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Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
There is the building: that in itself seems to commit us. There is
equipment. There are books. As regards any national service the
federal libraries should be one library. They contain nearly two
million volumes. The Library of Congress contains net some 700,000
books and a half million other items. It has for increase (1) deposits
under the copyright law, (2) documents acquired through
distribution of the federal documents placed at its disposal for
exchange—formerly 50 copies of each, now 100, (3) books and
society publications acquired by the Smithsonian through its
exchanges, (4) miscellaneous gifts and exchanges, and, (5)
purchases from appropriations. These have increased from $10,000
a year prior to 1897 to $70,000 for the year 1901-2.
Such resources are by no means omnipotent. No resources can
make absolutely comprehensive a library starting its deliberate
accumulations at the end of the 19th century. Too much material has
already been absorbed into collections from which it will never
emerge.
But universality in scope does not mean absolute comprehensiveness
in detail. With its purchasing funds and other resources the Library
of Congress bids fair to become the strongest collection in the
United States in bibliography, in Americana (omitting the earliest), in
political and social science, public administration, jurisprudence. If
any American library can secure the documents which will exhibit
completely legislation proposed and legislation enacted it should be
able to. As depository of the library of the Smithsonian it will have
the most important collection—perhaps in the world—of the
transactions and proceedings of learned societies; and, adding its
own exchanges and subscriptions, of serials in general. With
theology it may not especially concern itself nor with philology to the
degree appropriate to a university library. Medicine it will leave as a
specialty to the library of the Surgeon-General's office, already pre-
eminent, Geology to the library of the Geological Survey. Two
extremes it may have to abstain from—so far as deliberate purchase
is concerned: (1) the books merely popular, (2) the books merely
curious. Of the first many will come to it through copyright; of the
second many should come through gift. (Perhaps in time the public
spirit of American collectors and donors may turn to it as the public
spirit of the British turns to the National Library of Great Britain.)
Original sources must come to it, if at all, chiefly by gift. Manuscript
material relating to American history it has, however, bought, and
will buy.
Otherwise, chiefly printed books. Of these, the useful books; of
these again, the books useful rather for the establishment of the fact
than for the mere presentation of it—the books for the advancement
of learning, rather than those for the mere diffusion of knowledge.
Lastly there is an organization. Instead of 42 persons, for all manner
of service, there are now 261, irrespective of printers, binders, and
the force attending to the care of the building itself.
The copyright work is set off and interferes no longer with the
energies of the library proper. There is a separate division having to
do with the acquisition of material, another—of 67 persons—to
classify and catalog it. There are 42 persons attending to the
ordinary service of the reading room as supplied from the stacks,
and there are eight special divisions handling severally the current
newspapers and periodicals, the documents, manuscripts, maps,
music, prints, the scientific publications forming the Smithsonian
deposit, and the books for the blind. There is a Division of
Bibliography whose function is to assist in research too elaborate for
the routine service of the reading room, to edit the library
publications, and to represent the library in co-operative
bibliographic undertakings. There is now within the building, besides
a bindery, with a force of 45 employees, a printing office, with a
force of 21. The allotment for printing and binding, in 1896 only
$15,000, is for the coming year $90,000.
The immediate duty of this organization is near at hand. There is a
huge arrear of work upon the existing collection—necessary for its
effective use, and its intelligent growth. It must be newly classified
throughout; and shelf listed. The old author slip catalog must be
revised and reduced to print. There must be compiled a subject
catalog, of which none now exists. Innumerable gaps—that which is
crooked can be made straight, but that which is wanting cannot be
numbered—innumerable gaps are to be ascertained and filled. A
collection of reference books must be placed back at the Capitol,
with suitable apparatus, to bring the library once more into touch
with Congress and enable it to render the service to Congress which
is its first duty. The other libraries of the District must be brought
into association—not by gathering their collections into the Library of
Congress, but by co-ordinating processes and service. The Library of
Congress as the center of the system can aid in this. It can
strengthen each departmental library by relieving it of material not
necessary to its special work. It can aid toward specialization in
these departmental libraries by exhibiting present unnecessary
duplication. (It is just issuing a union list of serials currently taken by
the libraries of the District which has this very purpose.) It can very
likely print the catalog cards for all the government libraries—
incidentally securing uniformity, and a copy for its own use of each
card—which in time will result in a complete statement within its
own walls of the resources of every departmental library in
Washington. It will supply to each such library a copy of every card
which it prints of a book in its own collections relating to the work of
the bureau which such library serves.
To reduce to order the present collection, incorporating the current
accessions, to fill the most inconvenient gaps, to supply the most
necessary apparatus in catalogs and to bring about a relation among
the libraries of Washington which shall form them into an organic
system: this work will of itself be a huge one. I have spoken of the
equipment of the Library of Congress as elaborate, the force as
large, and the appropriations as generous. All are so in contrast to
antecedent conditions. In proportion to the work to be done,
however, they are not merely not excessive, but in some respects far
short of the need. To proceed beyond those immediate undertakings
to projects of general service will require certain equipment, service,
and funds not yet secured, and which can be secured only by a
general effort. But the question is not what can be done, but what
may be done—in due time, eventually.
A general distribution of the printed cards: That has been suggested.
It was suggested a half century ago by the Federal Government
through the Smithsonian Institution. Professor Jewett's proposal
then was a central bureau to compile, print and distribute cards
which might serve to local libraries as a catalog of their own
collections. Such a project is now before this Association. It may not
be feasible: that is, it might not result in the economy which it
suggests. It assumes a large number of books to be acquired, in the
same editions, by many libraries, at the same time. In fact, the
enthusiasm for the proposal at the Montreal meeting last year has
resulted in but sixty subscriptions to the actual project.
It may not be feasible. But if such a scheme can be operated at all it
may perhaps be operated most effectively through the library which
for its own uses is cataloging and printing a card for every book
currently copyrighted in the United States, and for a larger number
of others than any other single institution. Such must be confessed
of the Library of Congress. It is printing a card for every book
currently copyrighted, for every other book currently added—for
every book reached in re-classification—and thus in the end for
every book in its collection. It is now printing, at the rate of over 200
titles a day—60,000 titles a year. The entry is an author entry, in
form and type accepted by the committee on cataloging of the A. L.
A. The cards are of the standard size—3 × 5 inches—of the best
linen ledger stock. From 15 to 100 copies of each are now printed. It
would be uncandid to say that such a number is necessary for the
use of the library itself, or of the combined libraries at Washington.
The usefulness of copies of them to any other library for
incorporation in its catalogs must depend upon local conditions: the
style, form, and size of its own cards, the number of books which it
adds yearly, the proportion of these which are current, and other
related matters. On these points we have sought statistics from 254
libraries. We have them from 202. With them we have samples of
the cards in use by each, with a complete author entry. Having them
we are in a position really to estimate the chances. I will not enter
into details. Summarily, it appears that our cards might effect a great
saving to certain libraries and some saving to others, and would
entail a mere expense without benefit to the remainder—all of which
is as might have been guessed.
The distribution suggested by Professor Jewett and proposed by the
A. L. A. had in view a saving to the recipient library of cataloging and
printing on its own account. It assumed a subscription by each
recipient to cover the cost of the extra stock and presswork. There is
conceivable a distribution more limited in range, having another
purpose. The national library wishes to get into touch with the local
libraries which are centers for important research. It wishes the
fullest information as to their contents; it may justifiably supply them
with the fullest information as to its own contents. Suppose it should
supply them with a copy of every card which it prints, getting in
return a copy of every card which they print? I am obliged to
disclose this suggestion: for such an exchange has already been
begun. A copy of every card printed by the Library of Congress goes
out to the New York Public Library: a copy of every card printed by
the New York Public Library comes to the Library of Congress. In the
new building of the New York Public Library there will be a section of
the public card catalog designated The Catalog of the Library of
Congress. It will contain at least every title in the Library of Congress
not to be found in any library of the metropolis. In the Library of
Congress a section of the great card catalog of American libraries
outside the District will be a catalog of the New York Public Library.
I have here a letter from the librarian of Cornell University
forwarding a resolution of the Library Council (composed in part of
faculty members) which requests for the university library a set of
these cards. Mr. Harris states that the purpose would be to fit up
cases of drawers in the catalog room, which is freely accessible to
any one desiring to consult bibliographical aids, and arrange the
cards in alphabetical order by authors, thus making an author
catalog of the set. He adds "The whole question has been rather
carefully considered and the unanimous sense of the council was
that the usefulness of the catalog to us would be well worth the cost
of the cases, the space they would occupy, and the time it would
take to arrange and keep in order the cards."
There is a limit to such a distribution. But I suspect that it will not
stop with New York and Ithaca.
There is some expense attendant on it. There is the extra stock, the
presswork, the labor of sorting and despatching. No postage,
however, for the Library of Congress has the franking privilege, in
and out. The results however: one cannot deny them to be
attractive. At Washington a statement of at least the distinctive
contents of every great local collection. At each local center of
research a statement of the distinctive contents of the national
collection. An inquirer in Wisconsin writes to Washington: is such a
book to be had in the United States; must he come to Washington
for it, or to New York?—No, he will find it in Chicago at the Newberry
or the Crerar.
If there can be such a thing as a bibliographic bureau for the United
States, the Library of Congress is in a way to become one; to a
degree, in fact, a bureau of information for the United States.
Besides routine workers efficient as a body, it has already some
expert bibliographers and within certain lines specialists. It has not a
complete corps of these. It cannot have until Congress can be made
to understand the need of them. Besides its own employees,
however, it has within reach by telephone a multitude of experts.
They are maintained by the very government which maintains it.
They are learned men, efficient men, specially trained, willing to give
freely of their special knowledge. They enter the government employ
and remain there, not for the pecuniary compensation, which is
shamefully meagre, but for the love of the work itself and for the
opportunity for public service which it affords. Of these men, in the
scientific bureaus at Washington, the National Library can take
counsel: it can secure their aid to develop its collections and to
answer inquiries of moment. This will be within the field of the
natural and physical sciences. Meantime within its walls it possesses
already excellent capacity for miscellaneous research, and special
capacity for meeting inquiries in history and topography, in general
literature, and in the special literature of economics, mathematics
and physics. It has still Ainsworth Spofford and the other men, who
with him, under extraordinary disadvantages, for thirty-five years
made the library useful at the Capitol.
The library is already issuing publications in book form. In part these
are catalogs of its own contents; in part an exhibit of the more
important material in existence on some subject of current interest,
particularly, of course, in connection with national affairs. Even
during the period of organization fifteen such lists have already been
issued. They are distributed freely to libraries and even to individual
inquirers.
But there may be something further. The distribution of cards which
exhibit its own contents or save duplication of expense elsewhere,
the publication of bibliographies which aid to research, expert
service which in answer to inquiry points out the best sources and
the most effective methods of research: all these may have their
use. But how about the books themselves? Must the use of this
great collection be limited to Washington? How many of the students
who need some book in the Library of Congress—perhaps there
alone—can come to Washington to consult it at the moment of
need? A case is conceivable: a university professor at Madison or
Berkeley or San Antonio, in connection with research important to
scholarship, requires some volume in an unusual set. The set is not
in the university library. It is too costly for that library to acquire for
the infrequent need. The volume is in the National Library. It is not
at the moment in use at Washington. The university library requests
the loan of it. If the National Library is to be the national library——?
There might result some inconvenience. There would be also the
peril of transit. Some volumes might be lost to posterity. But after all
we are ourselves a posterity. Some respect is due to the ancestors
who have saved for our use. And if one copy of a book possessed by
the federal government and within reasonable limits subject to call
by different institutions, might suffice for the entire United States—
what does logic seem to require—and expediency—and the good of
the greater number?
The Library of Congress is now primarily a reference library. But if
there be any citizen who thinks that it should never lend a book—to
another library—in aid of the higher research—when the book can be
spared from Washington and is not a book within the proper duty of
the local library to supply—if there be any citizen who thinks that for
the National Library to lend under these circumstances would be a
misuse of its resources and, therefore, an abuse of trust—he had
better speak quickly, or he may be too late. Precedents may be
created which it would be awkward to ignore.
Really I have been speaking of the Library of Congress as if it were
the only activity of the federal government of interest to libraries.
That, however, is the fault of the topic. It was not what might be
done for science, for literature, for the advance of learning, for the
diffusion of knowledge. It was merely what might be done for
libraries; as it were, not for the glory of God, but for the
advancement of the church. We have confidence in the mission of
libraries and consider anything in aid of it as good in itself.
Their most stimulating, most fruitful service must be the direct
service. The service of the national authority must in large part be
merely indirect. It can meet the reader at large only through the
local authority. It can serve the great body of readers chiefly through
the local libraries which meet them face to face, know their needs,
supply their most ordinary needs. Its natural agent—we librarians at
least must think this—is its own library—the library which if there is
to be a national library not merely of, but for the United States—
must be that library.
Must become such, I should have said. For we are not yet arrived.
We cannot arrive until much preliminary work has been done, and
much additional resource secured from Congress. We shall arrive the
sooner in proportion as you who have in charge the municipal and
collegiate libraries of the United States will urge upon Congress the
advantage to the interests you represent, of undertakings such as I
have described. To this point we have not asked your aid. In the
equipment of the library, in the reconstruction of its service, in the
addition of more expert service, in the improvement of immediate
facilities, our appeal to Congress has been based on the work to be
done near at hand. I have admitted to you the possibility of these
other undertakings of more general concern. If they commend
themselves to you as proper and useful—the appeal for them must
be primarily your appeal.

THE TRUSTEESHIP OF LITERATURE—I.

By George Iles, New York City.
Six months ago the curtain descended upon what is likely to be
accounted the most memorable century in the annals of mankind. So
salient are three of its characteristics that they challenge the eye of
the most casual retrospection. First of all, we see that knowledge
was increased at a pace beyond precedent, to be diffused
throughout the world with a new thoroughness and fidelity. Next we
must observe how republican government passed from the slender
ties spun in the times of Washington, Jefferson and Adams, to the
intimate and pervasive cords of to-day, when, as never before, the
good of the bee is bound up with the welfare of the hive. Parallel
with this political union of each and all there was a growth of free
organization which, in every phase of life, has secured uncounted
benefits which only joined hands may receive. Fresh torches of light
fraternally borne from the centers of civilization to its circumference
have tended to bring the arts and ideals of life everywhere to the
level of the best. These distinctive features of the nineteenth century
were in little evidence at its dawn, but they became more and more
manifest with each succeeding decade. In American librarianship, as
in many another sphere of labor, more was accomplished in the last
quarter of the century than in the seventy-five preceding years.
It is as recently as 1852 that Boston opened the doors of the first
free public library established in an American city. Its founders were
convinced that what was good for the students at Harvard, the
subscribers to the Athenæum, was good for everybody else.
Literature, they felt, was a trust to be administered not for a few,
but for the many, to be, indeed, hospitably proffered to all. To this
hour, by a wise and generous responsiveness to its ever-growing
duties, the Boston foundation remains a model of what a
metropolitan library should be. As with the capital, so with the state;
to-day Massachusetts is better provided with free public libraries
than any other commonwealth on the globe; only one in two
hundred of her people are unserved by them, while within her
borders the civic piety of her sons and daughters has reared more
than six score library buildings. The library commission of the state is
another model in its kind; its powers are in the main advisory, but
when a struggling community desires to establish a library, and
contributes to that end, the commission tenders judicious aid. The
population of Massachusetts is chiefly urban, an exceptional case,
for taking the Union as a whole, notwithstanding the constant drift
to the cities, much more than half the people are still to be found in
the country. For their behoof village libraries have appeared in
thousands. Still more effective, because linked with one another, are
the travelling libraries, inaugurated by Mr. Melvil Dewey in New York
in 1893, and since adopted in many other states of the Union, and
several provinces of Canada. All this registers how the democracy of
letters has come to its own. Schools public and free ensure to the
American child its birthright of instruction; libraries, also public and
free, are rising to supplement that instruction, to yield the light and
lift, the entertainment and stimulus that literature stands ready to
bestow. The old-time librarian, who was content to be a mere
custodian of books, has passed from the stage forever; in his stead
we find an officer anxious that his store shall do all the people the
utmost possible good. To that end he combines the zeal of the
missionary with the address of a consummate man of business. Little
children are invited to cheery rooms with kind and intelligent
hospitality; teachers and pupils from the public schools are
welcomed to classrooms where everything is gathered that the
library can offer for their use; helpful bulletins and consecutive
reading lists are issued for the home circle; every book, magazine
and newspaper is bought, as far as feasible, with an eye to the
special wants and interests of the community; information desks are
set up; and partnerships are formed with expositors of
acknowledged merit, with museums of industry, of natural history, of
the fine arts. Not the borrowers only, but the buyers of books are
remembered. The Standard Library, brought together by Mr. W. E.
Foster, in Providence, is a shining example in this regard.
The sense of trusteeship thus variously displayed has had a good
many sources; let us confine our attention to one of them. During
the past hundred years the treasure committed to the keeping of
librarians has undergone enrichment without parallel in any
preceding age. We have more and better books than ever before;
they mean more than in any former time for right living and sound
thinking. A rough and ready classification of literature, true enough
in substance, divides it into books of power, of information, and of
entertainment. Let us look at these three departments a little in
detail. Restricting our purview to the English tongue, we find the
honor roll of its literature lengthened by the names of Wordsworth,
Tennyson and Matthew Arnold, Carlyle and Ruskin, Emerson and
Lowell. And not only to authors such as these must our debt be
acknowledged. We owe scholarly editors nearly as much. In
Spedding's Bacon, the Shakesperean studies of Mr. Furniss, and the
Chaucer of Professor Skeat, we have typical examples of services not
enjoyed by any former age. To-day the supreme poets, seers and
sages of all time are set before us in the clearest sunshine; their
gold, refined from all admixture, is minted for a currency impossible
before. In their original, unedited forms, the masterpieces of our
language are now cheap enough to find their way to the lowliest
cottage of the cross-roads.
It is not, however, in the field of literature pure and simple that the
manna fell most abundantly during the past hundred years. Mr.
Alfred Russel Wallace, the last of the great students who took all
natural history for their province, declares that the advances in
discovery, invention and generalization during the nineteenth century
outweigh those of all preceding time. Admit this judgment, and at
once is explained why the records and the spirit of science dominate
the literature of the last ten decades. And let us note that while
books of knowledge have increased beyond measure, they have
appeared with a helpfulness and with merits wholly new. For the first
time in the history of letters, men and women of successful
experience, of practised and skilful pens, write books which, placed
in the hands of the people, enlighten their toil, diminish their
drudgery, and sweeten their lives. Cross the threshold of the home
and there is not a task, from choosing a carpet to rearing a baby,
that has not been illuminated by at least one good woman of
authority in her theme. On the heights of the literature of science we
have a quality and distinction unknown before these later days. The
modern war on evil and pain displays weapons of an edge and force
of which our forefathers never dared to dream; its armies march
forward not in ignorant hope, but with the assured expectation of
victory. All this inspires leaders like Huxley, Spencer and Fiske with
an eloquence, a power to convince and persuade, new in the annals
of human expression and as characteristic of the nineteenth century
as the English poetry of the sixteenth, in the glorious era of
Elizabeth. The literature of knowledge is not only fuller and better
than of old, it is more wisely employed. In the classroom, and when
school days are done, we now understand how the printed page
may best direct and piece out the work of the hand, the eye and the
ear; not for a moment deluding ourselves with the notion that we
have grasped truth merely because we can spell the word. To-day
we first consider the lilies of the field, not the lilies of the printer;
that done it is time enough to take up a formal treatise which will
clarify and frame our knowledge. If a boy is by nature a mechanic, a
book of the right sort shows him how to construct a simple steam
engine or an electric motor. Is he an amateur photographer, other
books, excellently illustrated, give him capital hints for work with his
camera. It is in thus rounding out the circle which springs from the
school desk that the public library justifies its equal claim to support
from the public treasury.
In the third and last domain of letters, that of fiction, there is a
veritable embarrassment of riches. During the three generations past
the art of story-telling culminated in works of all but Shakesperean
depth and charm. We have only to recall Scott and Thackeray,
Hawthorne, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy, to be reminded that an
age of science may justly boast of novelists and romancers such as
the world never knew before. No phase of life but has been limned
with photographic fidelity, no realm of imagination but has been
bodied forth as if by experience on fire, so that many a book which
bears the name of fiction might well be labelled as essential truth.
Within the past decade, however, the old veins have approached
their bounds, while new lodes do not as yet appear. Of this the
tokens are the eager sifting of the rubbish heap, the elaborate
picturing of the abnormal and the gross. Pens unable to afford either
delight or cheer have abundant capacity, often with evident malice,
to strike the nerves of horror and of pain. If at the present hour high
achievement in fiction is rare, if we hear more echoes than ever and
fewer voices, quantity abounds to the point of surfeit. With an
output in America alone of 616 works for 1900, all fears of famine
may well be allayed.
The main fact of the situation then is that the librarian's trust has of
late years undergone stupendous increase; this at once broadens his
opportunities and adds to his burdens. Gold and silver, iron and lead,
together with much dross, are commingled in a heap which rises
every hour. Before a trust can be rightly and gainfully administered,
its trustees must know in detail what it is that they guard, what its
several items are worth, what they are good for. And let us
remember that literature consists in but small part of metals which
declare themselves to all men as gold or lead; much commoner are
alloys of every conceivable degree of worth or worthlessness. There
is plainly nothing for it but to have recourse to the crucibles of the
professional assayer, it becomes necessary to add to the titles of our
catalogs some responsible word as to what books are and what rank
they occupy in an order of just precedence.
This task of a competent and candid appraisal of literature, as a
necessity of its trusteeship, has been before the minds of this
Association for a good many years. A notable Step toward its
accomplishment was taken when Mr. Samuel S. Green, in 1879,
allied himself with the teachers of Worcester, Massachusetts, that
they and he together might select books for the public schools of
that city. The work began and has proceeded upon comprehensive
lines. Such literature has been chosen as may usefully and
acceptably form part of the daily instruction, there is a liberal choice
of books of entertainment and inspiration worthily to buttress and
relieve the formal lessons. The whole work goes forward with intent
to cultivate the taste, to widen the horizons, to elevate the impulses
of the young reader. Mr. Green's methods, with the modifications
needful in transplanting, have been adopted far and wide throughout
the Union. Already they have borne fruit in heightening the
standards of free choice when readers have passed from the school
bench to the work-a-day world.
Thus thoughtfully to lay the foundation of the reading habit is a task
beyond praise; upon a basis so sound it falls to our lot to rear, if we
can, a worthy and durable superstructure. It is time that we passed
from books for boys and girls to books for the youth, the man and
the woman. And how amid the volume and variety of the
accumulated literature of the ages shall we proceed? For light and
comfort let us go back a little in the history of education, we shall
there find a method substantially that of our friend, Mr. Green. Long
before there were any free libraries at all, we had in America a small
band of readers and learners who enjoyed unfailing pilotage in the
sea of literature. These readers and learners were in the colleges,
where the teachers from examination and comparison in the study,
the class-room and the laboratory were able to say that such an
author was the best in his field, that such another had useful
chapters, and that a third was unreliable or superseded. While
literature has been growing from much to more, this bench of
judicature has been so enlarged as to keep steadily abreast of it. At
Harvard there are twenty-six sub-libraries of astronomy, zoology,
political economy, and so on; at hand are the teachers who can tell
how the books may be used with most profit. Of the best critics of
books in America the larger part are to be found at Harvard, at its
sister universities and colleges, at the technological institutes and art
schools of our great cities. We see their signed reviews in such
periodicals as the Political Science Quarterly and the Physical
Review; or unsigned in journals of the stamp of the Nation.
Fortunately, we can call upon reinforcements of this vanguard of
criticism. It would be difficult to name a branch of learning, an art, a
science, an exploration, from folk-lore to forestry, from psychical
research to geological surveys, whose votaries are not to-day
banded to promote the cause they have at heart. These
organizations include not only the foremost teachers in the Union,
but also their peers, outside the teaching profession, of equal
authority in bringing literature to the balances. And the point for us
is that these societies, through their publications and discussions,
enable these laymen to be known for what they are. Because the
American Historical Association is thus comprehensive, its
membership has opened the door for an initial task of appraisal,
important in itself and significant for the future.
Drawing his two score contributors almost wholly from that
Association, Mr. J. N. Larned, of Buffalo, an honored leader of ours,
has, without fee or reward, acted as chief editor of an annotated
Bibliography of American History. The work is now passing through
the composing room of Houghton, Mifflin & Co., of Boston; its
contributors include professors of history at Bowdoin, Bryn Mawr,
Columbia, Harvard, McGill, Toronto, Tulane and Yale, as well as the
Universities of Michigan, Wisconsin and Chicago; our own
Association is worthily represented by Messrs. James Bain, Clarence
S. Brigham, V. L. Collins, W. E. Foster, J. K. Hosmer, E. C. Richardson
and R. G. Thwaites. As a rule the notes are signed. Where for any
reason a book demanding notice could not be allotted to a
contributor, Mr. Larned has quoted the fairest review he could find in
print. He has included not only good books, but such other works as
have found an acceptance they do not deserve. All told his pages
will offer us about 3400 titles; a syllabus of the sources of American
history is prefixed by Mr. Paul Leicester Ford; as an appendix will
appear a feature also of great value. In their "Guide to American
history," published in 1896, Professors Channing and Hart, of
Harvard University, recommended such collections of books as may
be had for $5, $10, $20, $50 or $100. Professor Channing is kind
enough to say that he will revise these lists and bring them down to
date as a contribution to Mr. Larned's work. Professor Channing may,
we trust, name the books in each collection in the order in which
they may be most gainfully read.
In times past our bibliographies have begun to need enlargement
the moment they left the bindery; in the present case that need is
for the first time to be supplied. Mr. Larned's titles come to the close
of 1899; beyond that period current literature is to be chosen from
and appraised with the editorship of Philip P. Wells, librarian of the
Yale Law Library, who will issue his series in card form. We hope that
he may be ready with his cards for 1900 at the time that Mr.
Larned's book appears. Thereafter Mr. Wells' series will probably be
published quarter by quarter. Beginning with 1897, Mr. W. Dawson
Johnston, now of the Library of Congress, has edited for us a series
of annotated cards dealing with the contemporary literature of
English history. Both the form and substance of his series are capital.
In so far as his cards go directly into catalog cases, where readers
and students must of necessity see them, they render the utmost
possible aid. If subscribers in sufficient array come forward, Mr.
Larned's book may be remolded for issue in similar card form, with a
like opportunity for service in catalog cases. In the Cleveland Public
Library and its branches useful notes are pasted within the lids of a
good many volumes. It is well thus to put immediately under the
reader's eye the word which points him directly to his goal, or
prevents him wasting time in wanderings of little value or no value at
all.
With Mr. Larned's achievement a new chapter is opened in American
librarianship; he breaks a path which should be followed up with a
discernment and patience emulous of his example. If the whole
working round of our literature were sifted and labelled after his
method, the worth of that literature, because clearly brought into
evidence, might well be doubled at least. Every increase in the
availability of our books, every removal of fences, every setting-up of
guide-posts, has had a heartening public response. So it will be if we
proceed with this effort to bring together the seekers and the
knowers, to obtain the best available judgments for the behoof of
readers and students everywhere. Economics and politics, so closely
interwoven with American history, might well afford the second field
for appraisal. A good many libraries still find aid in the "Reader's
guide" in this department, although it appeared as long ago as 1891.
Next might follow the literature of the sciences pure and applied,
together with the useful arts. Among useful arts those of the
household might well have the lead, for we must not be academic,
or ever lose sight of the duties nearest at hand to the great body of
the plain people. Mr. Sturgis and Mr. Krehbiel, in 1897, did an
excellent piece of work for us in their "Bibliography of the fine arts";
their guide might profitably be revised and enlarged in its several
divisions, not omitting the introductory paragraphs which make the
book unique in its class. These tasks well in hand, we might come to
such accessions of strength and insight as to nerve us for labors of
wider range and greater difficulty, where personal equations may
baffle even the highest court of appeal, where it is opinion rather
than fact that is brought to the scales. I refer to the debatable
ground of ethics, philosophy and theology; and, at the other pole of
letters, to the vast stretches of fiction and belles lettres in our own
and foreign tongues. With regard to fiction and belles lettres, one of
Mr. Larned's methods has a hint for us. In some cases he has found
it best to quote Mr. Francis Parkman, Mr. Justin Winsor, or the pages
of the Nation, the Dial, the American Historical Review, and similar
trustworthy sources. With respect to novels and romances, essays
and literary interpretation, it does not seem feasible to engage a
special corps of reviewers. It may be a good plan to appoint
judicious editors to give us composite photographs of what the
critics best worth heeding have said in the responsible press.
It is in the preponderant circulation of fiction, and fiction for the
most part of poor quality, that the critics of public libraries find most
warrant for attack. They point to the fact that many readers of this
fiction are comparatively well-to-do, and are exempted by public
taxation from supporting the subscription library and the bookseller.
The difficulty has been met chiefly in two ways; by curtailing the
supply of mediocre and trashy fiction; by exacting a small fee on
issuing the novels brought for a season to a huge demand by
advertising of a new address and prodigality. Appraisal, just and
thorough, may be expected to render aid more important because
radical instead of superficial. In the first place, the best books of
recreation, now overlaid by new and inferior writing, can be brought
into prominence; secondly, an emphasis, as persuasive as it can be
made, ought to be placed upon the more solid stores of our
literature. "Business," said Bagehot long ago, "is really more
agreeable than pleasure; it interests the whole mind, the aggregate
nature of man more continuously and deeply, but it does not look as
if it did." Let it be our purpose to reveal what admirable substance
underlies appearances not always seductive to the casual glance.
Lowell and Matthew Arnold, Huxley and John Fiske, Lecky and
Goldwin Smith are solid enough, yet with no lack of wit or humor to
relieve their argument and elucidation. A New York publisher of wide
experience estimates that the average American family, apart from
school purchases, buys less than two books a year. Newspapers and
magazines form the staple of the popular literary diet. What fills the
newspapers is mainly news; their other departments of information
are often extensive and admirable, but within the limits of the hastily
penned paragraph or column they cannot rise to the completeness
and quality of a book carefully written and faithfully revised. The
plain fact is, and it behooves us to reckon with it, the average man,
to whom we bear our credentials as missionaries, looks upon a book
as having something biblical about it. To sit down deliberately and
surrender himself to its chapters is a task he waves away with
strangely mingled awe and dislike. So he misses the consecutive
instruction, as delightful as profitable to an educated taste, which
authors, publishers and librarians are ready and even anxious to
impart.
We hear a good deal in these days about the need of recreation, and
not a word more than is true, but let us remember that the best
recreation may consist in a simple change of work. Behold the
arduous toil of the city lawyer, or banker, as on a holiday tour he
climbs a peak of the Alps or the Adirondacks, or wades the chilly
streams of Scotland or Canada a salmon rod in his hands. Why does
he undergo fatigues so severe? Partly because they are freely
chosen, partly because they are fatigues of an unwonted and
therefore refreshing kind. So in the field before us to-day. Truth is
not only stranger than fiction, it is more fascinating when once its
charms are recognized and entertained. Our public schools
throughout the land prove that a true story of exploration, of
invention or discovery, of heroism or adventure, has only to be well
told to rivet a boy's attention as firmly as ever did Robinson Crusoe
or Treasure Island. When readers take up from instinctive appetite,
or wise incitement, the best books about flowers or birds, minerals
or trees, an art, a science, a research, they come to joys in new
knowledge, in judgments informed and corrected, unknown to the
tipplers and topers whose staple is the novel, good, bad and
indifferent. And why, if we can help it, should public money ever be
spent for aught but the public good?
With a new sense of what is implied in the trusteeship of literature,
if we endeavor in the future to ally ourselves with the worthiest
critics of books, we must bid good-bye to the temporary expedients
which have cramped and burdened our initial labors. The work of
the appraisal of literature requires a home, a Central Bureau, with a
permanent and adequately paid staff of editors and assistants. The
training of such a staff has already begun; in addition to the
experience acquired by those enlisted in our present bibliographical
tasks, instruction is now given in advanced bibliography at the New
York State Library School at Albany, and doubtless also at other
library schools. And at the Central Bureau, which we are bold
enough to figure to ourselves, much more should be done than to
bring books to the balances. At such a home, in New York,
Washington, or elsewhere, every other task should proceed which
aims at furthering the good that literature can do all the people.
There might be conducted the co-operative cataloging now fast
taking form; there should be extended the series of useful tracts
begun by that of Dr. G. E. Wire on "How to start a library," by Mr. F.
A. Hutchins on "Travelling libraries." At such a center should be
exhibited everything to inform the founder of a public library;
everything to direct the legislator who would create a library
commission on the soundest lines or recast library laws in the light
of national experience; there, moreover, should be gathered
everything to arouse and instruct the librarian who would bring his
methods to the highest plane. Thence, too, should go forth the
speakers and organizers intent upon awakening torpid communities
to a sense of what they miss so long as they stand outside our
ranks, or lag at the rear of our movement. In the fulness of time
such a bureau might copy the Franklin Society, of Paris, and call into
existence a needed book, to find within this Association a sale which,
though small, would be adequate, because free from the advertising
taxes of ordinary publishing. To found and endow such a bureau
would undoubtedly cost a great deal, and where is the money to
come from? We may, I think, expect it from the sources which have
given us thousands of public libraries, great and small. Here is an
opportunity for our friends, whether their surpluses be large or little.
When a gift can be accompanied by personal aid and counsel, it
comes enriched. It is much when a goodly gift provides a city with a
library, it would be yet more if the donation were to establish and
maintain an agency to lift libraries everywhere to the highest
efficiency possible, to give literature for the first time its fullest
acceptance, its utmost fruitage.
In a retrospective glance at nineteenth century science, Professor
Haeckel has said that the hundred years before us are not likely to
witness such victories as those which have signalized the era just at
an end. Assume for a moment that his forecast is sound, and that it
applies beyond the immediate bounds of science, what does it mean
for librarianship? It simply reinforces what in any case is clear,
namely, that it is high time that the truth and beauty of literature
known to the few made its way to all the people, for their
enlightenment, consolation and delight. If the future battles of
science are to be waged less strenuously than of yore, if scholarship
has measurably exhausted its richest mines, let us give the broadest
diffusion to the fruits of their triumphs past. In thus diffusing the
leaven of culture the public library should take a leading, not a
subordinate part. Its treasure is vaster and more precious than ever
before. The world's literature grows much like the world's stock of
gold, every year's winning is added to the mass already heaped
together at the year's first day. In the instruction, entertainment and
inspiration of every man and woman there is a three-fold ministry,
that of art, of science, and of letters. Because letters bring to public
appreciation, to popular sympathy, both art and science, and this in
addition to their own priceless argosies, may we not say that of art,
science and letters, the greatest of these is letters?

THE TRUSTEESHIP OF LITERATURE—II.

By Richard T. Ely, Director School of Economics, University of
Wisconsin.
It is my purpose to speak plainly and, if possible, forcibly, concerning
what seems to me a grave menace to the progress of science, but in
all that I shall say, I would have it understood that I have only the
friendliest feelings personally for the gentleman who has brought
forward what seem to me dangerous proposals. I appreciate his zeal
for progress and his self-sacrificing efforts for human advancement
in various directions, but I think that in this particular case—namely,
the evaluation of literature, or the establishment of a judicature of
letters, my friend is working against his own ideals.
I admit freely that the readers in our public libraries very generally
need help in the selection of books, and that great assistance may
be rendered them by judicious advice. Much time is wasted by those
who read scientific and serious works which do not present the
results of recent investigations: furthermore, as another
consequence effort is misdirected and instead of producing beneficial
results may do positive damage. The question may be asked: "Shall
I read Adam Smith's 'Wealth of nations?' I hear it mentioned as one
of the great works in the world's history." Probably many a librarian
has had this precise question asked him. In giving an affirmative
answer it will be most helpful to offer a few words explaining the
circumstances under which it appeared one hundred and twenty-five
years ago, and its relation to the subsequent development of
economic schools and tendencies. Doubtless this work is frequently
perused as if it were fresh from the press and were to be judged as
a work appearing in 1901.
I further admit the harm which has come to individuals from the
study of the so-called "crank" literature in economics and sociology,
as well as in other branches of learning. Doubtless many a man is
working vigorously in a wrong way and attempting to force society
into false channels who might be doing a good work had his reading
been well directed in a formative period.
But the magnitude of the interests involved in the proposal which
greets us requires caution and conservatism in action. We must take
a long, not a short, view of the matter, inquiring into remote and
permanent results.
It is proposed, as I understand it, to have so-called expert opinions
expressed concerning books, new and old; to secure as precise and
definite estimates of their value as possible, and then by means of
printed guides, and even card catalogs, to bring these opinions and
evaluations before the readers in our libraries.
Let us reflect for a moment on what this implies. It means, first of all
a judicial body of men from whom these estimates are to proceed.
Have we such a body? Is it in the nature of things possible that we
should have such a body? I say that so far as contemporary
literature is concerned, the history of knowledge gives us a positive
and conclusive negative answer—a most emphatic "No." Let anyone
who knows the circumstances and conditions under which reviews
are prepared and published reflect on what the attempt to secure
this evaluation of literature implies. Many of us know a great deal
about these circumstances and conditions. We have written reviews,
we have asked others to write reviews, and we have for years been
in contact with a host of reviewers. We may in this connection first
direct out attention to the general character of the periodicals from
which quotations are frequently made in the evaluation of literature.
I say nothing about my own view, but I simply express an opinion of
many men whose judgment should have great weight when I say
that one of the most brilliant of these periodicals has been marked
by a narrow policy, having severe tests of orthodoxy along economic,
social and political lines, and displaying a bitterness and
vindictiveness reaching beyond the grave. I mention no names, and
the opinion may or may not be a just one; but it should be carefully
weighed whether or not, or to what extent, the evaluations of such a
periodical ought to be crystallized as it were: that is, taken from the
periodical press and made part of a working library apparatus, to last
for years.
Another periodical, an able magazine, which makes much of reviews
is under the control of a strong body of men, but they stand for
scarcely more than one line of thought among many lines. And
sometimes very sharp and very hard things are said about those
who believe that scientific truth is moving along one of these other
lines. Indeed, the discreet person, knowing personally the reviewer
and the reviewed, will not be convinced that there is always in the
reviews, here as elsewhere, an absence of personal animosity. Let us
for a moment reflect on this personal element in reviews, as it has
surely fallen under the notice of every man with wide experience in
these matters. As a rule, the reviewers are comparatively young and
inexperienced men, frequently zealous for some sect or faction.
Sometimes great leaders of thought write reviews, but generally
they are unable to find the time to do so. As a result in our reviews
in the best periodicals it will frequently be found that an inferior is
passing judgment on a superior, and furthermore, reviewers share in
our common human nature, and the amount of personal bias and
even at times personal malignity found in reviews and estimates of
books is something sad to contemplate. An unsuccessful candidate
for a position held by an author has been known to initiate a
scandalous and altogether malicious attack in a review.
In the next place, I would call your attention to the absence of
objective standards. Necessarily are the standards personal and
subjective; particularly and above all in economics, but in high
degree in sociology, ethics and philosophy in general, and religion.
Biological reviews have displayed in marked degree the subjective
personal element. Chemistry, physics, astronomy and mathematics
probably are best of all fitted for evaluations free from personal bias.
It may be asked what damage will result from evaluation. Passing
over grave injustice to individuals, we observe that they must lead to
the formation of what Bagehot aptly called a crust, preventing the
free development of science. We have been laboring for years to
obtain scientific freedom, freedom in teaching, freedom in learning,
freedom in expression. For this end many a battle has been fought
by noble leaders of thought. Indeed, every new movement of
thought has to struggle to make itself felt, and to struggle precisely
against those who control the most respectable avenues of
publication; against the very ones who would be selected to give
expert opinions and make evaluations of literature. Call to mind the
opposition to Darwin and Huxley—although they were especially and
particularly fortunate in early gaining the adherence of scientific men
—also the opposition to Adam Smith, Malthus, Ricardo and John
Stuart Mill—and to the last named, even now, some would on a
scale of 100 give an evaluation perhaps of 50, others of 65—still
others 80 and 90. Recently an economic book appeared of which
one widely quoted periodical said that it illustrated a reductio ad
absurdum of false tendencies, while another expert opinion inclined
to place it among the great works of the age. It would seem to me
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