The Library and Society: Reprints of Papers and Addresses. Various
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and Other Essays” (Boston, 1875), of which collection his paper on the function of a town library forms a part. As stated in his introduction, it appeared originally in Old and New, a magazine already extinct when that introduction was penned.
While asserting as strongly as Mr. Ticknor his belief in making a library “popular,” the writer denies that his belief justifies the inclusion of fiction. His position seems to be that, praiseworthy as much of it is, fiction should not be supplied to the public from the public funds. The present attitude, that this is a matter to be settled by the public itself, is repudiated in set terms and with somewhat picturesque illustrations, by Mr. Quincy. His stalwart advocacy of the library as a supplement to the school is what justifies the inclusion of his paper in this collection. Those who desire to follow Mr. Quincy a little farther may read the next paper in the above-named collection entitled “The Abuse of Reading.”
Josiah Phillips Quincy was born in Boston, Nov. 28, 1829 and graduated at Harvard in 1850, the son of the statesman Josiah Quincy who was also president of Harvard. He was admitted to the bar in 1854, but afterward engaged in business and in farming, also writing freely on civic and economic subjects.
This is a one-sided paper. Something might be said on the other side; but, as that is the popular side, it is likely to receive full justice. In behalf of an unconverted minority, who should be represented through the press, if nowhere else, I desire to register a dissent from the prevailing opinion concerning the function of libraries sustained by the taxation of towns and small municipalities. The importance of stimulating thought upon subjects bearing ever so remotely upon our fiscal requirements, I conceive to be far greater than may superficially appear. For when the mass of our people clearly comprehend what government should not be called upon to do for them, they will insist upon its performing duties which are manifestly within its sphere of action. Laboring men and women are to-day suffering from the adulteration of their food and drink, and from a system of taxation which oppresses them with weighty and unjust burdens. Their deliverance can only come by dismissing legislators who are disciples of what may be called the Todgers school of economy; that remarkable matron, as Dickens tells us, caring little for the solid sustenance of her boarders, provided “the gravy” was abundant and satisfactory.
Upon what principle can the citizen, who thinks before he casts his ballot, justify himself in voting increased taxes upon his neighbors for the purpose of establishing a library? He must assume the necessity of public schools, and then argue that he may vote for a library that will supplement the elementary instruction which the town provides. And the justification is ample. If our schools are so conducted as to awaken a taste for knowledge and give a correct method in English reading, the town library may represent the university brought to every man's door. But suppose a large portion of the funds taken from tax-payers is devoted to circulating ephemeral works of mere amusement. Is it not as monstrous for me to vote to tax my neighbor to furnish the boys and girls with “A Terrible Tribulation,” or “Lady So-and-So's Struggle,” as it would be for the purpose of providing them with free tickets to witness “Article 47” or “The Black Crook”? These romances and dramas (to represent them in the most favorable point of view) are evanescent productions, designed to meet the market demand for the intense and spasmodic. Their claims to patronage from the public purse are precisely similar.
So far, the citizen has a right to object as a tax-payer. But, if he were truly solicitous for the welfare of the community about him, the protest might be far deeper. For the weak spot in our school system lies just here: while claiming immense credit for giving most of our children the ability to read, we show the profoundest indifference about what they read. But this accomplishment of reading is a very doubtful good if it goes no farther than to give a boy the satisfaction of perusing “The Police Gazette,” or introduces a girl to the immoralities of Mr. Griffith Gaunt, and the adventures of a hundred other heroes of characters even more questionable. By teaching our children to read, and then setting them adrift in a sea of feverish literature which vitiates the taste and enervates the character, we show an indifference about as sensible as that of the old lady who thought it could not matter whether her son had gone to the bosom of Abraham or Beelzebub, seeing that they were both Scripture names.
It is not difficult to conceive of communities, 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