A Book for All Readers | Page 8

Eliot, Cooper, Hawthorne, Kingsley, Mulock-Craik, and many more, such as no parents need blush to put into the hands of their daughters. In the next place, it is such a selection from the myriads of stories that have poured from the press of this generation as have been approved by the best readers, and the critical judgment of a responsible press.
As to books of questionable morality, I am aware that contrary opinions prevail on the question whether any such books should be allowed in a public library, or not. The question is a different one for the small town libraries and for the great reference libraries of the world. The former are really educational institutions, supported at the people's expense, like the free schools, and should be held to a responsibility from which the extensive reference libraries in the city are free. The latter may and ought to preserve every form of literature, and, if national libraries, they would be derelict in their duty to posterity if they did not acquire and preserve the whole literature of the country, and hand it down complete to future generations. The function of the public town library is different. It must indispensably make a selection, since its means are not adequate to buy one-tenth of the annual product of the press, which amounts in only four nations (England, France, Germany, and the United States) to more than thirty-five thousand new volumes a year. Its selection, mainly of American and English books, must be small, and the smaller it is, the greater is the need of care in buying. In fact, it is in most cases, compelled to be a selection from a selection. Therefore, in the many cases of doubt arising as to the fit character of a book, let the doubt be resolved in favor of the fund, thus preserving the chance of getting a better book for the money.
With this careful and limited selection of the best, out of the multitude of novels that swarm from the press, the reading public will have every reason to be satisfied. No excuse can be alleged for filling up our libraries with poor books, while there is no dearth whatever of good ones. It is not the business of a public library to compete with the news stands or the daily press in furnishing the latest short stories for popular consumption; a class of literature whose survival is likely to be quite as short as the stories themselves.
Take an object lesson as to the mischiefs of reading the wretched stuff which some people pretend is "better than no reading at all" from the boy Jesse Pomeroy, who perpetrated a murder of peculiar atrocity in Boston. "Pomeroy confessed that he had always been a great reader of 'blood and thunder' stories, having read probably sixty dime novels, all treating of scalping and deeds of violence. The boy said that he had no doubt that the reading of those books had a great deal to do with his course, and he would advise all boys to leave them alone."
In some libraries, where the pernicious effect of the lower class of fiction has been observed, the directors have withdrawn from circulation a large proportion of the novels, which had been bought by reason of their popularity. In other newly started libraries only fiction of the highest grade has been placed in the library from the start, and this is by far the best course. If readers inquire for inferior or immoral books, and are told that the library does not have them, although they will express surprise and disappointment, they will take other and improving reading, thus fulfilling the true function of the library as an educator. Librarians and library boards cannot be too careful about what constitutes the collection which is to form the pabulum of so many of the rising generation.
This does not imply that they are to be censors, or prudes, but with the vast field of literature before them from which to choose, they are bound to choose the best.
The American Library Association has had this subject under discussion repeatedly, and while much difference of opinion has arisen from the difficulty of finding any absolute standard of excellence, nearly all have agreed that as to certain books, readers should look elsewhere than to the public free library for them. At one time a list of authors was made out, many of whose works were deemed objectionable, either from their highly sensational character, or their bad style, or their highly wrought and morbid pictures of human passions, or their immoral tendency. This list no doubt will surprise many, as including writers whose books everybody, almost, has read, or has been accustomed to think well of. It embraces the following popular authors, many of whose