THE PUBLIC LIBRARY: ITS USES TO THE MUNICIPALITY

Written for the National Municipal League and printed in The Library Journal for June, 1903, eight years after the author, Dr. John S. Billings, had begun his service as director of the New York Public Library; largely a defence of libraries against certain objections. The statement of the part played by “sentiment” in popular institutions, and its justification, are striking and true.

John Shaw Billings was born in Switzerland County, Ind., in 1839, graduated from Miami University in 1857, studied medicine and after serving as a surgeon in the Civil War, was assigned to the Surgeon General's Office in Washington, of whose library he compiled the 16-volume Index Catalogue. After service in Johns Hopkins and Pennsylvania Universities he was chosen in 1895 director of the newly established New York Public Library, where he served until his death in 1913, planning and supervising the construction of its central building.

The great majority of cities of 25,000 inhabitants and upward in the United States have public libraries of some sort, and the same is true of many of the smaller cities. Many of these libraries have been founded on gifts of individuals, some have developed from subscription libraries, but the majority are now supported mainly or entirely by funds appropriated by the city government. A considerable number are still in the formative stage, this being true of those for which buildings are being erected from funds provided by Mr. Carnegie and for several hundred others for which he will probably provide buildings in the near future.

There may be excessive and unjustifiable taxation for the support of a public library—the amount which the city can afford for this purpose should be carefully considered in connection with its needs for a pure water supply and good sewage disposal, for means of communication, for the care of the sick poor and for public schools. Each case must be judged by itself; the only general rule I have to suggest is that in the department of education the claims of the public library for support are more important than those of municipal college or high school. The people who have no taxable property, and who therefore often erroneously suppose that they contribute nothing toward the payment of the taxes, are usually quite willing to have a higher tax rate imposed for the purpose of securing for themselves and their families free library facilities—although in exceptional cases religious or sociological opinions may lead them to oppose it.

A considerable number of taxpayers on the other hand, are more or less reluctant to have their assessments increased for this purpose, and their arguments should be considered and met. They are:

1. That they should not be taxed for things they do not want and never use.

2. That furnishing free books tends to pauperize the community and to discourage the purchase of books for home use.

3. That there is no evidence that free public libraries improve the community materially or morally.

4. That the greater part of the books used are works of fiction and that these are injurious to the readers.

5. That most of the arguments used in favor of free public libraries are merely sentimental and emotional.

The first of these reasons would apply also to taxes for public schools, street paving, sewerage, and many other items of municipal expenditure and has no weight.

With regard to the second argument it is not a sufficient reply to say that every one pays through the taxes, for this would apply equally well to free lodging houses, free lunchrooms and soup kitchens, free fuel, etc., all of which it generally believed tend to pauperize a city, except in great and special emergencies. The proper answer is that the free public library is an important and, indeed, necessary part of the system of free education which is required to secure intelligent citizens in our form of popular government, and that while in a few very exceptional cases free schools and free libraries may tend to improvidence or indolence or even to certain forms of crime, these rare cases are of no importance in comparison with the benefits which education confers upon the immense majority of the community and with the fact that without free schools and libraries a large part of the people will not be sufficiently educated to be useful citizens.

With the regard to the third count, the public library, again, may be considered together with the public school. While it is difficult to trace to either specific instances of material or moral improvement, it is certain that the general diffusion of intelligence which both certainly effect does result beneficially in these directions. Communities with flourishing free schools and libraries are usually more prosperous and better than those without such facilities, and, while there is doubtless room here for a confusion of cause and effect, it is probable that there is both action and reaction. Prosperity calls for increased facilities for education and these in turn tend to make the community more prosperous.

That the majority of books withdrawn from public libraries are works of fiction cannot be denied. Many librarians are wont to deplore this fact, and most libraries endeavor in one way or another to decrease the percentage of fiction in their circulation.

The proportion of recreative reading in a public library is necessarily large. In like manner, the greater proportion of those who visit a zoological or botanical garden do so for amusement. Yet the information that they secure in so doing is none the less valuable and both are certainly educational institutions. So if in the public library a large number of its users get their history, their travel and their biography through the medium of recreative readings we should not complain. Were it otherwise these readers would probably lack altogether the information that they now certainly acquire.

Taking up the final count in the indictment, it is doubtless true that sentimental and emotional considerations have had much to do with library development. They have furnished the initial motive power, as they have for free schools, for the origin and progress of democratic government, and for most of the advances of civilization. They often precede deliberate, conscious reasoning and judgment, yet they are often themselves the result of an unconscious reasoning process producing action of the will in advance of deliberate judgment. Sometimes they are pure reflexes, like winking when the eye is threatened by a blow. The free public library can neither be established nor maintained usefully without their aid, but their methods—or want of method—must be carefully guided to produce good results.

The sentiment that we ought to establish institutions for the diffusion of knowledge is the expression of a real economic need and should be directed and encouraged and not suppressed. Logic is a useful steering apparatus, but a very poor motive power.