Back to this point, the beginning of man, we have actual lit_The Beginnings of Libraries

“authority” in the person of Specht at least, and nearly back to this

point we have good archaeological sources for our collections of written

records. There is, however, no authority in literature or in the

sources, so far as this lecturer knows, for carrying conjecture back

into the territory of the pithecanthropos, who, however, must have made

and left similar involuntary records of his gastronomic activities, but

who presumably never observed them or appointed them for memorial

purposes.

§ 19. _The administration of primitive libraries_

The question of where and by whom and how books were kept and made ready

for users is not one that has been very much discussed although the

questions who were the librarians and where were the books kept has been

more or less implied in the discussions of temple versus secular

collections. Mr. Tedder’s dictum that “these records would naturally be

preserved in sacred places, and accordingly the earliest libraries of

the world were probably temples and the earliest librarians priests” is

modified and perhaps at the same time confirmed by the history of

pre-phonetic libraries. It is true that in primitive tribes the medicine

man is generally a keeper of records, but it is true also that among the

Mexican Indians certainly, and pretty clearly among North American

Indian tribes and in many African tribes, the shaman or medicine man is

not the only keeper of records. It is true also that in the early

Egyptian practice the priests were the keepers of the books whether it

was in the temple, archives or the palace archives, but even here it

seems to be the fact that there were military records, department

records, and local administrative records in the different nomes kept by

scribes who were not priests.

The keeping of records must in fact have begun before there was any

special place, even the simplest hut or medicine wigwam or cave, set

apart for distinctively religious purposes, although the setting apart

of such places is apparently as old as the caves of the Stone Age. With

these qualifications, the history of votive offerings tends to confirm

the statement that the earliest public or tribal libraries were

religious and the corresponding librarians the priests.

In very early times, and in much later times among primitive peoples,

even the art of writing itself was often kept as a secret mystery in the

custody of priests. The name “hieroglyphics” points in this same

direction, and the temple collections of sacred books, the so-called

books of Thoth and books of Hermes, point in the same direction. In

general, however, this monopoly of letters seems rather to have been a

deliberate assumption by the priests, as it is sometimes assumed by

savage royalty, rather than the original situation. It applies, of

course, rather to newly devised kinds of symbols, such as the vast

number of systems of secret writing which have been evolved in all ages,

than to the ordinary current record methods. That some of the earliest

libraries were secret libraries, however, is an interesting fact, and

one which may throw light on the mysterious collections of shrines and

portable collections of objects in the liturgical processions in Egypt.

The methods used by these priest librarians for keeping and using the

books form in themselves an interesting and little studied subject of

very considerable extent.

The different kinds of writing required different sorts of receptacles.

The book chest or bookcase, from which has come through the Greek the

common word for library in languages other than English, was the most

universal and natural way of keeping almost every kind of tangible

record. The wooden chests and clay chests of the earliest historical

periods must have extended well back into the pre-phonetic period and

have also been found among primitive and semi-civilized peoples. They

can obviously be used for quipus, message sticks, or almost any portable

document. The same is true of the clay jar so often used in the earliest

historical period. In the case of wandering tribes, however, less rigid

or fragile materials are certainly better, and the book pouch was,

therefore, in very early, and probably much earlier use than either

boxes or jars. The skin pouch, like the skin water jar, is naturally

suggested and easily made. This early form survives in the medicine bag,

the lawyer’s green bag, and the schoolboy’s bag as well as in mail

pouches for post-office use.

The use of basketry work and perhaps other textile work as bookcase also

certainly extended back into pre-phonetic times and is represented in

primitive usage.

It is not to be supposed, of course, that in these primitive times there

were often separate buildings, such as the later Greek treasuries, or

even separate rooms as in the Egyptian temples, and the archives at

Boghaz Keuei and elsewhere, although separate huts for these and

especially for “collections of liturgical objects” would perhaps be

almost the first use for covered rooms, while sacrificing was still

conducted in the open air.

Something like a pouch or wallet must have been used for the marked

pebbles of the Stone Age and for pebble counting generally before the

grooves and rods of the abacus were invented.

The method of keeping and displaying the books in the boxes, pouches,

rooms or buildings, varied of course according to the nature of the

document. In the modern library there is a great difference between the

machinery necessary to keep and display folded documents, rolled

documents, and ordinary bound books. The pouch may have had compartments

like a modern purse. Basketry, clay and wood cases did have

compartments, one for each roll, in quite early papyrus days.

In some of the late Babylonian libraries the clay tablets were evidently

displayed on shelves but they were more commonly kept in clay boxes or

jars, alabaster boxes, and the like, after the general fashion of the

treasuries in earlier times and until the quantity became great. Twig

records were tied together in bundles, and the stringing together of

records was one of the earliest and most extensively used methods. It

may perhaps be said that it was the typical method of the earliest

records. It is found in the stringing together of trophy objects for

wearing on the person—necklaces, girdles, and draped strings of various

trophies. It is found also early in the history of the abacus where the

perforated pebbles or beads were strung on different rods set in the

ground, and it is of course found in the developed abacus. The

perforations of tablets, bearing the year marks, among the objects from

the earliest dynasties at Abydos, suggest a stringing together of these

annual records, although it is of course possible that these are labels

and the perforations used to attach them to boxes. The analogy with

annual records of primitive people, however, suggests this stringing

together.

What may be called classification of these libraries is found very

early. It is reflected perhaps in the early distinction between temple

and palace libraries, and more clearly in the primitive distinction

between shamans and secular recorders. The putting of like kinds of

works in boxes together, medical works, etc., is found as early as 2700

B.C. in Egypt and quite early in Crete. The labels of Crete point to a

classification of objects if not of object records.

When collections are small no cataloguing is necessary excepting in the

librarian’s mind, and his first mnemonic aid is classification, which is

in fact a sort of cataloguing and takes the place of all other

cataloguing. It is to be noted that in the very earliest records the

librarian goes with the king or the investigating committee when they go

to look up the records.

§ 20. _The beginnings of library schools_

The library school is commonly regarded as, and is, in a sense, a

product of the last century. Library schools are, therefore, still a new

thing. It may not seem so to you who had not been born when some of us

were lecturing at that first American library school up at Columbia

University, but it is the fact that the teachers of that school are

still living and teaching, and there were no schools of library economy

strictly speaking when they began. The well fledged library school as an

avowed school and independent unit is a product of this generation.

Nevertheless library schools too have had their beginnings. In the

immediate past schools or university courses of palaeography or archival

science have been practically library schools. In European countries,

where the handling of documents and manuscripts have been so much the

more difficult share of the problem that library economy and all the

rest has been counted negligible and has in fact been neglected, these

were real library schools, in that they were chiefly or wholly intended

for and used by those who were intending to be librarians. They taught

in fact the things which were most expected of the librarians, just as

the modern schools, in teaching almost exclusively business and

administrative methods, teach the things which the moderns expect of

their librarians. They were and are, therefore, very one-sided library

schools, lopsided on the science side, and yet perhaps not more lopsided

than our own schools are on the side of library economy.

But the beginnings of library schools may be found farther back still in

the schools of the Scriptoria of the middle ages, where librarians made

as well as kept their books, and in the temple schools of Greece and

Egypt, where men were trained to all sorts of professions, including the

keeping of books. Such schools are alleged in Babylonia as early as 3200

B.C., and more primitive still must be counted the schools for the

training in memorizing of ancient India. That some analogies to this

training in the keeping of books existed in the collections of mnemonic

books is not merely inferred in general but found in the alleged

training of keepers of quipus in the use and publication of these

records. The same is possibly true in some of the initiation ceremonies

of primitive tribes where the young men are presumably taught the use of

message sticks, secret languages, and the like. It may fairly be said

that these are remote in nature as well as in time, and yet they are as

truly the predecessors of the library schools of to-day, as these of

to-day are of the library schools of to-morrow, which are likely to

differ very considerably from those of to-day.

It does not take much of a prophet to foresee a radical development in

some of our American library schools within a very few years. When for

example, the Columbia Library school was starting, manuscripts were so

few in this country that their science and economy was a negligible

element in instruction—and as for archives, we had plenty of documents

but the very name archive, with what it connotes, was foreign and almost

unknown in America. Now there are many well recognized archives and some

of our collections of ancient manuscripts are numbered by the thousands.

Many of you will probably live to see more than one library school

equipped with full departments for instruction in palaeography and

archival science, with special curricula for each distinguished from the

general course in library economy. Possibly by that time there will also

be departments of cartography, engraving and numismatics, each with its

corps of instructors. In these respects it was something of a pity that

the library school went out of the university, but on the whole it may

be doubted if it would have ever had the great expansion or ever have

done the great work that it has done for popular education if it had

stayed in the university. In several very fundamental respects certainly

this New York Public Library is a far better environment for developing

a university of librarianship than any university of general studies.

§ 21. _The beginnings of library research_

What we have been saying to-day is only the rough blocking out of a

subject for which anthropology and the excavations in the eastern

Mediterranean region have furnished and are furnishing an enormous

amount of source material, as yet wholly unexplored for library matters.

A small part of the material has indeed been roughly explored and has

yielded rich results in fields where there was absolutely nothing known

before, but the unexplored matter is large and increasing rapidly every

day. Library research it may fairly be said is itself in its beginnings,

and American research in libraries for the older periods hardly yet

begun. Of course, as we know Aristotle had some faint notion of

anthropological methods and all the mythologizing people were, as is

very thoroughly recognized now, pursuing a sort of scientific research

and expressing and thinking in these figures of speech. In this point of

view the myths as to Hermes and Thoth, Seshait and Minerva were, if not

research, at least speculation on the origins.

Research, however, as now understood, is the product of modern natural

science and goes hand in hand with the doctrine of evolution. In this

sense there has already been much good research work in palaeography and

other branches of the book sciences in European countries. In America a

little real scientific work has been done in palaeography, more in the

history of printing and a trifle in some other branches of library

science, but the total is small and little or none of it directly

connected with the library school. It is likely, however, that in the

near future many of the library schools will be teaching methods of

research and giving diplomas which require some real contribution.

Possibly they will even have recognized departments for research. Of

this movement you will be a part and the character of the development

will be in part, possibly in large part, through what you think and do

and become during your course here. Probably we have as little notion of

what record keeping will be a few thousands of years hence, as the

inventor of the knotted cord had of this library school—and yet what we

do may perhaps affect the state of things then as the inventor of the

quipu, the alphabet, papyrus, vellum, printing, the photograph,

phonograph, or any of the great inventions in the evolution of books and

their keeping, has affected the present state of things.

§ 22. _Bibliography_

The best first source for a general idea of primitive libraries is the

readable and well illustrated little book of Edward Clodd called _The

story of the alphabet_, (N. Y., Appleton, 1912).

With this may be put the still briefer first part of Dr. Fritz Specht’s

_Die schrift_ (Berlin, 1909. 3rd ed.).

More extensive general treatments are found in Berger’s _Histoire_

(Paris, 1892), and quite exhaustively in Wuttke’s _Die entstehung der

schrift_ (Leipzig, 1872), also in W. J. Hoffmann’s _The beginnings of

writing_ (N. Y., 1895), a sketchy but comprehensive survey.

For the definition of the library see Graesse Schmidt and the other

treatises on library science, especially the older ones.

For libraries of the gods see the various works on comparative mythology

under the topics of the various writing gods, Hermes, Thoth, Odin, etc.,

or better, since the subject has not been very much worked up, in the

sources The Eddas, The Book of the Dead, The Avesta and for the Indian

matters Muir’s _Sanskrit texts_.

In the matter of antediluvian libraries see the references in Schmidt

and Richardson, but especially the sources gathered as pseudepigraphic

literature of the Old Testament first by Fabricius but now to be had in

more modern editions.

For animal, plant and memory libraries see the literature of so called

“Comparative psychology” given in admirable detail annually in the

Psychological index—looking up the articles on inward speech and writing

as well as on memory.

For Preadamites see Winchell’s _Preadamites_ (Chicago, 1880), and the

works of M’Causland.

For prehistoric and borderland libraries generally in the Mediterranean

region the various works of Mosso may be consulted, especially the _Dawn

of Mediterranean civilisation_, ch. 2, pp. 11-43, “The Origin of

Writing,” and still better, Evans’ _Scripta Minoa_ which is a classic.

For prehistoric western Europe, J. Déchelette’s _Manuel d’archéologie

prehistorique Celtique et Gallo-Romaine_, v. 1., (Paris, 1908), is most

comprehensive for a first survey of a very extensive field.

In the matter of primitive tribes Frobenius’ _Childhood of man_

(Philadelphia, 1909), although curiously sketchy and aggravatingly

brief, seems to be authoritative enough, and certainly gives the layman

in these matters a good idea in short space of the anthropological

aspects of the subject.

One of the very best sources easily accessible to all for getting first

clear impressions as to the use for record by primitive man of all the

prephonetic methods of record is F. W. Hodge, _Handbook of American

Indians North of Mexico_. Smithsonian Institute, Bureau of American

Ethnology, Bulletin 30, Pt. 1 and 2. 59th Congress, 1st Session, House

Documents v. 61 and 62. Among the many articles some of the best, but by

no means the only useful ones, are the following: Adornment, Calumet,

Color symbolism, Dramatic representations, Engraving, Featherwork,

Fetish, Hairdressing, Knots, Labrets, Mourning, Ornament, Painting,

Pictographs, Prayer sticks, Quillwork, Scalping, Shrines, Sign language,

Signals, Tattooing, Totem poles, Wampum.

Add to this for the African tribes Miss Kingsley’s _West Africa_ and

Dennett’s _At the back of the Black Man’s mind_.

For the enormous literature on tattooing see the list of hundreds of

books and articles in the catalogue of the Library of the U. S. Surgeon

General’s Office.

For the quipu an article by L. Leland Locke on _The ancient Quipu, a

Peruvian knot record_ is given in the American Anthropologist v. 14,

1912, pp. 325-32. This gives a modern point of view, has excellent

illustrations and its author promises a bibliography of the extensive

literature immediately.

For message sticks there is a long chapter with illustrations in A. W.

Howitt, _The native tribes of South East Australia_ (London, 1904, pp.

691-710).

An accessible first reference for pebble records and the abacus is the

chapter on systems of numeration in W. W. R. Ball’s _History of

mathematics_ (London, 1888), pp. 114-19, also, and perhaps even better,

J. Gow’s _A short history of Greek mathematics_ (Cambridge, 1884), pp.

26-40. Cf. also article on the abacus in the Pauly-Wissowa Encyclopedia.

In the matter of the votive offerings W. H. D. Rouse’s _Greek Votive

Offerings_ (Cambridge, 1902), is a most suggestive and readable, while

detailed and scholarly book.

On the Orphic tablets, see appendix to Miss Harrison’s _Prolegomena to

the study of Greek religion_ (Cambridge, 1903), pp. 660-74, and text

passim,—the text being one of the classics of modern comparative

religion.

_The end_

------------------------------------------------------------------------

INDEX

A, 109.

Aalu, 128.

Abacus, 76, 98, 147, 148, 163.

Abbreviation, 83, 84, 85, 109.

Abbreviation of signs, 81.

Abel, 42, 139.

Abydos, 149.

Accumulation of experience, 5.

Actor, 67, 70.

Adam, 26, 39-40, 41, 42, 43, 46, 47.

Adamite, 25.

Administration of primitive libraries, 142.

Adornment, 162.

Agathias, 125.

Alcaeus, 125.

Aleph, 56, 109.

Alpha, 56, 109.

Alphabetical printed words as ideograms, 114.

Alphabetical writing, 61.

Ambrosia, 127.

Ampère, 98.

Amulets, 93-94, 116, 128, 132.

Animal libraries, 25, 160.

Annual records, 149.

Annual registers, 132.

Antediluvian libraries, 25, 42, 160.

Anthropology, 14, 117, 156-157.

Apocryphal libraries, 33.

Archaeology, 22.

Archival science, 152.

Archives, 18, 19, 125, 147, 154, 155.

Aristomache, 125.

Aristotle, 125, 156.

Articulate speech, 61.

Asclepius, 125.

Assyrian, 111.

Astrology, 28.

Astronomical observations, 133.

Australians, 107.

Babylonia, 28, 117.

Babylonian libraries, 44, 148.

Babylonian temple records, 123, 135.

Basketry, 147.

Basketry work, 146.

Baskets, 74, 75.

Battle flags, 78.

Beads, 97, 148.

Berosus, 44, 47.

Bibliography, 24.

Bibliotheke, 15, 16.

Bibliothèque, 16.

Bidder, 98.

Birch bark, 113.

Bird tracks, 101, 102.

Blankets, 113.

Body painting, 104, 105, 106.

Bones of sacrifices, 138.

Book, 20.

Book-jars, 127.

Back to this point, the beginning of man, we have actual literary