THE MODERN LIBRARY MOVEMENT
The modern library movement is a movement to increase by every possible means the accessibility of books, to stimulate their reading and to create a demand for the best. Its motive is helpfulness; its scope, instruction and recreation; its purpose, the enlightenment of all; its aspirations, still greater usefulness. It is a distinctive movement, because it recognizes, as never before, the infinite possibilities of the public library, and because it has done everything within its power to develop those possibilities.
Among the peculiar relations that a library sustains to a community, which the movement has made clear and greatly advanced, are its relations to the school and university extension. The education of an individual is coincident with the life of that individual. It is carried on by the influences and appliances of the family, vocation, government, the church, the press, the school and the library. The library is unsectarian, and hence occupies a field independent of the church. It furnishes a foundation for an intelligent reading of paper and magazine. It is the complement and supplement of the school, co-operating with the teacher in the work of educating the child, and furnishing the means for continuing that education after the child has gone out from the school. These are important relations. From the beginning the child is taught the value of books. In the kindergarten period he learns that they contain beautiful pictures; in the grammar grades they do much to make history and geography attractive; in the high school they are indispensable as works of reference.
Were it not for the library, the education of the masses would, in most cases, cease when the doors of the school swung in after them for the last time; but it keeps those doors wide open, and is, in the truest sense of the word, the university of the people. The library is as much a part of the educational system of a community as the public school, and is coming more and more to be regarded with the same respect and supported in the same generous manner.
The public library of to-day is an active, potential force, serving the present, and silently helping to develop the civilization of the future. The spirit of the modern library movement which surrounds it is thoroughly progressive, and thoroughly in sympathy with the people. It believes that the true function of the library is to serve the people, and that the only test of success is usefulness.
JOSEPH LEROY HARRISON.