This is probably the first treatment of the subject in this
country, and is the leading article in the second number of
_The American Library Journal_, as it was then called. The
writer, William F. Poole was at the time librarian of the
Chicago Public Library. He mentioned objections only to
explain them away. It will be noted that none of them would
be described at present as "popular," and that only the
third is now much heard.
William Frederick Poole was born in Salem, Mass., 1821, and
graduated at Yale in 1849, where as librarian of the
Linonian and Brothers Library he founded Poole's Index to
Periodical Literature, by which his name is chiefly
remembered. He was librarian of the Chicago Public Library
in 1873-87, and at his death, March 1, 1894, he was
librarian of the Newberry Library, Chicago, whose building
he designed on the departmental system, of which he was an
earnest advocate. He was the second president of the
American Library Association, serving in 1885-87.
In this paper I shall use the term "public libraries" as meaning free
municipal libraries organized under State laws and supported by general
taxation. This definition will exclude from our notice a large number of
libraries established on other foundations, some of them richly endowed
and partially accessible to the public.
The rapid increase in the number and importance of public libraries,
both in this country and in England, is perhaps the most marked feature
of educational development during the past twenty-five years; for within
that brief period the first of them was opened to the public.
My subject, as announced in the programme, requires me to speak of
popular objections; yet I must confess that popular appreciation of
these institutions, where they have been established, would have
furnished a more attractive theme. As their foundation involves
taxation, that prolific source of political controversy, it is somewhat
remarkable that in the eleven States of our Union where public-library
statutes have been enacted, so little public discussion has occurred,
and so few objections have been offered. I have heard of no instance
where such a bill was proposed in a State legislature and was defeated.
That all the Northern States, where general education and the
common-school system are established, have not by legislation provided
also for the public library--the natural ally and supplement of that
system--is doubtless owing to the fact that the people have not asked
for such legislation. The unanimity of the vote by which towns have
accepted taxation for the support of public libraries is significant.
The Commissioner of Education at Washington recently made inquiries on
this point, and received replies from 37 towns and cities. In 32 of
these the vote was unanimous; in 5 there was a divided sentiment, but
the vote was 1730 in favor to 515 against taxation. The vote of the
rate-payers in some English towns and cities where free libraries have
been established was as follows:
Ayes. Noes.
Manchester 3962 40
Winchester 337 13
Bolton 662 55
Cambridge 873 78
Oxford 596 72
Sheffield 838 232
Kidderminster 108 11
Blackburn 1700 2
Dundee, no dissentient.
By the latest statistics of the Bureau of Education, it appears that
there are 188 public libraries in eleven of the United States. Of these
five are Eastern States--Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts
and Connecticut; five are Western States--Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Wisconsin, and Iowa: and one is a Southern State--Texas. Eight of these
States have passed public-library statutes within the past ten years. In
the number of libraries the States rank as follows: Massachusetts, 127;
Illinois, 14; New Hampshire, 13; Ohio, 9; Maine, 8; Vermont,
Connecticut, and Wisconsin, 4 each; Indiana, 3; Iowa and Texas, 1 each.
In the number of volumes they rank as follows (in round numbers):
Massachusetts, 920,000; Ohio, 144,000; Illinois, 77,000; New Hampshire,
52,000; Maine, 34,000; Indiana, 26,000; Vermont, 16,000; Connecticut,
15,000; Texas, 10,000; Wisconsin, 6000; Iowa, 1000. The aggregate number
of volumes in these libraries is 1,300,000, and their annual aggregate
circulation is 4,735,000 volumes. It is noticeable that no one of these
libraries is in New York, Pennsylvania, or any of the Middle States. The
representatives from those States in this Conference may be able to
account for this hiatus in the statistics of the Bureau of Education.
In this brief sketch of the statistics of our American public libraries
we have not found much evidence of popular objections to their inception
and organization. In England, however, where the questions of national
schools, secular schools, and parochial schools are still mooted, the
idea of levying a general tax for the support of a library free to all,
and furnished with books adapted to the capacities of all classes, was
not in harmony with the traditions and public policy of that people. In
1848, the same year that the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the
suggestion of Josiah Quincy, Mayor of Boston, passed an act authorizing
the city of Boston to maintain a public library, Mr. William Ewart,
member of Parliament, moved in the House of Commons for a committee of
inquiry respecting libraries. Such a committee was raised, and Mr. Ewart
was appointed chairman. Much evidence was taken; a report was made; and
in February, 1850, a bill was introduced into the House of Commons
enabling town councils to establish public libraries and museums. "Our
younger brethren, the people of the United States," says the report,
"have already anticipated us in the formation of libraries entirely open
to the public." The bill proposed limited the rate of taxation to one
halfpenny in the pound; required the affirmative vote of two thirds of
the rate-payers; restricted its operation to towns which had at least
ten thousand inhabitants; and provided that the money so raised should
be expended only in building and contingent expenses. This bill, meagre
indeed compared with the later enactments of Parliament, met persistent
opposition from the conservative benches. An ex-Chancellor of the
Exchequer objected because it did not give sufficient powers to form a
library; and he should object to it more strongly if it did. Who was to
select the books? Was every publication that issued from the press to be
procured? or was there to be a censorship introduced? Another member
claimed that the bill would enable a few persons to tax the general body
of rate-payers for their own benefit, and the library would degenerate
into a political club. Col. Sibthorp thought that, however excellent
food for the mind might be, food for the body was more needed by the
people. "I do not like reading at all," he said, "and hated it when I
was at Oxford." Lord John Manners said he could not support the bill,
because it would impose an additional tax upon the agricultural
interest. Mr. Spooner feared these institutions might be converted into
normal schools of agitation. Sir Roundell Palmer--since the Lord
Chancellor of England--was most apprehensive that the moment the
compulsory principle was introduced, a positive check would be imposed
upon the voluntary, self-supporting desire which existed among the
people. A division being taken on the bill, there were 118 ayes and 101
noes. The bill passed the House of Commons in July, and the House of
Lords, without opposition, in August, 1850.
The Manchester, Liverpool, and Bolton free libraries were immediately
organized under this act, the cost of the books being defrayed by public
subscription. In 1853 similar legislation was extended to Scotland and
Ireland. In July, 1855, the new libraries having gone into operation
with the most encouraging results, a new and more liberal library act
was passed, by a vote of three to one, which raised the rate of taxation
from a halfpenny to a penny in the pound, and allowed the income to be
expended for books. Its provisions were made to include towns, boroughs,
parishes, and districts having a population of 5000 inhabitants, and
permitted two adjoining parishes, having an aggregate population of five
thousand, to unite in the establishment of a library.
In 1866 the library act was again improved by removing the limit of
population required, and reducing the two-thirds vote on the acceptance
of the library tax to a bare majority vote. Provision was also made for
cases in which the overseers of parishes refused or neglected to call a
meeting of the rate-payers to vote on the question. Any ten rate-payers
could secure the calling of such a meeting, and the vote there taken was
made binding and legal.
The English free-library system is now so firmly established that it
will not be changed except to expand and enlarge it. Its chief
supporters are the middle classes, and artisans and laborers, who, with
their families, are its most numerous patrons.
The recent extension of suffrage in England has strengthened the system.
No candidate for official position who opposed it could hope for
success. It has been found that free libraries have not degenerated into
political clubs and schools of agitation. No trouble has arisen in the
selection of books, and no censorship of the press was required. It was
at first supposed that all books relating to religion and politics--the
subjects on which people quarrel most--must be excluded. The experiment
of including these books was tried in the Manchester and Liverpool
libraries, where the books were purchased by private subscription, and
no controversy arising therefrom, all apprehension of evil from this
cause was allayed. Parliament doubled the rate of taxation, and
permitted the purchase of books from the public funds. The adoption of
the compulsory system has not imposed a check on the voluntary and
self-supporting desire of possessing books which existed among the
people. It has strengthened that desire; and ample proof of this
statement could be furnished if the prescribed limits of this paper
would permit.
It is singular that objections to public libraries have come mainly from
men--as we have seen from the debate in the British Parliament--who are
educated, and in general matters of public welfare are intelligent above
their fellows. These objections, however, were uttered before the
persons making them had given the subject any attention, and hence they
were disqualified from entertaining an opinion.
Nearly all the objections to public libraries which have been expressed
in this country--and these appear more frequently in private
conversation than in the public prints--may be classed under three
heads:
1. The universal dread of taxation. Libraries cost money. In every city
and town of the land there is a feeling that the present rate of
taxation is all that the property and business of the place will bear.
This feeling existed before the taxes were one half their present rates.
There is a generous rivalry among our cities and towns in the
maintenance of good schools; and localities which furnish the best
facilities for education are regarded as the most desirable places for
residence. Viewed simply as a matter of public economy, no city can
afford to dispense with its educational system, or to permit it to
degenerate. The public library also should be maintained as the
supplement of the public school, carrying forward the education of the
people from the point where the public school leaves it.
2. There are certain theoretical objections offered to the establishment
and maintenance of public libraries. One is that the library tax bears
unequally upon the people. Some persons do not care to read books, and
others prefer to pay for their own reading. The same objection is quite
as valid against any system of public education. To lay the burden of
education uniformly upon property, and to tax the owner who has no
children, or, having children, prefers to educate them at private
schools, is another glaring instance of inequality. No taxation for the
maintenance of public health, the introduction of water and gas, the
construction of roads, bridges, and sewers, bears equally upon every
member of the community. If perfect equality in the distribution of
these burdens were a necessity, an organized municipality would be an
impossibility.
Perhaps the most popular objection to public libraries is the one urged
by the few disciples of Herbert Spencer--that government has no
legitimate function except the protection of person and property, as the
original compact of society is simply for the purpose of protection. All
else is paternal, pertains to the commune, and tends to perpetual
antagonism. The government may support a police, courts of justice,
prisons, penitentiaries, and similar institutions, and can do nothing
else.
How are the people under this theory to be educated? The reply is
explicit: Unless they will educate themselves, they are not to be
educated. How is the public health to be maintained? It is not to be
maintained by any interference of government. Who is to build bridges
and sewers and lay out public parks? Nobody. Imagine, if it be possible,
a community where such a Utopian theory was carried out. Such a
government fortunately does not, and never did, exist on the face of the
globe. The "general welfare"--which includes protection--is expressly
stated in the preamble of the national constitution to be the purpose of
our government, and the same expression is found in nearly all the state
constitutions. What ever the people desire, and whatever will, in their
judgment, conduce to the general welfare, is a legitimate subject for
governmental action. "The only orthodox object of the institution of
government," says Mr. Jefferson, "is to secure the greatest degree of
happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it."
Herbert Spencer wrote his "Social Statics" before the British Parliament
passed an act for the support of public libraries. Mr. Ewart's bill was
then before Parliament; and Mr. Spencer, in that work, took occasion to
fling a sneer at it. In the preface of his American edition, written in
1864, he states, without remodelling the text, that "the work does not
accurately represent his present opinions."
3. The third and last class of objections to public libraries to which
I shall direct your attention relates to the kind and quality of books
circulated. These objections, which are usually made by educated and
scholarly persons, are based on an entire misconception of the facts in
the case. The objectors do not divest themselves of the old idea that
libraries are established for the exclusive benefit of scholars; whereas
the purpose of these is to furnish reading for all classes in the
community. On no other principle would a general tax for their support
be justifiable. The masses of a community have very little of literary
and scholarly culture. They need more of this culture, and the purpose
of the library is to develop and increase it. This is done by placing in
their hands such books as they can read with pleasure and appreciate,
and by stimulating them to acquire the _habit_ of reading. We must first
interest the reader before we can educate him; and, to this end, must
commence at his own standard of intelligence. The scholar, in his pride
of intellect, forgets the progressive steps he took in his own mental
development--the stories read to him in the nursery, the boy's book of
adventure in which he revelled with delight, and the sentimental novel
over which he shed tears in his youth. Our objector supposes that the
masses will read books of his standard if they were not supplied with
the books to which he objects; but he is mistaken. Shut up to this
choice, they will read no books. When the habit of reading is once
acquired, the reader's taste, and hence the quality of his reading,
progressively improve.
The standard histories, technical works of science, and even
Shakespeare's plays and Milton's "Paradise Lost," are sealed books to a
larger portion of every community than are willing to acknowledge the
fact. "When a Boy," said John Quincy Adams, "I attempted ten times to
read Milton's 'Paradise Lost.' I was mortified, even to the shedding of
tears, that I could not conceive what it was that my father and mother
so much admired in that book. I smoked tobacco and read Milton at the
same time, and for the same motive: to find out what was the recondite
charm in them that gave my father so much pleasure. After making myself
sick four or five times with smoking, I mastered that accomplishment;
but I did not master Milton. I was nearly thirty years of age when I
first read 'Paradise Lost' with delight and astonishment."
If our objectors mourn over the standard of books which are read by the
public, they may be consoled by the fact that, as a rule, people read
books better than themselves, and hence are benefited by reading. A book
of a lower intellectual or moral standard than the reader's is thrown
aside in disgust, to be picked up and read by a person still lower in
the scale of mental and moral development.
I do not lament, or join in the clamor sometimes raised, over the
statistics of prose fiction circulated at public libraries. Why this
lamentation over one specific form of fiction? The writers of such prose
fiction as is found in our libraries were as eminent and worthy men and
women as the writers of poetical fiction, dramatic fiction, or, I might
add, the fiction which passes in the world as history and biography.
History professes to relate actual events, biography to describe actual
lives, and science to unfold and explain natural laws and physical
phenomena. Fiction treats these and other subjects, mental, moral,
sentimental, and divine, from an ideal or artistic standpoint; and the
great mass of readers prefer to take their knowledge in this form. More
is known to-day of the history and traditions of Scotland, and of the
social customs of London, from the novels of Sir Walter Scott and
Charles Dickens than from all the histories of those localities. Fiction
is the art element in literature, and the most enduring monuments of
genius in the literature of any people are works of the imagination.
It is said that there is much poor fiction, and the statement is true.
So there are many poor pictures and poor statues, wretched chromos and
more wretched plaster casts. That these productions find purchasers is
evidence that there are persons whose ideal standard of excellence is
even below these feeble efforts, and they are educated thereby.
But there are novels, we are told, which are immoral and positively
debasing. So there are immoral paintings and indecent plastic objects.
The act of photography, I am told, is debased to the lowest purposes.
Nobody would think of objecting to art because it can be and is
degraded. The librarian who should allow an immoral novel in his library
for circulation would be as culpable as the manager of a picture gallery
who should hang an indecent picture on his walls.
Young people, again, we are told, read too many novels. So they eat too
much, play too much, go too often to the lake to bathe, remain too long
in the water, and do too much of everything in which they take special
delight. The remedy is not to deprive children of these pleasures, but
that parents and guardians should regulate them. I have never met a
person of much literary culture who would not confess that at some
period in his life, usually in his youth, he had read novels
excessively. His special interest in them suddenly ceased. He found
himself with a confirmed habit of reading, an awakened imagination, a
full vocabulary, and a taste for other and higher classes of literature.
A novel was read occasionally in later life, as recreation in the midst
of professional or technical studies. My observation addressed to this
point, and extending over a library experience of thirty years, has
confirmed me in the belief that there is in the mental development of
every person who later attains to literary culture a limited period when
he craves novel-reading, and perhaps reads novels to excess; but from
which, if the desire be gratified, he passes safely out into broader
fields of study, and this craving never returns to him in its original
form.
Again, and finally, we are told that the reading of fiction should be
discouraged because it is not _true_. What department of literature is
true? Is it history? Whose history of the United States, for instance,
is the true history? Is it Bancroft's? Mr. Bancroft for forty years has
been changing the plates of his work to an extent that in pages we can
scarcely recognize the original text, and lately he has revised the
whole in the new Centennial edition. The accurate student of specialties
in American history will talk to you by the hour of mis-statements and
errors found in this new issue. Whose history of the reigns of Henry
VIII. and of Queen Elizabeth is the true one? Is it Hume's, Turner's,
Lingard's, or Froude's? "Do not read to me history," said a sick
monarch, "that I know is a lie. Read to me something that is true." Is
biography true? Which of the score of lives of Mary Queen of Scots is
the true biography? Is theology true? Whose is the true body of
divinity? Is science true? Why was it necessary to rewrite all the
science in the eighth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, for the
ninth edition? Homer's Iliad, Dante's Divine Comedy, Shakespeare's
Hamlet and Othello, do not require to be rewritten every ten or twenty
years. The Vicar of Wakefield, Ivanhoe, and Robinson Crusoe have held
and will hold their own from generation to generation without revision,
because they are _ideally true_ pictures of human life and human nature.
Shall we say that in literature and science there is nothing true but
fiction and the pure mathematics?
In the public libraries which are growing up in our land, fully four
fifths of the money appropriated for books is spent in works adapted to
the wants of scholars. In the larger libraries the proportion is even
greater. It is hardly becoming for scholars, who enjoy the lion's share,
to object to the small proportional expenditure for books adapted to the
wants of the masses who bear the burden of taxation.
Mr. Edward Edwards, of the Manchester Library, speaking, in 1859, of
novels and romances--which he circulated more freely than is done in any
American library--remarked as follows: "It may be truthfully said that
at no previous period in the history of English literature has prose
fiction been made, in so great a degree as of late years, the vehicle of
the best thoughts of some of the best thinkers. Nor, taking it as a
whole, was it ever before characterized by so much general purity of
tone or loftiness of purpose."