The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1894-03-10
THE HONOLULU LIBRARY.

lulu Library and Reading Room
were very humble, unpromising
even, and it is much that the fifteen
years of its existence have wit
messed the acquisition of 10000
volumes, and the erection of a sub
stantial and appropriate building
to contain them. After all, how
ever, little more than a beginning
has been made, and the Library
needs a much larger endowment
fund and a much larger income
to properly satisfy the needs to
which it has relation. 1t has a
building, but no endowment worth
mention, and the income from its
pitifully small subscription list is
practically entirely absorbed in
paying the running expenses of the
institution, though these are cut
down to the narrowest possible
figure.
The needs of the Library, COM
prehensively stated, are two-more
room and more books. The shelf
room is, at present, practically ex-
hausted, though a considerable
addition to it can probably be made
without enlarging the building it
self, and this should be done before
mourning any further expense for
building. The need of new books
is very great. At least $4,000
should be spent at once, not in the
purchase of the ephemere of litera-.
ture, which are read today and
burned tomorrow, but in filling the
most conspicuous blanks in the
departments of history, science and
philosophy, and in the classics of
English and foreign literatures.
The judicious expenditure of the
sum indicated would add enor-
mously to the intrinsic value of the
library, and would greatly raise it
in the public esteem.
The yearly sum now at the dis
posal of the book committee is
ridiculously low, so that accretions
to the stock have to come largely
by way of gift. Even this trifiing
sum is not devoted by the commit
tee to remedying the permanent
defects, but is expended almost
in the purchase of new
publications, some of which have
,reat value and some of which
lave none. While we cannot en-
lorse this procedure of the COM
nittee, it can plead for itself very
powerful excuse. The library is
for support upon its pa
rons, and the majority are very
much like the Athenians-always
eeking after some new thing.
heir favor is conditioned upon a
onstant supply Of the latest novel
y in travel or poetry or fiction, and
hey insist upon novelty rather
han excellence. Now, few books
ast. The majority are as the good
latured critic ambiguously des-
ribbed them. They contain a
reat many new and a great many
rue things. "But the true things
re not new, and the new things
re not true" The result is that,
, please "the general" the library
J adding every year an array of
ooks which deserve nothing better
IAN to be thumbed out of ext St
nee.
How is this difficulty to be met?
lainly, only by making the library
of those who value it
lerely as purveyor of cheap fc-
on. Either it must be literally !
ndowed or its subscription list
lust be increased three or four
I'D.
In these hard times it is, perhaps,
20 much to expect an endowment,
ut the subscription list, at least,
an and should be greatly en-
urged. A paltry list of $50 is
isgrace to this book-reading town.
here should be 400 subscribers at
he very least. Sesd in your
ames, ladies and gentlemen.