Last evening's jesting pretense that the party from the States had
stopped on the border and removed the boundary line to bring it with
them here, into the very Canadian capital, was not quite all a jest.
The American Library Association is itself a witness that though the
boundary line firmly and clearly defines the limits of rule of the two
countries in some great and essential things, some
"Glories of our blood and state,"
it need not, it does not, even divide, still less alienate, the two
peoples.
It is one of the worthiest, most auspicious foundations of the American
Library Association that it is, and has ever been, continental not
national in its sympathy and membership. Within its circle "all who
profess and call themselves" English-speaking may unite their best
thought and their best endeavor for this important public service.
There are many fundamental library principles that are common to both
countries and your Program Committee has intended to arrange the
program and discussions to take account of these, leaving to other and
minor meetings such things as are national or local in their bearing.
The committee has wished to transcend all division by boundary lines.
By so much the jest was fact.
The attempt has been made to stand away from detail of all sorts so far
that it may be possible to see the library world as "a world" indeed,
"a whole of parts," as a system of members, each member distinct yet,
by virtue of the very peculiarities which constitute its distinctness,
contributing to the unity of the whole.
We shall fail to see the library world thus, as a world, as a
whole unless, amid the mass of facts, of experiences, of needs, of
adaptations involved, we can finally discern and seize upon the true
center, the truly dominant thing.
If we could once see the true center as the center, and the mass of
detail taking ordered place about it; if we could once perceive the
dominant that should surely rule, and lesser matters in due subjection
to that rule, then from the obvious things ever before our eyes,
and only too familiar, by that very familiarity made difficult to
apprehend, the library might all at once appeal as an entity, as a
clear conception. So the forest becomes visible to the artist's eyes,
the forest, formed of trees, but never really seen until all at once in
the vision of the forest the trees are lost to sight.
Some modes of thought, some phrases of expression which have been used
are those which the philosopher has weighed and clarified for his own
carefully measured statements. Do not smile at my temerity, and on the
other hand do not be in the least alarmed. I ventured but a little way
and you will not be called to go far into the philosopher's country
under my lead. Even if one be no swimmer it is an experience to venture
out, with careful balance, feeling for secure foothold upon the solid
bed, even a little way into a mighty stream whose full mid-current
would sweep over one's head. One gets, out of even so limited an
adventure, a sense of the sweep of the river, feels the embrace and
pull of the current, stoops to drink a little of the clear, bright,
deep waters, ever thereafter to thirst for deeper draughts and to long
for strength and mastery to plunge into and breast the full stream.
In trying to find warrant for my own thoughts and ordered and lucid
statement for them, I have sought and consulted certain books and
some of them were too hard for my full reading. I shall not further
acknowledge my debt now but, once more departing from precedent, I
shall list them for print at the end of the address.
In the wish to find the center or dominant of the library world it
would be presumptuous for me to dogmatize and say "Lo here! this is
the point," or "Behold! this is the principle." In the very name of
the institution which we are talking about there are two elements
joined--Public, and Library--and it seems quite obviously proper to try
the first as the center.
Perhaps the application which follows might repel some as narrow,
as exclusive of any but a single type of libraries. The principle
itself may, however, be made to apply to the entire library world by
recognizing as "public" all libraries which are not private, and by
defining public anew as applied to each group or type of libraries,
always letting it include all those individuals for whose use and
pleasure the library is maintained.
What does "public" signify in Canada and the United States? What
but all the people of these two great experiments in democratic
society? Pray note that I say society not government. An excursion
into discussion of the latter might involve dabbling in the stream of
politics which would threaten dangers far more imminent, for me, than
philosophy promised. To consider democratic society for a few moments
very simply is a less hazardous matter.
What is any society but "a world" again, a whole, in which the great
thing that matters is the level and fullness of mind that is reached
through the diversities of complete development and perfection of the
individual members which compose it?
The level of value and happiness for the whole can only be raised by
raising the condition of the individuals and, on the other hand, that
individuality is the most complete, of most real, felt value to itself,
which contributes to the perfection of the whole, because it is only
thus that the individual is conscious of having done his utmost.
Why try to say it again when the philosopher has said it so exactly?
"What a man really cares about--so it seems to me--may be
described as making the most of the trust he has received. He does
not value himself as a detached and purely self-identical subject.
He values himself as the inheritor of the gifts and surroundings
which are focussed in him and which it is his business to raise
to their highest power. The attitude of the true noble, one
in whom noblesse oblige is a simple example of what, mutatis
mutandis, all men feel. The man is a representative, a trustee for
the world, of certain powers and circumstances. And this cannot
fail to be so. For suffering and privation are also opportunities.
The question for him is how much he can make of them. This is
the simple and primary point of view, and also, in the main,
the true and fundamental one. It is not the bare personality or
the separate destiny that occupies a healthy mind. It is the
thing to be done, known and felt; in a word, the completeness of
experience, his contribution to it, and his participation in it.
"At every point the web of experience is continuous; he cannot
distinguish his part from that of others, and the more he
realizes the continuity the less he cares about the separateness
of the contribution to it.... It is impossible to overrate the
co-operative element in experience."
Does it not appear then that the highest possible service to the public
is service to the individual, in giving to the individual stimulus and
opportunity for the fullest, most diverse, most perfect development,
creating thus a world the more enriched, the more unified, in that each
of its members has rich powers, functions and experience of his own?
But the crux is to come. A people, a society, is made up of individuals
of diverse tastes and powers, but it includes very many who are far
short of being fully alive to the powers which they may possess. If the
span of such lives passes thus, if no stimulus, no illumination reaches
them, life will be uninspired, unfruitful of much service, or much joy.
It will not be life at its full, nor "the soul at its highest stretch."
It is not always afar from our own doors that such things happen.
President Eliot says, "Do we not all know many people who seem to
live in a mental vacuum--to whom, indeed, we have great difficulty in
attributing immortality, because they have so little life except that
of the body?"
From such conditions not only individuals but all society suffers. As
a spot of unnourished, inactive tissue in a human body is a host ready
to receive any one of many forms of disease, so, in the body politic,
individuals not fulfilling their utmost best are soil made ready for
all manner of social and political ills.
The time may come when society will recognize that many social and
political ills are partly caused by its own neglect, and call not for
more restrictions, for more stringent laws and severer sentences, but
rather for more carefully and universally given opportunity.
Listen once more to the philosopher.
"The more highly differentiated the individuals composing a
society, the more complete becomes the social bond between them. A
man who feels that he is rendering to the community a service at
once indispensable and only to be performed by himself, will have
come near to fulfilling his part in the highest attainable scheme
of social harmony."
If this be true, then there seems clear warrant for saying that the
community, for its own sake, has a vital interest in trying to secure
for each individual the most effective opportunity not only for
discovering what his distinct contribution may be made, but also for
developing his power to render that contribution most completely.
Does the community anywhere concern itself to give such opportunities?
Democratic society has recognized its necessity to give a certain
amount of knowledge and training by means of its schools. It is
beginning to make the experiment of giving a certain amount of skill to
earn a livelihood. This teaching is done in classes and a class is made
up of individuals of similar knowledge and attainments, and to them is
given general and identical information which tends to produce like
results. The community has need for unlikeness, for individuals who can
render unique service.
The community can never decide what the special individual aptitude may
be. No living soul can discover for another. The "power to become" is
innate and must make its own response to the stimulus which is capable
of affecting it.
It is true that the universe is a great battery incessantly sending
an infinity of calls of infinitely varied messages. But the receiving
operator may be asleep, he may never come within range. The universe is
very wide. The range of experience of all is narrow, of some pitifully
narrow.
Because of lack of opportunity to see, to do, to know, to feel, it is
not exaggeration to say that multitudes live a half-alive existence,
never useful to their possible limit, never happy to their full, for
happiness is "felt perfection."
From the beginning of time, some men have received their messages,
found their work, given their service, lived life to the full and laid
it down with a will. The record of these men and their accomplishment,
of man's great adventure to find himself, has been written by many
hands, and that record is literature.
Arnold says, "To know ourselves and the world we have, as a means to
this end, to know the best that has been thought or said in the world,"
and "Literature may mean everything written or printed in a book."
The library is the reservoir of literature, a collection of books, but
it is something more, it comes to have identity, a self of its own
beyond the sum of all its books, when, by the fusing of the whole under
the vital power of the minds that gather and order it, it becomes, in
the Shakespearian phrase embodied in my title, "A leaven'd and preparéd
choice."
The library is the one place where time and space are set at naught. It
is the microcosm of the universe.
Here all the wonders of nature are flashed back from the mirrors of
eyes that have beheld them.
Here India, and the Arctic and the isles of the sea are as close at
hand as Niagara.
Here Archimedes' lever, Giotto's circle, Newton's apple, Palissy's
furnace, Jacquard's loom, Jamie Watt's tea-kettle, Franklin's kite are
cheek by jowl with the last Marconigram.
Here the fate of Aristides, of Columbus, of Gordon is as clear to read
as the doings of yesterday in Chicago.
The record of what happened at Thermopylæ, at Lucknow, at the Alamo
receives beside it the tale of the courage that rose as the Titanic
sank.
What Buddha and Socrates and Jesus taught answers the cry and
strengthens the heart of doubt and pain today.
The library is the great whispering gallery of noble deeds and,
catching a whisper,
"The youth replies, I can"
and goes forth.
The library is haunted with visions of beauty that Plato, that Michael
Angelo, that Shelley saw--the youth exclaims "I see!" and follows his
lure.
Here Clotho sits twirling her "thread-running spindle" and the youth,
catching the clue, fares forth whither the fateful thread leads.
The library is almost never the goal but to many it may be the starting
point whence they go forth "to strength and endeavor, love and
sacrifice, the making and achievement of souls."
The public for whom the library exists has little conception or
comprehension of its power. How shall such publicity as will give this
knowledge of it be given?
Such publicity should make clear the larger aspects of the library's
service, showing that the life of any society is "an indivisible
inheritance" and the welfare of all made or marred by the condition and
service of each one, therefore the library should be equipped to be
universal in its appeal and service, a public necessity for individual
use.
The public for whom the library exists gives it support insufficient
for the task it should perform. If the library commanded respect would
it not receive funds?
Books are the treasure to be gathered for its work. What shall be the
principles of buying? How create the "leaven'd and preparéd choice?"
Books are the medium of appeal, the stuff of human knowledge,
experience and wisdom stored by means of the printed leaf. The
extent to which each individual shares in the stored treasure of the
race-mind, is, in its sum, the measure of public safety and happiness
and the starting-point for service. How show, how make known the
attraction and stored power of books?
Every individual must choose his own path. How leave him free to choose
in a wide field?
Service, but not authority, must be at hand. What shall the tests of
fitness for such service be?
The staff fit for such service must be of rare material and quality.
The members of the staff are instruments of the highest elaboration and
most delicate adjustment. The requisite quality of service can only
be rendered under fit conditions. It is not a matter of knowledge,
conscience and will solely, it is a matter of these things plus
insight, sympathy and response. Exhaustion, or an approach to it,
discouragement from lack of appreciation, are like a ground wire for
loss of power. Body, mind and spirit are all involved in this service.
How conserve their strength, well-being and joy?
Unskilled people cannot render fit service. What are the things that
matter in training? How far can training be effective.
These are the subjects that your Program Committee has thought it might
interest all to consider. Certain leaders will discuss them, each
according to his own will and way. In their wisdom and in that of the
discussions with which you will follow them will lie all the value of
this conference.
=Books Consulted: A Short List=
=Bosanquet=, Bernard. The principle of individuality and value.
Macmillan. 1912.
=Bryce=, James. The American Commonwealth. Vol. 2, p. 828, and chapter
CII. Macmillan. 1910.
=Chesterton=, G. K. Manalive. Lane. 1912.
=Douglas=, Robert. The choice. Macmillan. 1911.
=Eliot=, C. W. The function of education in democratic society. In his
Educational reform. Century. 1908.
=Goldmark=, Josephine. Fatigue and efficiency. Charities Pub. Co. 1912.
=Hobhouse=, L. T. The individual and the state. In his Social evolution
and political theory. Columbia Univ. Press. 1911.
--Liberalism. Holt. 1911.
=Jones=, Henry. Idealism as a personal creed. Macmillan. 1909.
--Working faith of the social reformer. Macmillan. 1910.
=Macdonald=, Greville. The child's inheritance: its scientific and
imaginative meaning. Smith, Elder. 1910.
=Mark=, Thiselton. The unfolding of personality as the chief aim of
education. Univ. of Chicago Press. 1911.
=Sidis=, Boris. Philistine and genius. Moffatt. 1911.
=Woodberry=, G. E. The torch: eight lectures on race power in
literature. McClure. 1905.
* * * * *
The PRESIDENT: I have very great pleasure in presenting one who in
truth needs no introduction to you; one who has not for some time
appeared on our platform but whom I know you will all welcome with
pleasure, Miss TESSA L. KELSO.
Miss Kelso, of the Baker and Taylor Co., New York City, spoke
informally from notes only on the topic, "Publicity for the sake of
information: the librarian's point of view," and has been unable to
furnish a copy of her remarks for publication.
The PRESIDENT: I think you may have seen it mentioned once or twice
in the course of your reading, that there was such a thing as the
"Wisconsin idea." Now, I would not for a moment, having been born in
that lovely state, have you get any notion that that "Wisconsin idea"
is singular. We have therefore asked to come and talk to us this
morning a gentleman who, those closest to him say, is a repository of
"Wisconsin ideas," and I have great pleasure in introducing to you Mr.
WILLIAM H. HATTON,--"Mr." Hatton by request, though he is ordinarily
known in his own country as Senator Hatton.