Nearly a quarter-century elapsed after Ticknor's letter,
just quoted, before the publication in book form of Josiah
P. Quincy's "Protection of Majorities and Other Essays"
(Boston, 1875), of which collection his paper on the
function of a town library forms a part. As stated in his
introduction, it appeared originally in _Old and New_, a
magazine already extinct when that introduction was penned.
While asserting as strongly as Mr. Ticknor his belief in
making a library "popular," the writer denies that his
belief justifies the inclusion of fiction. His position
seems to be that, praiseworthy as much of it is, fiction
should not be supplied to the public from the public funds.
The present attitude, that this is a matter to be settled by
the public itself, is repudiated in set terms and with
somewhat picturesque illustrations, by Mr. Quincy. His
stalwart advocacy of the library as a supplement to the
school is what justifies the inclusion of his paper in this
collection. Those who desire to follow Mr. Quincy a little
farther may read the next paper in the above-named
collection entitled "The Abuse of Reading."
Josiah Phillips Quincy was born in Boston, Nov. 28, 1829
and graduated at Harvard in 1850, the son of the statesman
Josiah Quincy who was also president of Harvard. He was
admitted to the bar in 1854, but afterward engaged in
business and in farming, also writing freely on civic and
economic subjects.
This is a one-sided paper. Something might be said on the other side;
but, as that is the popular side, it is likely to receive full justice.
In behalf of an unconverted minority, who should be represented through
the press, if nowhere else, I desire to register a dissent from the
prevailing opinion concerning the function of libraries sustained by the
taxation of towns and small municipalities. The importance of
stimulating thought upon subjects bearing ever so remotely upon our
fiscal requirements, I conceive to be far greater than may superficially
appear. For when the mass of our people clearly comprehend what
government should not be called upon to do for them, they will insist
upon its performing duties which are manifestly within its sphere of
action. Laboring men and women are to-day suffering from the
adulteration of their food and drink, and from a system of taxation
which oppresses them with weighty and unjust burdens. Their deliverance
can only come by dismissing legislators who are disciples of what may be
called the Todgers school of economy; that remarkable matron, as Dickens
tells us, caring little for the solid sustenance of her boarders,
provided "the gravy" was abundant and satisfactory.
Upon what principle can the citizen, who thinks before he casts his
ballot, justify himself in voting increased taxes upon his neighbors for
the purpose of establishing a library? He must assume the necessity of
public schools, and then argue that he may vote for a library that will
supplement the elementary instruction which the town provides. And the
justification is ample. If our schools are so conducted as to awaken a
taste for knowledge and give a correct method in English reading, the
town library may represent the university brought to every man's door.
But suppose a large portion of the funds taken from tax-payers is
devoted to circulating ephemeral works of mere amusement. Is it not as
monstrous for me to vote to tax my neighbor to furnish the boys and
girls with "A Terrible Tribulation," or "Lady So-and-So's Struggle," as
it would be for the purpose of providing them with free tickets to
witness "Article 47" or "The Black Crook"? These romances and dramas (to
represent them in the most favorable point of view) are evanescent
productions, designed to meet the market demand for the intense and
spasmodic. Their claims to patronage from the public purse are precisely
similar.
So far, the citizen has a right to object as a tax-payer. But, if he
were truly solicitous for the welfare of the community about him, the
protest might be far deeper. For the weak spot in our school system lies
just here: while claiming immense credit for giving most of our children
the ability to read, we show the profoundest indifference about what
they read. But this accomplishment of reading is a very doubtful good if
it goes no farther than to give a boy the satisfaction of perusing "The
Police Gazette," or introduces a girl to the immoralities of Mr.
Griffith Gaunt, and the adventures of a hundred other heroes of
characters even more questionable. By teaching our children to read, and
then setting them adrift in a sea of feverish literature which vitiates
the taste and enervates the character, we show an indifference about as
sensible as that of the old lady who thought it could not matter whether
her son had gone to the bosom of Abraham or Beelzebub, seeing that they
were both Scripture names.
It is not difficult to conceive of communities, existing in Greenland
or elsewhere, which might legitimately tax the citizen to furnish his
neighbors with their novel-reading. But it can scarcely be disputed that
an increased facility for obtaining works of fiction is not the pressing
need of our country in this present year of grace. Dr. Isaac Ray,
perhaps our highest authority on morbid mental phenomena, concludes his
study on the effects of the prevalent romantic literature in these
words: "The specific doctrine I would inculcate is, that the excessive
indulgence in novel-reading, which is a characteristic of our times, is
chargeable with many of the mental irregularities that prevail among us
in a degree unknown at any former period." The late Dr. Forbes Winslow,
a physician of similar note in England, used still stronger language in
describing how fearfully and fatally suggestive to the minds of the
young are those artistically developed records of sin which form the
staple of the popular novel. In these days of disordered nerve centres,
and commissions to inquire into every thing, we neglect much valuable
information which lies upon the surface. It is well to bear in mind that
our eminent bibliographer, Mr. Spofford, has informed us that "masses of
novels and other ephemeral publications overload most of our popular
libraries"; and that our wisest physicians have agreed as to the
influence they exert.
Of course these views will be met by a brusque statement that town
libraries must supply such books as people want, and that they demand
the current novels in unlimited quantities. But I repudiate the dismal
fallacy upon which such an argument is based. Plum-cake and champagne
would doubtless be demanded at a Sunday-school picnic, were these
delicacies placed upon the table; but, if the committee did not think it
necessary to supply them from the parish funds, is it certain that a
fair amount of cold beef and hasty-pudding would not be consumed in
their stead? And if a heartless man-government declined to furnish
Maggie and Mollie with "The Pirate's Penance" or "The Bride's Bigamy"
for their Sabbath reading, is it not possible that those fair voters of
the future might substitute Mrs. Fawcett's interesting illustrations of
political economy, or some outline of human physiology, their knowledge
of which would bless an unborn generation?
I do not advocate the absurdity of a town library which should chiefly
consist of authors like Plato and Professor Peirce. No one can doubt
that the great majority of its volumes should be emphatically _popular_
in their character. They should furnish intelligible and interesting
reading to the average graduate of the town schools. And there is no
lack of such works. The outlines of physical and social science have
been written by men of genius in simple and attractive style. History
and biography in the hands of their masters give a healthy stimulus to
the imagination, and tend to strengthen the character. The function of a
town library should be to supply reading improving and interesting, and
yet, in the best sense of the word, popular; and I maintain that this
can be done, without setting up a rival agency to the news-stand, the
book-club, and the weekly paper, for the circulation of the novels of
the day.
There is a saying of Dr. Johnson, to the effect, that, if a boy be let
loose in a library, he is likely to give himself a very fair education.
But, in accepting this dictum, we must remember the sort of library the
doctor had in his mind. As known to him, it was based upon solid volumes
of systematized information. Besides these were the noblest poems of the
world, a very few great romances, and ponderous tomes of controversial
theology; good, healthy food, and much of it attractive to an unpampered
boy-appetite.
But the range of a large library is by no means necessary to produce the
soundest educational results. Can it be doubted that familiar knowledge
of a small case of well-selected books--such, for instance, as the
modest stipend of a country clergyman easily collects--is better for boy
and girl than the liberty of devouring a thousand highly-flavored sweets
in the free library? At all events, a few old-fashioned people do not
question it. "A year ago," writes one of them, "Alice used to read
Irving and Spenser, and Tom was dipping into Gibbon and Shakespeare;
liking them well enough, yet preferring a game of base-ball to either,
as it was proper he should. But the town library was opened, and these
young people are found crouching over novels in out-of-the-way corners,
when they ought to be at play; or reading surreptitiously at night, when
they ought to be asleep." It is in vain to throw all the responsibility
upon parents. American parents are very busy, and somewhat careless.
Mrs. Fanny Firefly's highly-seasoned love-stories for girls, and Mr.
Samuel Sensation's boy-novels and spiced preparations of boned history,
are got up, like the port-wine drops of the confectioners, to tempt and
to sell. And they do their work. No one can examine the average boy and
girl of the period without being struck with their ignorance of the
great works of English literature which young people of a former
generation were accustomed to read with profit and delight.
The function of a town library is to supplement the town schools; to
gratify the taste for knowledge which they should have imparted; and to
serve as an instrument for that self-education to which there is no
limit. But tax-payers are not bound to circulate twenty-seven thousand
novels against nineteen hundred volumes of biography and seventeen
hundred of history, according to the figures of one report; or to expend
two-thirds of the working force of their establishment in sending out
"novels and juveniles," according to the statement of another. In a
word, information, not excitement, should be imbibed from the atmosphere
of the town library. That prevailing infirmity of our time which seems
to substitute sensibility for morality should there find small
encouragement. But we shall never know what this institution might do
for a community, so long as the temptation of free novels is thrust in
the faces of all who enter. For it is not to be expected that our youth
fresh from school, moving among the countless agitations of American
life, will select reading that may require some mental exertion, so long
as mental excitement is offered them in unlimited amounts.
I am well aware how much may be said for the story-tellers, and how many
people there are to say it; and, whenever there is danger of their being
unduly neglected, my voice shall be loudly raised in their behalf. But
one may allow the claims of the romances, from Scheherazade to Mrs.
Southworth, and yet maintain that the theory upon which the average town
library is run is faulty. There is no virtue in despising cakes and ale,
and the heat of ginger in the mouth may at times impart a wholesome glow
to the entire system. But it does not quite follow that it is the
function of American towns to supply these stimulants gratis, at the
expense of their tax-payers. While we consider the immense amount of
reading of a certain sort that a town library supplies, it is well to
remember that there are other sorts of reading it may possibly prevent.
For it may encourage reading precisely as prodigality encourages
industry. Luxury and profusion do indeed feed industry, and demoralize
it; but the industry which serves God by blessing man, they prevent from
being fed. I fear that in these days more noble capacities die of a
surfeit from too much poor reading, than starve from want of good books.
The valid defence of institutions working in the interest of State
education is this: they prevent a waste of power. When any one of them
can be shown to encourage waste of power, it needs looking after. In our
complex social condition, the real consequences of any government
interference extend far beyond its apparent consequences. An institution
may be very useful up to a certain point, and yet hurtful if allowed to
run its full course without restraining criticism.
The managers of our smaller libraries are apt to be picked men, who
give unrequited labor and intelligence to their trust. But they are
chosen at town meetings,--and to a certain extent must carry out the
wishes of their electors. Upon this matter, as upon most others, it is
the duty of the thoughtful men and women to create a wholesome public
opinion. They must recognize the fact that the change from a few good
books to an unlimited supply of all sorts of books is by no means an
unmixed advantage to a community. While the results of town libraries,
taken in the aggregate, are undoubtedly good, it is our duty to consider
whether they ought not to be better.