Some of the Uses of Libraries.
Let us now consider the subject of the uses of public libraries to schools and those connected with them. Most town and city libraries are supported, like the free schools, by the public money, drawn from the tax-payers, and supposed to be expended for the common benefit of all the people. It results that one leading object of the library should be to acquire such a collection of books as will be in the highest degree useful to all. And especially should the wants of the younger generation be cared for, since they are always not only nearly one half of the community, but they are also to become the future citizens of the republic. What we learn in youth is likely to make a more marked and lasting impression than what we may acquire in later years. And the public library should be viewed as the most important and necessary adjunct of the school, in the instruction and improvement of the young. Each is adapted to supply what the other lacks. The school supplies oral instruction and public exercises in various departments of learning; but it has few or no books, beyond the class text-books which are used in these instructions. The library, on the other hand, is a silent school of learning, free to all, and supplying a wide range of information, in books adapted to every age. It thus supplements, and in proportion to the extent and judicious choice of its collections, helps to complete that education, which the school falls short of. In this view, we see the great importance of making sure that the public library has not only a full supply of the best books in every field, avoiding (as previously urged) the bad or the inferior ones, but also that it has the best juvenile and elementary literature in ample supply. This subject of reading for the young has of late years come into unprecedented prominence. Formerly, and even up to the middle of our century, very slight attention was paid to it, either by authors or readers. Whole generations had been brought up on the New England Primer, with its grotesque wood-cuts, and antique theology in prose and verse, with a few moral narratives in addition, as solemn as a meeting-house, like the "Dairyman's Daughter," the "History of Sandford and Merton," or "The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." Very dreary and melancholy do such books appear to the frequenters of our modern libraries, filled as they now are with thousands of volumes of lively and entertaining juvenile books.
The transition from the old to the new in this class of literature was through the Sunday-school and religious tract society books, professedly adapted to the young. While some of these had enough of interest to be fairly readable, if one had no other resource, the mass were irredeemably stale and poor. The mawkishness of the sentiment was only surpassed by the feebleness of the style. At last, weary of the goody-goody and artificial school of juvenile books, which had been produced for generations, until a surfeit of it led to something like a nausea in the public mind, there came a new type of writers for the young, who at least began to speak the language of reason. The dry bones took on some semblance of life and of human nature, and boys and girls were painted as real boys and genuine girls, instead of lifeless dolls and manikins. The reformation went on, until we now have a world of books for the young to choose from, very many of which are fresh and entertaining.
But the very wealth and redundancy of such literature is a new embarrassment to the librarian, who must indispensably make a selection, since no library can have or ought to have it all. Recurring to the function of the public library as the coadjutor of the school, let us see what classes of books should form essential parts of its stores.
1. As geography, or an account of the earth on which we live, is a fundamental part of education, the library should possess a liberal selection of the best books in that science. The latest general gazetteer of the world, the best modern and a good ancient atlas, one or more of the great general collections of voyages, a set of Baedeker's admirable and inexpensive guide books, and descriptive works or travels in nearly all countries—those in America and Europe predominating—should be secured. The scholars of all grades will thus be able to supplement their studies by ready reference, and every part of the globe will lie open before them, as it were, by the aid of the library.
2. The best and latest text-books in all the sciences, as geology, chemistry, natural history, physics, botany, agriculture, mechanic arts, mathematics, mental and moral science, architecture, fine arts, music, sociology, political science, etc., should be accessible.
3. Every important history, with all the latest manuals or elementary books in general and national history should be found.
4. The great collections of biography, with separate lives of all noted characters, should be provided.
5. Dictionaries, cyclopaedias, statistical annuals, and other books of reference will be needed in abundance.
6. A small but select number of approved works in law, medicine, and theology should be embraced in the library.
7. I need not add that the poets and novelists should be well represented, as that goes without saying in all popular libraries.
And special attention should be paid to building up a collection of the best books for juvenile readers, such as have passed the ordeal of good critical judgment among the librarians, as eminently fit to be read. There are several useful catalogues of such reading, as: Caroline M. Hewins' "Books for the Young," G. E. Hardy's "Five Hundred Books for the Young," and the admirable "List of Books for Girls and Women" by Augusta H. Leypoldt and Geo. Iles, contributed to by many experts, and copiously supplied with notes describing the scope and quality of the books. The last two are published by the Library Bureau.
With this broad equipment of the best books in every field, and vigilance in constant exercise to add fresh stores from the constantly appearing and often improved text-books in every science, the library will be a treasury of knowledge both for teachers and pupils in the schools. And the fact should not be overlooked, that there will be found as much growth for teachers as for scholars in such a collection of books. Very few teachers, save those of well-furnished minds and of much careful reading, are competent to guide their scholars into the highways and byways of knowledge, as the librarian should be able to do.
To establish a relation of confidence and aid with teachers is the preliminary step to be taken in order to make the library at once practically useful to them and to their scholars. In case there are several public schools in charge of a general superintendent, that officer should be first consulted, and tendered the free aid of the library and its librarian for himself and the teachers. In some public libraries, the school superintendent is made an ex officio member of the library board. Then suitable regulations should be mutually agreed upon, fixing the number of books to be drawn on account of the schools at any one time, and the period of return to the library. It is most usual to charge such books on teachers' cards, or account, to fix responsibility, although the teachers loan them to the scholars at their option.
In places where there are no school libraries proper, the public library will need to provide a goodly number of duplicates, in order to meet the special school demand. This, however, will usually be of low-priced rather than costly books, as the elementary text-books do not draw heavily upon library funds.
A very attractive feature in providing books for the young is the large number of illustrated books now available to all libraries. All the kingdoms of nature are depicted in these introductory manuals of science, rendering its pursuit more interesting, and cultivating the habits of observation of form and of proportion, in the minds of the young. Pupils who have never accomplished anything in school have been roused by interest in illustrated natural histories to take an eager interest in learning all about birds and animals. This always leads on and up to other study, since the mind that is once awakened to observation and to thought, needs only a slight guidance to develop an unappeasable hunger for finding out all about things.
The ancient maxim that "it is only the first step that costs" is especially true in the great art of education. It matters little what it is that first awakens the intellect—the great fact is that it is awakened, and sleeps no more thenceforward. A mottled bird's egg, found on the way to school, excites the little finder to ascertain the name of the bird that laid it. The school or the teacher supplies no means of finding out, but the public library has books upon birds, with colored plates of their eggs, and an eager search ensues, until the young student is rewarded by finding the very bird, with its name, plumage, habits, size, and season, all described. That child has taken an enormous step forward on the road to knowledge, which will never be forgotten.
Instances might be multiplied indefinitely of such valuable aids to research, afforded by libraries, all along the innumerable roads travelled by students of every age in search of information. One of the most profitable of school exercises is to take up successively the great men and notable women of the past, and, by the effective and practical aid of the libraries, to find out what is best worth knowing about Columbus, Franklin, Walter Scott, Irving, Prescott, Bancroft, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Whittier, Emerson, Lowell, Victor Hugo, or others too numerous to name. Reading Longfellow's Evangeline will lead one to search out the history and geography of Acadia, and so fix indelibly the practical facts concerned, as well as the imagery of a fine poem. So in the notable events of history, if a study is made of the English Commonwealth, or the French Revolution, or the war between the United States and England in 1812-15, the library will supply the student with copious materials for illustration.
Not alone in the fields of science, history, and biography, but in the attractive fields of literature, also, can the libraries aid and supplement the teachings of the school. A fine poem, or a simple, humorous, or pathetic story, told with artless grace or notable literary skill, when read aloud by a teacher in school, awakens a desire in many to have the same book at home to read, re-read, and perhaps commit to memory the finer passages. What more inspiring or pleasing reading than some of Longfellow's poems, or the Vicar of Wakefield, or Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, or Saintine's Picciola, or selections from the poems of Holmes, Whittier, Kipling, or Lowell? For all these and similar wants, the library has an unfailing supply.
As a practical illustration of the extensive, use of books by schools in some advanced communities, I may note that Librarian Green, of the Worcester (Mass.) Public Library, said in 1891 that his average daily account of the books loaned to schools in two busy winter months showed over 1,600 volumes thus in daily use. This too, was in addition to all that were drawn out by pupils on their own independent cards as borrowers. Such a record speaks volumes.
In the same city, where the Massachusetts State Normal School is located, sixty-four per cent. of the scholars visited the library to look up subjects connected with their studies.
A forcible argument for librarians taking an interest in reading for schools is that both parents and teachers often neglect to see that the young get only proper books to read. The children are themselves quite ignorant what to choose, and if left to themselves, are likely to choose unwisely, and to read story papers or quite unimproving books. Their parents, busied as they are, commonly give no thought to the matter, and are quite destitute of that knowledge of the various classes of books which it is the province of the librarian to know and to discriminate. Teachers themselves do not possess this special knowledge, except in rare instances, and have to become far more conversant with libraries than is usual, in order to acquire it.
That the very young, left to themselves, will choose many bad or worthless books is shown in the account of a principal of a school in San Francisco, who found that sixty per cent. of the books drawn from the public library by pupils had been dime novels, or other worthless literature. The wide prevalence of the dime novel evil appeared in the report of the reading of 1,000 boys in a western New York city. Out of this number, 472 (or nearly one-half) were in the habit of devouring this pernicious trash, procured in most cases by purchase at the news stands. The matter was taken up by teachers, and, by wise direction and by aid of the public library, the reading of these youthful candidates for citizenship was led into more improving fields. To lead a mind in the formative stage from the low to the high, from tales of wild adventure to the best stories for the young, is by no means difficult. Take a book that you know is wholesome and entertaining, and it will be eagerly read by almost every one. There is an endless variety of good books adapted to the most rudimentary capacity. Even young minds can become interested in the works of standard writers, if the proper selection is made. Wonderful is the stimulus which the reading of a purely written, fascinating book gives to the young mind. It opens the way for more books and for infinite growth. All that is needed is to set the youth in the right direction, and he will go forward with rapid strides of his own accord. This teaching how to read is really the most profitable part of any education. To recite endless lessons is not education: and one book eagerly read through, has often proved more valuable than all the text-books that ever were printed.
The Uses of the Library to the University.
Closely allied to the benefits derived from the library by the teachers and scholars in public schools are its uses to all those engaged in the pursuit of higher education. For our colleges and universities and their researches, the library must have all that we have suggested as important for the schools, and a great deal more. The term university implies an education as broad as the whole world of books can supply: yet we must here meet with limitations that are inevitable. In this country we have to regret the application of the word "university" to institutions where the training is only academical, or at the highest, collegiate. The university, properly speaking, is an institution for the most advanced scholars or graduates of our colleges. Just as the college takes up and carries forward the training of those who have been through the academy, the seminary, or the high school, so it is the function of the university to carry forward (we will not say complete) the education of the graduate of the college. No education is ever completed: the doctor who has received the highest honors at the university has only begun his education—for that is to go on through life—and who knows how far beyond?
Now the aid which a well equipped library can furnish to all these higher institutions of learning, the academy, the seminary, the college, and the university, is quite incalculable. Their students are constantly engaged upon themes which not only demand the text-books they study, but collateral illustrations almost without number. The professors, too, who impart instruction, perpetually need to be instructed themselves, with fuller knowledge upon the themes they are daily called upon to elucidate. There is no text-book that can teach all, or anywhere near all there is upon the subject it professes to cover. So the library, which has many books upon that subject, comes in to supply its deficiencies. And the librarian is useful to the professors and students just in proportion as he knows, not the contents, but the range of books upon each subject sought to be investigated. Here is where the subject catalogue, or the dictionary catalogue, combining the subjects and the authors under a single alphabet, comes into play. But, as no catalogue of subjects was ever yet up to date in any considerable library, the librarian should be able to supplement the catalogue by his own knowledge of later works in any line of inquiry.
The most profitable studies carried on in libraries are, beyond all question, what we may term topical researches. To pursue one subject though many authorities is the true way to arrive at comprehensive knowledge. And in this kind of research, the librarian ought to be better equipped than any who frequent his library. Why? Simply because his business is bibliography; which is not the business of learned professors, or other scholars who visit the library.
The late Librarian Winsor said that he considered the librarian's instruction far more valuable than that of the specialist. And this may be owing largely to the point of view, as well as to the training, of each. The specialist, perhaps, is an enthusiast or a devotee to his science, and so apt to give undue importance to the details of it, or to magnify some one feature: the librarian, on the other hand, who is nothing if not comprehensive, takes the larger view of the wide field of literature on each subject, and his suggestions concerning sources of information are correspondingly valuable.
In those constantly arising questions which form the subjects of essays or discussions in all institutions of learning, the well-furnished library is an unfailing resource. The student who finds his unaided mind almost a blank upon the topic given out for treatment, resorts at once to the public library, searches catalogues, questions the librarian, and surrounds himself with books and periodicals which may throw light upon it. He is soon master of facts and reasonings which enable him to start upon a train of thought that bears fruit in an essay or discourse. In fact, it may be laid down as an axiom, that nearly every new book that is written is indebted to the library for most of its ideas, its facts, or its illustrations, so that libraries actually beget libraries.
Some of the endlessly diversified uses of a well-equipped library, not only to scholars but to the general public, may here be referred to. Among the most sought for sources of information, the periodical press, both of the past and the current time, holds a prominent rank. When it is considered how far-reaching are the fields embraced in the wide range of these periodicals, literary, religious, scientific, political, technical, philosophical, social, medical, legal, educational, agricultural, bibliographical, commercial, financial, historical, mechanical, nautical, military, artistic, musical, dramatic, typographical, sanitary, sporting, economic, and miscellaneous, is it any wonder that specialists and writers for the press seek and find ready aid therein for their many-sided labors?
To the skeptical mind, accustomed to undervalue what does not happen to come within the range of his pet idols or pursuits, the observation of a single day's multifold research in a great library might be in the nature of a revelation. Hither flock the ever-present searchers into family history, laying under contribution all the genealogies and town and county histories which the country has produced. Here one finds an industrious compiler intent upon the history of American duels, for which the many files of Northern and Southern newspapers, reaching back to the beginning of the century, afford copious material. At another table sits a deputation from a government department, commissioned to make a record of all notable strikes and labor troubles for a series of years, to be gleaned from the columns of the journals of leading cities.
An absorbed reader of French romances sits side by side with a clergyman perusing homilies, or endeavoring to elucidate, through a mass of commentators, a special text. Here are to be found ladies in pursuit of costumes of every age; artists turning over the great folio galleries of Europe for models or suggestions; lawyers seeking precedents or leading cases; journalists verifying dates, speeches, conventions, or other forgotten facts; engineers studying the literature of railways or machinery; actors or amateurs in search of plays or works on the dramatic art; physicians looking up biographies of their profession or the history of epidemics; students of heraldry after coats of arms; inventors searching the specifications and drawings of patents; historical students pursuing some special field in American or foreign annals; scientists verifying facts or citations by original authorities; searchers tracing personal residences or deaths in old directories or newspapers; querists seeking for the words of some half-remembered passage in poetry or prose, or the original author of one of the myriad proverbs which have no father; architects or builders of houses comparing hundreds of designs and models; teachers perusing works on education or comparing text-books new or old; readers absorbing the great poems of the world; writers in pursuit of new or curious themes among books of antiquities or folk-lore; students of all the questions of finance and economic science; naturalists seeking to trace through many volumes descriptions of species; pursuers of military or naval history or science; enthusiasts venturing into the occult domains of spiritualism or thaumaturgy; explorers of voyages and travels in every region of the globe; fair readers, with dreamy eyes, devouring the last psychological novel; devotees of musical art perusing the lives or the scores of great composers; college and high-school students intent upon "booking up" on themes of study or composition or debate; and a host of other seekers after suggestion or information in a library of encyclopedic range.
