Produced by Michael Ciesielski and the booksmiths at
http://www.eBookForge.net
A BOOK FOR ALL READERS
DESIGNED AS AN AID TO THE
COLLECTION, USE, AND PRESERVATION
OF BOOKS
AND THE
FORMATION OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIBRARIES
BY
AINSWORTH RAND SPOFFORD
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK & LONDON
1900
COPYRIGHT 1900
BY
A R SPOFFORD
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Chapter Page
1. THE CHOICE OF BOOKS, 3
2. BOOK BUYING, 33
3. THE ART OF BOOK BINDING, 50
4. PREPARATION FOR THE SHELVES: BOOK PLATES, &C., 88
5. THE ENEMIES OF BOOKS, 101
6. RESTORATION AND RECLAMATION OF BOOKS, 119
7. PAMPHLET LITERATURE, 145
8. PERIODICAL LITERATURE, 157
9. THE ART OF READING, 171
10. AIDS TO READERS, 190
11. ACCESS TO LIBRARY SHELVES, 215
12. THE FACULTY OF MEMORY, 226
13. QUALIFICATIONS OF LIBRARIANS, 242
14. SOME OF THE USES OF LIBRARIES, 275
15. THE HISTORY OF LIBRARIES, 287
16. LIBRARY BUILDINGS AND FURNISHINGS, 321
17. LIBRARY MANAGERS OR TRUSTEES, 333
18. LIBRARY REGULATIONS, 341
19. LIBRARY REPORTS AND ADVERTISING, 349
20. THE FORMATION OF LIBRARIES, 357
21. CLASSIFICATION, 362
22. CATALOGUES, 373
23. COPYRIGHT AND LIBRARIES, 400
24. POETRY OF THE LIBRARY, 417
25. HUMORS OF THE LIBRARY, 430
26. RARE BOOKS, 444
27. BIBLIOGRAPHY, 459
INDEX, 501
A BOOK FOR ALL READERS
CHAPTER 1.
THE CHOICE OF BOOKS.
When we survey the really illimitable field of human knowledge, the vast
accumulation of works already printed, and the ever-increasing flood of
new books poured out by the modern press, the first feeling which is apt
to arise in the mind is one of dismay, if not of despair. We ask--who is
sufficient for these things? What life is long enough--what intellect
strong enough, to master even a tithe of the learning which all these
books contain? But the reflection comes to our aid that, after all, the
really important books bear but a small proportion to the mass. Most
books are but repetitions, in a different form, of what has already been
many times written and printed. The rarest of literary qualities is
originality. Most writers are mere echoes, and the greater part of
literature is the pouring out of one bottle into another. If you can get
hold of the few really best books, you can well afford to be ignorant of
all the rest. The reader who has mastered Kames's "Elements of
Criticism," need not spend his time over the multitudinous treatises upon
rhetoric. He who has read Plutarch's Lives thoroughly has before him a
gallery of heroes which will go farther to instruct him in the elements
of character than a whole library of modern biographies. The student of
the best plays of Shakespeare may save his time by letting other and
inferior dramatists alone. He whose imagination has been fed upon Homer,
Dante, Milton, Burns, and Tennyson, with a few of the world's
master-pieces in single poems like Gray's Elegy, may dispense with the
whole race of poetasters. Until you have read the best fictions of
Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Hawthorne, George Eliot, and Victor Hugo, you
should not be hungry after the last new novel,--sure to be forgotten in a
year, while the former are perennial. The taste which is once formed upon
models such as have been named, will not be satisfied with the trashy
book, or the spasmodic school of writing.
What kind of books should form the predominant part in the selection of
our reading, is a question admitting of widely differing opinions. Rigid
utilitarians may hold that only books of fact, of history and science,
works crammed full of knowledge, should be encouraged. Others will plead
in behalf of lighter reading, or for a universal range. It must be
admitted that the most attractive reading to the mass of people is not
scientific or philosophical. But there are many very attractive books
outside the field of science, and outside the realm of fiction, books
capable of yielding pleasure as well as instruction. There are few books
that render a more substantial benefit to readers of any age than good
biographies. In them we find those personal experiences and adventures,
those traits of character, that environment of social and domestic life,
which form the chief interest in works of fiction. In fact, the novel, in
its best estate, is only biography amplified by imagination, and
enlivened by dialogue. And the novel is successful only when it succeeds
in depicting the most truly the scenes, circumstances, and characters of
real life. A well written biography, like that of Dr. Johnson, by
Boswell, Walter Scott, by Lockhart, or Charles Dickens, by Forster, gives
the reader an insight into the history of the times they lived in, the
social, political, and literary environment, and the impress of their
famous writings upon their contemporaries. In the autobiography of Dr.
Franklin, one of the most charming narratives ever written, we are taken
into the writer's confidence, sympathize with his early struggles,
mistakes, and successes, and learn how he made himself, from a poor boy
selling ballads on Boston streets, into a leader among men, whom two
worlds have delighted to honor. Another most interesting book of
biography is that of the brothers William and Robert Chambers, the famous
publishers of Edinburgh, who did more to diffuse useful knowledge, and to
educate the people, by their manifold cheap issues of improving and
entertaining literature, than was ever done by the British Useful
Knowledge Society itself.
The French nation has, of all others, the greatest genius for personal
memoirs, and the past two centuries are brought far more vividly before
us in these free-spoken and often amusing chronicles, than in all the
formal histories. Among the most readable of these (comparatively few
having been translated into English) are the Memoirs of Marmontel,
Rousseau, Madame Rémusat, Amiel, and Madame De Staël. The recently
published memoirs by Imbert de St. Amand, of court life in France in the
times of Marie Antoinette, Josephine, Marie Louise, and other periods,
while hastily written and not always accurate, are lively and
entertaining.
The English people fall far behind the French in biographic skill, and
many of their memoirs are as heavy and dull as the persons whom they
commemorate. But there are bright exceptions, in the lives of literary
men and women, and in some of those of noted public men in church and
state. Thus, there are few books more enjoyable than Sydney Smith's
Memoirs and Letters, or Greville's Journals covering the period including
George IV to Victoria, or the Life and Letters of Macaulay, or Mrs.
Gaskell's Charlotte Brontë, or the memoirs of Harriet Martineau, or
Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson. Among the briefer biographies worthy of
special mention are the series of English Men of Letters, edited by John
Morley, and written by some of the best of contemporary British writers.
They embrace memoirs of Chaucer, Spenser, Bacon, Sidney, Milton, De Foe,
Swift, Sterne, Fielding, Locke, Dryden, Pope, Johnson, Gray, Addison,
Goldsmith, Burke, Hume, Gibbon, Bunyan, Bentley, Sheridan, Burns, Cowper,
Southey, Scott, Byron, Lamb, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Wordsworth, De
Quincey, Macaulay, Landor, Dickens, Thackeray, Hawthorne, and Carlyle.
These biographies, being quite compendious, and in the main very well
written, afford to busy readers a short-hand method of acquainting
themselves with most of the notable writers of Britain, their personal
characteristics, their relation to their contemporaries, and the quality
and influence of their works. Americans have not as yet illustrated the
field of biographic literature by many notably skilful examples. We are
especially deficient in good autobiographies, so that Dr. Franklin's
stands almost alone in singular merit in that class. We have an abundance
of lives of notable generals, professional men, and politicians, in which
indiscriminate eulogy and partisanship too often usurp the place of
actual facts, and the truth of history is distorted to glorify the merits
of the subject of the biography. The great success of General Grant's own
Memoirs, too, has led publishers to tempt many public men in military or
civil life, into the field of personal memoirs, not as yet with
distinguished success.
It were to be wished that more writers possessed of some literary skill,
who have borne a part in the wonderful drama involving men and events
enacted in this country during the century now drawing to a close, had
given us their sincere personal impressions in autobiographic form. Such
narratives, in proportion as they are truthful, are far more trustworthy
than history written long after the event by authors who were neither
observers nor participants in the scenes which they describe.
Among American biographies which will help the reader to gain a tolerably
wide acquaintance with the men and affairs of the past century in this
country, are the series of Lives of American Statesmen, of which thirty
volumes have been published. These include Washington, the Adamses,
Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay, Madison, Marshall, Monroe, Henry,
Gallatin, Morris, Randolph, Jackson, Van Buren, Webster, Clay, Calhoun,
Cass, Benton, Seward, Lincoln, Chase, Stevens, and Sumner. While these
Memoirs are of very unequal merit, they are sufficiently instructive to
be valuable to all students of our national history.
Another very useful series is that of American Men of Letters, edited by
Charles Dudley Warner, in fifteen volumes, which already includes
Franklin, Bryant, Cooper, Irving, Noah Webster, Simms, Poe, Emerson,
Ripley, Margaret Fuller, Willis, Thoreau, Taylor, and Curtis.
In the department of history, the best books for learners are not always
the most famous. Any mere synopsis of universal history is necessarily
dry reading, but for a constant help in reference, guiding one to the
best original sources, under each country, and with very readable
extracts from the best writers treating on each period, the late work of
J. N. Larned, "History for Ready Reference," five volumes, will be found
invaluable. Brewer's Historic Note Book, in a single volume, answers many
historic queries in a single glance at the alphabet. For the History of
the United States, either John Fiske's or Eggleston's is an excellent
compend, while for the fullest treatment, Bancroft's covers the period
from the discovery of America up to the adoption of the constitution in
1789, in a style at once full, classical, and picturesque. For
continuations, McMaster's History of the People of the United States
covers the period from 1789 to 1824, and is being continued. James
Schouler has written a History of the United States from 1789 to 1861, in
five volumes, while J. F. Rhodes ably covers the years 1850 to the Civil
War with a much more copious narrative.
For the annals of England, the Short History of England by J. R. Green is
a most excellent compend. For more elaborate works, the histories of Hume
and Macaulay bring the story of the British Empire down to about 1700.
For the more modern period, Lecky's History of England in the 18th
century is excellent, and for the present century, McCarthy's History of
Our Own Time, and Miss Martineau's History of England, 1815-52, are well
written works. French history is briefly treated in the Student's History
of France, while Guizot's complete History, in eight volumes, gives a
much fuller account, from the beginnings of France in the Roman period,
to the year 1848. Carlyle's French Revolution is a splendid picture of
that wonderful epoch, and Sloane's History of Napoleon gives very full
details of the later period.
For the history of Germany, Austria, Russia, France, Spain, Italy,
Holland, and other countries, the various works in the "Story of the
Nations" series, are excellent brief histories.
Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic and his United Netherlands are highly
important and well written historical works.
The annals of the ancient world are elaborately and ably set forth in
Grote's History of Greece, Merivale's Rome, and Gibbon's Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire.
Another class of books closely allied to biography and history, is the
correspondence of public men, and men of letters, with friends and
contemporaries. These familiar letters frequently give us views of
social, public, and professional life which are of absorbing interest.
Among the best letters of this class may be reckoned the correspondence
of Horace Walpole, Madame de Sévigné, the poets Gray and Cowper, Lord
Macaulay, Lord Byron, and Charles Dickens. Written for the most part with
unstudied ease and unreserve, they entertain the reader with constant
variety of incident and character, while at the same time they throw
innumerable side-lights upon the society and the history of the time.
Next, we may come to the master-pieces of the essay-writers. You will
often find that the best treatise on any subject is the briefest, because
the writer is put upon condensation and pointed statement, by the very
form and limitations of the essay, or the review or magazine article.
Book-writers are apt to be diffuse and episodical, having so extensive a
canvas to cover with their literary designs. Among the finest of the
essayists are Montaigne, Lord Bacon, Addison, Goldsmith, Macaulay, Sir
James Stephen, Cardinal Newman, De Quincey, Charles Lamb, Washington
Irving, Emerson, Froude, Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. You may spend
many a delightful hour in the perusal of any one of these authors.
We come now to poetry, which some people consider very unsubstantial
pabulum, but which forms one of the most precious and inspiring portions
of the literature of the world. In all ages, the true poet has exercised
an influence upon men's minds that is unsurpassed by that of any other
class of writers. And the reason is not far to seek. Poetry deals with
the highest thoughts, in the most expressive language. It gives utterance
to all the sentiments and passions of humanity in rhythmic and harmonious
verse. The poet's lines are remembered long after the finest compositions
of the writers of prose are forgotten. They fasten themselves in the
memory by the very flow and cadence of the verse, and they minister to
that sense of melody that dwells in every human brain. What the world
owes to its great poets can never be fully measured. But some faint idea
of it may be gained from the wondrous stimulus given through them to the
imaginative power, and from the fact that those sentiments of human
sympathy, justice, virtue, and freedom, which inspire the best poetry of
all nations, become sooner or later incarnated in their institutions.
This is the real significance of the oft-quoted saying of Andrew
Fletcher, that stout Scotch republican of two centuries ago, that if one
were permitted to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care who
should make the laws.
In the best poetry, the felicity of its expressions of thought, joined
with their rhythmical form, makes it easy for the reader to lay up almost
unconsciously a store in the memory of the noblest poetic sentiments, to
comfort or to divert him in many a weary or troubled hour. Hence time is
well spent in reading over and over again the great poems of the world.
Far better and wiser is this, than to waste it upon the newest trash that
captivates the popular fancy, for the last will only tickle the
intellectual palate for an hour, or a day, and be then forgotten, while
the former will make one better and wiser for all time.
Nor need one seek to read the works of very many writers in order to fill
his mind with images of truth and beauty which will dwell with him
forever. The really great poets in the English tongue may be counted upon
the fingers. Shakespeare fitly heads the list--a world's classic,
unsurpassed for reach of imagination, variety of scenes and characters,
profound insight, ideal power, lofty eloquence, moral purpose, the most
moving pathos, alternating with the finest humor, and diction unequalled
for strength and beauty of expression. Milton, too, in his minor poems,
has given us some of the noblest verse in the language. There is poetry
enough in his L'Allegro and Il Penseroso to furnish forth a whole galaxy
of poets.
Spenser and Pope, Gray and Campbell, Goldsmith and Burns, Wordsworth and
the Brownings, Tennyson and Longfellow,--these are among the other
foremost names in the catalogue of poets which none can afford to
neglect. Add to these the best translations of Homer, Virgil, Horace,
Dante, and Goethe, and one need not want for intellectual company and
solace in youth or age.
Among the books which combine entertainment with information, the best
narratives of travellers and voyagers hold an eminent place. In them the
reader enlarges the bounds of his horizon, and travels in companionship
with his author all over the globe. While many, if not the most, of the
books of modern travellers are filled with petty incidents and personal
observations of no importance, there are some wonderfully good books of
this attractive class. Such are Kinglake's "Eothen, or traces of travel
in the East," Helen Hunt Jackson's "Bits of Travel," a volume of keen and
amusing sketches of German and French experiences, the books of De Amicus
on Holland, Constantinople, and Paris, those on England by Emerson,
Hawthorne, William Winter, and Richard Grant White, Curtis's Nile Notes,
Howell's "Venetian Life," and Taine's "Italy, Rome and Naples."
The wide domain of science can be but cursorily touched upon. Many
readers get so thorough a distaste for science in early life--mainly from
the fearfully and wonderfully dry text-books in which our schools and
colleges have abounded--that they never open a scientific book in later
years. This is a profound mistake, since no one can afford to remain
ignorant of the world in which we live, with its myriad wonders, its
inexhaustible beauties, and its unsolved problems. And there are now
works produced in every department of scientific research which give in a
popular and often in a fascinating style, the revelations of nature which
have come through the study and investigation of man. Such books are "The
Stars and the Earth," Kingsley's "Glaucus, or Wonders of the Shore,"
Clodd's "Story of Creation," (a clear account of the evolution theory)
Figuier's "Vegetable World," and Professor Langley's "New Astronomy."
There are wise specialists whose published labors have illuminated for
the uninformed reader every nook and province of the mysteries of
creation, from the wing of a beetle to the orbits of the planetary
worlds. There are few pursuits more fascinating than those that bring us
acquainted with the secrets of nature, whether dragged up from the depths
of the sea, or demonstrated in the substance and garniture of the green
earth, or wrung from the far-off worlds in the shining heavens.
A word only can be spared to the wide and attractive realm of fiction. In
this field, those are the best books which have longest kept their hold
upon the public mind. It is a wise plan to neglect the novels of the
year, and to read (or to re-read in many cases) the master-pieces which
have stood the test of time, and criticism, and changing fashions, by the
sure verdict of a call for continually new editions. Ouida and Trilby may
endure for a day, but Thackeray and Walter Scott are perennial. It is
better to read a fine old book through three times, than to read three
new books through once.
Of books more especially devoted to the history of literature, in times
ancient and modern, and in various nations, the name is legion. I count
up, of histories of English literature alone (leaving out the American)
no less than one hundred and thirty authors on this great field or some
portion of it. To know what ones of these to study, and what to leave
alone, would require critical judgment and time not at my command. I can
only suggest a few known by me to be good. For a succinct yet most
skilfully written summary of English writers, there is no book that can
compare with Stopford A. Brooke's Primer of English Literature. For more
full and detailed treatment, Taine's History of English Literature, or
Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English Literature, two volumes, with specimens
of the writers of every period, are the best. E. C. Stedman's Victorian
Poets is admirable, as is also his Poets of America. For a bird's eye
view of American authors and their works, C. F. Richardson's Primer of
American Literature can be studied to advantage, while for more full
reference to our authors, with specimens of each, Stedman's Library of
American Literature in eleven volumes, should be consulted. M. C. Tyler's
very interesting critical History of the Early American Literature, so
little known, comes down in its fourth volume only to the close of the
revolution in 1783.
For classical literature, the importance of a good general knowledge of
which can hardly be overrated, J. P. Mahaffy's History of Greek
Literature, two volumes, and G. A. Simcox's Latin Literature, two
volumes, may be commended. On the literature of modern languages, to
refer only to works written in English, Saintsbury's Primer of French
Literature is good, and R. Garnett's History of Italian Literature is
admirable (by the former Keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum
Library). Lublin's Primer of German Literature is excellent for a
condensed survey of the writers of Germany, while W. Scherer's History of
German Literature, two volumes, covers a far wider field. For Spanish
Literature in its full extent, there is no work at all equal to George
Ticknor's three volumes, but for a briefer history, H. B. Clark's
Hand-book of Spanish Literature, London, 1893, may be used.
I make no allusion here to the many works of reference in the form of
catalogues and bibliographical works, which may be hereafter noted. My
aim has been only to indicate the best and latest treatises covering the
leading literatures of the world, having no space for the Scandinavian,
Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, or any of the Slavonic or oriental tongues.
Those who find no time for studying the more extended works named, will
find much profit in devoting their hours to the articles in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica upon the literatures of the various countries.
These are within reach of everyone.
The select list of books named in this chapter does not by any means aim
to cover those which are well worth reading; but only to indicate a few,
a very few, of the best. It is based on the supposition that intelligent
readers will give far less time to fiction than to the more solid food of
history, biography, essays, travels, literary history, and applied
science. The select list of books in the fields already named is designed
to include only the most improving and well-executed works. Many will not
find their favorites in the list, which is purposely kept within narrow
limits, as a suggestion only of a few of the best books for a home
library or for general reading. You will find it wise to own, as early in
life as possible, a few of the choicest productions of the great writers
of the world. Those who can afford only a selection from a selection, can
begin with never so few of the authors most desired, or which they have
not already, putting in practice the advice of Shakespeare:
"In brief, sir, study what you most affect."
Says John Ruskin: "I would urge upon every young man to obtain as soon
as he can, by the severest economy, a restricted and steadily increasing
series of books, for use through life; making his little library, of all
his furniture, the most studied and decorative piece." And Henry Ward
Beecher urged it as the most important early ambition for clerks, working
men and women, and all who are struggling up in life, to form gradually a
library of good books. "It is a man's duty," says he, "to have books. A
library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life."
And says Bishop Hurst, urging the vital importance of wise selection in
choosing our reading: "If two-thirds of the shelves of the typical
domestic library were emptied of their burden, and choice books put in
their stead, there would be reformation in intelligence and thought
throughout the civilized world."
SELECTION OF BOOKS FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES.
Let us now consider the subject of books fitted for public libraries. At
the outset, it is most important that each selection should be made on a
well considered plan. No hap-hazard, or fitfully, or hastily made
collection can answer the two ends constantly to be aimed at--namely,
first, to select the best and most useful books, and, secondly, to
economize the funds of the library. No money should be wasted upon whims
and experiments, but every dollar should be devoted to the acquisition of
improving books.
As to the principles that should govern and the limitations to be laid
down, these will depend much upon the scope of the library, and the
amount of its funds. No library of the limited and moderate class
commonly found in our public town libraries can afford to aim at the
universal range of a national library, nor even at the broad selections
proper to a liberally endowed city library.
But its aims, while modest, should be comprehensive enough to provide a
complete selection of what may be termed standard literature, for the
reading public. If the funds are inadequate to do this in the beginning,
it should be kept constantly in view, as the months and years go on.
Every great and notable book should be in the library sooner or later,
and if possible at its foundation. Thus will its utility and
attractiveness both be well secured.
Taking first the case of a small public library about to be started, let
us see in a few leading outlines what it will need.
1. A selection of the best works of reference should be the corner-stone
of every library collection. In choosing these, regard must be had to
secure the latest as well as the best. Never buy the first edition of
Soule's Synonymes because it is cheap, but insist upon the revised and
enlarged edition of 1892. Never acquire an antiquated Lempriere's or
Anthon's Classical Dictionary, because some venerable library director,
who used it in his boyhood, suggests it, when you can get Professor H. T.
Peck's "Dictionary of Classical Antiquities," published in 1897. Never be
tempted to buy an old edition of an encyclopaedia at half or quarter
price, for it will be sure to lack the populations of the last census,
besides being a quarter of a century or more in arrears in its other
information. When consulting sale catalogues to select reference books,
look closely at the dates of publication, and make sure by your American
or English catalogues that no later edition has appeared. It goes without
saying that you will have these essential bibliographies, as well as
Lowndes' Manual of English Literature first of all, whether you are able
to buy Watt and Brunet or not.
2. Without here stopping to treat of books of reference in detail, which
will appear in another place, let me refer to some other great classes
of literature in which every library should be strong. History stands
fairly at the head, and while a newly established library cannot hope to
possess at once all the noted writers, it should begin by securing a fine
selection, embracing general history, ancient and modern, and the history
of each country, at least of the important nations. For compendious short
histories, the "Story of the Nations" series, by various writers, should
be secured, and the more extensive works of Gibbon, Grote, Mommsen,
Duruy, Fyffe, Green, Macaulay, Froude, McCarthy, Carlyle, Thiers,
Bancroft, Motley, Prescott, Fiske, Schouler, McMaster, Buckle, Guizot,
etc., should be acquired. The copious lists of historical works appended
to Larned's "History for Ready Reference" will be useful here.
3. Biography stands close to history in interest and importance. For
general reference, or the biography of all nations, Lippincott's
Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography is essential, as well as
Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, for our own country. For
Great Britain, the "Dictionary of National Biography" is a mine of
information, and should be added if funds are sufficient. Certain sets of
collective biographies which are important are American Statesmen, 26
vols., Englishmen of Letters, -- vols., Autobiography, 33 vols., Famous
Women series, 21 vols., Heroes of the Nation series, 24 vols., American
Pioneers and Patriots, 12 vols., and Plutarch's Lives. Then of
indispensable single biographies there are Boswell's Johnson, Lockhart's
Scott, Froude's Carlyle, Trevelyan's Macaulay, Froude's Caesar, Lewes'
Goethe, etc.
4. Of notable essays, a high class of literature in which there are many
names, may be named Addison, Montaigne, Bacon, Goldsmith, Emerson, Lamb,
De Quincey, Holmes, Lowell, etc.
5. Poetry stands at the head of all the literature of imagination. Some
people of highly utilitarian views decry poetry, and desire to feed all
readers upon facts. But that this is a great mistake will be apparent
when we consider that the highest expressions of moral and intellectual
truth and the most finely wrought examples of literature in every nation
are in poetic form. Take out of the world's literature the works of its
great poets, and you would leave it poor indeed. Poetry is the only great
source for the nurture of imagination, and without imagination man is a
poor creature. I read the other day a dictum of a certain writer,
alleging that Dickens's Christmas Carol is far more effective as a piece
of writing than Milton's noble ode "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity."
Such comparisons are of small value. In point of fact, no library can
spare either of them. I need not repeat the familiar names of the great
poets; they are found in all styles of production, and some of the best
are among the least expensive.
6. Travels and voyages form a very entertaining as well as highly
instructive part of a library. A good selection of the more notable will
prove a valuable resource to readers of nearly every age.
7. The wide field of science should be carefully gleaned for a good range
of approved text-books in each department. So progressive is the modern
world that the latest books are apt to be the best in each science,
something which is by no means true in literature.
8. In law, medicine, theology, political science, sociology, economics,
art, architecture, music, eloquence, and language, the library should be
provided with the leading modern works.
9. We come now to fiction, which the experience of all libraries shows is
the favorite pabulum of about three readers out of four. The great demand
for this class of reading renders it all the more important to make a
wise and improving selection of that which forms the minds of multitudes,
and especially of the young. This selection presents to every librarian
and library director or trustee some perplexing problems. To buy
indiscriminately the new novels of the day, good, bad, and indifferent
(the last named greatly predominating) would be a very poor discharge of
the duty devolving upon those who are the responsible choosers of the
reading of any community. Conceding, as we must, the vast influence and
untold value of fiction as a vehicle of entertainment and instruction,
the question arises--where can the line be drawn between the good and
improving novels, and novels which are neither good nor improving? This
involves something more than the moral tone and influence of the
fictions: it involves their merits and demerits as literature also. I
hold it to be the bounden duty of those who select the reading of a
community to maintain a standard of good taste, as well as of good
morals. They have no business to fill the library with wretched models of
writing, when there are thousand of good models ready, in numbers far
greater than they have money to purchase. Weak and flabby and silly books
tend to make weak and flabby and silly brains. Why should library guides
put in circulation such stuff as the dime novels, or "Old Sleuth"
stories, or the slip-slop novels of "The Duchess," when the great masters
of romantic fiction have endowed us with so many books replete with
intellectual and moral power? To furnish immature minds with the
miserable trash which does not deserve the name of literature, is as
blameworthy as to put before them books full of feverish excitement, or
stories of successful crime.
We are told, indeed (and some librarians even have said it) that for
unformed readers to read a bad book is better than to read none at all.
I do not believe it. You might as well say that it is better for one to
swallow poison than not to swallow any thing at all. I hold that library
providers are as much bound to furnish wholesome food for the minds of
the young who resort to them for guidance, as their parents are to
provide wholesome food for their bodies.
But the question returns upon us--what is wholesome food? In the first
place, it is that great body of fiction which has borne the test, both of
critical judgment, and of popularity with successive generations of
readers. It is the novels of Scott, Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, George
Eliot, Cooper, Hawthorne, Kingsley, Mulock-Craik, and many more, such as
no parents need blush to put into the hands of their daughters. In the
next place, it is such a selection from the myriads of stories that have
poured from the press of this generation as have been approved by the
best readers, and the critical judgment of a responsible press.
As to books of questionable morality, I am aware that contrary opinions
prevail on the question whether any such books should be allowed in a
public library, or not. The question is a different one for the small
town libraries and for the great reference libraries of the world. The
former are really educational institutions, supported at the people's
expense, like the free schools, and should be held to a responsibility
from which the extensive reference libraries in the city are free. The
latter may and ought to preserve every form of literature, and, if
national libraries, they would be derelict in their duty to posterity if
they did not acquire and preserve the whole literature of the country,
and hand it down complete to future generations. The function of the
public town library is different. It must indispensably make a selection,
since its means are not adequate to buy one-tenth of the annual product
of the press, which amounts in only four nations (England, France,
Germany, and the United States) to more than thirty-five thousand new
volumes a year. Its selection, mainly of American and English books, must
be small, and the smaller it is, the greater is the need of care in
buying. In fact, it is in most cases, compelled to be a selection from a
selection. Therefore, in the many cases of doubt arising as to the fit
character of a book, let the doubt be resolved in favor of the fund, thus
preserving the chance of getting a better book for the money.
With this careful and limited selection of the best, out of the multitude
of novels that swarm from the press, the reading public will have every
reason to be satisfied. No excuse can be alleged for filling up our
libraries with poor books, while there is no dearth whatever of good
ones. It is not the business of a public library to compete with the news
stands or the daily press in furnishing the latest short stories for
popular consumption; a class of literature whose survival is likely to be
quite as short as the stories themselves.
Take an object lesson as to the mischiefs of reading the wretched stuff
which some people pretend is "better than no reading at all" from the boy
Jesse Pomeroy, who perpetrated a murder of peculiar atrocity in Boston.
"Pomeroy confessed that he had always been a great reader of 'blood and
thunder' stories, having read probably sixty dime novels, all treating of
scalping and deeds of violence. The boy said that he had no doubt that
the reading of those books had a great deal to do with his course, and he
would advise all boys to leave them alone."
In some libraries, where the pernicious effect of the lower class of
fiction has been observed, the directors have withdrawn from circulation
a large proportion of the novels, which had been bought by reason of
their popularity. In other newly started libraries only fiction of the
highest grade has been placed in the library from the start, and this is
by far the best course. If readers inquire for inferior or immoral books,
and are told that the library does not have them, although they will
express surprise and disappointment, they will take other and improving
reading, thus fulfilling the true function of the library as an educator.
Librarians and library boards cannot be too careful about what
constitutes the collection which is to form the pabulum of so many of the
rising generation.
This does not imply that they are to be censors, or prudes, but with the
vast field of literature before them from which to choose, they are bound
to choose the best.
The American Library Association has had this subject under discussion
repeatedly, and while much difference of opinion has arisen from the
difficulty of finding any absolute standard of excellence, nearly all
have agreed that as to certain books, readers should look elsewhere than
to the public free library for them. At one time a list of authors was
made out, many of whose works were deemed objectionable, either from
their highly sensational character, or their bad style, or their highly
wrought and morbid pictures of human passions, or their immoral tendency.
This list no doubt will surprise many, as including writers whose books
everybody, almost, has read, or has been accustomed to think well of. It
embraces the following popular authors, many of whose novels have had a
wide circulation, and that principally through popular libraries.
Here follow the names:
Mary J. Holmes, Mrs. Henry Wood, C. L. Hentz, M. P. Finley, Mrs. A. S.
Stephens, E. D. E. N. Southworth, Mrs. Forrester, Rhoda Broughton, Helen
Mathers, Jessie Fothergill, M. E. Braddon, Florence Marryat, Ouida,
Horatio Alger, Mayne Reid, Oliver Optic, W. H. S. Kingston, E. Kellogg,
G. W. M. Reynolds, C. Fosdick, Edmund Yates, G. A. Lawrence, Grenville
Murray, W. H. Ainsworth, Wilkie Collins, E. L. Bulwer-Lytton, W. H.
Thomes, and Augusta Evans Wilson.
Bear in mind, that only English and American novels are included, and
those only of the present century: also, that as to many which are
included, no imputation of immorality was made. Such a "black list" is
obviously open to the charge of doing great injustice to the good repute
of writers named, since only a part of the works written by some of them
can properly be objected to, and these are not specially named.
Bulwer-Lytton, for example, whose "Paul Clifford" is a very improper book
to go into the hands of young people, has written at least a dozen other
fictions of noble moral purpose, and high literary merit.
Out of seventy public libraries to which the list was sent, with inquiry
whether the authors named were admitted as books of circulation, thirty
libraries replied. All of them admitted Bulwer-Lytton and Wilkie Collins,
all but two Oliver Optic's books, and all but six Augusta Evans Wilson's.
Reynolds' novels were excluded by twenty libraries, Mrs. Southworth's by
eleven, "Ouida's" by nine, and Mrs. Stephens's and Mrs. Henry Wood's by
eight. Other details cannot find space for notice here.
This instance is one among many of endeavors constantly being made by
associated librarians to stem the ever increasing flood of poor fiction
which threatens to submerge the better class of books in our public
libraries.
That no such wholesome attempt can be wholly successful is evident
enough. The passion for reading fiction is both epidemic and chronic; and
in saying this, do not infer that I reckon it as a disease. A librarian
has no right to banish fiction because the appetite for it is abused. He
is not to set up any ideal and impossible standard of selection. His
most useful and beneficent function is to turn into better channels the
universal hunger for reading which is entertaining. Do readers want an
exciting novel? What can be more exciting than "Les Miserables" of Victor
Hugo, a book of exceptional literary excellence and power? Literature is
full of fascinating stories, admirably told, and there is no excuse for
loading our libraries with trash, going into the slums for models, or
feeding young minds upon the unclean brood of pessimistic novels. If it
is said that people will have trash, let them buy it, and let the
libraries wash their hands of it, and refuse to circulate the stuff which
no boy nor girl can touch without being contaminated.
Those who claim that we might as well let the libraries down to the level
of the poorest books, because unformed and ignorant minds are capable of
nothing better, should be told that people are never raised by giving
them nothing to look up to. To devour infinite trash is not the road to
learn wisdom, or virtue, or even to attain genuine amusement. To those
who are afraid that if the libraries are purified, the masses will get
nothing that they can read, the answer is, have they not got the entire
world of magazines, the weekly, daily, and Sunday newspapers, which
supply a whole library of fiction almost daily? Add to these plenty of
imaginative literature in fiction and in poetry, on every library's
shelves, which all who can read can comprehend, and what excuse remains
for buying what is neither decent nor improving?
Take an example of the boundless capacity for improvement that exists in
the human mind and human taste, from the spread of the fine arts among
the people. Thirty years ago, their houses, if having any decoration at
all, exhibited those fearful and wonderful colored lithographs and
chromos in which bad drawing, bad portraiture, and bad coloring vied with
each other to produce pictures which it would be a mild use of terms to
call detestable. Then came the two great international art expositions at
Philadelphia and Chicago, each greatly advancing by the finest models,
the standard of taste in art, and by new economies of reproduction
placing the most beautiful statues and pictures within the reach of the
most moderate purse. What has been the result? An incalculable
improvement in the public taste, educated by the diffusion of the best
models, until even the poor farmer of the backwoods will no longer
tolerate the cheap and nasty horrors that once disfigured his walls.
The lesson in art is good in literature also. Give the common people good
models, and there is no danger but they will appreciate and understand
them. Never stoop to pander to a depraved taste, no matter what specious
pleas you may hear for tolerating the low in order to lead to the high,
or for making your library contribute to the survival of the unfittest.
Is it asked, how can the librarian find out, among the world of novels
from which he is to select, what is pure and what is not, what is
wholesome and what unhealthy, what is improving and what is trash? The
answer is--there are some lists which will be most useful in this
discrimination, while there is no list which is infallible. Mr. F.
Leypoldt's little catalogue of "Books for all Time" has nothing that any
library need do without. Another compendious list is published by the
American Library Association. And the more extensive catalogue prepared
for the World's Fair in 1893, and embracing about 5,000 volumes, entitled
"Catalogue of A. L. A. Library: 5,000 vols. for a popular library," while
it has many mistakes and omissions, is a tolerably safe guide in making
up a popular library. I may note that the list of novels in this large
catalogue put forth by the American Library Association has the names of
five only out of the twenty-eight writers of fiction heretofore
pronounced objectionable, and names a select few only of the books of
these five.
As for the later issues of the press, and especially the new novels, let
him skim them for himself, unless in cases where trustworthy critical
judgments are found in journals. Running through a book to test its style
and moral drift is no difficult task for the practiced eye.
Let us suppose that you are cursorily perusing a novel which has made a
great sensation, and you come upon the following sentence: "Eighteen
millions of years would level all in one huge, common, shapeless ruin.
Perish the microcosm in the limitless macrocosm! and sink this feeble
earthly segregate in the boundless rushing choral aggregation!" This is
in Augusta J. Evans Wilson's story "Macaria", and many equally
extraordinary examples of "prose run mad" are found in the novels of this
once noted writer. What kind of a model is that to form the style of the
youthful neophyte, to whom one book is as good as another, since it was
found on the shelves of the public library?
I am not insisting that all books admitted should be models of style;
even a purist must admit that one of the greatest charms of literature is
its infinite variety. But when book after book is filled with such
specimens of literary lunacy as this, one is tempted to believe that
Homer and Shakespeare, to say nothing of Thackeray and Hawthorne, have
lived in vain.
Never fear criticism of those who find fault with the absence from your
library of books that you know to be nearly worthless; their absence will
be a silent but eloquent protest against them, sure to be vindicated by
the utter oblivion into which they will fall. Many a flaming reputation
has been extinguished after dazzling callow admirers for six months, or
even less. Do not dread the empty sarcasm, that may grow out of the
exclusion of freshly printed trash, that your library is a "back number."
To some poor souls every thing that is great and good in the world's
literature is a "back number"; and the Bible itself, with its immortal
poetry and sublimity, is the oldest back number of all. It is no part of
your business as a librarian to cater to the tastes of those who act as
if the reading of endless novels of sensation were the chief end of man.
As one fed on highly spiced viands and stimulating drinks surely loses
the appetite for wholesome and nourishing food, so one who reads only
exciting and highly wrought fictions loses the taste for the
master-pieces of prose and poetry.
Let not the fear of making many mistakes be a bug-bear in your path. If
you are told that your library is too exclusive, reply that it has not
means enough to buy all the good books that are wanted, and cannot afford
to spend money on bad or even on doubtful ones. If you have excluded any
highly-sought-for book on insufficient evidence, never fail to revise the
judgment. All that can be expected of any library is approximately just
and wise selection, having regard to merit, interest, and moral tone,
more than to novelty or popularity.
In the matter of choice, individual opinions are of small value. Never
buy a book simply because some reader extols it as very fine, or
"splendid," or "perfectly lovely." Such praises are commonly to be
distrusted in direct proportion to their extravagance.
A good lesson to libraries is furnished in the experience of the
Cleveland (Ohio) Public Library. In 1878, out of 16,000 volumes in that
library, no less than 6,000 were novels. The governing board, on the
plea of giving people what they wanted, bought nearly all new books of
fiction, and went so far, even, as to buy of Pinkerton's Detective
stories, fifteen copies each, fifteen of all Mrs. Southworth's novels,
etc. But a change took place in the board, and the librarian was
permitted to stop the growing flood of worthless fiction, and as fast as
the books were worn out, they were replaced by useful reading. It
resulted that four years later, with 40,000 volumes in the library, only
7,000 were novels, or less than one-fifth, instead of more than one-third
of the whole collection, as formerly. In the same time, the percentage of
fiction drawn out was reduced from 69 per cent. of the aggregate books
read, to 50 per cent.
Libraries are always complaining that they cannot buy many valuable books
from lack of funds. Yet some of them buy a great many that are valueless
in spite of this lack. Can any thing be conceived more valueless than a
set of Sylvanus Cobb's novels, reprinted to the number of thirty-five to
forty, from the New York Ledger? Yet these have been bought for scores of
libraries, which could not afford the latest books in science and art, or
biography, history, or travel. There are libraries in which the latest
books on electricity, or sewerage, or sanitary plumbing, might have saved
many lives, but which must go without them, because the money has been
squandered on vapid and pernicious literature.
In almost every library, while some branches of knowledge are fairly
represented, others are not represented at all. Nearly all present
glaring deficiencies, and these are often caused by want of systematic
plan in building up the collection. Boards of managers are frequently
changed, and the policy of the library with them. All the more important
is it that the librarian should be so well equipped with a definite aim,
and with knowledge and skill competent to urge that aim consistently, as
to preserve some unity of plan.
I need not add that a librarian should be always wide awake to the needs
of his library in every direction. It should be taken for granted that
its general aim is to include the best books in the whole range of human
knowledge. With the vast area of book production before him, he should
strengthen every year some department, taking them in order of
importance.
Some scholarly writers tell us that very few books are essential to a
good education. James Russell Lowell named five, which in his view
embraced all the essentials; namely, Homer, Dante, Shakespeare,
Cervantes, and Goethe's Faust. Prof. Charles E. Norton of Harvard
remarked that this list might even be abridged so as to embrace only
Homer, Dante and Shakespeare. I can only regard such exclusiveness as
misleading, though conceding the many-sidedness of these great writers.
To extend the list is the function of all public libraries, as well as of
most of the private ones. Next after the really essential books, that
library will be doing its public good service which acquires all the
important works that record the history of man. This will include
biography, travels and voyages, science, and much besides, as well as
history.
Special pains should be taken in every library to have every thing
produced in its own town, county, and State. Not only books, but all
pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, and even broadsides or circulars,
should be sought for and stored up as memorials of the present age,
tending in large part rapidly to disappear.
In selecting editions of standard authors, one should always
discriminate, so as to secure for the library, if not the best, at least
good, clear type, sound, thick paper, and durable binding. Cheap and
poor editions wear out quickly, and have to be thrown away for better
ones, which wise economy should have selected in the first place. For
example, a widely circulated edition of Scott's novels, found in most
libraries, has the type so worn and battered by the many large editions
printed from the plates, that many letters and words are wanting, thus
spoiling not only the pleasure but abridging the profit of the reader in
perusing the novels. The same is true of one edition of Cooper. Then
there are many cheap reprints of English novels in the Seaside and other
libraries which abound in typographical errors. A close examination of a
cheap edition of a leading English novelist's works revealed more than
3,000 typographical errors in the one set of books! It would be
unpardonable carelessness to buy such books for general reading because
they are cheap.
Librarians should avoid what are known as subscription books, as a rule,
though some valid exceptions exist. Most of such books are profusely
illustrated and in gaudy bindings, gotten up to dazzle the eye. If works
of merit, it is better to wait for them, than to subscribe for an
unfinished work, which perhaps may never reach completion.
A librarian or book collector should be ever observant of what he may
find to enrich his collection. When in a book-store, or a private or
public library, he should make notes of such works seen as are new to
him, with any characteristics which their custodian may remark upon. Such
personal examination is more informing than any catalogue.
I think each public library should possess, besides a complete set of the
English translations of the Greek and Latin classics, a full set of the
originals, for the benefit of scholarly readers. These classic texts can
be had complete in modern editions for a very moderate price.
How far duplicate volumes should be bought should depend upon demand, and
the views of the purchasing powers. There is a real need of more than one
copy of almost every standard work, else it will be perpetually out,
giving occasion for numerous complaints from those who use the library.
It would be a good rule to keep one copy always in, and at the service of
readers, of every leading history, standard poet, or popular novel. Then
the duplicate copies for circulation may be one or more, as experience
and ability to provide may determine. A library which caters to the
novel-reading habit as extensively as the New York Mercantile (a
subscription library) has to buy fifty to one hundred copies of "Trilby,"
for example, to keep up with the demand. No such obligation exists for
the free public libraries. They, however, often buy half a dozen to a
dozen copies of a very popular story, when new, and sell them out after
the demand has slackened or died away.
The methods of selection and purchase in public libraries are very
various. In the Worcester (Mass.) Public Library, the librarian makes a
list of desiderata, has it manifolded, and sends a copy to each of the
thirteen members of the Board of directors. This list is reported on by
the members at the next monthly meeting of the Board, and generally, in
the main, approved. Novels and stories are not bought until time has
shown of what value they may be. The aim is mainly educational at the
Worcester library, very special pains being taken to aid all the pupils
and teachers in the public schools, by careful selection, and providing
duplicate or more copies of important works.
In the Public Library of Cleveland, Ohio, there is appointed out of the
governing Board a book-committee of three. To one of these are referred
English books wanted, to another French, and to the third German books.
This sub-committee approves or amends the Librarian's recommendations,
at its discretion; but expensive works are referred to the whole board
for determination.
In the New York Mercantile Library, which must keep continually up to
date in its supply of new books, the announcements in all the morning
papers are daily scanned, and books just out secured by immediate order.
Many publishers send in books on approval, which are frequently bought.
An agent in London is required to send on the day of publication all new
books on certain subjects.
The library boards of management meet weekly in New York and
Philadelphia, but monthly in most country libraries. The selection of
books made by committees introduces often an element of chance, not quite
favorable to the unity of plan in developing the resources of the
library. But with a librarian of large information, discretion, and
skill, there need seldom be any difficulty in securing approval of his
selections, or of most of them. In some libraries the librarian is
authorized to buy at discretion additions of books in certain lines, to
be reported at the next meeting of the board; and to fill up all
deficiencies in periodicals that are taken. This is an important
concession to his judgment, made in the interest of completeness in the
library, saving a delay of days and sometimes weeks in waiting for the
board of directors.
All orders sent out for accessions should previously be compared with the
alphabeted order-card list, as well as with the general catalogue of the
library, to avoid duplication. After this the titles are to be
incorporated in the alphabet of all outstanding orders, to be withdrawn
only on receipt of the books.
The library should invite suggestions from all frequenting it, of books
recommended and not found in the collection. A blank record-book for this
purpose, or an equivalent in order-cards, should be always kept on the
counter of the library.