But the more the community needs books, the harder it is to raise money for them. This, however, is merely a difficulty of the start. A few books, shrewdly chosen, will create a hunger for more, and that hunger will open the pocketbooks.
Hold a book social, admission to which shall be a copy, old or new, of some good book. The entertainment at this social should be appropriate. Let each person that comes carry about him a token of some book, such as a card about his neck reading, "Who teaches you?" ("Hoosier School Master"!). Illustrate a poem with shadow pictures. Place about the room numbered portraits of authors for the company to name. Add readings and essays on literary themes.
A course of lectures and concerts is possible, nowadays, for almost any enterprising community, and the proceeds will give the library a start.
For a time you may charge two cents for the reading of each book, thus forcing the library itself to earn its double in the course of a year.
At the beginning,—or, for that matter, all the time,—the generous among the church-members may be urged to lend books to the library for a year at a time. Such books should be covered with different paper from the others, and plainly marked with the name of the lender and an injunction to especial carefulness in handling them.
The library will be generously supported, if its books are sensibly selected; but this is not an easy task. Do not leave it to any single man, but appoint the wisest men and women of the church a committee on selection, and require them all to read every book that is chosen. Obviously, the value of such a committee will increase with the growing years, and it should be a permanent body.
Many booksellers will send books on approval. The review columns in the religious papers should be regularly watched. The committee should be placed on the mailing-lists of all the best publishers, to receive their regular announcements of books. They should get into correspondence with the librarians of other schools, learning from them what books are popular and helpful. And, above everything else, they should get in contact with the scholars of their own school, to watch the practical effect of the books they select.
Regarding the selection of books, first, some "dont's."
Don't choose any volume, no matter how famous, without reading every word of it. One of the grandest of biographies, for instance, is Franklin's autobiography; but you will not wish to put before young readers his chapter on his religion—or lack of it. Wonderfully inspiring essays are Emerson's; but here and there a sentence speaks of Christ as a mere man. A very stimulating booklet is "Blessed be Drudgery"; but one sentence spoils it for our use, since it places Jesus at the end of a list of philosophers at whose head stands Herbert Spencer.