Those who find no time for studying the more extended works named, will find much profit in devoting their hours to the articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica upon the literatures of the various countries. These are within reach of everyone.
The select list of books named in this chapter does not by any means aim to cover those which are well worth reading; but only to indicate a few, a very few, of the best. It is based on the supposition that intelligent readers will give far less time to fiction than to the more solid food of history, biography, essays, travels, literary history, and applied science. The select list of books in the fields already named is designed to include only the most improving and well-executed works. Many will not find their favorites in the list, which is purposely kept within narrow limits, as a suggestion only of a few of the best books for a home library or for general reading. You will find it wise to own, as early in life as possible, a few of the choicest productions of the great writers of the world. Those who can afford only a selection from a selection, can begin with never so few of the authors most desired, or which they have not already, putting in practice the advice of Shakespeare:
"In brief, sir, study what you most affect."
Says John Ruskin: "I would urge upon every young man to obtain as soon as he can, by the severest economy, a restricted and steadily increasing series of books, for use through life; making his little library, of all his furniture, the most studied and decorative piece." And Henry Ward Beecher urged it as the most important early ambition for clerks, working men and women, and all who are struggling up in life, to form gradually a library of good books. "It is a man's duty," says he, "to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life."
And says Bishop Hurst, urging the vital importance of wise selection in choosing our reading: "If two-thirds of the shelves of the typical domestic library were emptied of their burden, and choice books put in their stead, there would be reformation in intelligence and thought throughout the civilized world."
Selection of Books for Public Libraries.
Let us now consider the subject of books fitted for public libraries. At the outset, it is most important that each selection should be made on a well considered plan. No hap-hazard, or fitfully, or hastily made collection can answer the two ends constantly to be aimed at—namely, first, to select the best and most useful books, and, secondly, to economize the funds of the library. No money should be wasted upon whims and experiments, but every dollar should be devoted to the acquisition of improving books.
As to the principles that should govern and the limitations to be laid down, these will depend much upon the scope of the library, and the amount of its funds. No library of the limited and moderate class commonly found in our public town libraries can afford to aim at the universal range of a national library, nor even at the broad selections proper to a liberally endowed city library.
But its aims, while modest, should be comprehensive enough to provide a complete selection of what may be termed standard literature, for the reading public. If the funds are inadequate to do this in the beginning, it should be kept constantly in view, as the months and years go on. Every great and notable book should be in the library sooner or later, and if possible at its foundation. Thus will its utility and attractiveness both be well secured.
Taking first the case of a small public library about to be started, let us see in a few leading outlines what it will need.