The Library and Society Part 13

_A_ and _B_ earn _1s._ each by carrying luggage. Says _A_ to _B_: 'I am in favour of circulating books by means of a subscription library; from this _1s._ I therefore propose to deduct _1d._ in order to compa.s.s my desire. There is my friend _C_, who is of the same opinion as myself, and he is willing to subscribe his quota to the scheme. We hope you will be willing to subscribe your mite, but if not, we intend to force you to do so, for, as you know, all private interests must give way to the public good.'

'Perhaps so,' replies _B_,'but then, you see, I have my own opinions on the subject, and I do not believe that your method of supplying literature is the best method. Of course I may be wrong, but then I am logically ent.i.tled to the same freedom of thought and action as you yourself are. If you are ent.i.tled to have your views about a "Free"

Library and to act upon them, I am equally ent.i.tled to the same liberty, so long as I don't interfere with you. I don't compel you to pay for my church, my theatre, or my club; why should you compel me to pay for your library? For my own part I don't want other people to keep me in literature, and I don't want to keep other people. I refuse therefore to pay the subscription.'

'Very well,' rejoins _A_, 'if that is the case I shall proceed to make you pay; and as I happen to represent a numerical majority the task will be an easy one.'

'But are we not man and man,' says _B_,'and have not I the same right to spend my earnings in my own way as you have to spend yours in your way?

Why should I be compelled to spend as you spend? Don't you see that you are claiming more for yourself than you are allowing to me, and are supplementing your own liberty by robbing me of mine? Is this the way you promote the public good? Is this your boasted free library? I tell you it is founded upon theft and upon the violation of the most sacred thing in this world--the liberty of your fellow man. It is the embodiment of a gross injustice, and only realises the selfish purpose of a cowardly and dishonest majority.'

'We have heard all this before,' replies _A_, 'but such considerations must all give way before the public good. We are stronger than you are, and we have decided once and for all that you shall pay for a "Free"

Library; don't make unnecessary resistance, or we shall have to proceed to extremities.'

And, after all, the so-called Free Library is not really free--only so in name. If the penny or twopenny rate gave even the shabbiest accommodation to anything like a fair proportion of its compulsory subscribers, there would not be standing room, and the ordinary subscription libraries would disappear. According to Mr. Thos.

Greenwood, who in his book on 'Free Libraries' has given a table of the daily average number of visitors at the different Free Libraries distributed up and down the country, there is only one per cent., on an average, of visitors per day of the population of the town to which the library belongs accommodated for a rate of one penny in the pound,--sometimes more, sometimes less;--but the general proportion is about one per cent. Now what do these facts mean? If it costs one penny in the pound to acommodate so few, what would it cost for a fair proportion to receive anything like a share that would be worth having?

Even now it is a frequent occurrence for a reader to wait for months before he can get the novel he wants. Says Mr. George Easter, the Norwich librarian:--'Novels most read are those by Ainsworth, _Ballantyne_, _Besant_, _Braddon_, _Collins_, _Craik_, d.i.c.kens, Fenn, Grant, _Haggard_, _Henty_, _C. Kingsley_, _Kingston_, _Edna Lyall_, Macdonald, Marryat, Oliphant, Payn, Reade, Reid, Verne, Warner, _Wood_, _Worboise_, and _Young_; of those underlined (in italics) the works are nearly always out.' The fact is, the Free Library means that the many shall work and pay and the few lounge and enjoy; theoretically it is free to all, but practically it can only be used by a few.

While there is such a run on novels, solid works are at a discount. At Newcastle-on-Tyne during 1880-81 we find that 2100 volumes of Miss Braddon's novels were issued (of course some would be issued many times over, as the whole set comprised only thirty-six volumes), while Bain's 'Mental and Moral Science' was lent out only twelve times in the year.

There were 1320 volumes issued of Grant's novels, and fifteen issues of Butler's 'a.n.a.logy of Religion'; 4056 volumes of Lever's novels were issued, while Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' circulated four times; 4901 volumes of Lytton's novels were issued, while Locke 'On the Understanding' went eight times. Mill's 'Logic' stands at fourteen issues as against Scott's novels, 3300; Spencer's 'Synthetic Philosophy'

(8 vols.) had forty-three issues of separate volumes; d.i.c.kens' novels had 6810; Macaulay's 'History of England' (10 vols.) had sixty-four issues of separate volumes. Ouida's novels had 1020; Darwin's 'Origin of Species' (2 vols.) had thirty-six issues; Wood's novels, 1481. Mill's 'Political Economy' had eleven issues; Worboise's novels, 1964. Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' (2 vols.) had fourteen issues; Collins' novels, 1368.

'No worse than in other libraries,' it may be said; 'knowledge is at a discount: sensation at a premium everywhere!' Perfectly true; but are people to be taxed to give facilities for this? Novel reading in moderation is good: the endowment of novel reading by the rates is bad--that is our contention. And when it is remembered that any book requiring serious study cannot be galloped through, like a novel, in the week or fourteen days allowed for use, it becomes at once evident that this gratuitous lending system is only adapted for the circulation of sensation, and not for the acquirement of real knowledge. And this is the sort of thing people allow themselves to be rated and taxed for!

This is progressive legislation, and its opponents are backward and illiberal!

Free Libraries are typical examples of the compulsory cooperation everywhere gaining ground in this country. Like all State socialism they are the negation of that liberty which is the goal of human progress.

Every successful opposition to them is therefore a stroke for human advancement. This mendacious appeal to the numerical majority to force a demoralising and pauperising inst.i.tution upon the minority, is an attempt to revive, in munic.i.p.al legislation, a form of coercion we have outgrown in religious matters. At the present time there is a majority of Protestants in this country who, if they wished, could use their numerical strength to compel forced subscription from a minority of Catholics, for the support of those religious inst.i.tutions which are regarded by their advocates as of quite equal importance to a Free Library. Yet this is not done; and why? Because in matters of religion we have learnt that liberty is better than force. In political and social questions this terrible lesson has yet to be learned. We deceive ourselves when we imagine that the struggle for personal liberty is over--probably the fiercest part has yet to arise. The tyranny of the few over the many is past, that of the many over the few is to come. The temptation for power--whether of one man or a million men--to take the short cut, and attempt by recourse to a forcing process to produce that which can only come as the result of the slow and steady growth of ages of free action, is so great that probably centuries will elapse before experience will have made men proof against it. But, however long the conflict, the ultimate issue cannot be doubted. That indispensable condition of all human progress--liberty--cannot be permanently suppressed by the arbitrary dictates of majorities, however potent. When the socialistic legislation of to-day has been tried, it will be found, in the bitter experience of the future, that for a few temporary, often imaginary, advantages we have sacrificed that personal freedom and initiative without which even the longest life is but a stale and empty mockery.

ARGUMENTS FOR PUBLIC SUPPORT OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES

A rejoinder to the preceding paper was made by William E.

Foster, of the Providence Public Library, before the American Library a.s.sociation at its conference held in San Francisco, Cal., in 1891. It may be considered as giving the normal American view as contrasted with the ultra-conservative att.i.tude of Mr. O'Brien. A sketch of Mr.

Foster appears in Vol. I. of this series.

The rise of the public library system both in this country and Great Britain, during the past half-century, has been almost coincident with the very noteworthy reexamination of every phase of social economy now so powerfully influencing the thought of the world. In this discussion the contributions of Kaufmann, of Fawcett, of Graham, of Jevons, and above all, of Herbert Spencer, have been more than influential--they have been almost epoch-making--and whatever view one may hold in regard to the social question, in its various phases, one cannot fail to acknowledge the deep debt which we owe to these profound thinkers.

No book, from Mr. Spencer's point of view, which has appeared within recent years, is worthy of a wider reading than the volume ent.i.tled "A plea for liberty; an argument against socialism and socialistic legislation," which appeared about the beginning of the present year. In it thirteen writers, whose point of view is very nearly identical, have discussed in successive chapters such topics as postal communications, electric communication, investment, improvement of workingmen's homes, free libraries, education, and other subjects, in their relation to the question, "What action shall the State take in regard to them?" The underlying purpose of the book is thus expressed in the words of Mr.

Mackay, the editor of the volume:--"If the view set out in this volume is at all correct, it is very necessary that men should abandon the policy of indifference, and that they should do something to enlarge the atmosphere of liberty. This is to be accomplished not by reckless and revolutionary methods, but rather by a resolute resistance to new encroachment and by patient and statesmanlike endeavor to remove wherever practicable the restraints of regulation, and to give full play over a larger area to the creative forces of liberty, for liberty is the condition precedent to all solution of human difficulty." Surely this is a statement of the case which must powerfully appeal to all thinking men, and lead them to reexamine, at least, the principles on which State support of the various inst.i.tutions referred to is based.

In such a spirit, a reexamination of the argument for public support of public libraries must be regarded as entirely germane to the objects which the American Library a.s.sociation has at heart. In such a spirit the present paper proposes to weigh once more the principles which underlie our American library system, and the considerations brought forward by Mr. O'Brien in the chapter devoted to "Free libraries" in the volume referred to.

The half-century of discussion of "socialism and socialistic legislation" already referred to has made few things so clear as the fact that the arguments employed on any subject--social subjects in particular--are weakened in almost the exact ratio in which they are allowed to be tinged by pa.s.sion and excited feeling. It must therefore be regarded as unfortunate that Mr. O'Brien's chapter suffers most emphatically from comparison with the generally high level of calm and unimpa.s.sioned argument, characterizing the larger portion of the book.

Whether this is to be explained on the basis of the apocryphal legal maxim, "When you have no case, abuse your opponent," or whether Mr.

O'Brien entered the lists fresh from some too recent partic.i.p.ation in a personal contest over the question, we do not undertake to inquire. The fact remains that not only do the writers of the other chapters of the book appear from a careful reading to state their arguments more effectively, but that the reader is also impressed with the fact that they have a case which admits of more effective argument.

Let us glance in succession at the points which Mr. O'Brien has aimed to make. They may be grouped in general under two heads; first, those which relate to the injury (in Mr. O'Brien's view) inflicted on the individual user of a free library from having it aided by public support, and second, those which relate to the tax-payer's grievance (in Mr. O'Brien's view) in helping to support it. The former is of course the side of the question most germane to the general purpose of the book, and it is therefore an occasion for surprise to notice that in Mr.

O'Brien's enumeration of arguments those coming under the other cla.s.s outnumber it in the ratio of six to one. First of all, to use Mr.

O'Brien's own language "the argument that if readers were left to pay for their own books, not only would books be more valued, but the moral discipline involved in the small personal sacrifice incurred by saving for such a purpose would do infinitely more good than any amount of culture obtained at other people's expense." And he takes occasion to suggest that "possibly the advocates of literary pauperism will see little force in" this argument. Possibly; we are not familiar with the train of reasoning which leads to an advocacy of "literary pauperism."

For ourselves, we have been accustomed, long before the appearance of Mr. O'Brien's chapter, to attach exceptional importance to the principle which he has here indicated, somewhat awkwardly, to be sure. There can be no doubt that the appreciation of any object is in almost the exact ratio of the effort expended to procure it. This is why teachers and librarians--in American communities, at least--have so often had occasion to rejoice at seeing a taste not only for reading, but for owning books inspired in a young man or woman by access to a n.o.ble collection of books for the use of the public. For "owning books," we say; but the limits of a collection so owned are too soon reached in the case of even the best-endowed pockets of individual readers. Were the intelligent teacher who takes an interest in the reading and intellectual growth of the pupils, from the various walks in life represented in our schools, to find a pupil whose interest in pursuing further some lines of thought therein suggested, extended no further than to the books at home on his own book-shelf, we cannot doubt that it would give occasion to question the efficacy of the teaching imparted.

Mr. O'Brien's objection to the enjoyment of these reservoirs of enlightenment, by a portion of the community, where the community as a whole is responsible for their support, is as if a man should be told that he would do well not to walk abroad at night by the light of the public street lamps, but rather enjoy the light kindled in his own house. The latter is certainly important, but not even Mr. O'Brien's reasoning is likely to persuade us that it precludes the former. Mr.

O'Brien, in the second place, deeply feels for the reader who, in being brought in contact with the benefits of the library, is, he thinks, subjected to a wrong system of education. To quote his language: "Just at the time when a child is beginning to form his tastes, just at the period when the daily habituation to the simple duties of farm life would lay the foundation both of sound health and practical knowledge, he is taken out of the parent's control, and subjected to a mind-destroying, cramming process, which excludes practical knowledge and creates a dislike for all serious study." One is compelled on reading this extraordinary deliverance to cast one's eye to the heading at the top of the page, "Free Libraries," and ask what this formidable indictment--not one count in which has any bearing on libraries--can mean in this connection. The only conclusion possible is that it was written with a view to appearing in some other chapter of the book.

But Mr. O'Brien's concern is manifested also for the taxpayer, who unites in the public support of the library. If we understand him correctly, his contention is that the enormity of this tax consists largely in the reprehensible nature--as represented in his pages--of the inst.i.tution itself. For from this short chapter one gradually frames a picture of the free library as a place which tramps frequent for sleeping off the effects of dissipation; as a place used by commercial travellers for exhibiting their samples; as a place from which in one instance "a respectable thief took away 20 worth of books"; as a place used in an almost exclusive degree for reading fiction; as a place where the time prescribed for keeping books makes 'serious study' impossible;"

and, more serious than all the rest, as a place which, he says, "favors one special section of the community at the expense of all the rest."

Let us do Mr. O'Brien the justice to add that for the first three of these counts he gives "chapter and verse" for his charges, quoting, namely, from various (English) library reports. No one will therefore wish to dispute his well-fortified statement that in such and such an instance an unseemly incident occurred. But even a child can a.s.suredly see the difference between a statement of an isolated occurrence and an inference that it is a necessarily characteristic and inherent quality of the inst.i.tution in question. Were this latter true, then we might well cry out for abolis.h.i.+ng our churches, sidewalks, and railway stations, for in them these very same three things respectively are known at some time to have been done. In the last three of these counts, however, we have only Mr. O'Brien's a.s.sertions as the basis, and we are obliged to add also that even these are found to be conflicting. On one page his language shows that he is pained that a certain percentage of readers in the libraries named should prefer to call for works of fiction. Can it be that he has forgotten this, when on another page he cites it as a grievance that "it is a frequent occurrence for a reader to wait for months before he can get the novel he wants"! On page 333, after quoting, from the annual report of one of the English libraries, the statement as to the use of works of fiction, nothing but a resort to italics can sufficiently emphasize his lamentation that "the more instructive books in the other cla.s.ses circulate only once during the same period." Mr. O'Brien is not the only observer who has failed always to observe, when commenting upon percentages of fiction, that "any book requiring serious study cannot be galloped through, like a novel, in the week or fourteen days allowed for use," yet who would have believed that "out of his own mouth" would he be so completely answered, for this remark, as well as the one which it answers, is found in his decidedly interesting chapter (p. 348). But here it is evident that the bearing of the two upon each other was not in his mind in writing it, for his purpose in the sentence last quoted was plainly to make it appear that the customary regulations of public libraries were such as to render "serious study" impossible.

The limitation of "a week or fourteen days" for a book of the kind which he here indicates--he instances by name Kant's "Critique of pure reason" and Smith's "Wealth of nations"--is practically unknown in American public libraries. In most of those known to the present writer a book of this kind can be charged in the first instance for fourteen days and then renewed, making twenty-eight days in all, and in still others for a longer period. It can then, after being returned to the library--to give any other reader who may need it a chance at it--be taken out again after remaining on the shelves twenty-four hours, for another twenty-eight days' use by the same reader. The annual report of an American library which lies before us contains a case in point.

Speaking of Bryce's "American Commonwealth," it states: "Of this, seven copies were added in succession." It names 101 as the total of the issues of this work during the year; but considering the truth expressed in Mr. O'Brien's own very just words, that "any book requiring serious study cannot be galloped through, like a novel," the statement is added that "such a record, for a book like this, constantly in the hands of readers, may be contrasted with the more than ten times greater number of times that some work of fiction might be read through, returned and taken out again, requiring but a part of a day's attention." In fact, 101 is very likely to be the total number of issues possible in the case of seven copies of this book, while 700 would probably fall far short of the total possible issues of the same number of copies of a story like "The Wreck of the Grosvenor." Again, Mr. O'Brien not only tells us that "a free library favors one special section of the community" at the expense of all the rest, but throughout his chapter recurs again and again to the case of the "workingman." On page 330, for instance, we are solemnly told: "If the workingman cannot come by his books honestly, let him wait until he can." This is indeed somewhat summary, particularly when, being interpreted, it is found to mean, Let there be no free libraries supported by the public. And yet, on page 344, with no less certainty, we are a.s.sured that "there is little doubt that at least forty-nine out of every fifty workingmen have no interest whatever in these inst.i.tutions."

Where the deliverances from one and the same source are so contradictory, the impartial inquirer will doubtless feel like looking for some other source of information. From the materials accessible to the present writer in regard to American libraries--and the new edition of Mr. Greenwood's "Public libraries" appears to tell the same tale in regard to Great Britain--the interest of workingmen in the opportunities afforded by public libraries is everywhere emphatically shown; but he who sets out with the purpose of showing that there is any one exclusive cla.s.s to whom the public library is of service and to no other--be that cla.s.s workingmen, or students, or manufacturers, or scientists--will find the facts singularly obstinate and unresponsive to his purpose. The truth is--Mr. O'Brien's confident a.s.sertion to the contrary--that there is no more "universal" and non-partisan inst.i.tution than a public library. This is undoubtedly the highest among its several claims to public support. Few among the objects to which the public funds have been appropriated, in American cities, have met with so hearty and unquestioning approval as the public parks, and it is right that it should be so. Yet there are whole cla.s.ses in every community who not only never do enjoy the public parks, but never care to enjoy them. Even the public schools are for a certain fraction of the population only--the younger portion. In contrast with both of these, the public library extends its resources to the children and the adults alike.

Perhaps, however, the fundamentally important question of universality, in the sense of non-partisans.h.i.+p, is one which is seldom appreciated in its full force, as applied to a public library. An independent position, one entirely free from bias, a non-partisan att.i.tude, in fact, is an ideal repeatedly set before the conductors of a school or a newspaper.

In both these cases, however, there is too often an element of practical difficulty in carrying these praiseworthy intentions into practice, which is almost completely wanting in the case of a public library. The policy of the latter, is, in its very essence, catholic. It places on its shelves the volumes which represent, not one side, but both, or rather all sides of any subject on which the sentiment of the public divides; and thus, whether the user be Democrat or Republican, protectionist or freetrader, Catholic or Protestant, the aspect which this collection of books presents to him is no less free and uncirc.u.mscribed than the illimitable aid.

Again, it is important that the relation of a public library to the question of entertainment should be clearly understood. Entertainment is not an element totally foreign to the purposes of a public library--the same kind of public benefit accrues in this case as in the case of public parks--but in the light of the infinitely more important functions which it renders, this must of necessity occupy a subordinate place. The primary function of a library is to render a service, to supply a need, to respond to a demand. In this respect its value to the community is of the same description as the postal system, the bank at which one may cash a check, or the reservoir from which one may "turn on" a supply of water.

One of the points which Mr. O'Brien aims to make, and which proceeds from a manifest confusion of thought, can be appropriately noticed here.

His contention is that a public library is for the "cla.s.s" who may be designated "book-readers," that these form but a small percentage of any community, and that therefore it is obviously wrong that the library should receive public support. This is ingenious, as is also his eloquent, though somewhat contemptuous setting of their supposed special needs over against those of others. "Are theatre-goers, lovers of cricket, bicyclists, amateurs of music, and others to have their earnings confiscated," merely that the "book-reader" may gratify his peculiar craving? Like many other ingenious theories, however, it leaves out of account certain fundamentally important bearings of the subject.

There can be no doubt that in any community "the book-reader" is not synonymous with the entire population. Some of the population are children in arms; some have never learned to read; the sight of some who have learned has failed; others again are too fully occupied to find time for it; others find their inclination drawn more strongly in other directions; others still have more or less to do with reading, yet are not, in the strict sense, "book-readers." Yet we shall err very widely if we lose sight of the fact that even those who do not personally perform the role of the "book-reader" do nevertheless benefit by the existence of the library, by proxy. The young child is read to, by his mother; or is cared for by her, by methods learned through her use of books. The busy "captain of industry," whose large profits are due to a skillful application of scientific principles, may find his own time so closely occupied by details of administration that, personally, he seldom opens the treatises which bear upon the subject, but he expects to keep abreast of the ever unfolding science, by the consultation not only of such works as private owners.h.i.+p may provide, but the more nearly complete collection in a great public library.

This principle of "community of interest" and interdependence has an even wider bearing; for it applies not only to the family and the business firm, but to the community as a whole. A public library report now before the writer contains several instances of this kind.

Speaking of the systematic efforts made to build up an approximately complete collection of works on industrial and decorative subjects, the report states that in this way "the library is gradually becoming the possessor of a scientifically selected set of volumes and plates which cannot fail to leave a distinct impress on the character of the work done in the various industries of the city." Another portion of the same report ill.u.s.trates the direct service rendered by such an inst.i.tution to the interests of the munic.i.p.ality. To quote the language there used, "Instances of the last named, both striking and tangible, are of by no means exceptional occurrence, sometimes an application of this kind being presented from more than one city official on the same day," the foregoing having reference to the city in question. "A well-authenticated instance," it continues, "in one of the largest cities of the country, of the saving of a sum of many thousand dollars, in the matter of a contract, due to the opportunity for consulting the requisite data comprised in works of authority in the public library of that city, is but an indication of the possibilities of a public library."

It is fitting that where funds are to be appropriated, collected by taxes levied on the tax-paying population, there should be possible so tangible a presentation as the above, of the direct relation of the inst.i.tution supported, to the question of "profit and loss," as affecting those who are taxed. And yet it is well to remember that it is as true now as twenty centuries ago, that "man does not live by bread alone;" and that the public support of the inst.i.tutions referred to can be justified by other arguments than that of the material interests just cited.

No aspect of the library's operation is more full of interest than that which takes account of its uplifting influence. The a.n.a.logy between its service and that of the postal system has been noticed; but it has a no less real a.n.a.logy to the work of the school, the pulpit, or the press--yet without the propagandist principle which so often attaches to these latter--namely, in the principle of growth or advance. In the earlier portion of this paper a little s.p.a.ce was devoted to showing that in the nature of the case the number of copies of any work of fiction used in the course of a year would immensely out-number those which could possibly be read in the more solid departments of reading. Even were the const.i.tuency of the library confined to a selected few, to whose minds the higher cla.s.s of reading was congenial, this would be the case. Nor should we forget that the ground of distinction between a "public" library and any other, as the library of a scientific society, a debating society, a theological school or a teachers' club, is that its const.i.tuency _is_ not thus limited to a selected cla.s.s but is broad as humanity itself, with all its enormous inequalities of condition, taste, and mental growth. Like a mirror, therefore, the recorded cla.s.sified circulation reflects this variety. Even with this apparently almost unmanageable unevenness, appreciable improvement in standards of reading is by no means an unknown experience. There lies before the writer, for instance, a library report which is able to make such a statement as this: "The fiction percentages of the seven successive years, beginning with 1883 and ending with 1889, show an uninterrupted decline, as follows: 70+, 66+, 62+, 61+, 58+, 56+." But it must be remembered also that figures such as these, though they may tell a part, and a very gratifying part, of the advances which individual readers have been helped to make, fall very far short of expressing the whole.

It would be entirely possible for individual after individual thus to advance from good to better, and from better to best, and yet the figures which express the aggregate use of the year remain stationary (or even retrograde), because the const.i.tuency of a public library (particularly in a large city) is all the time being reenforced by new readers. And these new readers comprise both those who are children in age and those who are children in mental growth, who begin at the foot.

When, therefore, there is anything more than a preserving of a uniform level--as in the noteworthy figures above quoted--it stands for a very striking advance indeed, on the part of a very large portion of the community. Probably every librarian in charge of a public library in a large city has had an opportunity of observing these advances in innumerable individual instances. And this cla.s.s of results, while distinctly following the "order of nature," does not by any means come about through a view of library administration which regards either books, readers, or librarian as inert ma.s.ses. Much of it is the result of individual interest expressed by the librarian in some reader, whose mind receives an awakening impulse.

More than one well authenticated instance exists of an individual beginning life as a newsboy or an elevator-boy, and through his use of a public library finding his intellectual powers unfolding until he has entered one of the learned professions. The relation of the library system to the school system opens an almost boundless field of thought, and it is a fact of deep significance that the profound principle involved in it, after having engaged the attention of English and American libraries for years, has been recognized in the educational steps recently taken by the government of j.a.pan, where the two systems are placed on a plane of equality. In the experience of one of the American libraries already referred to, almost the chief hope of the library for the future is placed upon "a cla.s.s of readers," every year largely increasing in numbers, who comprise the "graduates from the various inst.i.tutions of learning" in the city, and whose "lines of study and reading" "may be characterized as a carrying forward of those impulses in the direction of right reading which were received in school and college." The library has a no less direct relation to the needs and ambitions of those who have received the invaluable training of "the practical duties of the world," to use Mr. O'Brien's phrase, and it responds with equal readiness to these. There is concentrated in the contemptuous phrase, "book-learning," a popular judgment of condemnation which is for the most part just, on the spurious variety of knowledge which knows the expression of certain principles in books, but knows nothing of their practical embodiment in the life and work of this world. We are glad to observe that Mr. O'Brien's antipathy to this pseudo-knowledge is almost as profound as our own, but his expression of it seems singularly out of place in a philippic against public libraries; for one will seek far before finding an inst.i.tution more perfectly suited to be a corrective of such a tendency than the modern public library. Does any one claim that the public school system sometimes has an unfortunate tendency to repress individuality and turn out a set of pupils of uniform mould? If so, the public library supplies a means of supplementing and complementing this uniformity by its infinite variety and universality, and it is continually doing this, indeed. Does any one regret that the school system at its best reaches but a fraction of the population and that fraction for but a few short years of their life, and that in too many instances there is a tendency on the part of even these few, educated in the schools, to conceive of their education as "finished," and allow the fabric to become hopelessly ravelled? If so, the public library stands to these members of the community in an almost ideal relation, not only fulfilling very perfectly Mr. Carlyle's characterization of a "collection of books" as "the people's university," but in the peculiarly wide range shown in the demands made upon it, almost as properly rendering it the people's workshop, or laboratory.

The same library report which has several times been cited printed several years since a record of the inquiries made on specific subjects during a single month, which throws significant light upon this subject.

Another report of the same library declares that "few can adequately conceive to what extent the inquiries made at the library have become specialized, and require trained facility and research" on the part of the library staff. The library thus becomes a laboratory, in which the reader gains not only the specific information, but the method.

An observation of popular movements in their relation to political or economic principles reveals few facts so plainly as that an almost insuperable narrowness of view is, in much the greater number of instances, the barrier to advance in those questions decided mainly by the popular voice. Why then should any one wish to perpetuate the conditions which make this possible? In Mr. O'Brien's view the workingman,--and we ought not to forget how large a percentage of the community this word "workingman" represents, both in England and America,--will be a fortunate man when the contents of free libraries are no longer rendered everywhere accessible to him by public support, for then the workingmen "for one 'penny' can buy their favorite newspaper, which can be carried in the pocket and read at any time"! It is well nigh incredible that an ideal such as this should be looked forward to by thinking men. Whatever may be the fact in regard to the workingmen of Great Britain,--and Mr. O'Brien of course knows them better than we do,--it may confidently be a.s.serted that the American workingman would strike no such false note. Mr. Lowell in one of his admirable orations quotes from a Wallachian legend of a peasant who was "taken up into heaven" and offered his choice among the objects to be seen there. He chose a half worn-out bagpipe, and with this returned to the earth. "With an infinite possibility within his reach, with the choice of wisdom, of power, of beauty, at his tongue's end, he asked according to his kind, and his sordid wish is answered with a gift as sordid." The newspaper is well enough in its way,--even a "penny newspaper,"--but to condemn whole ma.s.ses of the population to limit themselves to this, is to incur the condemnation of Mr. Lowell's fine scorn when, in another portion of the oration just referred to, he says: "It is we who, while we might each in his humble way be helping our fellows into the right path, or adding one block to the climbing spire of a fine soul, are willing to become mere sponges saturated from the stagnant goose-pond of village gossip." It is more. It is to help develop a community from whom in the end every spark of uplifting influence shall have vanished. Does any one say that this is a result impossible of attainment by any people? The scientifically true, yet brutally summary record given by the distinguished European savant, Elisee Reclus, of a certain European stock which has found and occupied virgin soil in the South of Africa, is a sufficient answer. "In general," he says, "the Boers despise everything that does not contribute directly to the material prosperity of the family group. They ignore music, the arts, literature, all refining influence, and find little pleasure in anything," except solid ama.s.sing of wealth.

A few additional points remain to be noted. It is an entirely pertinent question whether every public library in England and America improves its high privilege, uses to the full the peculiar opportunities open to it, places itself in close communication with the public school system, with the university extension movement, and with the influences continually at work in industrial and artistic development. And we need not hesitate to answer in the negative. Yet the significant fact is, that everywhere the tendency is in this direction with a stronger and stronger momentum. The advance made in this country, within the last decade even, in this direction, is among the most striking phenomena of the time; and no less striking is the almost overwhelming percentage of the body of librarians in this country whose entrance upon the work from a deep-seated love for it, rather than as furnis.h.i.+ng a means of livelihood, supplies one of the strongest guarantees against the invasion of the perfunctory spirit in the future. Again, it is equally pertinent to ask whether, granted that the benefits of such an inst.i.tution as the public library are unquestioned, dependence may not be placed on funds entirely unconnected with those of the public, for its support. It would ill become the citizen of a country where private munificence has accomplished so much in channels of public spirit, to overlook these n.o.ble memorials of enlightened private action. Yet it remains true, nevertheless, that were dependence to be placed on these alone, a map of the country on which public libraries should be dotted down would show as partial and inadequate a supply furnished to the community, as the very instructive "annual rainfall map" published by the government shows in the matter of rain. What we are accustomed, in the eastern portion of this country, to consider the rain--in its universal beneficent service and in its indispensableness--that also is to be a.s.sociated with the "reservoirs" comprised in these public collections of books. For, after all, valuable as are the books themselves, even in their material aspect, as pieces of handiwork, still more in the specific items of information and admonition contained in them, yet in the deeper view these are but symbols of their real significance and service. To place one's self in communication with them as contained in these libraries, is to bring ourselves in contact with the stored-up thought of the world thus far. We have just adverted to the fundamental bearing which this has upon the deeper or spiritual side of man's life. But the two-sided character of these collections of books follows us even here, for their indispensableness in the material point of view is almost as striking, and this, not only whether we consider the statesman planning measures of public weal, while neglecting to inform himself of the recorded conditions which necessarily must determine such measures; or whether it be the inventor spending long years of his too brief life in perfecting a machine which his consultation of the recorded patent would have shown him some one else had antic.i.p.ated him in thinking out; or whether it be the day laborer submitting without an effort to violations of his rights, which a single glance at the recorded statutes would have shown him he had a remedy for.

How like all this is to the supposed state of things which one of the most suggestive writers of our day has thus expressed: "Our early voyagers are dead: not a plank remains of the old s.h.i.+ps that first essayed unknown waters; the sea retains no track; and were it not for the history of these voyages contained in charts, in chronicles, in h.o.a.rded lore of all kinds, each voyager, though he were to start with all the aids of advanced civilization," would be in the helpless position of the earliest voyager.

Once more, each reader of the strongly written book which we have been considering should ask the question for himself, whether all of the various propositions maintained therein necessarily stand or fall together. Because the compiler has chosen to bracket together two such headings as "Free libraries" and "The state and electrical distribution," it certainly does not follow that the argument which carries conviction in the one case must in the other also. We shall not be suspected of having our judgment in this regard swayed by the natural weakness with which, to use Mr. O'Brien's ill.u.s.tration, the shoemaker is inclined to think that "there is nothing like leather," if we suggest, what the public at large in this country is very plainly persuaded of, that, for one person who has appreciated the need for public action in the latter case there are thousands in the former. The writer lives in a city in which for more than eleven years the public library was administered by funds not in the least degree derived from munic.i.p.al appropriations. Yet the character of its service to the public had so widely impressed itself upon the community that, largely from sources outside of the library board, a movement arose for recognizing the closeness of the relation, by public support. A report by a committee of the city government, recommending this course, significantly declares: "Your committee are unanimously of the opinion that this public library, already existing in the city, is a useful and a necessary adjunct to the educational system sustained by the city in its public schools, and properly appeals to the treasury for an appropriation towards its support." After eleven years' opportunity for observation and comparison, such a judgment as this has the merit of deliberation and conviction.

It is true that by far the greater part of the considerations which lead the present writer to find Mr. O'Brien's view untenable are drawn from observation and experience of conditions existing in this country.

Yet it is to be noted that his position is also contested, so far as Great Britain is concerned, by an article in the March number of The Library (of London), which shows, not only that our English cousins are fully able to take care of themselves, but also that on many of the questions of fact, about which his arguments turn, he is painfully wide of the mark. Few students of social conditions have left so noteworthy an impress on contemporary thought as the late William Stanley Jevons.

Of the free public library he held a view radically opposed to that of Mr. O'Brien, believing it to be "an engine for operating upon" the community, in ways at once protective and enn.o.bling. As to the universality of its beneficent service, he was equally convinced, declaring not only that "free libraries are engines for creating the habit and power of enjoying high-cla.s.s literature, and thus carrying forward the work of civilization which is commenced in the primary school," but also that they are "cla.s.sed with town halls, police courts, prisons, and poor-houses, as necessary adjuncts of our stage of civilization." The experience of one community or one nation is repeatedly serviceable to another; but, after all, it is the local conditions which must finally determine in any case. Even if a different conclusion were to be reached in this matter in Great Britain, it would still remain true that for us in America it is one of the highest duties of self-preservation to keep alive the uplifting influences represented in the public support of these inst.i.tutions. The future of this country, even more than its past, will be irrevocably committed to the democratic principle in government. As is the people--in the widest sense of the word--so will be the national life and character. In the future, even more than in the past, crudity, narrowness, well-meaning ignorance, and low standards of taste and ethics will, unless met with corrective tendencies, color our national life. The public school and the public library--"instruments equal in power to the Dionysiac theatre, and vastly greater in their range of power," to quote the language of one of the most thoughtful of our men of letters--will stand more and more, in our American communities, as such corrective tendencies.