Concerning librarians, as such, I may say that my experience with them, under many climes and skies, has ever been of the pleasantest. Their keeping company with the thinkers and writers of all times, spending their days in those temples where the wisdom, the folly, the dreams, the beauty of ages is stored for the contemplation or warning of succeeding generations, gives them, of whatever nationality they be, a philosophical turn of mind, a benevolent desire to help, a friendliness to the untutored who want to know more. For me they are the typical men of good will for whom there will be peace.
Believe me,
Very truly yours,
JUSSERAND.
Chicago, May 5.
"Can public libraries legitimately attempt amusement as well as instruction of the people?" Since you ask me the question, I feel obliged to answer it in all seriousness. In my opinion the public library ought not to be turned into a place of amusement. Let us have this one institution left as a refuge from amusement. The general desire of the public to be amused has caused it to become almost impossible for one to go anywhere or see anything without becoming conscious of the fact that the first and generally the sole purpose of everything is to amuse. The preachers make their sermons amusing, the poets make their poems amusing, the artists make their pictures amusing, the merchants make their shops amusing; one cannot eat in a public place without being amused. Steamships and railway trains are operated for the amusement of passengers; every vacant storeroom will by tomorrow have become a place of amusement and plans are already being made to convert funerals into amusing affairs. Spare to us the one place in which we may hope to escape from amusement. Let the public library remain grand, gloomy and peculiar.
Sincerely yours,
S. E. KISER.