“ 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. ”

“ Some tests of a library or school list are: Are the books in it chosen for their permanent value? Has the maker of the list read them? Will it tell an overworked teacher or librarian what the best modern straightforward stories in simple English are, the best life of Lafayette without any long words like "evacuation," or the best account of a salamander in language that a child of 10 can understand? A list for teachers is not a help in choosing books for children, unless from the point of view of child-study, which has another place than on the shelves of a children's room. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is the old search for life, life, more abundant life—for knowledge of it, for entrance into it—which sends the child to the fairy-story, the boy to the tale of adventure, the young girl to the story of romance, the older man and woman to the realistic novel. And it is the instinctive feeling of the teacher and parent that life is a dangerous force and difficult of control which has made school and home look askance upon reading which the child finds too enjoyable.
There is another feeling or belief which lies back of our doubt of work or study or reading which is too enjoyable. ”

“ Even we librarians claim for our public collections no such fine service as is rendered by those private treasures that stand on a person's own shelves, round which "our pastime and our happiness will grow." Books for casual entertainment are more and more easily come by. But so far as our imagination reaches, what private library will for most readers supplant a public collection of books for purposes of study and reference? Is it not then fitting that we spend time and effort to educate young people to the use of the public library? ”

“ It detracts nothing from the interest of the story that what a child calls a fairy tale we call literature. Even Dr. Johnson recognized that "babies do not want to hear about babies." It is a great pity that a child should never meet the knights of the Round Table, or the Charlemagne legends—half history, half romance—or the Homeric tales, outside the dissecting room of a literature class. Small wonder that a child who heard them there for the first time should exclaim with considerable animus, "I like to read, but I hate literature." ”

“ If the librarian is to succeed the bookseller, he must become a merchant; he must order stocks of books and take the speculative chance of selling them. But the librarian has had no experience or training in merchandising. Can he afford to hazard his own capital in an untried field; can he induce his friends to supply him with capital to invest in a business of which he confessedly has no knowledge? It would manifestly be a perversion of the funds of the institution in charge of the librarian, to invest them in a gainful occupation. ”

“ If we had nothing worse than that among our social problems to vex us, we should indeed be fortunate. Advertising is a legitimate incident of commerce. The merchant who has wares to sell may properly make his commodities known. I own I study the advertising pages of my Century and Scribner with scarcely less interest than I do the text. But the world is so full of bad taste! There is no sanctity or silence through which the coarse scream of the huckster may not at any time penetrate. The loud bill-board is but the scream of the huckster transmuted so that it may attack still another sense. ”

“ The display of too many pictures on any one bulletin is equally inadvisable. Have we not all of us at times felt oppressed and confused by the seemingly endless array of pictures at a large art exhibit? The mind is overtaxed in the effort to grasp it all. Knowing the patience with which little children study a picture, even dwelling on the smallest detail with delight, it would be better to choose with discrimination, and avoid bewildering the minds of the children, and fatiguing their attention by a large collection of pictures. ”

“ What renaissance has failed to find literature and architecture quickened alike? The awakening of a love of the beautiful brings a thirst for knowledge concerning the beautiful; as the records will show, the interest excited by that marvellous assemblage of architectural masterpieces at the Chicago Fair, created a demand on the libraries almost beyond belief for books on architecture and the allied arts.
Every conscientious architect must feel his responsibility to his clients as well as to the people and strive he must, to combine the ideal in convenience with simple beauty in design ”

“ The vulgarization of the child is one of the dangers we must avoid. What if the boy's father does read the New York Journal and the girl's mother, when she reads anything, Laura Jean Libbey? It is our business, as librarians for children, to see that by the time the child reaches the same age he shall like something different and better. And how can this be brought about if we let him steep himself in the smart, sensational, vulgar and up-to-date children's books that naturally lead to just such tastes in the adult? ”

“ The librarian who delights in religion, philosophy or folklore says of lists on biology, botany, steam-engineering or sanitation—"I leave all that to Professor So and So—of course he knows all about it." Why should he, more than the librarian? What is the librarian for, if not to know things? Is it not time to turn from the material things and concern ourselves more with a higher standard of scholarship and more outside work in our profession? And for the small libraries of 5000 v. or under there are the library commissions who are supposed to, and do, advise them. ”

“ 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 us the children's library room is for reading, for study, for observation, for questioning undisturbed and undisturbing, while the entire library is still at the service of any child who desires to make practical use of it. ”

“ 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? ”

“ My thesis is this: the book owned is a great deal better than the book loaned. I believe it is better for a man to own a book than to borrow it; that it is legitimate, at public expense, to show him that book in the library and hand it to him as his book—just as legitimate an expense, every way, as it is to employ a man to sell people books so that they won't patronize the Booklovers' Library. I think the whole thing hinges there. It is not a matter of theory, but of fact. If that is what we want to accomplish, can we do it best with the book store or with the library? ”

“ The slow process through the lapse of ages from the monad to that which crawls, then to that which swims, then to that which flies, until we come at last to that which walks erect with brow expanded broadly to the light of heaven; the slow increment of intelligence in the brain, as species becomes merged in constantly higher species; the extension of infancy, with its beautiful sequence of humanity, of love, of spirituality. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Articles upon children's reading fail because the people who have written them are not always familiar with children's books or are not acquainted with the "public library child." We turn to the books themselves, but, having no standard of values, how shall we judge? How are we to know whether a book is good or poor?
It is not possible to reduce the appreciation of literature—whether books for children or for all time—to an exact science. ”

“ I will not even try to enumerate the almost endless ways in which library usefulness may express itself, for these various ways are, after all, only different directions in which to use our one great opportunity of service to mankind.
May we not think of a library as a dynamic force in the community, to be used for lifting the common level. There are so many forces at work in the nation pulling down and scattering ”

“ It is not always easy, after a hard and tiresome day of small and perplexing duties, to see beyond our wall of weariness. Yet nothing is more restful than to feel that we are contributing our part to a great work, and that we, in our place, are a part of one of the great building-up movements of the century. ”

“ Parents to some extent come to select reading matter for their children, and those of mature years but immature minds may drift into this department, if it is not made too juvenile in tone and appearance. Hence, I prefer the name Young People's Library to that of Children's Room. I have seen boys stand aloof at first for fear of ridicule for going into the room "for kids." I prefer to have the discharging of books done at one main desk, as it keeps the children in touch with adults and gives all ages more freedom in drawing from all departments. ”

“ Do the arguments which have induced the public librarian to establish branches and delivery stations apply in the case of the university library? Is the university library of the future to be housed in a single building, or is it to be scattered about in class rooms and laboratories? To my mind, there is no more important question of administration before those of us who are trying to render the university library an efficient instrument of instruction than this. ”

“ When the publisher considers the advisability of bringing out a new book, he cannot undertake to look beyond a few hundred booksellers. It is through them, and only through them, that he has learned to gauge the taste of the reading public. ”

“ Men of science themselves, after contending for liberty of expression, do not always use that liberty with discretion or to the advantage of the community. Now, there must be a selection. That is the point we start from as librarians; that is the duty laid upon us—to get, with the means at our command, the books that will be most useful to our constituents. Now, that means choice. How are we to make a choice? I do not believe there is a librarian in the United States who would set himself up as an arbiter or an expert in every department of literature ”

“ As the standard or degree of civilization for a given age is marked by the character of the literature the people produce and read, we cannot hope for a golden age in American letters, unless the present system is reversed. Work of real merit is never done by accident, nor is it the product of mediocre talents. If we are to develop a national literature that shall fitly characterize the sterling qualities of the American people in this, the full strength of the early manhood of the nation; at the time when the nation has taken its place in the vanguard of civilization ”

“ The same dignity, the same freedom, the same courteous attention to every want without fussy attentions which by grown people would be called intrusiveness should prevail. Make the selection of books what it should be, provide guides and catalogs, perfectly clear but not patronizingly written down, show the children that you are always willing to respond in every way to their questions, and then—let them alone! ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have been wondering if there is not an element of discouragement to the librarian of the small library, in such a conference as this, or even to us who fill subordinate places in large libraries. We get so many new ideas, we get so many plans which other libraries are putting into operation. We know we cannot put them into practice, we know well enough that we shall go home and do just what we have been doing, with small quarters, with cramped revenues, with possibly unsympathetic trustees who take unkindly to our new-born enthusiasm. ”

“ The fascinations of the room are such that a child who has been turned away for disobedience comes back a subdued and chastened young person and your best friend forever after; then with your aim and your firmness early settled, you will have no more thought of discipline than the reference librarian with his tables full of studious adults. After the first a little care about the way a child enters the room will be all that is necessary. ”

“ Hence the rebuke of the teacher to the child who interrupts the "nature-lesson" to blow the thistle-down which waves over his head, or to watch the bee which booms against the window-pane, or the hawk which floats lazily against the blue sky. Life is such a wild, wilful, irregular thing. ”

“ Every child at the completion of the graded schools should know the value of a title-page, the use of the preface and introductory notes, the difference between the table of contents and the index, the best books in the several subjects which he has studied, and where and how he can obtain more books on these subjects later, should he wish them. It would doubtless be a great surprise to one who has not tried the experiment to ask the pupils in our graded and high schools even, for such simple information as the author, title and date of the text-books they are using daily. ”

“ Now, a librarian cannot live without salary, though many live on very small salaries, in the hope of better things—and one of the accomplishments of the American Library Association has been to bring better things to the librarian. Both the dignity and the emolument of the library profession have been, I believe, increased greatly by the existence of this Association. The librarian receives a salary, and it is not true, as we all know, that books can be circulated freely from public libraries in the sense of their being circulated without cost. ”