,,library ,,ideals ,illustration3 ,henry ,e4 ,legler ,,library ,,ideals ,,by ,,henry ,e4 ,,legler ,compiled and ,edited by ,his ,son1 ,,henry ,m4 ,,legler4 ,,chicago33 ,,london ,,the ,,open ,,court ,,publishing ,,company #aiah ,,copyright ,,by ,,the ,,open ,,court ,,publishing ,,company #aiah ,,printed ,,in ,,the ,,united ,,states ,,of ,,america ,,contents ,preface ,,vii ,the ,problem of the ,cities #a ,certain ,phases of ,library ,extension #aj ,next ,steps #ba ,the ,world of ,print and the ,world's ,work #cf ,library ,work ,with ,children #eg ,traveling ,libraries #fd ,administration of ,library ,funds #gc ,,preface ,wisconsin1 a true cradle of freedom and successful government1 has fostered several librarians who were true humanists4 ,dr4 ,peckham was one4 ,dr4 ,thwaites was another4 ,henry ,e4 ,legler was unlike either of these1 but greater than either in his continued and unabated activity for the good of the people4 ,once1 on being complimented for his splendid work in natural history and his persistence in the pursuit of scientific facts1 ,dr4 ,peckham remarked3 ,oh1 yes1 but the facts have no value in themselves4 ,they merely build up the groundwork of the ideas1 and help you climb to the point of view where the deeper aspects of the subject spread out before you like a landscape beneath a mountain-top4 ,mr4 ,legler's activity in behalf of libraries will support the same explanation4 ,he seemed always immersed in detail1 always planning some movement and carrying it into effect by his peculiar1 dynamic persistence4 ,but he who observed the man kindly and closely cannot have failed to have noticed that there was a distinct ,beyond illumining and overshadowing it all4 ,there was a dream to come true1 a vision to be unfolded4 ,the dream and vision were in the man's speech and eye4 ,he lived under a prophecy4 ,it is not for us to estimate whether this prophecy became fulfilled in his life as one of us4 ,but it is our privilege to confess that it brought to us the things which ,europeans have designated as culture and which really is enlightenment4 ,thus it is that many of ,mr4 ,legler's associates and friends will recollect with gratitude that some gave them knowledge1 and others gave them opportunities1 but it was for ,mr4 ,legler to illumine their knowledge and opportunity with the live spark of inspiration4 ,the dream was in his eye1 inspiration was in his speech and manner4 ,library work was the means in his power of making his fellow-men ever more free and happy1 ever more master of themselves1 ever more capable of being guided1 not by fear and never by prejudice1 but by a live responsibility to the spirit within them4 ,personally1 though a most assiduous worker at his official desk in ,milwaukee1 ,madison or ,chicago1 he always thought of escaping and of seeking some quiet spot in the wilderness--where1 doubtless1 he hoped to view his work from above4 ,how many librarians nowadays have such a hope8 ,of his method with the men and women of his age many of us will retain unforgettable memories4 ,he was prompt1 precise1 perhaps even brief1 but invariably gracious4 ,his ,italian ancestry told in the inimitable grace he unfolded to kindred spirits in confidence4 ,we never were in doubt of the things he admired and fostered4 ,we never felt there were hidden recesses of doubt and perplexity behind his sympathies4 ,his grace of manner never was marred by contact with less enlightened surroundings4 ,it is inimitable and unforgettable how he would pause in the midst of some matter of the moment1 to plunge into some subject which he knew would interest and benefit the other person4 ,and how grateful he was to strike a vein of gold in a seemingly unpromising human ore6 ,secretary of the ,milwaukee ,board of ,education1 and ,secretary of the ,wisconsin ,free ,library ,commission1 ,mr4 ,legler was already well versed in official service when chosen ,librarian of the ,chicago ,public ,library4 ,he had declined several offers of important posts before that time1 because the work he would give called for perfect freedom to work out the problems as he saw them4 ,wisconsin had given him this freedom4 ,chicago promised it--and kept her promise4 ,there was sufficient prestige within the ,chicago ,public ,library to warrant respect for1 and liberal support of1 its work1 but the public estimate of this prestige was lacking4 ,other large cities possess this estimate in varying degree4 ,chicago--not its library--had fallen behind4 ,the effect of ,mr4 ,legler's presence in ,chicago has been most fortunate for all concerned4 ,he took his place in public affairs naturally and effectively4 ,the library's prestige grew in public recognition as the work of himself and his associates progressed4 ,he gave all--and they accepted all1 naturally and easily4 ,but the giving and taking required all his bodily strength4 ,he knew that an easier life was possible1 but his humanity could not accept the easier form1 and so the strength gave out4 ,but the spirit remains4 ,mr4 ,legler gave valuable contributions to historical investigation and to literary criticism1 and he has published notable contributions to the elucidation of ,american forms of life4 ,his contributions to library science and the art of books have been in part collected in the volume herewith presented4 ,the main purpose in collecting them in the present form is to convey their purposes to the friends who like to remember the mind out of which they grew--and to perpetuate to others a memory of that burning zeal1 that aspiring enthusiasm1 that radical idealism1 which animated ,mr4 ,legler in choosing the library as the place where true humanism may be fostered and ,american enlightenment may flourish4 ,whatever began in the course of time--if of the ,spirit of ,truth and ,love1 it will be in time completed4 ,j4 ,,christian ,,bay4 ,,the ,,problem ,,of ,,the ,,cities ,uncle ,sam's last tabulation of his people holds within its maze of figures a basis for prophecy1 as well as a summary of the present1 and a comparison with the past4 ,for those who are concerned with the making of an intelligent citizenship1 perhaps the striking and significant fact is not the marvelous industrial development of the country1 but rather the amazing growth of the cities4 ,it needs no searching analysis to give emphasis to the sinister elements which are embodied in this bare statement4 ,it means an approach to that critical period in the history of popular government when wise leadership and extension of education alone can serve to avert threatened disruption4 ,upon the people who are near to the soil will devolve the task of holding in balance the restless and turbulent elements which now make up so large a proportion of the dwellers in cities4 ,the modern growth of the city1 with all that this movement in population implies1 must be reckoned with everywhere4 ,greater ,new ,york has a population exceeding that of any state in the ,union except its own4 ,chicago has within its city limits more people than any of forty states4 ,the ten leading cities comprise together one-eighth of the total population of the ,united ,states4 ,if ,new ,york ,city and ,chicago and their conditions are extreme manifestations1 it must be taken into account that in perhaps not to exceed a quarter and at most a half century1 this growth cityward will be duplicated in every section of the ,united ,states4 ,there are now #eh cities in the ,united ,states each counting more than #ajj1jjj population1 eight of them in excess of half a million each2 there are #ahj cities more each counting from #be1jjj to #ajj1jjj inhabitants4 ,it is hard to realize the rate of urban growth4 ,in spite of the opening of vast tracts of land to be had almost for the asking1 the total town population has multiplied in the last hundred years from #c to approximately #ej per cent4 ,for the third or fourth time1 the city is becoming the dominant factor in the world's history4 ,the city-states of ,greece rose and fell4 ,some of them became spoils of conquerors1 others wasted from internal causes4 ,corinth once exercised sovereignty of the seas1 but half a million of her population were slaves4 ,when destroyed by the ,carthaginians1 ,agrigentum was said to number two millions of people4 ,genoa1 ,venice1 the cities of the ,hanseatic league1 played their brief part in the commercial supremacy of their day4 ,rome once possessed a population of one million and a quarter1 but though circled by beautiful villas and gardens1 the common people lived congested in buildings whose floors and apartments were divided among numerous families4 ,famous writers have told us of the splendor and size of hundred-gated ,thebes and ,babylon and ,antioch and ,ephesus4 ,but if there was splendor1 there was vice2 there was magnificence1 but there dwelt squalor as well4 ,beauty and opulence fattening on human misery could not withstand famine1 pestilence1 and vice4 ,the glories of the cities on the ,nile1 the ,euphrates1 and the ,tiber are but a memory4 ,and unless in the civic life of the modern city there is introduced an element that shall embrace the common good1 perhaps ,macaulay's oft-cited description of the ,new ,zealander standing on the wreck of ,london bridge surveying the ruins of ,st4 ,paul's may yet become historic instead of merely prophetic4 ,it is perhaps but one of many evidences of the restlessness of the day that the lure of the city beckons with attraction inescapable to the youth of the countryside4 ,young men and young women who yield to the fascination find too late that they have sought ,dead ,sea ,fruit1 ,which charms the eye ,but turns to ashes on the lips4 ,the refuges and jails and lazarets and foul places of the great cities are filled with the derelicts of humanity who in less hectic atmosphere might have led lives of usefulness and contentment4 ,much has been done to give the life in the rural regions attractiveness and comfort2 much more remains to be done1 and particularly in supplying educational advantages1 if the young men and women are to be made to feel that their opportunities are no less than those to be secured in larger cities of pulsing life4 ,how wretchedly as yet this want has been met in most states1 those charged with the supervision of educational activities can testify4 ,there are those who in the face of present-day economic conditions contend that any attempt to stop the great trek cityward must prove as futile as the back-to-the-soil movement has on the whole proved to be4 ,any such admission bodes but ill for the future of this land4 ,it means that the number of men who feel an ownership in the land1 in houses1 in the government must decrease4 ,and therein lies a danger not to be lightly disregarded4 ,something of the dream and ,sehnsucht that comes to the dreaming country boy1 ,robert ,louis ,stevenson has pictured with his wonder touch in his idyl of the miller's boy4 ,something1 too1 he has suggested in his ending of the story3 ,,will ,o' ,,the ,,mill ,the mill where ,will lived with his adopted parents stood in a falling valley between pine woods and great mountains4 ,above1 hill after hill soared upwards until they soared out of the depths of the hardiest timber1 and stood naked against the sky4 ,below1 the valley grew ever steeper and steeper1 and at the same time widened out on either hand3 and from an eminence beside the mill it was possible to see its whole length and away beyond it over a wide plain1 where the river turned and shone1 and moved on from city to city on its voyage towards the sea4 ,all through the summer1 traveling carriages came crawling up1 or went plunging briskly downwards past the mill2 and as it happened that the other side was very much easier of ascent1 the path was not much frequented1 except by people going in one direction2 five-sixths were plunging briskly downwards and only one-sixth crawling up4 ,whither went all the tourists and pedlars with strange wares8 ,whither all the brisk barouches with servants in the dicky8 ,whither the water of the stream1 ever coursing downward and ever renewed from above8 ,even the wind blew oftener down the valley and carried the dead leaves along with it in the fall4 ,it seemed like a great conspiracy of things animate and inanimate1 they all went downward1 fleetly and gaily downward1 posting downward to the unknown world1 and only he1 it seemed1 remained behind1 like a stock upon the wayside4 ,from that day forward ,will was full of new hopes and longings4 ,something kept tugging at his heartstrings2 the running water carried his desires along with it as he dreamed over its fleeting surface2 the wind1 as it ran over innumerable tree-tops1 hailed him with encouraging words2 branches beckoned downward2 the open road1 as it shouldered round the angles and went turning and vanishing faster and faster down the valley1 tortured him with its solicitations4 ,he spent long whiles on the eminence1 looking down the rivershed and abroad on the low flatlands and watched the clouds that traveled forth upon the sluggish wind and trailed their purple shadows on the plain2 or1 he would linger by the wayside1 and follow the carriages with his eyes as they rattled downward by the river4 ,it did not matter what it was2 everything that went that way1 were it cloud or carriage1 bird1 or brown water in the stream1 he felt his heart flow out after it1 in an ecstacy of longing4 ,one day1 when ,will was about sixteen1 a young man arrived at sunset to pass the night4 ,he was a contented-looking fellow1 with a jolly eye1 and carried a knapsack4 ,while dinner was preparing1 he sat in the arbour to read a book2 but as soon as he had begun to observe ,will1 the book was laid aside2 he was plainly one of those who prefer living people to people made of ink and paper4 ,will1 on his part1 although he had not been much interested in the stranger at first sight1 soon began to take a great deal of pleasure in his talk1 which was full of good nature and good sense1 and at last conceived a great respect for his character and wisdom4 ,they sat far into the night2 and ,will opened his heart to the young man1 and told him how he longed to leave the valley and what bright hopes he had connected with the cities of the plain4 ,the young man whistled1 and then broke into a smile4 ',my young friend1' he remarked1 'you are a very curious little fellow1 to be sure1 and wish a great many things which you will never get4 ,why1 you would feel quite ashamed if you knew how the little fellows in these fairy cities of yours are all after the same sort of nonsense1 and keep breaking their hearts to get up into the mountains4 ,and let me tell you1 those who go down into the plains are a very short while there before they wish themselves heartily back again4 ,the air is not so light or so pure2 nor is the sun any brighter4 ,as for the beautiful men and women1 you would see many of them in rags and many of them deformed2 and a city is a hard place for people who are poor and sensitive4' ',you must think me very simple1' answered ,will4 ',although ,i have never been out of this valley1 believe me1 ,i have used my eyes4 ,i do not expect to find all things right in your cities4 ,that is not what troubles me2 it might have been that once upon a time2 but although ,i live here always1 ,i have asked many questions and learned a great deal in these last years1 and certainly enough to cure me of my old fancies4 ,but you would not have me die and not see all that is to be seen1 and do all that a man can do1 let it be good or evil8 ,you would not have me spend all my days between this road here and the river1 and not so much as make a motion to be up and live my life8 ,i would rather die out of hand1' he cried1 'than linger on as ,i am doing4' ',thousands of people1' said the young man1 'live and die like you1 and are none the less happy4' ',ah6' said ,will1 'if there are thousands who would like1 why should not one of them have my place8' ,it was quite dark2 there was a hanging lamp in the arbour which lit up the table and the faces of the speakers2 and along the arch the leaves upon the trellis stood out illuminated against the bright sky1 a pattern of transparent green upon a dusky purple4 ,the young man rose1 and1 taking ,will by the arm1 led him out under the open heavens4 ',did you ever look at the stars8' he asked1 pointing upwards4 ',often and often1' answered ,will4 ',and do you know what they are8' ',i have fancied many things4' ',they are worlds like ours1' said the young man4 ',some of them less2 many of them a million times greater2 and some of the least sparkles that you see are not only worlds1 but whole clusters of worlds turning about each other in the midst of space4' ,will hung his head a little1 and then raised it once more to heaven4 ,the stars seemed to expand and emit a sharper brilliancy2 and as he kept turning his eyes higher and higher1 they seemed to increase in multitude under his gaze4 99 99 99 ,will went to and fro minding his wayside inn1 until the snow began to thicken on his head4 ,his heart was young and vigorous1 and if his pulses kept a sober time1 they still beat strong and steady in his wrists4 ,he stooped a little1 but his step was firm1 and his sinewy hands were reached out to all men with a friendly pressure4 ,his talk was full of wise sayings4 ,he had a taste for other people and other people had a taste for him4 ,his views seemed whimsical to his neighbors1 but his rough philosophy was often enough admired by learned people out of town and colleges4 ,indeed1 he had a very noble old age1 and grew daily better known2 so that his fame was heard of in the cities of the plains4 ,many and many an invitation to be sure1 he had1 but nothing could tempt him from his upland valley4 ,he would shake his head and smile with a deal of meaning3 ',fifty years ago you would have brought my heart into my mouth2 and now you do not even tempt me4' ,there is a legend of how a flying party of wanderers encountered a very old man shod with iron4 ,the old man asked them whither they were going2 and they answered with one voice3 ,to the ,eternal ,city6 ,he looked upon them gravely4 ,i have sought it1 he said1 over the most part of the world4 ,three such pairs as ,i now carry on my feet have ,i worn out upon my pilgrimage1 and now the fourth is growing slender underneath my steps4 ,and he turned and went his own way alone1 leaving them astonished4 ,in the effort to make rural life of equal attractiveness with city life1 it must be admitted that educational opportunities have lagged behind4 ,those who1 by compulsion or otherwise1 have left school in early years1 find in the cities today abundant opportunity for self-help in the public libraries1 in night schools1 and in other agencies2 the same opportunities are not provided to any appreciable extent in the country regions4 ,in the present stage of educational development1 there are today millions of young men and women who find in the public library the only open door through which they catch glimpses of opportunity beyond their own immediate domain4 ,with all the limitations involved1 this is a hopeful circumstance1 for instances are plentiful where the chance encounter with a book has marked the awakening of a life4 ,one need not go to works of fiction to seek such stories1 but in them may be found types which have been plucked from bits of real life4 ,and in real life they could be multiplied a thousand times4 ,perhaps you recall the household of the ,tullivers' when misfortune came upon it1 and the change which a few well-thumbed volumes made in one of its members3 ,the new life was terrible to ,maggie--,maggie with her strange dreams1 with her hunger for love4 ,her father no longer stroked her hair as he used to do when she sat down in her low stool beside him at night1 though he was more dependent on her than ever4 ,tom1 weary and full of his new business ambitions1 did not respond to her caresses4 ,the poor mother remained hopelessly bewildered under the blow that had fallen on her placid existence4 ,the girl fell back on the meagre remnant of books that had been left by the creditors4 ,she studied ,virgil and ,euclid and spent her days in the fields with the ,latin dictionary and ,tom's thumbed schoolbooks4 ,one day she chanced on a worn copy of ,thomas ,kempis1 and she pushed her heavy hair back from her sad brow as if to see a sudden vision more clearly4 ,that chronicle of a solitary1 hidden anguish1 struggle1 faith and triumph came to her in her need and filled her heart with the writer's fervor of renunciation4 ,her new inward life shone out in her face with a tender1 soft light that mingled itself as added loveliness with the enriched color and outline of her blossoming youth4 ,maggie was beginning to show a queenly head above her old frocks1 and her mother felt the change with a puzzled1 dim wonder that the once 'contrary' and ugly child should be 'growing up so good4' ,the higher life of the citizen has received too little attention1 and the lower and baser life seems to have absorbed all the sympathy and care of the authorities4 ,but we have touched the fringe of better days1 and soon no municipality or local governing body will be considered complete unless it has under its administration a library and a museum1 as well as a workhouse1 a prison1 and the preserves of law and order4 ,it is for the provision for this higher national life that this plea is made1 and upon municipalities is earnestly urged the need of giving the fullest and best attention to this question4 ,the fact should be emphasized that the municipality can do for the people in the way of libraries and museums what cannot possibly be done by private enterprise4 ,it may be unhesitatingly asserted that in fullest usefulness1 economical management1 and best value for money invested1 the existing rate-supported libraries are far in advance of the private institutions of this nature4 ,it is some forty years since ,carlyle asked the question1 ,why is there not a ,majesty's library in every county town8 ,there is a ,majesty's gaol and gallows in every one1 and it is as long since the ,public ,libraries ,act was passed1 and yet the lack of libraries is still one of the most startling deficiencies in these islands4 ,we have given the people ever greater and greater political power1 but they displayed no marked inclination to benefit themselves by means of books or other means of culture4 ,we must now educate our masters1 said ,mr4 ,lowe when the ,reform ,bill of #ahfg was passed4 ,he was quite right1 for the said masters were by no means quick to educate themselves1 and the number of public libraries which they consented to establish for three years after #ahfg was about ten4 ,then came ,mr4 ,forster's ,education ,act1 and great things were expected of it4 ,now that everybody was to be taught his letters1 everybody would surely want books to read also4 ,what1 indeed1 would be the good of teaching people to read at all unless they were also to have a supply of good books8 ,you might as well teach a man the use of his knife and fork and then not give him any meat4 ,public libraries are the natural and legitimate outcome of compulsory education4 ,,certain ,,phases ,,of ,,library ,,extension#a ,dreaming of ,utopia1 an ,english writer of romance evolved a plan for a people's palace1 centering under one roof the pleasures and the interests and the hopes of democracy4 ,far away1 if not improbable1 as seemed the fruition of his dream1 he lived to see prophecy merge in realization4 ,were this lover of mankind still living1 he would know that his concept1 though he saw it carried into being1 had not permanence in the form he gave it4 ,ideals cannot be bounded by the narrow confines of four walls4 ,and yet he had the vision of the seer1 for that which he pictured in local form with definite limitations has1 in a direction little dreamed of then1 assumed form and substance in a great world movement4 ,not only in great hives of industry1 where thousands congregate in daily toil1 but in the small industrial hamlets and in the rural towns that dot the land lie the possibilities for many such palaces of the people1 and in many--very many--of such communities today exist the beginnings that will combine and cement their many-sided interests4 ,this great world movement which is gathering accelerated momentum with its own marvelous growth1 we call library extension4 ,that term is perhaps sufficiently descriptive1 though it gives name rather to the means used than to the results sought to be achieved4 ,for certainly its underlying principle is of the very essence of democracy4 ,there is no other governmental enterprise--not excepting the public schools--that so epitomizes the spirit of democracy4 ,for democracy in its highest manifestation is not that equality that puts mediocrity and idleness on the same level with talent and genius and thrift1 but that equality which gives all members of society an equal opportunity in life--that yields to no individual as a birthright chances denied to his fellow4 ,and surely if there is any institution that represents this fundamental principle and carries out a policy in consonance1 it is the public library4 ,neither condition nor place of birth1 nor age1 nor sex1 nor social position1 serves as bar of exclusion from this house of the open door1 of the cordial welcome1 of the sympathetic aid freely rendered4 ,in myriad ways not dreamed of at its inception1 library extension has sought channels of usefulness to reach all the people4 ,the traveling library in rural regions1 the branch stations in congested centers of population1 the children's room1 the department of technology1 are a few of these--to mention the ones which occur most readily to mind4 ,but these allied agencies do but touch the edge of opportunity4 ,the immediate concern of those engaged in library extension must be with the forces reaching the adult population1 and especially the young men and women engaged in industrial pursuits4 ,for the mission of the public library is two-fold--an aid to material progress of the individual and a cultural influence in the community through the individual4 ,perhaps it may be said more accurately that the one mission is essential to give scope for the second4 ,for1 first of all1 man must needs minister to his physical wants4 ,before there can be intellectual expansion and cultural development1 there must be leisure1 or at least conditions that free the mind from anxious care for the morrow4 ,so the social structure after all must rest upon a bread-and-butter foundation4 ,it follows as a logical conclusion that society as a whole cannot reach a high stage of development until all its individual members are surrounded with conditions that permit the highest self-development4 ,until a better agency shall be found1 it is the public library which must serve this need4 ,and therein lies the most potent reason for the extension of its work into every field1 whether intimately or remotely affiliated1 which can bring about these purposes4 ,its work with children is largely important to the extent that habits are formed and facility acquired in methods that shall be utilized in years succeeding school life4 ,but its great problem is that of adult education4 ,what an enormous field still lies untilled1 we learn with startling emphasis from figures compiled by the government4 ,despite the fact that provision is made by state and municipality to give to every individual absolutely without cost an education embracing sixteen years of life1 there are retarding circumstances that prevent all but a mere fraction of the population from enjoying these advantages in full measure4 ,to quote a summary printed last year1 in the ,united ,states #af1eaa1jbd were receiving elementary education during the year #aijb-jc2 only #ggf1fce attained to a secondary education1 and only #bea1hai to the higher education of the colleges1 technical schools1 etc4 ,stated in simpler terms1 this means that in the ,united ,states for one person who receives a higher education1 or for three who receive the education of the secondary schools1 there are sixty-five who receive only an elementary education1 and that chiefly in the lowest grades of the elementary schools4 ,what gives further meaning to this statistical recital is the force of modern economic conditions4 ,from an agricultural we are developing into a manufacturing people1 with enormous influx from the rural into the urban communities4 ,the tremendous expansion of our municipalities has brought new and important problems4 ,within the lifetime of men today a hundred cities have realized populations in excess of that which ,new ,york ,city had when they were boys4 ,vast numbers of immigrants differing radically in intelligence and in education from earlier comers are pouring into the country annually4 ,it has been pointed out that some of the largest ,irish1 ,german and ,bohemian cities in the world are located in the ,united ,states1 not in their own countries4 ,in one ward in the city of ,chicago forty languages are spoken by persons who prattled at their mother's knee one or the other of them4 ,the power of the public schools to assimilate different races to our own institutions1 through the education given to the younger generation1 is doubtless one of the most remarkable exhibitions of vitality that the world has ever seen1 says ,dr4 ,john ,dewey in an address on ,the ,school as a ,social ,center4 ,but1 after all1 it leaves the older generation still untouched1 and the assimilation of the younger can hardly be complete or certain as long as the homes of the parents remain comparatively unaffected4 ,social1 economic and intellectual conditions are changing at a rate undreamed of in past history4 ,now1 unless the agencies of instruction are kept running more or less parallel with these changes1 a considerable body of men is bound to find itself without the training which will enable it to adapt itself to what is going on4 ,it will be left stranded and become a burden for the community to carry4 ,the youth at eighteen may be educated so as to be ready for the conditions which will meet him at nineteen2 but he can hardly be prepared for those which are to confront him when he is forty-five4 ,if he is ready for the latter when they come1 it is because his own education has been keeping pace in the intermediate years4 ,and again3 ,the daily occupations and ordinary surroundings of life are much more in need of interpretation than ever they have been before4 ,life is getting so specialized1 the divisions of labor are carried so far that nothing explains or interprets itself4 ,the worker in a modern factory who is concerned with a fractional piece of a complex activity1 presented to him only in a limited series of acts carried on with a distinct position of a machine1 is typical of much in our entire social life4 ,unless the lives of a large part of our wage earners are to be left to their own barren meagerness1 the community must see to it by some organized agency that they are instructed in the scientific foundation and social bearings of the things they see about them1 and of the activities in which they are themselves engaging4 ,now if those who come in such limited numbers from the colleges and universities1 can keep step with the onward march of their fellows only by constantly adding to their educational equipment1 what shall be said of that enormous army made up of conscripts from the ranks in the elementary schools8--the tender hands that drop the spelling book and seize the workman's dinner pail8 ,thus we establish the duty of the state to its citizenship in providing means for adult education4 ,and herein lies a great opportunity for library extension--not1 indeed1 in seeking to supplant agencies already existent2 not in creating new ones that will parallel others1 but in supplementing their work where such educational agencies do exist1 in supplying channels for their activities through its own greater facilities for reaching the masses4 ,important as are the public museum1 the public art gallery1 the popular lecture or lyceum feature1 the public debate associated with or incorporated in the library1 of as far-reaching importance is another and newer allied agency developed in university extension4 ,the response which has come in establishing correspondence study as part of modern university extension is of tremendous significance4 ,the enrollment in correspondence schools of a million grown-up men and women eager to continue their education1 and willing to expend more than fifty million dollars a year in furtherance of that desire1 is a factor that challenges attention4 ,it is a new expression of an old impulse4 ,eighty years ago the working people and artisan classes of ,great ,britain took part in a similar movement4 ,its beginning was prompted by a wish for technical instruction4 ,soon these mechanics' institutes grew into social institutions1 with collections of books as a secondary interest4 ,the institutes increased enormously in number1 until through their medium more than a million volumes a year were circulated4 ,charles ,knight issued his penny encyclopedia1 ,robert and ,william ,chambers led the way for inexpensive books1 the ,society for the ,diffusion of ,knowledge came into existence4 ,industrial ,england was for the time being the workshop of the world4 ,and in the later university extension movement which1 along new lines1 is to make of universities having a state foundation really the instrument of the state for the good of all the people in place of the few1 the libraries have a great opportunity to become an important factor4 ,millions of the adult population will thus be given an opportunity to bring out in its best form whatever of talent and of intellectual gift they may possess4 ,from a private letter written by ,professor ,mc,conachie1 of the ,university of ,wisconsin1 who has charge of the correspondence study in the department of science1 are taken the following extracts3 ,old ways of teaching are breaking down4 ,library study and written exercises are re-enforcing classroom recitations and lectures4 ,each pupil of a term course studies one or two prescribed texts1 reads and reports in detail a minimum of eight or nine hundred pages in a choice shelf collection of library books1 takes and submits notes1 writes brief themes and prepares for weekly quizzes wherein the members of his class section helpfully interchange ideas and information4 ,the post-office is the medium for extension from the university to a vaster body of students everywhere throughout the state4 ,the same materials--books1 periodicals1 newspapers1 and official documents1--that the student of politics uses under the personal oversight of the university instructor1 are scattered in vast abundance everywhere4 ,the state is one great library4 ,the largest single collection is paltry beside this magnificent and ever-increasing supply of political literature that permeates every hamlet4 ,civic intelligence has thriven upon the mere haphazard and desultory reading of the people4 ,correspondence studies will put their scattered material into shape for them and systematize their use thereof4 ,the library and the university may serve the citizen by giving unity and direction to his reading1 helping him to hitherto hidden worth and meaning in the humblest literary material at his hand1 by quickening his interest alike in the offices1 institutions and activities that lie nearest to his daily life and in his world-wide relationship with his fellowmen4 ,for the citizen on the farm1 at the desk1 or in the factory1 they point the way out of vague realizations into distinct and definite command of his political self1 offer refreshing change from the narrowing viewpoint of individual interest1 to the broadening viewpoint of his town or state or country1 and lead on to far international vistas of world-wide life and destiny4 ,society has an interest in this beyond the rights of the individual4 ,the greatest waste to society is not that which comes from improvidence1 but from undeveloped or unused opportunity4 ,so it becomes the duty of every community to make its contribution to the world1 whether it be in the realm of invention1 scientific discovery1 or literature4 ,and how is this to be done if genius and talent are allowed to die unborn for lack of opportunity to grow8 ,wonderful as has been the progress of the world's knowledge during the last century of scientific research1 who will venture to say that it constitutes more than a fraction of what might have been if all the genius that remained dormant and unproductive could have been utilized8 ,from what we know of isolated instances where mere chance has saved to the world great forces that make for the progress of humanity1 we can infer what might have been realized1 under happier conditions4 ,every librarian of experience1 every administrator of traveling libraries1 will recall such instances4 ,one boy comes upon the right book1 and the current of his life is changed2 another reads a volume1 and in his brain germinates the seed that blossoms into a great invention2 in a chance hour of reading1 a third finds in a page1 a phrase1 a word1 the inspiration whose expression sets aflame the world4 ,a master pen has vividly described the process3#b ,most of us who turn to any subject with love remember some morning or evening hour when we got on a high stool to reach down an untried volume4 99 99 99 ,when hot from play he would toss himself in a corner1 and in five minutes be deep in any sort of book that he could lay his hands on2 if it were ,rasselas or ,gulliver1 so much the better1 but ,bailey's ,dictionary would do1 or the ,bible with the ,apocrypha in it4 ,something he must read when he was not riding the pony1 or running and hunting1 or listening to the talk of men4 99 99 99 ,but1 one vacation1 a wet day sent him to the small home library to hunt once more for a book which might have some freshness for him4 ,in vain6 unless1 indeed1 he first took down a dusty row of volumes with gray-paper backs and dingy labels--the volumes of an old encyclopedia which he had never disturbed4 ,it would at least be a novelty to disturb them4 ,they were on the highest shelf1 and he stood on a chair to get them down2 but he opened the volume which he took first from the shelf2 somehow one is apt to read in a makeshift attitude just where it might seem inconvenient to do so4 ,the page he opened on was under the head of ,anatomy1 and the first passage that drew his eyes was on the valves of the heart4 ,he was not much acquainted with valves of any sort1 but he knew that valv were folding doors1 and through this crevice came a sudden light startling him with his first vivid notion of finely-adjusted mechanism in the human frame4 ,a liberal education had1 of course1 left him free to read the indecent passages in the school classics1 but beyond a general sense of secrecy and obscenity in connection with his internal structure1 had left his imagination quite unbiased1 so that for anything he knew his brains lay in small bags at his temples1 and he had no more thought of representing to himself how his blood circulated than how paper served instead of gold4 ,but the moment of vocation had come1 and before he got down from his chair the world was made new to him by a presentiment of endless processes filling the vast spaces planked out of his sight by that wordy ignorance which he had supposed to be knowledge4 ,from that hour he felt the growth of an intellectual passion4 ,and in this wise the world gained a great physician4 ,all this may be said without disparagement to that phase of library usefulness which may be termed the recreative4 ,there has been undue and unreasoning criticism of the library tendency to minister to the novel-reading habit4 ,many good people are inclined to decry the public library because not all its patrons confine their loans to books dealing with science1 or with useful arts4 ,in their judgment it is not the legitimate function of the public library to meet the public demand for fiction4 ,these same good people would hardly urge that the freedom of the public parks should be limited to those who wish to make botanical studies4 ,the pure joy in growing things and fresh air and the song of uncaged birds1 needs no knowledge of scientific terms in botany and ornithology4 ,these privileges are promotive of the physical well-being of the people2 correspondingly1 healthy mental stimulus is to be found in a sparkling and sprightly story which may be read in an hour and which will leave the reader with a good conscience and a sense of cheerfulness4 ,our own good friend1 ,mr4 ,john ,cotton ,dana1 has admirably epitomized the underlying philosophy3 ,a good story has created many an oasis in many an otherwise arid life4 ,many-sidedness of interest makes for good morals1 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 visit4 ,if anything is to stay the narrowing and hardening process which specialization of learning1 specialization of inquiry and of industry and swift accumulation of wealth are setting up among us1 it is a return to romance1 poetry1 imagination1 fancy1 and the general culture we are now taught to despise4 ,of all these the novel is a part2 rather1 in the novel are all of these4 ,but a race may surely find springing up in itself a fresh love of romance1 in the high sense of that word1 which can keep it active1 hopeful1 ardent1 progressive4 ,perhaps the novel is to be1 in the next few decades1 part of the outward manifestation of a new birth of this love of breadth and happiness4 ,there is1 then1 no limitation to the scope of library extension save that enforced by meagerness of resource and physical ability to do4 ,in the proper affiliation and correlation of all these forces which have been enumerated and of others suggested by them1 will develop that process whereby the social betterment that today seems but a dream will be brought into reality4 ,the form this combination will assume need give us no concern--whether its local physical expression shall be as in ,boston a group of buildings maintained as separate institutions2 or as in ,pittsburgh1 a complete1 related scheme of activities covered by one roof2 as planned in ,cleveland1 a civic center with the public library giving it character and substance2 or as in ,new ,york1 where many institutions1 remotely located but intimately associated1 work toward a common end4 ,many roads may lead to a common center4 ,which one the wayfarer chooses is a matter of mere personal preference and of no importance1 so that he wends his way steadily onwards towards the object of his attainment4 ,in the evolution of these uplifting processes1 the book shall stand as symbol1 as the printed page shall serve as instrument4 ,,next ,,steps#c ,of all human interests that pertain to intellectual improvement--social evolution1 scientific achievement1 educational progress1 governmental advance1 or humanitarian endeavor1 none has seemed too unimportant for consideration by library workers4 ,librarians have sought to identify their work with them all1 to achieve contact with every individual1 with groups of individuals and with communities as a whole4 ,if intelligent method has sometimes seemed lacking1 the enthusiasm and the self-denial of the missionary have been given in unstinted measure4 ,to the home and to the mart1 to the school and to the playground1 to the workshop and to the laboratory1 they have brought--whether asked or unsought--the best at their command4 ,not out of abundance has the library attempted so much in such diverse places4 ,its meager resources have been spread over such vast fields that in spots the substance has seemed tenuous and transparent4 ,most insufficient1 and perhaps least successful thus far1 but suggesting the most important function of library activity and presaging its most significant development1 is that branch of service associated with grammar and secondary schools4 ,here lies the most fertile field for strong1 vigorous1 fruitful energizing of such forces as the library possesses4 ,curiously enough1 a perception of values which inhere in the associated and co-ordinated efforts of school and library has not1 as yet1 dawned upon school men to any appreciable degree4 ,here and there1 indeed1 a vibrant voice has demanded the joining of effort for practical ends1 but the teaching folk as a whole remain impervious to possibilities even when sensible of the need4 ,nearly four centuries ago1 ,martin ,luther noted the possibilities of the library as an educational adjunct and necessity1 and urged the founding of public libraries for the preservation and encouragement of learning4#d ,no cost nor pains1 he urged in the concluding pages of his letter to the mayors of ,germany1 should be spared to procure good libraries in suitable buildings1 especially in the large cities which are able to afford it4 ,from his day to ours there appears in printed works on education--whether general or dealing with specialized phases--no recurrent note amplifying this suggestion1 except a few casual fugitive references in less than a dozen recent publications1 and two treatises that recognize the importance of the subject with some fulness of treatment4 ,perhaps this sweeping characterization of stolid school-room self-sufficiency should be modified by crediting to ,horace ,mann a vision that scarcely survived his passing4 ,a historian of educational influences informs us that in ,mr4 ,mann's work for teachers two aspects are apparent--one dealing with preparation1 the other with method4 ,through his labors normal schools became a component part of our school system1 and institutes were started for the special training of teachers4 ,furthermore1 he made apparent the value of libraries as school adjuncts1 and brought about their establishment4 ,and similarly in backwoods ,wisconsin1 three-quarters of a century ago1 ,lyman ,draper sought to interest the teaching forces there4 ,his report printed in the #ej's--now rare and difficult to procure--is a grouping of opinions1 prophetic but yet unrealized1 expressed by eminent men of the day as foreshadowing a relationship of school and library4 ,a careful examination of fifty average books on education issued since #ahgj yields but scant encouragement to those who seek association of school and library4 ,six of the fifty writers give at least passing consideration to the subject4 ,two cyclopedias of education recognize the importance of the subject4#e ,forty-two books issued between the years mentioned1 and about equally divided between the decades represented are wholly barren of such mention4 ,on the other hand1 two are notable for vital grasp and broad treatment--,g4 ,stanley ,hall's chapters in the second volume of his ,educational ,problems1 and ,hugo ,msterberg's chapter in ,the ,americans4 ,significant of present-day conditions is the testimony of a teacher1 who1 addressing a library gathering1 said3#f ,in days gone by we carried on the school without libraries--we could do this as well as not because education meant learning by rote2 text-book learning alone4 ,this is1 to my mind1 the most important thing ,i have to say to you--we do not yet know you and our need for you4 ,in our school lives as children1 in our normal training and later in our actual teaching we have not had you1 and we do not yet realize your resources4 ,to get this matter before you definitely1 pardon my using my own case as illustration4 ,from beginning to end of my common school education--from the first grade through eighth--,i never saw a school or a public library4 ,we had none1 though ,i lived in a good-sized city in the ,middle ,west4 ,i learned what the text-book told me2 no supplementary reading 7or rarely71 no pictures1 no objects4 ,my training in reading and literature consisted in learning to keep my toes on a crack and my voice from falling on a question mark6 ,in high school ,i had very little but the regular text4 ,again memory work was the test4 ,i remember well a boy who was my ideal4 ,he learned his geography word for word and so recited it4 ,if he sneezed or a door slammed and his flow of words 7,i use words advisedly7 was interrupted1 he had to begin again4 ,he was the show pupil in our class4 ,in college our instructors in science performed all the experiments for us while we looked on4 ,when we went to the library we spoke to the librarian through a wire netting1 and in our company manners asked for a book4 ,in the normal school which ,i attended there was a so-called children's library1 but the books were all text-books1 and we were not taught how to help the children to use them4 ,we had literature1 but it was all about ,hamlet's being or not being mad2 none of it was taught in a way to make it a tool for the elementary teacher4 ,after all this ,i began teaching1 with no knowledge of the resources of a library as an aid to either teacher or child1 and ,i felt no need for such aid4 ,what is true of me is true of thousands of other teachers4 ,you must make us feel our need for you4 ,you must1 if you please1 intrude yourselves upon our notice4 ,generations of teachers who have worshipped at the shrine of the text-book can in no other way be reached4 ,the ideals of education today are broader1 our needs are greater1 and you have the material to help us to realize our needs4 ,in the relatively few instances where co-operation between school and library administration has led to installation of modern library equipment in elementary schools1 the difficulties have been experienced which are usual when afterthought supplies what forethought neglects to include4 ,quarters are ordinarily unsuitable and insufficient4 ,adequate provision should be made when school buildings are planned1 for library quarters that are ample as to size and strategic as to location1 instead of depending for space upon a room or enlarged closet not otherwise utilized1 for library placement4 ,perhaps it is too optimistic to hope for a change soon in the inconceivably stupid architecture and design of school buildings1 despite a few recent striking examples to the contrary4 ,as now financed1 no public library system can undertake to administer a branch library in every grade school building within its jurisdiction4 ,for school service on such a liberal scale there would be required in the city of ,new ,york at least #d1cjj1jjj for equipment and at least #ecg1jjj annually for current maintenance2 in ,chicago1 #b1cej1jjj for initial equipment and #bid1jjj annually for maintenance2 in other cities1 correspondingly large expenditures4 ,however1 in most of the major cities of the ,united ,states1 it is entirely feasible to make a reasonable beginning by introducing some features of the work not now attempted1 or tried in such meagre fashion as to be useless and disheartening4 ,as there are in many places traveling school libraries1 so there may well be added traveling school librarians4 ,it is imperative that for this service there must be sought a type of teacher-librarian capable by reason of natural ability and education to command the confidence of the teaching corps as a counselor1 and of the student body as a friendly element in the school1 disassociated from the thought of book use based on compulsion4 ,a teacher-librarian so qualified could exert an important influence in shaping the future of the children4 ,in his inimitable1 whimsical fashion1 ,bernard ,shaw brings out with sympathy and humor something of this spirit of compulsion which schools typify3 ,there is1 on the whole1 nothing on earth intended for innocent people so horrible as a school4 ,to begin with1 it is a prison4 ,but it is in some respects more cruel than a prison4 ,in a prison1 for instance1 you are not forced to read books written by the warders and the governor 7who1 of course1 would not be warders and governors if they could write readable books71 and are therefore beaten or otherwise tormented if you cannot remember their utterly unmemorable contents4 ,in the prison you are not forced to sit listening to turnkeys discoursing without charm or interest on subjects that they don't understand and don't care about1 and are therefore incapable of making you understand or care about4 ,in a prison they may torture your body2 but they do not torture your brains2 and they protect you against violence and outrage from your fellow prisoners4 ,in a school you have none of these advantages4 ,with the world's book-shelves loaded with fascinating and inspired books--the very manna sent down from heaven to feed your souls--you are forced to read a hideous imposture called a school book1 written by a man who cannot write2 a book from which no human being can learn anything2 a book which1 though you may decipher it1 you cannot in any fruitful sense read1 though the enforced attempt will make you loathe the sight of a book all the rest of your life4 ,it is a ghastly business1 quite beyond words1 this schooling4 ,the late ,professor ,norton is credited#g with the statement that a taste for literature is a result of cultivation more often than a gift of nature1 and that the years of the elementary school seem to be the time in which the taste takes deepest root4 ,dr4 ,scott ,nearing#h points out that the old education presupposed an average child and then prepared a course of study which would fit his needs4 ,the new education1 he contends1 recognizes the absurdity of averaging unlike quantities1 and accepts the ultimate truth that each child is an individual1 differing in needs1 capacity1 outlook1 energy1 and enthusiasm from every other child4 ,an arithmetic average can be struck1 but when it is applied to children it is a hypothetical and not a real quantity4 ,there is not1 and never will be1 an average child2 hence1 a school system planned to meet the needs of the average child fits the needs of no child at all4 ,rightly directed1 library influences in elementary schools would modify the machine-like formula giving to all children alike at the same time the same mental food to eat and the same moral garb to wear4 ,as ,dr4 ,bird ,t4 ,baldwin notes in his ingenious statement of the five ages of childhood1 school children are inevitably different2 even when children are born on the same day1 the chances that they will grow physically1 mentally and morally at exactly the same rate1 and will make exactly the same progress in school1 are remote indeed4 ,a teacher-librarian having special aptitude for the post could render service of inestimable value to teachers as well as to their pupils1 in becoming the active medium between public school and public library4 ,by securing the right books from the library for home reading1 by providing picture material and reference sources for class room use1 by conducting story hours and reading clubs1 by giving instruction in the use of the library and the keys that open books1 by giving stimulus to the ambitions and capacities of individual pupils1 by intimate co-operation with the work of vocational guidance1 the librarian would prove her worth4 ,nor would the least useful function of the school libraries be that of an evening study place for those tens of thousands of children whose home conditions absolutely preclude thought of1 or opportunity for1 study out of school hours4 ,it may be contended that these services are provided by branch libraries and their juvenile departments4 ,what are the facts8 ,early in the present month twenty million boys and girls went more or less willingly to school4 ,our consolidated library statistics show that considerably less than one million of them use our public libraries4 ,despite our imposing figures of circulation1 we reach but #e per cent of the juvenile population4 ,if there are urgent reasons for increased library effort in connection with grade schools1 these apply with multiplied force as to high schools4 ,here1 indeed1 the deterrent factor of enormous and prohibitive cost would not obtain1 because they are fewer in number2 and in proportion to total cost of maintenance1 the added percentage of cost would be comparatively small4 ,there are in the ,united ,states #h1cjj high schools with a four-year course1 and #c1bej carrying a three-year course4 ,in every one of the #aa1ejj high schools there should be a well-equipped and well-administered library4 ,preferably1 those that are located in cities where there are strong public libraries should be conducted as branches of the local public library4 ,such management would assure better administration4 ,school management would imperil in many instances the selection of librarians fitted for the task4 ,too often1 as experience has demonstrated1 the governing body would assign to the post derelict teachers unfitted by reason of age or physical handicap1 and unfortunate deficiencies in other respects4 ,on the other hand1 public library authorities must recognize more tangibly than they do now that high school librarians must possess not only library training in the machinery of routine performance1 but also university education1 teaching experience1 and qualifications of personality and temperament that will place them on a level with other members of the faculty4 ,in the high schools we find the sifted grain of the elementary schools4 ,it is there that the potential qualities of originality and genius which will later make their impress upon the course of industry and government must be quickened and given direction4 ,more and more it is coming to be realized that to grasp without failure the complexities of modern life native intelligence no longer suffices4 ,intelligence must be sharpened by education and given power by experience4 ,the self-made man who achieved success untaught1 unlettered1 and unaided save by his own efforts of hand and brain1 has become a legendary hero4 ,appreciation of changed conditions may be found in the records of increased attendance in the high schools4 ,that increase has been at a greater rate than that of the population4 ,in #ahij there were but #ei pupils for every ten thousand inhabitants2 in #ahie there were #gi2 in #aijj there were #ie2 in #aiaj there were #ajj2 and now the number is considerably in excess1 statistics for #aiad showing #aag4 ,thus1 in twenty-five years1 the percentage of high school attendance has nearly doubled4 ,again we find the school people without perception of the great value which a properly conducted library would bring to a high school4 ,in his recently published book1 ,the ,new ,education1 ,dr4 ,scott ,nearing describes an up-to-date high school3 ,the modern high school1 he says1 is housed in a building which contains1 in addition to the regular classrooms1 gymnasiums1 a swimming tank1 physics and chemical laboratories2 cooking1 sewing1 and millinery rooms2 woodworking1 forge1 and machine shops2 drawing rooms2 a music room2 a room devoted to arts and crafts2 and an assembly room4 ,this arrangement of rooms presupposes ,mr4 ,gilbert's plan of making the high school1 like the community1 an aggregation of every sort of people1 doing every sort of work4 ,when some of the foremost leaders in education leave out of a list of desiderata for the high school what the universities have come to regard as the very heart of the institution--the library--is there marvel that the love of literature is being strangled in the schools8 ,required reading of classics1 and the use of literary masterpieces for classroom dissection has taken away the pure joy of reading and made the study of literature a mere literary autopsy4 ,here is the testimony of a teacher who places herself on the witness stand3#i ,sometimes the high school course works as a sort of vaccination to prevent their taking literature seriously4 ,most teachers of ,english have had at times the experience holding open a volume of ,shakespeare with one hand1 while with the other they waved some sort of scholastic rod over the head of a rebellious young modern4 ,though 'classics' are probably swallowed with less forcible feeding than grammar1 spelling1 and rhetoric1 yet even those dilutable bits of literature that have been considered food for the gods of culture are gulped down wry-facedly by some barbarians4 ,by judicious skimming and cramming they may perforce capture the irreducible minimum of scanty and fugitive facts about the masterpieces prescribed for their edification2 but at the first safe moment they joyously forget them1 and betake themselves to the cheaper theaters1 the thrilling dailies1 and the popular novelists4 ,the truth is that literature teachers are devoted champions of a lost cause4 ,some of the dead authors appear to be so irrevocably dead that no amount of artificial respiration can put any breath of life into their works so far as the ordinary high school student is concerned4 ,it would be enticingly easy to win over students to a course in journalism1 modern magazines1 and contemporary novels and dramas4 ,we cannot expect to overcome all the narrowing and even vulgarizing influences that surround many of our young people2 but at least we should improve their judgment enough to make them reject the cheapest1 shallowest1 and most distorted contemporary writings4 ,one chapter of ,ernest ,poole's story of ,the ,harbor tells of his school experience4 ,a passage from it is worth quoting3 ,what a desert of knowledge it was back there4 ,our placid tolerance of the profs included the books they gave us4 ,the history prof gave us ten books of collateral reading4 ,each book1 if we could pledge our honor as gentlemen that we had read it1 counted us five in examination4 ,on the night before the examination ,i happened to enter the room of one of our football giants1 and found him surrounded by five freshmen1 all of whom were reading aloud4 ,one was reading a book on ,russia1 another the life of ,frederick the ,great1 a third was patiently droning forth ,napoleon's war on ,europe1 while over on the window-seat the other two were racing through volumes one and two of ,carlyle's ,french ,revolution4 ,the room was a perfect babel of sound4 ,but the big man sat and smoked his pipe1 his honor safe and the morrow secure4 ,in later years1 whatever might happen across the sea would find this fellow fully prepared1 a wise1 intelligent judge of the world1 with a college education4 ,into the atmosphere of the school must be introduced some element that will bring to the growing boys and girls a love of reading and a genuine desire for absorbing those vital forces of life which literature images4 ,if we believe that the ultimate aim of education is that of the ultimate aim of life1 there must be that attention to the individual need which in the end makes for the uplifting of all4 ,to that end the means must be wrought4 ,if the school must deal perforce with groups rather than with units1 the methods of the library adapt themselves to the converse plan of individual treatment4 ,if the school narrows the pathway by compulsion1 the library gives the joy of freedom unrestricted4 ,therein lies its potency1 and therein does it make appeal not to the few elect1 but to the many4 ,and herein lies its greater service4 ,progress is ,the law of life1 man is not man as yet1 ,nor shall ,i deem his object served1 his end ,attained1 his genuine strength put fairly forth1 ,while only here and there a star dispels ,the darkness1 here and there a towering mind ,o'erlooks its prostrate fellows3 when the host ,is out at once to the despair of night1 ,when all mankind alike is perfected1 ,equal in full-blown powers--then1 not till then1 ,i say1 begins man's general infancy4 ,wherefore this emphasis upon the school side of library work8 ,not1 of course1 at the expense of the service which is furnished to young and old in relief from the drab dullness of life1 but parallel with it1 must the library labor4 ,for here lies its mission of permanent influences1 and at no time has there been greater need4 ,suddenly1 the seemingly well-fortified pillars of civilization have crumbled4 ,confused1 dismayed1 disheartened1 society witnesses rapid disintegration of foundations which centuries of patient endeavor have constructed4 ,science1 thought to be the instrument of man's weal1 has become the subtle and baleful agent of destruction4 ,the racial hyphen1 long looked upon as the symbol of cohesion1 has become the sign of separation4 ,the ,christian nations of the earth are at each other's throats with a ferocity and malignity unparalleled4 ,under a flag which shelters ninety millions of individuals whose forebears peopled every land upon the habitable globe1 and who seek to merge the best of their racial qualities in a common life that shall typify a new standard of civilization1 must be wrought that miracle of human evolution which shall establish concord and good will between members of alien races dwelling together4 ,to effect this it must be demonstrated that assimilation is a matter of understanding and ideas1 and not merely of manners and customs4 ,and so1 despite the gloomy murk that now envelops the world1 we must realize the need of beginning the reconstruction of our demolished ideals4 ,this is the day of readjustments4 ,we must begin again1 but we must begin at the point of beginning1 with the plastic mind of youth4 ,happily1 if not now1 generations hence1 the world may realize the poet's prophecy1 and the hope it holds3 ,for no new sense puts forth in us but we ,enter our fellow's lives thereby the more4 ,and three great spirits with the spirit of man ,go forth to do his bidding4 ,one is free1 ,and one is shackled1 and the third1 unbound1 ,halts yet a little with a broken chain ,of antique workmanship1 not wholly loosed1 ,that dangles and impedes his forthright way4 ,unfettered1 swift1 hawk-eyed1 implacable1 ,the wonder-worker1 ,science1 with his wand1 ,subdues an alien world to man's desires4 ,and ,art with wide imaginative wings ,stands by1 alert for flight1 to bear his lord1 ,into the strange heart of that alien world ,till he shall live in it as in himself ,and know its longing as he knows his own4 ,behind a little1 where the shadows fall1 ,lingers ,religion with deep-brooding eyes1 ,serene1 impenetrable1 transpicuous ,as the all-clear and all-mysterious sky1 ,biding her time to fuse into one act ,those other twain1 man's right hand and his left4 ,for all the bonds shall be broken and rent in sunder1 ,and the soul of man go free ,forth with those three ,into the lands of wonder2 ,like some undaunted youth1 ,afield in quest of truth1 ,rejoicing in the road he journeys on ,as much as in the hope of journey done4 ,and the road runs east1 and the road runs west1 ,that his vagrant feet explore2 ,and he knows no haste and he knows no rest1 ,and every mile has a stranger zest ,then the miles he trod before2 ,and his heart leaps high in the nascent year ,when he sees the purple buds appear3 ,for he knows1 though the great black frost may blight ,the hope of ,may in a single night1 ,that the spring1 though it shrink back under the bark1 ,but bides its time somewhere in the dark-- ,though it come not now to its blossoming1 ,by the thrill in his heart he knows the spring2 ,and the greater to-morrow is on its way4 ,it shall keep with its roses yet in ,june2 ,and the promise it makes perchance too soon1 ,for the ages fret not over a day4 ,,the ,,world ,,of ,,print ,,and ,,the ,,world',s ,,work#aj ,i ,turning for a text to ,victor ,hugo's stirring epic of ,paris1 these words may be found in the section for ,may1 and in the third chapter thereof3 ,a ,library implies an act of faith ,which generations still in darkness hid ,sign in their night1 in witness of the dawn4 ,when ,johann ,gutenberg in his secret workshop poured the molten metal into the rough matrices he had cut for separate types1 the instrument for the spread of democracy was created4 ,when early ,cavaliers and ,puritans planted the crude beginnings of free public schools1 the forces of democracy were multiplied4 ,when half a century ago the first meager beginnings of the public library movement were evolved1 democracy was for all time assured4 ,thus have three great stages1 separated each by a span of two hundred years from that preceding1 marked that world development whose ultimate meaning is not equality of station or possession1 but equality of opportunity4 ,not without stress and strife have these yet fragmentary results been achieved4 ,not without travail and difficulties will universal acceptance be accorded in the days to come4 ,but no one may doubt the final outcome which shall crown the struggle of the centuries4 ,the world was old when typography was invented4 ,less than five centuries have passed since then1 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 before4 ,without the instrumentality of the printed page1 without the reproductive processes that give to all the world in myriad tongues the thought of all the centuries1 slavery1 serfdom and feudalism would still shackle the millions not so fortunate as to be born to purple and ermine1 and fine linen4 ,,ii ,the evolution of the book is therefore the history of the unfoldment of human rights4 ,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 people4 ,the humblest citizen1 today1 has at his command books in number and in kind which royal treasuries could not have purchased five hundred years ago4 ,in the sixteenth century1 it took a flock of sheep to furnish the vellum for one edition of a book1 and the product was for the very few2 in the twentieth1 a forest is felled to supply the paper for an edition1 and the output goes to many hundred thousand readers4 ,as books have multiplied1 learning has been more widely disseminated4 ,as more people have become educated1 the demand for books has increased enormously4 ,the multiplication of books has stimulated the writing of them1 and the inevitable result has been a deterioration of quality proportioned to the increase in quantity4 ,in the ,english language alone1 since #ahhj1 #bjf1ije titles of books printed in the ,united ,states have been listed1 and #bbf1cfe in ,great ,britain since #ahhb4 ,of these #dcc1bgj titles1 #hd1gbb represent novels--#cf1fjg issued in the ,united ,states and #dh1aae in ,great ,britain4 ,despite the inclusion of the trivial and the unsound in this vast mass of printed stuff1 no one can doubt the magnitude of the service performed in the advancement of human kind4 ,the universities have felt the touch of popular demand1 and in this country at least some of them have attempted to respond4 ,through correspondence courses1 short courses1 university week conferences1 summer schools1 local forums1 traveling instructors1 and other media of extension1 many institutions of higher learning have given recognition to the appeal of the masses4 ,logically with this enlargement of educational opportunity1 the amplification of library facilities has kept pace4 ,the libraries have become in a real sense the laboratory of learning4 ,intended primarily as great storehouses for the accumulation and preservation rather than the use of manuscripts and books1 their doors have been opened wide to all farers in search of truth or mental stimulus4 ,in a report to the ,english ,king1 ,sir ,william ,berkeley wrote as governor of ,virginia in #afga3 ,i thank ,god there are no free schools nor printing1 and ,i hope we shall not have them these hundred years2 for learning has brought disobedience into the world1 and printing has divulged them1 and libels against the best government4 ,god keep us from both4 ,governor ,berkeley's sentiments1 expressed by him in turgid rhetoric1 were held in his day by most men in authority1 but that did not prevent the planting of little schoolhouses here and there1 and men of much vision and little property bequeathed their possessions for maintaining them4 ,many a school had its origin in a bequest comprising a few milch kine1 a horse or two1 or a crop of tobacco2 in some instances1 slaves4 ,from such beginnings1 with such endowments1 was evolved three hundred years ago the public system of education which today prodigally promises1 though it but niggardly realizes1 sixteen years of schooling for every boy and girl in the land4 ,if the span of years needed for the development of the free library system has been much shorter1 the hostile attitude of influential men and the privations that attended pioneer efforts were no less marked4 ,as recently as #ahhi the writer of an article in the ,north ,american ,review labeled his attack3 ,are public libraries public blessings8 and answered his own question in no uncertain negative4 ,not only have the public libraries1 as a whole1 failed to reach their proper aim of giving the means of education to the people1 he protested1 but they have gone aside from their true path to furnish amusement1 and that in part of a pernicious character1 chiefly to the young4 ,and he added3 ,i might have mentioned other possible dangers1 such as the power of the directors of any library to make it a propaganda of any delusive ism or doctrine subversive of morality1 society or government2 but ,i prefer to rest my case here4 ,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 ,york4 ,these were but echoes of earlier antagonisms4 ,,iii ,for the documentary material dealing with the beginnings of the public library movement1 the searcher must delve within the thousand pages of a portly folio volume issued by the ,british government sixty years ago4 ,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 ,majesty1 some interesting facts in library history will be found4 ,a young man of twenty-three1 then an underling in the service of the ,british ,museum1 afterwards an eminent librarian1 was one of the principal witnesses4 ,edward ,edwards had the gift of vision4 ,half a century before public libraries became the people's universities1 as they are today1 his prophetic tongue gave utterance to what has since become the keynote of library aims and policies4 ,badgered by hostile inquisitors1 ridiculed by press and politicians1 he undeviatingly clung to his views1 and he lived to see his prophecy realized4 ,great libraries there had been before his day2 remarkable as a storehouse of knowledge in printed form was1 and is in our own day1 the institution with which he was associated4 ,but in these rich reference collections intended for the student of research1 the element of popular use was lacking4 ,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 librarian1 sublibrarians1 and messenger boys4 ,this stripling faced the members of parliament1 and without hesitation proclaimed his thesis4 ,it is not merely to open the library to persons who1 from the engrossing nature of their engagements of business1 are at present utterly excluded from it1 but it is also that the library may be made a direct agent in some degree in the work of national education4 ,let not anyone be alarmed lest something very theoretical or very revolutionary should be proposed4 ,i merely suggest that the library should be opened to a class of men quite shut out from it by its present regulations4 ,then he added3 ,in such a country as this1 there should be one great national storehouse4 ,but in addition to this1 there should be libraries in different quarters on a humbler scale1 very freely accessible4 ,one of the ablest members of parliament1 ,william ,ewart1 of ,liverpool1 became intensely interested in the views expressed by young ,edwards1 and from that day was counted the consistent champion of library privileges for the common people4 ,largely through his instrumentality1 aided by such men as ,richard ,cobden1 ,john ,bright and ,joseph ,brotherton1 parliament passed an act for the encouragement of museums4 ,out of this measure grew the later ,public ,libraries ,act4 ,this notable step was not accomplished without bitter opposition4 ,the next thing we will be asked to do1 said one indignant member on the floor of the ,house1 is to furnish people with quoits and peg-tops and footballs at the expense of taxpayers4 ,soon we will be thinking of introducing the performances of ,punch for the amusement of the people4 ,events in ,england influenced similar movements in the ,united ,states4 ,in a letter to ,edward ,everett1 in #ahea1 ,mr4 ,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 people4 ,i would establish a library which differs from all free libraries yet attempted1 he wrote4 ,i mean one in which any popular books1 tending to moral and intellectual improvement1 shall be furnished in such numbers of copies that many persons can be reading the same book at the same time2 in short1 that not only the best books of all sorts1 but the pleasant literature of the day1 shall be made accessible to the whole people when they most care for it2 that is1 when it is new and fresh4 ,sixty years after the date of ,mr4 ,ticknor's letter1 and chiefly within the last two decades of the period1 the public library movement has assumed a place in public education which1 relatively1 the public school movement attained only after three hundred years of effort4 ,when ,thomas ,bodley died1 in #afac1 in all ,europe there were but three libraries accessible to the public--the ,bodleian1 the ,angelo ,rocca at ,rome and the ,ambrosian at ,milan4 ,in #ahda the ,penny ,cyclopedia devoted about four inches of a narrow column to the subject of libraries1 ancient and modern1 and limited its reference to ,american libraries to one sentence1 obtained at second hand from an older contemporary4 ,in the ,united ,states of ,america1 according to the ,encyclopedia ,americana1 the principal libraries are1 or were in #ahca1 that of ,harvard ,college1 containing #cf1jjj volumes2 the ,philadelphia ,library1 containing #bg1jjj2 that of the ,boston ,athenaeum1 containing #bf1jjj2 that of ,congress1 containing #af1jjj1 and that of ,charleston1 containing #ac1jjj4 ,it is only since #ahfg that the federal government has deemed it worth while to compile library statistics1 and the first comprehensive figures were gathered in #ahge4 ,it is worth noting that then they embraced all libraries comprising #cjj volumes1 and that in #ahic no mention is made of collections containing less than a thousand volumes1 while the most recent official enumeration makes #e1jjj volumes the unit of consideration4 ,from these official figures may be gleaned something of the extraordinary growth of libraries1 both numerically and in size4 ,in #ahge1 including school libraries1 there were #b1jci containing a thousand volumes1 ten years later there were #d1jbf1 ten years after that #h1jjj1 and at this date there are in this class not less than #ab1jjj1 while the recorded number comprising three hundred volumes or more reaches the substantial total of #ae1fcd1 and #b1bih of these catalog in excess of #e1jjj volumes each4 ,,iv ,these figures show phenomenal growth1 but even more impressive are the facts that give their full meaning in detail4 ,from a striking compilation issued in ,germany by ,die ,brcke a few weeks ago1 together with figures extracted by means of a questionnaire1 supplemented by statistical material gathered by the ,bureau of ,education1 the facts which follow have been deduced3 ,counting the great libraries of the world1 the six continents abutting the seven seas possess #cbd libraries whose book collections number in excess of #ajj1jjj volumes each1 and of these #gi--or approximately one-fourth--are located in the ,americas4 ,of the #gi ,american libraries #gb are in the ,united ,states1 including university1 public1 governmental and miscellaneous institutions1 with a combined collection of #ai1bie1jjj volumes4 ,if this statistical inquiry is pursued further1 a reason becomes apparent why millions are starved for want of books while other millions seemingly have a surfeit of them4 ,the rural regions1 save in a handful of commonwealths whose library commissions or state libraries actively administer traveling libraries1 the book supply is practically negligible4 ,even the hundreds of itinerating libraries but meagerly meet the want4 ,all the traveling libraries in all the ,united ,states have a total issue annually less than that of any one twenty municipal systems that can be named4 ,the public library facilities in at least six thousand of the smaller towns are pitifully insufficient and in hundreds of them wholly absent4 ,the movement to supply books to the people was first launched in the rural regions seventy years ago4 ,indeed1 the movement for popular education known as the ,american ,lyceum1 which forecast the activities of the modern public library just as the mechanics' institutes of ,great ,britain prepared the soil for them in that country1 flourished chiefly in the less thickly settled centers of population4 ,the early district school libraries melted away in ,new ,york state and ,wisconsin and other states1 and the devastated shelves have never been amply renewed4 ,the library commissions are valiantly and energetically endeavoring to supply the want1 but their efforts are all too feebly supported by their respective states4 ,in this particular1 the policy is that which unfortunately obtains as to all educational effort4 ,more than #ee per cent of the young people from #f to #bj years old--about #ag1jjj1jjj of them--live in the country or in towns of less than two thousand inhabitants4 ,according to an official report from which this statement is extracted1 there are #e1jjj country schools still taught in primitive log houses1 uncomfortable1 unsuitable1 unventilated1 unsanitary1 illy equipped1 poorly lighted1 imperfectly heated--boys and girls in all stages of advancement receiving instruction from one teacher of very low grade4 ,it is plain why1 in the summing up of this report1 illiteracy in rural territory is twice as great as in urban territory1 notwithstanding that thousands of illiterate immigrants are crowded in the great manufacturing and industrial centers4 ,the illiteracy among native-born children of native parentage is more than three times as great as among native children of foreign parentage1 largely on account of the lack of opportunities for education in rural ,america4 ,in ,indian legend ,nokomis1 the earth1 symbolizes the strength of motherhood2 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 strong1 as ,mr4 ,mnsterberg has put it1 only by returning with every generation to the soil4 ,if the states have proved recreant to duty in this particular1 the municipalities have shown an increasing conception of educational values4 ,the figures make an imposing statistical array4 ,in the ,united ,states there are #a1bbb incorporated places of #e1jjj or more inhabitants1 and their libraries house #ij1jjj1jjj volumes1 with a total yearly use aggregating #aaj1jjj1jjj issues4 ,four million volumes a year are added to their shelves1 and collectively they derive an income of #bj1jjj1jjj4 ,their permanent endowments1 which it must be regretfully said but #fjj of them share1 now aggregate #dj1jjj1jjj4 ,nearly all of these libraries occupy buildings of their own1 ,mr4 ,andrew ,carnegie having supplied approximately #db1bbf1cch for the purpose in the ,united ,states1 and the balance of the #ajj1jjj1jjj represented in buildings having been donated by local benefactors or raised by taxation4 ,the population of these #a1bbb places is #ch1geh1ehd1 considerably less than half that of the entire ,united ,states4 ,their book possessions1 on the other hand1 are nine times as great as those in the rest of the country2 the circulation of the books nearly twelve times in volume4 ,closer analysis of these figures enforces still more strongly the actual concentration of the available book supply4 ,the hundred largest cities of the ,united ,states1 varying in size from a minimum of #ec1fhd to a maximum of #d1gff1hhc1 possess in the aggregate more books than all the rest of the country together1 and represent the bulk of the trained professional service rendered4 ,the great majority of the #c1jjj graduates whom the library schools have sent into service since the first class was organized in #ahhg1 are in these libraries and in the university libraries4 ,forty per cent of the books circulated are issued to the dwellers in these one hundred cities1 and in fifteen of them the stupendous total of #cj1jjj1hcd issues for home reading was recorded last year4 ,without such analysis as this1 the statistical totals would be misleading4 ,the concentration of resources and of trained service in large centers of population1 comparatively few in number1 makes evident the underlying cause for the modern trend of library development4 ,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 decade4 ,with increased resources1 with vastly improved internal machinery1 with enlarged conception of opportunity for useful service1 have come greater liberality of rules and ever widening circles of activity1 until today no individual and no group of individuals1 remains outside the radius of library influence4 ,if this awakened zeal has spurred to efforts that seem outside the legitimate sphere of library work1 no undue concern need be felt4 ,neither the genius and enthusiasm of the individual nor the enterprise of a group of individuals will ever be permitted to go too rapidly or too far3 the world's natural conservatism and inherited unbelief stand ever ready to retard or prevent4 ,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 men1 legislators1 craftsmen1 special investigators and students of every sort4 ,this added duty has not diminished its initial function to make available the literature of all time1 nor to satisfy those who go to books for the pure joy of reading4 ,the recreative service of the library is as important as the educative1 or the informative4 ,for the great mass of people1 the problem has been the problem of toil long and uninterrupted4 ,the successful struggle of the unions to restrict the hours of labor has developed another problem almost as serious--the problem of leisure4 ,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 hour1 day after day1 week after week4 ,such blind concentration in the making of but one piece of a machine1 or a garment1 or a watch1 or any other article of merchandise1 without knowledge of its relationship to the rest1 soon wears the human worker out4 ,there must be an outlet of play1 of fun1 or recreation4 ,the librarian need not feel apologetic to the public because perchance his circulation statistics show that #gj per cent of it is classed as fiction4 ,if he wishes to reduce this percentage to #fi or #fh or #fa1 let him do it not by discouraging the reading of novels1 but by stimulating the use of books in other classes of literature4 ,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 shelves4 ,to quote a fellow librarian who expresses admirably the value of such literature1 ,a good story has created many an oasis in many an otherwise arid life4 ,many-sidedness of interest makes for good morals1 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 visit4 ,if anything is to stay the narrowing and hardening process which specialization of learning1 specialization of inquiry and of industry1 and swift accumulation of wealth are setting up among us1 it is a return to romance1 poetry1 imagination1 fancy1 and the general culture we are now taught to despise4 ,of all these the novel is a part2 rather1 in the novel are all of these4 ,but a race may surely find springing up in itself a fresh love of romance1 in the high sense of that word1 which can keep it active1 hopeful1 ardent1 progressive4 ,perhaps the novel is to be1 in the next decades1 part of the outward manifestation of a new birth of this love of breadth and happiness4 ,,vi ,many of the factory workers are young men and young women1 whose starved imaginations seek an outlet that will not be denied4 ,in lieu of wholesome recreation and material1 they will find clues to life's perplexities in salacious plays1 in cheap vaudeville performances1 in the suggestive pages of railway literature1 in other ways that make for a lowering of moral tone4 ,the reaction that craves amusement of any sort is manifest in the nightly crowded stalls of the cheap theaters4 ,eight million spectators view every moving picture film that is manufactured4 ,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 year4 ,one ,sunday evening1 at the instance of ,miss ,jane ,addams1 an investigation was made of #dff theaters in the latter city1 and it was discovered that in the majority of them the leading theme was revenge2 the lover following his rival2 the outraged husband seeking his wife's betrayer2 or the wiping out by death of a blot on a hitherto unstained honor4 ,and of course these influences extend to the children who are always the most ardent and responsive of audiences4 ,there is grave danger that the race will develop a ragtime disposition1 a moving picture habit and a comic supplement mind4 ,,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 society4 ,another generation must come before material evidence for good or ill becomes apparent4 ,that the work is well worth the thought bestowed1 whether present methods survive or are modified1 may not be gainsaid4 ,the derelicts of humanity are the wrecks who knew no guiding light4 ,the reformatories and the workhouses1 the penal institutions generally and the charitable ones principally1 are not merely a burden upon society1 but a reproach for duty unperformed4 ,society is at last beginning to realize that it is better to perfect machinery of production than to mend the imperfect product2 that to dispense charity may ameliorate individual suffering1 but does not prevent recurrence4 ,and so more attention is being given prevention than cure4 ,i gave a beggar from my little store ,of well-earned gold4 ,he spent the shining ore ,and came again1 and yet again1 still cold ,and hungry as before4 ,i gave a thought1 and through that thought of mine1 ,he found himself a man1 supreme1 divine1 ,bold1 clothed1 and crowned with blessings manifold1 ,and now he begs no more4 ,,viii ,if numbers and social and industrial importance warrant special library facilities for children1 certainly the same reasons underlie the special library work with foreigners which has within recent years been carried on extensively in the larger cities4 ,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 democracy4 ,according to this official enumeration1 in but fourteen of fifty cities having over #ajj1jjj inhabitants in #aiaj did native whites of native parentage contribute as much as one-half the total population4 ,the proportion exceeded three-fifths in only four cities4 ,on the other hand1 in twenty-two cities of this class1 of which fifteen are in ,new ,england and the ,middle ,atlantic divisions1 less than one-third of the population were native whites of native parentage1 over two-thirds in all but one of these cities consisting of foreign-born whites and their children4 ,in his ,ode delivered at ,harvard1 ,lowell eloquently referred to ,the pith and marrow of a ,nation ,drawing force from all her men1 ,highest1 humblest1 weakest1 all1 ,for her time of need1 and then ,pulsing it again through them1 ,she that lifts up the manhood of the poor1 ,she of the open soul and open door1 ,with room about her hearth for all mankind6 ,this was written in #ahfe4 ,since then the rim of the ,mediterranean has sent its enormous contribution of unskilled and unlettered human beings to the ,new ,world4 ,there have been three great tides of migration from overseas4 ,the first came to secure liberty of conscience2 the second sought liberty of political thought and action2 the third came in quest of bread4 ,and of the three1 incomparably the greater problem of assimilation is that presented by the last comers4 ,inextricably interwoven are all the complexities which face the great and growing municipalities1 politically and industrially and socially4 ,these are the awful problems of congestion and festering slums1 of corruption in public life1 of the exploitation of womanhood1 of terrible struggle with wretchedness and poverty4 ,rightly directed1 the native qualities and strength of these peoples will bring a splendid contribution in the making of a virile citizenship4 ,wrongly shaped1 their course in the life of the city may readily become of sinister import4 ,frequently they are misunderstood1 and they easily misunderstand4 ,the problem is one of education1 but it is that most difficult problem1 of education for grown-ups4 ,here perhaps the library may render the most distinct service1 in that it can bring to them in their own tongues the ideals and the underlying principles of life and custom in their adopted country2 and through their children1 as they swarm into the children's rooms1 is established a point of contact which no other agency could so effectually provide4 ,under the repressive measures of old-world governments1 the racial culture and national spirit of ,poles1 ,lithuanians1 ,finns1 ,balkan ,slavs1 and ,russian ,jews have been stunted4 ,here both are warmed into life and renewed vigor1 and in generous measure are given back to the land of their adoption4 ,such racial contribution must prove of enormous value1 whether1 as many sociologists believe1 this country is to prove a great melting pot for the fusing of many races1 or whether as ,dr4 ,zhitlowsky contends1 there is to be one country1 one set of laws1 one speech1 but a vast variety of national cultures1 contributing each its due share to the enrichment of the common stock4 ,,ix ,great changes have come about in the methods that obtain for the exercise of popular government4 ,in a democracy whose chief strength is derived from an intelligent public opinion1 the sharpening of such intelligence and enlargement of general knowledge concerning affairs of common concern are of paramount importance4 ,statute books are heavily cumbered with laws that are unenforced because public opinion goes counter to them4 ,nonenforcement breeds disrespect for law1 and unscientific making of laws leads to their disregard4 ,so the earliest attempts to find a remedy contemplated merely the legislator and the official1 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 elsewhere4 ,fruitful as this service has proved within the limitation of state and municipal officialdom1 a broadened conception of possibilities now enlarges the scope of the work to include citizen organizations interested in the study of public questions1 students of sociology1 economics and political science1 business men keenly alive to the intimate association--in a legitimate sense--of business and politics1 and that new and powerful element in public affairs which has added three million voters to the poll lists in ten states1 and will soon add eleven million voters more in the remaining thirty-eight4 ,the new library service centering in state and municipal legislative reference libraries1 and in civic departments of large public libraries1 forecasts the era1 now rapidly approaching1 when aldermen and state representatives will still enact laws and state and city officials will enforce them1 but their making will be determined strictly by public opinion4 ,the local government of the future will be by quasi-public citizen organizations directing aldermen and state legislators accurately to register their will4 ,when representative government becomes misrepresentative1 in the words of a modern humorist1 democracy will ask the ,powers that ,be whether they are the ,powers that ,ought to ,be4 ,to intelligently determine the answer1 public opinion must not ignorantly ask4 ,x ,this has been called the age of utilitarianism4 ,such it unquestionably is1 but its practicality is not disassociated from idealism4 ,the resources of numberless commercial enterprises are each in this day reckoned in millions1 and their products are figured in terms of many millions more1 as once thousands represented the spread of even the greatest of industries4 ,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 success1 must be conducted as a trust for the common good1 and not merely for selfish exploitation1 or for oppression4 ,as the trade guilds of old wielded their vast power for common ends1 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 produce4 ,men of business whose executive skill determines the destinies of thousands in their employ1 are growing more and more to an appreciation of the trusteeship that is theirs4 ,a humane spirit is entering the relationship between employer and employed4 ,great commercial organizations are conducting elaborate investigations into conditions of housing1 sanitation1 prolongation of school life1 social insurance and similar subjects of betterment for the toilers2 but a brief span ago they were concerned chiefly with trade extension and lowering of wages1 all unconcerned about the living conditions of their dependents4 ,they too are now exemplifying the possession of that constructive imagination which builds large and beyond the present4 ,for results that grow out of experience and of experiment they also are in part dependent upon the sifted facts that are found in print4 ,the business house library is a recent development1 and in ministering in different ways to both employer and employed1 gives promise of widespread usefulness4 ,,xi ,with the tremendous recent growth of industrialism and the rapid multiplication of invention1 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 subject4 ,munificently endowed as many of them are1 highly organized for ready access to material1 administered to encourage use and to give expert aid as well1 their great importance cannot be overestimated4 ,what they accomplish is not wholly reducible to statistics1 nor can their influence be readily traced1 perhaps1 to the great undertakings of today which overshadow the seven wonders of antiquity4 ,but there can be no question that without the opportunities that here lie for study and research1 and--no less important--without the skilled assistance freely rendered by librarian and bibliographer1 special talent would often remain dormant and its possessor unsatisfied4 ,greater here would be the loss to society than to the individual4 ,,xii ,thus the libraries are endeavoring to make themselves useful in every field of human enterprise or interest2 with books of facts for the information they possess2 with books of inspiration for the stimulus they give and the power they generate4 ,conjointly these yield the equipment which develops the constructive imagination1 without which the world would seem but a sorry and a shriveled spot to dwell upon4 ,the poet and the dreamer conceive the great things which are wrought2 the scientist and the craftsman achieve them2 the scholar and the artist interpret them4 ,thus associated1 they make their finest contribution to the common life4 ,the builders construct the great monuments of iron and of concrete which are the expression of this age1 as the great cathedrals and abbeys were of generations that have passed4 ,adapted as they are to the needs of this day1 our artists and our writers have shown us the beauty and the art which the modern handiwork of man possesses4 ,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 cities1 the beauty of the skylines they trace with roof and pediment4 ,with burning words another has given voice to machinery and to the vehicles of modern industry1 and we thrill to the eloquence and glow of his poetic fervor4 ,great works of art are useful works greatly done1 declares ,dr4 ,t4 ,j4 ,cobden-,sanderson1 and1 rightly viewed1 the most prosaic achievements of this age1 whether they be great canals or clusters of workmen's homes worthily built1 or maybe more humble projects1 have a greatness of meaning that carries with it the sense of beauty and of art4 ,in medieval days1 the heralds of civilization were the warrior1 the missionary1 the explorer and the troubadour2 in modern times1 civilization is carried forward by the chemist1 the engineer1 the captain of industry1 and the interpreter of life--whether the medium utilized be pen or brush or voice4 ,without vision1 civilization would wither and perish1 and so it may well be that the printed page shall serve as symbol of its supreme vision4 ,within the compass of the book sincerely written1 rightly chosen1 and well used are contained the three chief elements which justify the library of the people--information1 education1 recreation4 ,the urge of the world makes these demands2 ours is the high privilege to respond4 ,,library ,,work ,,with ,,children#aa ,it is amid conditions that call for heroic effort that the public library of today must do its work with children4 ,there are not wanting critics who decry some present-day tendencies4 ,they saw that when librarians seek the children in their homes to form groups of readers1 they encroach upon the domain of the settlement worker4 ,they complain that the story hour1 now so widely developed1 is an invasion of the kindergarten2 they view with alarm the use of the stereo-scope and stereopticon as being outside the legitimate domain of the institution4 ,perhaps they are right1 and perhaps they are wrong2 maybe they are both right and wrong4 ,if the purposes sought by these means were adequately ministered to from other sources1 it may well be questioned whether the library would be justified in adopting these methods4 ,in the admitted lack of agencies to meet these conditions1 the children's librarian may find satisfaction in the results obtained1 even if some folks' notions of legitimate library work are sadly jolted1 as in the time to come they will certainly have to be modified4 ,at best1 the library and all allied agencies are struggling against tremendous odds in counteracting subtle influences for evil and open influences that breed coarseness and vulgarity4 ,to operate a moving-picture show within the sacred precincts of a library may be counter to the accepted view of the fitness of things1 but those who have visited the children's department of the ,cincinnati ,public ,library will recall with a glow of pleasure the sight of the interested group of children awaiting each his turn at the machine to go on a tarry-at-home journey to ,switzerland and ,france and other countries over-sea4 ,would the critics prefer to have the children glue their faces to the glass in the vulgar and suggestive shows of the penny arcade8 ,the craving for novelty and amusement will not be denied4 ,the instinct for dramatic action is inherent4 ,it is said that there are #e1jjj penny arcades and nickelodeons in ,new ,york ,city alone1 with an average daily attendance of #cjj1jjj children1 and scarce a hamlet in all this wide country that does not foster one or two of them1 a large proportion of them supplied with pictures of doubtful propriety4 ,the average penny arcade is closely linked with the ,sunday comic supplement and the yellow-backed pamphlet in the vulgarization and decadence that threatens to overwhelm the youth of the country4 ,parents who would be horrified to note in the hands of their children any specimen of dime novel literature1 complacently turn over to them on ,sunday morning the sheet splashed with daubs of red and yellow and green that serve to render attractive the accompanying pictures and their slangy explanations4 ,the ,sunday comic supplement has done more to debase and to brutalize what is fine in boys and girls1 to debauch their sense of fairness1 to blunt their ideas as to what is manly and fair1 to deaden their respect for age and authority1 to prevent such aesthetic sense as they may have had1 than can be counteracted by all the attempts being made by school1 church1 museum and library to stimulate a taste for better things4 ,there is no escape from these colored atrocities4 ,millions enter the households weekly1 they are scattered broadcast in parks and on the streets1 they are left upon the seats of railway trains and street cars--they are everywhere4 ,parental effort is powerless4 ,in a few households they are ruthlessly barred1 but the neighbors' children are willing to share without demur4 ,in an address before the ,american ,playgrounds ,congress1 recently held in ,new ,york ,city1 ,miss ,maud ,summers uttered a warning against this pernicious fostering of deceit1 cunning1 and disrespect for age4 ,the child of sensible parents will not see or know about them1 ,mr4 ,lindsay ,swift wrote in a contribution to ,the ,printing ,art two years ago1 but the child of the street1 the child of the indifferent household1 will warm to them like a cat to the back of the stove4 ,there are certain negative results that parents have a right to expect from every educative force which is brought to bear on their children2 that these children shall not be deliberately taught disrespect for old age or for physical infirmities and deformities2 that they shall not learn to cherish contempt for other races or religions than their own2 that they shall not take satisfaction in the tormenting of animals or weaklings--in short1 that they shall not acquire an habitually cynical and unsportsmanlike attitude of mind4 ,a morbid gloating over the deficiencies and humiliations of our neighbors is pretty sure to develop vulgarity and a lax moral fibre in ourselves2 for vulgarity of mind and manners seems to me to be primarily a lack of restraint in thought1 feeling1 and expression regarding those tendencies which every civilized man and race is striving to modify or to conquer4 ,doubtless1 when first this medium for purveying humor was devised1 the tendencies now so apparent were minimized4 ,there were1 in some of the earlier attempts1 real humor and some skill of pencil1 but the pictures have degenerated until they cry aloud for suppression4 ,there need be no apology for the story hour4 ,a good story well told makes for pleasure1 makes for morals1 makes for intellectual growth4 ,most librarians defend it on the ground that the telling of the story leads to the reading of books on related topics4 ,to my mind1 no such defense or even explanation is needed4 ,the story1 if well chosen and fittingly told1 justifies the teller and the tale4 ,it is a moot question in educational circles whether the ear is a better medium for receiving impressions than is the eye4 ,some school-masters aver that there are ear-minded children and there are eye-minded children4 ,a good story1 well told1 is worthy of being counted in the circulation statistics as many times as there are children to hear it1 and far worthier to so figure than many a book that is taken out on a card and leaves as faint and as durable an impression on the reader's mind as footsteps on the shifting sand4 ,and the more the storyteller can lead back the mind of childhood to the heart of childhood1 the tales of wonder and of myth that grew to fulness when the race was young1 the greater the service and the more fruitful in giving the listener something that will endure4 ,neither is there need for apology in the exploitation of home library groups4 ,at best1 these can but partially counteract the flood of cheap and decadent literature of the most depraved character that circulates secretly among boys and girls4 ,in ,buffalo1 recently1 the public library has found among the people of foreign birth a mass of material in circulation whose bad quality has surprised even the librarians4 ,the home groups that are being formed in some of the larger cities find an opening wedge among people of foreign birth whose reading has been practically confined to stuff of this sort4 ,the reports from ,germany would hardly seem credible were they not vouched for by the ,durer ,union1 whose campaign against the growing tendency to read trashy literature has unearthed these facts4 ,in a statement issued by its secretary1 the astounding declaration is made that #h1jjj established booksellers and #cj1jjj peddlers were engaged in selling sensational serials and books containing complete tales of a very low order4 ,no fewer than #gej1jjj of these wretched stories have been sold in the course of a single year4 ,they are hawked from house to house1 from factory to factory1 outside schools1 and among the peasants on every farm throughout the empire4 ,the peddlers nearly always enter by the back door or the kitchen stairs4 ,servant girls and ignorant peasantry are the most fruitful customers1 but it is asserted by municipal officials that even people who are in receipt of poor relief often deprive themselves of necessities in order to save two cents for a vile rehash of the sensationally embellished details of a notorious crime4 ,the extent of the literature of the streets obtainable in this country is little appreciated4 ,an investigation1 instituted several years ago by the ,library ,commission of one of the ,middle ,west states1 demonstrated the existence of tons of it on the upper and back-row shelves of news stands in all the larger cities1 and in many of the villages and hamlets as well4 ,the desire to show a large circulation has made many librarians yield to the tyranny of statistics1 and some errors of library administration are attributable to this cause4 ,while it is undoubtedly true that the chief function of the library is to distribute as many wholesome books as possible1 among the people1 the totals of circulation are of vastly inferior importance to some facts that are not susceptible of being arranged in statistical uniform4 ,and this is more particularly true of children's reading4 ,it is less a question of how many books are read than what books are read and by whom they are read4 ,it may well be urged that there is greater importance in the quality of the circulation than in the size of it--not how many1 but how good1 should be the earnest inquiry4 ,it may well be doubted whether some children do not read more books than they can well assimilate4 ,they are mentally profited about as much as their physical condition is nourished when they quaff quantities of soda water4 ,they become troubled with mental dyspepsia4 ,another criticism that is pertinent applies to book selection4 ,there are too many books written especially for children4 ,there are more titles in the average collection of children's books than the librarian ought to purchase4 ,there are too many books that are negative in quality--pleasantly enough flavored1 not harmful in tone1 authentic as to facts1 but colorless4 ,there are usually too few of the world's enduring books--classics--and too many editions edited especially for children4 ,some of the children's catalogues are of appalling size4 ,here there is abundant need of excision4 ,five hundred titles1 judiciously chosen and plentifully duplicated1 would meet the need of most libraries1 and would immeasurably raise the standard of reading4 ,much might be ascertained by an analysis of the individual cards of juvenile patrons--a sort of laboratory experiment4 ,there is need for greater co-operation between teachers and librarians4 ,there are tendencies in teaching that are strangling rather than imparting the love of fine literature4 ,it is no longer sufficient to give to the reader the music of lyric1 the stir of epic--poetry must serve as an exercise in grammar4 ,it is not sufficient that from virile prose the reader may obtain the glow of the writer's fancy or thought--it must do duty as a bit of sentence construction1 or a companion piece to a lesson in geography or1 perhaps1 of history4 ,we are told that poetry is dead4 ,who killed it8 and how long would it take to do the like for prose8 ,whatever of criticism as to plan and method may be rightfully made against public library work with children1 the earnestness that underlies it all will1 in the end1 serve to eliminate the real causes for such criticism4 ,its meaning will unfold as time goes on--the first children's room opened in a public library dates back not much more than a dozen years4 ,in the almonry of ,westminster1 three and one-half centuries ago1 ,william ,caxton chose carefully for his printing press1 with deep reverence in his heart for the white souls upon which his characters would be printed as surely as upon the white paper before him4 ,and with that same thought and care will be sifted1 in the work that is being carried on now1 the printed page that helps to mould and build the character of the newer generations4 ,,travelling ,,libraries#ab ,following in the wake of the great public library movement1 which in less than two decades has dotted the cities of the ,united ,states with buildings that house millions of books for the people1 came systems of traveling libraries4 ,the institutions which ,jenkin ,lloyd ,jones satirically terms ,carnegeries1 provide city dwellers with an amplitude of reading material1 but there was until a few years ago no provision for similarly meeting the greater needs of the isolated persons living remote from centers of population--in thousands of little hamlets1 in mining and lumber camps1 in uncounted farmhouses4 ,just fifteen years ago1 ,mr4 ,melvil ,dewey1 then state librarian of ,new ,york1 ever foremost in progressive library work and originator of most of the far-reaching methods for making public libraries useful and efficient1 solved the problem which had bothered many thinkers on the subject3 ,how to give country people access to collections of books selected by experienced and educated buyers1 and how to renew these collections so as to keep a fresh and plentiful supply on hand at all times4 ,mr4 ,dewey's solution of the problem was absurdly simple4 ,anybody could have thought it out without effort--but nobody else did4 ,it was this3 ,from a centrally administered library1 groups of books carefully selected so as to comprise fifty or sixty volumes each1 were packed into suitable boxes or cases1 and sent to small villages1 country schoolhouses1 and centrally located farmhouses1 to be distributed to the neighborhoods on the same plan as books are given out from branch stations in cities4 ,at the end of six months1 the books would be gathered by the custodian1 shipped back to the central distributing agency1 and a fresh lot would take their place4 ,by this simple and economical method the people of these little neighborhoods would secure an opportunity to read the best and most interesting books without financial burden4 ,in the work of popular education1 said ,melvil ,dewey pertinently1 it is1 after all1 not the few great libraries1 but the thousand small that may do most for the people4 ,in fifteen years1 the first little chest of books that went upon its travels has multiplied to more than #e1jjj4 ,probably a third of a million books are now constantly on the go in this fashion4 ,figures are available for only twenty-two of the states1 and according to these the circulation for the states enumerated was #fjj1ddc books last year4 ,it must be remembered that for a few years after the plan was transplanted from ,new ,york to other states1 private contributions were the only reliance for maintaining the systems of traveling libraries4 ,it is only within the last half dozen years that the demonstration of their usefulness prompted state legislatures to make appropriations for this purpose1 to enable state library commissions to extend this great work on a liberal scale4 ,the ease with which the traveling libraries may be adapted to meet various needs may be shown in a rapid summary compiled by ,mr4 ,f4 ,a4 ,hutchins1 who has been one of the leading promoters of them in this state4 ,some women in ,new ,jersey have used them to lighten the long winter days and evenings of the brave men who belong to the life-saving service1 and that state has now taken up the traveling library as a definite part of the work of its state library2 other women1 in ,salt ,lake ,city1 send them regularly to remote valleys in ,utah2 a number of state federations of women's clubs use them to furnish books for study to isolated clubs2 ,mrs4 ,eugene ,b4 ,heard of ,middleton1 ,ga41 is devoting herself to the supervision of an admirable system which reaches a large number of small villages on the ,seaboard ,air ,line in five southern states2 an association in ,washington1 ,d4 ,c41 puts libraries on the canal-boats which ply on the ,washington and ,potomac ,canal in the summer and tie-up in small hamlets in the ,blue ,ridge ,mountains in the winter2 the colored graduates of ,hampton ,institute carry libraries to the schools for their own people at the base of the ,cumberland ,mountains1 while to the mountain whites libraries are sent by women's clubs in ,kentucky1 ,tennessee1 and ,alabama4 ,in ,idaho1 ,california1 ,nebraska1 ,kansas1 ,illinois1 ,missouri1 ,minnesota1 and many other states1 women's clubs are doing the same work for miners1 lumbermen1 farmers1 and sailors4 ,the people of ,british ,columbia and ,new ,zealand are successfully imitating their ,american cousins in this work4 ,in ,massachusetts1 where nearly every community has its public library1 the ,woman's ,educational ,association is doing a most helpful work by using traveling libraries to strengthen the weak public libraries in the hill towns4 ,of all the states of the ,union which reported on traveling libraries last year1 ,wisconsin stood first with a circulation of #abb1jic4 ,wisconsin was the third state to adopt this method for bringing wholesome books to people in the country4 ,this was in #ahie4 ,the ,free ,library ,commission has charge of #efc of these little libraries1 which are sent to stations scattered all over the state and are exchanged every six months4 ,each group contains books of history1 travel1 fiction1 biography1 useful arts1 and miscellaneous literature so proportioned as to meet the needs of the average community as determined by experience4 ,the ,wisconsin ,commission also sends to communities where there are many persons of foreign birth1 the best literature in their own tongues4 ,in some sections of the state1 people go ten to twenty miles at regular intervals to secure these books4 ,the ,commission also makes up study libraries for the use of clubs engaged in serious study4 ,the topics deal with ,english literature1 art1 history1 village and town improvement1 questions of the day1 etc4 ,,ii ,fifteen years ago there existed within the fifty-six thousand square miles of ,wisconsin a mere handful of starveling public libraries1 and only in three or four of the larger cities were these institutions properly housed4 ,most of them existed from force of habit rather than from action4 ,but one library in the state employed trained service4 ,there were no traveling libraries4 ,the school district libraries had scarcely made a beginning1 so that even that source failed to supply wholesome books for the use of the people4 ,here and there a volunteer fire department gathered a bundle of books1 or a literary society would secure a similar collection from the attics of its members4 ,naturally1 such efforts resulted in dismal failures4 ,ninety per cent of the population was absolutely without public library facilities4 ,but fifteen years ago1 and now6 ,scattered all over the state1 in cities and villages and hamlets1 are to be found modern1 up-to-date public libraries in charge of alert1 trained1 interested librarians1 eager and active in extending the radius of their influence or helpful in every way to promote the interests of the community and of every individual in it4 ,there are now #aeb public libraries in ,wisconsin4 ,sixty-one of them occupy buildings erected especially for them1 and #bh others have quarters in city halls or other public buildings4 ,many of them have a children's department1 with trained library workers in charge of the specialized activities there conducted4 ,in the larger buildings1 lecture halls are an adjunct1 where it is possible to provide university extension and similar lectures1 and where women's study clubs1 young men's debating societies and similar groups of persons find hospitable meeting places for carrying on their work4 ,work with schools is carried on to an extent1 and to a profitable degree1 little imagined as possible in the early days of the library extension movement4 ,free access to shelves is now permitted in every library of the state except one4 ,there are now some forty librarians in ,wisconsin who come from library training schools1 and of the other librarians and assistants employed1 approximately #ajj have attended the summer school conducted by the ,wisconsin ,free ,library ,commission4 ,the growing importance of the relation between library and school is evidenced by the fact that library instruction is now part of the course in every one of the seven normal schools1 and a professional school for training librarians1 with a staff of picked instructors1 is maintained at ,madison by the state4 ,the candidates for admission are selected by competitive examination1 and with special regard to suitability for the work by reason of temperament1 education1 address and experience4 ,,iii ,naturally1 the activity of the public library movement in recent years1 with consequent multiplication of institutions1 has attracted the attention of thoughtful men and enlisted the cordial aid of public-spirited individuals4 ,philanthropists have found therein an avenue for their benefactions yielding undoubted results4 ,many wealthy men1 instead of rearing to their own honor shafts of stone or images in bronze1 have taken the wiser and happier method of securing an enduring monument in the form of a public library4 ,there are now living a number of wealthy men who have provided in their wills for suitable bequests whereby buildings of this character may be erected in the places which they make their home1 and similarly others have provided endowments for their home libraries to come out of their estates4 ,thus does one good deed suggest another4 ,,iv ,the work of the ,free ,library ,commission may be briefly summarized as follows3 ,supervision4 ,works for the establishment of public libraries in localities able to support them4 ,visits libraries for the purpose of giving advice and instruction4 ,collects and publishes statistics of libraries for the guidance and information of trustees4 ,prints a bi-monthly bulletin1 news notes and suggestions to keep librarians and trustees informed in regard to library progress throughout the state4 ,gives advice and assistance in planning library buildings and collects material on this subject for the use of library boards4 ,instruction4 ,aids in organizing new libraries4 ,assists in reorganizing old libraries according to modern methods which insure the best results and greatest efficiency of the library4 ,conducts a school for library training for the purpose of improving the service in small libraries4 ,holds institutes for librarians to instruct those who cannot attend summer school4 ,traveling ,libraries4 ,maintains a system of traveling libraries which furnishes books to rural communities and villages too small to support local libraries1 and to larger villages and towns as an inducement to establish free public libraries4 ,aids in organization and administration of county traveling library systems4 ,clearing ,house4 ,operates a clearing house for magazines to build up reference collections of bound periodicals in the public libraries of the state4 ,document ,department4 ,maintains a document department for the use of state officers1 members of the legislature and others interested in the growth and development of affairs in the state1 and catalogues and exchanges state documents for the benefit of public libraries4 ,book ,lists4 ,distributes a suggestive list of books for small libraries to insure purchase of the books in the best editions4 ,issues frequent buying lists of current books to aid committees in securing the best investment of book funds4 ,compiles buying lists on special subjects or for special libraries upon request4 ,v ,it must not be supposed1 because the great library growth has been manifested in the last decade1 that there were wanting prior to that period interested men and women hopeful and active to give impulse for like conditions4 ,away back in #ahdj1 when ,wisconsin was a frontier territory ambitious to advance to statehood1 the council and assembly enacted a law to encourage subscription libraries4 ,a public library supported by taxation was not then dreamed of1 for there was then none in the entire ,united ,states1 nor for ten years thereafter4 ,it is interesting to note that in these territorial days1 the little hamlet of log houses known as ,madison enjoyed the advantages of a library open to all who cared to use it4 ,it was the private library of the governor1 ,james ,duane ,doty1 which he threw open to the public4 ,col4 ,geo4 ,w4 ,bird1 in his account of it1 says that it contained about five hundred volumes of a general historical1 educational and literary character and a number of the best maps known at that time4 ,it was housed in the governor's private office1 which was a small one-story frame building of one room situated among the trees in the little backwoods town4 ,the books were arranged in low shelving around the sides of the room1 and the scanty furniture1 consisting of a small desk1 a deal-board table1 three or four chairs1 a pine bench1 and a register in which to enter the taking and returning of books1 completed the equipment4 ,over the shelving on the westerly side of the room1 was this direction1 painted in black on a white field3 ,take1 ,read and ,return4 ,there were only two regulations as to the use of the library and they were displayed conspicuously in red ink about the room1 and they were as follows3 #a4 ,any white resident between the lakes1 the ,catfish and the westerly hills1 his wife and children1 may have the privileges of this library so long as they do not soil or injure the books1 and properly return them4 #b4 ,any such resident1 his wife or children1 may take from the library one book at a time and retain it not to exceed two weeks1 and then return it1 and on failure to return promptly1 he or she shall be considered1 and published1 as an outcast in the community4 ,i do not remember of there ever having been occasion for inflicting this penalty4 ,i do remember my father sending me one day when the time-limit of a book was about to expire1 with a note to a family1 requiring the return of a book that day1 and calling attention pointedly to the above penalty of failure2 and ,i remember how concerned the mother was1 and how quickly she got the book and dragging me along after her1 speedily returned it to the library1 and thus escaped the sentence of outlawry1 concludes ,col4 ,bird4 ,,vi ,what is known far and wide as the ,maxon bookmark originated in ,wisconsin1 and was the conception of the ,rev4 ,mr4 ,maxon1 then resident in ,dunn ,county4 ,it has been reprinted on little slips in hundreds of forms1 has circulated in every state and territory in the country1 and doubtless a full million copies of it have been slipped between the leaves of children's books4 ,it may fittingly be reproduced here3 ,once on a time ,a ,library ,book was overheard talking to a little boy who had just borrowed it4 ,the words seemed worth recording and here they are3 ,please don't handle me with dirty hands4 ,i should feel ashamed to be seen when the next little boy borrowed me4 ,or leave me out in the rain4 ,books can catch cold as well as children4 ,or make marks on me with your pen or pencil4 ,it would spoil my looks4 ,or lean on me with your elbows when you are reading me4 ,it hurts4 ,or open me and lay me face down on the table4 ,you would not like to be treated so4 ,or put in between my leaves a pencil or anything thicker than a single sheet of thin paper4 ,it would strain my back4 ,whenever you are through reading me1 if you are afraid of losing your place1 don't turn down the corner of one of my leaves1 but have a neat little ,book ,mark to put in where you stopped1 and then close me and lay me down on my side so that ,i can have a good comfortable rest4 ,,administration ,,of ,,library ,,funds#ac ,just a few words on a matter of business addressed to business men--for that1 ,i conceive1 is what mayors and aldermen primarily are1 whether engaged in trade or in professions4 ,i am aware that it is more popular to term them politicians in the worst meaning of that abused word1 and to ascribe improper motives to their official actions1 but personal relations with many of them through a long series of years convinces me that a very large majority of them are men of probity and good intentions1 seeking to perform a public duty to the extent of their abilities4 ,they are sure of clamorous condemnation for any errors of commission or omission1 and very uncertain of commendation for conscientious attention to official duties4 ,lest these remarks may be construed as undue flattery prompted by the presence here of so many municipal officers1 it may be added that the average alderman is inclined to be at times a bit self-opinionated in his views of public business1 or impatient with that phase of it which he does not directly control4 ,at least this is so until his term is nearing its end4 ,unfortunately1 the broader and wider outlook which experience always brings to men usually develops too late1 except in cases of re-election1 for service during his own period of administration1 and cannot be transmitted to his successor4 ,and that is why1 rather than because of downright dishonesty1 our city public works are frequently defectively constructed1 money is needlessly expended for certain purposes1 and not expended at all1 or insufficiently expended for others1 where it would bring best results4 ,a municipality ought to be a business corporation purely1 managed on business principles by its board of trustees 7aldermen7 and for the benefit of the stockholders 7taxpayers and citizens74 ,like any other business institution1 its management should carefully consider its resources and apportion expenditures to secure largest returns on investment4 ,and in the case of a municipality1 the returns from investments embrace both the material comforts and necessities of community life which are represented in sanitation1 facilities for transportation1 for lighting and for adequate water supply1 and the intellectual requirements of modern life which find their expression in good public schools and well-administered libraries4 ,and this brings us to a consideration of the question immediately before us--the administration of public library funds4 ,some years ago a discussion of this question might have required a preliminary apologetic justification for the existence of such an institution as a public library4 ,the necessity for that sort of thing has happily passed1 just as the need for explanation in the reasonable expenditure of public funds for public schools is no longer existent4 ,nevertheless1 the general conception of the possibilities of usefulness in public library work remains imperfectly developed4 ,it will require time and patient effort to secure full recognition of the potent possibilities for the good of all the people that may be realized through the public library adequately maintained and properly administered4 ,and herein lies the crux of the question4 ,that anecdote which ,souther told of himself will bear repetition4 ,meeting an old woman one stormy day1 he resorted to the usual topic of greeting3 ,dreadful weather1 isn't it8 he remarked4 ,this was quite obvious1 of course1 but the old woman's rejoinder was rather philosophical4 ,any weather is better than none1 quoth she4 ,this philosophic way of viewing a discouraging condition is1 ,i fear1 but too true with reference to the average public library4 ,but any library is not necessarily better than none4 ,the average municipality is quite likely to rest satisfied with prevailing conditions4 ,if municipalities were1 like other business corporations1 subjected to the test of competition1 many of them would be in the hands of the sheriff4 ,no business man can survive today who does not utilize modern progressive methods4 ,the successful business man today is he who adopts the principle that no results can be secured without certain outlays4 ,no farmer would conceive it prudent to economize in the planting of his seed4 ,if he did1 scanty crops would convince him of the error of his methods4 ,and yet it is this error which many cities and towns commit4 ,they may possess libraries1 but they grudgingly allow them revenues just sufficient to keep them from starvation4 ,in ,wisconsin we have a goodly percentage of public libraries that are in every way creditable1 but it is too true that there are also many which fail to realize their full possibilities4 ,in order that the maximum dividend on the investment may be realized1 it is essential that a library's resources should permit3 #a4 ,the employment of competent trained service4 #b4 ,the purchase of books and magazines at frequent intervals to keep the library from going to seed4 #c4 ,such regulations that the doors of the institution shall be open at least as often and as long every week as they are allowed to remain closed4 ,to effect these desiderata1 the library boards should be given sufficient funds1 with due regard to economy of administration4 ,it is coming to be recognized that a librarian is expected to do more than hand out books over a counter and take them in again--that the up-to-date librarian must study the social1 commercial and intellectual interests of the community so as to make the library a vital force by providing the facilities for expansion of these interests4 ,the public schools educate the average person during an average period representing five years of his life2 the public library should afford facilities to persons of every age and in every condition of life for continuing one's education indefinitely4 ,the public officer desirous of ascertaining the best methods for paving streets1 the housewife in search of receipts for the most wholesome dishes for her table1 the mechanic seeking to better his condition by studying the latest improvements in his craft1 the foreign-born reader anxious for literature bearing on the duties of citizenship1 the young man engaged in serious study of current questions--these and every other man1 woman or child in quest of information1 should have the facilities offered in the public libraries to secure it fully1 not only by personal search along the shelves1 but through the ready1 helpful and suggestive assistance of a librarian trained to find in a multitude of print the essential facts which are wanted4 ,individual cases could be cited by the score to demonstrate what a public library can do for the people of its community4 ,one that came to my attention recently may be mentioned4 ,a boy who gave promise of no virtues and many vices engendered by idleness1 was the despair of his parents and the annoyance of the neighbors4 ,by chance he wandered into the reference room of the library in his town1 carelessly picked up a book dealing with inventions1 became interested1 came again1 asked for and received more books on the same topic and studied them with increasing interest4 ,from that day he became a changed boy4 ,he had found a purpose in life4 ,today1 through his own efforts1 he is taking the engineering course in a college1 he has secured a patent from the government for a valuable invention1 and he gives promise of becoming a leader in his chosen profession4 ,in a certain city of this state which need not be designated by name1 there are large manufacturing interests4 ,there is a public library magnificently housed1 but until lately without an appropriation for keeping the book purchases up-to-date4 ,workmen were eager to get books on electricity1 on general mechanics and useful arts effecting their daily labor1 but there were no funds with which to purchase them2 naturally1 they soon ceased their visits to the library4 ,when the ,free ,library ,commission called the attention of the heads of these great industrial enterprises to the condition of affairs1 they immediately saw the advantage of adequately supporting the library4 ,it did not take them long to figure out that no cheaper method could be devised for improving the product of their establishments and to create an interest among their workmen that would make for greater industry1 better workmanship and consequently increased profits4 ,on their part the workmen were quick to see their own advantage in increased wages in proportion to increase in skill and output4 ,as an economic proposition the net result is greater stability in the industrial life of the community--decreased labor troubles and increased confidence between employer and employed4 ,a sociologist who made a systematic study of a group of villages largely populated by workingmen1 reported that the one which showed greatest evidence of prosperity1 cleanliness and attractiveness of homes generally1 was one conspicuous by reason of its well-managed public library4 ,there is no channel of human usefulness which appeals so forcefully to the modern spirit of philanthropy as the public library4 ,this generosity would1 ,i doubt not1 be greatly multiplied were there any assurance that the communities to be benefited would properly maintain the institution given to it4 ,purely as a matter of business1 it pays to support a library decently4 ,but deeper than this lies the motive that should actuate any city or town to erect within its midst an institution that must stand as the exponent of its intellectual and to some extent its social life4 ,the problem before us1 said ,lowell many years ago1 is to make a whole of many discordant parts1 our many foreign elements2 and ,i know of no way in which this can better be done than by providing a common system of education1 and a common door of access to the best books by which that education may be continued1 broadened and made fruitful4 ,these words are as true today as when they were uttered4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,address delivered on behalf ,league of ,library ,commissions1 ,asheville ,conference ,a4 ,l4 ,a41 ,may #bg1 #aijg4 #b ,george ,eliot1 ,middlemarch4 #c ,read before the ,new ,york ,library ,association at ,haines ,falls1 ,sept4 #bh1 #aiae4 #d ,painter4 ,history of ,education4 #e ,one devotes thereto a column and a half of #agcf columns in the volume1 and the other devotes #cg columns to the subject of the #adhj columns contained in one of the five volumes of the work4 #f ,library ,journal4 #g ,lowe4 ,literature for ,children4 #h ,nearing1 ,scott4 ,the ,new ,education4 #i ,hodgson1 ,elizabeth4 ,the ,adolescent's ,prejudice ,against the ,classics4 ,english ,journal1 ,sept41 #aiae4 #aj ,president's address at ,kaaterskill ,conference1 ,american ,library ,association1 ,june1 #aiac4 #aa ,extracts from a paper in the ,educational ,bi-monthly1 ,april1 #aiaj1 entitled1 ,the ,chicago ,public ,library and ,co-operation with the ,schools4 #ab ,extracts from booklet1 ,books for the ,people1 #aijh4 #ac ,the ,municipality1 ,dec41 #aije4 ,transcriber's ,notes3 ,some spelling has been normalized4 ,variations in hyphenation and accentuation were maintained4 ,italicized words and phrases are presented by surrounding the text with underscores4 ,the signature of ,j4 ,christian ,bay who wrote the ,preface is in all capitals4 ,in original book and in html version it is in small capitals4