The solution of these all-important problems cannot be found in the school, where immature minds are taught merely how to use the tools of knowledge; these questions cannot be settled by the small number of university students; they must be solved by the education of the masses, by instilling in them in their early school years a desire for knowledge and a love for good reading, which will lead them to continue their education by means of the library. The education of the mass of the voters who determine the character of a democratic government, must not be left to the party organ or the stump speaker. The great social and political questions should be studied and pondered in the quiet of the closet and not decided, without previous thought, amid the hurrahs of the hustings.
To make the public library realize fully its possibilities as the People's University calls for more than the opportunity which every public library now offers; it requires active effort to reach out and bring the people to the library by the fullest co-operation with the school and by means of attractive lecture courses, which shall stimulate reading and guide it in profitable channels. But the beginning of this work—the inculcation of a taste for good reading—lies with the school, with the library's co-operation, especially during the years from six to ten or twelve, those years when nearly all the children come under the school's influence and when the habit of reading can be most easily formed.
If charged with placing undue stress upon the value of the library, I might urge its comparative newness and its consequent lack of recognition; and, as an evidence of the latter, I might point to the fact that in this great educational exposition, while one vast palace is given up to exhibits of the school, the library has with difficulty secured a part of a room in the Missouri State Building for an exhibit of its activities in the great work of education, in which, as I am trying to show, its potentialities are as great as those of the school. As our Board of Directors said, in its appeal to the exposition Directors for a separate library building:
“The library, besides being the most efficient and most economical agency for popular education, represents all the fair will have to show. It stands for the sum total of human knowledge. It is the instrumentality through which knowledge has been conserved and cumulated. Only through the library can civilization continue to advance.... Books are the most potent factors in progress. Without books we should have had no powerful locomotives to show, no wireless telegraphy, no wonder-making machinery, no beautiful buildings, no impressive statuary, no paintings to arouse wonder and yield delight—no World's Fair to draw distinguished scientists and educators from all over the world.”
By way of introduction to the comprehensive addresses of the two distinguished delegates who have travelled four or five thousand miles to lay before this Section, and, through publication, before the world, the past history and the present problems of the library, it has seemed to me appropriate that, as chairman, I should present a brief plea for the consideration of the library as one of the greatest factors in human progress. It has existed, though not in its present form or with its present functions, from the dawn of recorded civilization. It is itself the record of civilization; and without it there can be no records and no civilization. It is the repository, the custodian, the preserver of all the arts and sciences and the principal means of disseminating all knowledge. With the school and the church it forms the tripod necessary to the stable equilibrium of society. Let me briefly summarize the functions of the public library.
1. It doubles the value of the public school instruction, on which is expended more than ten times the cost of the library.
2. It enables the children who leave school at an early age (an overwhelming majority) to continue their education while earning their living. It provides for the education of the adults who have lacked or failed to utilize early opportunities. This is of special importance in a country like the United States, where one of the greatest political problems is the assimilation of a vast influx of ignorant foreigners of all races and languages.
3. It supplies books and periodicals needed for the instruction of artisans, mechanics, manufacturers, engineers, and all others whose work requires technical knowledge[6]—all persons on whom depends the industrial progress of the community.
4. It furnishes information and inspiration to ministers, teachers, journalists, authors, physicians, legislators—all persons on whose work depend the intellectual, moral, sanitary, political and religious welfare and advancement of the people.
5. It is the stimulus and the reliance of the literary and study clubs, which, especially among the women, have done much not only for individual self-culture but also for civic enlightenment and social betterment. This represents its numerous post-graduate courses, which are taken by constantly increasing numbers.