- ‘The College Library By John Cotton Dana “+, 7% Librarian Newark, N. J., Free Public PMs This article appeared in THE FREEMAN on February 21, 1923. That THE FREEMAN found it worthy of publication gave me great pleasure; for that journal is well printed, which is much; is well written, which 1s more; is disturbingly radical in tts utterances, which is much more; and enlivens its opinions with humor, which is best of al!. In the article here reprinted with THE FREEMAN’S consent, I make the assertion that the Trustees, presidents and faculties of nearly all colleges and universities, for both sexes, have thus far neglected to use as they might the most important tool at their hands,—their libraries. With them they could give every professor and every student the opportunity to see, to handle and to use, in home, office, room or class the books, journals, proceedings, pamphlets and maps which are being widely read iit and widely discussed and are helpmg to form opinion and to settle Hy problems and are adding to the mterests and pleasures of the alert and the intelligent. To give one definite suggestion: Let every professor receive fre- quent notes of additions to the college library and receive, on his request, frequent deliveries of what he asks to see, at his home or his class a burden which we must each carry if we are to keep rooms, THE FREEMAN’S address is 116 W. 13th St., Its price is $6.00 per year; single numbers 15 cents. WE read more to-cay than ever before. But in relation | to the burden that life now puts upon us, we read | less than ever, while we need to read far more. The the social organism going has been increased beyond our power to endure, unless we use, to a far greater degree than we now do, the experience, the knowledge, the imagination of the world’s best minds. Briefly, | the people are about to try to rule themseives, and are not learning how. This failure to learn from print is shown in one of i its most depressing phases in the attitude of our pro- i fessional teachers towards printed things. By pro- fessional teachers I mean all who engage in definite | educational work with groups or classes of students ; and I am concerned here almost solely with those who are thus engaged in colleges and universities. Of the secondary schools, I merely remark that books to be used to broaden the curriculum by way of collateral reading and reference, began to come into use hardly more than a generation ago; and it is scarcely a decade | THE Bies 20 LIBRARY New York City. , P— 7 Ye a SE ~ 8% ri oe cree td ple since public high schools began to adopt the custom of having good libraries and skilled librarians for their pupils and instructors. Before citing facts which seem to show that college libraries are neglected, it is well to note the tendency of all formal education to turn aside from the use of print-in-general as an aid to thinking and wisdom. I refer to the recent nation-wide movement for making formal education as much as possible of the type that enthusiasts are pleased to call vocational. Specifically, it means the use of a large part of a city’s school- appropriation for the erection, equipment and mainte- nance of buildings which are far more expensive to set up and maintain than are schools wherein education is purveyed with the aid only of brains and print; and it means, in colleges and universities, the setting up of like plants, these plants being, in both cases, designed to lead students at the earliest possible moment towards the doing of those things that promise skill in some narrow and special technique. This movement in both school and college gets its strength largely from the reasonable claim made for it that this method will | more quickly lift students to money-making positions than will the method of using print-at-large. All educational work of this vocationahnature tends inevit- ably to the neglect of books and ‘libraries. Our country is industrial\in' every fibre of its being. The art of making things or moving things and thereby making money, is seen continually, in ten thousand forms, by wellnigh every child from his earliest infancy. The vast majority of boys not only see but take part in this industrialism. Now, in order that they may, when they come of age and have some influence in the management of the social organism, be equipped to bear a citizen’s burdens, we put them in school in the hope that they may there get, through a study of print, such a view of their world and of its problems in small part at least, as has been granted to the best minds the world has produced. The influence of cur passion for industrialism as it manifests itself in our daily life, narrowing as it inevitably does the outlook on social problems, is being constantly exerted on all normal persons from the age of six. From six to fourteen, particularly, children are in it and of it and live it. They are getting the most deadly practical, the most non-bookish, the most vocational of all possible vocational-industrial trainings, in that they are every moment living in, and partaking of, the industrial life that surrounds them. With difficulty and at some expense we prepare for them a formal educational apparatus to be used, over and above the technique of reading, in giving them contact with the wisdom that man has gathered in the last few thousand years, and such practice in thinking as may make them a little better equipped to help, as they mature, in keeping society in a healthful condition. That statement, brief as it is, seems to suggest the fundamental purpose of formal education. Consider, now, the relative power of the two influences—life, and the education of the schools. The former is at work every waking day of fifteen hours, from the first to the fourteenth year of a child’s life, a total of about 75,000 hours. Between the ages of six and fourteen, American children have 45,000 hours of practical, vocational, industrial training simply through living in an industrial environment; an environment of prodigious power to mould and fashion the spirit to the current ideal of material success. Not quite 45,000 hours, to be sure; for we must subtract the hours during which they are subjected to the formal educa- tion-for-wisdom which our schools administer. These hours of cther-worldly training are few indeed; they number for the average child less than 7000 in eight years of school. Of these few hours it is the aim of the vocational enthusiasts to take away as many as possible and use them in strengthening the occupational | and business and money-making training which every- day life in America seems to supply, out of school, in overflowing abundance. The children who go on through the high school and the college give to school life about the same percentage of their waking hours as does the child who leaves school at fourteen. Each year now the pressure on the student increases, by reason of the tendency to make high school and college courses more practical and nearer to our industrial life, to surrender the few hours set apart for acquiring good sense and power of thought to that practical business-training which in any event inevitably fills more than seven- eighths of his waking life. So much for an indictment of present-day practical education on what some may call a priors grounds. Consider now certain facts which give a basis for that indictment. Few will deny that what men have learned by experience and observation, have pondered carefully and have then set down in writing, is the one posses- sion above all others which we should study and use. The printed page is man’s most precious treasure and his most useful aid. This heritage of mankind includes the visions of the poets as well as the formule of the chemists, the record of a civilization’s decay as well as the record of men of genius, and the record of the quality of languages of the past as well as that of the languages of to-day. The supreme importance of the collection and pres- ervation of the records of man’s deeds and thoughts, and of so arranging them that they may be conven- iently used, does not need proof, for it is universally admitted. It is universally admitted, also, that they should be read and studied. That this latter admissior is in large degree only a theory with the institutions ot higher learning, is shown by the persistence with which their libraries are neglected. It is true that many costly buildings have been erected to house college libraries; that collections of books of great size and value are housed in these buildings ; that ample and comfortable rooms are sup- plied in many of them, in which scores of students may consult and read books and other printed things; that in them are set apart hundreds of volumes to the reading of which students are directed, and even com- pelled, by their instructors; that students and profes- sors alike may take to their rooms and their homes such books as they wish to use; and that the total annual cost of thus providing easy and comfortable access to the written words of the world’s best minds is So great as to prove conclusively that college libraries are not neglected. To all this it may be said that the current tendency in college buildings is to the- grandiose. On the accepted theory that a collection of books is the most important part of the equipment of a college, the building in which the collection is housed is put up, if possible, in the grandiose manner and usually looks as if it cost a great deal of money. Having the grand and expensive-looking library-building, trustees, faculty and alumni easily persuade themselves that they have done enough for their college’s most important labora- tory, and pay little heed to the extent and quality of the use made of its contents. A few years ago, although libraries were generally admitted to be the most import- ant instruments of education that colleges can possess, the persons who presided over and directed those instruments were, save in rare instances, not members of faculties, and were quite commonly looked upon as a slightly superior order of clerks. That fact alone shows how, in the mechanics of college education, the collections which were, in theory, looked on with so much reverence and were so impressively and expen- sively housed, were really regarded. It inevitably followed that the laboratories of books, presided over by inferiors, took an inferior place. To this, many learned professors will say at once that, as they know the literature of their own subjects they need only a messenger at their book-warehouse who can buy what they tell him to buy, and can find in the warehouse the books they ask for—a clerk’s job, surely! But the whole development of the econ- omy of libraries in the past fifty years, of which the professors know little or nothing, gives ample proof that they are quite in the wrong. College libraries are not only often richly housed; they are, as stated, often rich in books; and often too rich. The worth of a library lies in the use made of it. Its building and the size of its collections may easily so obfuscate its possessors as to make them believe that, if a place so grand and a collection so great is at hand, they must of course be using it in a grand manner and to the great advantage of educa- tion; while in fact they scarcely touch its riches and scarcely feel its power. Students can, it is true, go to college libraries, and can there read in some degree of comfort the books they choose and the books that are chosen for them by their several instructors—and that is well. They may also take to their rooms a few books, and in some cases may take, even for several days, the special books to which they are directed—and that is also well. But here is a preamble, followed by a few questions, the answers to which amply demonstrate the truth of my thesis that college libraries are neglected. The size, grandeur and cost of college library-build- ings has helped to strengthen the doctrine, inherited from the days when books were few and rare, and every library naturally acquired all it could and kept religiously all it acquired, that the collection within so large a building should be of the largest possible size and of the widest possible range. This theory that the college library should be large and wide- ranging, and should’ never discard anything it may acquire, is not only strengthened by the size and cost of its home, but has, in turn, héiped to strengthen the theory that its home should be large in order that it might hold all possible acquisitions, and should be ernate in order that it might honour the rare and precious things it contains. There has also prevailed the theory that a magnificent marble building is an outward symbol of the inward reverence which trustees, faculty and alumni have for the wisdom lying in the books within; while the honour, in fact, goes to archi- tects, donors, and college presidents and trustees. The wisdom of books can be honoured truly only by using them skilfully and lavishly to foster further wisdom. The desire for quantity of print and for rarity of print, can be satisfied only by the acquisition of print. College libraries have quite generally spent freely on acquisition, wishing to push their collections on towards completeness. They have felt obliged also to give space and care to gifts of books. They have done all this, each with no regard to like activity of acquisition by other libraries, until now we discover that, while many college libraries are large and wide ranging, and being so, are inevitably expensive to maintain; nevertheless in all of them combined the resources in printed records of man’s achievement are iamentably small. } These libraries have failed to consider the value to scholars of such a fullness of book-riches as could have been attained by joint and selective effort in the acquisition of books; they have thought it of far more importance than it really is, to have close at hand in each college library an attempt, no matter how feeble, at a collection for all possible scholars. In doing this they have largely failed to carry on that type of work for their instructors and students which alone would have relieved them of the charge of neglecting their libraries. I refer to that type of service which is furnished by our best public libraries. I recently sent to seventy-one college libraries six short questions, and received answers from forty-six of them. The questions asked, in effect, if easy access (for use at home or in the class-room) to the best of recent books, including of course much-discussed works in all fields, and the more important journals of all types save the most popular story-papers, was granted to professors and students by college libraries. Nearly every one said, “No.” Several made mention of groups of special books bought at a professor’s request, that his students might all have access to them. Some referred to the fact that the public libraries of their respective cities gave this service that I spoke of. 50480 The actual state of affairs, the failtre of the college library to do its obvious and hel piu ent work in keeping the richest and most thought-pro woking literature easily available for home reading {0 all, students and faculty —this was best shown by ¢he answers to question number one which was; ‘Does your library subscribe to extra copies of periodicals of any kind, and lend these copies to professors and students?” Of the forty-six answers, thirty-eight were flat negatives. Of the affirmatives, one was from a departmental library ; one from a library just opened and perhaps unfamiliar with the bad habit in question; and six qualified their statements by such phrases as “a few” and “to a limited extent.” From other sources I learn that it is most unusual for college libraries to subscribe to more than one copy of any periodical. This means that in, say, fifty of our larger colleges and universities having a iotal of about 130,000 students and 10,000 professors and instructors, the libraries furnish a total of fifty copies of such journals as the Yale Review, the Nineteenth Century, Science, Progress, Revue des deux Mondes, Nature and Science—to name only a few at random. The answers to question number three confirm the conclusions to which the answers to number one inevi- tably lead. This question was, “How many extra copies of books of any kind does your library buy and lend to professors and students?” The answers, when read in the light of the other ‘answers, show . of the forty-six colleges do the lib ble- mi and inviti subjects of discussion the catty over. For ee ie in a college or university of two or three thousand students, with a hundred or more professors, a single copy of each of such books as Bertrand Russell’s “The Problem of China,” Lippmann’s “Public Opinion,” Reinsch’s “Secret Diplomacy,” Kendrew’s “Climates of the Continents,” and Caullery’s “Universities and lainly that i in | LN QA Scientific Life in the United States,’ must fill all demands. Nearly every librarian who answered my questions says he would gladly have the library in © his charge render the services I have indicated, but § that lack of funds forbids. The blame, then, falls back — upon trustees and in good measure on faculties. There is the gist of the reasons for saying that college libraries are neglected! No answer is needed to the suggestions that professors and students can buy books for themselves, and that students in college sities ought not to be encouraged to read outside the closed ia boundaries of their studies. To him who makes i seriously such suggestions, any argument would be amg useless. : A revision of the theory on which college libraries are managed to-day would lead to certain modifications in practice, such as cutting down the storage-cost — of many books, and the buying and preparing for the shelves of many expensive books for research, books — which to-day are not as important as they were even > yesterday, and can any day be seen, copied, or handled at less cost than the day before. Consider the laboratories of other kinds which are . being erected for the promotion of the more practical and business-like education! Surely, if college authori- ties and college teachers really believed what they say about the supreme importance of books, they would see to it that book-laboratories came before laboratories 0 BS i physics and biology. Saleen ot ee uk of 0 rt and 1 1 go college. ; and taste permit, the best een is heme. writes on any subject, in book, journal or pamphlet—as well as all that older literature which the experienced and dis- cerning have pronounced good. College libraries are established, surely, to give to all students and profes- | sors this guidance, this inspiration, this hearty invita- | tion—and this is precisely what they do not do.