For the reason of this tendency we have not far to seek. I believe it is found in the scientific spirit of the age, which is surely pervading every sphere of human thought and activity. The careful investigation of facts, the deduction of the law from the phenomena, the distrust of chance and the loyalty to the law deduced, all of which evidence the scientific spirit, mark alike the great financier, diplomatist, inventor, philanthropist.
In some undertakings organization alone will suffice. For example, making a machine, laying out a railroad, compiling a volume of statistics. In others there must needs come in what I will call the human element, the consideration of people, not in masses, but as individuals, that matchless, indescribable quality which we call human sympathy....
Illustrations might be multiplied in educational, religious, and philanthropic efforts where we work for the masses, and forget that each one of the mass is a human being with passions, sensibilities, aspirations like our own. This interest in the human being as such, which is a gift to some, can be cultivated, but it can never be simulated. The counterfeit always rings false. Joined to a good memory for names and faces, it gives a person a power which can hardly be estimated....
It seems to me that these two principles apply with tremendous and unusual force to the problems of the modern library. I will speak of the public library alone because it has a wider reach and a closer touch on life.
We will review in imagination the library situation in this country. We take up Mr. Flint's Statistics volume for 1893; we sum up 593 free libraries in the New England states, 520 in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, 285 in the Southern states, 758 in the Western states, a total of 2156 free libraries.
We recall our friends in the American Library Association, who constitute with some marked exceptions, who prefer to work alone, the high-water mark of the fraternity. As their names pass before us we take a measure of the men and women. We think of their libraries which we may have visited, or, better still, which we have used as readers. In some few cases we know the influence of these libraries in the town or city. Take it for all in all we find a body of hard-working men and women translating into practice noble ideals. As a result, the library is beginning to get a hold upon the community. But it is only a beginning and, compared with the possibilities, only a prophecy of what may and will be. Are not the failures in our work due to the lack of the best organization and the true human touch?