The genial "Librarian" of the Boston Transcript, who on Saturday is to tell you how to discourage reading, still has periodic visions of the "Censors of the Boston public library," just as more timid souls have created bogies out of Col. Roosevelt or other historic characters. But the committee has no power to "censor" anything, and the Boston public library has no "black list" nor has it in my time ever had to become a censor. It has to choose, and so far as possible within the exercise of fallible human judgment to choose wisely. It finds itself unable to buy some hundreds of as good books, perhaps better books, than it buys, but it censors nothing, being fortunately relieved of a duty from which I would myself not shrink in exigency, by the limitations surrounding its choice.
It is one of the curiosities of journalism, this rise of the legend of the Boston fiction committee. It started from a half jocose article wholly inconsequential, one would have thought, in a western paper from the pen of a little-known Boston space writer. Numerous excellent books not purchased were said to have been "tabooed," and the list went over the country like wild fire. None of them had been "tabooed," unless inability to buy is a taboo. Big head lines with Swinburnian fervor spoke of the "books banned in Boston." From the little daily papers, the matter spread to the big ones. The Times Saturday Review pointed out, after scanning some of the titles, that "in some New England minds exquisite pleasure was akin to wickedness," because of the supposed censorship of books not bought. The committee was irreverently alluded to as the "body of spinster censors who since they were themselves virtuous had determined there should be no more cakes and ale." A critical literary journal feared that the committee desired "to form Boston's literary taste on too precious a model," and that since the majority of the readers were women, "the sense of power may have led them into arbitrary decisions." A New York paper, not unwilling to have a shy at Boston, said: "The committee takes an attitude untenable, Pharasaic, and what the enemies of Boston call Bostonese."
Harper's Weekly, a journal of civilization, expressed curiosity about the committee: "That the majority of them are young, we know, because they are not married. But are they red, white, or blue stockings? Do they approve of straight fronts? Do hoops still gallop in the East wind?" Drastic comments were received and appeared in print from other librarians. Mr. Legler's predecessor, entirely in good faith, fell with the rest. He said he had been told that in Boston they sent new novels to club women and received their opinions on slips of paper. He imagined that a good dinner would have something to do with such reports.
The St. Louis Globe Democrat had a word of commendation, although equally misled as to the grounds of praise. It said: "The literary lines are drawn as sharply and perhaps as arbitrarily as the social ones. Yet this New England trait of severe selection is a blessing to the country, and has leavened its crudeness from ocean to ocean. Puritanism has been more or less a critic of the rest of us, but the criticism has done good. * * * There is doubtless good reason for the rejections made." But the New York Sun which still shines for all, said: "The city was so terribly agitated over the wicked censorship of fiction at the library that the reading committee is doomed to become an extinct institution."
All of this is ancient history, and I only recall it as showing, in little, the growth of a popular myth. The committee as an institution still lives. It has always been representative. As the Bookman once said of its lists of best sellers, so, in dealing with the reports, we are not under the impression that we are pointing solemnly to stupendous critical opinions. We do not even claim that every individual report is actually accurate and unbiased. But we do believe that collected and weighed, they are unbiased and accurate in the bulk. The committee in its membership is subject to frequent changes. It is, as I have said, free from library influence. Its members are appointed by the committee itself and we neither approve nor cancel appointments. At present there are 27 members, men and women, married and unmarried, (10 unmarried ladies comprise the spinster element), Protestants and Catholics, French, German, Spanish, as well as those to whom English is the mother tongue.
They are all fairly intelligent, not illiterate of course, but not offensively scholarly. They include artists and teachers, several literary persons, at least two authors of repute, a business man or two, two physicians, and so on. This analysis shows the representative character of the committee; that it is made up with breadth of selection. Its verdict is not conclusive, and aims to reflect only the opinion which readers of intelligence would form after careful reading. Other factors are always taken into account in determining whether or not a book shall be bought. Necessarily, many current novels approved by the committee are not bought. Frequently novels are bought which the committee did not approve. But the experience of several years has shown that nearly all which for various reasons we have found it impossible to buy have failed to demonstrate their right to live for even a few brief months. The demand for some of them was insistent for a short time. Now, their very names are forgotten. If we had purchased a considerable number of them, the money, so far as present demand is concerned, would have been wasted. It may be fairly said, however, that we have bought meantime, so far as our resources permitted, a fair representation of the best fiction, that which is likely to remain in constant request. Our supply of standard English fiction is large, perhaps 50,000 volumes, and is constantly replaced as the books wear out. We are liberal in providing good fiction for the young. Were our funds enlarged, we could undoubtedly use a larger number of copies, especially in branch and deposit work, but, as I have made clear, we cannot expend a larger amount of our money in this way without impairing the growth of the library in other important directions. Whether or not you approve the method that we find helpful, some plan of selection must be adopted since choice is imperative.
Of course, it would be possible to buy two copies of 500 different books, or, as at present, perhaps 10 copies of 100 books; the expense would be the same in either case. But in the first instance the chances of a borrower getting a copy of any book selected would be much reduced in comparison with his chance of getting one under the more limited range of titles. Of course, also, under the first plan, the library would be free from the impression that many novels had been "banned," but the public advantage is greater under the present system.
I have already taken too long. If you find anything in our plan helpful, I shall be glad. At any rate, I hope I have done something to lay the ghost of unreasonable censorship which some of you may imagine hovers over the Boston public library. We have our faults in Boston, but not that.
Let me take a moment in summing up. Every librarian must determine for himself how much money he ought to spend for fiction, under his own local conditions, within his own resources. He should try to keep a proper proportion in this expenditure, not as measured in Boston or elsewhere but in that little corner of the earth where his own library is placed. This is a personal matter, not one of invariable mathematical relations.
Having done that, he should establish a standard and select with reference to it. Not my standard—it may not fit the case—but his own. And this too, like most library functions, is a personal matter. It will depend largely on what the librarian is trying to do with his library. For a library should not be a dead thing. It should have a vital relation to the particular community in which it is placed, and fit it as the glove fits the hand. Through the books we circulate we are directly influencing the men and women we reach; not for their personal benefit or enjoyment only, or to satisfy only their individual tastes or desires; but that they may become better fitted for their civic duties, may become happier, more intelligent, more hopeful in their human relationships.