Part 42

Bradford Kinney Pierce was born in Royalton, Vt., February 3, 1819, and graduated at Wesleyan University in 1841. Entering the Methodist Episcopal ministry, he was also occupied for many years as teacher and editor, being agent of the Sunday School Union in 1845-56, editing Zion's Herald in 1872-88 and then serving as librarian of the Free Library at Newton, Mass., in addition to his other duties, until his death, April 19, 1889. He has been called "the Nestor of New England Methodism."

The free public library is now becoming the favorite posthumous beneficiary of our men of wealth. Heretofore it has hardly been esteemed respectable in the vicinity of Boston for a man of fortune to die without leaving a generous bequest to Harvard College or to the Massachusetts General Hospital. The city and town library is now beginning to share liberally in these testamentary benefactions. The college requires too considerable a sum in our days to be often adequately endowed by the estate of one patron, but the library can be established and be quite amply appointed by the accumulation of one public-spirited citizen, and be made to become his most-honored and permanent memorial. Every town of any size in our New England and Northern States either has, or will soon have, one of these people's universities, through the individual gift of a generous citizen, or by public establishment.

This general gathering of large bodies of books in all our principal towns, opened freely to all ages, can but produce a manifest influence for good or evil in the community. The familiar and forcible response to the objection made to the establishment of so many small colleges in the land, rather than securing their consecration and abundant endowment and appointment in a few centres, is that the "fresh-water institution," so called, brings the opportunities for a liberal culture near to thousands who could not otherwise be prompted to make the incident sacrifices to secure an advanced education. The immediate presence itself of the institution is an inspiration to study. So the presence of the numerous libraries, with their wide-open doors to all, and their attractive shelves, becomes a powerful incitement to those who otherwise would hardly think of seeking enjoyment or profit in reading. The statistics of these city and town libraries fully confirm this a-priori presumption as to their influence in awakening and cultivating an interest in books among all classes. And this influence of books upon a reading community is very powerful. It is more subtle than human companionship. The latter strongly affects and moulds the character; but books reach us at lower depths. They inspire us more profoundly; they touch our whole being, intellect, heart, and executive purpose; they imperceptibly create or modify our ethical standards; they become our models of life and conduct; they lay hold of our highest and most sacred sentiments and color our views of the life beyond.

It can but be, where the circulation of these volumes reaches nearly all our families and enters into the thoughts and emotions of every day of the year, that manifest results for the better or the worse will follow. Many thoughtful persons have been honestly anxious in reference to the result of the experiment. The public press has sent out its serious forebodings from the pens of those who have taken depressing views of the matter, and alarming tracts have been published, giving painful criticisms upon the contents of certain libraries, the nature of special volumes found upon their shelves, and the amount of circulation of works of fiction of not the most elevating, or even wholesome, character. To all this we answer that these criticisms, whether well founded or not, have not been without their influence in calling attention to the most intelligent of our institutions. Their officers are cultured gentlemen and ladies, clearly apprehending the relation of the library to the intellectual and moral development of the community and its true office in administering to the improvement, as well as enjoyment, of its patrons. It is more and more becoming an educating rather than a simply entertaining institution. It is every day becoming more widely recognized that it is not intended to be a competitor with the circulating library, but rather an antagonist, winning the patrons of the latter to the reading and study of a higher order of literature. While the majority of library managers do not take the extreme view that has been strongly advocated by some quite intelligent library trustees, that the public funds should not be used for the purchase of fiction, which may be considered an intellectual luxury, but only for improving and educating literature, they do seek to carefully sift the lighter issues of the press, securing the best and the purest of this character. They also study at the same time, through their accomplished officers and assistants, in the use of the local press, through the cooperation of the teachers of the schools and the leaders of public opinion, with the aid of parents, to awaken especially in the minds of the young people a taste for regular and substantial courses of reading in the various departments of science, history, and belles-lettres. The success that has attended these efforts is full of encouragement. Our superintendents and librarians do not simply remain at their desks, or stand behind their tables to respond to the call for books, but make themselves felt in the community, aiding in the investigations of students, assisting in the search for authorities, facts, and illustrations, suggesting plans for interesting the youthful readers in scientific or literary studies, and calling attention to the rich accumulations upon the library shelves. The annual reports of these institutions are constantly showing improvement in the character of the reading in their several communities,--a gradual decrease in the lighter works, and an increase in the call for books of art and science, of travel and biography, of poetry and philosophy. A significant falling off in the number of books taken from the library, in many places, is noticed, while the patronage of the library is manifestly increased. The works that are now selected are substantial, requiring thought and time in reading. They cannot be hurried over in a day like the light novel, and hence the decrease in the number of volumes read is a most gratifying evidence of improvement in the quality of the reading.

The free library is becoming the effectual antagonist, also, of the superficial news and story papers. Their "name is legion." They assault the eye with their staring illustrations, and tempt the reader by their cheapness. Especially at the close of the week, supplies of this trash, with periodical sheets of a little higher order, but still superficial, have been heretofore laid in for the hours of respite from labor on the Sabbath. This light, disconnected, desultory reading, carried on through all the unoccupied hours of the week, while it secures a smattering of information, can but be of a very vicious intellectual tendency, not to speak of its moral influence. The free library and its reading-room offer without expense the perusal of the best periodical literature in the land, and permit and tempt their patrons to secure, for the unemployed hours of the approaching Sabbath, works of deep interest and of an improving character.

We are confident that this multiplication of well-selected and constantly growing collections of standard and current literature is full of promise of good, and, as generally managed among us, is attended with small and easily corrected evils. It is inspiring the establishment of literary and scientific clubs, awakening the ambition and inventive powers of our mechanics, encouraging a liberal and cultivating course of reading among our school students, and affording an immeasurable amount of pure and refining enjoyment throughout the community. We look upon it as one of the significant and powerful elements of a higher and general culture among the people, and prophetic of far greater and better fruits in the future.

POSSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN MANUFACTURING COMMUNITIES

"A love of reading as a keynote to broader culture," and how the librarian may guide reading by stimulating that love--a paper by Mrs. Sanders of the Pawtucket Public Library (long lovingly known among librarians as "Mawtucket of Pawtucket").

Minerva Amanda Sanders was born in Providence, R.I., Feb. 1, 1837. About 1876 she became librarian of the subscription library in Pawtucket, R.I., organized in 1852, which preceded the present free library; and when about six months later it was turned over to the town, she continued in charge, serving until her death, March 20, 1912. Mrs. Sanders did notable pioneer work in her profession, especially in the adoption of free access to books and in work with children. This paper was read at the Thousand Islands Conference of the American Library Association in 1887.

Sir John Herschel, in an address to the working people of Windsor and Eton upon the occasion of opening a public library for their use in 1839, said:--

"If I were to pray for a taste, which should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and as a shield against its ills however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading.

"Give a man this taste and a means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books.

"You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history; with the wisest, the wittiest, with the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity.

"You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him. It is hardly possible but the character should take a higher and better tone from the constant habit of associating in thought with a class of thinkers, to say the least of it, above the average of humanity.

"It is morally impossible but that the manners should take a tinge of good breeding and civilization from having constantly before one's eyes the way in which the best-bred and the best-informed men have talked and conducted themselves in their intercourse with each other.

"There is a gentle but perfectly irresistible coercion in a habit of reading well directed, over the whole tenor of a man's character and conduct, which is not the less effectual because it is really the last thing he dreams of.

"It cannot, in short, be better summed up than in these few words: It civilizes the conduct of men, and suffers them not to remain barbarians."

Recognizing this love of reading as the keynote to broader culture and a higher standard of morals, one by one, during the last half-century, libraries have been thrown open to the public that were before only accessible to the scholar (and often grudgingly even to him) and new libraries established, till, in every community, a free public library is as much a necessity to-day as its churches or its schools.

Even in the troublous days of the Revolution our forefathers were awaking to this demand, for in 1776 there were 29 "partially public libraries in the colonies"; in 1800 there were 49; in 1876 the number had increased to over 3,000; while to-day we number between 5,000 and 6,000 public libraries, comprising a total of over 20,000,000 volumes.

The influence of a public library is contingent upon many circumstances--its community, its finances, and largely upon its management. Possibilities which may be developed in one library, in another remain unnoticed; while something of equal importance is made of incalculable benefit to its own community. Thus, though working on a general principle, each library independently works out the problem of the greatest good to the greatest number of its own patrons. Happily, therefore, there is no cause for the rivalry and jealousies that disturb the harmony of so many fraternities.

It is my pleasure and privilege to live in a manufacturing community; to watch the development of practical ideas; to follow the progress of mechanical improvement, and witness with pride their results, for the distinctive feature of Pawtucket is the variety of its industries.

We remember with pride our parentage and the honor due to it; but surely when Samuel Slater, after a weary time of toil and discouragement, perfected the first power machinery for cotton spinning in this country, and with a pardonable pride saw it in successful operation in the first bona fide cotton mill in the United States, which still stands in the centre of our city--(I speak with authority though I am fully aware that this is a case parallel to the "Seven Grecian cities striving for Homer dead.")--When, as I said, this was accomplished in 1791, there was no power of the imagination that could have foreseen the change from the little mill village on the Blackstone River, with its few hundred inhabitants, to the present city of 25,000, 13,000 of whom are engaged in industrial pursuits, its 70 schools, its 600 manufacturing establishments, embracing the greatest variety of industries.

But Pawtucket is only one of many thriving manufacturing communities.

Waltham, Mass., the adoptive parent of the American Watch Co., which had in 1865 a population of but 7,000, now numbers over 16,000, with not less than 7,000 employes, 2,500 of whom alone are employed by the American Watch Co.

Lowell, Mass., according to the census of 1883, had a population of 66,000, one third of whom were employed in its 300 manufactories.

Manchester, N.H., with a population of 40,000, employs 15,000 persons in its 102 manufactories.

And so I might go on enumerating special statistics, but these are simply representative communities. It is sufficient for my purpose to say that there are in the United States about 254,000 manufacturing establishments, employing nearly 3,000,000 persons, at an average wage of $1.15 per working day.

It is to this great class that we look for much of the prosperity of our country; for we find that the value of the product of the manufactures of the United States for the last ten years was $5,400,000,000.