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PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS
OF THE
THIRTY-FIFTH ANNUAL
MEETING
OF THE
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
HELD AT
KAATERSKILL, N. Y.
JUNE 23-28, 1913

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
78 E. WASHINGTON STREET
CHICAGO, ILL.
1913

CONTENTS

KAATERSKILL CONFERENCE
JUNE 23-28, 1913

FIRST GENERAL SESSION
(Monday evening, June 23)

The PRESIDENT: The Thirty-fifth Annual Conference of the American Library Association begins this evening. Custom has decreed that the presiding officer shall deliver a message, and the present presiding officer has not sufficient independence of mind to depart from that long-established custom.

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS

The World of Print and the World's Work

I

Turning for a text to Victor Hugo's stirring epic of Paris, these words may be found in the section for May, and in the third chapter thereof:

A Library implies an act of faith
Which generations still in darkness hid
Sign in their night, in witness of the dawn.

When Johann Gutenberg in his secret workshop poured the molten metal into the rough matrices he had cut for separate types, the instrument for the spread of Democracy was created. When early Cavaliers and Puritans planted the crude beginnings of free public schools, the forces of Democracy were multiplied. When half a century ago the first meager beginnings of the public library movement were evolved, Democracy was for all time assured. Thus have three great stages, separated each by a span of two hundred years from that preceding, marked that world development whose ultimate meaning is not equality of station or possession, but equality of opportunity.

Not without stress and strife have these yet fragmentary results been achieved. Not without travail and difficulties will universal acceptance be accorded in the days to come. But no one may doubt the final outcome which shall crown the struggle of the centuries. The world was old when typography was invented. Less than five centuries have passed since then, and in this interval—but a brief period in the long history of human endeavor—there has been more enlargement of opportunity for the average man and woman than in all the time that went before. Without the instrumentality of the printed page, without the reproductive processes that give to all the world in myriad tongues the thought of all the centuries, slavery, serfdom and feudalism would still shackle the millions not so fortunate as to be born to purple and ermine, and fine linen.

II

The evolution of the book is therefore the history of the unfoldment of human rights. The chained tome in its medieval prison cell has been supplanted by the handy volume freely sent from the hospitable public library to the homes of the common people. The humblest citizen, today, has at his command books in number and in kind which royal treasuries could not have purchased five hundred years ago. In the sixteenth century, it took a flock of sheep to furnish the vellum for one edition of a book, and the product was for the very few; in the twentieth, a forest is felled to supply the paper for an edition, and the output goes to many hundred thousand readers. As books have multiplied, learning has been more widely disseminated. As more people have become educated, the demand for books has increased enormously. The multiplication of books has stimulated the writing of them, and the inevitable result has been a deterioration of quality proportioned to the increase in quantity. In the English language alone, since 1880, 206,905 titles of books printed in the United States, have been listed, and 226,365 in Great Britain since 1882. Of these 433,270 titles, 84,722 represent novels—36,607 issued in the United States and 48,115 in Great Britain. Despite the inclusion of the trivial and the unsound in this vast mass of printed stuff, no one can doubt the magnitude of the service performed in the advancement of human kind. The universities have felt the touch of popular demand, and in this country at least some of them have attempted to respond. Through correspondence courses, short courses, university week conferences, summer schools, local forums, traveling instructors, and other media of extension, many institutions of higher learning have given recognition to the appeal of the masses. Logically with this enlargement of educational opportunity, the amplification of library facilities has kept pace. The libraries have become in a real sense the laboratory of learning. Intended primarily as great storehouses for the accumulation and preservation rather than the use of manuscripts and books, their doors have been opened wide to all farers in search of truth or mental stimulus.

In a report to the English King, Sir William Berkeley wrote as governor of Virginia in 1642: "I thank God there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both."

Governor Berkeley's sentiments, expressed by him in turgid rhetoric, were held in his day by most men in authority, but that did not prevent the planting of little schoolhouses here and there, and men of much vision and little property bequeathed their possessions for maintaining them. Many a school had its origin in a bequest comprising a few milch kine, a horse or two, or a crop of tobacco; in some instances, slaves. From such beginnings, with such endowments, was evolved three hundred years ago the public system of education which today prodigally promises, though it but niggardly realizes, sixteen years of schooling for every boy and girl in the land.

If the span of years needed for the development of the free library system has been much shorter, the hostile attitude of influential men and the privations that attended pioneer efforts were no less marked. As recently as 1889 the writer of an article in the North American Review labeled his attack: "Are public libraries public blessings?" and answered his own question in no uncertain negative. "Not only have the public libraries, as a whole, failed to reach their proper aim of giving the means of education to the people," he protested, "but they have gone aside from their true path to furnish amusement and that in part of a pernicious character, chiefly to the young." And he added: "I might have mentioned other possible dangers, such as the power of the directors of any library to make it a propaganda of any delusive ism or doctrine subversive of morality, society or government; but I prefer to rest my case here."

And it was somewhat later than this that the pages of the Century gave space to correspondence in opposition to the establishment of a public library system for the city of New York.

These were but echoes of earlier antagonisms.

III

For the documentary material dealing with the beginnings of the public library movement, the searcher must delve within the thousand pages of a portly folio volume issued by the British government sixty years ago. If one possesses patience sufficient to read the immense mass of dry evidence compiled by a parliamentary commission and "presented to both houses of parliament by command of Her Majesty," some interesting facts in library history will be found. A young man of twenty-three, then an underling in the service of the British Museum, afterwards an eminent librarian, was one of the principal witnesses. Edward Edwards had the gift of vision. Half a century before public libraries became the people's universities, as they are today, his prophetic tongue gave utterance to what has since become the keynote of library aims and policies. Badgered by hostile inquisitors, ridiculed by press and politicians, he undeviatingly clung to his views, and he lived to see his prophecy realized.

Great libraries there had been before his day; remarkable as a storehouse of knowledge in printed form was, and is in our own day, the institution with which he was associated. But in these rich reference collections intended for the student of research, the element of popular use was lacking. To have suggested the loan of a single book for use outside the four walls of the library would have startled and benumbed everyone in authority—and without authority—from the members of the governing board to librarian, sub-librarians, and messenger boys. This stripling faced the members of parliament, and without hesitation proclaimed his thesis.

"It is not merely to open the library to persons who, from the engrossing nature of their engagements of business, are at present utterly excluded from it, but it is also that the library may be made a direct agent in some degree in the work of national education. Let not anyone be alarmed lest something very theoretical or very revolutionary should be proposed. I merely suggest that the library should be opened to a class of men quite shut out from it by its present regulations."

Then he added: "In such a country as this there should be one great national storehouse. But in addition to this, there should be libraries in different quarters on a humbler scale, very freely accessible."

One of the ablest members of parliament, William Ewart, of Liverpool, became intensely interested in the views expressed by young Edwards, and from that day was counted the consistent champion of library privileges for the common people. Largely through his instrumentality, aided by such men as Richard Cobden, John Bright and Joseph Brotherton, parliament passed an act "for the encouragement of museums." Out of this measure grew the later public libraries' act. This notable step was not accomplished without bitter opposition.

"The next thing we will be asked to do," said one indignant member on the floor of the House, "is to furnish people with quoits and peg-tops and footballs at the expense of taxpayers. Soon we will be thinking of introducing the performances of Punch for the amusement of the people."

Events in England influenced similar movements in the United States. In a letter to Edward Everett, in 1851, Mr. George Ticknor gave the first impetus to the establishment of a free public library in Boston—the first in the new world to be maintained permanently by the people for the people.

"I would establish a library which differs from all free libraries yet attempted," he wrote. "I mean one in which any popular books, tending to moral and intellectual improvement, shall be furnished in such numbers of copies that many persons can be reading the same book at the same time; in short, that not only the best books of all sorts, but the pleasant literature of the day, shall be made accessible to the whole people when they most care for it; that is, when it is new and fresh."

Sixty years after the date of Mr. Ticknor's letter, and chiefly within the last two decades of the period, the public library movement has assumed a place in public education, which, relatively, the public school movement attained only after three hundred years of effort. When Thomas Bodley died, in 1613, in all Europe there were but three libraries accessible to the public—the Bodleian, the Angelo Rocca at Rome and the Ambrosian at Milan. In 1841 the Penny Cyclopedia devoted about four inches of a narrow column to the subject of libraries, ancient and modern, and limited its reference to American libraries to one sentence, obtained at second hand from an older contemporary:

"In the United States of America, according to the Encyclopedia Americana, the principal libraries are, or were in 1831, that of Harvard College, containing 36,000 volumes; the Philadelphia Library, containing 27,000; that of the Boston Athenaeum, containing 26,000; that of Congress, containing 16,000, and that of Charleston, containing 13,000."

It is only since 1867 that the federal government has deemed it worth while to compile library statistics, and the first comprehensive figures were gathered in 1875. It is worth noting that then they embraced all libraries comprising 300 volumes, and that in 1893 no mention is made of collections containing less than a thousand volumes, while the most recent official enumeration makes 5,000 volumes the unit of consideration. From these official figures may be gleaned something of the extraordinary growth of libraries, both numerically and in size. In 1875, including school libraries there were 2,039 containing a thousand volumes, ten years later there were 4,026, ten years after that 8,000, and at this date there are in this class not less than 12,000, while the recorded number comprising three hundred volumes or more reaches the substantial total of 15,634, and 2,298 of these catalog in excess of 5,000 volumes each.

IV

These figures show phenomenal growth, but even more impressive are the facts that give their full meaning in detail. From a striking compilation issued in Germany by Die Brücke a few weeks ago, together with figures extracted by means of a questionnaire, supplemented by statistical material gathered by the Bureau of Education, the facts which follow have been deduced: Counting the great libraries of the world, the six continents abutting the seven seas possess 324 libraries whose book collections number in excess of 100,000 volumes each, and of these 79—or approximately one-fourth—are located in the Americas. Of the 79 American libraries 72 are in the United States, including university, public, governmental and miscellaneous institutions, with a combined collection of 19,295,000 volumes. If this statistical inquiry is pursued further, a reason becomes apparent why millions are starved for want of books while other millions seemingly have a surfeit of them. The rural regions, save in a handful of commonwealths whose library commissions or state libraries actively administer traveling libraries, the book supply is practically negligible. Even the hundreds of itinerating libraries but meagerly meet the want. All the traveling libraries in all the United States have a total issue annually less than that of any one of twenty municipal systems that can be named. The public library facilities in at least six thousand of the smaller towns are pitifully insufficient and in hundreds of them wholly absent. The movement to supply books to the people was first launched in the rural regions seventy years ago. Indeed the movement for popular education known as the American Lyceum, which forecast the activities of the modern public library just as the mechanics' institutes of Great Britain prepared the soil for them in that country, flourished chiefly in the less thickly settled centers of population. The early district school libraries melted away in New York state and Wisconsin and other states, and the devastated shelves have never been amply renewed. The library commissions are valiantly and energetically endeavoring to supply the want, but their efforts are all too feebly supported by their respective states. In this particular, the policy is that which unfortunately obtains as to all educational effort. More than 55 per cent of the young people from 6 to 20 years old—about 17,000,000 of them—live in the country or in towns of less than two thousand inhabitants. According to an official report from which this statement is extracted, there are 5,000 country schools still taught in primitive log houses, uncomfortable, unsuitable, unventilated, unsanitary, illy equipped, poorly lighted, imperfectly heated—boys and girls in all stages of advancement receiving instruction from one teacher of very low grade. It is plain why, in the summing up of this report, "illiteracy in rural territory is twice as great as in urban territory, notwithstanding that thousands of illiterate immigrants are crowded in the great manufacturing and industrial centers. The illiteracy among native-born children of native parentage is more than three times as great as among native children of foreign parentage, largely on account of the lack of opportunities for education in rural America." In Indian legend Nokomis, the earth, symbolizes the strength of motherhood; it may yet chance that the classic myth of the hero who gained his strength because he kissed the earth may be fully understood in America only when the people learn that they will remain strong, as Mr. Münsterberg has put it, "only by returning with every generation to the soil."

If the states have proved recreant to duty in this particular, the municipalities have shown an increasing conception of educational values. The figures make an imposing statistical array. In the United States there are 1,222 incorporated places of 5,000 or more inhabitants, and their libraries house 90,000,000 volumes, with a total yearly use aggregating 110,000,000 issues. Four million volumes a year are added to their shelves, and collectively they derive an income of $20,000,000. Their permanent endowments, which it must be regretfully said but 600 of them share, now aggregate $40,000,000. Nearly all of these libraries occupy buildings of their own, Mr. Andrew Carnegie having supplied approximately $42,226,338 for the purpose in the United States, and the balance of the $100,000,000 represented in buildings having been donated by local benefactors or raised by taxation.

The population of these 1,222 places is 38,758,584, considerably less than half that of the entire United States. Their book possessions, on the other hand, are nine times as great as those in the rest of the country; the circulation of the books nearly twelve times in volume. Closer analysis of these figures enforces still more strongly the actual concentration of the available book supply. The hundred largest cities of the United States, varying in size from a minimum of 53,684 to a maximum of 4,766,883, possess in the aggregate more books than all the rest of the country together, and represent the bulk of the trained professional service rendered. The great majority of the 3,000 graduates whom the library schools have sent into service since the first class was organized in 1887, are in these libraries and in the university libraries. Forty per cent of the books circulated are issued to the dwellers in these one hundred cities, and in fifteen of them the stupendous total of 30,000,834 issues for home reading was recorded last year. Without such analysis as this, the statistical totals would be misleading. The concentration of resources and of trained service in large centers of population, comparatively few in number, makes evident the underlying cause for the modern trend of library development. A further study of conditions in these human hives justifies the specialized forms of service which have become a marked factor in library extension within a decade. With increased resources, with vastly improved internal machinery, with enlarged conception of opportunity for useful service, have come greater liberality of rules and ever widening circles of activity, until today no individual and no group of individuals, remains outside the radius of library influence. If this awakened zeal has spurred to efforts that seem outside the legitimate sphere of library work, no undue concern need be felt. Neither the genius or enthusiasm of the individual nor the enterprise of a group of individuals will ever be permitted to go too rapidly or too far: the world's natural conservatism and inherited unbelief stand ever ready to retard or prevent.

V

Specialization has been incorporated into library administration chiefly to give expeditious and thorough aid to seekers of information touching a wide variety of interests—business men, legislators, craftsmen, special investigators and students of every sort. This added duty has not diminished its initial function to make available the literature of all time, nor to satisfy those who go to books for the pure joy of reading. The recreative service of the library is as important as the educative, or the informative. For the great mass of people, the problem has been the problem of toil long and uninterrupted. The successful struggle of the unions to restrict the hours of labor has developed another problem almost as serious—the problem of leisure. Interwoven with this acute problem is another which subdivision of labor has introduced into modern industrial occupations—the terrible fatigue which results from a monotonous repetition of the same process hour after hour, day after day, week after week. Such blind concentration in the making of but one piece of a machine, or a garment, or a watch, or any other article of merchandise, without knowledge of its relationship to the rest, soon wears the human worker out. There must be an outlet of play, of fun, or recreation. The librarian need not feel apologetic to the public because perchance his circulation statistics show that 70 per cent of it is classed as fiction. If he wishes to reduce this percentage to 69 or 68 or 61, let him do it not by discouraging the reading of novels, but by stimulating the use of books in other classes of literature. But well does he merit his own sense of humiliation and the condemnation of the critics if he needs must feel ashamed of the kind of novels that he puts upon his shelves. To quote a fellow librarian who expresses admirably the value of such literature, "A good story has created many an oasis in many an otherwise arid life. Many-sidedness of interest makes for good morals, and millions of our fellows step through the pages of a story book into a broader world than their nature and their circumstances ever permit them to visit. If anything is to stay the narrowing and hardening process which specialization of learning, specialization of inquiry and of industry and swift accumulation of wealth are setting up among us, it is a return to romance, poetry, imagination, fancy, and the general culture we are now taught to despise. Of all these the novel is a part; rather, in the novel are all of these. But a race may surely find springing up in itself a fresh love of romance, in the high sense of that word, which can keep it active, hopeful, ardent, progressive. Perhaps the novel is to be, in the next decades, part of the outward manifestation of a new birth of this love of breadth and happiness."

VI

Many of the factory workers are young men and young women, whose starved imaginations seek an outlet that will not be denied. In lieu of wholesome recreation and material, they will find "clues to life's perplexities" in salacious plays, in cheap vaudeville performances, in the suggestive pages of railway literature, in other ways that make for a lowering of moral tone. The reaction that craves amusement of any sort is manifest in the nightly crowded stalls of the cheap theaters. Eight million spectators view every moving picture film that is manufactured. It is estimated that one-sixth of the entire population of New York City and of Chicago attends the theaters on any Sunday of the year. One Sunday evening, at the instance of Miss Jane Addams, an investigation was made of 466 theaters in the latter city, and it was discovered that in the majority of them the leading theme was revenge; the lover following his rival; the outraged husband seeking his wife's betrayer; or the wiping out by death of a blot on a hitherto unstained honor. And of course these influences extend to the children who are always the most ardent and responsive of audiences. There is grave danger that the race will develop a ragtime disposition, a moving picture habit and a comic supplement mind.

VII

It is perhaps too early to point to the specialized attention which libraries have given to the needs of young people as a distinct contribution to society. Another generation must come before material evidence for good or ill becomes apparent. That the work is well worth the thought bestowed, whether present methods survive or are modified, may not be gainsaid. The derelicts of humanity are the wrecks who knew no guiding light. The reformatories and the workhouses, the penal institutions generally and the charitable ones principally, are not merely a burden upon society, but a reproach for duty unperformed. Society is at last beginning to realize that it is better to perfect machinery of production than to mend the imperfect product; that to dispense charity may ameliorate individual suffering, but does not prevent recurrence. And so more attention is being given prevention than cure.

I gave a beggar from my little store
Of well-earned gold. He spent the shining ore
And came again, and yet again, still cold
And hungry as before.

I gave a thought, and through that thought of mine,
He found himself a man, supreme, divine,
Bold, clothed, and crowned with blessings manifold,
And now he begs no more.

VIII

If numbers and social and industrial importance warrant special library facilities for children, certainly the same reasons underlie the special library work with foreigners which has within recent years been carried on extensively in the larger cities. Last month the census bureau issued an abstract of startling import to those who view in the coming of vast numbers from across the waters a menace to the institutions of this democracy. According to this official enumeration, in but fourteen of fifty cities having over 100,000 inhabitants in 1910 did native whites of native parentage contribute as much as one-half the total population. The proportion exceeded three-fifths in only four cities. On the other hand, in twenty-two cities of this class, of which fifteen are in New England and the Middle Atlantic divisions, less than one-third of the population were native whites of native parentage, over two-thirds in all but one of these cities consisting of foreign-born whites and their children.

In his Ode delivered at Harvard, Lowell eloquently referred to

"The pith and marrow of a Nation
Drawing force from all her men,
Highest, humblest, weakest, all,
For her time of need, and then
Pulsing it again through them,
She that lifts up the manhood of the poor,
She of the open soul and open door,
With room about her hearth for all mankind!"

This was written in 1865. Since then the rim of the Mediterranean has sent its enormous contribution of unskilled and unlettered human beings to the New World. There have been three great tides of migration from over-seas. The first came to secure liberty of conscience; the second sought liberty of political thought and action; the third came in quest of bread. And of the three, incomparably the greater problem of assimilation is that presented by the last comers. Inextricably interwoven are all the complexities which face the great and growing municipalities, politically and industrially and socially. These are the awful problems of congestion and festering slums, of corruption in public life, of the exploitation of womanhood, of terrible struggle with wretchedness and poverty. Rightly directed, the native qualities and strength of these peoples will bring a splendid contribution in the making of a virile citizenship. Wrongly shaped, their course in the life of the city may readily become of sinister import. Frequently they are misunderstood, and they easily misunderstand. The problem is one of education, but it is that most difficult problem, of education for grown-ups. Here perhaps the library may render the most distinct service, in that it can bring to them in their own tongues the ideals and the underlying principles of life and custom in their adopted country; and through their children, as they swarm into the children's rooms, is established a point of contact which no other agency could so effectually provide.

Under the repressive measures of old-world governments, the racial culture and national spirit of Poles, Lithuanians, Finns, Balkan Slavs, and Russian Jews have been stunted. Here both are warmed into life and renewed vigor, and in generous measure are given back to the land of their adoption. Such racial contribution must prove of enormous value, whether, as many sociologists believe, this country is to prove a great melting pot for the fusing of many races, or whether as Dr. Zhitlowsky contends, there is to be one country, one set of laws, one speech, but a vast variety of national cultures, contributing each its due share to the enrichment of the common stock.

IX

Great changes have come about in the methods that obtain for the exercise of popular government. In a Democracy whose chief strength is derived from an intelligent public opinion, the sharpening of such intelligence and enlargement of general knowledge concerning affairs of common concern are of paramount importance. Statute books are heavily cumbered with laws that are unenforced because public opinion goes counter to them. Nonenforcement breeds disrespect for law, and unscientific making of laws leads to their disregard. So the earliest attempts to find a remedy contemplated merely the legislator and the official, bringing together for their use through the combined services of trained economists and of expert reference librarians the principles and foundation for contemplated legislation and the data as to similar attempts elsewhere. Fruitful as this service has proved within the limitation of state and municipal officialdom, a broadened conception of possibilities now enlarges the scope of the work to include citizen organizations interested in the study of public questions, students of sociology, economics and political science, business men keenly alive to the intimate association—in a legitimate sense—of business and politics, and that new and powerful element in public affairs which has added three million voters to the poll lists in ten states, and will soon add eleven million voters more in the remaining thirty-eight. The new library service centering in state and municipal legislative reference libraries, and in Civics departments of large public libraries, forecasts the era, now rapidly approaching, when aldermen and state representatives will still enact laws and state and city officials will enforce them, but their making will be determined strictly by public opinion. The local government of the future will be by quasi-public citizen organizations directing aldermen and state legislators accurately to register their will. When representative government becomes misrepresentative, in the words of a modern humorist, Democracy will ask the Powers that Be whether they are the Powers that Ought to Be. To intelligently determine the answer, public opinion must not ignorantly ask.

X

This has been called the age of utilitarianism. Such it unquestionably is, but its practicality is not disassociated from idealism. The resources of numberless commercial enterprises are each in this day reckoned in millions, and their products are figured in terms of many millions more, as once thousands represented the spread of even the greatest of industries. But more and more, business men are coming to realize that business organization as it affects for weal or woe thousands who contribute to their success, must be conducted as a trust for the common good, and not merely for selfish exploitation, or for oppression. As the trade guilds of old wielded their vast power for common ends, so all the workers gave the best at their command to make their articles of merchandise the most perfect that human skill and care could produce. Men of business whose executive skill determines the destiny of thousands in their employ, are growing more and more to an appreciation of the trusteeship that is theirs. A humane spirit is entering the relationship between employer and employed. Great commercial organizations are conducting elaborate investigations into conditions of housing, sanitation, prolongation of school life, social insurance and similar subjects of betterment for the toilers; but a brief span ago they were concerned chiefly with trade extension and lowering of wages, all unconcerned about the living conditions of their dependents. They too are now exemplifying the possession of that constructive imagination which builds large and beyond the present. For results that grow out of experience and of experiment they also are in part dependent upon the sifted facts that are found in print. The business house library is a recent development, and in ministering in different ways to both employer and employed, gives promise of widespread usefulness.

XI

With the tremendous recent growth of industrialism and the rapid multiplication of invention, the manifest need for making available the vast sum of gathered knowledge concerning the discoveries of modern science has evolved the great special libraries devoted to the varied subdivisions of the subject. Munificently endowed as many of them are, highly organized for ready access to material, administered to encourage use and to give expert aid as well, their great importance cannot be overestimated. What they accomplish is not wholly reducible to statistics, nor can their influence be readily traced, perhaps, to the great undertakings of today which overshadow the seven wonders of antiquity. But there can be no question that without the opportunities that here lie for study and research, and—no less important—without the skilled assistance freely rendered by librarian and bibliographer, special talent would often remain dormant and its possessor unsatisfied. Greater here would be the loss to society than to the individual.

XII

Thus the libraries are endeavoring to make themselves useful in every field of human enterprise or interest; with books of facts for the information they possess; with books of inspiration for the stimulus they give and the power they generate. Conjointly these yield the equipment which develops the constructive imagination, without which the world would seem but a sorry and a shriveled spot to dwell upon. The poet and the dreamer conceive the great things which are wrought; the scientist and the craftsman achieve them; the scholar and the artist interpret them. Thus associated, they make their finest contribution to the common life. The builders construct the great monuments of iron and of concrete which are the expression of this age, as the great cathedrals and abbeys were of generations that have passed. Adapted as they are to the needs of this day, our artists and our writers have shown us the beauty and the art which the modern handiwork of man possesses. With etcher's tool one man of keen insight has shown us the art that inheres in the lofty structures which line the great thoroughfares of our chief cities, the beauty of the skylines they trace with roof and pediment. With burning words another has given voice to machinery and to the vehicles of modern industry, and we thrill to the eloquence and glow of his poetic fervor.

"Great works of art are useful works greatly done," declares Dr. T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, and rightly viewed the most prosaic achievements of this age, whether they be great canals or clusters of workmen's homes worthily built, or maybe more humble projects, have a greatness of meaning that carries with it the sense of beauty and of art.

In medieval days, the heralds of civilization were the warrior, the missionary, the explorer and the troubadour; in modern times, civilization is carried forward by the chemist, the engineer, the captain of industry, and the interpreter of life—whether the medium utilized be pen or brush or voice. Without vision, civilization would wither and perish, and so it may well be that the printed page shall serve as symbol of its supreme vision. Within the compass of the book sincerely written, rightly chosen, and well used are contained the three chief elements which justify the library of the people—information, education, recreation.

The urge of the world makes these demands; ours is the high privilege to respond.

The PRESIDENT: We have a very interesting ending to tonight's program in that we have secured from eminent men and women in the United States and Great Britain brief expressions touching our own work. A circular letter was sent to a number of these eminent ladies and gentlemen represented in professional and business life, to the following effect:

"Librarians realize that they can profit from seeing themselves 'as others see them.' At the coming annual conference of the American Library Association to be held in Kaaterskill, N. Y., it is planned to present to the assembled librarians of the United States and Canada brief messages from leading thinkers and recognized authorities in the arts, sciences and letters, and in public life, commenting upon such library activities as are related particularly with their own special interests. Each message may take the form either of criticism or suggestion. We shall esteem it a privilege if you will consent to contribute to this symposium. While we shall be glad to hear from you on any phase of library work which most appeals to you, we venture to suggest the following topic for your comment: (Here was inserted a specific topic suggested for individual discussion.)

Sincerely yours,

HENRY E. LEGLER,
President."

Most of these questions will be apparent as the answers are read. We have distributed these responses among a few of our own members who will serve as proxies for the most distinguished contributors to a program which the American Library Association, I believe, has ever had.

Selections from these letters were then read by Dr. Reuben G. Thwaites, Mr. C. B. Roden, Miss Mary Eileen Ahern and Mr. W. P. Cutter.

(The following is a list of the questions which were asked in these letters and the replies received follow.)

Are our public libraries succeeding in their effort to bring to men and women the "life more abundant?"

What can the library do to encourage the study of American history?

Should our public expect the library to supply all the "best sellers" hot from the press?

Are our public libraries making returns in service adequate to funds appropriated?

How could our tax supported public libraries be of greater usefulness to business men?

Is the negro being helped by our public libraries?

Does the public library do as much as it might to encourage the reading of the classics?

Is the public library helping to improve dramatic taste?

Is co-operation between the public school and the public library developing in the right direction?

Is the fiction circulated by our public libraries helping to enlighten the people on social and economic problems?

Is the public library a factor in the recent development of a public conscience?

Should the public library exercise censorship over the books it circulates?

What is a dead book?

What rank should the library have in the scale of the community's social assets?

What is your conception of the ideal librarian?

Is it wicked for our libraries to amuse people?

Are the art departments of our public libraries quickening the love for the beautiful?

Are our libraries helping to make better citizens of those from over-seas?

Is the modern city library engaging in activities outside its proper sphere, e. g., lectures, storytelling, art exhibits, victrola concerts, loan of pianola rolls, etc.?

Is the library doing as much as it might to be a true university to the people?

What do you consider the most valuable accomplishment of the public library movement in the past decade?

Need librarians apologize for circulating a large percentage of contemporary fiction?

New York, April 7, 1913.

Dear Mr. President:

You ask "what do you consider the most valuable accomplishment of the public library movement in the past decade?"

Answer—

The spread of the truth that the public library, free to all the people, gives nothing for nothing; that the reader must himself climb the ladder and in climbing gain knowledge how to live this life well.

ANDREW CARNEGIE.

Cornwall-on-Hudson, N. Y.,
April 11, 1913.

My father[1] has asked me to write to you in reply to your letter concerning the conference of the American Library Association to be held in Kaaterskill, N. Y. Neither my father nor I have any chance to see in any detail what our public libraries are doing to make life more abundant. One little incident, however, has come within my experience. The New York Public Library sends its discarded books to various hospitals and camps instead of destroying them. I have been able to get some of these discarded books for use in a Boys' Club here in Cornwall. They were well chosen for what I wanted and the boys have been responsive and interested in taking them out. This is simply one of the things that the public libraries are doing with the books they are through with and can use no more.

[1] Lyman Abbott.

Yours very truly,

BEATRICE VAIL ABBOTT.

London, England,
April 15, 1913.

In reply to your letter of April 1st, written on behalf of the American Library Association, I do consider that to a certain extent the fiction circulated in the public libraries of the United States does help to enlighten the people on social and economic problems. But I am bound to say that I think that we novelists might do a very great deal more in this direction if

we would avoid sentimentalizing the truth in order to make it seem more palatable, and also if we would adopt the habit of describing more completely the general social background against which our leading figures live and move.

Believe me, Yours faithfully,

ARNOLD BENNETT.

Drama League of America,
Chicago, Ill.

In the last three years the American people as a whole have begun to awaken to a realization of the vast importance of our amusements in the nation's life. We are realizing that we are far behind the other civilized countries in the development of our dramatic taste, and we are beginning to be uneasy over the danger of being too careless in regard to our recreation. The people at large are commencing to take a genuine interest in the problems presented by our theater, and the character of the plays they give.

We have arrived at a period of prosperity when we have time, at last, to pay attention to the arts, and especially the last to be developed, the dramatic art. We are uneasy over the conditions in our theaters today.

Vaguely the people as a whole are feeling around for one means or another to correct these conditions, to create a great national art and to restore drama to her proper place among the arts. One movement after another has aimed to meet these conditions—new theaters—municipal theaters, censorship laws,—every sort of reform. It has remained for the Drama League of America to place its finger upon the really vital issue. For the actual fault of the present situation lies with the easy going American public. You cannot create a New Theater without a public to support it; you cannot force art on an unwilling public no matter how large an A you use in spelling it. In fact, your reforms must begin the other side of the footlights; and if we are to have better plays upon our stage, if we are to do away with the meretricious plays now too frequently there, we must work with this great pleasure-loving good-natured public, and cultivate in it a taste for better drama.

We must create a demand for good drama and the supply will follow—the dramatist, actor and manager are only too willing to fall into line, if the public can be induced to refuse the worthless play and support better drama. The really vital and necessary thing is to secure a public which will enjoy and support good plays. Hence, it has become an important and basic matter to improve the dramatic tastes of the country. In fact, in the opinion of many, this is one of the great problems we have before us as a nation today.

Organized with this very object, the Drama League of America has worked for three years on the problem. In those three years it has discovered many things. One of these is, that there is a real and genuine response to the appeal of the written drama; that the message of the play need not be restricted to the city with a theater, but that through the printed play every community may be reached. Another point worked out by the league is the absolute assurance that the best and in fact the only way to improve the dramatic taste of the country is to inculcate a thorough knowledge of good drama—an intimate acquaintance with the best plays written. As many of these plays are rarely acted now, or if acted are confined to the big cities, the third point easily follows, that by means of the printed play we can gradually so inoculate the entire nation with a knowledge of good drama and what it really is that it will turn instinctively from the cheap and worthless play and demand better things. Consequently the first and most important matter is to make good drama accessible to every one. By spreading knowledge of the best plays of the past and present, all over the country, we are improving the dramatic taste of the nation and paving the way for better conditions in the theaters.

In this effort to increase the reading of plays the Drama League not unnaturally turned early in its career to the libraries, feeling itself largely dependent upon them for the full development of its work. The keenest response has come in return. Over 73 libraries are represented in our membership and keep on file the league literature. The testimony from these libraries is most encouraging. On every side we find the libraries eager to help in this development of public dramatic taste.

Since the only way to improve dramatic taste is by acquiring a thorough knowledge of plays, it is palpably apparent that the libraries can be the greatest possible help in this new movement. To illustrate concretely—The Drama League enters a medium sized town with one public library, inducing the two or three women's clubs to take up each a course in modern drama, interesting the teachers in the high school in the league's high school course, even persuading the grade school to do drama work with the younger pupils. Usually there are formed also several little reading circles. Of course, the first demand is for the published plays. The students flock to the libraries to get the desired dramas.

In Chicago the testimony has come many times that since the organization of The Drama League public interest has been so keen that the demand for dramas has been phenomenal. Is the library content merely to recognize this condition? By no means. The Drama Department has had to quadruple its supply, and even then is frequently obliged to hold the books in for reference only in order to meet the demand. But see what this has meant to the league to have that quadruple supply of the dramas demanded by its members. From Washington comes the testimony that the organization of the league has increased the demand for drama books; from Los Angeles came a large order for special dramas and reference books needed by our members. The Massachusetts State Library has offered to meet any demands made upon it. Librarians in various communities are officers and directors in this new movement.

May I suggest a few ways in which the libraries can help us? In the first place, it will be a real benefit to any community if its library will become a member of The Drama League and keep its literature on file. In this way the community is kept informed through the Drama League bulletins of the best current plays by its critical analysis; it has access also to the study courses and bibliographies on drama prepared by the league's experts. Secondly, it would be an inestimable help in this task of improving dramatic taste of the community if the library would be sure to have on hand all the dramas listed in our study and reading courses. Thirdly, if the libraries would arrange a handy shelf of worthy drama where "he who runs may read," where the passerby would be attracted by a drama and pick it up to read it, it might induce a taste for better plays, a knowledge of good drama in a previously heedless theater goer. In Evanston, Illinois, for three years this shelf has been maintained in the library by the Drama Club. Every few weeks a new selection of dramas is placed on this little book rack which stands near the main call desk. It is much used and very popular.

The library could also helpfully publish a separate list of its books on drama and dramas, or better yet arrange them in a separate section. Such a list is published yearly by the Evanston Library and several other libraries have recently adopted this plan—notably the Newberry Library, Chicago, and the Kansas City Library.

Another way in which the libraries can co-operate in raising dramatic taste, is by making it easy for the playgoer to read the dramas which have been published and are to be presented in his city. By co-operation with the Drama League the library might receive word in advance when a published worthy play is to be given in town. It could then see to it either that its copy of that play is withdrawn from circulation and held for reference only, or it could secure extra copies of the play to meet the extra demand. If it could be thoroughly understood that the library was doing this, interest in reading the play could be stimulated. For instance, the library could post a notice stating the coming of the play to town, side by side with the league bulletin or criticism of the play, and the announcement that it could be secured at the book shelf. With this active help of the libraries we might go far toward securing a trained dramatic taste on the part of our theater goers. There are several magazines of special value to the student of drama. It would be a very great help if the libraries made a special point of including these among their subscriptions and of listing them under the Drama Department—as for instance, the Drama Quarterly, and Poet Lore print in each issue a play which has never been printed in translation before, and which cannot be secured elsewhere. These are extremely valuable to the drama student. The Drama Quarterly, moreover, is especially adapted to the needs of the student of drama, and should be accessible to him. It aims to criticise the various books on drama and dramas of special excellence, also publishing notices of the most recent drama movements in this country and abroad. It is not used for league propaganda, but was taken over by The Drama League merely because it was in danger of being abandoned. Moreover, in Current Opinion and Hearst's Magazine are frequently printed very valuable portions of unpublished new plays. With every issue of L'Illustration is published a new French drama in French. It would be an excellent thing if the larger or better equipped libraries could excerpt the plays from these magazines and have them sewed up simply, each complete by itself, and kept with the other dramas. In this way the library could make an excellent modern drama department readily accessible to the league members, obtainable in no other way, and at very slight cost to the library.

A very important way in which the Library Association might help is one which may not be practical, but which your convention might be able to work out for us. It is in the nature of loan libraries. As we introduce our study courses into the small towns we frequently find no library facilities along our lines. One of our workers made an investigation of the Drama Department in libraries in small towns of five to ten thousand inhabitants in the Middle West, and found that without exception all of those she visited, had only Shakespeare and Faust, with occasionally a volume of L'Aiglon. It is easy to see how difficult it will be for clubs and individuals to take up a study of drama under such conditions. Is there any way in which the large state libraries can prepare a loan library at very slight cost, made up of books desired for this special work, which could be borrowed by the local library for the use of its clubs? Of course, in some states, as in Wisconsin and New York, and probably many others, this is covered by the traveling libraries; but there are very many where this is not so. Cannot the libraries go even farther in their effort to improve dramatic taste and meet the demand for dramas and books on dramas, a demand which the Drama League is attempting to create?

Several libraries in various cities, as notably Chicago and Washington, have opened their rooms for Drama League meetings. Cannot this be done in other cities? Surely any way in which you, as public institutions, can increase the interest in good drama, is a part of your proper function. The league work must go hand in hand with the libraries. Without you and your resources, your wisdom and your co-operation, we would be much crippled and sadly curtailed in our possibilities of achievements. On the other hand, now that the development of a national taste for better drama is becoming recognized as a necessity in order to effect any improvement in the conditions of our stage today, now that we fully recognize that the best way to create a better dramatic taste is by familiarity with the best in drama, now that we are working to make the reading of plays popular and wide spread, does it not become a very important branch of the library's activity to take every step possible to increase the reading of plays and the thorough knowledge of dramatic literature on the part of young and old?

The real opportunity is with the children. Here we can create a fine dramatic taste for the future, and here, too, the library can help. In your junior corner, can you not have the plays recommended on our junior list, as suitable for children in order that they may have them for their play acting? Can you not start a Junior League Drama Circle to read and act little children's plays, just as you have your story hour? In this way the library is helping us prepare the audiences of the future which shall not only support better drama, but being thoroughly inoculated with an instinctive dramatic taste, will positively demand worthy drama. So will the libraries and The Drama League, representing the universities, schools, clubs and individuals in general have aroused the public conscience to a realization of its responsibilities for the amusements of the people.

MARJORIE A. BEST (MRS. A. STARR BEST) President, Drama League of America.

The Macmillan Company, New York, N. Y.,

May 5, 1913.

In reply to your esteemed letter of May 2nd I may say that the matter which seems to me to be of the greatest interest to publishers, and possibly also to librarians, at the present time is the dissemination among the public at large of that correct information in regard to the ever increasing tide of new books which will enable the public to learn of really meritorious works which are published, and avoid the trash which is now being so freely distributed.

Almost the only way at the present time of reaching large numbers of book readers is through the libraries, and this seems sufficient excuse for bringing this, which seems to me to be the most important matter, to your notice and of begging that it may be given publicity among your fellow librarians in order that we may have suggestions for the solution of the difficulty.

Yours very truly,

GEORGE P. BRETT,
President.

Brown University, Providence, R. I.,

April 29, 1913.

In reply to your letter of April 21 I can only say that I am not familiar enough with the conduct of American libraries to make any new suggestions on the question you propose. I think the plan followed by the Providence Public Library is the best one to encourage the reading of the standard works of literature. It has, as you of course know, a pleasant room, easily accessible, in which attractive editions of the best authors can be read. Would it be feasible to supplement this plan by publishing, from time to time, interesting, short descriptions of standard books, giving prospective readers some notion of the subject and peculiar attraction of each—somewhat after the manner of publishers' alluring (or would-be alluring) notices of new books?

Yours sincerely,

W. C. BRONSON.

Northampton, Mass.,
May 16, 1913.

Your letter of the fourteenth, inviting me to contribute to a symposium of thought concerning library work in America and suggesting the topic, "What is your conception of the ideal librarian," does me great honor. But it brings to my mind very clearly my inability to offer a definition which I could possibly hope would be enlightening or stimulating to a convention of librarians.

The library work of our present day has expanded into such liberal bounds and taken on such a missionary, and at the same time scientific, spirit that one who is merely its beneficiary cannot give himself the hardihood to offer words of criticism or of counsel. I know no work which shows such splendid contrasts to what it was when I began life as does the profession of the public librarian and the professional conception of the library's mission to the world.

It has been my great joy and honor to bring up a large family whose members are now separated and busy in the world's work and it gives me great pleasure to say of them, as of myself, that the modern management of public libraries has made life worth incalculably more than it could have been under the limitations of forty years ago.

With every good wish I beg to remain ever

Yours truly,

GEORGE W. CABLE.

Santa Barbara, Cal.,
May 5, 1913.

It gives me great pleasure to attempt a brief answer to the question you suggest—"Is the fiction circulated by our public libraries helping to enlighten the people on social and economic problems?" I should be inclined to answer the question decidedly in the affirmative. In addition to the letters I receive from persons whose only access to modern fiction is through the public library, concerning my own work, I have, in the course of political campaigns, and in places in various parts of the country where I have made another sort of address, held many conversations with men and women in the audiences. These have interested me greatly. My own experience corroborates a fact to which I have heard several librarians attest (and it is to me the most hopeful phenomenon in our American life), that the American public—mainly through the libraries—is reading more widely and more intelligently than those who do not come into direct contact with a large portion of it guess. Four or five months ago I received a letter from a poor woman who lives on a farm near one of the larger towns of Massachusetts giving me a list of the books she had got from the library during the past year. She had read them all; and they included, in addition to two good biographies and Royce's "Loyalty," several of the best recent novels, both English and American, dealing seriously with the problems of modern life. And finally, the other day when I was in San Francisco, I had a long conversation with an ex-burglar who had served a term in the penitentiary, and who has reformed and has been for the last eight years making an honest living, on the subject of such novels as you mention. His comments on them were not only interesting but often valuable. His source was, of course, the public library. Hence, I am glad of this opportunity to pay my tribute to the librarian, and to express, as an American citizen, my appreciation of the work he is doing.

Sincerely yours,

WINSTON CHURCHILL.

Bureau of Education,
Washington, D. C.
April 29, 1913.

The public libraries have no better opportunity for effective service than that offered through generous and intelligent co-operation with the public schools and especially with the high schools and the highest grades of the grammar schools. Ideas and ideals gained through reading in childhood and youth effect the character more fundamentally and more permanently, and determine moral conduct for a longer time than ideas and ideals gained later. It should also be remembered that children have more time to read than men and women immersed in the strong current of adult life.

The public library in every city and town should be open on the freest terms to all school children and they should feel that they have the heartiest welcome to it. Not only should the teacher encourage children to use the library; librarians should invite them to do so and make all possible preparations to serve them. There should be in the libraries a sufficient number of reading rooms to accommodate children of different grades. In these should be assistant librarians who know the very best in literature for children and youth and who know also how to deal with children and how to make the rooms attractive. It is all important that the reading rooms and those in charge be attractive, respected, liked, and loved. It is especially important that children be led to read those things that have permanent and eternal value. No one should be permitted to direct the reading of children who thinks it necessary to have books written down to them or who does not know that the greatest books are the simplest and the most wholesome. The children's librarians should also be whole minded and whole hearted people with a broad and interesting knowledge of the world and life. It will be fatal if they are narrow, prejudiced, sectarian, or over-provincial.

The public library should have the services of one or more good story tellers who know the best stories of the world and can tell them in an interesting way. As often as once a week at least there should be a separate hour for all the children. The children should, of course, come in sections—primary, grammar grades, and high school.

In addition to the services rendered as here suggested at the library, all the children in school or out should have library cards and for the convenience of the children every school building should be made a branch library for the use of children at least. I see no reason why it should not also serve as a branch library for the older people. It would not cost much to have some one or more teachers at each school serve as librarians under the direction of the librarian of the central library. Through the branch library at the school many parents and other older members of the family could be reached who never can be reached through the ordinary central and branch library buildings. Attractive statements about books, especially new books should be sent to the parents by the children and books might be ordered and returned through the children. It would not be difficult to induce pupils and teachers to arrange reading circles and clubs among the adult members of families living near the school, the books used by the reading circles to be ordered from and returned to the school branch library. Teachers and principals would also be willing to arrange for weekly meetings for the members of these reading circles and clubs, the meetings to be held at the school. Certificates and diplomas might be given for the reading of certain groups of books.

The library should own in sets books helpful to teachers and children in their studies and should, at the request of superintendents and principals, place sets of these in the several schools for use in school, but not to be taken out except over night or over Saturdays and Sundays and holidays.

Libraries should also own large collections of illustrative pictures and lantern slides. These should be cataloged as books are and lists of them should be in the hands of school superintendents, supervisors, principals, and teachers. The pictures and slides should be loaned the schools freely upon their request. School officers and teachers should be asked to assist in selecting these and all other collections for the use of children.

The library should serve in this way not only the schools of the city, but also the country and village schools in the counties in which they are located. Through the country schools more good can be accomplished, frequently, than through the city schools. Country boys and girls are more eager to read than city boys and girls. They have more time for it and will read better books. The library should have a direct relation with every school and every teacher in the county. Of course, the county should pay for this service, but it should have it whether it pays for it or not. The city cannot afford to withhold it. The city depends on the country for its prosperity and life. The children now in the country will make up a large part of the population of the city twenty or twenty-five years from now.

In many places the public libraries are doing all these things to some extent; in no place to as great an extent as is possible. By using to the best advantage the opportunities here suggested, public libraries may double their usefulness.

Yours sincerely,

P. P. CLAXTON,
Commissioner.

New York City,
April 4, 1913.

The Negro American is being helped greatly by public libraries wherever he is given reasonable encouragement to enter them. Often in the North, he is not made to feel welcome in these libraries and in most of the public and private libraries of the South, he is rigorously excluded. It would seem that a statement from the American Library Association to the effect that the color line in literature is silly, is much needed at present.

Very sincerely yours,

W. E. B. DU BOIS.

Mayor's Office,
Boston, Mass.

Of course, the financial return for money expended to maintain a public library cannot be definitely stated, as may be done in connection with municipal activities which deal solely with material things.

It is impossible to trace along commercial lines the influence upon the community of an institution whose prime purpose is not profit, is not even a product that can be expressed in terms of dollars, but is the enlargement of the individual life, and the promotion of higher standards of citizenship.

On the lowest and most sordid plane however, an institution like the Boston public library is worth many times its cost to the city merely on account of the number of persons from abroad who are attracted to the building as an example of monumental architecture, or because it contains exceptional works of art in its mural decorations, or who visit it as a museum of rare and interesting books. These visitors number thousands yearly; many of them stay in the city for several days, and their entertainment and their expenditure of money while they remain, add to the commercial prosperity of the city.

In somewhat the same way, but on a much higher plane, directly within the scope of the library function, numbers of students are yearly drawn to the city by the advantages the library offers for intellectual research. And the library enhances the importance and value of the various schools and colleges within our borders, by enlarging their intellectual resources.

In other directions the value of the library to the community is evident. The fact that it is here adds something to the value of every estate in the city. Persons seeking a desirable place of residence prefer a city or town which has good schools and a well-equipped and adequately supported library to a place without these institutions, even if no direct use is made by such persons of either. The influence of a good library on the general conditions in a community is therefore a profitable asset.

In assimilating the different elements of a mixed and rapidly growing population, the work of the library is obvious, and its results far outweigh their cost. And the increased efficiency of individuals, which the library promotes, has its effect in inestimable public benefits. For example, to take a single possible case out of many, here is a young man without money or influence but who has talent which, if properly fostered may become the source of power. Through the opportunities for study given by the public library he perfects an invention, or writes a poem, or enters a useful profession by means of which he ministers to the comfort and enjoyment of his fellow-men and confers honor upon this city. How can one over-estimate the social value of such lives, or the part which the library has played in their development? Such instances are by no means few, and unquestionably they supply an affirmative answer to the question as to whether or not the library is making an adequate return for its cost.

JOHN F. FITZGERALD.

Chicago, Illinois,
May 10, 1913.

Your question, "Is the fiction circulated by our public library helping to enlighten people on social and economic problems?" is one which I can answer promptly and affirmatively. Looking at fiction in the mass, it is without doubt an enormous educational influence. Leaving out of view for the moment the historical novel, or the sociologic novel, and taking merely the local novel, the novel which vividly portrays the life of a special village, or country, or nation, we find it of the greatest service in teaching the people of one country, or class, how the people of other countries and other classes live. Such books bring the ends of the earth together. They unite the north and the south, the east and the west, in common sympathy and understanding. They contribute very largely to the higher patriotism, as well as to the profounder social brotherhood.

It would be easy to criticise fiction for other and less valuable content, but speaking generally, I believe it to be second only to the stage in its power to affect the young student of life and manners.

Very sincerely yours,

HAMLIN GARLAND.

Ithaca, N. Y.,
May 16, 1913.

You ask for comment—as "related particularly with their own special interests" and at the risk of being charged with "talking shop," I have been brutally frank. Yet I hope it will cheer these splendid workers for civilization.

The library is not "doing as much as it might to be a true University to the People." Books alone will not attract the insensitive or indifferent, nor will handsome buildings. Equal to other necessity of the library to be "a true university to the people," is that of arousing interest, awakening curiosity and alluring into path ways that lead to books and reading. I know of nothing better than to have cheap, popular, illustrated lecture courses that constantly refer to books and the special theme.

Does the local librarian or do active directors, attempt seriously to tap the knowledge of the local specialist, professional man, or public spirited speaker? Do the library people emphasize the necessity of close, personal contact, as far as possible, with the individuals and with the people? Libraries must be more human. No machinery, or salaried personnel, however costly or efficient, within chosen lines of activity, can do without that same human sympathy, which in other professions, is known to outweigh in value, all edifices, or the paid professional corps; yes, even in religion or philanthropy. Not all, but most libraries—and I have looked in, and at, and around many—are too self-centered.

Yet with this criticism, honestly called for and as honestly given, none can appreciate the librarian more than I. To guide youthful reading, warning as well as advising and alluring them to high flights, is to make the librarian's calling second to none in our complex civilization.

With all good wishes to the librarians of the United States and Canada.

Sincerely yours,

WILLIAM ELIOT GRIFFIS.

P. S. Every library should have a lecture hall and not be afraid even of the "fit audience though few."

Clark University,
Worcester, Mass.,
May 17, 1913.

My experience is a long one with university libraries, but I have had far less to do with public libraries.

The greatest need of the specialist and expert is help in finding all, and especially the latest, often very scattered, literature on the special point on which he is conducting his research, and I believe that in the future every academic library will have a few specialists with a good knowledge of languages, of Ph. D. rank, who can do just this. We have one such here, to whom my work owes more than to anybody else. If I ask her to find me, e. g., all the recent references on a topic, be it ever so special, including perhaps a score of archives and special journals, back for three or five years as I may specify, up to the latest arrival, I get this list, which always includes many things our library does not have, then take it to the librarian, who can generally get about everything by borrowing far and near. These, together with the resources here, are placed upon a table in an alcove where I can work or take the books home. This makes a perfectly ideal condition, and it is at the same time indispensable for advanced special work, and everything in a university library should be plastic to this end.

A public librarian, it seems to me, should study all the changing interests in a community or in special parts of it, and be able to print in the daily press whenever any topic is prominent a little article telling in a few lines the point of a few books or articles; e. g. a manual training high school is opened. The daily paper should state that the library has a good collection of literature up to date on that subject (if it has), and give a few points from a few of the best books, naming them. A few titles are not enough.

Another point that interests me greatly is the library story telling. I think more should be done, not less, in this line for children, and that books illustrating topics in geography, history, etc., should be not only laid before teachers but that the classes should meet there and have the things shown to them. Why does not the public library go into some of the wonderful illustrative material in the above and other topics, which is so characteristic of German schools, and of which American schools know almost nothing? Our educational Museum here has lately spent thousands of dollars and collected thousands of these illustrations all the way from wall pictures to bound pictures, illustrating material from primary grades up into college, which we loan as we do books to teachers, parents and others. There is a very great new departure possible here. Why does not your Association look into this? It has been a great find for us. And about everything in our large collection and its use, to my mind, might be done by public libraries although none of them that I know of has done much of anything along that line. I am

Very truly yours,

G. STANLEY HALL.

The University of Chicago,
Chicago, May 16, 1913.

While I am not at all a specialist in library science and art, I am daily a debtor to your profession. In answer to the question—"What rank should the library have in the scale of the community's social assets?"—I should indicate the following hints of an argument: The income of every family is increased by the possession and use of a public library. This item is never found set down in the accounts of a family as a part of their income, and the students of budgets are too apt to overlook it; but all communal property, as lake fronts, parks, playgrounds, public schools, public free libraries and reading rooms, are so much addition to the enjoyments of all who have the taste and inclination to use them. As the library contains the very best thoughts of the greatest men and women of all time, I should say that the public free library is among the very highest possessions of the people.

When we consider the dangers of idleness or of a depraved use of leisure, and when we consider the splendid opportunity of spiritual growth which comes from intelligent and systematic daily use of the library, we must place this institution among the highest agencies of social amelioration and progress. Every year sees improvement in the administration of this noble trust by the professional custodians and administrators. There is manifest everywhere a spirit of courtesy, patience and enterprise, which does honor to this branch of the profession of educators. The librarian and his assistants are colleagues of instructors in all institutions of every grade, and those of us who are teaching feel ourselves to be under profound obligations to our companions in service.

Sincerely yours,

CHARLES RICHMOND HENDERSON.

Chicago, April 7, 1913.

I have your letter of April 2nd in which you are good enough to ask me to write a few lines on the topic: "Should the public library exercise censorship over the books it circulates?"

I suppose there is no question that the good public library should have somewhere in its shelves all books of serious intent, and should circulate in a restricted and properly guarded way any book no matter what its subject matter. So the question comes down to the propriety of circulating generally without restriction all sorts of books. I should hesitate to say that a public library should exercise no supervision over its circulation, although I myself have suffered from what I consider unjust and unmerited notoriety—due to the prescient sensibilities of certain librarians, as you know. But when you will admit the principle of censorship, the matter is a delicate one, of course. It would seem to me, for example, unwise to circulate freely books of medicine. As to fiction—or what publishers call "the general list" of books, I think an intelligent librarian should hesitate a long time before putting on his or her index expurgatorius any publications vouched for by the imprint of a reputable publishing firm. For such books have actually passed a severe censorship before being put out. I realize it is all a personal matter, for what to me is good red meat may be poison to my brother. I think, for instance, that such a novel as The Rosary is infinitely more pernicious than the Kreutzer Sonata, La Terre, or Germinal, but the average librarian wouldn't. So I am afraid the matter will have to stand just where it is today—a book will be censored as unfit or unclean according to the whim of the individual librarian. Presumably the public librarian is at least abreast of, if not superior in culture and idealism to his community, and as our communities improve our librarians will become persons of wider intelligence and culture than they are now in some cases and exercise their censorial powers with more real discrimination.

Apropos of this matter you may be interested to know that a few months ago the New York Post in an editorial protest against certain young American realists and their treatment of sex—instanced Mr. Howells and myself as examples of "clean American reticent realism!" This, after all the roar over "Together" is an amusing illustration of growth in critical opinion. Mr. Howells sent me the editorial but I haven't it with me.

Truthfully,

ROBERT HERRICK.

P. S. My own views on the proper treatment of sex in fiction will be briefly touched upon in an article on American fiction to be printed in the Yale Review before long.

Chicago, May 17, 1913.

You ask me "is the fiction circulated by our public libraries helping to enlighten the people on social and economic problems?" That is a question which a librarian can answer better than any author. In general, it seems to me, magazine fiction is doing more in that line than book fiction. Some of the greatest circulations ever attained by periodicals have been built upon a shrewd knowledge of the American materialism. One editor voices it:—"Americans are interested about two-thirds in business, and one-third in love." That editorial policy has won in this country.

As to social and economic problems, more properly considered, I don't think fiction is doing much for the people. This really is the fault of the people, or of human nature, or rather of American human nature. I think we are one of the most neurotic and hysterical people in the world, which means that presently we shall be one of the most swiftly decadent people in the world. For this reason, we have sudden fashions in fiction. Just now we like to read about "action" of heroic sort—precisely as we pay to see baseball games instead of playing baseball ourselves. Also, we are for the time given over to a wave of erotic fiction, just this side of indecent. At one time we were crazy over historical fiction, before that, over dialect fiction, before that over analytical fiction. Therefore, I should say that our book fiction does not and cannot do much in the way of handling social and economic problems at the present day. Once in a while, we have a political novel, machine-made, and like all other political novels. Sometimes, we get a business novel, in turn like all other business novels. We don't have really very many thoughtful novels good enough to be called big. I fancy it would not pay authors to write them, or public libraries to buy them. We are having a period of business and political sack cloth and ashes, but, drunk or sober, broke or prosperous, the American character seems to me annually to grow more hectic and hysterical, and less inclined to care for big things and good stuff. Part of this is the fault of our newspapers, but most of it is our own fault. We care for making money and for little else, and we spend money whether we have it or not. The public libraries would be the natural agency for correcting some of these things, but frankly I don't know how they could do it.

Yours very truly,

EMERSON HOUGH.

New York City.

Why should not the libraries amplify the work they are already doing by the promotion of the public schools as well as libraries as social and civic centers? Schoolhouses should be constructed with all equipments for branch libraries, just as they are now equipped with gymnasiums and baths. The library should not be an accident in the public school; it should be an integral part of it. The schoolhouse is the natural place for the library. To it the children come daily—little messengers who would secure books from printed slips for their parents, too tired or too distant from the library to serve themselves. The library should be the school rest and reading room. It would relieve the tedium of regular school work. It would lend variety to education; it would enrich it and beautify it.

In addition, great economy would be effected by converting the school into a library; there would be a saving in construction, in maintenance, in operation. The fine social sense of the modern librarian would have a reaction on education and would lead to other activities being introduced into the schools.

The American library is the model of the world in many ways. It has led the movement for the widening of public services to old and young. It is one of the most inspirational achievements of the American city, and it could do a substantial service by promoting the social center idea, which is so actively engaging the minds of people all over the country.

(Signed) FREDERIC C. HOWE.

New York, N. Y.
April 30, 1913.

In response to your kind invitation to send a brief message on the subject—"Can public libraries legitimately attempt amusement as well as instruction of the people?" I would reply to the affirmative. If literature is an art, and if libraries are to be as they should be—reservoirs of literature—they surely cannot be complete without giving an important place to arts' most human appeal, amusement. The novel, invented to amuse, stands today as the vital force in literature. Of course, by "amusement" I do not mean a vaudeville. Shakespeare wrote to amuse; and if he does not offer a popular line today it is because modern writers are better chosen to amuse our century. Indeed, if you remove the fiction department—the amusement section—from your library you reduce it to the plans of a machine—an admirable machine, perhaps—but without a human soul to drive it.

Sincerely yours,

WALLACE IRWIN.

Carnegie Institution of Washington,

Washington, D. C.,
June 5, 1913.

The specific question which you propound, "What can the library do to encourage the study of American history?" is one which I suppose must have very different answers for different sorts of libraries. In the case of libraries of moderate size in small cities, it has sometimes appeared to me that the money used in the purchase of books on American history was too exclusively used in buying the less expensive sort of books, those in one or two or three volumes, of which it is perfectly easy to get a considerable number out of each year's appropriations; while on the other hand, the purchase of certain books of value in expensive sets was never made, because it could not easily be made in any one given year. If the purchasing policy were given a somewhat longer range, extending over several years, one might plan to redress this inequality. To avoid speaking as if I were recommending any one long set of Americana for purchase, let me adduce as an instance a library of forty or fifty thousand volumes with which I am familiar which has in the past twenty years bought a great many books of English history, without ever yet having afforded the purchase of the Dictionary of National Biography, obviously because it was too large a morsel for any one year's budget.

If I were to proceed to make any suggestion for the larger libraries, I might select for comment the relative lack of co-operation among such libraries in respect to the pursuit of the more expensive specialties. It is plain that the interest of students are, in respect to restricted specialties of this class better served on the whole by their being able to find relatively complete collections in one place, rather than scattered fragments of such collections in various places. The ambition of libraries for possession might well be tempered by some closer approach to systematic organization of these things, whereby certain ones should be recognized as belonging plainly in the field of a certain library without competition on the part of the others. I am speaking, of course, of things which only a few students are seeking, and which they must expect to seek by travel, and not of those things for which there is a separate effective demand in every large city.

May I also suggest the question whether it is not a legitimate use of the funds of a public library to pay recognized experts, resident in its city or summoned from elsewhere, to go over the shelves relating to a particular subject and carefully signalize those gaps which are almost certain to occur; to name, in other words, any important books which have been omitted but which are necessary to make the collection a well-rounded one for the needs of the particular locality as the librarian sees them. I think also that university and college libraries are particularly in need of such periodical redress, because professors are so prone to request books needed for the immediate purposes of their classes, and to exhaust their appropriations by such requests, forgetting the need of building up rounded collections for general purposes; and the librarian, on his part, feels a certain delicacy about suggesting books for which the professor has evinced no desire, though often he will agree they were desirable, if their absence were called to his attention. Believe me

Very truly yours,

J. F. JAMESON.

Hadley, Mass.,
May 20, 1913.

I have your recent letter asking for some brief comment on such phase of library work as most appeals to me.

At present, in accord with the trend of current thought in other matters, I am inclined to lay stress on efficiency; and under that head I would urge that librarians, especially in the smaller places, do much strenuous and persistent weeding among the books that find their way to the shelves. Feed the furnace with the books that are no longer useful in your particular library, or in some other way absolutely dispose of them.

Much of the fiction, both for grown-ups and young people, should go, after the first interest in it has waned. Many also of the information books decline in value with the passing years and should not remain a permanent incubus. Very few of the government publications are of practical use in the average library.

We have altogether too much veneration for printed matter. Library housecleanings to discard the literary rubbish and misfits are a real need. Quality is decidedly more important than quantity, if you would have charm and the widest usefulness.

Yours very truly,

CLIFTON JOHNSON.

April 11, 1913.

In response to your kind letter of April 5th, and after refreshing my mind by consultation with librarian friends, with your kind permission I may say a word on the theme, "That librarians should sometimes take account of stock," that they should consider the reasons for their existence and find out how nearly their present day activities coincide with the purposes for which they are established.

With one or two notable exceptions public libraries in the United States are a development of the last quarter of the 19th Century. Until about 1895, or possibly 1900 the efforts of librarians were directed toward perfecting methods of administration, cataloging, etc. Then having arrived at mutual agreement as to forms of procedure they devoted themselves more and more to library extension. They realized that only fractions of their respective communities were in touch with the libraries. In a city of 400,000 inhabitants perhaps 40,000 or 10 per cent would make use of library privileges, and the circulation of a million volumes per year meant the use of only 2½ books per year for each inhabitant. Then commenced the era of branch libraries, deposit stations, libraries in schools, libraries in factories, in fire-houses; a resort to every possible means to extend usefulness of the library throughout the whole community. Not satisfied with these expedients other forms of extension are being adopted. I am told that "one library publishes a weekly paper heralding the advantages of its city. It has established a business man's information branch, compiled an index to the products manufactured within the city, and holds itself ready to give information as to where the best tennis balls, suit cases and everything else can be purchased." Undoubtedly this is a public convenience, but it seems to be getting a little away from original library purposes. There is a tendency for libraries to so scatter their energies that they lose sight of the main objects of their being. They exhibit the same tendency which can be seen in the curricula of many colleges which offer courses upon every conceivable subject, the lasting value of which to those who pursue them is certainly questionable.

Libraries are not exempt from the prevalent tendency of municipal, state and federal agencies to extend their activities and increase the burden of taxes. It is safe to say that in many public libraries the budgets have been more than doubled in the last 15 years. It is a question whether the real service to the community has gained in proportion. It is not necessary to make hourly deliveries to downtown delivery stations of the latest thing in fiction, but it is essential that the libraries should do their utmost to maintain ideals. The library which has set apart in a separate room a collection of standard literature has performed a notable service for its community and furnished an example worthy of imitation. It is a part of the best work of the library to assist in perpetuating only that which is worthy of survival.

Very truly yours,

DAVID STARR JORDAN.

The French Embassy,

Washington, D. C.,
May 8, 1913.

On the question you put me: "Are our libraries helping to make better citizens of those from over-seas?" I must decline to give an answer. It would be somewhat bold on the part of one who is not himself a citizen of this country and whose opportunities have been scant, for studying such a problem, to express an opinion.

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.

Chicago, April 9, 1913.

In reply to your letter of April 5, 1913, would say—The modern city library is covering a most desirable field in meeting the needs of a large element of the public, which looks to it almost exclusively for information along library and allied lines. A popular library should be able to supply information on all subjects of a general character and should not proceed along lines of reference facilities except in a general way. This ground is covered by private gifts and educational institutions. The city library should, it seems to me, be constituted along liberal lines, adapted to entertain as well as instruct. Any means adapted to stimulate the public desire for the use of its privileges properly guarded, cannot fail to be of general benefit. Thus lectures, story telling, art exhibits, and even victrola concerts, loan of pianola rolls, etc., may serve to induct the mind into the wealth of knowledge embraced within its wonderful collection of books. The portals of the city library should be made insidiously alluring, with the expectation that once within them, the reader will go farther.

Very truly yours,

C. C. KOHLSAAT.

Northampton, Mass.,
June 12, 1913.

To My Fellow Workers in Libraries,
Greetings:

I always feel a little bashful when I go into a strange library as I sometimes do and happen on a librarian who confronts me with things I say about librarians in the "Lost Art of Reading." Usually I speak up quite quickly and say to a librarian, "Oh, but you know I do not mean YOU!"

But in speaking as I am now to all the librarians there are in the United States and Canada this seems to be inconvenient.

I am afraid that if there were any nice thoughtful benignant way of taking each librarian in this great mass meeting, of all the librarians there are, one side and whispering to him quietly, "Oh, but you know I do not mean YOU," I would probably do it!

But being driven to it and being faced out this way as I am today, two or three thousand to one, there seems to be nothing for it but to face the music and to look you in the eye a minute and say once for all, "I DO mean you, I mean each of you and all of you," and I accuse you of not taking immediate, powerful and conclusive steps to convince donors of libraries and the public of the rights of librarians, of your right to perform your duties under decent, spiritual conditions as members of a high and spirited calling, as professional men and women, as artists and as fellow human beings and not as overworked, under-assisted, weary servants of books.

The charges against the library donors and managers that I brought out in my new book "Crowds," more particularly the chapters, "Mr. Carnegie speaks up," and "Mr. Carnegie tries to make people read," are charges that are going to be answered most successfully by people who admit that they are largely true and who will then proceed tomorrow, before everybody, to turn them into lies. The sooner the librarians and trustees and public men of this country proceed to make what I am saying today about public libraries hopelessly ridiculous and out-of-date, the sooner I will be happy.

If I were to move into a strange community and wanted to be a valuable citizen in it, the first thing I would do would be to go to the public library and ask the librarians and their assistants this question, "Who are the interesting boys in this town?"

If the librarians could tell me I would linger around, and in one way or another, get acquainted with those boys, follow them up and see what I could do to connect them with the men with the books, and ideas and ambitions and opportunities that belong to them.

If the librarians could not give me a list of such boys I would ask them why.

If they told me that they had not time to attend to such things I would ask the trustees why.

If the trustees had not selected librarians naturally interested in boys and books and had not provided such librarians with the necessary assistants so they would have time and spirit to do such things I would turn to the people and I would challenge the people to elect trustees for their library who knew what a library was for.

I sometimes think of the librarian in a town as the Mayor Of What People Think, and if he does not have time to read books and to love ideas and inventions in himself and in other people and does not take time to like boys and get the ideas and boys together, he cannot be in a town where he lives, a good Mayor Of What People Think.

We shall never have great libraries in the United States until the typical librarian exalts his calling and takes his place in our modern life seriously—as the ruler of our civilization, the creator of the environment of a nation and as the dictator of the motives and ideals of cities, the discoverer of great men and the champion of the souls of the people.

I candidly ask you all: What is there that can be done in America in the way of letting librarians keep on being folks?