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The Function of the Public Library 
 in a Democracy 
 
 c3^ ToV^-v^ h. ■^ 
 
 
 Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh 
 1920 
 
135- 
 
 An address delivered by John H. Leete, 
 Director of the Carnegie Library of Pitts- 
 burgh, at the annual meeting of the Penn- 
 sylvania State Educational Association in 
 Philadelphia in December 19 19. 
 
 Second Edition 
 
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 iCMOOi 
 
 THE FUNCTION OF THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 
 IN A DEMOCRACY 
 
 The public library is fundamentally and logically a 
 democratic institution. Established by municipal or 
 state law and maintained by public funds, it offers to 
 all equal privileges under as few restrictive qualifica- 
 tions and requirements as are consistent with efficient 
 service. The inscription found upon so many library 
 buildings, "Free to all the people," expresses concisely 
 and literally the purpose and justification of the li- 
 brary's existence. 
 
 But even an institution conceived and established 
 in such a democratic atmosphere may fail to realize its 
 full value as a servant of the democracy which created 
 it. Moreover, conditions change rapidly — just how 
 rapidly we of to-day are well qualified to judge. It is 
 therefore not only proper but absolutely necessary that 
 the public library of to-day should ask itself whether it 
 is in harmony with the conditions of to-day and to ex- 
 amine searchingly and honestly whether it is returning 
 full value and its highest service to the community 
 which maintains it. Nothing less than that high stan- 
 dard will fulfil the obligation to democracy, or satisfy 
 the conscience of the public library. 
 
 3 
 
 443981 
 
There js nQ occasion to speak of one function of the 
 o z i^t library. . WCf all of us, know its value as a recreational 
 cc c . 'agt^ricy m the cornmunity. Indeed, the public too often 
 regards this as the sole purpose of the library's exist- 
 ence. Too many think of it as a place where one may 
 borrow without expense the transient novel that he 
 does not consider worth buying for himself. Yet that 
 statement is hardly fair to the public library, cosmopol- 
 itan and charitable as it must be to satisfy the widely 
 varying tastes of its community. For we know that 
 even a public library exercises some discrimination in 
 the choice of its books, and it does try, by hook and by 
 crook, to interest readers in things worth reading. In- 
 deed, that is one of its ways of serving the community. 
 That effort is not always successful, however. You 
 recall the old story of the elderly maiden of unsatisfied 
 romantic temperament who returned to a city library 
 a novel by Laura Jean Libbey with the remark that 
 she would like another book ''just as good." The 
 assistant, with an eye to literary uplift, asked if she had 
 read "The Kentucky Cardinal." "Fm not fond of 
 theological reading," was the reply. ''But this car- 
 dinal was a bird," said the persistent assistant. "That 
 doesn't commend him to me," was the reply as she 
 carefully selected another volume by her favorite au- 
 thor. 
 
 That incident didn't happen in Pittsburgh, for, 
 through some unaccountable oversight, no alcove in 
 our library has been dedicated to Miss Libbey. I wish 
 
that I might say that on our shelves there are no books 
 of similar flabbiness; but I suppose that the library, 
 like the apothecary, must provide ''pink pills for pale 
 people." However, it is a comfort to remember that 
 the same twenty-six letters of the alphabet, so silly, 
 simple, and meaningless by themselves, which com- 
 pounded by an anemic and melancholic sentimentalist 
 give us a product which almost makes us regret the 
 invention of the art of printing — these same twenty- 
 six simple letters in the hands of a master can produce 
 a "Mill on the Floss", a "Vanity Fair", "A Tale of 
 Two Cities", a "Les Miserables." The library possi- 
 bly has no occasion to emphasize its function as a re- 
 creational agency, but it certainly does not need to 
 apologize for it. In this day of hurry and bustle, in 
 this day of work and struggle, surely the diverting 
 pleasure and the inspiration of a good book is of some 
 value. Moreover, even through the despised door of 
 fiction one may steal a glimpse of travel and of history, 
 of philosophy, and even of religion, which may attract 
 us into more instructive fields. 
 
 And there are some books which scarcely deserve 
 the contumely which is heaped upon the much abused 
 fiction. What is there of value to-day of all days, in 
 art, in science, in philosophy, in religion, in history, 
 that has not found a place in the printed page! We 
 have left far behind the day when the statesman and 
 the philosopher depended upon the spoken word ; when 
 the poet's audience w^as limited by the small circle his 
 
song could reach; when it was necessary to travel to 
 the dark continent to know it; when one had to visit 
 the Panama Canal to understand its construction. To- 
 day the arctics and the tropics, the Occident and the 
 Orient, the city and the desert, are brought to our very 
 firesides. We may even visit other worlds with New- 
 ton and Herschel. Not only space, but the limitations 
 of time also are annihilated. Through books we may 
 live in the times of Caesar and Ptolemy, we may have 
 the counsel of Confucius and Solomon, we may dis- 
 cover a new world with Columbus, we may fight by 
 the side of Alexander and Napoleon, we may see the 
 visions of the Crusaders and of Joan of Arc. We may 
 know the men of all ages more intimately than even 
 their contemporaries knew them. Through books all 
 the accomplishments and failures of many generations 
 of men, all their hopes and their fancies, their beliefs 
 and their doubts, are available for our understanding 
 and progress. Truly the library is a wonderful treas- 
 ure-house of knowledge that has in it many possibilities 
 for personal culture and abundant opportunities for 
 practical service. Under date of December fifth of 
 this year Mrs. Rinehart writes : "I am constantly 
 amazed by the efficiency of the Reference Department, 
 on which I have made frequent demands, and which 
 has never failed to give me more than I have requested. 
 I have taxed it sometimes, but there seems to be no 
 subject from Clothes to Cannibals, from Dogs to Dog- 
 matism, from Zoology to Zymotic Diseases (which is 
 
the very last article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica), 
 which the library cannot supply. It is a storehouse of 
 frightful and incredible facts. It knows a tremendous 
 amount, and quite frequently I take what it knows, 
 twist it about a bit and sell it as original material by 
 Mary Roberts Rinehart." 
 
 Yes, all the materials for service, for big service, 
 are available. But if this treasure, this raw material 
 for service, is to be a potent factor in this practical 
 world, if it is to be a useful agency in democracy, the 
 library must be more than a storehouse of treasure, it 
 must be a laboratory for instruction and research. It 
 must not be a thing like one's religion, too often drawn 
 upon only on Sundays and holidays. It must not be a 
 place to be visited only when there is no other place to 
 go, or nothing else to do. It must go hand in hand 
 with the interests of the community and the work of 
 the community. It must be a part of the day's work 
 and the day's play of the individual members of the 
 community. Its material must be organized — and or- 
 ganized in such a way that the library becomes a useful 
 and recognized complement to all the neighborhood 
 interests, activities, and industries. The library must 
 not stand alone, but must form intimate associations 
 with other community agencies and through them 
 and with them find a definite work to do. 
 
 The school is the social organ established by the 
 state to direct the conservation and development of the 
 most valuable of its resources, the youth of the nation. 
 
"To make democracy safe for the world" we have es- 
 tabHshed at enormous pubhc expense a system of free 
 schools for both the betterment of the individual and 
 the safeguarding of the state. In this w^ork the library 
 can be of vital assistance to the school by bringing the 
 wealth of its material to enrich and broaden the formal 
 courses of study. Interest and even enthusiasm may 
 be created in a tedious task, by bringing dry facts into 
 relation with the forces and conditions affecting hu- 
 man life and activity. Much has been done in this di- 
 rection within the last score of years. I remember 
 full well the absurdities of the old style courses in 
 geography with which the earlier generation was af- 
 flicted, ^ours were spent in learning to bound the 
 states in the Union, but of the essential facts in the 
 physical life of those states, of their climate, their 
 soil, their products, their manufactures, the character 
 of their population, their railroad facilities and water- 
 ways, we learned nothing. Idaho was to us a green 
 area on a perfectly flat surface surrounded by other 
 areas of different colors. Moreover, we came to have 
 a real distrust of the accuracy of that text from the 
 fact that we knew that our own state of Michigan was 
 not really pink as it was represented, but had a coat 
 of many colors in which the greens, or reds, or browns 
 predominated with the changing seasons of the year. 
 And in history ; that wonderful study of the origin 
 and development of the individual and the race, of 
 their work and their play, their ambitions and their 
 
 8 
 
appetites, their arts and their Hterature, their crafts 
 and their inventions, their commerce and their laws, 
 their philosophy and their religion, and incidentally, 
 but only incidentally, their battles and their wars! 
 History — captivating, romantic, and red-blooded, so 
 full of adventure and inspiring achievement — was re- 
 duced to the dry husks of dates of wars and battles, 
 arbitrary and often partisan statements of their causes 
 and effects, and the empty names of rulers and gen- 
 erals. 
 
 And the study (?) of the English language! That 
 wonderful vehicle for revealing thought, or for con- 
 cealing it, with its infinite variations in style, now 
 striking with the sledge-hammer blows of a Macaulay, 
 now caressing with the delicate touch of a Keats or of 
 a Wordsworth ; with its palette of many colors for the 
 painting of pictures for the inner eye; with its thou- 
 sands of sparkling jewels of prose and of verse. Even 
 English may be and often is a dull thing of parsing 
 and of diagrams, and of them only. 
 
 And so I might take up in detail the other subjects 
 of our formal courses of study, but you already see 
 the point I am trying to make. The library has some- 
 thing to contribute to the formal courses of study in 
 our schools — something vitalizing, something inspiring, 
 something broadening for teacher and pupil alike. A 
 single text-book is a genuine source of danger in the 
 class room. "One-book'' education is apt to mean nar- 
 rowness, shallowness, pedantry, partisanship, lack of 
 
interest, and an entirely unwarranted satisfaction in the 
 completeness of the pupils' education. ''One-book" ed- 
 ucation means that useless thing, a finished education. 
 Let us substitute for one book, many books, and so 
 obtain the perspective which makes mere facts valu- 
 able. Let us bring the library to the school through 
 many books, by reading and story hours, and even by 
 admitting under proper precautions that dangerous 
 person, the local librarian. Let us bring the school to 
 the library by individuals and by classes. 
 
 But the school is expected to teach other things 
 than arithmetic, spelling, English, and geography. 
 We have had too recently a disastrous example of the 
 futility, nay, the danger, of expecting mere formal 
 learning to guarantee that social justice and righteous- 
 ness which must prevail if democracy is to live. And 
 how may patriotism and courage and loyalty be taught 
 better than by the lives and deeds of the hieroes of all 
 ages! I have seen ideals of good sportsmanship es- 
 tablished firmly and permanently in the mind of a 
 twelve year old boy by stories of minor heroes in the 
 athletic world. And the other virtues of character! 
 What a wealth of material is contained in the library's 
 world of books! And his outlook upon the future, 
 his future, his vision of the part he is to play in the 
 great drama of life — a thing the boy can't bring him- 
 self to put into cold words — ^but about which he won- 
 ders and dreams. What for him can take the place of 
 inspiring biography or the more directly practical book 
 
 10 
 
on the vocational fields ? Yes, the library has much to 
 contribute to the rounding out and humanizing and 
 practicalizing and idealizing of school life. President 
 Harper was right when he said, "In the really modern 
 (educational) institutions, the central building is the 
 library." 
 
 The great contribution of the public library to the 
 life of democracy, however, is made after the pupil has 
 finished his formal schooling. Indeed, without under- 
 estimating the value of the library as a complement to 
 the school, I believe it may fairly be said that the great- 
 est benefit obtained from bringing the school to the 
 library and the library to the school is found in the 
 impetus it gives the graduate of the school to use the 
 library. Just a few days ago a man prominent in the 
 work of the Catholic War Reconstruction Board said 
 to me, "I don't think much of the education of a boy 
 who doesn't graduate from the school into the library," 
 and of course, I agreed with him. You may conclude 
 that I have lost my sense of perspective. Objects near 
 our particular point of vision do loom large. We 
 should hesitate to agree that "the greatest calamity 
 suffered by the world in the last century was the in- 
 vention of the safety razor." But the man who said it 
 believed it — he was a barber. So you may think that I 
 am magnifying the value of the library to the com- 
 munity ; but is that the fact ? 
 
 Records show that the average American boy goes 
 to school, or more accurately speaking, is sent to 
 
 II 
 
school, for a period of less than six years. It is true 
 that the state provides the opportunities of free ed- 
 ucation for a much longer period, but the average boy 
 either cannot or will not take advantage of the oppor- 
 tunities offered. It may be his lack of aptitude for 
 study; it may be just the restlessness that comes with 
 the growing pains of youth ; it may be the sheer force 
 of circumstances; it may be the positive command of 
 duty that draws or drives him from the school-house. 
 It is not my province to advance any theory of the 
 cause of this unfortunate situation or to propose any 
 remedy to cure it. I shall not even consume your 
 time with lamentations, but shall simply state the fact. 
 The door of the school-house closes to the great 
 majority of the children of our democracy at the end 
 of six brief years. 
 
 We have learned, it is true, to concentrate a good 
 deal of information and some training in the period 
 allotted us. It is not all that might be given, even in the 
 best schools, because of imperfections of teachers and 
 methods. We do not do all that might be done for 
 any particular individual, because in the school we 
 must teach not individuals but classes. But let us 
 suppose that we have that millennial combination, a 
 model school and a model group of students — what 
 subjects can be covered under ideal conditions in those 
 short six years? Arithmetic, spelling, some English 
 grammar, a little geography and less history, and 
 possibly a delicate smattering of another subject or 
 
 12 
 
two which for the time being constitutes the accepted 
 cure-all for ignorance or the approved recipe for cul- 
 ture. With that modicum of learning, this boy of 
 ours goes from the school-house back to the farm, to 
 the mill, to the factory, to the shop, to the thousands of 
 occupations in our widely diversified civilization in 
 which unskilled labor finds its humble place. He be- 
 comes one of the thousand men of the dinner pail that 
 we pass on the streets of our large cities. The ques- 
 tion that comes to the minds of all socially minded men 
 and women is this: Is this short school training 
 sufficient for the boy's needs ? Is it sufficient for his 
 needs as a wage earner? Will it make him a happy, 
 contented, and useful man? Is this school training 
 of itself sufficient to meet his needs as a citizen? Does 
 it meet the requirements of democracy? 
 
 There can be but one answer to that question, and 
 that answer is No. Economically, with that amount 
 of training and that only, the boy is doomed as a 
 wage earner to routine tasks that can only bring happi- 
 ness and contentment with the deadening of his ambi- 
 tion. With that amount of training alone and without 
 the incentive to carry on his mental development in 
 some direction and by some means, the boy suffers an 
 intellectual death. As a man, he becomes one of those 
 disappointed, discontented individuals for whom hap- 
 piness is impossible in this world or the next. As a 
 citizen, he is apt to become one of the mob — unreason- 
 ing, destructive, the prey of the agitator and dem- 
 
 13 
 
agogue — who make democracy a menace. No, the 
 school cannot finish its contract to make men and citi- 
 zens in six short years of training ; it can only start the 
 job. To that training in the use of the tools of educa- 
 tion must be added an incentive to further study, an 
 inspiration to learning. It is this incentive, this inspi- 
 ration, which constitutes the greatest contribution of 
 the public school to democracy. With it even the boy 
 of limited school training may go far. Without it, 
 even the university graduate is in danger of proving a 
 failure. 
 
 There are, of course, many factors that make for 
 the development of the boy or the man after he has 
 graduated from the public school or the university. 
 Contact with men of brains ; social activities ; business 
 associations and competition ; the organized training of 
 continuation schools, extension courses, and study 
 clubs ; and many other agencies combine to broaden his 
 understanding and sharpen his intellect. In this pro- 
 gram surely there is some place for the printed page — 
 the printed page that played so important a part in the 
 greatness of Lincoln, and Franklin, and Herbert Spen- 
 cer, and Stanley, and Faraday, and Edison, for all of 
 whom the door of the school was never fairly open. 
 
 "All information in print must be readily accessible 
 to all the community" is the educational slogan of the 
 public library of to-day. It is this program which has 
 given it the title of the "People's University." The 
 teacher who classifies and evaluates education and ed- 
 
 14 
 
ucational institutions solely upon their entrance re- 
 quirements, may question the library's right to be called 
 a university, since the only qualifications for admit- 
 tance we demand are the ability to read, and a thirst 
 for knowledge. It has no attendance regulations and 
 no examinations. Nor can the library base its claim to 
 the title "university" upon the prerogative of granting 
 that summum bonum of higher education, the college 
 degree. The library uses no hall-mark of learning. 
 Indeed, its ambition is never to graduate a student. 
 We shall have to admit, also, that our courses are ex- 
 tremely irregular; they vary in length from a few 
 hours to months, or even years, of study. Nor have 
 we a fixed program of studies ; they are all electives, 
 and we are so unconventional as to offer instruction in 
 any subject upon the application of a single student! 
 Nor are we committed to any religion or to any school 
 of thought. Judged by these conventional standards, 
 it is true that the library would have difficulty in gain- 
 ing acceptance as a bona fide university. 
 
 Notwithstanding these deficiencies in academic 
 standards, the library has a real claim to the title of 
 ''People's University." It has for its faculty the 
 master minds not only of to-day but of yesterday. 
 True, the inspiration of their physical presence is lack- 
 ing, but the structures into which they put their best 
 thoughts and efforts are still standing, the fabric into 
 which was woven the real expressions of their inner 
 lives and ideals remains. And Avho shall deny the 
 
 15 
 
inspiration of the masterpiece even though the master 
 be gone. The many residents of our colleges who pass 
 in a desultory way through the successive stages of 
 culture denominated as freshman, sophomore, junior, 
 and senior, whose degree of attainment is indicated 
 solely by the color of the cap they wear and finally by 
 the bachelor's gown, may fail to find in the library 
 their sole incentive to learning, the big stick of the 
 Dean ; but the genuine student will find there not only 
 the raw materials of learning but the inspiration as 
 well. The library is one democratic institution for the 
 best and most genuine education, self education. 
 
 We shall have to admit, however, that the enroll- 
 ment of students in the "People's University" has not 
 been at all commensurate with the service it stands 
 ready to offer. The public library always has been 
 and always will be the resort of the bookish man — but 
 bookish people do not constitute the majority of the 
 community. We have a service to offer the non-book- 
 ish man — the man who has not learned the value of the 
 printed page in solving present day problems. What 
 are we doing for him? There is a great industry in 
 our neighborhood. Have we the material on our 
 shelves that will interest and benefit the ambitious 
 workman in that plant? Not the exhaustive treatise, 
 but the readable elementary book which tells in a sim- 
 ple way the science and the facts of the job he is doing 
 for his daily bread. Possibly we have that material — 
 but does the workman know it? He will not know it 
 
 i6 
 
through unattractive book Hsts on the Hbrary desk, 
 which are free to the pubhc but which the pubhc do 
 not take freely. Something must go to that man in his 
 shop — something that will arouse his curiosity and 
 stimulate his interest. It may be an attractive circular, 
 it may be a photostat copy of a page of a work or of 
 a machine, posted on the bulletin board — -not the bul- 
 letin board of the library, but of the shop. The mes- 
 sage of the definite service the library can render him 
 must be delivered to him at his bench. And when he 
 comes to the library in response to that personal mes- 
 sage, he must have placed in his hands the book that we 
 have told him is waiting for him. Any other service 
 will result in his first visit to the library becoming his 
 last pilgrimage to that shrine. 
 
 To render this particular service, the librarian must 
 know his community — not only the part that comes to 
 the library, but the part that never comes — the whole 
 community — its interests, its work, its play, its prob- 
 lems. That means that the library must be an active 
 community center, a place where the many civic and 
 welfare activities gather, an organization which touches 
 the many sided life of the community. This cannot be 
 accomplished by simply wishing it ; it can come only as 
 the result of work — hard work — and that hard work 
 can only be done effectively by a systematic plan and or- 
 ganization. It must be someone's business, not every- 
 one's ideal. Just how this may best be accomplished 
 for a particular library depends upon the community, 
 
 17 
 
the organization, the problem. In Pittsburgh we have 
 adopted the plan of a community work committee. 
 It is the function of that committee to co-ordinate the 
 work of the various Library agencies, to keep all agen- 
 cies informed of the methods found effective by any 
 single worker or agency, to devise ways and means of 
 solving special problems as well as of systematizing the 
 community work in general. It is a clearing house of 
 community methods and work that has proved very 
 effective in our library. Let me mention just a few 
 things it has done and is doing. Under its direction 
 data has been collected concerning the many organiza- 
 tions of the city, and as a result the Library is an infor- 
 mation center for all civic and welfare w^ork. At 
 frequent intervals representatives of these organiza- 
 tions present to a group of Library workers the pur- 
 pose and plan of their work. In every instance the 
 Library has found some means of serving these organ- 
 izations, a service that in every case has been cordially 
 welcomed. The Library is also carrying on extensive 
 community work of its own. Travel clubs, debating 
 clubs, current events clubs have been formed by the 
 Library, and many other outside clubs and societies 
 use the Library buildings. Stories are told and book 
 talks are given not only in the Library and at the 
 schools, but in commercial plants, settlement houses, 
 and other charitable institutions. Effective American- 
 ization work is being carried on — a campaign of in- 
 struction for the foreign born that is not confined to 
 
 i8 
 
the four walls of the Library, but carries its message 
 of understanding and of instruction to the home by 
 personal visits as well as by the printed page. Many 
 are the expedients used by the Library in its attempt 
 to be of real service to all the varied interests of the 
 community. It has been possible to accomplish but a 
 small part of the work that has opened up before us; 
 but small as it has been, it has been sufficient to prove 
 not only the value of community work in itself, but 
 also its value in making the more conventional forms 
 of library service effective. It has also proved of great 
 value in establishing the Library in the community as 
 a community necessity. 
 
 The possibilities of the library seem almost limit- 
 less. Certainly they are far greater than we have yet 
 realized. But you say, how can the library with its 
 limited staff and still more limited funds undertake a 
 work of such magnitude. If we had a larger staff, if 
 we had a better trained staff, if we had more books, 
 if we had many things which we would like to have 
 and which we ought to have, what a work we could 
 do! But all these things spell money. And those five 
 letters do not occur often in the library vocabulary. 
 That is true — no one knows it better than we do in 
 Pittsburgh. We do need more money for the bigger 
 job — but the surest way to get more money is to start 
 the bigger job. 
 
 These are but a few of the paths of service open to 
 the public library. Of the need of that service, partic- 
 
 19 
 
ularly in the unsettled and perplexing and critical con- 
 ditions of to-day, there can be no question. The prob- 
 lems to be settled are economic, racial, political, voca- 
 tional, educational; and in all these fields the library 
 is pre-eminently qualified and equipped to render most 
 valuable service to democracy. As a recreational 
 agency, as an information center, and as an educational 
 institution it has not only an opportunity but an ob- 
 ligation to fulfil. 
 
 You remember the incident of the demagogue in 
 the French Revolution who said, "There go the people ; 
 let us hurry and overtake them — I am their leader." 
 Let us not be content with the kind of leadership that 
 follows ; let us stand for the leadership that leads. 
 
 20 
 
./- 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 :: ■ 
 
 
 
 
 APR 4 1941 M 
 
 
 APR AS 1941 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Binder 
 
 Gaylord Bros.. Inc. 
 
 Stockton, Calif. 
 T. M. Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. 
 
 I yj iw 
 
 2 ^^r~ 
 L3r 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY