BLIC BENEFACTION

A library is not a luxury; it is not for the cultured few; it is not
merely for the scientific; it is not for any intellectual cult or
exclusive literary set. It is a great, broad, universal public
benefaction. It lifts the entire community; it is the right arm of the
intellectual development of the people, ministering to the wants of
those who are already educated and spreading a universal desire for
education. It is the upper story of the public school system, while it
is a broad field wherein ripe scholars may find a fuller training for
their already highly developed faculties. It is above all a splendid
instrument for the education and culture of those vast masses of boys
and girls that are denied the high privileges of the systematic training
of the schools.

C. C. THACH.

The function of the library as an institution of society, is the
development and enrichment of human life in the entire community by
bringing to all the people the books that belong to them.

SALOME CUTLER FAIRCHILD.

MEANING OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Cities and towns are now for the first time, and chiefly in this
country, erecting altars to the gods of good fellowship, joy and
learning. These altars are our public libraries. We had long ago our
buildings of city and state, our halls of legislation, our courts of
justice. But these all speak more or less of wrongdoing, of justice and
injustice, of repression. Most of them touch on partisanship and
bitterness of feeling. We have had, since many centuries, in all our
cities, the many meeting places of religious sects--our chapels,
churches and cathedrals. They stand for so much that is good, but they
have not brought together the communities in which they are placed. A
church is not always the center of the best life of all who live within
the shadow of its spire.

For several generations we have been building temples to the gods of
learning and good citizenship--our schools. And they have come nearer to
bringing together for the highest purpose the best impulses of all of us
than have any other institutions. But they are all not yet, as some day
they will be, for both old and young. Then they speak of discipline, of
master and pupil, instead only of pure and simple fellowship in studies.

And so we are for the first time in all history, building, in our
public libraries, temples of happiness and wisdom common to us all. No
other institution which society has brought f