Henry Eduard Legler

“ Not, of course, at the expense of the service which is furnished to young and old in relief from the drab dullness of life, but parallel with it, must the library labor. For here lies its mission of permanent influences, and at no time has there been greater need.
Suddenly, the seemingly well-fortified pillars of civilization have crumbled. Confused, dismayed, disheartened, society witnesses rapid disintegration of foundations which centuries of patient endeavor have constructed. Science, thought to be the instrument of man's weal, has become the subtle and baleful agent of destruction. ”

“ When some of the foremost leaders in education leave out of a list of desiderata for the high school what the universities have come to regard as the very heart of the institution—the library—is there marvel that the love of literature is being strangled in the schools? Required reading of classics, and the use of literary masterpieces for classroom dissection has taken away the pure joy of reading and made the study of literature a mere literary autopsy. ”

“ Society has an interest in this beyond the rights of the individual. The greatest waste to society is not [Pg 17] that which comes from improvidence, but from undeveloped or unused opportunity. So it becomes the duty of every community to make its contribution to the world, whether it be in the realm of invention, scientific discovery, or literature. And how is this to be done if genius and talent are allowed to die unborn for lack of opportunity to grow? ”

“ It is a moot question in educational circles whether the ear is a better medium for receiving impressions than is the eye. Some school-masters aver that there are ear-minded children and there are eye-minded children. A good story, well told, is worthy of being counted in the circulation statistics as many times as there are children to hear it, and far worthier to so figure than many a book that is taken out on a card and leaves as faint and as durable an impression on the reader's mind as footsteps on the shifting sand. ”

“ The same materials—books, periodicals, newspapers, and official documents,—that the student of politics uses under the personal oversight of the university instructor, are scattered in vast abundance everywhere. The state is one great library. The largest single collection is paltry beside this magnificent and ever-increasing supply of political literature that permeates every hamlet. Civic intelligence has thriven upon the mere haphazard and desultory reading of the people. ”

“ A liberal education had, of course, left him free to read the indecent passages in the school classics, but beyond a general sense of secrecy and obscenity in connection with his internal structure, had left his imagination quite unbiased, so that for anything he knew his brains lay in small bags at his temples, and he had no more thought of representing to himself how his blood circulated than how paper served instead of gold. ”

“ Into the atmosphere of the school must be introduced some element that will bring to the growing boys and girls a love of reading and a genuine desire for absorbing those vital forces of life which literature images. If we believe that the ultimate aim of education is that of the ultimate aim of life, there must be that attention to the individual need which in the end makes for the uplifting of all. ”

“ Curiously enough, a perception of values which inhere in the associated and co-ordinated efforts of school and library has not, as yet, dawned upon school men to any appreciable degree. Here and there, indeed, a vibrant voice has demanded the joining of effort for practical ends, but the teaching folk as a whole remain impervious to possibilities even when sensible of the need. Nearly four centuries ago, Martin Luther noted the possibilities of the library as an educational adjunct and necessity, and urged the founding of public libraries for the preservation and encouragement of learning. ”

“ With the world's book-shelves loaded with fascinating and inspired books—the very manna sent down from heaven to feed your souls—you are forced to read a [Pg 27] hideous imposture called a school book, written by a man who cannot write; a book from which no human being can learn anything; a book which, though you may decipher it, you cannot in any fruitful sense read, though the enforced attempt will make you loathe the sight of a book all the rest of your life. ”

“ The worker in a modern factory who is concerned with a fractional piece of a complex activity, presented to him only in a limited series of acts carried on with a distinct position of a machine, is typical of much in our entire social life. Unless the lives of a large part of our wage earners are to be left to their own barren meagerness, the community must see to it by some organized agency that they are instructed in the scientific foundation and social bearings of the things they see about them, and of the activities in which they are themselves engaging. ”

“ IT IS amid conditions that call for heroic effort that the public library of today must do its work with children. There are not wanting critics who decry some present-day tendencies. They saw that when librarians seek the children in their homes to form groups of readers, they encroach upon the domain of the settlement worker. They complain that the story hour, now so widely developed, is an invasion of the kindergarten; they view with alarm the use of the stereo-scope and stereopticon as being outside the legitimate domain of the institution. ”

“ Under a flag which shelters ninety millions of individuals whose forebears peopled every land upon the habitable globe, and who seek to merge the best of their racial qualities in a common life that shall typify a new standard of civilization, must be wrought that miracle of human evolution which shall establish concord and good will between members of alien races dwelling together. To effect this it must be demonstrated that "assimilation is a matter of understanding and ideas, and not merely of manners and customs." ”

“ Such blind concentration in the making of but one piece of a machine, or a garment, or a watch, or any other article of merchandise, without knowledge of its relationship to the rest, soon wears the human worker out. There must be an outlet of play, of fun, or recreation. The librarian need not feel apologetic to the public because perchance his circulation statistics show that 70 per cent of it is classed as fiction. ”

“ When early Cavaliers and Puritans planted the crude beginnings of free public schools, the forces of democracy were multiplied. When half a century ago the first meager beginnings of the public library movement were evolved, democracy was for all time assured. Thus have three great stages, separated each by a span of two hundred years from that preceding, marked that world development whose ultimate meaning is not equality of station or possession, but equality of opportunity. ”

“ Though 'classics' are probably swallowed with less forcible feeding than grammar, spelling, and rhetoric, yet even those dilutable bits of literature that have been considered food for the gods of culture are gulped down wry-facedly by some barbarians. By judicious skimming and cramming they may perforce capture the irreducible minimum of scanty and fugitive facts about the masterpieces prescribed for their edification; but at the first safe moment they joyously forget them, and betake themselves to the cheaper theaters, the thrilling dailies, and the popular novelists. ”

“ Rightly directed, the native qualities and strength of these peoples will bring a splendid contribution in the making of a virile citizenship. Wrongly shaped, their course in the life of the city may readily become of sinister import. Frequently they are misunderstood, and they easily misunderstand. The problem is one of education, but it is that most difficult problem, of education for grown-ups. Here perhaps the library may render the most distinct service, in that it can bring to them in their own tongues the ideals and the underlying principles of life and custom in their adopted country ”

“ It is some forty years since Carlyle asked the question, "Why is there not a Majesty's library in every county town? There is a Majesty's gaol and gallows in every one," and it is as long since the Public Libraries Act was passed, and yet the lack of libraries is still one of the most startling deficiencies in these islands. We have given the people ever greater and greater political power, but they displayed no marked inclination to benefit themselves by means of books or other means of culture. ”

“ Before there can be intellectual expansion and cultural development, there must be leisure, or at least conditions that free the mind from anxious care for the morrow. So the social structure after all must rest upon a bread-and-butter foundation. It follows as a logical conclusion that society as a whole cannot reach a high stage of development until all its individual members are surrounded with conditions that permit the highest self-development. Until a better agency shall be found, it is the public library which must serve this need. ”

“ Many-sidedness of interest makes for good morals, and millions of our fellows step through the pages of a story book into a broader world than their nature and their circumstances ever permit them to visit. If anything is to stay the narrowing and hardening process which specialization of learning, specialization of inquiry and of industry and swift accumulation of wealth are setting up among us, it is a return to romance, poetry, imagination, fancy, and the general culture we are now taught to despise. Of all these the novel is a part ”

“ The new education, he contends, recognizes the absurdity of averaging unlike quantities, and accepts the ultimate truth that each child is an individual, differing in needs, capacity, outlook, energy, and enthusiasm from every other child. An arithmetic average can be struck, but when it is applied to children it is a hypothetical and not a real quantity. There is not, and never will be, an average child ”

“ In the present stage of educational development, there are today millions of young men and women who find in the public library the only open door through which they catch glimpses of opportunity beyond their own immediate domain. With all the limitations involved, this is a hopeful circumstance, for instances are plentiful where "the chance encounter with a book has marked the awakening of a life." One need not go to works of fiction to seek such stories, but in them may be found types which have been plucked from bits of real life. ”

“ Society is at last beginning to realize that it is better to perfect machinery of production than to mend the imperfect product; that to dispense charity may ameliorate individual suffering, but does not prevent recurrence. ”

“ And let me tell you, those who go down into the plains are a very short while there before they wish themselves heartily back again. The air is not so light or so pure; nor is the sun any brighter. As for the beautiful men and women, you would see many of them in rags and many of them deformed; and a city is a hard place for people who are poor and sensitive.'
"'You must think me very simple,' answered Will. 'Although I have never been out of this valley, believe me, I have used my eyes. I do not expect to find all things right in your cities. ”

“ Now if those who come in such limited numbers from the colleges and universities, can keep step with the onward march of their fellows only by constantly adding to their educational equipment, what shall be said of that enormous army made up of conscripts from the ranks in the elementary schools?—the tender hands that drop the spelling book and seize the workman's dinner pail? ”

“ For the citizen on the farm, at the desk, or in the factory, they point the way out of vague realizations into distinct and definite command of his political self, offer refreshing change from the narrowing viewpoint of individual interest, to the broadening viewpoint of his town or state or country, and lead on to far international vistas of world-wide life and destiny. ”

“ There are too many books written especially for children. There are more titles in the average collection of children's books than the librarian ought to purchase. There are too many books that are negative in quality—pleasantly enough flavored, not harmful in tone, authentic as to facts, but colorless. There are usually too few of the world's enduring books—classics—and too many editions edited especially for children. Some of the children's catalogues are of appalling size. Here there is abundant need of excision. ”

“ In medieval days, the heralds of civilization were the warrior, the missionary, the explorer and the troubadour; in modern times, civilization is carried forward by the chemist, the engineer, the captain of industry, and the interpreter of life—whether the medium utilized be pen or brush or voice. ”