A Book for All Readers

Book for All Readers, by
Ainsworth Rand Spofford

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Title: A Book for All Readers An Aid to the Collection, Use, and
Preservation of Books and the Formation of Public and Private
Libraries
Author: Ainsworth Rand Spofford
Release Date: September 15, 2007 [EBook #22608]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A BOOK
FOR ALL READERS ***

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A BOOK FOR ALL READERS

DESIGNED AS AN AID TO THE
COLLECTION, USE, AND PRESERVATION
OF BOOKS
AND THE
FORMATION OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIBRARIES
BY
AINSWORTH RAND SPOFFORD
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK & LONDON 1900
COPYRIGHT 1900
BY
A R SPOFFORD

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Chapter Page
1. THE CHOICE OF BOOKS, 3 2. BOOK BUYING, 33 3. THE ART
OF BOOK BINDING, 50 4. PREPARATION FOR THE SHELVES:
BOOK PLATES, &C., 88 5. THE ENEMIES OF BOOKS, 101 6.
RESTORATION AND RECLAMATION OF BOOKS, 119 7.
PAMPHLET LITERATURE, 145 8. PERIODICAL LITERATURE,
157 9. THE ART OF READING, 171 10. AIDS TO READERS, 190
11. ACCESS TO LIBRARY SHELVES, 215 12. THE FACULTY OF
MEMORY, 226 13. QUALIFICATIONS OF LIBRARIANS, 242 14.
SOME OF THE USES OF LIBRARIES, 275 15. THE HISTORY OF
LIBRARIES, 287 16. LIBRARY BUILDINGS AND FURNISHINGS,
321 17. LIBRARY MANAGERS OR TRUSTEES, 333 18. LIBRARY

REGULATIONS, 341 19. LIBRARY REPORTS AND
ADVERTISING, 349 20. THE FORMATION OF LIBRARIES, 357
21. CLASSIFICATION, 362 22. CATALOGUES, 373 23.
COPYRIGHT AND LIBRARIES, 400 24. POETRY OF THE
LIBRARY, 417 25. HUMORS OF THE LIBRARY, 430 26. RARE
BOOKS, 444 27. BIBLIOGRAPHY, 459 INDEX, 501

A BOOK FOR ALL READERS
CHAPTER 1.
THE CHOICE OF BOOKS.
When we survey the really illimitable field of human knowledge, the
vast accumulation of works already printed, and the ever-increasing
flood of new books poured out by the modern press, the first feeling
which is apt to arise in the mind is one of dismay, if not of despair. We
ask--who is sufficient for these things? What life is long enough--what
intellect strong enough, to master even a tithe of the learning which all
these books contain? But the reflection comes to our aid that, after all,
the really important books bear but a small proportion to the mass.
Most books are but repetitions, in a different form, of what has already
been many times written and printed. The rarest of literary qualities is
originality. Most writers are mere echoes, and the greater part of
literature is the pouring out of one bottle into another. If you can get
hold of the few really best books, you can well afford to be ignorant of
all the rest. The reader who has mastered Kames's "Elements of
Criticism," need not spend his time over the multitudinous treatises
upon rhetoric. He who has read Plutarch's Lives thoroughly has before
him a gallery of heroes which will go farther to instruct him in the
elements of character than a whole library of modern biographies. The
student of the best plays of Shakespeare may save his time by letting
other and inferior dramatists alone. He whose imagination has been fed
upon Homer, Dante, Milton, Burns, and Tennyson, with a few of the
world's master-pieces in single poems like Gray's Elegy, may dispense
with the whole race of poetasters. Until you have read the best fictions

of Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Hawthorne, George Eliot, and Victor
Hugo, you should not be hungry after the last new novel,--sure to be
forgotten in a year, while the former are perennial. The taste which is
once formed upon models such as have been named, will not be
satisfied with the trashy book, or the spasmodic school of writing.
What kind of books should form the predominant part in the selection
of our reading, is a question admitting of widely differing opinions.
Rigid utilitarians may hold that only books of fact, of history and
science, works crammed full of knowledge, should be encouraged.
Others will plead in behalf of lighter reading, or for a universal range. It
must be admitted that the most attractive reading to the mass of people
is not scientific or philosophical. But there are many very attractive
books outside the field of science, and outside the realm of fiction,
books capable of yielding pleasure as well as instruction. There are few
books that render a more substantial benefit to readers of any age than
good biographies. In them we find