The following seven papers give some fundamental ideas on
the functions of popular libraries. They are arranged in
chronological order, and, so grouped, span the gap between
1851 and 1906, considerably more than half a century. The
first is interesting as presenting a discussion at the
inception of our first great public library, that of the
city of Boston, quoted from "The Life, Letters and Journals
of George Ticknor" (Boston, 1909). Ticknor's idea of a
popular library, given in a letter to Edward Everett, is
followed by Everett's answer. Some of the editor's comments
precede and conclude. Those interested may read on, in
Chapter XV, Vol. II of the "Life," and get a further idea of
Ticknor's zeal in promoting the Boston library and his
interest in making it as popular as possible, in distinction
to the idea of a library solely for scholars, upheld by John
Jacob Astor, in his New York gift of three years previous,
which Everett rather favored.
George Ticknor was born in Boston, Aug. 1, 1791 and
graduated at Dartmouth in 1807. He was admitted to the bar
in 1813 but devoted his life chiefly to teaching and to
literature, serving as professor in Harvard in 1819-35. He
died in Boston, Jan. 26, 1871. A sketch of Everett appears
on page 127 of this volume.
The endowment of a great library in New York, given by Mr. John Jacob
Astor, at his death, in 1848, was much talked about; and men of forecast
began to say openly that, unless something of a like character were done
in Boston, the scientific and literary culture of this part of the
country would follow trade and capital to the metropolis, which was thus
taking the lead. Still, nothing effectual was done. Among the persons
with whom Mr. Ticknor had, of late years, most frequently talked of the
matter, Dr. Channing was dead, Mr. Abbott Lawrence had become Minister
to England, and Mr. Jonathan Phillips was growing too infirm to take
part in public affairs. The subject, however, kept its hold on Mr.
Ticknor's mind.
His idea was that which he felt lay at the foundation of all our public
institutions, namely, that in order to form and maintain our character
as a great nation, the mass of the people must be intelligent enough to
manage their own government with wisdom; and he came, though not at
once, to the conclusion that a very free use of books, furnished by an
institution supported at the expense of the community, would be one of
the effective means for obtaining this result of general culture.
He had reached this conclusion before he saw any probability of its
being practically carried out, as is proved by the following letter,
which he wrote to Mr. Everett, in the summer of 1851. A few months
before this date Mr. Everett had presented to the city--after offering
it in vain more than once--a collection of about a thousand volumes of
Public Documents, and books of similar character, accompanied by a
letter, urging the establishment of a public library.
To HON. EDWARD EVERETT.
Bellows Falls, Vermont, July 14, 1851.
MY DEAR EVERETT,--I have seen with much gratification from
time to time, within the last year, and particularly in your
last letter on the subject, that you interest yourself in
the establishment of a public library in Boston;--I mean a
library open to all the citizens, and from which all, under
proper restrictions, can take out books. Such, at least, I
understand to be your plan; and I have thought, more than
once, that I would talk with you about it, but accident has
prevented it. However, perhaps a letter is as good on all
accounts, and better as a distinct memorandum of what I
mean.
It has seemed to me, for many years, that such a free
public library, if adapted to the wants of our people, would
be the crowning glory of our public schools. But I think it
important that it should be adapted to our peculiar
character; that is, that it should come in at the end of our
system of free instruction, and be fitted to continue and
increase the effects of that system by the self-culture that
results from reading.
The great obstacle to this with us is not--as it is in
Prussia and elsewhere--a low condition of the mass of the
people, condemning them, as soon as they escape from school,
and often before it, to such severe labor, in order to
procure the coarsest means of physical subsistence, that
they have no leisure for intellectual culture, and soon lose
all taste for it. Our difficulty is, to furnish means
specially fitted to encourage a love for reading, to create
an appetite for it, which the schools often fail to do, and
then to adapt these means to its gratification. That an
appetite for reading can be very widely excited is plain,
from what the cheap publications of the last twenty years
have accomplished, gradually raising the taste from such
poor trash as the novels with which they began, up to the
excellent and valuable works of all sorts which now flood
the country, and are read by the middling classes
everywhere, and in New England, I think, even by a majority
of the people.[2]
Now what seems to me to be wanted in Boston is, an apparatus
that shall carry this taste for reading as deep as possible
into society, assuming, what I believe to be true, that it
can be carried deeper in our society than in any other in
the world, because we are better fitted for it. To do this I
would establish a library which, in its _main_ department
and purpose, should differ from all free libraries yet
attempted; I mean one in which any popular books, tending to
moral and intellectual improvement, should be furnished in
such numbers of copies that many persons, if they desired
it, could be reading the same work at the same time; in
short, that not only the best books of all sorts, but the
pleasant literature of the day, should be made accessible to
the whole people at the only time when they care for it,
_i.e._ when it is fresh and new. I would, therefore,
continue to buy additional copies of any book of this class,
almost as long as they should continue to be asked for, and
thus, by following the popular taste,--unless it should
demand something injurious,--create a real appetite for
healthy general reading. This appetite, once formed, will
take care of itself. It will, in the great majority of
cases, demand better and better books; and can, I believe,
by a little judicious help, rather than by any direct
control or restraint, be carried much higher than is
generally thought possible.
[2] Mr. Ticknor was much struck by the publication of a cheap edition
of Johns' Translation of Froissart, by the Harpers, of which he found
a copy in a small inn of a retired village of southern New York, in
1844; and he always watched the signs of popular taste, both in
publishers' lists and in the bookshelves of the houses which he
entered, in his summer journeys, or in his errands of business and
charity in the winter.
After some details, of no present consequence, developing this idea, the
letter goes on:--
Nor would I, on this plan, neglect the establishment of a
department for consultation, and for all the common purposes
of public libraries, some of whose books, like
encyclopaedias and dictionaries, should never be lent out,
while others could be permitted to circulate; all on the
shelves being accessible for reference as many hours in the
day as possible, and always in the evening. This part of the
library, I should hope, would be much increased by donations
from public-spirited individuals, and individuals interested
in the progress of knowledge, while, I think, the public
treasury should provide for the more popular department.
Intimations of the want of such public facilities for
reading are, I think, beginning to be given. In London I
notice advertisements of some of the larger circulating
libraries, that they purchase one and two hundred copies of
all new and popular works; and in Boston, I am told, some of
our own circulating libraries will purchase almost any new
book, if the person asking for it will agree to pay double
the usual fee for reading it; while in all, I think,
several, and sometimes many copies of new and popular works
are kept on hand for a time, and then sold, as the demand
for them dies away.
Omitting other details, now of no importance, the letter ends as
follows:--
Several years ago I proposed to Mr. Abbott Lawrence to move
in favor of such a library in Boston; and, since that time,
I have occasionally suggested it to other persons. In every
case the idea has been well received; and the more I have
thought of it and talked about it, the more I have been
persuaded, that it is a plan easy to be reduced to practice,
and one that would be followed by valuable results.
I wish, therefore, that you would consider it, and see what
objections there are to it. I have no purpose to do anything
more about it myself than to write you this letter, and
continue to speak of it, as I have done heretofore, to
persons who, like yourself, are interested in such matters.
But I should be well pleased to know how it strikes you.