The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-02-01

poet, attests when he pictures the I'M
approachable mood of the husband
From some offense he can't digest,
AS cross as bear with cubs,
Or sleepy, dull, and queer at best,
That's how he comes from clubs"
Then the scene suggests a scrap,
belligerancy and war; and the poet
closes by saying:
"a woman need not be a Ounce
To feel the wrong of clubs
Scene H. Place. Ogden. Time, clos
ing years of the nineteenth century
any Tuesday at $50 p. m. Wife home
from the club. Savory smell from the
kitchen stealing through the house.
Husbands eager footsteps approa ching.
Wife hurries to the door, her face
Wreathed in smiles, her heart full of
love, her mind overlooking with the
brightest and best in literature where
With to regale him at the evening meal
and during the evening hour. The pic
ture is pleasant, full of peace. growth
and rest. Need she questionswhat hus-
band thinks of the woman'S club, or
what of a wife whose interest reaches
into the world?
From what was once deemed incapa-
bility, from the non-partaker at the
intellectual feast, we are fast coming
to expect the Intellectual life of the
community.
The American man, appreciative as
he is, loses sight of social and literary
standards in the competition of bust
ness and the standards of prices and
markets. Our men are too busy for
anything but business. With woman
then rests largely the making of the
social and intellectual atmosphere. She
is not only to encourage but also to in
st1tute and sustain the literary life of
the community. To this end schools,
Libraries, clubs, lectures, indeed what
ever is educational, remedial and re-
formatory is within her province. Her
deep and generous culture will have
much to do with the formation of liter
airy taste, and this in time will render
the trash at our news stands less mar
ketable. Both the Woman'S club and
the library are beneficent forces for the
general elevation of the literary taste.
The WOman's club movement and the
recent general distribution of libraries
is simultaneous, both perhaps largely
due to the fact that the individual is the
bulwark of the republic and individual
culture the dictum of our institutions.
Our clubs are much indebted to the
public library, and the relation of clubs
and library should be such that vice
versa would be equally true. In the
work of our clubs the public library
and the interest of its librarian are in
dispensable.
AS members of the Library associa-
ton, you have done much, you can do
more.
Your library has yet to take on the
noble and accurate proportions of a
storehOuse of knowledge. It's survey
strikes one peculiarly-head abnor-
mally large in fiction, body long drawn
out in magazines and insists from
everybody's library, tail dwindling in
biography history ard science. And
your librarian is helpless. Suppose you
were about to erect a building, would
you say to the architect here are 20
perch of stone, 1000 feet of flooring, a
few feet of framing, wall paper and
Varnish in abundance-now put up for
me a substantial, commodious, artistic
structure that will meet all modern re-
quirements. 1t would be absurd to eX-
pect an architect to do anything for
you.
You librarian is the architect of your
library, and as such she is laboring I'M
der great disadvantage. She is inter-
ested, capable, ambitious. Give her
your earnest cooperation and as
sistance and she will make your Ii
brary more than pile of books. Under
her intelligent guidance it will take
on the fullness and proportions of a Ii
brary, meeting the diverse needs of
the diverse mind.
The recent spread of libraries has
brought about a new profession, that of
librarian.
Cities, towns, villages and hamlets
point with triumph to their libraries
and send fortt a cry for the trained
librarian. Accordingly, our universe
ties are now giving a special course in
library training.
Next to an extended contact with
books, the experience of those who
have had this contact is to be desired,
by way of training.
This the library course aims to give
And this need, this knowledge so in
dispensable to the librarian, the few
books in a small city can never supply.
Now l am about to advance an idea
in this direction which has long been
apparent to me.
To such as seek Interior motives in
everything, 1 have nothing to say, but
speak now to such as recognize the
merit of unremitting generous service
and wish to see labor justly recon-
pensed.
Ogden has been generous in the past
indeed, has too often been useful to
useless persons. Let her be useful to
herself and to useful persons by doing
the very best she can for her library.
Let her recognize substantially the al
most gratuitious service of her Ii
brarian by putting her in the way of
thorough training for her work 1 firm
~ believe we would find her appreci-
alive of this above all. else. I care not
how active, industrious, capable, aspir-
ing and persevering your librarian may
be. and she is all of these, a library
course will be invaluable to her and
to the success of your library. Thus
with the proceeds of an occasional
benefit and with discretionary power
and the right idea in the mind of the
librarian your library would grow in
proper directions eventually becoming
what it should be. the index of the !
higher life of the citizens of Ogden.