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Page 47
If a library has or is a good thing for the community let it so be
said, early, late, and often, in large, plain type. So doing shall
the library's books enter--before too old to be of service--into that
state of utter worn-out-ness which is the only known book-heaven.
Another way, and by some found good, is to work the sinfully
indifferent first up into a library missionary, and then transform
him into a patron. A library is something to which he can give an old
book, an old paper, an old magazine, with no loss to himself.
Having given, the library is at once his field, a Timbuctoo for his
missionary spirit, is in part his creation. Ever after he is its
interested friend. He wants to know about it. He goes to see it. He
uses it.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Public libraries and recreation
W.I. Fletcher in Public Libraries, July, 1898
There is nothing out of place in the comparing of the library to the
school and the college, but its true mission is not to be so limited.
To a large extent it is to be compared, as an object of public
care and expense, with the park, the modern common, where there are
flower-beds, rare plants in conservatories, lakes with boats in summer
and skating in winter, and music by excellent bands. Not very strictly
useful, these things, but recognized everywhere as ministering to the
real culture of the people. Let this library, then, be the place where
you will come, not merely to study and store your minds with so-called
"useful" knowledge, but also often to have a good time; to refresh
your minds and hearts with humor and poetry and fiction. Let the boys
find here wholesome books of adventure, and tales such as a boy likes;
let the girls find the stories which delight them and give their fancy
and imagination exercise; let the tired housewife find the novels
which will transport her to an ideal realm of love and happiness;
let the hard-worked man, instead of being expected always to read
"improving" books of history or politics, choose that which shall give
him relaxation of mind and nerve, perhaps the Innocents abroad, or
Josh Billings' "Allminax," or Samanthy at Saratoga.
CHAPTER XXXIX
Books as useful tools
There is still too much of superstition and reverence mingled with
the thought of books and literature, and study and studentship in the
popular mind. Books are tools, of which here and there one is useful
for a certain purpose to a certain person. The farmer consults his
farm paper on the mixing of pig-feed; the cook takes from the latest
treatise the rules for a new salad; the chemist finds in his journal
the last word on the detection of poisons; the man of affairs turns
to the last market reports for guidance in his day's transactions; and
all have used books, have studied literature. The hammer and the
poem, the hoe and the dictionary, the engine and the encyclopedia, the
trowel and the treatise on philosophy--these are tools. One and all,
they are expressions of the life of the race. But they are not, for
that reason, to be reverenced. They are proper for man's service, not
man for theirs. Approach books, then, as you would a sewing machine, a
school, or a factory.
Literature, after all, is simply all that's printed. In print are
found the sum of the experience and observation of the whole race. Out
of this print it is the librarian's business to help his fellows to
draw such facts and suggestions as may aid them in their work.
CHAPTER XL
A village library successfully managed
James R. Garfield, in Public Libraries, October, 1896
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