SOME OF THE USES OF LIBRARIES.
Let us now consider the subject of the uses of public libraries to
schools and those connected with them. Most town and city libraries are
supported, like the free schools, by the public money, drawn from the
tax-payers, and supposed to be expended for the common benefit of all the
people. It results that one leading object of the library should be to
acquire such a collection of books as will be in the highest degree
useful to all. And especially should the wants of the younger generation
be cared for, since they are always not only nearly one half of the
community, but they are also to become the future citizens of the
republic. What we learn in youth is likely to make a more marked and
lasting impression than what we may acquire in later years. And the
public library should be viewed as the most important and necessary
adjunct of the school, in the instruction and improvement of the young.
Each is adapted to supply what the other lacks. The school supplies oral
instruction and public exercises in various departments of learning; but
it has few or no books, beyond the class text-books which are used in
these instructions. The library, on the other hand, is a silent school of
learning, free to all, and supplying a wide range of information, in
books adapted to every age. It thus supplements, and in proportion to the
extent and judicious choice of its collections, helps to complete that
education, which the school falls short of. In this view, we see the
great importance of making sure that the public library has not only a
full supply of the best books in every field, avoiding (as previously
urged) the bad or the inferior ones, but also that it has the best
juvenile and elementary literature in ample supply. This subject of
reading for the young has of late years come into unprecedented
prominence. Formerly, and even up to the middle of our century, very
slight attention was paid to it, either by authors or readers. Whole
generations had been brought up on the New England Primer, with its
grotesque wood-cuts, and antique theology in prose and verse, with a few
moral narratives in addition, as solemn as a meeting-house, like the
"Dairyman's Daughter," the "History of Sandford and Merton," or "The
Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." Very dreary and melancholy do such books
appear to the frequenters of our modern libraries, filled as they now are
with thousands of volumes of lively and entertaining juvenile books.
The transition from the old to the new in this class of literature was
through the Sunday-school and religious tract society books, professedly
adapted to the young. While some of these had enough of interest to be
fairly readable, if one had no other resource, the mass were irredeemably
stale and poor. The mawkishness of the sentiment was only surpassed by
the feebleness of the style. At last, weary of the goody-goody and
artificial school of juvenile books, which had been produced for
generations, until a surfeit of it led to something like a nausea in the
public mind, there came a new type of writers for the young, who at least
began to speak the language of reason. The dry bones took on some
semblance of life and of human nature, and boys and girls were painted as
real boys and genuine girls, instead of lifeless dolls and manikins. The
reformation went on, until we now have a world of books for the young to
choose from, very many of which are fresh and entertaining.
But the very wealth and redundancy of such literature is a new
embarrassment to the librarian, who must indispensably make a selection,
since no library can have or ought to have it all. Recurring to the
function of the public library as the coadjutor of the school, let us see
what classes of books should form essential parts of its stores.
1. As geography, or an account of the earth on which we live, is a
fundamental part of education, the library should possess a liberal
selection of the best books in that science. The latest general gazetteer
of the world, the best modern and a good ancient atlas, one or more of
the great general collections of voyages, a set of Baedeker's admirable
and inexpensive guide books, and descriptive works or travels in nearly
all countries--those in America and Europe predominating--should be
secured. The scholars of all grades will thus be able to supplement their
studies by ready reference, and every part of the globe will lie open
before them, as it were, by the aid of the library.
2. The best and latest text-books in all the sciences, as geology,
chemistry, natural history, physics, botany, agriculture, mechanic arts,
mathematics, mental and moral science, architecture, fine arts, music,
sociology, political science, etc., should be accessible.
3. Every important history, with all the latest manuals or elementary
books in general and national history should be found.
4. The great collections of biography, with separate lives of all noted
characters, should be provided.
5. Dictionaries, cyclopaedias, statistical annuals, and other books of
reference will be needed in abundance.
6. A small but select number of approved works in law, medicine, and
theology should be embraced in the library.
7. I need not add that the poets and novelists should be well
represented, as that goes without saying in all popular libraries.
And special attention should be paid to building up a collection of the
best books for juvenile readers, such as have passed the ordeal of good
critical judgment among the librarians, as eminently fit to be read.
There are several useful catalogues of such reading, as: Caroline M.
Hewins' "Books for the Young," G. E. Hardy's "Five Hundred Books for the
Young," and the admirable "List of Books for Girls and Women" by Augusta
H. Leypoldt and Geo. Iles, contributed to by many experts, and copiously
supplied with notes describing the scope and quality of the books. The
last two are published by the Library Bureau.
With this broad equipment of the best books in every field, and vigilance
in constant exercise to add fresh stores from the constantly appearing
and often improved text-books in every science, the library will be a
treasury of knowledge both for teachers and pupils in the schools. And
the fact should not be overlooked, that there will be found as much
growth for teachers as for scholars in such a collection of books. Very
few teachers, save those of well-furnished minds and of much careful
reading, are competent to guide their scholars into the highways and
byways of knowledge, as the librarian should be able to do.
To establish a relation of confidence and aid with teachers is the
preliminary step to be taken in order to make the library at once
practically useful to them and to their scholars. In case there are
several public schools in charge of a general superintendent, that
officer should be first consulted, and tendered the free aid of the
library and its librarian for himself and the teachers. In some public
libraries, the school superintendent is made an _ex officio_ member of
the library board. Then suitable regulations should be mutually agreed
upon, fixing the number of books to be drawn on account of the schools at
any one time, and the period of return to the library. It is most usual
to charge such books on teachers' cards, or account, to fix
responsibility, although the teachers loan them to the scholars at their
option.
In places where there are no school libraries proper, the public library
will need to provide a goodly number of duplicates, in order to meet the
special school demand. This, however, will usually be of low-priced
rather than costly books, as the elementary text-books do not draw
heavily upon library funds.
A very attractive feature in providing books for the young is the large
number of illustrated books now available to all libraries. All the
kingdoms of nature are depicted in these introductory manuals of science,
rendering its pursuit more interesting, and cultivating the habits of
observation of form and of proportion, in the minds of the young. Pupils
who have never accomplished anything in school have been roused by
interest in illustrated natural histories to take an eager interest in
learning all about birds and animals. This always leads on and up to
other study, since the mind that is once awakened to observation and to
thought, needs only a slight guidance to develop an unappeasable hunger
for finding out all about things.
The ancient maxim that "it is only the first step that costs" is
especially true in the great art of education. It matters little what it
is that first awakens the intellect--the great fact is that it is
awakened, and sleeps no more thenceforward. A mottled bird's egg, found
on the way to school, excites the little finder to ascertain the name of
the bird that laid it. The school or the teacher supplies no means of
finding out, but the public library has books upon birds, with colored
plates of their eggs, and an eager search ensues, until the young student
is rewarded by finding the very bird, with its name, plumage, habits,
size, and season, all described. That child has taken an enormous step
forward on the road to knowledge, which will never be forgotten.
Instances might be multiplied indefinitely of such valuable aids to
research, afforded by libraries, all along the innumerable roads
travelled by students of every age in search of information. One of the
most profitable of school exercises is to take up successively the great
men and notable women of the past, and, by the effective and practical
aid of the libraries, to find out what is best worth knowing about
Columbus, Franklin, Walter Scott, Irving, Prescott, Bancroft, Longfellow,
Hawthorne, Whittier, Emerson, Lowell, Victor Hugo, or others too numerous
to name. Reading Longfellow's Evangeline will lead one to search out the
history and geography of Acadia, and so fix indelibly the practical facts
concerned, as well as the imagery of a fine poem. So in the notable
events of history, if a study is made of the English Commonwealth, or the
French Revolution, or the war between the United States and England in
1812-15, the library will supply the student with copious materials for
illustration.
Not alone in the fields of science, history, and biography, but in the
attractive fields of literature, also, can the libraries aid and
supplement the teachings of the school. A fine poem, or a simple,
humorous, or pathetic story, told with artless grace or notable literary
skill, when read aloud by a teacher in school, awakens a desire in many
to have the same book at home to read, re-read, and perhaps commit to
memory the finer passages. What more inspiring or pleasing reading than
some of Longfellow's poems, or the Vicar of Wakefield, or Milton's
L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, or Saintine's Picciola, or selections from
the poems of Holmes, Whittier, Kipling, or Lowell? For all these and
similar wants, the library has an unfailing supply.
As a practical illustration of the extensive, use of books by schools in
some advanced communities, I may note that Librarian Green, of the
Worcester (Mass.) Public Library, said in 1891 that his average daily
account of the books loaned to schools in two busy winter months showed
over 1,600 volumes thus in daily use. This too, was in addition to all
that were drawn out by pupils on their own independent cards as
borrowers. Such a record speaks volumes.
In the same city, where the Massachusetts State Normal School is located,
sixty-four per cent. of the scholars visited the library to look up
subjects connected with their studies.
A forcible argument for librarians taking an interest in reading for
schools is that both parents and teachers often neglect to see that the
young get only proper books to read. The children are themselves quite
ignorant what to choose, and if left to themselves, are likely to choose
unwisely, and to read story papers or quite unimproving books. Their
parents, busied as they are, commonly give no thought to the matter, and
are quite destitute of that knowledge of the various classes of books
which it is the province of the librarian to know and to discriminate.
Teachers themselves do not possess this special knowledge, except in rare
instances, and have to become far more conversant with libraries than is
usual, in order to acquire it.
That the very young, left to themselves, will choose many bad or
worthless books is shown in the account of a principal of a school in San
Francisco, who found that sixty per cent. of the books drawn from the
public library by pupils had been dime novels, or other worthless
literature. The wide prevalence of the dime novel evil appeared in the
report of the reading of 1,000 boys in a western New York city. Out of
this number, 472 (or nearly one-half) were in the habit of devouring this
pernicious trash, procured in most cases by purchase at the news stands.
The matter was taken up by teachers, and, by wise direction and by aid of
the public library, the reading of these youthful candidates for
citizenship was led into more improving fields. To lead a mind in the
formative stage from the low to the high, from tales of wild adventure to
the best stories for the young, is by no means difficult. Take a book
that you know is wholesome and entertaining, and it will be eagerly read
by almost every one. There is an endless variety of good books adapted to
the most rudimentary capacity. Even young minds can become interested in
the works of standard writers, if the proper selection is made. Wonderful
is the stimulus which the reading of a purely written, fascinating book
gives to the young mind. It opens the way for more books and for infinite
growth. All that is needed is to set the youth in the right direction,
and he will go forward with rapid strides of his own accord. This
teaching how to read is really the most profitable part of any education.
To recite endless lessons is not education: and one book eagerly read
through, has often proved more valuable than all the text-books that ever
were printed.
THE USES OF THE LIBRARY TO THE UNIVERSITY.
Closely allied to the benefits derived from the library by the teachers
and scholars in public schools are its uses to all those engaged in the
pursuit of higher education. For our colleges and universities and their
researches, the library must have all that we have suggested as important
for the schools, and a great deal more. The term university implies an
education as broad as the whole world of books can supply: yet we must
here meet with limitations that are inevitable. In this country we have
to regret the application of the word "university" to institutions where
the training is only academical, or at the highest, collegiate. The
university, properly speaking, is an institution for the most advanced
scholars or graduates of our colleges. Just as the college takes up and
carries forward the training of those who have been through the academy,
the seminary, or the high school, so it is the function of the university
to carry forward (we will not say complete) the education of the graduate
of the college. No education is ever completed: the doctor who has
received the highest honors at the university has only begun his
education--for that is to go on through life--and who knows how far
beyond?
Now the aid which a well equipped library can furnish to all these higher
institutions of learning, the academy, the seminary, the college, and the
university, is quite incalculable. Their students are constantly engaged
upon themes which not only demand the text-books they study, but
collateral illustrations almost without number. The professors, too, who
impart instruction, perpetually need to be instructed themselves, with
fuller knowledge upon the themes they are daily called upon to elucidate.
There is no text-book that can teach all, or anywhere near all there is
upon the subject it professes to cover. So the library, which has many
books upon that subject, comes in to supply its deficiencies. And the
librarian is useful to the professors and students just in proportion as
he knows, not the contents, but the range of books upon each subject
sought to be investigated. Here is where the subject catalogue, or the
dictionary catalogue, combining the subjects and the authors under a
single alphabet, comes into play. But, as no catalogue of subjects was
ever yet up to date in any considerable library, the librarian should be
able to supplement the catalogue by his own knowledge of later works in
any line of inquiry.
The most profitable studies carried on in libraries are, beyond all
question, what we may term topical researches. To pursue one subject
though many authorities is the true way to arrive at comprehensive
knowledge. And in this kind of research, the librarian ought to be better
equipped than any who frequent his library. Why? Simply because his
business is bibliography; which is not the business of learned
professors, or other scholars who visit the library.
The late Librarian Winsor said that he considered the librarian's
instruction far more valuable than that of the specialist. And this may
be owing largely to the point of view, as well as to the training, of
each. The specialist, perhaps, is an enthusiast or a devotee to his
science, and so apt to give undue importance to the details of it, or to
magnify some one feature: the librarian, on the other hand, who is
nothing if not comprehensive, takes the larger view of the wide field of
literature on each subject, and his suggestions concerning sources of
information are correspondingly valuable.
In those constantly arising questions which form the subjects of essays
or discussions in all institutions of learning, the well-furnished
library is an unfailing resource. The student who finds his unaided mind
almost a blank upon the topic given out for treatment, resorts at once to
the public library, searches catalogues, questions the librarian, and
surrounds himself with books and periodicals which may throw light upon
it. He is soon master of facts and reasonings which enable him to start
upon a train of thought that bears fruit in an essay or discourse. In
fact, it may be laid down as an axiom, that nearly every new book that is
written is indebted to the library for most of its ideas, its facts, or
its illustrations, so that libraries actually beget libraries.
Some of the endlessly diversified uses of a well-equipped library, not
only to scholars but to the general public, may here be referred to.
Among the most sought for sources of information, the periodical press,
both of the past and the current time, holds a prominent rank. When it is
considered how far-reaching are the fields embraced in the wide range of
these periodicals, literary, religious, scientific, political, technical,
philosophical, social, medical, legal, educational, agricultural,
bibliographical, commercial, financial, historical, mechanical, nautical,
military, artistic, musical, dramatic, typographical, sanitary, sporting,
economic, and miscellaneous, is it any wonder that specialists and
writers for the press seek and find ready aid therein for their
many-sided labors?
To the skeptical mind, accustomed to undervalue what does not happen to
come within the range of his pet idols or pursuits, the observation of a
single day's multifold research in a great library might be in the nature
of a revelation. Hither flock the ever-present searchers into family
history, laying under contribution all the genealogies and town and
county histories which the country has produced. Here one finds an
industrious compiler intent upon the history of American duels, for which
the many files of Northern and Southern newspapers, reaching back to the
beginning of the century, afford copious material. At another table sits
a deputation from a government department, commissioned to make a record
of all notable strikes and labor troubles for a series of years, to be
gleaned from the columns of the journals of leading cities.
An absorbed reader of French romances sits side by side with a clergyman
perusing homilies, or endeavoring to elucidate, through a mass of
commentators, a special text. Here are to be found ladies in pursuit of
costumes of every age; artists turning over the great folio galleries of
Europe for models or suggestions; lawyers seeking precedents or leading
cases; journalists verifying dates, speeches, conventions, or other
forgotten facts; engineers studying the literature of railways or
machinery; actors or amateurs in search of plays or works on the dramatic
art; physicians looking up biographies of their profession or the history
of epidemics; students of heraldry after coats of arms; inventors
searching the specifications and drawings of patents; historical students
pursuing some special field in American or foreign annals; scientists
verifying facts or citations by original authorities; searchers tracing
personal residences or deaths in old directories or newspapers; querists
seeking for the words of some half-remembered passage in poetry or prose,
or the original author of one of the myriad proverbs which have no
father; architects or builders of houses comparing hundreds of designs
and models; teachers perusing works on education or comparing text-books
new or old; readers absorbing the great poems of the world; writers in
pursuit of new or curious themes among books of antiquities or folk-lore;
students of all the questions of finance and economic science;
naturalists seeking to trace through many volumes descriptions of
species; pursuers of military or naval history or science; enthusiasts
venturing into the occult domains of spiritualism or thaumaturgy;
explorers of voyages and travels in every region of the globe; fair
readers, with dreamy eyes, devouring the last psychological novel;
devotees of musical art perusing the lives or the scores of great
composers; college and high-school students intent upon "booking up" on
themes of study or composition or debate; and a host of other seekers
after suggestion or information in a library of encyclopedic range.