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By SUMMERFIELD BALDWIN, III

Book-Learning and Learning Books

Summerfield Baldwin III is assistant pro- second floor." You could have knocked fessor of history at Flora Stone Mather me over with a feather, but I remembered College, . to say thank you, and proceeded to the history room, again directing my inquiry HEN I first visited Cleveland, a (with rather greater confidence) to one of Wnumber of years ago, I was anxious the librarians. "Yes," she said, "that's to meet a professor at Western Reserve Professor So-and-so, in the overcoat, over University, now a valued colleague, with there, bending over one of the tables." whom I had been in correspondence. I Like Stanley, in darkest Africa, I ap- called up his home, and was informed that proached and offered the well known I could find him at the library. "The formula: "Professor So-and-so I pre- university library?" I asked. "No. The sume?" It was, and I got an invitation public library, downtown. It's just to dinner, on the spot. around the corner from your hotel." The I did not leave the public library, how- suggestion that I could find my man at ever, until my new friend had done every- a public library seemed rather like being thing possible to solve for me the other told that I could find a needle in a hay- problem which had disturbed me when stack, especially since I did not even know I first set out on my quest: What could what he looked like. But even worse: I a scholar find to interest him in a public could not imagine what such a learned library? He showed me, on the mir- individual as I knew the professor to be aculously open shelves of the history room, could find to interest him in a public li- the impressive collections in English his- brary. My experience with public li- tory: the Rolls series, complete, the multi-

braries in other cities had taught me that x volumed Calendars published by the their collections were formed with almost Record Commission, the complete files of everybody in mind except scholars. historical journals. He explained to me However, I went to the public library, something of the program followed by and boldly approached the information Mather College freshmen who, every year, desk with my preposterous inquiry: "Is prepared a paper on the events of one Professor So-and-so, of Western Reserve month in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, University, in the library?" The lady in based on original documents, and pointed charge did not even raise her eyebrows. out to me a number of his students sitting "Yes, I think so," she replied. "He came at different tables about the room, taking in about an hour ago, and you will prob- notes from various volumes of the Cal- ably find him in the history room on the endar of State Papers. "We have a good

JUNE, 1940 23 7 deal of this material," he told me, "at the ing, after all, was invented about five cen- college library, too, but we try to make turies ago, and that more can be learned it a point to collaborate with the public by exploring the contents of printed books library, and avoid as much duplication of than by listening to professors repeat what these expensive sets as we can. Then, too, anyone can read in a textbook. The "lec- it's a good thing for the students to come ture system" of college education is an down here, and learn to know what a almost perfect illustration of an anachron- remarkable public library they have here ism, and continues at all, some wag has in Cleveland." said, because professors seem not yet to have heard of Gutenberg's invention. A Rare Experience Lectures, we are told, probably by the Here, indeed, was a situation wholly same authority, are merely books so badly beyond my experience: a public library written that no publisher would think of where university professors came, and printing them. were known by sight to the staff, and a As a matter of fact, the very word public library which could and did col- "lecture" originally did not mean a talk laborate with a university in building col- at all, but a reading. It carries us back lections of the highest order of scholarship. to the old days of higher education in the Since I have been connected with the Middle Ages, when a man became a pro- university, this first impression has been fessor because he was well enough off substantiated and deepened a thousand to own a few of the incredibly expensive times. To have the pleasure of inhabiting books, produced, of course, in longhand. a city where the teachers and students of Armed with his book, he proceeded to meet the city's university are treated as if they his students, and read to them from the too belonged to the "public," and should text, occasionally pausing to explain the have their needs considered by the library harder words. This reading was a lec- buyers is a rare one. It would be hard to ture, in the literal sense of the word. guess how great the influence of this gen- The students, usually too poor to own erous and enlightened policy has been upon the vellum on which to write, tried to the public at large. A library with such memorize the text as it was read to them. treasures to offer becomes a kind of uni- Obviously, there is no need for lectures versity itself, an ideal place for the cul- today. The teacher's problem is to get tivation of that art and hobby of amateur books into the hands of his students, and scholarship which our country is just be- to get his students to read them. With ginning to practice. ( such a public library as Cleveland posses- One reaction of Cleveland's possession ses, this becomes an infinitely easier task of this priceless and unique public institu- than it is in most other cities. tion can certainly be traced: the reaction This collaboration and interaction be- upon Western Reserve University. tween Western Reserve University and Partly becatise Cleveland has such a li- the has been brary, Cleveland's university is, to an possible because of certain changing con- exceptional degree a "bookish" one, a uni- cepts of the office of librarian, and the versity where students as well as teachers university has had not a little to do with have come to realize that the art of print- these changes. Papal documents of seven

258 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES or eight centuries ago are full of references never forgiven himself for not having to the bibliothecarius, the "librarian" of mentioned five times the sum, since Car- the Roman church. But the functions of negie never discussed the amount sug- these librarians were very different from gested. With this initial endowment, the those of the librarians of the Cleveland Western Reserve University School of Public Library. It was their business to Library Science opened, in September keep the books and documents of the 1904. Roman church safe and secret. They To understand how it happened that were the dragon-like guardians of inestim- President Thwing had the foundation of ably valuable literary treasures. This a library school on his mind, we must re- tradition that it is the chief business of member that among the president's fellow- a librarian to keep books away from people Clevelanders and admired friends was obviously has no place in a public library, William Howard Brett, who, since 1884 and yet, incredible as it may seem, that had been librarian of the Cleveland Public tradition still persists, even in the public Library. Born in 1846, in Braceville, libraries of some of America's most en- , Brett was, at 14, librarian of the lightened cities. Warren, Ohio, high school library. He served as a musician in the Civil War, To Train Library Personnel and studied medicine both in Michigan Early in 1903, the late President Char- and at the Cleveland Medical College les F. Thwing met Andrew Carnegie on a (later Western Reserve's medical school). New York bound train, and the discus- His interest in books led him to take a job sion naturally centered around the steel with Cobb and Andrews, local book deal- king's announced project to devote a very ers. It was from this position, where he large proportion of his immense fortune made himself hosts of friends, that he to the building of public libraries. Like was called to become Cleveland's librarian. many other of America's builders, Car- The library had then only 46,000 books, negie's mind attached itself to the notion and was located in the Central High of the material housing of libraries. He School building. had, apparently, given little thought to The three great achievements of Brett's the question of how so many libraries were thirty-four years of service were (1) the to be adequately staffed. To this problem, innovation of opening the shelves to the President Thwing now called his atten- public, (2) the establishment of branch tion, and suggested—oh, these university libraries to serve the people who could not presidents—that Western Reserve Uni- come downtown, and (3) promotion of versity was admirably located for the pur- the $2,000,000 bond issue to build the pose of establishing a library school. The present library building. story then goes, that when they were on the ferry crossing the North River to Mr. Brett's Influence Manhattan, Carnegie asked Thwing, Brett's advanced views as to the mean- "How much?" and the latter replied, ing of good librarianship, and his twenty rather hastily, "$100,000." Carnegie years' experience in putting some of them said, "All right," and the two men parted. into effect made a deep impression upon The president used to say that he had President Thwing, and Brett's presence 23 7 JUNE, 1940 in Cleveland was almost certainly the curiosity and strength must go to the special reason he had in mind for trying schools, colleges, universities, and libra- to secure a school of library science for ries. Western Reserve University with Cleveland's university. Carnegie was a its libraries and library school is a great admirer of Brett. He wrote to him fountain head of cultural growth and in 1914: "Dear Mr. Brett: First, cordial activity." congratulations upon your noble work. One may also note that no less than 11 You give me the value of the libraries, heads of the various divisions of the public but if I were going to assess your value library are listed as visiting lecturers at to Cleveland, I should have to add a the school. cypher or two. . . . Remember what Miss Tyler was succeeded in 1929 as Franklin says: 'The highest worship of dean by Herbert S. Hirshberg. Dean God is service to man.' Long life to you Hirshberg writes: "The close connection who have done so much to make it a between the school and the Cleveland heaven." And so, when Western Reserve Public Library was continued by the nam- University opened its School of Library ing of Miss Eastman as counselor for the Science in 1904, William Howard Brett school, in which position she advises on became the first dean, and helped to shape all important matters of policy and sits as its policy and curriculum so that its gradu- a regular faculty member in faculty meet- >> ates would be representative of the new ings. . . . type of librarian, whose object was to Prophets, it is said on the highest bring books to the people, not to keep authority, are not without honor save in them out of the people's reach. their own country. We of Cleveland The list of officers of administration perhaps do not fully appreciate that the and instruction in the current catalog of obvious logic of an association between the School of Library Science reveals at the university, the library school and the a glance that almost the whole teaching public library has been fully worked out staff has been or is now connected with only in Cleveland. There are plenty of the public library. Dean Hirshberg was, great city libraries in the ; for six years, reference librarian. Alice there are other schools of library science Tyler, dean of the school from 1925 to (a few of them older) besides that of 1929 and now professor emeritus of li- Western Reserve University, yet only brary science, began her career under Mr. in Cleveland are the university and the Brett, as catalog librarian. The other community conscious of the fact that the professor emeritus, for thirty-four years pursuit of similar ends is most efficiently instructor and professor of library science subserved by collaboration. What could is , librarian of the Cleve- be more logical than the collaboration of land Public Library in succession to Mr. a public library and a library school ? The Brett. The present librarian, Charles E. former offers all its experience in the diffi- Rush, is consultant at the school. May cult practical problems of getting and I quote him briefly: "Any newcomer to circulating the right sort of books in the Cleveland is increasingly amazed to find best way. The latter offers all the great it so extraordinarily book conscious. traditional lore of books, all the disci- Credit for this community's intellectual plines of the ancient science of bibliog-

260 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES raphy accumulated through thousands of over the country." And every one of the years by the learned. The library can be 1500 students graduated from the school not only a better public servant by taking carries Cleveland's reputation as having the university into its confidence, but the a model public library into the cities and university can turn out better librarians towns to which they go. All this is ob- because it can and does treat the library vious, all this is logical, and yet only here as a great laboratory. As Dean Hirsh- in Cleveland have the community and the berg has said: "Because our students get university followed the course which logic their field work in such an excellent li- points out, and brought book-learning and brary in the city, they are in demand all learning books together.

23 7 JUNE, 1940