Northampton, Mass.,
May 16, 1913.
Your letter of the fourteenth, inviting me to contribute to a symposium of thought concerning library work in America and suggesting the topic, "What is your conception of the ideal librarian," does me great honor. But it brings to my mind very clearly my inability to offer a definition which I could possibly hope would be enlightening or stimulating to a convention of librarians.
The library work of our present day has expanded into such liberal bounds and taken on such a missionary, and at the same time scientific, spirit that one who is merely its beneficiary cannot give himself the hardihood to offer words of criticism or of counsel. I know no work which shows such splendid contrasts to what it was when I began life as does the profession of the public librarian and the professional conception of the library's mission to the world.
It has been my great joy and honor to bring up a large family whose members are now separated and busy in the world's work and it gives me great pleasure to say of them, as of myself, that the modern management of public libraries has made life worth incalculably more than it could have been under the limitations of forty years ago.
With every good wish I beg to remain ever
Yours truly,
GEORGE W. CABLE.
Santa Barbara, Cal.,
May 5, 1913.
It gives me great pleasure to attempt a brief answer to the question you suggest—"Is the fiction circulated by our public libraries helping to enlighten the people on social and economic problems?" I should be inclined to answer the question decidedly in the affirmative. In addition to the letters I receive from persons whose only access to modern fiction is through the public library, concerning my own work, I have, in the course of political campaigns, and in places in various parts of the country where I have made another sort of address, held many conversations with men and women in the audiences. These have interested me greatly. My own experience corroborates a fact to which I have heard several librarians attest (and it is to me the most hopeful phenomenon in our American life), that the American public—mainly through the libraries—is reading more widely and more intelligently than those who do not come into direct contact with a large portion of it guess. Four or five months ago I received a letter from a poor woman who lives on a farm near one of the larger towns of Massachusetts giving me a list of the books she had got from the library during the past year. She had read them all; and they included, in addition to two good biographies and Royce's "Loyalty," several of the best recent novels, both English and American, dealing seriously with the problems of modern life. And finally, the other day when I was in San Francisco, I had a long conversation with an ex-burglar who had served a term in the penitentiary, and who has reformed and has been for the last eight years making an honest living, on the subject of such novels as you mention. His comments on them were not only interesting but often valuable. His source was, of course, the public library. Hence, I am glad of this opportunity to pay my tribute to the librarian, and to express, as an American citizen, my appreciation of the work he is doing.