The Library Was Not a Luxury

The public library is truly a power in the land. Sometimes deemed a luxury by the uneducated and unthinking, it is held by those who have given it just consideration to be a necessity—not only as an educator and elevator of intellect and character, but as a satisfactory dispenser of untold pleasure to the leisure hours of the public. Time has taught us that the pen is a mightier influence than the sword, especially in an age when freedom of the press has become a badge of progress little dreamed of in darker centuries. The privilege of a few in the past, this gift of the use of books to the people of the present is fraught with deep significance. That our public library has suffered and is suffering for want of funds is little in keeping with this spirit.

Unprovided for from proper quarters, a due interest in its means of support would be but a trifling consideration if divided among the many who are willing to appreciate its value and count it with our schools among the noblest and needful branches of progress. However much its privileges may be abused by indulgence in a low standard of literature, that it is an inspiration to many toward loftier ideals must be admitted. The very list of its better books invites perusal; often drawn by that mere invitation against native inclinations, the reader closes the book a richer man. A single idea, a simple statement may touch some hidden chord and awaken it to noble response. Life is filled with this unexpected, silent guidance, and its chief medium is books. Could we grasp the good that our public library has already done, we would feel with Emerson that "it is the good reader that makes the good book."

The city must properly estimate the power wielded by the library and not be content with the expense incurred; such an expense is returned to a town, even to a nation, a thousandfold. The chief foundation of a city's success lies in its means of education and the development of individual character. Falling into the hands of ignorance, it becomes doomed; moral and financial ruin follows in the footsteps of the blind and uneducated, while the opposite springs into existence when well-trained and highly developed minds rule the state of affairs.

As regards children, the public library is mighty as an educator. Minds are tenacious of what they receive in the dawn of life, and "just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined." The chief care of those in charge should be a careful selection of books for the youthful mind, for it is training that improves the powers implanted in us by nature, and sound culture that is the armor of the breast. Knowledge leads to paths of light; only ignorance grovels in darkness and leads us astray upon thorny roads. The public library stands as a symbol of a giant moulder of a race; its developments become manifest in man, woman and child. It holds in its grasp not only the future of a community, but its contributions to the future of a nation.