chapter one

gradually frames a picture of the free library as a place which tramps frequent for sleeping off the effects of dissipation; as a place used by commercial travellers for exhibiting their samples; as a place from which in one instance "a respectable thief took away L20 worth of books"; as a place used in an almost exclusive degree for reading fiction; as a place where the time prescribed for keeping books makes 'serious study' impossible;" and, more serious than all the rest, as a place which, he says, "favors one special section of the community at the expense of all the rest." Let us do Mr. O'Brien the justice to add that for the first three of these counts he gives "chapter and verse" for his charges, quoting, namely, from various (English) library reports. No one will therefore wish to dispute his well-fortified statement that in such and such an instance an unseemly incident occurred. But even a child can assuredly see the difference between a statement of an isolated occurrence and an inference that it is a necessarily characteristic and inherent quality of the institution in question. Were this latter true, then we might well cry out for abolishing our churches, sidewalks, and railway stations, for in them these very same three things respectively are known at some time to have been done. In the last three of these counts, however, we have only Mr. O'Brien's assertions as the basis, and we are obliged to add also that even these are found to be conflicting. On one page his language shows that he is pained that a certain percentage of readers in the libraries named should prefer to call for works of fiction. Can it be that he has forgotten this, when on another page he cites it as a grievance that "it is a frequent occurrence for a reader to wait for months before he can get the novel he wants"! On page 333, after quoting, from the annual report of one of the English libraries, the statement as to the use of works of fiction, nothing but a resort to italics can sufficiently emphasize his lamentation that "the more instructive books in the other classes circulate only once during the same period." Mr. O'Brien is not the only observer who has failed always to observe, when commenting upon percentages of fiction, that "any book requiring serious study cannot be galloped through, like a novel, in the week or fourteen days allowed for use," yet who would have believed that "out of his own mouth" would he be so completely answered, for this remark, as well as the one which it answers, is found in his decidedly interesting chapter (p. 348). But here it is evident that the bearing of the two upon each other was not in his mind in writing it, for his purpose in the sentence last quoted was plainly to make it appear that the customary regulations of public libraries were such as to render "serious study" impossible.

The limitation of "a week or fourteen days" for a book of the kind which he here indicates--he instances by name Kant's "Critique of pure reason" and Smith's "Wealth of nations"--is practically unknown in American public libraries. In most of those known to the present writer a book of this kind can be charged in the first instance for fourteen days and then renewed, making twenty-eight days in all, and in still others for a longer period. It can then, after being returned to the library--to give any other reader who may need it a chance at it--be taken out again after remaining on the shelves twenty-four hours, for another twenty-eight days' use by the same reader. The annual report of an American library which lies before us contains a case in point. Speaking of Bryce's "American Commonwealth," it states: "Of this, seven copies were added in succession." It names 101 as the total of the issues of this work during the year; but considering the truth expressed in Mr. O'Brien's own very just words, that "any book requiring serious study cannot be galloped through, like a novel," the statement is added that "such a record, for a book like this, constantly in the hands of readers, may be contrasted with the more than ten times greater number of times that some work of fiction might be read through, returned and taken out again, requiring but a part of a day's attention." In fact, 101 is very likely to be the total number of issues possible in the case of seven copies of this book, while 700 would probably fall far short of the total possible issues of the same number of copies of a story like "The Wreck of the Grosvenor." Again, Mr. O'Brien not only tells us that "a free library favors one special section of the community" at the expense of all the rest, but throughout his chapter recurs again and again to the case of the "workingman." On page 330, for instance, we are solemnly told: "If the workingman cannot come by his books honestly, let him wait until he can." This is indeed somewhat summary, particularly when, being interpreted, it is found to mean, Let there be no free libraries supported by the public. And yet, on page 344, with no less certainty, we are assured that "there is little doubt that at least forty-nine out of every fifty workingmen have no interest whatever in these institutions."

Where the deliverances from one and the same source are so contradictory, the impartial inquirer will doubtless feel like looking for some other source of information. From the materials accessible to the present writer in regard to American libraries--and the new edition of Mr. Greenwood's "Public libraries" appears to tell the same tale in regard to Great Britain--the interest of workingmen in the opportunities afforded by public libraries is everywhere emphatically shown; but he who sets out with the purpose of showing that there is any one exclusive class to whom the public library is of service and to no other--be that class workingmen, or students, or manufacturers, or scientists--will find the facts singularly obstinate and unresponsive to his purpose. The truth is--Mr. O'Brien's confident assertion to the contrary--that there is no more "universal" and non-partisan institution than a public library. This is undoubtedly the highest among its several claims to public support. Few among the objects to which the public funds have been appropriated, in American cities, have met with so hearty and unquestioning approval as the public parks, and it is right that it should be so. Yet there are whole classes in every community who not only never do enjoy the public parks, but never care to enjoy them. Even the public schools are for a certain fraction of the population only--the younger portion. In contrast with both of these, the public library extends its resources to the children and the adults alike. Perhaps, however, the fundamentally important question of universality, in the sense of non-partisanship, is one which is seldom appreciated in its full force, as applied to a public library. An independent position, one entirely free from bias, a non-partisan attitude, in fact, is an ideal repeatedly set before the conductors of a school or a newspaper. In both these cases, however, there is too often an element of practical difficulty in carrying these praiseworthy intentions into practice, which is almost completely wanting in the case of a public library. The policy of the latter, is, in its very essence, catholic. It places on its shelves the volumes which represent, not one side, but both, or rather all sides of any subject on which the sentiment of the public divides; and thus, whether the user be Democrat or Republican, protectionist or freetrader, Catholic or Protestant, the aspect which this collection of books presents to him is no less free and uncircumscribed than the illimitable aid.

Again, it is important that the relation of a public library to the question of entertainment should be clearly understood. Entertainment is not an element totally foreign to the purposes of a public library--the same kind of public benefit accrues in this case as in the case of public parks--but in the light of the infinitely more important functions which it renders, this must of necessity occupy a subordinate place. The primary function of a library is to render a service, to supply a need, to respond to a demand. In this respect its value to the community is of the same description as the postal system, the bank at which one may cash a check, or the reservoir from which one may "turn on" a supply of water.

One of the points which Mr. O'Brien aims to make, and which proceeds from a manifest confusion of thought, can be appropriately noticed here. His contention is that a public library is for the "class" who may be designated "book-readers," that these form but a small percentage of any community, and that therefore it is obviously wrong that the library should receive public support. This is ingenious, as is also his eloquent, though somewhat contemptuous setting of their supposed special needs over against those of others. "Are theatre-goers, lovers of cricket, bicyclists, amateurs of music, and others to have their earnings confiscated," merely that the "book-reader" may gratify his peculiar craving? Like many other ingenious theories, however, it leaves out of account certain fundamentally important bearings of the subject. There can be no doubt that in any community "the book-reader" is not synonymous with the entire population. Some of the population are children in arms; some have never learned to read; the sight of some who have learned has failed; others again are too fully occupied to find time for it; others find their inclination drawn more strongly in other directions; others still have more or less to do with reading, yet are not, in the strict sense, "book-readers." Yet we shall err very widely if we lose sight of the fact that even those who do not personally perform the role of the "book-reader" do nevertheless benefit by the existence of the library, by proxy. The young child is read to, by his mother; or is cared for by her, by methods learned through her use of books. The busy "captain of industry," whose large profits are due to a skillful application of scientific principles, may find his own time so closely occupied by details of administration that, personally, he seldom opens the treatises which bear upon the subject, but he expects to keep abreast of the ever unfolding science, by the consultation not only of such works as private ownership may provide, but the more nearly complete collection in a great public library.

This principle of "community of interest" and interdependence has an even wider bearing; for it applies not only to the family and the business firm, but to the community as a whole. A public library report now before the writer contains several instances of this kind. Speaking of the systematic efforts made to build up an approximately complete collection of works on industrial and decorative subjects, the report states that in this way "the library is gradually becoming the possessor of a scientifically selected set of volumes and plates which cannot fail to leave a distinct impress on the character of the work done in the various industries of the city." Another portion of the same report illustrates the direct service rendered by such an institution to the interests of the municipality. To quote the language there used, "Instances of the last named, both striking and tangible, are of by no means exceptional occurrence, sometimes an application of this kind being presented from more than one city official on the same day," the foregoing having reference to the city in question. "A well-authenticated instance," it continues, "in one of the largest cities of the country, of the saving of a sum of many thousand dollars, in the matter of a contract, due to the opportunity for consulting the requisite data comprised in works of authority in the public library of that city, is but an indication of the possibilities of a public library."

It is fitting that where funds are to be appropriated, collected by taxes levied on the tax-paying population, there should be possible so tangible a presentation as the above, of the direct relation of the institution supported, to the question of "profit and loss," as affecting those who are taxed. And yet it is well to remember that it is as true now as twenty centuries ago, that "man does not live by bread alone;" and that the public support of the institutions referred to can be justified by other arguments than that of the material interests just cited.

No aspect of the library's operation is more full of interest than that which takes account of its uplifting influence. The analogy between its service and that of the postal system has been noticed; but it has a no less real analogy to the work of the school, the pulpit, or the press--yet without the propagandist principle which so often attaches to these latter--namely, in the principle of growth or advance. In the earlier portion of this paper a little space was devoted to showing that in the nature of the case the number of copies of any work of fiction used in the course of a year would immensely out-number those which could possibly be read in the more solid departments of reading. Even were the constituency of the library confined to a selected few, to whose minds the higher class of reading was congenial, this would be the case. Nor should we forget that the ground of distinction between a "public" library and any other, as the library of a scientific society, a debating society, a theological school or a teachers' club, is that its constituency _is_ not thus limited to a selected class but is broad as humanity itself, with all its enormous inequalities of condition, taste, and mental growth. Like a mirror, therefore, the recorded classified circulation reflects this variety. Even with this apparently almost unmanageable unevenness, appreciable improvement in standards of reading is by no means an unknown experience. There lies before the writer, for instance, a library report which is able to make such a statement as this: "The fiction percentages of the seven successive years, beginning with 1883 and ending with 1889, show an uninterrupted decline, as follows: 70+, 66+, 62+, 61+, 58+, 56+." But it must be remembered also that figures such as these, though they may tell a part, and a very gratifying part, of the advances which individual readers have been helped to make, fall very far short of expressing the whole. It would be entirely possible for individual after individual thus to advance from good to better, and from better to best, and yet the figures which express the aggregate use of the year remain stationary (or even retrograde), because the constituency of a public library (particularly in a large city) is all the time being reenforced by new readers. And these new readers comprise both those who are children in age and those who are children in mental growth, who begin at the foot. When, therefore, there is anything more than a preserving of a uniform level--as in the noteworthy figures above quoted--it stands for a very striking advance indeed, on the part of a very large portion of the community. Probably every librarian in charge of a public library in a large city has had an opportunity of observing these advances in innumerable individual instances. And this class of results, while distinctly following the "order of nature," does not by any means come about through a view of library administration which regards either books, readers, or librarian as inert masses. Much of it is the result of individual interest expressed by the librarian in some reader, whose mind receives an awakening impulse.

More than one well authenticated instance exists of an individual beginning life as a newsboy or an elevator-boy, and through his use of a public library finding his intellectual powers unfolding until he has entered one of the learned professions. The relation of the library system to the school system opens an almost boundless field of thought, and it is a fact of deep significance that the profound principle involved in it, after having engaged the attention of English and American libraries for years, has been recognized in the educational steps recently taken by the government of Japan, where the two systems are placed on a plane of equality. In the experience of one of the American libraries already referred to, almost the chief hope of the library for the future is placed upon "a class of readers," every year largely increasing in numbers, who comprise the "graduates from the various institutions of learning" in the city, and whose "lines of study and reading" "may be characterized as a carrying forward of those impulses in the direction of right reading which were received in school and college." The library has a no less direct relation to the needs and ambitions of those who have received the invaluable training of "the practical duties of the world," to use Mr. O'Brien's phrase, and it responds with equal readiness to these. There is concentrated in the contemptuous phrase, "book-learning," a popular judgment of condemnation which is for the most part just, on the spurious variety of knowledge which knows the expression of certain principles in books, but knows nothing of their practical embodiment in the life and work of this world. We are glad to observe that Mr. O'Brien's antipathy to this pseudo-knowledge is almost as profound as our own, but his expression of it seems singularly out of place in a philippic against public libraries; for one will seek far before finding an institution more perfectly suited to be a corrective of such a tendency than the modern public library. Does any one claim that the public school system sometimes has an unfortunate tendency to repress individuality and turn out a set of pupils of uniform mould? If so, the public library supplies a means of supplementing and complementing this uniformity by its infinite variety and universality, and it is continually doing this, indeed. Does any one regret that the school system at its best reaches but a fraction of the population and that fraction for but a few short years of their life, and that in too many instances there is a tendency on the part of even these few, educated in the schools, to conceive of their education as "finished," and allow the fabric to become hopelessly ravelled? If so, the public library stands to these members of the community in an almost ideal relation, not only fulfilling very perfectly Mr. Carlyle's characterization of a "collection of books" as "the people's university," but in the peculiarly wide range shown in the demands made upon it, almost as properly rendering it the people's workshop, or laboratory.

The same library report which has several times been cited printed several years since a record of the inquiries made on specific subjects during a single month, which throws significant light upon this subject. Another report of the same library declares that "few can adequately conceive to what extent the inquiries made at the library have become specialized, and require trained facility and research" on the part of the library staff. The library thus becomes a laboratory, in which the reader gains not only the specific information, but the method.

An observation of popular movements in their relation to political or economic principles reveals few facts so plainly as that an almost insuperable narrowness of view is, in much the greater number of instances, the barrier to advance in those questions decided mainly by the popular voice. Why then should any one wish to perpetuate the conditions which make this possible? In Mr. O'Brien's view the workingman,--and we ought not to forget how large a percentage of the community this word "workingman" represents, both in England and America,--will be a fortunate man when the contents of free libraries are no longer rendered everywhere accessible to him by public support, for then the workingmen "for one 'penny' can buy their favorite newspaper, which can be carried in the pocket and read at any time"! It is well nigh incredible that an ideal such as this should be looked forward to by thinking men. Whatever may be the fact in regard to the workingmen of Great Britain,--and Mr. O'Brien of course knows them better than we do,--it may confidently be asserted that the American workingman would strike no such false note. Mr. Lowell in one of his admirable orations quotes from a Wallachian legend of a peasant who was "taken up into heaven" and offered his choice among the objects to be seen there. He chose a half worn-out bagpipe, and with this returned to the earth. "With an infinite possibility within his reach, with the choice of wisdom, of power, of beauty, at his tongue's end, he asked according to his kind, and his sordid wish is answered with a gift as sordid." The newspaper is well enough in its way,--even a "penny newspaper,"--but to condemn whole masses of the population to limit themselves to this, is to incur the condemnation of Mr. Lowell's fine scorn when, in another portion of the oration just referred to, he says: "It is we who, while we might each in his humble way be helping our fellows into the right path, or adding one block to the climbing spire of a fine soul, are willing to become mere sponges saturated from the stagnant goose-pond of village gossip." It is more. It is to help develop a community from whom in the end every spark of uplifting influence shall have vanished. Does any one say that this is a result impossible of attainment by any people? The scientifically true, yet brutally summary record given by the distinguished European savant, Elisee Reclus, of a certain European stock which has found and occupied virgin soil in the South of Africa, is a sufficient answer. "In general," he says, "the Boers despise everything that does not contribute directly to the material prosperity of the family group. They ignore music, the arts, literature, all refining influence, and find little pleasure in anything," except solid amassing of wealth.

A few additional points remain to be noted. It is an entirely pertinent question whether every public library in England and America improves its high privilege, uses to the full the peculiar opportunities open to it, places itself in close communication with the public school system, with the university extension movement, and with the influences continually at work in industrial and artistic development. And we need not hesitate to answer in the negative. Yet the significant fact is, that everywhere the tendency is in this direction with a stronger and stronger momentum. The advance made in this country, within the last decade even, in this direction, is among the most striking phenomena of the time; and no less striking is the almost overwhelming percentage of the body of librarians in this country whose entrance upon the work from a deep-seated love for it, rather than as furnishing a means of livelihood, supplies one of the strongest guarantees against the invasion of the perfunctory spirit in the future. Again, it is equally pertinent to ask whether, granted that the benefits of such an institution as the public library are unquestioned, dependence may not be placed on funds entirely unconnected with those of the public, for its support. It would ill become the citizen of a country where private munificence has accomplished so much in channels of public spirit, to overlook these noble memorials of enlightened private action. Yet it remains true, nevertheless, that were dependence to be placed on these alone, a map of the country on which public libraries should be dotted down would show as partial and inadequate a supply furnished to the community, as the very instructive "annual rainfall map" published by the government shows in the matter of rain. What we are accustomed, in the eastern portion of this country, to consider the rain--in its universal beneficent service and in its indispensableness--that also is to be associated with the "reservoirs" comprised in these public collections of books. For, after all, valuable as are the books themselves, even in their material aspect, as pieces of handiwork, still more in the specific items of information and admonition contained in them, yet in the deeper view these are but symbols of their real significance and service. To place one's self in communication with them as contained in these libraries, is to bring ourselves in contact with the stored-up thought of the world thus far. We have just adverted to the fundamental bearing which this has upon the deeper or spiritual side of man's life. But the two-sided character of these collections of books follows us even here, for their indispensableness in the material point of view is almost as striking, and this, not only whether we consider the statesman planning measures of public weal, while neglecting to inform himself of the recorded conditions which necessarily must determine such measures; or whether it be the inventor spending long years of his too brief life in perfecting a machine which his consultation of the recorded patent would have shown him some one else had anticipated him in thinking out; or whether it be the day laborer submitting without an effort to violations of his rights, which a single glance at the recorded statutes would have shown him he had a remedy for.

How like all this is to the supposed state of things which one of the most suggestive writers of our day has thus expressed: "Our early voyagers are dead: not a plank remains of the old ships that first essayed unknown waters; the sea retains no track; and were it not for the history of these voyages contained in charts, in chronicles, in hoarded lore of all kinds, each voyager, though he were to start with all the aids of advanced civilization," would be in the helpless position of the earliest voyager.

Once more, each reader of the strongly written book which we have been considering should ask the question for himself, whether all of the various propositions maintained therein necessarily stand or fall together. Because the compiler has chosen to bracket together two such headings as "Free libraries" and "The state and electrical distribution," it certainly does not follow that the argument which carries conviction in the one case must in the other also. We shall not be suspected of having our judgment in this regard swayed by the natural weakness with which, to use Mr. O'Brien's illustration, the shoemaker is inclined to think that "there is nothing like leather," if we suggest, what the public at large in this country is very plainly persuaded of, that, for one person who has appreciated the need for public action in the latter case there are thousands in the former. The writer lives in a city in which for more than eleven years the public library was administered by funds not in the least degree derived from municipal appropriations. Yet the character of its service to the public had so widely impressed itself upon the community that, largely from sources outside of the library board, a movement arose for recognizing the closeness of the relation, by public support. A report by a committee of the city government, recommending this course, significantly declares: "Your committee are unanimously of the opinion that this public library, already existing in the city, is a useful and a necessary adjunct to the educational system sustained by the city in its public schools, and properly appeals to the treasury for an appropriation towards its support." After eleven years' opportunity for observation and comparison, such a judgment as this has the merit of deliberation and conviction.

It is true that by far the greater part of the considerations which lead the present writer to find Mr. O'Brien's view untenable are drawn from observation and experience of conditions existing in this country. Yet it is to be noted that his position is also contested, so far as Great Britain is concerned, by an article in the March number of The Library (of London), which shows, not only that our English cousins are fully able to take care of themselves, but also that on many of the questions of fact, about which his arguments turn, he is painfully wide of the mark. Few students of social conditions have left so noteworthy an impress on contemporary thought as the late William Stanley Jevons. Of the free public library he held a view radically opposed to that of Mr. O'Brien, believing it to be "an engine for operating upon" the community, in ways at once protective and ennobling. As to the universality of its beneficent service, he was equally convinced, declaring not only that "free libraries are engines for creating the habit and power of enjoying high-class literature, and thus carrying forward the work of civilization which is commenced in the primary school," but also that they are "classed with town halls, police courts, prisons, and poor-houses, as necessary adjuncts of our stage of civilization." The experience of one community or one nation is repeatedly serviceable to another; but, after all, it is the local conditions which must finally determine in any case. Even if a different conclusion were to be reached in this matter in Great Britain, it would still remain true that for us in America it is one of the highest duties of self-preservation to keep alive the uplifting influences represented in the public support of these institutions. The future of this country, even more than its past, will be irrevocably committed to the democratic principle in government. As is the people--in the widest sense of the word--so will be the national life and character. In the future, even more than in the past, crudity, narrowness, well-meaning ignorance, and low standards of taste and ethics will, unless met with corrective tendencies, color our national life. The public school and the public library--"instruments equal in power to the Dionysiac theatre, and vastly greater in their range of power," to quote the language of one of the most thoughtful of our men of letters--will stand more and more, in our American communities, as such corrective tendencies.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THE PUBLIC

One of the first clear statements of the Public Library as a business enterprise, involving certain amounts invested by a city with the expectation of certain definite returns. The paper refers particularly to the San Francisco Public Library, of which the author, Frederic Beecher Perkins, was then librarian but its conclusions are general, and hold good to-day. It was read at the Lake George Conference of the American Library Association, in September, 1885.

Frederic Beecher Perkins was born in Hartford, Conn., Sept. 27, 1828, a grandson of Lyman Beecher. He left Yale in sophomore year to study law and was admitted to the bar in 1851, but graduated at the State Normal School in 1852 and devoted himself to literary and educational work. In 1880-87 he was librarian of the San Francisco Public Library. He died in Morristown, N.J., Jan. 27, 1899. He was the father of Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

There are in the United States about 5,000 public libraries of 300 volumes or more. Returns of their present conditions are very imperfect, and must therefore be summed in the following crude way:--

Annual cost much more than $1,500,000 The books in them are many more than 13,000,000 Books added yearly are many more than 500,000 Books used yearly are many more than 10,000,000

These institutions, therefore, represent a large money investment, and a very extensive and active educational agency. Not all of them by any means are "free public libraries,"--_i.e._, libraries supported by taxes or endowments for the use of all. But a considerable portion of them are. It may now be justly said that no town of importance is respectably complete without a free public library any more than any town whatever without a school.

The San Francisco Free Public Library was founded in 1879, and was advancing with creditable speed towards a size and usefulness corresponding to the position of San Francisco, among American cities, until the present city government suddenly cut down its annual appropriation to bare running expenses, leaving no allowance for buying new books, or even for replacing old ones worn out.

This library is not a collection of mummies of deceased learning, which will be no drier in a thousand years than they are now. It has thus far consisted of live books for live people. But a library of this practically useful kind, if it stops buying new books, quickly becomes dead stock,--unattractive, obsolete, useless. In _belles-lettres_, literature, history, mechanic arts, engineering, applied science, all alike, it is equally indispensable to have the new books. The photographer, the druggist, the electrician, the machinist, the manufacturing chemist, as much as or more than the reader of novels, poetry, travels, or history, want this year's discoveries, for last year's are already obsolete. Next year it will not be Mr. Blaine's book that will be most called for,--that will be a year old,--but General Grant's book. But a thousand examples would not make the case clearer. This prohibition of new books, perhaps on pretence of economy, would be the natural first step of shrewd opponents intending to close the library entirely as soon as the books are dead enough. It is girdling the tree now, so as to destroy it more early next year. It is understood that at least two prominent members of the present city government (Supervisor Pond and Auditor Strother) are distinctly opposed to the library, and to free public libraries, on principle. It is not known that any member of it is a particularly energetic friend of the institution. The library staff is small in number (seven boys and eight adults); the salaries (omitting the librarian's) exceptionally scanty, and even this small patronage and expenditure is wholly controlled by the Board of Trustees, and wholly out of reach of the Board of Supervisors. When this is remembered it is easy to understand both the probable firmness of any opposition, and the probable lukewarmness of any friendship to the library in the latter body. This is perfectly natural. All governing bodies try to keep and increase their authority over persons and payments. They never let go of them when they can help it. And, accordingly, the Supervisors insisted on controlling all the expenditure and management of the library, until a decision of the Supreme Court of the State forced the control out of their hands.

Whether the actual closing of the library is intended or not, the obvious first step towards it has been taken, and its closing will follow in due season, if the policy is continued. If the voters of San Francisco choose to have it so, there is no more to be said, for it is their library. Probably they could lawfully divide up the books among themselves, and so close out the enterprise. The dividend, now, would be not far from one volume to each household in the city. But, if they wish the library to continue, this early notice is due them.

Further: the custom here, in respect to the contents of municipal public documents, prevents such discussions of library questions as are usual in the annual reports of other city libraries; so that, if a view of principles and practices in and about such institutions as a class, and of their application in this instance, is to be laid before the public at all, it must be submitted, as in this paper, unofficially.

The following table shows the financial, and some of the literary, relations between public libraries and cities in San Francisco, in four other large cities, and in six small cities. The cases were taken promiscuously as they came to hand, of the latest dates available, but all are within a few years. New York has no free public library; movements to establish one there have repeatedly been contemplated, but have been abandoned, because the men who could have set up the library would not encounter the practical certainty of its becoming one more corruptionist engine in the hands of the city rulers. Philadelphia has none, for reasons not known to the present writer, but, very likely, the same as in New York. St. Louis has none now, although its excellent Public School Library may, very likely, become one. New Orleans has none, apparently, because it doesn't want any. Louisville has none, because the devil cannot set up a true church; the enormous lottery swindle which was worked off there a few years ago was ostensibly to establish and endow one, but where did the money go?

Assessed Being, Population Value in Whole Gives its of Cities (1880) Millions City Library whole (1880) Tax tax

Boston 362,000 $613 $7,261,741 $120,000 1/60 Chicago 503,000 118 3,776,451 54,330 1/75 Cincinnati 255,139 169 1/3 4,070,225 49,016 1/82 Lynn 38,274 22 1/2 332,481 5,730 1/58 Milwaukee 115,587 55 3/4 902,537 17,697 1/51 New Bedford 26,875 25 3/4 390,208 5,148 1/76 Newburyport 13,537 7 1/2 105,686 1,661 1/64 Springfield, Mass. 33,340 29 1/2 307,434 8,231 1/37 Taunton 21,213 15 3/4 213,912 5,195 1/41 Worcester 58,291 39 1/2 557,193 14,860 1/38 San Francisco 233,959 225 2,252,000 18,000 1/125

Vols. Being And per Vols. per Circulation per $1.00 Volumes Cities in soul per year soul of added Library (about) (about) salaries yearly

Boston 438,594 1 1/5 1,056,906 3 14 16,478 Chicago 111,621 1/5+ 664,867 1 1/3 23 1/4 5,280 Cincinnati 153,870 3/5+ 730,544 3 26 1/6 4,120 Lynn 32,006 4/5 90,330 2 1/3 36 1,264 Milwaukee 24,481 1/5 83,052 3/4 16 2,778 New Bedford 45,000 1 4/5 71,798 3 ... 2,448 Newburyport 17,828 1 1/3 ... ... ... 441 Springfield, Mass. 48,832 1 1/2 57,152 1 3/4 14 3/4 1,797 Taunton 21,197 1 58,920 2 9/10 31 1/2 1,971 Worcester 61,204 1+ 194,321 3 1/3 26 6/7 3,105 San Francisco 62,647 1/4+ 326,000 1 1/4 36 [3]3,883

[TN: Table split for text version]

[3] Next year NONE except gifts.

The six small cities tabulated are all in Massachusetts, because the latest and fullest reports came to hand from them.

Of various comparisons which could be formulated from the above figures, the following are the most pertinent now:--

(1) Of the five large cities listed, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee give from one fifty-first part to one eighty-second part of their tax levies for their libraries; San Francisco, one one-hundred and twenty-fifth part.

(2) Of the actual sums so set apart by these cities, Boston, with half as many more people, gives nearly seven times as much; Chicago, with twice as many, gives three times as much; Cincinnati, with one-tenth more gives two and two-thirds times as much; Milwaukee, with one-half as many, gives nearly as much ($300 less).

(3) Accordingly, San Francisco would expend every year for its library, if it were as liberal as Boston, about $84,000; if as liberal as Chicago, $27,000; and so on.

(4) The actual comparative size of their libraries is: Boston seven times as large as San Francisco; Chicago nearly twice; Cincinnati twice and a half; Milwaukee only is smaller, being somewhat more than one-third as large.

(5) The rate of increase is: from 16,478 volumes a year at Boston, to 2,778 at Milwaukee; and in San Francisco, for the coming year none (for the loss in worn-out volumes will more than equal any probable total of gifts), none at all.

(6) The number of volumes circulated in a year for each dollar of salaries paid is in San Francisco more than twice as great as in Boston or Milwaukee, and decidedly larger than in Chicago or Cincinnati. It may be added, although the figures are not in this table, that a much more striking evidence of the stringent economy of the library administration here is the fact that there is paid at the Boston Public Library in salaries, in the cataloging department alone, without allowing anything for printing, nearly as much as the whole of this year's library appropriation by the city of San Francisco.

(7) Similar comparisons with the six smaller cities listed would give results generally similar, but showing a still more liberal rate per head and dollar of expenditure for libraries.

In addition to this exposition of comparative parsimony a feature of it should be remembered which might easily escape notice: that, while the money for running expenses is all gone at the end of the year, nearly all of the allowance above running expenses remains represented by valuable property. Thus, if the year's allowance for this library had been $28,000, instead of $18,000, it would not have cost a cent more to run the library and at the year's end about $10,000 worth of books would remain added to the permanent property of the city.

Another result of this policy is to prevent printing any catalogue of the recent additions to the library; so that there is practically no access, and there will, for the present, continue to be none, even for the public who own the books, to all additions to this library since June, 1884, being several thousand titles. It is needless to point out that if there were to be the hypothesis of an unfriendly purpose entertained against the library, that purpose would be served as directly by suppressing the names of books in the library as by preventing the addition of new ones, or by the replacing of those worn out.

These brief statements sufficiently show what our city is doing, and what other cities are doing, for or against public libraries. It is not within the scope of this paper to inquire after the real reason for the stop put to the progress of the San Francisco Free Public Library. One hypothesis is, that, instead of any unfriendly intention against the library itself, the step was taken to help in persuading the public that the "dollar limit" to the rate of city taxation is too low, and that our citizens must submit to a higher rate. As the money saved is only $6,000, the economy is not great in itself, being about one four-hundredth part of the city tax levy. If the proposed effect was expected to be produced by continuously annoying and dissatisfying the citizens there is more reason in the scheme; for the library is frequented by more than a thousand persons daily; between 26,000 and 27,000 cards have been issued to authorize the home use of books; and there are always at any given moment from 5,900 to 6,000 volumes from the library in use in as many homes all over the city. To inconvenience and disoblige so large a constituency as this may naturally produce some effect. This paper need not attempt to decide whether that effect would naturally be approval or disapproval of the treatment of the library, enthusiasm in favor of, or against, the proposed increase of taxation, unpopularity or popularity of the institution itself, or of those whose action so effectually cripples its usefulness. Nor will it discuss the still larger question of the "dollar limit" itself,[4] however decisively important all these inquiries are for the future of the library, and however interesting and clear the arguments and conclusions on those subjects may be. But what it may properly do is, to state, without any pretence of novelty, but simply in order to refresh the public memory, the chief heads of a doctrine of her public libraries from a practical point of view.

First (to limit the discussion). What a free public library is _not_ for.

It is not for a nursery; a lunch-room; a bed-room; a place for meeting a girl in a corner and talking to her; a conversation-room of any kind; a free dispensary of stationery, envelopes, and letter-writing; a free range for loiterers; a campaigning field for mendicants, or for displaying advertisements; a haunt for loafers and criminals. Indeed, not to specify with inelegant distinctness, a free public library, like any other similarly commodious place of free public resort, would, if permitted, be used for any purpose whatever, no matter how private or how vicious, which could be served there more conveniently than by going to one's own home, or than by having any home at all. It would be so used systematically, constantly, and to a degree of intolerable nuisance; and its purification from such uses, if they have been set up, will be met with clamor, abuse, and with any degree and kind of even violent resistance which may be thought safe, or likely to succeed. Let it not be supposed that this is an imaginary picture. It is in every point taken from actual and numerous instances, and could be illustrated by a sufficiently ridiculous series of single adventures, by any librarian of large experience. Open public premises for some of the purposes above specified might conceivably be properly supplied by the public. What is here affirmed is, that public libraries are not at present proper for them.

[4] San Francisco is at present taxed on a precise scale of one dollar to the hundred dollars of value, and on an annual total valuation of $200,000,000, which is, however, in practice somewhat, but not largely, exceeded.

Second. What such a library _is_ for.

Its first object is to supply books to persons wishing to improve their knowledge of their occupations. Such books as Nicholson's, Burns', Riddell's, Tredgold's, Dwyer's, Waring's, Holly's, and others, on practical architecture, building, or departments of them; the numerous collections of plans and details of domestic and other architecture; Masury's house-painting; Kittredge's metal-worker's pattern-book; Percy's, Phillips', and other books on metallurgy and mining; Dussance, Piesse, and others on soap-making, perfumery, and other branches of applied chemistry; Lock on sugar-refining; many manuals of brewing and distilling; Noad, Hospitalier, Preece, etc., on applications of electricity; Burgh's, Roper's, and other hand-books and more advanced works on steam engineering generally, locomotives, marine engines, etc.; Gaskell's, Hill's, and other business manuals; hand-books of correspondence, book-keeping, phonography; in short, text-books, both elementary and advanced, in all sorts of commercial and industrial occupations, are of the first importance in a free public library, and are constantly and eagerly used in this one. The study of such books puts money directly into the student's pocket, promotes his success in life, and the prosperity of the city. A good and active public library raises the value of every piece of real estate in the city, by thus making the city more profitable (in dollars) to live in; because it enables the intelligent and studious to earn more.

Second in importance is the supply of books to those who wish to acquire or pursue an education, or to complete or continue a knowledge of general literature; and, third, the accommodation of students working out special lines of research.

Fourth. Such is the more solid usefulness of a public library. The rest of its distributing work, whatever its intrinsic usefulness, is at least as indispensable, and is always numerically the most popular. This is the supply of light literature to readers for rest or amusement. Whether books of this class constitute one-half the library or (as in this one) one-tenth of it, it may be depended on that from one-half to four-fifths of all the reading done will be done from that part. The justification of the supply of such books by a free public library is, that it is important also, if not likewise, to afford mental relaxation, as it is to feed mental effort; that even light reading is a very important improvement over and safe-guard from street life and saloon life; that such books introduce to a more useful class of books by forming the habit of reading; and that the public, who pay for the library, choose to have books of this sort as much as, if not even rather more than, the more useful sort.

Fifth. There is another department of usefulness for public libraries, quite unknown until within a few years, which makes them actual and vital members of the public-school system, and additionally justifies the term "People's Universities," which has often been applied to them. This is the arrangement at the library of courses of illustrative study and reading for teachers or pupils, or both. A series of such books as relate to one or another part of the school course is laid out at the library; the teachers, and perhaps sometimes one of the higher classes, examine them along with the librarian, and such information as they afford is used to fill out and illustrate the outline in the school-book for the fuller information of the pupils.

This practice is perhaps easiest in history and geography. It is easy to see how a capable teacher could intensify the interest and enrich the minds of a class about the geography of the East Indian archipelago, by introducing them to the vivid narrative and abundant illustrations of Wallace's most entertaining and instructive book on that region. How, for instance, Palgrave's "Year in Arabia," Palmer's "Desert of the Exodus," Lady Duff Gordon's "Letters from Egypt," O'Donovan's "Merv Oasis," Atkinson's and Kennan's books on Siberia, Huc's "Travels in Tartary and in China," and hundreds of other books, each for its locality, all over the world, could be used to give a child clear notions and strong impressions of savage or civilized landscapes and people. It is not too much to say that the study of geography in the public schools of San Francisco, illustrated as it could easily be from books of travel now in the public library, could be made from beginning to end as fascinating as any romance, while it would store the children's minds with a kind and quantity of distinct knowledge about the earth and its people as much beyond the results of ordinary geographical study as gold is better than mud. It would be easy to furnish similar specifications for the study of history, of natural science, and other branches. This is no mere speculation. This system of instruction is regularly practised by Mr. Green, of the Worcester Free Library (the originator and pioneer in it); by Mr. Poole at Chicago, and elsewhere, and with complete success. Besides its immediate result in vivifying and enriching the pupil's minds, this method affords a training in habits of reading of the very best kind, by teaching research, the habit of selecting books, and the practice of comparative thinking.

To sum up: A free public library--

1. As to manners--is a parlor, not a bar-room; a place where not only working men and business men, but ladies and young girls can safely and conveniently come and abide. While not expressly a school of manners and morals, it is much and closely concerned in maintaining a high standard in both.

2. As to objects--is to furnish good books, not bad ones; to satisfy within this limit all demands on it as far as may be; and in particular to be progressive; that is, to supply for intelligent readers what they most require,--the _new_ good books.

3. As to method--should keep the books in the best possible condition for the longest possible term of use, and should not allow them to be scattered, lost, abused, mutilated, or stolen.

Lastly. It is needless to add, under these heads, any of the numerous technical details which crowd the work of an active library; but this exposition would be inexcusably imperfect without a reference to the absolute indispensableness of proper quarters in order to successful library administration. Only the merest reference need now be made to the professional immorality of notorious localities close around this library in its present place. Something more may be said of the unbusinesslike payment by the city of a heavy insurance on $50,000 worth of its property, which must be paid, because the library is in the same building with a theatre. Theatres burn down on an average once in seventeen years; and a theatre risk, although not absolutely uninsurable like a gunpowder mill, is what insurance men call "extra hazardous;" so that not only is the insurance rate high, but the destruction by fire of the library (in its present location) may be looked upon as certain, the only question being, How soon?

A difficulty less obvious and less dangerous, but still a source of constant friction and annoyance, is the present arrangement of the library as one collection, with but one place for delivering books. In a small library, with a small business, this difficulty becomes nothing; but in one as large and as energetically active as this it is a serious disadvantage. Such a library imperatively requires division into two libraries or sections, one to contain all books deliverable without discrimination; the other, all books calling for special care and precaution of any kind. The receipt and delivery desks of these two sections should be separate, and before and behind them there should be plenty of room. In the present library, which is in one large undivided hall, the space is insufficient, both for the public and for the library staff; and books of the two classes above described are intermingled all over the shelves. The result is, crowding, interruption, delay, error, confusion, and dissatisfaction. Very many books might be trusted with a studious mechanic or a literary student which it would be a folly to deliver into the hands of a small boy or girl. Many other extremely desirable objects would be gained by the occupancy of properly arranged library quarters; but of these only two need be mentioned here; separate quarters could be provided for students who need special facilities and assistance, and there could be such arrangements that ladies using the library need not crowd and struggle about among impatient children and miscellaneous masculine strangers.

THE LEVY OF LIBRARY TRIBUTE

The above title was constructed by the editor from a sentence in the presidential address of Henry M. Utley before the American Library Association at its Denver conference of 1895. President Utley himself gave it no title, but it is an examination of the claims of the library to public support, with a conclusion that those claims are justified only by regarding the library as an educational institution, using this term in its broadest sense.

Henry Munson Utley was born at Plymouth, Mich., Aug. 5, 1836. He served on the staff of the Detroit _Free Press_ in 1861-66, was city editor of the _Post_ and _Post-Tribune_ until 1881, and then, after holding the secretaryship of the Detroit Board of Education, became in 1885 librarian of the Public Library, in which post he served until his death on Feb. 16, 1917, becoming librarian emeritus in 1913.

We are met for the seventeenth Conference of the American Library Association in the Capital city of the Centennial State. It is a pleasing co-incidence that the Association and the State celebrate the same natal year. Within the memory of some of us the whole region of which this city is now the metropolis was a wilderness. The century was fairly begun when Lieut. Pike led his little band to the sources of the Arkansas and made his futile attempt to scale the lofty peak which now bears his name. Forty years later came the explorations of Fremont, and then fifteen years elapsed before the tide of immigration set in. The desert of that day has been converted into prosperous farms. Thriving towns have sprung up in the mountain fastnesses, at the gateway to which sits this Queen City of the plains, displaying all the evidences of wealth, culture, and refinement to be found in the proud cities to the eastward.

This rapid and wonderful transformation has been the work of human hands guided by intelligent brains and an indomitable spirit of pluck and perseverance. We are accustomed to think of this combination as purely American. In many of its characteristics it certainly is so. And in no respect more distinctively so than in the cause in which we are most interested. Not all the older commonwealths, even on this side of the Atlantic, have yet accepted the theory that the education of the citizen is the concern of the state. But in all this newer portion of our country this doctrine has been incorporated into the fundamental law. The ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio river declared that for obvious reasons schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged. The twenty states now organized within this and the subsequently acquired territory to the westward have all accepted to the fullest extent the doctrine of the ordinance. They have not only carried it into practical effect by general laws providing for free public schools for children, for universities and institutions of higher learning for the education of youth, but have also provided for the establishment and maintenance of free public libraries at the general expense and for the common use of all the people.

Let us consider very bri