It is not the book that you give John Smith for the benefit of John Smith only, that counts, but the book that makes John Smith of greater benefit to the community. That sentence, which I quote in spirit if not in exact words from our colleague, Dr. Richardson, expresses the reason for being of the public library, the only justification for the maintenance of such libraries by general taxation. Whatever books contribute to that end are the books that should be bought.
There is nothing in the book itself as it lies on the shelf. It is neither moral nor immoral nor of any other intrinsic merit or demerit. "Three weeks," 12 copies of which a commercial circulating library in a small city near my home kept in constant circulation for a year, is as good as another in that inert position. But books in contact with the soul of humanity are no longer dead things. They have something of that vital quality which gave them birth, as Milton long ago said.
It is sometimes as much our duty to restrain readers as to stimulate them, and a large circulation per capita without regard to the character of the books circulated, is as apt to be a sign of the inefficiency of a library, as it is a thing to be emulated.
This is not a recital of platitudes nor does the subject call for beautiful phrases about the ideals of the librarian's profession. On the contrary, it concerns practical results in return for the taxpayers' money, which comes hard enough at best. It is no heart-breaking matter whether you buy and circulate 50, 60 or 70 per cent of fiction. If you bring your percentage down from 70 to 50, that of itself may not mean improvement. But it is heart-breaking if you fail to get the books best adapted to secure the results I assume you are trying to obtain and which you ought to obtain in your own community.
It may be that what Mr. Dana once facetiously called the "latest tale of broken hearthstones" is just the thing to give a fillip to the dormant sensibilities of your patrons—to make them sit up and take notice lest cracked hearthstones become fashionable in your vicinity. I do not know. But this I know. You should settle that point with your own conscience, and when you have settled it, go on, and do not apologize. In the long run your sins whether of omission or commission, will find you out. On the other hand, believe me, virtue in this field as in others, will bring its own reward, and the reward of virtue is about the only one any librarian can reasonably expect.
Dr. Bostwick was called upon to continue the discussion and spoke as follows:
The Quality of Fiction—II.
The two things that it is necessary to take into account in selecting literature are its form and its content. The former largely determines the literary value of a composition; the latter its practical usefulness. Poetry and prose are the two great basic forms into which all literature is divided. Narrative may be cast in either form and when that narrative is untrue we call it fiction. In the usage of most of us the word is restricted to prose. Fiction, therefore, is not so much a matter of form as of content, or rather of the quality of content. Of two books telling of the lives of the same kind of persons in the same way the mere fact that one is true and the other not would class one as biography and the other as fiction.
Of what importance is the fact that of two bits of narrative, one is true and the other is untrue? That depends on the purpose for which the narrative is to be used. If we desire an accurate and orderly statement of facts, the true narrative is the only one of value. On the other hand, the facts, not of the narrative but incidental to it, may be true in the fiction and false in the biography. From the standpoint of the seeker of recreation, the fiction is generally, although not always, more interesting. The writer has the advantage of being able to create the elements of his tale and control their grouping, as well as regulate their form; and in addition he knows that he must be interesting to secure readers. Unfortunately, historians, biographers and travellers have generally too high an opinion of their functions as purveyors of truth to stoop to make it interesting.
As regards literary value, of course the mere truth or falsity of the narrative can have little to do with this; yet I believe, as a matter of fact, that fictitious narrative has literary value oftener than true narrative; for the reason offered above, that writers of truth consider it beneath their dignity to garnish it, like those fatuous dieticians who believe that so long as we take so much proteid and so much carbohydrate we need not worry over forms and flavors. Now I am supposed to be telling you about fiction and about the propriety or impropriety of including much of it in libraries, but I think you see that I am sidling toward the statement that I think we need not consider fiction at all, as fiction, in this connection. The reasons for rejecting fiction, when they exist, have nothing whatever to do with its being fiction, and would apply to non-fiction as well. If a biography purporting to relate the events in the life of Oliver Cromwell is full of errors, that is a reason why it should not stand on your library shelves. If a novel, purporting to give a correct idea of life in Chicago, succeeds only in leaving the impression that the city is peopled with silly and immoral persons, that is equally a reason for rejection. If a history of the Italian Renaissance is filled with unsavory details, these might exclude it, just as they might exclude a novel whose scene was laid in the same period. The story of a criminal's life, if so written as to make wrong appear right, might be rejected for this reason whether the criminal really existed or not. A poor, trashy book of travel should no more be placed on the shelves than a novel of the same grade. And if our book funds are limited we can no more buy all the biography or travel or books on chemistry or philosophy than we can buy all the novels that fall from the press. I do not deny, of course, that any or all the reasons for rejection that have been adduced might be overbalanced by others in favor of purchase, and they might be so overbalanced in the case of fiction as well as in that of non-fiction.