Books as useful tools
There is still too much of superstition and reverence mingled with
the thought of books and literature, and study and studentship in the
popular mind. Books are tools, of which here and there one is useful
for a certain purpose to a certain person. The farmer consults his
farm paper on the mixing of pig-feed; the cook takes from the latest
treatise the rules for a new salad; the chemist finds in his journal
the last word on the detection of poisons; the man of affairs turns
to the last market reports for guidance in his day's transactions; and
all have used books, have studied literature. The hammer and the
poem, the hoe and the dictionary, the engine and the encyclopedia, the
trowel and the treatise on philosophy--these are tools. One and all,
they are expressions of the life of the race. But they are not, for
that reason, to be reverenced. They are proper for man's service, not
man for theirs. Approach books, then, as you would a sewing machine, a
school, or a factory.
Literature, after all, is simply all that's printed. In print are
found the sum of the experience and observation of the whole race. Out
of this print it is the librarian's business to help his fellows to
draw such facts and suggestions as may aid them in their work.