The scientific libraries of Boston, including that of Harvard University, contain nearly two million printed works; but the largest library of all is distinct from these. It is housed on Copley Square, in a renaissance palace by the side of the Art Museum, and opposite the most beautiful church in America. The staircase of yellow marble, the wonderful wall-paintings, the fascinating arcade on the inner court, and the sunlit halls are indeed beautiful. And in and out, from early morning till late evening, weekday and Sunday, move the people of Boston. The stream of men divides in the lower vestibule. Some go to the newspaper room, where several hundred daily newspapers, a dozen of them German, hang on racks. Others wander to the magazine rooms, where the weekly and monthly papers of the world are waiting to be read. Others ascend to the upper stories, where Sargent’s famous pictures of the Prophets allure the lover of art, in order to look over more valuable special editions and the art magazines, geographical charts, and musical works. The largest stream of all goes to the second floor, partly into the huge quiet reading-room, partly into the rotunda, which contains the catalogue, partly into the hall containing the famous frescoes of the Holy Grail, where the books are given out. Here a million and a half books are delivered every year to be taken home and read. And no one has to wait; an apparatus carries the applicant’s card with wonderful speed to the stacks, and the desired book is sent back in automatic cars. Little children meanwhile wander into the juvenile room, where they find the best books for children. And everything invites even the least patient reader to sit down quietly with some sort of a volume—everything is so tempting, so convenient and comfortable, and so surpassingly beautiful. And all this is free to the humblest working-man.
And still, if the citizen of Massachusetts were to be asked of what feature of the public libraries he is most proud, he would probably not mention this magnificent palace in Boston, the capital of the state, but rather the 350 free public libraries scattered through the smaller cities and towns of this state, which is after all only one-third as large as Bavaria. It is these many libraries which do the broadest work for the people. Each little collection, wherever it is, is the centre of intellectual and moral enlightenment, and plants and nourishes the desire for self-perfection. Of course, Massachusetts has done more in this respect than any other part of the country—especially more than the South, which is backward in this respect. But there is no longer any city of moderate size which has not a large public library, and there is no state which does not encourage in every possible way the establishment of public libraries in every small community, giving financial aid if it is necessary.
Public libraries have become the favourite Christmas present of philanthropists, and while the hospitals, universities, and museums have still no reason for complaint, the churches now find that superfluous millions are less apt to go to gay church windows than to well-chosen book collections. In the year 1900 there existed more than 5,383 public libraries having over a thousand volumes; of these 144 had more than fifty thousand, and 54 had more than a hundred thousand volumes. All together contained, according to the statistics of 1900, more than forty-four million volumes and more than seven million pamphlets; and the average growth was over 8 per cent. There are probably to-day, therefore, fifteen million volumes more on the shelves. The many thousand libraries which have fewer than 999 books are over and above all this.
The make-up of such public libraries may be seen from the sample catalogue gotten out by the Library Association a few years since, as a typical collection of five thousand books. This catalogue which, with the exception of the most important foreign classics, contains only books in English, including, however, many translations, contains 227 general reference books, 756 books on history, 635 on biography, 413 on travel, 355 on natural science, 694 in belles-lettres, 809 novels, 225 on art, 220 on religion, 424 on social science, 268 on technical subjects, etc. The cost of this sample collection is $12,000. The proportions between the several divisions are about the same in larger collections. In smaller collections, belles-lettres have a somewhat greater share. The general interest taken by the nation in this matter is shown by the fact that the first edition of twenty thousand copies of this sample catalogue, of six hundred pages, was soon exhausted.
The many-sidedness of this catalogue points also to the manifold functions of the public library. It is meant to raise the educational level of the people, and this can be done in three ways: first, interest may be stimulated along new lines; second, those who wish to perfect themselves in their own subjects or in whatsoever special topics, may be provided with technical literature; and third, the general desire for literary entertainment may be satisfied by books of the best or at least not of the worst sort. The directors of libraries see their duties to lie in all three directions. The libraries guide the tastes and interests of the general public, and try to replace the ordinary servant-girl’s novel with the best romances of the day and shallow literature with works which are truly instructive. And no community is quite content until its public library has become a sort of general meeting-place and substitute for the saloon and the club. America is the working-man’s paradise, and attractive enough to the rich man; but the ordinary man of the middle classes, who in Germany finds his chief comfort in the Bierhalle, would find little comfort in America if it were not for the public library, which offers him a home. Thus the public library has come to be a recognized instrument of culture along with the public school; and in all American outposts the school teacher and librarian are among the pioneers.
The learned library cannot do this. To be sure, the university library can help to spread information, and conversely the public library makes room for thousands of volumes on all sorts of scientific topics. But the emphasis is laid very differently in the two cases, and if it were not so neither library would best fulfil its purpose. The extreme quiet of the reference library and the bustle and stir of the public library do not go together. In the one direction America has followed the dignified traditions of Europe; in the other, it has opened new paths and travelled on at a rapid pace. Every year discovers new ideas and plans, new schemes for equipment and the selection of books, for cataloguing, and for otherwise gaining in utility. When, for instance, the library in Providence commenced to post a complete list of books and writings pertaining to the subject of every lecture which was given in the city, it was the initiation of a great movement. The juvenile departments are the product of recent years, and are constantly increasing in popularity. There are even, in some cases, departments for blind readers. The state commissions are new, and so also the travelling libraries, which are carried from one village to another.
The great schools for librarians are also new. The German librarian is mostly a scholar; but the American believes that he has improved on the European library systems, not so much by his ample financial resources as by having broken with the academic custom, and having secured librarians with a special library training. And since there are such officials in many thousand libraries, and the great institutions create a constant demand for such persons, the library schools, which offer generally a three years’ course, have been found very successful.
Admittedly, all this technical apparatus is expensive; the Boston library expends every year a quarter of a million dollars for administrative expenses. But the American taxpayer supports this more gladly than any other burden, knowing that the public library is the best weapon against alcoholism and crime, against corruption and discontent, and that the democratic country can flourish only when the instinct of self-perfection as it exists in every American is thoroughly satisfied.
The reading of the American nation is not to be estimated wholly by the books in public libraries, since it also includes a tremendous quantity of printed material that goes to the home of every citizen. Three hundred and forty American publishers place their wares every year on the market, and the part bought by the public libraries is a very small proportion. A successful novel generally reaches its third hundred thousand; of course, such gigantic editions are limited to novels and school-books. The number of annual book publications is much smaller than in Germany; but it must be considered that, first, the American electrotype process does not lend itself to new and revised editions; and that small brochures are replaced in America by the magazine articles. On the other hand, the number of copies published is perhaps larger than in Germany. And then, too, among the upper classes, a great many German, French, and Italian books are purchased from Europe.
The great feature for all classes of the population is the tremendous production of periodical literature. Statistics show that in the United States in the year 1903, there were published 2,300 daily papers, more than 15,000 weeklies, 2,800 monthlies, and 200 quarterlies—in all, 21,000 periodicals. These are more periodicals than are published in all Europe; in Germany alone there are 7,500. The tremendous significance of these figures, particularly as compared with the European, becomes clear only when one considers the number of copies which these periodicals circulate. Not merely the newspapers of the three cities having over a million inhabitants, but also those of the larger provincial towns, reach a circulation of hundreds of thousands; and more surprising still is the unparalleled circulation of the weekly and monthly papers. Huge piles of magazines, containing the most serious sort of essays, are sold from every news-stand in a few hours. And anybody who knows New England is not surprised at the statement which T. W. Higginson makes in his recollections, that he came once to a small Massachusetts village of only twenty-four homes, nineteen of which subscribed to the Atlantic Monthly, a publication which is most nearly comparable to the Deutsche Rundschau.