existing in Greenland or elsewhere, which might legitimately tax the citizen to furnish his neighbors with their novel-reading. But it can scarcely be disputed that an increased facility for obtaining works of fiction is not the pressing need of our country in this present year of grace. Dr. Isaac Ray, perhaps our highest authority on morbid mental phenomena, concludes his study on the effects of the prevalent romantic literature in these words: “The specific doctrine I would inculcate is, that the excessive indulgence in novel-reading, which is a characteristic of our times, is chargeable with many of the mental irregularities that prevail among us in a degree unknown at any former period.” The late Dr. Forbes Winslow, a physician of similar note in England, used still stronger language in describing how fearfully and fatally suggestive to the minds of the young are those artistically developed records of sin which form the staple of the popular novel. In these days of disordered nerve centres, and commissions to inquire into every thing, we neglect much valuable information which lies upon the surface. It is well to bear in mind that our eminent bibliographer, Mr. Spofford, has informed us that “masses of novels and other ephemeral publications overload most of our popular libraries”; and that our wisest physicians have agreed as to the influence they exert.
Of course these views will be met by a brusque statement that town libraries must supply such books as people want, and that they demand the current novels in unlimited quantities. But I repudiate the dismal fallacy upon which such an argument is based. Plum-cake and champagne would doubtless be demanded at a Sunday-school picnic, were these delicacies placed upon the table; but, if the committee did not think it necessary to supply them from the parish funds, is it certain that a fair amount of cold beef and hasty-pudding would not be consumed in their stead? And if a heartless man-government declined to furnish Maggie and Mollie with “The Pirate's Penance” or “The Bride's Bigamy” for their Sabbath reading, is it not possible that those fair voters of the future might substitute Mrs. Fawcett's interesting illustrations of political economy, or some outline of human physiology, their knowledge of which would bless an unborn generation?
I do not advocate the absurdity of a town library which should chiefly consist of authors like Plato and Professor Peirce. No one can doubt that the great majority of its volumes should be emphatically popular in their character. They should furnish intelligible and interesting reading to the average graduate of the town schools. And there is no lack of such works. The outlines of physical and social science have been written by men of genius in simple and attractive style. History and biography in the hands of their masters give a healthy stimulus to the imagination, and tend to strengthen the character. The function of a town library should be to supply reading improving and interesting, and yet, in the best sense of the word, popular; and I maintain that this can be done, without setting up a rival agency to the news-stand, the book-club, and the weekly paper, for the circulation of the novels of the day.
There is a saying of Dr. Johnson, to the effect, that, if a boy be let loose in a library, he is likely to give himself a very fair education. But, in accepting this dictum, we must remember the sort of library the doctor had in his mind. As known to him, it was based upon solid volumes of systematized information. Besides these were the noblest poems of the world, a very few great romances, and ponderous tomes of controversial theology; good, healthy food, and much of it attractive to an unpampered boy-appetite.
But the range of a large library is by no means necessary to produce the soundest educational results. Can it be doubted that familiar knowledge of a small case of well-selected books—such, for instance, as the modest stipend of a country clergyman easily collects—is better for boy and girl than the liberty of devouring a thousand highly-flavored sweets in the free library? At all events, a few old-fashioned people do not question it. “A year ago,” writes one of them, “Alice used to read Irving and Spenser, and Tom was dipping into Gibbon and Shakespeare; liking them well enough, yet preferring a game of base-ball to either, as it was proper he should. But the town library was opened, and these young people are found crouching over novels in out-of-the-way corners, when they ought to be at play; or reading surreptitiously at night, when they ought to be asleep.” It is in vain to throw all the responsibility upon parents. American parents are very busy, and somewhat careless. Mrs. Fanny Firefly's highly-seasoned love-stories for girls, and Mr. Samuel Sensation's boy-novels and spiced preparations of boned history, are got up, like the port-wine drops of the confectioners, to tempt and to sell. And they do their work. No one can examine the average boy and girl of the period without being struck with their ignorance of the great works of English literature which young people of a former generation were accustomed to read with profit and delight.
The function of a town library is to supplement the town schools; to gratify the taste for knowledge which they should have imparted; and to serve as an instrument for that self-education to which there is no limit. But tax-payers are not bound to circulate twenty-seven thousand novels against nineteen hundred volumes of biography and seventeen hundred of history, according to the figures of one report; or to expend two-thirds of the working force of their establishment in sending out “novels and juveniles,” according to the statement of another. In a word, information, not excitement, should be imbibed from the atmosphere of the town library. That prevailing infirmity of our time which seems to substitute sensibility for morality should there find small encouragement. But we shall never know what this institution might do for a community, so long as the temptation of free novels is thrust in the faces of all who enter. For it is not to be expected that our youth fresh from school, moving among the countless agitations of American life, will select reading that may require some mental exertion, so long as mental excitement is offered them in unlimited amounts.
I am well aware how much may be said for the story-tellers, and how many people there are to say it; and, whenever there is danger of their being unduly neglected, my voice shall be loudly raised in their behalf. But one may allow the claims of the romances, from Scheherazade to Mrs. Southworth, and yet maintain that the theory upon which the average town library is run is faulty. There is no virtue in despising cakes and ale, and the heat of ginger in the mouth may at times impart a wholesome glow to the entire system. But it does not quite follow that it is the function of American towns to supply these stimulants gratis, at the expense of their tax-payers. While we consider the immense amount of reading of a certain sort that a town library supplies, it is well to remember that there are other sorts of reading it may possibly prevent. For it may encourage reading precisely as prodigality encourages industry. Luxury and profusion do indeed feed industry, and demoralize it; but the industry which serves God by blessing man, they prevent from being fed. I fear that in these days more noble capacities die of a surfeit from too much poor reading, than starve from want of good books. The valid defence of institutions working in the interest of State education is this: they prevent a waste of power. When any one of them can be shown to encourage waste of power, it needs looking after. In our complex social condition, the real consequences of any government interference extend far beyond its apparent consequences. An institution may be very useful up to a certain point, and yet hurtful if allowed to run its full course without restraining criticism.
The managers of our smaller libraries are apt to be picked men, who give unrequited labor and intelligence to their trust. But they are chosen at town meetings,—and to a certain extent must carry out the wishes of their electors. Upon this matter, as upon most others, it is the duty of the thoughtful men and women to create a wholesome public opinion. They must recognize the fact that the change from a few good books to an unlimited supply of all sorts of books is by no means an unmixed advantage to a community. While the results of town libraries, taken in the aggregate, are undoubtedly good, it is our duty to consider whether they ought not to be better.
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THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY
The public library had now
