Souvenir public 'library j , ; , ' ' • , % , / ■[' * •; Y*> ' ■ , ? • | ,*!. . 1 ? " ?'• ocivmm « Our Public Library * # # jomn a. HAcina, -Somerville, i'lass. TRUSTEES Charles S. Lincoln, President. J. Henry Flitner. Christopher E. Rymes. Charles H. Brown. Elijah C. Clark. John B. Viall. Charles A. West. J. Frank Wellington. Charles W. Sawyer. John S. Hayes, Secretary. LIBRARY STAFF. LIBRARIAN. John S. Hayes. ASST. LIBRARIAN. Clara L. Bidwell. ASSISTANTS. Anna L. Stone. Mary J. Warren. CATALOGUER. F. Mabel Norcross. ATTENDANTS. Esther M. Mayhew. Charles F. Cuddy. JANITOR. Charles A. Southwick. S6i9 (ds C. S. LINCOLN, President of Board of Trustees. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/souvenirourpubliOOhaye PUBLIC LIBRARY BUILDING eyR pyBLie library. Charles Lamb, referring to a certain book highly prized by him, wrote these words, — “ No casket is rich enough, no casing sufficiently durable, to house and keep safe such a jewel.” Some such notion must have influenced those who, in our New England, labored so wisely and persistently to guard and guide the public intelligence. What Charles Lamb would limit to a book, our fathers applied to the individual and public brain. The spirit which claimed liberty as the atmosphere of public life, which dedicated state and church to a broad and luminous freedom, sprung immediately from the thoughtfully active brain of the people. I do not neglect the power of conscience in this matter, but conscience displaying itself in moral obligation was quickened and developed by the habitual thoughtfulness which was so manifestly the habit of personal and social life. Of course, the peculiar condi- tions of such life evoked such thoughtfulness, yet we must not neglect the careful study of principle, and the sturdy application of principle to conduct. It is a fact worthy of comment, that no sooner had a New England community begun its active life, than it began its intellectual life. The spade of the pioneer turned the soil for a harvest of corn. The pioneer was a plowshare turning up the soil of the mind to the warmth and radiance of culture and thought, that a harvest of fulfilled purpose might be gathered from the common intelligence of the people. At the beginning of this century a traveler observed of New England: “It is hardly possible to conceive the numbers of readers with which every little town abounds. The common people are on a footing in point of litera- ture with the middle ranks of Europe.” This was un- doubtedly true, and the statement made contains the explanation of the fact: “ numbers of readers ” supposes numbers of books. It is a matter deserving our admiration, as we look back, that such vigorous efforts were made to gather books and to study books. Libraries were early re- garded as important helps to the virtue and intelligence of the people. New England thrift is notable, but New England thrift never starved New England brain. It is worthy of our attention that when new communities went out from the older states that schoolhouses and libraries were established long before the log houses disappeared. “The mother of all North American subscription libra- ries ” was that one founded in Philadelphia, by Dr. Franklin, in 1731. We have in our state a town which still retains something of the vigorous logic and studious veracity of thought which has had expression in the past. That town was named after Benjamin Franklin, who in 1 736 gave one hundred and sixteen volumes to that thriving community, who gratefully assumed his name. The social library and the school library soon de- veloped into the public library. When in 1847 Rev. Francis Wayland gave a town in Massachusetts five hundred dollars “ on condition that its citizens should secure an equal amount for a town library,” he started a VIEW IN DELIVERY ROOM. movement which resulted in the enactment of a law, in 1851, authorizing cities and towns to establish and main- tain public libraries, and which has led to such added facilities in the procuring and use of books that only within this year, a popular newspaper, the Boston Globe, January 31st, stated in an editorial, only too short, that “there are only twenty-four towns in Massachusetts which do not possess a public library.” It is not sur- prising that the article closes with the assertion that libraries “do an incalculable good.” “Consider,” says Emerson in his essay on books, “what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civilized countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette, but the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom friend is here written out to us, the strangers of another age.” I ask you if all this be not worthy of our careful heed ? Do we not in our own public library come into the in- heritance of the accumulated thought of the ages? The alphabet of the world’s intelligence was printed on the bricks of Nineveh and Babylon. That alphabet helped to win the civilization which floated on the freshets of the Nile, and which has been borne out past its delta with a wider reach of light than ever shone from the Pharos — until London was built out of the mud of the Thames^ and the foundation of this Imperial Republic was laid,, with Plymouth Rock for a corner-stone. There may not be much in the history of our public library to startle the fancy or call for special attention. But of it one thing can be said — it began! Its present condition and fruitful promise we have from a germ which was fructified and grew. The evolution of that germ may not be traceable. Carlyle tells us in “ Sartor Re- sartus ” that a solution held in quiescence may not indicate any special possession. But if it be disturbed by a hair or thread, crystals will gather, and forms of beauty be chiseled into shapes by the mysterious and unseen power of nature. It is a fact that subsequent to the formation of a public library, the need of it had become sensibly felt by many who not only desired their own advance- ment, but the good of their neighbors and friends. For many years there were times of expectancy, hints of life here and there, undefined hopes, and irrepressible long- ings. Doubtless some were agitated with hopes that mocked at fears, and doubtless others felt their fears like a deluge which must submerge all things and founder every ark. Some such experience has been repeated over and over again. But grains of sand make the mountains possible, and drops of water refresh and fill the greatness of the ocean, and give power to the tidal pulses of its heart. So the time waited until flakes of snow builded the avalanche, until a child’s breath launched it on its terrible course of destruction down the mountain into the valley. So the time waited until the pent-up wrath of the earth accumulated, until “the earthquake smacked its mumbling lips over the ruined city.” So the time waited until the poverty-stricken miner’s son nailed his thesis on the gates of Wittenberg, and the finger of God’s provi- dence, whether for weal or woe, wrote the name of Luther across the firmament of space. Is it a reductio ad absurdum to come in this way to our public library ? Remember it is the dust of the earth that makes possible the blue of the sky. Remember that the upturned stones, weighing more than two hundred pounds apiece, paving a road outside of London, were PART OF READING ROOM, upturned as the result of a fungus growth beneath the stones, that, despite its delicate growth and feeble strength, could add much to much till the work was done. There is nothing trivial. What we call trifles may be the pivot on which destiny is balanced. The years passed. An association for direct educa- tional and instructive influence was formed of those whose personal relations to the public school made it well-nigh inevitable that, sooner or later, the public li- brary, so immediately in touch with the public school and the intellectual advance of the public at large, should be under consideration. The president of that association, known as the Somerville High School Association, was Edward E. Edgerly. Doubtless he would have furthered the purpose of creating a library, a purpose very dear to his heart, if a debilitated body, issuing in death, had not prevented. The plans he hoped to mature were taken in hand, however, by one whose intimate association with Mr. Edgerly made it fitting that he should succeed to ideas which he had hoped to materialize. This associate was Henry M. Brown, who has the honor of taking the first active measures towards the establishment of the library. It would be impossible to follow the history of the en- terprise in detail, unless much larger space were given than this paper can command. It is sufficient for our present purpose to say that a committee of the association above named met a committee of the board of selectmen, Somerville then being a town, and on April 29, 1871, a plan was proposed which, while it did not approve itself to the citizens in town meeting assembled, resulted in a vote to the effect “ that a free public library be estab- lished.” This was so far satisfactory that a board of trustees was organized November 14, 1872, and on November 19 Mr. Isaac Pitman was chosen librarian. The May following a public library was opened in a room in the City Hall, now occupied by the assessors, with 2,384 volumes on its shelves. Since then what large in- crease has been made ! The services of the first librarian were rendered gra- tuitously for a term of two years. Then he resigned, and his able assistant, Miss Harriet A. Adams, was called ta his post. It is unnecessary to say anything of her effi- cient services for nineteen years. July 1st, 1893, the present librarian assumed the duties of his office. The interest taken in the library since its beginning is indicated by the following brief citation of facts. In 1873, as has been already stated, the number of volumes in the library was 2,384. To quite a consider- able extent, private individuals donated books, and made the number stated possible. The circulation this year was 18,047 volumes. Two years later, that is in 1875,. there were 5,235 books in the library, and the circulation was 39,025. In 1880, 8,614 books, 67,894 circulation in 1885, 12,788 books, 65,450 circulation; in 1890, 20,112 books, 95,127 circulation; and in 1894, 27,729 books, with a circulation of 106,341. The total number of books placed in the library up to the present time is 32,555, and the total circulation up to January 1st last has been 1,610,261. The aggregate appropriations from the city during the past twenty-three years for the support of the library, including the dog tax, have been $100,849.05. The present library building cost $28,338.45, exclusive of the land, and $5,967.50 have been expended in altera- tions and repairs. The benefits of the library cannot be reckoned in coin ;. expressed in figures, nor described with the pen. VIEW IN LIBRARIAN’S ROOM. The present library building was erected in 1884-5, an d dedicated September 29, 1885, an d principal address on that occasion was made by Justin Winsor, librarian of Harvard College. The marked increase in the number of books made it imperative that either an addition should be made to the library building or that a change should be made in its book shelving capacity. After very careful considerations of the needs and the cost, it was determined that a new method of shelving should be made practicable and addi- tional use made of the book-storing space. This has been done, and to-day the library building can accommodate sixty thousand volumes, so classified that the usefulness of the library is more than quadrupled. We have purposely refrained from making statements which the published reports of the board of trustees of the public library include, and also in cataloguing the names of those, eminent in public service, who have aided so greatly in bringing the library to its present efficient condition. It remains only to be said that every effort has been made and will be made to make “our public library” helpful to the best interests of the city. Ruskin says, “Valuable books should, in a civilized country, be within the reach of every one.” We cannot boast that all valu- able books are in our public library, but after a careful examination, no one will dispute that from the first a most discriminating care has been exercised in the selection of books, and that for practical usefulness up to the present time, considering the facilities and resources at command, our public library, if not unsurpassed, stands among those most deserving public commendation. It is evident that the effort has been made to make the library, not the end of thought, but the incentive to thought, remembering that the thoughts that are already thought out for us are nothing in comparison with the thoughts that make us think. Nor is this all. The tastes of all have been, so far as was possible, consulted. Not only is the reader invited to measure mountain ranges of thought by a system of intellectual triangulation ; or to read works which, as Charles Lamb lovingly says of Milton, require “ a solemn service of music to be played before you enter upon him,” but the delights of poetry and the ministry of the imagination have been opened to the young and the middle-aged. So that as in a landscape we have hills and valleys, pasture lands and forests, the mirror of the lakes, the solemn arch of the sky, and the merriment of babbling brooks; so we have in “our library ” philosophy and science, and history and biogra- phy, and poetry and fiction, so classified and harmonized as to be helpful, uplifting, and delightful to all. At any rate, such is the ideal which our library will at- tempt to realize, looking forward to the time when in in- tellectual capacity and grasp, in intellectual sympathy and inspiration, in intellectual activity and joy, it shall be in some sense like — To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder, Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply ; Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder, Its dome the sky.” VIEW IN TRUSTEES’ ROOM. PART OF REFERENCE ROOM