It is well to remember also that even the lightest fiction selected by the library is free from most of the objectionable qualities of the reading indulged in by many readers whom we hope to reach.
As we advance in the scale of our readers, the demands upon the library increase. More and more the library is becoming of commercial use. Not only men of the various industries are finding use for the recorded experiences and the advice of experts in their own lines, but business men are beginning to find great possibilities in the use of books as time-savers and as a help to efficiency. The use of the book as a tool is becoming constantly greater, and the public library, as a matter of course, is to supply all books which may be so used. It is the plain duty of the public library to make known its ability to help its community in these practical ways.
It would seem that wise book buying would result more often through a study of the city rather than from the searching of book catalogs. The public library perhaps more than any other educational institution may receive help from social surveys, social engineering, and the records of commercial organizations.
If a social survey has not been made of our city, we should at least ascertain the elements which go to make up its population. Let us know the types of people to be reached and their numbers. How many Americans of native stock? How many residents of foreign birth? How many children of foreign born parents? What are the races represented—English speaking, Germanic, Slavic, Latin, etc.? What are the social and economic conditions? What are their occupations? What of their education and æsthetic development? These are pertinent questions for the library.
Then let a search be made for the most attractive books for each group, always remembering that there is a place for sound, clear, elementary books on all subjects, and that these should be duplicated freely. Let the business of the community be analyzed. Are there textile, steel or wood industries? What manufacturing is done, and what raw materials are used? What of its markets? What of its transportation? What authoritative material may we find on all these subjects, and how may we make it of valuable use? What is being done in our city for the fine arts; for natural science; for the study of literature; for religious and ethical teaching? How may we coöperate in all this work by supplying the necessary books? Let there be a thorough understanding of how and where good books may be used, and then let us consider the breadth and limitation of our book buying.
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: One is tempted to linger over the flavor which has been given to the wording of the next topic, "The open door, through the book and the library; opportunity for comparison and choice; unhampered freedom of choice," and if we do not linger longer on this it is because we know that that flavor will be made permanent after listening to the address itself of the speaker, Mr. CHARLES E. McLENEGAN, librarian of the Milwaukee public library.
THE OPEN DOOR, THROUGH THE BOOK AND THE LIBRARY; OPPORTUNITY FOR COMPARISON AND CHOICE; UNHAMPERED FREEDOM OF CHOICE
A professor in one of our large universities recently complained that college students of the present day are so woefully ignorant of many things that they could reasonably be expected to know. The exciting cause of the professor's outburst was an attempt to get from his class some information about Chanticleer. He was met by conservative and judicious silence until one youth, who was not quite sure, ventured the opinion that it was a popular song sung by Jane Addams. Of course such an answer would irritate a Chicago man, and justly too, when we consider that Miss Addams is what made Chicago famous.
But the wail of the professor provokes the question: Where do all the scholars and thinkers of the world come from? What keeps up the breed? What is it that fills in the ramshackle, ill-jointed, unpromising frame of much of our school product, and returns us so much of fine manhood and womanhood, and so much of the sound learning and ability of the working world? We must, I think, admit that the world is fairly furnished with men and women, intelligent and useful, whom no college can claim. And every college has its quota of dunces who may never be anything else. My professor made no discovery of an alarming decadence, for what he complains of has always been true. We should not be pessimistic about youth, and we must be fair to our schools. They make better what we send them, but they have no science of alchemy. Many men and women find their inspiration in schools. But after the largest measure of allowance, it will be conceded that the amount of scholarship and efficiency in the world far exceeds the output of our scholastic plants. There are more of such people than schools produce, and the surplus must be accounted for in some other way. This surplus comes, somehow, from that vast throng who are, in a sense, the forgotten children of modern education—those hundreds of thousands who fall out of the ranks in school days, and yet who persist and find themselves without the help of the schools. It is very fortunate that this is so, for otherwise we might have to abandon some of our weightiest political maxims. The world is governed by proverbs, but as a rule of action, a proverb is as dangerous as dynamite. It is as useful as a club in a political campaign. But Dr. Holmes was right: proverbs should be sold in pairs so that one may correct the other as a counter irritant.
One of the most venerable and mossy of these narcotic saws is that our school systems are the bulwark of democracy. Undoubtedly presidents could be elected on this platform alone, if you could find an opposing party foolish enough to deny it. Yet schools can be the bulwark of democracy only by a confusion of terms, by which we mean that education and intelligence are the bulwarks of democracy. This we may grant; but we are now speaking of something besides the three R's and things that children learn in school. By education and intelligence, we mean the resultant of many forces acting on one point. We may readily admit that democracies like ours have only intelligence with which to oppose the powers that tend to gather at the center or to fly off the circumference.