis” and ”Captain Cuttle”?
If we were to see a farmer laboriously cutting his wheat with a scythe, tying it into bundles by hand, and then carrying the bundles on his back to the barn, we would think he was crazy. Is it not as foolish, however, for us in our study work to do without the suitable tools and helps which we might have in a public library?
HOLLEY (N. Y.) STANDARD.
WHY CITIES SUPPORT PUBLIC LIBRARIES
The proposition that only an enlightened and an intelligent people can make self-government a success is so self-evident as to make argument but a vain repet.i.tion of empty words. And yet we know that the public school side of our system of free public education is as yet only able to secure five years' schooling for the average child in this country--an all too narrow portal through which to enter upon successful citizens.h.i.+p. There is an imperative demand, then, for the establishment and the development and for the wise administration of that other branch of our system of free public education which we know as the public library.
We must understand clearly that the beneficent result of this system of education is just as possible to the son of the peasant as to the son of the president, is just as helpful to the blacksmith as to the barrister, to the farmer as to the philosopher; and in its possibilities and in its helpfulness is a constant blessing to all and through all, and is needed by all alike.
The most worthy mind, that which is of most value to the world, is the well-informed mind which is public and large. Only through the development of such, both as leaders and as followers, can all cla.s.ses be brought into an understanding of each other, can we preserve true republican equality, can we avoid that insulation and seclusion which are unwholesome and unworthy of true American manhood. The state has no resources at all comparable with its citizens. A man is worth to himself just what he is capable of enjoying, and he is worth to the state just what he is capable of imparting. These form an exact and true measure of every man. The greatest positive strength and value, therefore, must always be a.s.sociated with the greatest positive and practical development of every faculty and power.
This, then, is the true basis of taxation for public libraries. Such a tax is subject to all the canons of usual taxation, and may be defended and must be defended upon precisely the same grounds as we defend the tax for the public schools.
JAMES HULME CANFIELD.
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