Society: Its Origin and Development

by Henry K. Rowe

296. The Library and the Museum.—In spite of the efficient methods used for selling the output of the press, large numbers of books would be little read were it not for the collections of books that are available to the public, either free or at small cost. The public library is an educative agency that serves its constituency as faithfully as the school and the press. Its presence for use is one of the advantages that the city has over the country, though the public library has been extended far within one or two decades. The child goes from home to school and widens the circle of his acquaintances in the community; through the daily newspaper the adult gets into touch with a far wider environment, reaching even across the oceans; in the library any person, without respect to age, color, or condition, if only he possess the key of literacy to unlock knowledge, can travel to the utmost limits of continents and seas, can dig with the geologist below the surface, or soar with the astronomer beyond the limits of aviation, can hob-nob with ancient worthies or sit at the feet of the latest novelist or philosopher, and can learn how to rule empires from as good text-books as kings or patriarchs possess.

What the library does for intellectual satisfaction the museum and art-gallery do for æsthetic appreciation. They make their appeal to the love of beauty in form, color, or weave, and call out oftentimes the best efforts of an individual's own genius. Often the gift of one or more public-spirited citizens, they register a disposition to serve society that is sometimes as useful as charity. Philanthropy that uplifts the mind of the recipient is as desirable as benevolence that plans bodily relief; the soul that is filled has as much cause to bless its minister as the stomach that is relieved of hunger. The picture-galleries of Europe, the tapestries, the metal and wood work, the engravings, and the frescoes, are the precious legacy of the past to the present, not easily reproduced, but serving as a continual incentive to modern production. They set in motion spiritual forces that uplift and expand the human mind and spur it to future achievement.

297. Music and the Drama.—Music and the drama have a similar stimulating and refining influence when they are not debauched by a sordid commercialism. They strengthen the noblest impulses, stir the blood to worthy deeds by their rhythmic or pictorial influence, unite individual hearts in worship or play, throb in unison with the sentiments that through all time have swayed human life. Often they have catered to the lower instincts, and have served for cheap amusement or entertainment not worth while, but concert-hall and theatre alike are capable of an educative work that can hardly be equalled elsewhere. When in combination they appeal to both eye and ear, they provide avenues for intellectual understanding and activity that neither school nor press can parallel. Recent mechanical inventions, such as automatic musical instruments and moving pictures, have added greatly to the range and effectiveness of music and the drama, but they only intensify and popularize the appeal to the senses. It is to be remembered that individual and social stimuli must be varied enough to touch men at all points and call out a response from every faculty of their nature. These arts, therefore, that make life real and socialize it and cheer men and women on their way, play a vital part in the education of society and deserve as serious consideration as the other educational agencies and institutions that find a place in the social economy of the community. Numerous amateur musical and dramatic societies testify to the interest of the people in these refined arts.

298. The Need of Social Centres.—Books and pictures, music and the drama are so many mild stimulants to those who use and appreciate them, but there are large numbers of people who rarely read anything but the newspaper, and who attend only cheap entertainments. These people need a spur to high thoughts and noble action, but they do not move in the world of culture. They need a stronger stimulant, the tang of virile debate about questions that touch closely their daily concerns, discussions in which they can share if they feel disposed. In large circles of the city's population there is a lack of facilities for such public discussion, and for that reason the people fall back on the prejudices of the newspapers for the formation of their opinions on public questions. Disputes sometimes wax warm in the saloon about the merits of a pugilist or baseball-player; questions of the rights of labor are aired in the talk of the trade-union headquarters; but the vital issues of city, state, and nation, and the underlying principles that are at stake find few avenues to the minds of the mass of the people. In the country the town meeting or the gathering at the district schoolhouse provides an occasional opportunity, or the grange meeting supplies a forum for its members, but even there the rank and file of the people do not talk over large questions often enough. In the city the need is great.

299. The City Neighborhood.—It is well understood that large cities have most of their public buildings and business structures in one quarter, and their residences in another; also that the character of the residential districts varies according to the wealth and culture of their inhabitants or the nationality and occupation to which they belong. The city is a coalition of semidetached groups, each of which has a unity of its own. The necessities of work draw all the people together down-town along the lines of streets and railways; now and then the different classes are shaken together in elevators and subways; but when they are free to follow their own volition they flow apart. Those who are on terms of intimacy live in a neighboring street; the grocer from whom they buy is at the corner; the school where their children go is within a few blocks; the theatre they patronize or the church they attend is not far away; the physician they employ lives in the neighborhood. Except the few who get about easily in their own conveyances and have a wide acquaintance, city dwellers have all but their business interests in the district in which they live, and which is seldom over a square mile in extent.

Some municipalities are coming to see that each district is a neighborhood in itself and needs all the democratic institutions of a neighborhood. Among these belongs the assembly hall for free speech. It may well become a centre for a variety of social purposes, but it is fundamentally important that it provide a forum for public discussion. As the rich man has his club where he may meet the globetrotter or the leader of public affairs distinguished in his own country, and as the woman's club of high-minded women has its own lecturers and celebrities of all kinds, so the working man and his wife have a right to come into contact with stimulating personalities who will talk to them and to whom they can talk back.

300. Forum for Public Discussion.—Such democratic gatherings fall into two classes. There is the public lecture or address, after which an opportunity for questions and public discussion is given, and there is the neighborhood forum or town meeting, at which a question of general interest is taken up and debated in regular parliamentary fashion. In a number of cities both plans have been adopted. On a Sunday afternoon or evening, or at a convenient time on another evening of the week, a popular speaker addresses the audience on a theme of social interest, after it has been entertained for a half hour with music; following the address a brief intermission allows for relaxation, and then for an hour the question goes to the house, and free discussion takes place under the direction of the leader of the meeting. Sometimes series of this sort are supplied by churches or other social organizations; in that case many of the speakers are clergymen, and in some forums the topics are connected with religious or strictly moral interests; but even then the discussion is on the broad plane of the common concerns of humanity, and there is a zest to the occasion that the ordinary religious gathering does not inspire. The second plan is modelled after the old-fashioned town meeting that was transplanted from the mother country to New England, and has spread to other parts of the United States. It is a gathering of all who wish to discuss freely some question that interests them all, and it is more strictly co-operative than the first plan, for there is no one speaker to contribute the main part of the debate, but each may make his own contribution, and by the power of his own persuasion win for his argument the decision of the meeting. Besides stimulating the interest of those who take part, such a debate is a most effective educator of the public mind in matters of social weal.

READING REFERENCES

Henderson: Social Elements, pages 228-253.

King: Social Aspects of Education, pages 65-97, 264-290.