We are accustomed to regard what we call standard literature as necessarily the standard of innumerable centuries to come, forgetful of the fact that other so-called standards have "had their day and ceased to be." Some literature lasts a century, some a year, some a week; where shall we draw the line below which all must be condemned as ephemeral? Is it not possible that all literary work that quickly achieves a useful purpose and having achieved it pa.s.ses at once out of sight, may really count for as much as one that takes the course of years to produce its slow results? The most ephemeral of all our literary productions--the daily paper--is incalculably the most influential, and its influence largely depends on this dynamic quality that has been noted--the penetrative power of a thing of light weight moving at a high speed. And this penetrative power effective literature must have to-day on account of the vastly increased ma.s.s of modern readers.
Reading is no longer confined to a cla.s.s, it is well-nigh universal, in our own country, at least. And the habit of mind of the thoughtful and intent reader is not an affair of one generation but of many. New readers are young readers, and they have the characteristics of intellectual youth.
Narrative--the recapitulation of one"s own or someone else"s experience, the telling of a story--is the earliest form in which artistic effort of any kind is appreciated. The pictorial art that appeals to the young or the ignorant is the kind that tells a story--perhaps historical painting on enormous canva.s.ses, perhaps the small genre picture, possibly something symbolic or mythological; but at any rate it must embody a narrative, whether it is that of the signing of a treaty, a charge of dragoons, a declaration of love or the feeding of chickens. The same is true of music.
The popular song tells something, almost without exception. Even in instrumental music, outside of dance rhythms, whose suggestion of the delights of bodily motion is a reason of their popularity, the beginner likes program music of some kind, or at least its suggestion. So it is in literature. With those who are intellectually young, whether young in years or not, the narrative form of expression is all in all. It is, of course, in all the arts, a most important mode, even in advanced stages of development. We shall never be able to do without narrative in painting, sculpture, music and poetry; but wherever, in a given community, the preference for this form of expression in any art is excessive, we may be sure that appreciation of that form of art is newly aroused. This is an interesting symptom and a good sign. To be sure, apparent intellectual youth may be the result of intellectual decadence; there is a second as well as a first childhood, but it is not difficult to distinguish between them. In general, if a large proportion of those in a community who like to look at pictures, prefer such as "tell a story," this fact, if the number of the appreciative is at the same time increasing, means a newly stimulated interest in art. And similarly, if a large proportion of those persons who enjoy reading prefer the narrative forms of literature, while at the same time their total numbers are on the increase, this surely indicates a newly aroused interest in books. And this is precisely the situation in which we find ourselves to-day. A very large proportion of the literature that we circulate is in narrative form--how large a proportion I daresay few of us realize. Not only all the fiction, adult and juvenile, but all the history, biography and travel, a large proportion of literature and periodicals, some of the sciences, including all reports of original research, and a lesser proportion of the arts, philosophy and religion, are in this form. It may be interesting to estimate the percentage of narrative circulated by a large public library, and I have attempted this in the case of the New York public library for the year ending July 1, 1906.
Cla.s.s Per cent. Estimated per Fiction cent. of narrative Juvenile 26 Adult 32 ........... 58 58 History ................. 6 6 Biography ............... 3 3 Travel .................. 3 3 Literature .............. 7 3 Periodicals ............. 4 2 Sciences ................ 9 3 Arts .................... 3 1 Philos. & Relig. ........ 2 1 Foreign ................. 5 4 --- -- 100 84
In other words, if my estimates are not too much out of the way--and I have tried to be conservative--only 16 per cent. of our whole circulation, and 38 per cent. of our non-fiction, is non-narrative, despite the fact that our total fiction percentage is low.
I attach little importance in this regard to any distinction between true and fict.i.tious narrative, people who read novels do not enjoy them simply because the subject matter is untrue. They enjoy the books because they are interesting. In fact, in most good fiction, little beside the actual sequence of the events in the plot and the names of the characters is untrue. The delineation of character, the descriptions of places and events and the statements of fact are intended to be true, and the further they depart from truth the less enjoyable they are. Indeed, when one looks closely into the matter, the dividing line between what we call truth and fiction in narrative grows more and more hazy.
In pictorial art we do not attempt to make it at all. Our museums do not cla.s.sify their pictures into true and imaginary. Our novels contain so much truth and our other narrative works so much fiction, that it is almost as difficult to draw the line in the literary as it is in the pictorial arts. And in any case objections to a work of fiction, as well as commendations, must be based on considerations apart from this cla.s.sification.
To represent a fict.i.tious story as real or an imaginary portrait as a true one is, of course, a fault, but the story and the portrait may both be of the highest excellence when the subjects are wholly imaginary. It should be noted that the crime of false representation, when committed with success, removes a work from library cla.s.sification as fiction and places it in one of the other cla.s.ses. Indeed, it is probable that much more lasting harm is done by false non-fiction than by fiction. The reader, provided he uses literature temperately, has much less need to beware of the novel, which he reads frankly for entertainment, than of the history full of "things that are not so," of the biased biography, of science "popularized" out of all likeness to nature, of absurd theories in sociology or cosmology, of silly and crude ideas masquerading as philosophy, of the out-and-out falsehood of fake travellers and pseudo-naturalists.
In what has gone before it has been a.s.sumed that the reader is temperate.
One may read to excess either in fiction or non-fiction, and the result is the same; mental over-stimulation, with the resulting reaction. One may thus intoxicate himself with history, psychology or mathematics--the mathematics-drunkard is the worst of all literary debauchees when he does exist--and the only reason why fiction-drunkenness is more prevalent is that fiction is more attractive to the average man. We do not have to warn the reader against over-indulgence in biography or art-criticism, any more than we have to put away the vichy bottle when a bibulous friend appears, or forbid the children to eat too many shredded-wheat biscuits. Fiction has the fatal gift of being too entertaining. The novel-writer must be interesting or he fails; the historian or the psychologist does not often regard it as necessary--unless he happens to be a Frenchman.
But with this danger of literary surfeit or over-stimulation, I submit that the librarian has nothing to do; it is beyond his sphere, at least in so far as he deals with the adult reader. We furnish parks and playgrounds for our people; we police them and see that they contain nothing harmful, but we cannot guarantee that they will not be used to excess--that a man may not, for example, be so enraptured with the trees and the squirrels that he will give up to their contemplation time that should be spent in supporting his family. So in the library we may and do see that harmful literature is excluded, but we cannot be expected to see that books which are not in themselves injurious are not sometimes used to excess.
I venture to suggest that very much of our feeling of disquietude about the large use of fiction in the public library and elsewhere arises from our misapprehension of something that must always force itself upon the attention in a state of society where public education and public taste are on the increase. In this case the growth will necessarily be uneven in different departments of knowledge and taste, and in different localities; so that discrepancies frequently present themselves. We may observe, for instance, a quietly and tastefully dressed woman reading, we will say, Laura Jean Libbey. We are disconcerted, and the effect is depressing. But the discrepancy may arise in either of two ways. If we have here a person formerly possessing good taste both in dress and reading, whose taste in the latter regard has deteriorated, we certainly have cause for sadness; but if, as is much more likely, we have one who had formerly bad taste of both kinds and whose taste in dress has improved, we should rather rejoice. The argument is the same whether the change has taken place in the same generation or in more than one. Our ma.s.ses are moving upward and the progress along the more material lines is often more rapid than in matters of the intellect. Or, on the contrary, intellectual progress may be in advance of manners. Such discrepancies are frequently commented upon by foreign travelers in the United States, who almost invariably misinterpret them in the same way. Can we blame them, when we make the same mistake ourselves? M. Jules Huret, in his recent interesting book "En Amerique," notes frequently the lapses in manners and taste of educated persons among us. He describes, for instance, the bad table-manners of a certain clergyman. His thought is evidently, "How shocking that a clergyman should act in this way!" But we might also put it: "How admirable that professional education in this country is so easily obtained that one of a cla.s.s in which such manners prevail can secure it!
How encouraging that he should desire to enter the ministry and succeed in doing so!" These are extreme standpoints; we need of course endorse neither of them. But when I find that on the upper west side of New York, where the patrons of our branch libraries are largely the wives and daughters of business men with good salaries, whose general scale of living is high, the percentage of fiction circulated is unduly great, I do not say, as I am tempted to do "How surprising and how discouraging that persons of such apparent cultivation should read nothing but fiction, and that not of the highest grade!" I say rather: "What an evidence it is of our great material prosperity that persons in an early stage of mental development, as evidenced by undue preference for narrative in literature, are living in such comfort or even luxury!"
Is not this the right way to look at it? I confess that I can see no reason for despairing of the American people because it reads more fiction than it used to read, so long as this is for the same reason that a ten year old boy reads more stories than a baby. Intellectual youth is at least an advance over mental infancy so long as it is first childhood--not second. It is undoubtedly our duty, as it is our pleasure, to help these people to grow, but we cannot force them, and should not try. Complete growth may take several generations. And even when full stature has been obtained, literature in its narrative modes, though not so exclusively as now, will still be loved and read. Romance will always serve as the dessert in the feast of reason--and we should recollect that sugar is now highly regarded as a food. It is a producer of energy in easily available form, and, thinking on some such novels as "Uncle Tom," "Die Waffen nieder" and shall we say "The jungle"? we realize that this thing is a parable, which the despiser of fiction may well read as he runs.
THE VALUE OF a.s.sOCIATION[3]
[3] An address delivered before the Library a.s.sociations of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio, October 9-18, 1907.
Man is a gregarious animal; he cannot think, act, or even exist except in certain relations to others of his kind. For a complete description of those relations we must go to a treatise on sociology; our present subject is a very brief consideration of certain groups of individuals, natural or voluntary, and the application of the laws that govern such groups to the voluntary a.s.sociations with which we are all familiar in library work. Men have joined together to effect certain things that they could not accomplish singly, ever since two savages found that they could lift a heavy log or stone together, when neither one could manage it alone. Until recently the psychology of human groups has received little study. Le Bon, in his book on "The Crowd," gives the modern treatment of it. A group of persons does not think and act precisely as each of its component individuals would think or act. The very act of a.s.sociation, loose as it may be, introduces a new factor. Even the two savages lifting the log do not work together precisely as either would have worked singly. Their co-operation affects their activity; and both thought and action may likewise be affected in larger groupings even by the mere proximity of the individuals of the group, where there is no stronger bond.
But although the spirit that collectively animates a group of men cannot be calculated by taking an arithmetical sum, it does depend on that possessed by each individual in the group, and more particularly on what is common to them all and on the nature of the bonds that connect them.
Even a chance group of persons previously unconnected and unrelated is bound together by feelings common to all humanity and may be appealed to collectively on such grounds. The haphazard street crowd thrills with horror at the sight of a baby toddling in front of a trolley-car and shouts with joy when the motorman stops just in time. But the same crowd, if composed of newly-arrived Poles, Hungarians and Slovaks, would fail utterly to respond to some patriotic appeal that might move an American crowd profoundly. You may sway a Methodist congregation with a tale of John Wesley that would leave Presbyterians or Episcopalians cold. Try a Yale mob with "Boola" and then play the same tune at Princeton, and watch the effect.
Thus, the more carefully our group is selected the more particular and definite are the motives that we can bring to bear in it, and the more powerful will its activities be along its own special lines. The mob in the street may be roused by working on elemental pa.s.sions--so roused it will kill or burn, but you cannot excite in it enthusiasm for Dante"s Inferno, or induce it to contribute money or labor toward the preparation of a new annotated edition. To get such enthusiasm and stimulate such action you must work upon a body of men selected and brought together for this very purpose.
Besides this, we must draw a distinction between natural and artificial groups. The group brought together by natural causes and not by man"s contriving is generally lower in the scale of civilization when it acts collectively than any one of its components. This is the case with a mob, a tribe, even a munic.i.p.al group. But an artificial or selected group, where the grouping is for a purpose and has been specially effected with that end in view may act more intelligently, and be, so far as its special activities are concerned, more advanced in the scale of progress than its components as individuals. There is the same difference as between a man"s hand and a delicate tool. The former is the result of physical evolution only; the latter of evolution into which the brain of man has entered as a factor. The tool is not as good for "all round" use as the hand; but to accomplish its particular object it is immeasurably superior.
If, then, we are to accomplish anything by taking advantage of the very peculiar crowd or group psychology--owing to which a collected body of men may feel as a group and act as a group, differently from the way in which any one of its components would feel or act--we must see that our group is properly selected and const.i.tuted. This does not mean that we are to go about and choose individuals, one by one, by the exercise of personal judgment. Such a method is generally inferior and unnecessary. If we desire to separate the fine from the coa.r.s.e grains in a sand-pile we do not set to work with a microscope to measure them, grain by grain; we use a sieve. The sieve will not do to separate iron filings from copper filings of exactly the same size, but here a magnet will do the business.
And so separation or selection can almost always be accomplished by choosing an agency adapted to the conditions; and such agencies often act automatically without the intervention of the human will. In a voluntary a.s.sociation formed to accomplish a definite purpose we have a self-selected group. Such a body may be freely open to the public, as all our library clubs and a.s.sociations practically are; yet it is still selective, for no one would care to join it who is not in some way interested in its objects. On the other hand, the qualifications for membership may be numerous and rigid, in which case the selection is more limited. The ideal of efficiency in an a.s.sociation is probably reached when the body is formed for a single definite purpose and the terms of admission are so arranged that each of its members is eager above all things to achieve its end and is specially competent to work for it, the purpose of the grouping being merely to attain the object more surely, thoroughly and rapidly. A good example is a thoroughly trained military organization, all of whose members are enthusiastic in the cause for which the body is fighting--a band of patriots, we will say--or perhaps a band of brigands, for what we have been saying applies to evil as well as to good a.s.sociations. The most efficient of such bodies may be very temporary, as when three persons, meeting by chance, unite to help each other over a wall that none of them could scale by himself, and, having reached the other side, separate again. The more clearly cut and definite the purpose the less the necessity of retaining the a.s.sociation after its accomplishment. The more efficient the a.s.sociation the sooner its aims are accomplished and the sooner it is disbanded. Such groups or bodies, by their very nature are affairs of small detail and not of large and comprehensive purpose. As they broaden out into catholicity they necessarily lose in efficiency. And even when they are accomplishing their aims satisfactorily the very largeness of those aims, the absence of sharp outline and clear definition, frequently gives rise to complaint. I know of clubs and a.s.sociations that are doing an immense amount of good, in some cases altering for the better the whole intellectual or moral tone of a community, but that are the objects of criticism because they do not act in matters of detail.
"Why don"t they do something?" is the constant cry. And "doing something,"
as you may presently discover, is carrying on some small definite, relatively unimportant activity that is capable of clear description and easily fixes the attention, while the greater services, to the public and to the individual, of the a.s.sociation"s quiet influences pa.s.s unnoticed.
The church that has driven out of business one corner-saloon gets more praise than the one that has made better men and women of a whole generation in one neighborhood; the police force that catches one sensational murderer is more applauded than the one that has made life and property safe for years in its community by quiet, firm pressure.
There is no reason of course, why the broader and the more definite activities may not be united, to some degree, in one organization. Either smaller groups with related aims may federate for the larger purpose, or the larger may itself be the primary group, and may subdivide into sections each with its specified object. Both these plans or a combination of the two may be seen in many of our large organizations, and it is this combination that seems finally to have been selected as the proper form of union for the libraries and the librarians of the United States. We have a large organization which, as it has grown more and more unwieldy, has been subdivided into smaller specialized sections without losing its continuity for its broader and perhaps vaguer work. At the same time, specialized bodies with related aims have been partially or wholly absorbed, until, by processes partly of subdivision and partly of accretion, we have a body capable of dealing alike with the general and the special problems of library work. It should not be forgotten, however, that its success in dealing with both kinds of problems is still conditioned by the laws already laid down. The general a.s.sociation, as it grows larger, will be marked less and less by the enthusiasm of the specialist, will be less and less efficient, will move more slowly, will deliver its opinions with reticence and will hesitate to act upon them. The smaller const.i.tuent bodies will be affected by none of these drawbacks, but their purposes appeal to the few and their actions, though more energetic, will often seem to the majority of the larger group devoid of meaning. This is, of course, the case with the National Educational a.s.sociation, the American a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, and hosts of similar bodies here and abroad. To state the difficulty is merely to confess that all attempts. .h.i.therto have failed to form a group that is at once comprehensive, powerful and efficient, both in the larger matters with which it deals and in details.
Probably the most successful attempt of this kind is formulated in the Const.i.tution of the United States itself and is being carried on in our country from day to day, yet successful as it is, our history is witness, and the daily press testifies, that the combination of general and local governments has its weak points and is dependent for its smooth working on the cordial consent and forbearance of the governed. This is true also of smaller combinations. In our own organization it is easy to find fault, it is easy to discover points of friction; only by the cordial effort of every member to minimize these points can such an organization begin to accomplish its aims. Failure is much more apt to be due to lack of appreciation of this fact than to any defect in the machinery of organization. This being the case we are thrown back upon consideration of the membership of our inst.i.tution. How should it be selected and how const.i.tuted?
The const.i.tution of the a.s.sociation says that "Any person or inst.i.tution engaged in library work may become a member by paying the annual dues, and others after election by the executive board." We have thus two cla.s.ses of members, those by their own choice and those by election. The annual lists of members do not record the distinction, but among those in the latest list we find 24 booksellers, 17 publishers, 5 editors, 9 school and college officials, 8 government employees not in libraries, and 24 wives and relatives of other members, while in the case of 132 persons no qualification is stated in the list. We have or have had as our a.s.sociates, settlement workers, lawyers, lecturers, indexers, binders, and so on almost indefinitely. Our membership is thus freely open to librarians, interpreting this word very broadly, and to any others that we may desire to have with us, which means, practically, any who have sufficient interest in library work to come to the meetings. We must, therefore, be cla.s.sed with what may be called the "open" as opposed to the "closed" professional or technical a.s.sociations. The difference may be emphasized by a reference to two well-known New York clubs, the Players and the Authors. These organizations would appear by their names to be composed respectively of actors and writers. The former, however, admits also to membership persons interested in the drama, which may mean little or much, while the Authors Club, despite repeated efforts to broaden it out in the same way, has insisted on admitting none but _bona fide_ authors. In advocacy of the first plan it may be said that by adopting it the Players has secured larger membership, embracing many men of means.
Its financial standing is better and it is enabled to own a fine club house. On the other hand, the Authors has a small membership, and owns practically no property, but makes up in _esprit de corps_ what it lacks in these other respects. It is another phase of the question of specialization that we have already considered. The larger and broader body has certain advantages, the smaller and more compact, certain others.
We have, doubtless been right in deciding, or rather in accepting what circ.u.mstances seem to have decided for us, that our own a.s.sociation shall be of the larger and less closely knit type, following the a.n.a.logy of the National Educational a.s.sociation and the various a.s.sociations for the advancement of science, American, British and French, rather than that of the Society of Civil Engineers, for instance, or the various learned academies. Our body has thus greater general but less special influence, just as on a question of general scientific policy a pet.i.tion from the American a.s.sociation might carry greater weight, whereas on a question of engineering it would be incomparably inferior to an opinion of the civil engineers. There is in this country, it is true, a general scientific body of limited membership--the National Academy of Sciences, which speaks both on general and special questions with expert authority. In the formation of the American Library Inst.i.tute it was sought to create some such special body of librarians, but it is too soon to say whether or not that expectation is to be fulfilled. The fact remains that in the American Library a.s.sociation we are committed to very nearly the broadest plan of organization and work that is possible. We are united only by our connection with library work or our interest in its success, and are thus limited in our discussions and actions as a body to the most general problems that may arise in this connection, leaving the special work to our sections and affiliated societies, which are themselves somewhat hampered by our size in the treatment of the particular subjects that come before them, inasmuch as they are not separate groups whose freedom of action no one can call in question.
In ill.u.s.tration of the limitations of a general body of the size and scope of our a.s.sociation, I may perhaps be allowed to adduce the recent disagreement among librarians regarding the copyright question, or rather regarding the proper course to be followed in connection with the conference on that question called by the Librarian of Congress. It will be remembered that this conference was semi-official and was due to the desire of members of Congress to frame a bill that should be satisfactory to the large number of conflicting interests involved. To this conference our a.s.sociation was invited to send, and did send, delegates. It is obvious that if these and all the other delegates to the conference had simply held out for the provisions most favorable to themselves no agreement would have been possible and the objects of the conference would have been defeated. Recognizing this, all the bodies and interests represented worked from the beginning to secure an agreement, striving only that it should be such as would represent a minimum of concession on all sides. This view was shared by the delegates of this a.s.sociation. The law as it stood was, it is true, most favorable to libraries in its provisions regarding importation, and the retention of these provisions might have been facilitated by withdrawal from the conference and subsequent opposition to whatever new bill might have been framed. But the delegates a.s.sumed that they were appointed to confer, not to withdraw, and that if the a.s.sociation had desired to hold aloof from the conference that result would have been best attained by appointing no delegates at all.
The a.s.sociation"s delegates accordingly joined with their fellows in the spirit of compromise to agree on such a bill as might be least unacceptable to all, and the result was a measure slightly, but only slightly, less favorable to libraries than the existing law. With the presentation of this bill to the proper committees of Congress, and a formal statement that they approved it on behalf of the a.s.sociation, the duties of the delegates ended. And here begins to appear the applicability of this chapter from library history to what has preceded. The action of the delegates was officially that of the a.s.sociation. But it was disapproved by very many members of the a.s.sociation on the ground that it seemed likely to result in lessening the importation privilege of libraries. Whether these dissidents were in a majority or not it seemed impossible to say. The a.s.sociation"s legislative body, the Council, twice refused to disapprove or instruct the delegates, thus tacitly approving their action, but the dissidents a.s.serted that the Council, in this respect, did not rightly reflect the opinion of the a.s.sociation. The whole situation was an instructive ill.u.s.tration of the difficulty of getting a large body of general scope to act on a definite, circ.u.mscribed question, or even of ascertaining its opinion or its wishes regarding such action.
Recognizing this, the dissidents properly and wisely formed a separate a.s.sociation with a single end in view--the retention of present library importation privileges, and especially the defeat of the part of the bill affecting such privileges as drafted in the conference. The efforts of this body have been crowned with success in that the bill as reported by the committee contains a modified provision acceptable to the dissidents.
Thus a relatively small body formed for a definite purpose has quickly accomplished that purpose, while the objects of the larger body have been expressed but vaguely, and so far as they have been definitely formulated have failed of accomplishment. There is a lesson in this both for our own a.s.sociation and for others.
It must not be a.s.sumed, however, that limitation of action along the lines I have indicated means weakness of organization. On the contrary, foreign observers have generally testified to the exceptional strength and efficiency of societies and groups of all kinds in this country. It may be interesting to quote here what a recent French writer on the United States has to say of the part played by a.s.sociations of all kinds in our national life. And, in pa.s.sing, he who is proud of his country nowadays should read what is said of her by French and German, and even English writers. The muck-raking is all on this side of the water. The writer from whom I quote, M. Paul de Rousiers, author of "La Vie Americaine," does not commend without discrimination, which makes what he has to say of more value. He notes at the outset that "the spirit of free a.s.sociation is widely extended in the United States, and it produces results of surprising efficiency." There are two motives for a.s.sociation, he thinks, the consciousness of weakness, which is generally operative abroad, and the consciousness of strength, which is our motive here. He says:
The need of a.s.sociation comes generally from the conscience of one"s own feebleness or indolence.... When such people join they add together their incapacities; hence the failure of many societies formed with great eclat. On the contrary, when men accustomed to help themselves without depending on their neighbors form an a.s.sociation, it is because they really find themselves facing a common difficulty ... such persons add their capacities; they form a powerful union of capables, the only one that has force. Hence the general success of American a.s.sociations.
The radical difference in the motives for a.s.sociation here and in the old world was noted long ago by De Tocqueville, who says:
European societies are naturally led to introduce into their midst military customs and formulas.... The members of such a.s.sociations respond to a word of command like soldiers in a campaign; they profess the dogma of pa.s.sive obedience, or rather, by uniting, they sacrifice entirely, at a single stroke, their judgment and free will.... In American a.s.sociations, on the other hand, individual independence finds its part; as in society every man moves at the same time toward the same goal, but all are not forced to go by the same road. No one sacrifices his will or his reason, but applies them both toward the success of the common enterprise.
Commenting on this, De Rousiers goes on:
This is not to say that the discipline necessary to the pursuit of the common end is less exact than with us. As far as I can judge, the members of an American a.s.sociation, on the contrary, take their obligations more seriously than we, and precisely because they have undertaken them very freely, without being forced into them by environment or fashion, and also because the heads of the a.s.sociation have not sought to make it serve their own interests.
In fine, their discipline is strong, but it is applied only to one precise object; it may thus subsist intact and without tyranny, despite the most serious divergences of view among the members regarding objects foreign to its aim. These happy conditions--this large and concrete mind, joined to the effective activity of the Americans, have given rise to a mult.i.tude of groups that are rendering the greatest service.
De Rousiers enlarges on this point at great length and gives many ill.u.s.trations. He returns to it even when he appears to have gone on to other subjects. In an account of a visit to a militia encampment in Ma.s.sachusetts, where he was inclined at the outset to scoff at the lack of formal military training, but finally became enthusiastic over the individual efficiency and interest of the militiamen, he ends by saying:
What I have seen here resembles what I have seen everywhere throughout the United States; each organism, each individual, preserves all its freedom, as far as it can; hence the limited and special character of the public authorities, to whom little is left to do. This doubtless detracts from the ma.s.sed effects that we are in the habit of producing; we are apt to think that this kind of liberty is only disorder; but individual efforts are more energetic and when they converge toward a single end, by spontaneous choice of each will, their power is incalculable. This it is that makes the strength of America.
An interesting and satisfactory summary. There is, however, another way of looking at it. A well-known scientific man recently expressed to me his conviction that an "American" a.s.sociation of any kind is destined to failure, whether it be of scientific men, commercial travellers or plumbers. By "American" here he meant continental in extent. There may thus be, according to this view, a successful Maine hotel-keeper"s a.s.sociation, a New York bar a.s.sociation, or a Pennsylvania academy of fine arts, but no such body truly representative of the whole United States.
Many such organizations are "American" or "National" in name only; for instance, the "American" Academy of Sciences, which is a Boston inst.i.tution, or the "National" Academy of Fine Arts, which belongs to New York City. Many bodies have attempted to obviate this trouble by the creation of local sections in different parts of the country, and the newly-formed Society of Illuminating Engineers has, I understand, in mind the organization of perfectly co-ordinate bodies in various parts of the country, without any attempt to create a central body having headquarters at a definite place. This is somewhat as if the American Library a.s.sociation should consist of the federated state a.s.sociations, perhaps with a council consisting of a single representative from each. It would seem to be a workable and rather attractive plan. We may remind ourselves again that the United States itself is the cla.s.sic example of an American a.s.sociation, and that it has been fairly successful by adopting this very system. Our recognition of the necessity of local divisions in our own a.s.sociation and of close affiliation with the various state bodies is shown by the recent resolution of the council providing for sectional meetings and by the presence at this and several other state meetings in the present month of an official representative of the American Library a.s.sociation. That these, or similar means of making our national body continental in something more than name are necessary we may freely admit.
Possibly it may take some years of experimentation, ending perhaps in appropriate const.i.tutional revision, to hit upon the best arrangement. Too much centralization is bad; but there must be some centralization. We must have our capital and our legislative and administrative machinery, as the United States has at Washington. For legislative purposes our Washington is a shifting one. It is wherever the a.s.sociation may hold its annual meeting and wherever the Council may convene in the interim. For such administrative and executive purposes as require a fixed location, our Washington is for the present in Boston. Next year it may be elsewhere; but whether it shall remain there or move to some other place would seem to be a matter of small importance. Wherever it may be, it will be inaccessible to a large majority of American librarians. If immediate accessibility is a requisite, therefore, some of its functions may and should be divided. It may not be too much to look forward to a sectional headquarters in every state in the Union, related perhaps to the general headquarters somewhat as branch libraries to a central library, or, perhaps, carried on under the auspices of the state a.s.sociations. At any rate, it is encouraging to reflect that we are not insensible to the obstacles in the way of making our own, or any other a.s.sociation truly American in scope, and are experimenting toward obviating them.
All these considerations appear to me to lead to one conclusion--the duty of every librarian to become and remain a member of the American Library a.s.sociation. I do not desire to dwell on the direct advantages that membership offers--these are not few, and they are sufficiently obvious.
Possibly most of those who are likely to be affected by them are already members of the a.s.sociation. I would recommend for consideration higher grounds than these. Instead of asking the question, "What is there in it for me?" I should inquire, "What is there in it for other people?" How will it benefit the general status of library work, the general standing of librarians in the community, the influence of libraries on those who use or ought to use them--these and a hundred other elements of progress that are closely bound up with the success of library effort, but that may not add to the welfare of any one individual.
There seems to be no doubt that the answers to these questions all point toward increased membership. As we have chosen to work along the broader lines and by the energy of ma.s.s rather than that of velocity--with the sledge-hammer rather than the rifle bullet--it is surely our duty to make that ma.s.s as efficient and as impressive as possible, which means that it must be swelled to the largest possible proportions. Large membership may be efficient in two ways, by united weight and by pervasiveness. An army is powerful in the first way. Ten thousand men concentrated in one spot may strike a sledge-hammer blow and carry all before them. Yet the same ten thousand men may police a great city without even seeing one another.
Scattered about on different beats they are everywhere. Every block or two one meets a patrol and the sense of security that they give is overwhelming. It is in this way, it seems to me, that large membership in the American Library a.s.sociation may be effective. We meet together but once a year, and even then we do not bring out our full force. We have no intention of marching on Washington _en ma.s.se_ to secure legislation or even of forcing our trustees to raise salaries by a general library strike. But if we can make it an unusual thing for a librarian not to be a member of the American Library a.s.sociation; if wherever one goes he meets our members and recognizes what they stand for, then, it seems to me, public opinion of librarians and librarianship is sure to rise. Our two savages, who band together for a few moments to lift a log, become by that act of a.s.sociation marked men among their fellows; the mere fact that they have intelligence enough to work together for any purpose raises them above the general level. It is not alone that increasing numbers, strength, and influence make for the glory of the a.s.sociation itself; the most successful bodies of this kind are those that exalt, not themselves but the professions, localities or ideals that they represent. It is because increasing our numbers and scattering our membership throughout the land will increase the influence of the library and strengthen the hands of those who work in it that I believe such increase a worthy object of our effort. a.s.sociations and societies come and go, form and disband; they are no more immortal than the men and women that compose them. Yet an a.s.sociation, like a man, should seek to do the work that lies before it with all its strength, and to keep that strength at its maximum of efficiency. So doing, it may rest content that, be its accomplishment large or small, its place in the history of human endeavor is worthy and secure.
MODERN EDUCATIONAL METHODS
Those who complain that the average of general education has been lowered are both right and wrong--right literally and wrong in the general impression that they give. It is undoubtedly true that among young persons with whom an educated adult comes intellectually in contact the average of culture is lower than it was twenty years ago. This is not, however, because the cla.s.s of persons who were well educated then are to-day less well trained, but rather because the cla.s.s has been recruited from the ignorant cla.s.ses, by the addition of persons who were not educated at all then, or educated very slightly, and who are now receiving a higher, though still inadequate degree of training. In other words the average of education among all persons in the community is higher, but the average among educated persons is lower, because the educated cla.s.s has been enlarged by the addition of large numbers of slightly educated persons.