To say that this general condition exists solely because of the lack of funds is to my mind neither a real explanation, nor a real excuse. It exists primarily because there has never been any pressure from members of the faculty to bring about a different condition.
If we seek a reason for it we shall find it in the fact that research work has by tacit consent been left almost entirely to the university. Its place there—its vital importance in the university scheme of work—has never been questioned. Making all allowance for the difference in conditions I still cannot see why a thing that is confessedly of so much benefit to the university should not also be of help to the college. At the risk of getting a little off the track, and for the sake of making what I mean as plain as possible, it seems necessary to devote some space to a definition of the term research work. I am writing, of course, from the standpoint of an outsider, who expresses a purely personal opinion on a subject which interests him. There can be no hard and fast definition of such a term as this—at least not from a librarian.
I shall suppose then, that research work is of two kinds, both important, but one of them much more important than the other. The first and most common kind is that ordinarily done by the graduate student in the university. It is the gathering of material—the collection of information on some particular phase of some particular subject—and is not only of value in itself, but when taken together with the work done by other students along related lines becomes part of the structure on which scholarship is built. We may call it analytical research work. The other kind is that done by the man of clear vision and wide outlook, mature enough to see that the analytical work is merely material for a bigger thing—call it what you will—the man who can take the information others have collected and impart it in the form of culture. This is synthetic research work. Now the university has much of the former, some of the latter. The college has need only of the synthetic. If its place in the educational world is to be permanent, its contribution to education must be cultural. The type of teacher it needs, and I believe must have, is the man who has done, or is capable of doing, synthetic research work. In his hands teaching takes on a vitality, a spontaneity, a genuineness that no one else can give it. That the book collection of the average college would be sufficient for the needs of men like this is out of the question. There would inevitably arise a demand for the purchase of works of an entirely different kind—a demand that would have to be at least partially met. This demand would be for research material, by which I mean the results of research work, and the problem of such a college library would become a problem in discrimination—the decision as to what of this material it should try to obtain.
It ought not to be difficult to draw a clear distinction between analytical and synthetic research material. Illustrations of the first will readily occur to you, one as good as any being the usual thesis submitted for the doctor's degree. All "source" material is necessarily analytical—is the result of a careful, painstaking, often laborious search for information: information that may illuminate some dark corner of the field of knowledge. But it is never itself illumined by the spark of genius, nor wrought by the loving hand of the artist. It is merely the wood and the stone out of which a complete structure may some day arise.
Now how does the synthetic conception of research apply to History? A modern German writer has compressed the whole significance of it into a sentence: "The writing of History," he says, "is just as truly a will toward a picture as it is a knowledge of sources." In other words synthesis of the kind referred to is always the work of the artist, and in the nature of things becomes thereby a contribution to culture. Gibbon's "Decline and fall of the Roman empire," Lamprecht's "History of Germany," Rhodes' "History of the United States"—these are all synthetic: each one existed first as a picture in the mind of the artist, not merely as an array of sources from which the facts of history might be drawn.
"But," you say, "all libraries buy these books and others like them as a matter of course." Yes, we do, but I think the trouble is that we do not make books of this sort our standard, if indeed we have any standard beyond a favorable review or a request from a patron. It is no more true that the result of all synthetic research is cultural than that the result of all artistic endeavor is beautiful. Results here are just as uneven as anywhere else, with much that is good and perhaps even more that is bad, and it is when we come to discriminate that we are apt to go astray. Now a teacher such as I have in mind would keep abreast through the better periodicals of all that was being done in his particular line, and if facilities were furnished, would buy what he knew he needed—monographs, bibliographies, biographies, and some larger works—things that would not only give his teaching a vitality and freshness otherwise lacking, but would help to hasten the day when his own contribution to the world's culture should see the light.
Assuming, then, that a college accepts this view, and proposes to encourage its faculty to do research work, what are the practical ways in which the library can not only co-operate, but further such an undertaking? For I believe there are several. A preliminary statement as to the functions of the college library would seem to be essential. These have often been set forth for us in detail, and I shall only enumerate them here. The first and most important function is, of course, to meet the needs of the students and teachers as they arise in the regular college work. Along with this is the supplying of books for general reading, outside of the curriculum. Most of these books are bought for members of the faculty, who are thereby enabled to keep in touch with the latest developments in their own and other fields, and to avoid the possibility of mental stagnation from too close association with a particular subject. I believe much more might—and should—be done in the way of developing a taste for general reading on the part of the students, but that is another story.
Apart from these what are the functions of the college library? To be, so far as it can the centre of culture for the community in which it is located: to aid the local public library in its work with woman's clubs, and high school pupils: to lend books freely to other libraries. And in our own case there is the added opportunity of being of some assistance to another institution in the same town.
Now these things are all important, and the librarian who does not realize it, who fails to utilize to the utmost the possibilities they contain for intellectual and social betterment, is not worthy of his hire. But the point of view I take in this article compels me to consider them as secondary. The college library exists first of all to supply the book needs of its own students and faculty, and for nothing else. The expenditure of its funds, always insufficient, must be limited to this chief function. It is probable that all these other things I have enumerated can be done without any financial loss to the library, but where any of them means a diversion of library funds it becomes unjustifiable.
I said above that there are several practical ways in which a library—more properly, perhaps, a librarian—can not only co-operate, but further a movement to encourage research work on the part of members of the faculty. My remarks are of necessity limited to my observation of conditions in the institution with which I am connected, and are not to be considered general in their application. At the same time, I am inclined to think that these conditions are reproduced, at least to a certain extent, in most college libraries.