philologians. Everyone engaged in educational work, and especially
those thus engaged who are most thoroughly equipped for the work in
a literary way, and are most in touch with the literary and scholarly
spirit, should have his attention called again and again to the needs
of the crowd, the mass, the common people, the general run, the 90
per cent who either have never been within a schoolroom, or left it
forever by the time they were thirteen years of age. And his attention
should be again and again called to the fact that of the millions of
children who are getting an education in this country today, not over
5 or 6 per cent at the outside, and perhaps even less than that, ever
get as far, even, as the high-schools. The few, of course, rule
and must keep the lamp burning, but the many must have sufficient
education to know how to walk by it if democracy is to endure. And the
school for the many is, and is to be, if the opinions of librarians
are correct, the free public library; but it cannot be a school for
the many unless the many walk into it, and go among its books, handle
them, and so doing come to know them and to love them and to use them,
and to get wisdom from them.




CHAPTER XXXV

Advice to a librarian

[From Public Libraries, June, 1897]


As a matter of fact the position of librarian is more of an executive