A Book for All Readers | Page 6

ambition for clerks, working men and women, and all who are struggling up in life, to form gradually a library of good books. "It is a man's duty," says he, "to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life."
And says Bishop Hurst, urging the vital importance of wise selection in choosing our reading: "If two-thirds of the shelves of the typical domestic library were emptied of their burden, and choice books put in their stead, there would be reformation in intelligence and thought throughout the civilized world."
SELECTION OF BOOKS FOR PUBLIC LIBRARIES.
Let us now consider the subject of books fitted for public libraries. At the outset, it is most important that each selection should be made on a well considered plan. No hap-hazard, or fitfully, or hastily made collection can answer the two ends constantly to be aimed at--namely, first, to select the best and most useful books, and, secondly, to economize the funds of the library. No money should be wasted upon whims and experiments, but every dollar should be devoted to the acquisition of improving books.
As to the principles that should govern and the limitations to be laid down, these will depend much upon the scope of the library, and the amount of its funds. No library of the limited and moderate class commonly found in our public town libraries can afford to aim at the universal range of a national library, nor even at the broad selections proper to a liberally endowed city library.
But its aims, while modest, should be comprehensive enough to provide a complete selection of what may be termed standard literature, for the reading public. If the funds are inadequate to do this in the beginning, it should be kept constantly in view, as the months and years go on. Every great and notable book should be in the library sooner or later, and if possible at its foundation. Thus will its utility and attractiveness both be well secured.
Taking first the case of a small public library about to be started, let us see in a few leading outlines what it will need.
1. A selection of the best works of reference should be the corner-stone of every library collection. In choosing these, regard must be had to secure the latest as well as the best. Never buy the first edition of Soule's Synonymes because it is cheap, but insist upon the revised and enlarged edition of 1892. Never acquire an antiquated Lempriere's or Anthon's Classical Dictionary, because some venerable library director, who used it in his boyhood, suggests it, when you can get Professor H. T. Peck's "Dictionary of Classical Antiquities," published in 1897. Never be tempted to buy an old edition of an encyclopaedia at half or quarter price, for it will be sure to lack the populations of the last census, besides being a quarter of a century or more in arrears in its other information. When consulting sale catalogues to select reference books, look closely at the dates of publication, and make sure by your American or English catalogues that no later edition has appeared. It goes without saying that you will have these essential bibliographies, as well as Lowndes' Manual of English Literature first of all, whether you are able to buy Watt and Brunet or not.
2. Without here stopping to treat of books of reference in detail, which will appear in another place, let me refer to some other great classes of literature in which every library should be strong. History stands fairly at the head, and while a newly established library cannot hope to possess at once all the noted writers, it should begin by securing a fine selection, embracing general history, ancient and modern, and the history of each country, at least of the important nations. For compendious short histories, the "Story of the Nations" series, by various writers, should be secured, and the more extensive works of Gibbon, Grote, Mommsen, Duruy, Fyffe, Green, Macaulay, Froude, McCarthy, Carlyle, Thiers, Bancroft, Motley, Prescott, Fiske, Schouler, McMaster, Buckle, Guizot, etc., should be acquired. The copious lists of historical works appended to Larned's "History for Ready Reference" will be useful here.
3. Biography stands close to history in interest and importance. For general reference, or the biography of all nations, Lippincott's Universal Pronouncing Dictionary of Biography is essential, as well as Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, for our own country. For Great Britain, the "Dictionary of National Biography" is a mine of information, and should be added if funds are sufficient. Certain sets of collective biographies which are important are American Statesmen, 26 vols., Englishmen of Letters, -- vols., Autobiography, 33 vols., Famous Women series, 21 vols., Heroes of the Nation series, 24 vols., American Pioneers and Patriots, 12 vols., and Plutarch's Lives. Then