Two notable library conferences (in 1853 in New York and 1876 in Philadelphia) greatly stimulated the development of the American public library. Many libraries supported by pub lic tax for public use were already in existence. New York State in 1835 had established a sys tem of °district libraries" in each school dis trict of the State for the free use of the people of the district. Similar legislation was passed in many other States but in few cases was the use of the library at all commensurate with the hopes of the founders. The chief reason was that the library existed, in most cases, as an unadministered collection of books, growing or diminishing by chance and with little or no ref erence to the tastes or needs of its patrons. The idea that the education of the people through reading should be fostered by State revenues and not left by chance to proprietary or en dowed institutions was of slow evolution. Many libraries had long been °public" in the sense of allowing all to use them who wished to do so but there had been little attempt to adapt the character of the library to the need of its com munity. Thus the Free Library of Hamburg, founded in 1539, issued in 1869 but 4,000 vol umes, though its collection numbered nearly 200,000 volumes, chiefly because it was never a really popular library. This is typical of nearly all of the so-called public libraries in Europe and America up to the last quarter of the 19th century.
The new type of public library was described in 1876 by Dr. William F. Poole as follows: "The public library which we are to consider is established by state laws, is supported by local taxation and voluntary gifts, is managed as a public trust, and every citizen of the city or town which maintains it has an equal share in its privileges of reference and circulation. It is not a library simply for scholars and pro fessional men . . . but for the whole com munity — the mechanic, the laboring man, the serving-girl, the youth and all who desire to read, whatever their rank, intelligence or condi tion in life. It is the adjunct and supplement of the common-school system. Both are estab lished and maintained on the same principles that general education is essential to the highest welfare of any people: and considered simply as a question of political economy, it is better and cheaper in the long run to educate a com munity than to support prisons and reforma tories.* Massachusetts in 1847 had authorized Bos ton to tax itself for a free public library; New Hampshire in 1849 passed a general law en abling towns to establish and maintain libraries by public taxation. William Ewart secured in 1850 the passage of a bill permitting "the es tablishment of public libraries and museums in all municipal towns, in England.* Massachu setts in 1851 passed a general law permitting towns throughout the State to establish and maintain public libraries by public tax. The whole underlying purpose of such libraries is democratic. Everyone has equal opportunity to use the books he needs for culture, recreation or for aid in his daily vocation. As the public
school has more generally recognized the duty of fitting the individual student to take an in dividual pact in society instead of merely put ting him through a uniform course of general training, the educational value of the library has been more generally recognized. The school library has been developed to meet the need of those still in school. The public library meets the needs both of those still in school and those who have left school. By far the greater part of the people of any country leave school with only a slight amount of formal training. Com pulsory education seldom extends beyond the 14th or at most the 16th year. Private libraries, especially in the United States, are not generally increasing in number or value. Individual edu cation on civic problems in whose determina tion every voter has a part can in most cases be obtained in any adequate degree only through an active, well-selected public library. Presi dent Hibben of Princeton University says: "At this time [1916], when the whole world seems rushing on to an unknown future, you [li brarians] are holding fast the great articles of the past. You are guarding the sources of knowledge. The library is to-day the only ab solutely democratic institution that man pos sesses.* Andrew Carnegie gives as the greatest recent accomplishment of the public library: °The spread of the truth that the public library, free to all the people, gives nothing for nothing; that the reader must himself climb the ladder and in climbing gain knowledge how to live his life well.* Democracy in any country cannot safely con tent itself with developing a high average of intelligence, essential as this is. Exceptional citizens must be enabled to develop their excep tional abilities, for the service of the whole community. Every public library must aim to collect some material which, though directly used by only a minority of its public, through them serves the whole community. Not only do the larger libraries aid the research student by their own collections, but virtually the whole country can be served through inter-library loans of material valuable only to the excep tional few.
Substantial agreement on the fundamental moral and social ideas whose sum forms the national ideal is essential for the welfare of any self-determining nation. This is the whole pur pose of popular education at public expense. One more step is necessary. Present-day soci ety is so rapidly developing new ideals and modifying old ones that constant self-instruc tion in prevalent current opinion is necessary for good citizenship and, consequently, for na tional stability. No school course can give this to the adult. The public library, whose duty is to contain books and periodicals on all phases of controverted subjects, is the only institution which can even measurably give this instruction at times and in forms suited to individual needs.