itself. In some countries it has grown so out of touch with the spoken
tongue that the two have little to do with each other. Where only the
learned know how to read and write, the written language takes on a
learned tinge; the popular spoken tongue has nothing to keep it steady and
changes rapidly and unsystematically. Where nearly all who speak the
language also read and write it, as in our own country, the written
tongue, even in its highest literary forms, is apt to be much more
familiar and colloquial, but at the same time the written and the spoken
tongue keep closer together. Still, they never accurately correspond. When
a man "talks like a book," or in other words, uses such language that it
could be printed word for word and appear in good literary form, we
recognize that he is not talking ordinary colloquial English--not using
the normal spoken language. On the other hand, when the speech of a
southern negro or a down-east Yankee is set down in print, as it so often
is in the modern "dialect story," we recognize at once that although for
the occasion this is written language, it is not normal literary English.
It is most desirable that the two forms of speech shall closely
correspond, for then the written speech gets life from the spoken and the
spoken has the written for its governor and controller; but it is also
desirable that each should retain more or less individuality, and
fortunately it is almost impossible that they should not do so.
We must not forget, therefore, that our written speech is not merely a way
of setting down our spoken speech in print. This is exactly what our
friends the spelling reformers appear to have forgotten. The name that
they have given to what they propose to do, indicates this clearly. When a
word as written and as spoken have drifted apart, it is usually the spoken
word that has changed. Reform, therefore, would be accomplished by
restoring the old spoken form. Instead of this, it is proposed to change
the written form. In other words, the two languages are to be forced
together by altering that one of them that is by its essence the most
immutable. Where the written word has been corrupted as in spelling
"guild" for "gild," the adoption of the simpler spelling is a reform;
otherwise, not.
Now is the possession of two languages, a spoken and a written, an
advantage or not? With regard to the spoken tongue, the question answers
itself. If we were all deaf and dumb, we could still live and carry on
business, but we should be badly handicapped. On the other hand, if we
could neither read nor write, we should simply be in the position of our
remote forefathers or even of many in our own day and our own land. What
then is the reasons for a separate written language, beyond the variety
thereby secured, by the use of two senses, hearing and sight, instead of
only one?
Evidently the chief reason is that written speech is eminently fitted for
preservation. Without the transmittal of ideas from one generation to
another, intellectual progress is impossible. Such transmittal, before the
invention of writing, was effected solely by memory. The father spoke to
the son, and he, remembering what was said, told it, in turn, to the
grandson. This is tradition, sometimes marvellously accurate, but often
untrustworthy. And as it is without check, there is no way of telling
whether a given fact, so transmitted, is or is not handed down faithfully.
Now we have the phonograph for preserving and accurately reproducing
spoken language. If this had been invented before the introduction of
written language, we might never have had the latter; as it is, the device
comes on the field too late to be a competitor with the book in more than
a very limited field. For preserving particular voices, such as those of
great men, or for recording intonation and pronunciation, it fills a want
that writing and printing could never supply.
For the long preservation of ideas and their conveyance to a human mind,
written speech is now the indispensable vehicle. And, as has been said,
this is how man makes progress. We learn in two ways: by undergoing and
reflecting on our own experiences and by reading and reflecting on those
of others. Neither of these ways is sufficient in itself. A child bound
hand and foot and confined in a dark room would not be a fit subject for
instruction, but neither would he reach a high level if placed on a desert
island far from his kind and forced to rely solely on his own experiences.
The experiences of our forebears, read in the light of our own; the
experiences of our forebears, used as a starting-point from which we may
move forward to fresh fields--these we must know and appreciate if we are
to make progress. This means the book and its use.
Books may be used in three ways--for information, for recreation, for
inspiration. There are some who feel inclined to rely implicitly on the
information that is to be found in books--to believe that a book can not
lie. This is an unfortunate state of mind. The word of an author set down
in print is worth no more than when he gives it to us in spoken
language--no more and no less. There was, to be sure, a time when the
printed word implied at least care and thoughtfulness. It is still true
that the book implies somewhat more of this than the newspaper, but the
difference between the two is becoming unfortunately less. Now a wrong
record, if it purports to be a record of facts, is worse than none at all.
The man who desires to know the distance between two towns in Texas and is
unable to find it in any book of reference may obtain it at the cost of
some time and trouble; but if he finds it wrongly recorded, he accepts the
result and goes away believing a lie. If we are to use books for
information, therefore, it is of the utmost consequence that we know
whether the information is correct or not. A general critical evaluation
of all literature, even on this score alone, without going into the
question of literary merit, is probably beyond the possibilities, although
it has been seriously proposed. Some partial lists we have, and a few
lists of those lists, so that we may know where to get at them. There are
many books about books, especially in certain departments of history,
technology, or art, but no one place to which a man may go, before he
begins to read his book, to find out whether he may believe what he reads
in it. This is a serious lack, especially as there is more than one point
of view. Books that are of high excellence as literature may not be at all
accurate. How shall the boy who hears enthusiastic praise of Prescott's
histories and who is spellbound when he reads them know that the results
of recent investigation prove that those histories give a totally
incorrect idea of Mexico and Peru? How is the future reader of Dr. Cook's
interesting account of the ascent of Mount McKinley to know that it has
been discredited? And how is he to know whether other interesting and
well-written histories and books of travel have not been similarly proved
inaccurate? At present, there is no way except to go to one who knows the
literature of the subject, or to read as many other books on the subject
as can be obtained, weighing one against the other and coming to one's own
conclusions. Possibly the public library may be able to help. Mr. Charles
F. Lummis of the Los Angeles library advocates labelling books with what
he calls "Poison Labels" to warn the reader when they are inaccurate or
untrustworthy. Most librarians have hesitated a little to take so radical
a step as this, not so much from unwillingness to assume the duty of
warning the public, as from a feeling that they were not competent to
undertake the critical evaluation of the whole of the literature of
special subjects. The librarian may know that this or that book is out of
date or not to be depended on, but there are others about which he is not
certain or regarding which he must rely on what others tell him. And he
knows that expert testimony is notoriously one-sided. It is this fear of
acting as an advocate instead of as a judge that has generally deterred
the librarian from labelling his books with notes of advice or warning.
There is, however, no reason why the librarian should take sides in the
matter. He may simply point out to the reader that there are other books
on the same subject, written from different points of view, and he may
direct attention to these, letting the reader draw his own conclusions.
There is probability that the public library in the future will furnish
information and guidance of this kind about books, more than it has done
in the past.
And here it may be noted in passing that the library is coming out of its
shell. It no longer holds itself aloof, taking good care of its books and
taking little care of the public that uses them. It is coming to realize
that the man and the book are complementary, that neither is much without
the other, and that to bring them together is its duty. It realizes also
that a book is valuable, not because it is so much paper and ink and
thread and leather, but because it records and preserves somebody's ideas.
It is the projection of a human mind across space and across time and
where it touches another human mind those minds have come into contact
just as truly and with as valuable results as if the bodies that held them
stood face to face in actual converse. This is the miracle of written
speech--a miracle renewed daily in millions of places with millions of
readers.
We have, in the modern library, the very best way of perpetuating such
relations as this and of ensuring that such as are preserved shall be
worth preserving. When the ancients desired to make an idea carry as far
as possible, they saw to the toughness and strength of the material object
constituting the record; they cut it in stone or cast it in metal,
forgetting that all matter is in a state of continual flux and change; it
is the idea only that endures. Stone and metal will both one day pass away
and unless some one sees fit to copy the inscription on a fresh block or
tablet, the record will be lost. It is, then, only by continual renewal of
its material basis that a record in written language can be made to last,
and there is no reason why this renewal should not take place every few
years, as well as every few centuries. There is even an advantage in
frequent renewal; for this ensures that the value of the record shall be
more frequently passed upon and prevents the preservation of records that
are not worth keeping. This preservation by frequent renewal is just what
is taking place with books; we make them of perishable materials; if we
want to keep them, we reprint them; otherwise they decay and are
forgotten.
We should not forget that by this plan the reader is usually made the
judge of whether a book is worth keeping. Why do we preserve by continual
reprinting Shakespeare and Scott and Tennyson and Hawthorne? The
reprinting is done by publishers as a money-making scheme. It is
profitable to them because there is a demand for those authors. If we
cease to care for them and prefer unworthy writers, Shakespeare and Scott
will decay and be forgotten and the unworthy ones will be preserved. Thus
a great responsibility is thrown upon readers; so far they have judged
pretty well.
Just now, however, we are confining ourselves to the use of books for
information; and here there is less preservation than elsewhere.
Especially in science, statements and facts quickly become out of date;
here it is not the old but the new that we want--the new based on the
accurate and enduring part of the old.
Before we leave this part of the subject it may be noted that many persons
have no idea of the kinds of information that may be obtained from books.
Even those who would unhesitatingly seek a book for data in history, art,
or mathematics would not think of going to books for facts on plumbing,
weaving, or shoe-making, for methods of shop-window decoration or of
display-advertising, for special forms of bookkeeping suitable for
factories or for stock-farms--for a host of facts relating to trades,
occupations, and business in general. Yet there are books about all these
things--not books perhaps to read for an idle hour, but books full of meat
for them who want just this kind of food. If Book-taught Bilkins fails,
after trying to utilize what such books have taught him, it is doubtless
because he has previously failed to realize that books plus experience,
or, to put it differently, the recorded experience of others plus our own
is better than either could be separately. And the same is true of
information that calls for no physical action to supplement it. Books plus
thought--the thoughts of others plus our own--are more effective in
combination than either could be by itself. Reading should provoke
thought; thought should suggest more reading, and so on, until others'
thoughts and our own have become so completely amalgamated that they are
our personal intellectual possessions.
But we may not read for information at all--recreation may be what we are
after. Do not misunderstand me. Many persons have an idea that if one
reads to amuse himself he must necessarily read novels. I think most
highly of good novels. Narrative is a popular form of literary expression;
it is used by those who wish to instruct as well as to amuse. One may
obtain plenty of information from novels--often in a form nowhere else
available. If we want exact statement, statistical or otherwise, we do not
go to fiction for it; but if we wish to obtain what is often more
important--accurate and lasting general impressions of history, society,
or geography, the novel is often the only place where these may be had.
Likewise, one may amuse himself with history, travel, science, or
art--even with mathematics. The last is rarely written primarily to amuse,
although we have such a title as "Mathematical recreations," but there are
plenty of non-fiction books written for entertainment and one may read for
entertainment any book whatever. The result depends not so much on the
book or its contents as on the reader.
Recreation is now recognized as an essential part of education. And just
as physical recreation consists largely in the same muscular movements
that constitute work, only in different combinations and with different
ends in view, so mental recreation consists of intellectual exercise with
a similar variation of combinations and aims.
Somebody says that "play is work that you don't have to do". So reading
for amusement may closely resemble study--the only difference is that it
is purely voluntary. Here again, however, the written language is only an
intermediary; we have as before, the contact of two minds--only here it is
often the lighter contact of good-fellowship. And one who reads always for
such recreation is thus like the man who is always bandying trivialities,
story-telling, and jesting--an excellent, even a necessary, way of passing
part of one's time, but a mistaken way of employing all of it.
The best kind of recreation is gently stimulating, but stimulation may
rise easily to abnormality. There are fiction drunkards just as there are
persons who take too much alcohol or too much coffee. In fact, if one is
so much absorbed by the ideas that he is assimilating that the process
interferes with the ordinary duties of life, he may be fairly sure that it
is injuring him. If one loves coffee or alcohol, or even candy, so dearly
that one can not give it up, it is time to stop using it altogether. If a
reader is so fond of an exciting story that he can not lay it aside, so
that he sits up late at night reading it, or if he can not drop it from
his mind when he does lay it aside, but goes on thinking about the deadly
combat between the hero and Lord William Fitz Grouchy when he ought to be
studying his lessons or attending to his business, it is time to cut out
fiction altogether. This advice has absolutely nothing to do with the
quality of the fiction. It will not do simply to warn the habitual
drunkard that he must be careful to take none but the best brands; he must
drop alcohol altogether. If you are a fiction drunkard, enhanced quality
will only enslave you further. This sort of use is no more recreation in
the proper sense of the word than is gambling, or drinking to excess, or
smoking opium.
And now we come to a use of books that is more important--lies more at the
root of things--than their use for either information or recreation--their
use for inspiration. One may get help and inspiration along with the other
two--reading about how to make a box may inspire a boy to go out and make
one himself. It is this kind of thing that should be the final outcome of
every mental process. Nothing that goes on in the brain is really complete
until it ends in a motor stimulus. The action, it is true, may not follow
closely; it may be the result of years of mental adjustment; it may even
take place in another body from the one where it originated. The man who
tells us how to make a box, and tells it so fascinatingly that he sets all
his readers to box-making, presumably has made boxes with his own hands,
but there may be those who are fitted to inspire action in others rather
than to undertake it themselves. And the larger literature of inspiration
is not that which urges to specific deeds like box-making, or even to
classes of deeds, like caring for the sick or improving methods of
transportation; rather does it include in its scope all good thoughts and
all good actions. It makes better men and women of those who read it; it
is revolutionary and evolutionary at the same time, in the best sense of
both words.
What will thus inspire me, do you ask? It would be easy to try to tell
you; it would also be easy to fail. Many have tried and failed. This is a
deeply personal matter. I can not tell what book, or what passage in a
book, will touch the magic spring that shall make your life useful instead
of useless, that shall start your thoughts and your deeds climbing up
instead of grovelling or passively waiting. Only search will reveal it.
The diamond-miner who expects to be directed to the precise spot where he
will find a gem will never pick one up. Only he who seeks, finds. There
are, however, places to look and places to avoid. The peculiar clay in
which diamonds occur is well known to mineralogists. He who runs across
it, looks for diamonds, though he may find none. But he who hunts for them
on the rock-ribbed hills of New Hampshire or the sea-sands of Florida is
doing a foolish thing--although even there he may conceivably pick up one
that has been dropped by accident.
So you may know where it is best to go in your search for inspiration from
books, for we know where seekers in the past have most often found it. He
who could read the Bible or Shakespeare without finding some of it is the
exception. It may be looked for in the great poets--Homer, Virgil, Dante,
Chaucer, Milton, Hugo, Keats, Goethe; or the great historians--Tacitus,
Herodotus, Froissart, Macaulay, Taine, Bancroft; or in the great
travellers from Sir John Mandeville down, or in biographies like Boswell's
life of Johnson, or in books of science--Laplace, Lagrange, Darwin,
Tyndall, Helmholtz; in the lives of the great artists; in the great novels
and romances--Thackeray, Balzac, Hawthorne, Dickens, George Eliot. Yet
each and all of these may leave you cold and you may pick up your gem in some
out-of-the-way corner where neither you nor anyone else would think of
looking for it.
Did you ever see a car-conductor fumbling about in the dark with the
trolley pole, trying to hit the wire? While he is pulling it down and
letting it fly up again, making fruitless dabs in the air, the car is dark
and motionless; in vain the motorman turns his controller, in vain do the
passengers long for light. But sooner or later the pole strikes the wire;
down it flows the current that was there all the time up in the air; in a
jiffy the car is in motion and ablaze with light. So your search for
inspiration in literature may be long and unsuccessful; you are dark and
motionless. But the life-giving current from some great man's brain is
flowing through some book not far away. One day you will make the
connection and your life will in a trice be filled with light and instinct
with action.
And before we leave this subject of inspiration, let us dwell for a moment
on that to be obtained from one's literary setting in general--from the
totality of one's literary associations and impressions, as distinguished
from that gained from some specific passage or idea.
It has been said that it takes two to tell the truth; one to speak and one
to listen. In like manner we may say that two persons are necessary to a
great artistic interpretation--one to create and one to appreciate. And of
no art is this more true than it is of literature. The thought that we are
thus cooperating with Shakespeare and Schiller and Hugo in bringing out
the full effect of their deathless conceptions is an inspiring one and its
consideration may aid us in realizing the essential oneness of the human
race, so far as its intellectual life is concerned.
Would you rather be a citizen of the United States than, we will say, of
Nicaragua? You might be as happy, as well educated, as well off, there as
here. Why do you prefer your present status? Simply and solely because of
associations and relationships. If this is sentiment, as it doubtless is,
it is the kind of sentiment that rules the world--it is in the same class
as friendship, loyalty, love of kin, affection for home. The links that
bind us to the past and the threads that stretch out into the future are
more satisfactory to us here in the United States, with the complexity of
its interests for us, than they would be in Nicaragua, or Guam, or
Iceland.
Then of what country in the realm of literature do you desire to be a
citizen? Of the one where Shakespeare is king and where your familiar and
daily speech is with the great ones of this earth--those whose wise,
witty, good, or inspiring words, spoken for centuries past, have been
recorded in books? Or would you prefer to dwell with triviality and
banality--perhaps with Laura Jean Libbey or even with Mary J. Holmes, and
those a little better than these--or a little worse.
I am one of those who believe in the best associations, literary as well
as social. And associations may have their effect even if they are
apparently trivial or superficial.
When the open-shelf library was first introduced we were told that one of
its chief advantages was that it encouraged "browsing"--the somewhat
aimless rambling about and dipping here and there into a book. Obviously
this can not be done in a closed-shelf library. But of late it has been
suggested, in one quarter or another, that although this may be a pleasant
occupation to some, or even to most, it is not a profitable one. Opponents
of the open shelf of whom there are still one or two, here and there, find
in this conclusion a reason for negativing the argument in its favor,
while those of its advocates who accept this view see in it only a reason
for basing that argument wholly on other grounds.
Now those of us who like a thing do not relish being told that it is not
good for us. We feel that pleasure was intended as an outward sign of
benefits received and although it may in abnormal conditions deceive us,
we are right in demanding proof before distrusting its indications. When
the cow absorbs physical nutriment by browsing, she does so without
further reason than that she likes it. Does the absorber of mental pabulum
from books argue wrongly from similar premises?
Many things are hastily and wrongly condemned because they do not achieve
certain results that they were not intended to achieve. And in particular,
when a thing exists in several degrees or grades, some one of those grades
is often censured, although good in itself, because it is not a grade or
two higher. Obviously everything depends on what is required. When a
shopper wants just three yards of cloth, she would be foolish to buy four.
She would, of course, be even more foolish to imagine that, if she really
wished four, three would do just as well. But if a man wants to go to the
eighth story of a building, he should not be condemned because he does not
mount to the ninth; if he wishes a light lunch, he should not be found
fault with for not ordering a seven-course dinner. And yet we continually
hear persons accused of "superficiality" who purposely and knowingly
acquire some slight degree of knowledge of a subject instead of a higher
degree. And others are condemned, we will say, for reading for amusement
when they might have read for serious information, without inquiring
whether amusement, in this instance, was not precisely what they needed.