of offering to each that which he considers it worth his while to take. If
I were asked what is the most fundamentally interesting subject to all
classes, I should unhesitatingly reply "philosophy." Not, perhaps, the
philosophy of the schools, but the individual philosophy that every man
and woman has, and that is precisely alike in no two of us. I have heard a
tiny boy, looking up suddenly from his play, ask "Why do we live?" This
and its correlative "Why do we die?" Whence come we and whither do we go?
What is the universe and what are our relations to it--these questions in
some form have occurred to everyone who thinks at all. They are discussed
around the stove at the corner grocery, in the logging camp, on the ranch,
in clubs and at boarding-house tables. Sometimes they take a theological
turn--free will, the origin and purpose of evil, and so on. I do not
purpose to give here a catalogue of the things in which an ordinary man is
interested, and I have said this only to remind you that his interest may
be vivid even in connection with subjects usually considered abstruse.
This interest in ideas we may call the library's raw material; anything
that tends to create it, to broaden it, to extend it to new fields and to
direct it into paths that are worth while is making it possible for the
library to do better and wider work--is helping on its campaign of
publicity. This establishes a web of connecting fibers between the library
and all human activity. The man who is getting interested in his work,
debaters at a labor union, students at school and college, the worker for
civic reform, the poetic dreamer--all are creating a demand for ideas that
makes it easier for the library to advertise them. Those who object to
some of the outside work done by modern libraries should try to look at
the whole matter from this standpoint. The library is taking its place as
a public utility with other public utilities. Its relations with them are
becoming more evident; the ties between them are growing stronger. As in
all cases of such growth it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify
the boundaries between them, so fast and so thoroughly do the activities
of each reach over these lines and interpenetrate those of the others. And
unless there is actual wasteful duplication of work, we need not bother
about our respective spheres. These activities are all human; they are
mutually interesting and valuable. A library need be afraid of doing
nothing that makes for the spread of interest in ideas, so long as it is
not neglecting its own particular work of the collection, preservation and
distribution of ideas as stored in books, and is not duplicating others'
work wastefully.
When we observe those who are already interested in ideas, however, we
find that not all are interested in them as they are stored up in books.
Some of these cannot read; their number is small with us and growing
smaller; we may safely leave the schools to deal with them. Others can
read, but they do not easily apprehend ideas through print. Some of these
must read aloud so that they may get the sound of the words, before these
really mean anything to them. These persons need practice in reading. They
get it now largely through the newspapers, but their number is still
large. A person in this condition may be intellectually somewhat advanced.
He may be able to discuss single-tax with some acumen, for instance. It is
a mistake to suppose that because a person understands a subject or likes
a thing and is able to talk well about it, he will enjoy and appreciate a
book on that subject or thing. It may be as difficult for him to get at
the meat of it as if it were a half-understood foreign tongue. You who
know enough French to buy a pair of gloves or sufficient German to inquire
the way to the station, may tackle a novel in the original and realize at
once the hazy degree of such a person's apprehension. He may stick to it
and become an easy reader, but on the other hand your well-meant publicity
efforts may place in his hands a book that will simply discourage and
ultimately repel him, sending him to join the army of those to whom no
books appeal.
Next we find those who understand how to read and to read with ease, but
to whom books--at any rate certain classes of books--are not interesting.
Now interest in a subject may be so great that one will wade through the
driest literature about it, but such interest belongs to the few--not to
the many. I have come to the conclusion that more readers have had their
interest killed or lessened by books than have had it aroused or
stimulated. This is a proportion that it is our business as librarians to
reverse. More of this unfortunate and heart-breaking, interest-killing
work than I like to think of goes on in school. Not necessarily; for the
name of those is legion who have had their eyes opened to the beauties of
literature by good teachers. This makes it all the more maddening when we
think how many poor teachers, or good teachers with mistaken methods, or
indifferent teachers, have succeeded in associating with books in the
minds of their pupils simply burdensome tasks--the gloom and heaviness of
life rather than its joy and lightness. Such boys and girls will no more
touch a book after leaving school than you or I would touch a scorpion
after one had stung us.
Perhaps it is useless to try to change this; possibly it is none of our
business, though we have already seen that there are reasons to the
contrary. But we can better matters, and we are daily bettering them, by
our work with children. If a child has once learned to love books and to
associate them powerfully with something else than a burdensome task, then
the labors of the unskillful teachers will create no dislike of the book
but only of the teacher and his methods; while those of the good teacher
will be a thousand times more fruitful than otherwise.
So much for the ways in which interesting books are sometimes made
uninteresting. Now for the books that are uninteresting _per se_--and how
many there are! When a man has something to distribute commercially for
personal gain, the thing that he tries above all to do is to interest his
public--to make them want what he has to sell. His success or failure in
doing this, means the success or failure of his whole enterprise. He does
not decide what kind of an entertainment his clients ought to attend and
then try to make them go to it, or what kind of neckties they ought to
wear and then try to make them wear them. Of ten promoters, if nine
proceeded on this principle and one on the plan of offering something
attractive and interesting, who would succeed? It is one of the marvels of
all time that this never seems to have occurred to writers of books. We
are almost forced to conclude that they do not care whether their volumes
are read or not. In only one class of books, as a rule, do the writers
endeavor to interest the reader first and foremost; you all know that I
refer to fiction. What is the result? The writers of fiction are the ones
read by the public. More fiction is read, as you very well know, than all
the other classes of literature put together. The library that is able to
show a fiction percentage of 60, points to it with pride, while there are
plenty with percentages between 70 and 80. Now this is all to the credit
of the fiction writers. I refuse to believe that their readers are any
more fundamentally interested in the subjects of which they treat than in
others. They simply follow the line of least resistance. They want
something interesting to read and they know from experience where to go
for it. Of course this brings on abuses. Writers use illegitimate methods
to arouse interest--appeals perhaps, to unworthy instincts. We need not
discuss that here, but simply focus our attention on the fact that writers
of fiction always try to be interesting because they must; while writers
of history, travel, biography and philosophy do not usually try, because
they think it unnecessary. This is simply a survival. It used to be true
that readers of these subjects read them because of their great antecedent
interest in them--an interest so great that interesting methods of
presentation became unnecessary. No one cared about the masses, still less
about what they might or might not read. Things are changed now; we are
trying to advertise stored ideas to persons unfamiliar with them and we
are suddenly awakening to the fact that our stock is not all that it
should be. We need history, science and travel fascinatingly presented--at
least as interestingly as the fiction-writer presents his subjects. This
is by no means impossible, because it has been done, in a few instances.
We are by no means in the position of the Irishman who didn't know whether
or not he could play the piano, because he had never tried. Some of our
authors have tried--and succeeded. No one after William James can say that
philosophy cannot be made interesting to the ordinary reader. Tyndall
showed us long ago that physics could interest the unlearned, and there
are similarly interesting writers on history and travel--more perhaps in
these two classes than any other. But it remains true that the vast
majority of non-fiction books do not attract, and were not written with
the aim of attracting, the ordinary reader such as the libraries are now
trying to reach. The result is that the fiction writers are usurping the
functions of these uninteresting scribes and are putting history, science,
economics, biology, medicine--all sorts of subjects, into fictional
form--a sufficient answer to any who may think that the subjects
themselves, as distinguished from the manner in which they are presented,
are calculated to repel the ordinary reader. Fiction is thus becoming, if
it has not already become, the sole form of literary expression, so far as
the ordinary reader is concerned. This is interesting; it justifies the
large stock of fiction in public libraries and the large circulation of
that stock. It does not follow that it is commendable or desirable. For
one thing it places truth and falsehood precisely on the same plane. The
science or the economics in a good novel may be bad and that in a poor
novel may be good. Then again, it dilutes the interesting matter with
triviality. It is right that those who want to know how and when and under
what circumstances Edwin and Angelina concluded to get married should have
an opportunity of doing so, but it is obviously unfair that the man who
likes the political discussions put into the mouth of Edwin's uncle, or
the clever descriptions of country-life incident to the courtship, should
be burdened with information of this sort, in which he has little
interest.
To those who are interested in the increase of non-fiction percentages I
would therefore say: devise some means of working upon the authors. These
gentry are yet ignorant of the existence of a special library public. Some
day they will wake up, and then fiction will be relieved from the burden
that oppresses it at present--of carrying most of the interesting
philosophy, religion, history and social science, in addition to doing its
own proper work.
Meanwhile the librarian, who is interested in advertising ideas, must do
what he can with his material. There is still a saving remnant of
interesting non-fiction, and there is a goodly body of readers whose
antecedent interest in certain subjects is great enough to attract them to
almost any book on those subjects. I have purposely avoided the discussion
here of the details of library publicity, which has been well done
elsewhere; but I cannot refrain from expressing my opinion that the
ordinary work of the library and its stock of books if properly displayed,
are more effective than any other means that can be used for the purpose.
From a series of articles entitled "How to Start Libraries in Small Towns"
by A.M. Pendleton, I quote the following, which appears in The Library
Journal for May 13, 1877:
"Plant it [the library] among the people, where its presence will be seen
and felt,... Other things being equal, it is better to have it upon the
first floor, so that passers-by will see its goodly array of books and be
tempted to inspect them."
Excellent advice; we might take it if we had not built our libraries as
far away from the street as possible and lifted them up on as high a
pedestal as our money would buy. Who, passing by a modern library
building, branch or central, can by any possibility see through the
windows enough of the interior to tell whether it is a library rather than
a postoffice, a bank, or an office?
Before moving into its new home the St. Louis Public Library occupied
temporarily a business building having a row of six large plate-glass
windows on one side, directly on the sidewalk, enabling passers-by to see
clearly all that went on in the adult lending-delivery room. The effect on
the circulation was noteworthy. During the last months of our occupancy we
went further and utilized each of the windows for a book display. This was
in charge of a special committee of the staff, and its results were beyond
expectation. In one window we had a shelfful of current books, open to
attractive pictures, with a sign reminding wayfarers that they might be
taken out by cardholders and that cards were free. In another we had
standard works, without pictures, but open at attractive pages. In another
we had children's books; in another, open reference or art books in a
dust-proof case--and so on. Each of these windows was seldom without its
contingent of gazers, and the direct effect on library circulation was
noticed by all. At the end of the year we moved into our great
million-and-a-half-dollar building; and beautiful as it is--satisfactory
as are its arrangements--we have had--alas--to give up our show windows.
We can, it is true, have show cases in the great entrance hall, but we
want to attract outsiders, not insiders. Some of our enthusiastic staff
want to build permanent show cases on the sidewalk. What we may possibly
do is to rent real show windows opposite. What we do not desire, is to
abandon our publicity plan altogether. But when, oh when, shall we have
libraries (branches at any rate, if our main buildings must be monumental)
that will throw themselves open to the public eye, luring in the wayfarer
to the joys of reading, as the commercial window does to the delights of
gumdrops or neckties?
One of the greatest steps ever taken toward the advertisement of ideas was
the adoption, on a large scale, of the open shelf. This throws the books
of a library, or many of them, open to public inspection and handling; it
encourages "browsing"--the somewhat aimless rambling about and dipping
here and there into a volume.
If we are to present ideas to our would-be readers in great variety,
hoping that among them there may be toothsome bait, surely there could be
no better way than this. The only trouble is that it appeals only to those
who are already sufficiently interested in stored ideas to enter the
library.
We must remember, however, that by our method of sending out books for
home use we are making a great open-shelf of the whole city. While the
number of volumes in any one place may be small, the books are constantly
changing so that the non-reader has a good chance of seeing in his
friend's house something that may attract him. That this may affect the
use of the library it is essential that he who sees a library book on the
table or in the hands of a fellow passenger on a car must be able to
recognize its source at once, so that, if attracted, he may be led thither
by the suggestion. Nothing is better for this purpose than the library
seal, placed on the book where all may see it; and that all may recognize
it, it should also be used wherever possible, in connection with the
library--on letter heads, posters, lists, pockets and cards, so that the
public association between its display and the work of the library shall
become strong.
This making the whole outstanding supply of circulating books an agency in
our publicity scheme for ideas is evidently more effective as the books
better fit and satisfy their users; for in that case we have an unpaid
agent with each book. The adaptation of book to user helps our
advertisement of ideas, and that in turn aids us in adapting book to user.
When a dynamo starts, the newly arisen current makes the field stronger
and that in turn increases the current. Only here we must have just a
little residual magnetism in the field magnet to start the whole process.
In the library's work the residual magnetism is represented by the latent
interest in ideas that is present in every community. And I can do no
better, in closing, than to emphasize the fact that everything that
advertises ideas, even if totally unconnected with their recorded form in
books, helps the library and pushes forward its work.
Itself a product of the great extension of intellectual activity to
classes in which it was formerly bounded by narrow limits, the library is
bound to widen those limits wherever they can be stretched, and every
movement of them reacts to help it. Surely advertisement on its part is an
evangel--a bearing of good intellectual tidings into the darkness. We are
spiritualistic mediums in the best sense--the bearers of authentic
messages from all the good and great of past or present time; only with
us, no turning on of the light, no publicity however glaring, will break
the spell or do otherwise than aid, for whether we succeed or fail,
whether we live or die, those messages, recorded as they are in books,
will stand while humanity remains.
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, THE PUBLIC SCHOOL, AND THE SOCIAL CENTER MOVEMENT[7]
[7] Read before the National Education Association.
The center of a geometrical figure is important, not for its size and
content, but for its position--not for what it is in itself, but for its
relations to the other elements of the figure. And words used with derived
meanings are used best when their original significations are kept in
mind. The business center of a city does not contain all of that city's
commercial activity; when we speak of the church as a religious center, we
do not mean that there is to be no religious activity in the home or in
other walks of life; as for the center of population of a large and
populous country, it may be out in the prairie where neither man nor his
dwellings are to be seen. All these centers are what they are because of
certain relationships. It is so with a social center. But social
relationships cover a wide field. The relationships of business, of
religion, even of mere co-existence, are all social. May we have a center
for so wide a range of activities? Even the narrower relations of business
or of religion tend to form subsidiary groups and to multiply subsidiary
centers. In a large city we may have not only a general business center
but centers of the real estate business, of the hardware or textile
trades, and so on. Our religious affiliations condense into denominational
centers.
In the district of a large city where newly arrived foreign immigrants
gather, you will be shown the group of blocks where the Poles or the
Hungarians have segregated themselves from the rest, and even within
these, the houses where dwell families from a particular province or even
from one definite city or village. Man is social but he is socially
clannish, and the broadest is not so much he who refuses to recognize
these clan or caste relationships as he who enters into the largest number
of them--he who keeps in touch with his childhood home, has a wide
acquaintance among those of his own religious faith and of his chosen
business or profession, keeps up his old college friendships, is
interested in collecting coins or paintings and knows all the other
collectors, is active in civic and charitable societies, takes an interest
in education and educators, and so on. The social democracy that should
succeed in abolishing all these groups or leveling them--that should
recognize no relationships but the broader ones that underly all human
effort and feeling--the touches of nature that make the whole world
kin--would be barren indeed.
We cannot spare these fundamentals; we could not get rid of them if we
would; but civilization advances by building upon them, and to do away
with these additions would be like destroying a city to get at its
foundation, in the vain hope of securing some wide-reaching result in
economics or aesthetics. Occupying a foremost place among these groupings
is the large division embracing our educational activities. And these are
social not only in the broad sense, but also in the narrower. The
intercourse of student with student in the school and even of reader with
reader in the library, especially in such departments as the children's
room, is so obviously that of society that we need dwell on it no further.
This intercourse, while a necessary incident of education in the mass, is
only an incident. It is sufficiently obtrusive, however, to make it
evident that any use of school or library building for social purposes is
fit and proper. There is absolutely nothing new nor strange about such
use. In places that cannot afford separate buildings for these purposes,
the same edifice has often served for church, schoolhouse, public library,
and as assembly room for political meetings, amateur theatricals, and
juvenile debating societies. The propriety of all this has never been
questioned and it is difficult to see why it should not be as proper in a
town of 500,000 inhabitants as in one of 500. The incidence of the cost is
a matter of detail. Why should such purely social use of these educational
buildings--always common in small towns--have been allowed to fall into
abeyance in the larger ones? It is hard to say; but with the recent great
improvements in construction, the building of schools and libraries that
are models of beauty, comfort, and convenience, there has arisen a not
unnatural feeling in the public that all this public property should be
put to fuller use. Why should children be forced to dance on the street or
in some place of sordid association when comfortable and convenient halls
in library or school are closed and unoccupied? Why should the local
debating club, the mothers' meeting--nay, why should the political ward
meeting be barred out? Side by side with this trend of public opinion
there has been an awakening realization on the part of many connected with
these institutions that they themselves might benefit by such extended
use.
Probably this realization has come earlier and more fully to the library,
because its educational function is directed so much more upon adults. The
library is coming to be our great continuation school--an institution of
learning with an infinity of purely optional courses. It may open its
doors to any form of adult social activity.
There are forms of activity proper to a social center that require special
apparatus or equipment. These may be furnished in a building erected for
the purpose, as are the Chicago fieldhouses. Here we have swimming-pools,
gymnasiums for men and for women, and all the rest of it. A branch library
is included and some would house the school also under the same roof. We
may have to wait long for the general adoption of such a composite social
center. Our immediate problem is to supply an immediate need by using
means directly at our disposal. And it is remarkable how many kinds of
neighborhood activity may take place in a room unprovided with any special
equipment. A brief glance over our own records for only a few months past
enables me to classify them roughly as athletic or outdoor, purely social,
educational, debating, political, labor, musical, religious, charitable or
civic, and expository, besides many that defy or elude classification.
The athletic or outdoor organizations include the various turning or
gymnastic clubs and the Boy and Girl Scouts; the social organizations
embrace dancing-classes, "welfare" associations, alumni and graduate clubs
of schools and colleges, and dramatic clubs; the educational, which are
very numerous, reading circles, literary clubs galore, free classes in
chemistry, French, psychology, philosophy, etc., and all such
organizations as the Jewish Culture Club, the Young People's Ethical
Society, the Longan Parliamentary Class, and the Industrial and Business
Women's Educational leagues. Religious bodies are parish meetings,
committees of mission boards, and such organizations as the Theosophical
Society; charitable or civic activities include the National Conference of
Day Nurseries, the Central Council of Civic Agencies, the W.C.T.U.,
playground rehearsals for the Child Welfare Exhibit, and the Business
Men's Association; and the Advertising Men's League; musical organizations
embrace St. Paul's Musical Assembly, the Tuesday Choral Club, etc. Among
exhibitions are local affairs such as wild flower shows, an exhibit of
bird-houses, collections from the Educational Museum, the Civil League's
Municipal Exhibit, selected screens from the Child Welfare Exhibit, and
the prize-winners from the St. Louis Art Exhibit held in the art room of
our central library. Then we have the Queen Hedwig Branch, the Clay School
Picnic Association, the Aero Club, the Lithuanian Club, the Philotechne
Club, the Fathers' Club, and the United Spanish War Veterans.
I trust you will not call upon me to explain the objects of some of these,
as such a demand might cause me embarrassment--not because their aims are
unworthy, but because these are skilfully obscured by their names. If
anyone believes that there is a limit to the capacity of the human race
for forming groups and subgroups on a moment's notice, for any reason or
for no reason at all, I would refer him to our assembly room and clubroom
records; and he would find, I think, that these are typical of every large
library offering the use of such rooms somewhat freely.
It will be noted that the library takes no part in organizing or operating
any of these activities; it does not have to do so.