"Then felt I like some watcher of the skies,
When a new planet swims into his ken."
So said Keats upon first looking into Chapman's Homer. To express the rapture of the poet is given only to the poet. But the pure joy of finding for ourselves some of the true and beautiful with which we are in harmony, is reward enough. Whether we look upon our library as a source of recreation, of happiness or profit (and it is all of these) this army, who have fallen out of the ranks in the onward march of education in the school, seem to be our especial wards. To open the door through the book for them is a work worth doing, not as a means of salvation, but as a means of sowing more efficiency and more happiness among men. Ours is not the schoolmaster's task of teaching things: it is the nobler task of showing humanity how to teach itself.
And, while we speak of missions, the library need not take itself too seriously. The world is not looking to us for the salvation of mankind. When all is done that can be done, there will still be those who will not read, and who will follow the primrose path after their natures. There are many agencies in life that work for good and the library is one, not the only one. Our field is clear-cut and well-defined—to extend the use of books. There seems to be a sort of nervous notion abroad that one of the chief ends of libraries is to draw a crowd and put a nice book into every hand. I do not know about all these enrichments of our libraries as I read of them. Have books any compelling power over those who merely come into their presence, unless such people love the books or at least wish to read them? Of this I have no doubt: There are enough who care to use our libraries, if we can take away that helpless bewilderment which overcomes those who are cast adrift, without rudder or compass, upon a sea of books. Teach them the ways in which books may be made to yield their treasures. Open that door in youth if possible, and it will be the best possession which youth carries into manhood. But open it sometime, for the real harvest time is when he who wishes to read, reads what he wants. It might be more soul-satisfying to me to hand out to my chicken boy books that minister to more attenuated needs—but what about the boy? Is he not better that he finds for himself in the book what feeds his mind? The glory and power of the library is that he who can merely read, may there find what the in-dwelling spirit asks for. It is good that there should be one place in education where there is no brimstone and treacle, no Mr. Squeers, and no Smikes. "For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as the soul whose progeny they are."
The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: A curiosity which has existed since libraries were first started is about to be gratified. We are to get the answer to the question, "What do the people want?" from MISS JESSIE WELLES, of the Carnegie library of Pittsburgh.
WHAT DO THE PEOPLE WANT?[3]
If we are to believe the voices in the air the people want some big things, for it is a notable fact that the things most loudly demanded are wanted by a few people for all the people. The socialistic group wants a coöperative industrial system for everybody, another familiar group in no uncertain voice demands votes for all, whether we want them or not, and there is a third group to which our president has referred, the members of which think that they see in universal education a panacea for the ills of state and society. Of this group all librarians must be at least ex-officio members while librarians in public libraries must work definitely toward the end which it avows.
[3] Abstract.
How are we doing this? It will not serve to take refuge back of the statement that our only hope for universal education is with the child. We have a duty toward the adult as well as toward the child, and our aim must be not to get people to read books but to get all the people to read the right books, the books best adapted for their individual development.
Are we supplying the right books? For book selection, a well nigh perfect technique has been established, but is technique enough? Knowledge of books and of technique are imperative but the librarian who supplies the right books to all the people must know and understand his fellowmen.
Who are the people whom we are to serve? Do we perchance throw them into one great group and call them the public as distinguished from librarians? Who are we but "the public" to the actor, the artist, the man in the railway office? No, a wise providence has endowed men with a great variety of characters and temperaments, and when environment has further complicated matters, we must try to understand them all. For our present purpose let us group the people on the basis of a taste for knowledge.