for the sourness and pepperiness are against all her natural taste; but she moans bravely, "I like them ;" and soon, too soon, she will like them. No child in an environment of those who love good literature, if allowed to come to the table, will fail to acquire the taste. Probably the teacher should sing and should draw, but before we legislate in this respect, let us see that no teacher who knows not literature, and loves it not, is appointed to the charge of children of any age. A knowledge of children's interests and a love of literature in the teacher, and our problem is easily solved.

THE PLACE OF THE LIBRARY IN EDUCATION

BY MELVIL DEWEY, DIRECTOR NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY, ALBANY, N. Y. New conditions bring forth new problems and demand new solutions. Libraries in some form are almost as old as the race. It was steam when the bobbing cover of the teakettle suggested confinement of the vapor, but how different from what the word "steam means today! The lightning on Franklin's kite hardly gave promise of the telephone, phonograph, cable, and wireless telegraphy, and other modern miracles. The chief factor in our new conditions is quick and cheap transportation. Railroads, trolleys, express, mail, rural free delivery, telegraphs, cables, telephones compel us to readjust our ideas in the light of new conditions and possibilities. One result is the modern library.

The old education was completely revolutionized by the invention of printing, the real beginning of university extension. Once students walked hundreds of miles, perhaps begging their way, to sit within sound of the voice of some chosen teacher or to read some book securely chained to a pillar. But the volume which cost as much as a village has by the new process become as cheap as a lunch. The wisdom and learning, which had to be sought out with infinite labor, are printed and made accessible to the poorest. The world thus solved one of its greatest problems when it brought forth the traveling book, the precursor of the traveling library.

We know from our own experience and observation that the eye rather than the ear is the great gate to the human soul. Most ideas and ideals are chiefly drawn from reading. Books, magazines, and papers more than sermons, addresses, or conversation set in motion the effective currents. A recent careful investigation by educational experts as to what most influenced the lives of children showed that it was not the father, nor the mother, nor the school, but, as might have been predicted, the reading.

By common consent the supreme thing in education is the building of character; but character grows out of habits, habits are based on

actions, actions on motives, and motives on reflection. What makes most people reflect? It is usually reading that begets reflection, reflection begets motive, motive begets action, action repeated begets habits, and habits beget that supreme thing, character.

With every generation the comparative importance of reading seems. to increase. It is well known that many of the delegates to meetings and conventions in which they are deeply interested seldom listen to papers and addresses, because they find they can get the ideas so much more quickly and clearly from the printed page. The eye can sweep rapidly over matters of little interest, can dwell on points of importance, can go back to verify preceding statements; with the result that in much less time the mind has gained much more. The pre-eminent influence of the printed page is thus increased by wider appreciation of its power.

On the material side the evidence is just as conclusive. The book is the chief factor in the marvelous evolution of the race. The brute has not the divine gift of speech. We admire the wonderful instincts of bird, or fox, or squirrel, but with minor variations they are the same that their ancestors have had for one thousand generations. The savage with speech and without books passes on something of his acquired knowledge from father to son, but the development is slow. Civilized man has become as a god in what he dares and does, because he stands on the shoulders of all his predecessors and utilizes the work of millions of men in thousands of years.

"For a dwarf on the dead giant's shoulders sees more

Than the live giant's eyesight availed to explore."

The Indian stripped the birch and built his bark canoe in a day. He felled a tree across the stream and his bridge was done. But our sons have taken the skill and knowledge of their fathers and increased it, each beginning where the other left off. They build a Brooklyn bridge or a ship, either of which costs as much as the land, houses, and furniture of fifty country villages. The papers tell us that the "Celtic" built this season could in her vast hull accommodate more than the whole army of guests of that other modern marvel, the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. If there were a derrick large enough, the great city hall of New York could be lowered into this marvelous evolution of the dugout and bark canoe in the natural growth of transportation. All this has been possible because the accumulated skill and knowledge has been preserved in print and passed on from generation to generation, so that we may fairly say we stand today on our lofty pedestal built up of printed sheets of paper.

No thoughtful man can question that it is a supreme concern to provide for our people the best of the literature of power which inspires and builds character, and of the literature of knowledge which informs and builds prosperity. This can be done effectively and economically only thru free public libraries. A limited number can buy or hire their books,

but experience has proved that knowledge must be as free as air or water, or it is fearfully handicapped; and the state cannot afford to allow even the smallest obstacle to remain between any of its citizens and the desire for either inspiration or information.

Even more important than the economy is the question of selection and supervision of reading. A half-dozen nations are producing 60,000 to 70,000 new volumes each year, besides the millions already published. In a great library, with trained bibliographers and careful study and organization, we find it possible only to approximate in our effort to supply each reader with what is best out of our resources. The New York State Library has 450,000 volumes, 150,000 pamphlets, 250,000 manuscripts, and a countless number of articles and periodicals and transactions of societies and independent chapters in books. Yet we have fallen short of our ideal unless we can give to each reader from this immense variety what is then and there and to him most valuable. It is a problem of almost infinite difficulty even with all our bibliographies, catalogs, indexes, lists, and trained specialists. Without such help, how often in a thousand times is there a chance that a reader would really get the thing which would best serve his wants! One who has not studied these problems carefully is dazed by the difficulties and overpowered by the importance of finding at least an approximate solution.

The whole civilized world has accepted the fact that the public-library system is a necessity, with hardly enough intelligent dissent to prove the rule. Seldom in human history has a great movement received so cordial and universal support. Historians already tell us that in the future this will be known as the library age, just as that period when the great churches of Europe were built will always be known as the cathedral age. Even tho the library is almost as old as the race, it is just now passing thru that rapid and marvelous development in public conception of its proper functions which will make our time the real birth-time of that modern institution which, bearing the old name "library," yet includes so much that hereafter it will take full rank in usefulness with our system of schools.

A glance at the development of the library idea will enable us better. to predict its future, as the astronomer computes an orbit, not by study of where a body stands today, but of the track over which it has just come. The original library was a storehouse in which the books could be preserved and passed on to posterity. To get and to keep were the chief functions, while to use was subordinate. A favored few only had access to the books. Then a broadening process began. Those who could pay a certain fee might use the library. Then came the broad thought of making it free to all, but only for use in the building, as the present museum is used. The old librarian would have been as much shocked at the suggestion of lending a book as would the modern

curator of a museum if an interested child should ask to carry home the bird of paradise. Then came lending to a favored few, then to all who could pay the fee, and finally the great thought of lending free to all. But this was by no means the end. When I began work for public-library interests in New York, we had forty free public libraries and forty thousand saloons, so that, by the law of averages, a boy leaving his home in the evening would pass nine hundred and ninety-nine open doors, with a cordial welcome to the worst influences, before he passed one within which he could find the best reading at his disposal. Librarians realized that if they were to do their best work they must have the aggressive spirit and adopt the aggressive methods of those who make other enterprises most successful. Then came the branch in the larger cities, in order to reduce the difficulties of inaccessibility, and to get within reasonable distance of each home a collection of books and an inviting reading-room. The more widely scattered delivery station followed, so that the workman could readily return his book in the morning and get a new one on the way back without going much out of his usual course. Then books were sent on for a trifling fee to those who could not conveniently come after them, utilizing telegraph, telephone, and local express or special delivery. And yet all this did not meet the demand, and we realized that the new conditions brought about by cheap and quick transportation demanded new methods in solving our problem of "the best reading, for the largest number, at the least cost." Traveling libraries were sent out, and when we proved that a given amount of money would accomplish more practical good in this way than in any other, new applications were constantly found, and the few years of active work have established the traveling system as an essential part of the modern library movement.

New conditions made this new system imperative. The immense flood of new books and growing demands of readers for the latest and best in every field showed that it was impracticable to undertake to make adequate libraries at all points needed. It is cheaper to transport than to store and handle books only occasionally used, even if they were given outright to the local library. Libraries must be mobilized. Books must travel more. Of some books extra copies cannot now be had. Of most they cannot be afforded with the money available. If there were buildings and books, the immense cost of proper cataloging, classification, indexing, and reference librarians would be prohibitive. For reference purposes economy and efficiency demand a few great central libraries available by telephone and mail for consultation, and by express and mail for lending books to the entire surrounding section. The nation and each state should of course maintain one great cyclopædic library. Besides these, there will be a few more in the great universities and cities, and here and there one supported by large private endowments.

For ordinary circulation a different reason points to the traveling

principle. The number of books required is small compared with those needed for reference in studying all conceivable subjects, but there is even greater need of careful supervision in guiding this reading in a way to get the best results. Competent assistants can be found and afforded only in a few central points, but can do the work for a large territory. Beginning with 1837, New York spent $55,000 a year in establishing public libraries in the 11,000 school districts of the state. More than twenty other states followed the example, and all had the same experience. The novelty wore off, the books were less used, and in most cases became scattered, so that, instead of a steady increase, after the first fifteen years there has been steady diminution in the number of volumes. For a library is like a reservoir of drinking water. It must have a constant fresh stream running in, or it becomes stagnant and unusable. This freshness is not dependent on the date of a book's publication, but on the time when it is first seen by that community. This is the great secret of the traveling library. Fifty or one hundred books go to a community and, being a new broom, sweep clean. There is a zest in looking them over and seeing what is available that stimulates interest and makes readers. After three or six months this wears off, but is renewed when this library is moved on to the next station and another takes its place. Thus interest is kept alive at every point, and books which used to become mere lumber after a few readings are now promptly worn out in actual service, so that we are getting better returns for each dollar than by any other method.

RELATIONS TO SCHOOLS

A total readjustment of point of view is necessary for most people. I object when one says that the library is a valuable and useful adjunct to the school, putting it on the same plane as a laboratory or gymnasium. In a broad conception of education the library and school are no longer to be driven tandem, but abreast. The library is to be recognized, not as something desirable, but as an absolutely necessary complement to the schools in any satisfactory educational system.

What we call school education is carried on by elementary and high schools, colleges, professional and technical schools, and universities, all assuming that attendance on their course is the main business of the students. What we term "home education" involves no change of residence or interruption of regular vacations, but centers around the library and includes libraries, museums, study clubs, extension teaching, tests, and credentials. Using these words in their broad senses, libraries furnish the education that comes from reading, museums what comes from seeing, clubs what comes from mutual help. The work of the school is for those in attendance. The library works with those at home. The school is chiefly for the young. The library is for adults as well, including all from cradle to grave.

School work is for a limited course.. The library