President Cleveland made this address on March 6, 1890,
while a resident of New York City in the interval between
his two presidential terms, at a meeting, at Chickering
Hall, called for the purpose of directing attention to the
work of the struggling Free Circulating Library and if
possible to raise funds for its support, which was only
partially insured by the City. Owing to increase in both
public and private contributions this library was enabled to
make rapid growth in the years immediately following until
in 1901, when it was merged in the Circulation Department of
the New York Public Library, it was operating eleven
branches with a circulation of over 600,000. This
institution was the pioneer of the popular, as distinguished
from the scholarly, library idea in New York.
[Stephen] Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, N.J.,
March 18, 1837, the fifth son of a Presbyterian clergyman.
He received a common-school education and after his father's
death went in 1855 to live with an uncle in Buffalo, N.Y. He
was admitted to the bar there in 1859, was assistant
district attorney in 1863-66, sheriff in 1871-74 and mayor
in 1882. In the latter year he was elected Governor of New
York and in 1884 President of the United States. He was an
unsuccessful candidate for re-election in 1888, but was
elected again in 1892. He died in Princeton, N.J., where he
had resided since his last presidential term, on June 24,
1908.
The words I shall speak on this occasion I intend rather as a pledge of
my adherance to the cause in which you are enlisted than an attempt to
say anything new or instructive. I gladly join with the enthusiasm of a
new convert in the felicitations of those who have done noble and
effective work in the establishment and maintenance in our city of a
free circulating library, and it seems to me they have abundant cause
for congratulation in review of the good which has already been
accomplished through their efforts and in the contemplation of the
further usefulness which awaits their continued endeavor.
In every enlightened country the value of popular education is fully
recognized, not only as a direct benefit to its recipients, but as an
element of strength and safety in organized society. Considered in these
aspects it should nowhere be better appreciated than in this land of
free institutions consecrated to the welfare and happiness of its
citizens, and deriving its sanction and its power from the people. Here
the character of the people is inevitably impressed upon the government,
and here our public life can no more be higher and purer than the life
of the people, than a stream can rise above its fountain or be purer
than the spring in which it has its source.
That we have not failed to realize these conditions is demonstrated by
the establishment of free public schools on every side, where children
are not only invited but often obliged to submit themselves to such
instruction as will better their situation in life and fit them to take
part intelligently in the conduct of the government.
Thus, in our schools the young are taught to read, and in this manner
the seed is sown, from which we expect a profitable return to the state,
when its beneficiaries shall repay the educational advances made to them
by an intelligent and patriotic performance of their social and
political duties.
And yet if we are to create good citizenship, which is the object of
popular education, and if we are to insure to the country the full
benefit of public instruction, we can by no means consider the work as
completely done in the schoolroom. While the young gathered there are
fitting themselves to assume in the future their political obligations,
there are others upon whom these obligations already rest, and who now
have the welfare and safety of the country in their keeping. Our work is
badly done if these are neglected. They have passed the school age, and
have perhaps availed themselves of free instruction; but they, as well
as those still in the school, should, nevertheless, have within their
reach the means of further mental improvement and the opportunity of
gaining that additional knowledge and information which can only be
secured by access to useful and instructive books.
The husbandman who expects to gain a profitable return from his
orchards, not only carefully tends and cultivates the young trees in his
nurseries as they grow to maturity but he generously enriches and cares
for those in bearing and upon which he must rely for ripened fruit.
Teaching the children of our land to read is but the first step in the
scheme of creating good citizens by means of free instruction. We teach
the young to read so that both as children and as men and women they may
read. Our teaching must lead to the habit and the desire of reading to
be useful; and only as this result is reached can the work in our free
schools be logically supplemented and made valuable.
Therefore, the same wise policy and intent which open the doors of our
free schools to our young, also suggest the completion of the plan thus
entered upon by placing books in the hands of those who in our schools
have been taught to read.
A man or woman who never reads and is abandoned to unthinking torpor, or
who allows the entire mental life to be bounded by the narrow lines of
the daily recurring routine of effort for mere existence, cannot escape
a condition of barrenness of mind, which not only causes the decay of
individual contentment and happiness, but which fails to yield to the
state its justly expected return of usefulness in valuable service and
wholesome political action.
Another branch of this question should not be overlooked. It is not
only of great importance that our youth and our men and women should
have the ability, the desire, and the opportunity to read, but the kind
of books they read is no less important. Without guidance and without
the invitation and encouragement to read publications which will improve
as well as interest, there is danger that our people will have in their
hands books whose influence and tendency are of a negative sort, if not
positively bad and mischievous. Like other good things, the ability and
opportunity to read may be so used as to defeat their beneficient
purposes.
The boy who greedily devours the vicious tales of imaginary daring and
blood-curdling adventure which in these days are far too accessible to
the young will have his brain filled with notions of life and standards
of manliness which, if they do not make him a menace to peace and good
order, will certainly not tend to make him a useful member of society.
The man who devotes himself to the flash literature now much too common
will, instead of increasing his value as a citizen, almost surely
degenerate in his ideas of public duty and grow dull in appreciation of
the obligations he owes his country.
In both these cases there will be a loss to the state. There is danger
also that a positive and aggressive injury to the community will result,
and such readers will certainly suffer deprivation to the happiness and
contentment which are the fruits of improving study and well-regulated
thought.
So, too, the young woman who seeks recreation and entertainment in
reading silly and frivolous books, often of doubtful moral tendency, is
herself in the way of becoming frivolous and silly, if not of weak
morality. If she escapes this latter condition, she is certain to become
utterly unfitted to bear patiently the burden of self-support or to
assume the sacred duties of wife and mother.
Contemplating these truths, no one can doubt the importance of securing
for those who read, as far as it is in our power, facilities for the
study and reading of such books as will instruct and innocently
entertain, and which will at the same time improve and correct the
tastes and habits.
There is another thought somewhat in advance of those already suggested,
which should not pass unnoticed.
As an outgrowth of the inventive and progressive spirit of our people,
we have among us legions of men, and women, too, who restlessly desire
to increase their knowledge of the new forces and agencies which at this
time are being constantly dragged from their lurking-places and
subjected to the use of man. Those earnest inquirers should all be given
a chance and have put within their reach such books as will guide and
inspire their efforts. If by this means the country shall gain to itself
a new inventor or be the patron of endeavor which shall add new elements
to the sum of human happiness and comfort, its intervention will be well
repaid.
These considerations, and the fact that many among us having the ability
and inclination to read are unable to furnish themselves with profitable
and wholesome books amply justify the beneficient mission of our Free
Circulating Library. Its plan and operation, so exactly adjusted to meet
a situation which cannot safely be ignored and to wants which ought not
to be neglected, establish its claim upon the encouragement and
reasonable aid of the public authorities and commend it most fully to
the support and generosity of private benefaction.
The development which this good work has already reached in our city has
exhibited the broad field yet remaining untouched and the inadequacy of
present operations. It has brought to view also instances of noble
individual philanthropy and disinterested private effort and
contribution.
But it certainly seems that the time and money directed towards this
object are confined to a circle of persons far too narrow, and that the
public encouragement and aid have been greatly disproportioned to
private endeavor.
The city of New York has never shown herself willing to be behind other
cities in such work as is done by our Free Circulating Library, and
while her people are much engrossed in business activity and enterprise
they have never yet turned away from a cause once demonstrated to them
to be so worthy and useful as this.
The demonstration is at hand. Let it be pressed upon our fellow
citizens, and let them be shown the practical operation of the project
you have in hand and the good it has accomplished, and the further good
of which it is capable through their increased liberality, and it will
be strange if they fail to respond generously to your appeal to put the
city of New York in the front rank of the cities which have recognized
the usefulness of the free circulating libraries.