man for theirs. Approach books, then, as you would a sewing machine, a
school, or a factory.

Literature, after all, is simply all that's printed. In print are
found the sum of the experience and observation of the whole race. Out
of this print it is the librarian's business to help his fellows to
draw such facts and suggestions as may aid them in their work.




CHAPTER XL

A village library successfully managed

James R. Garfield, in Public Libraries, October, 1896


Mentor, Ohio, is a village of but 500 people; therefore we are
somewhat limited in our ability to raise funds for carrying on library
work. But some six years ago 15 of us got together and began holding a
series of meetings every month, something in the nature of the old New
England township meeting, for the purpose of stirring up an interest
in town affairs, and in doing that we considered it necessary to have
some central point of interest around which we could all work, and
we chose as that the library. There had never been a library in the
village except a small circulating library. We all believed that the
use of books and the greater knowledge of books would be a common
center of interest around which we could all work and toward which we
would be glad to give work. The result of five years' work in this