Madison County Democrat. (London, Ohio) 19??-1958, 1950-05-12
Unesco Feeds Hungry Minds
By Restoring Worlds Books
BY r. n. EDWARDS

PARIS-Seven centuries ago,
the hordes of Mongol barbarians
who swept down on the city of
Baghdad threw all of the books
they found into the Tigris river.
The books are said to have form
ed a bridge across which the
marauders rode without getting
wet from water colored black by
ink of the manuscripts.
Just seven years ago, the lib
rary of Toungoo, in Burma, was
as thoroughly destroyed by in
vaders. The difference was that
these were not illiterate savages.
Probably most of the Japanese
soldiers who ravaged Toungoos
Jubilee Library could read and
write themselves. Their barbaric
acts were part of the warfare of
our own times.
The tradgety was that the Jubi-
lee Library was not an isolated
case. It was comparatively small
library only a part of the great
disaster which left dust and ashes
where once had been great col
lections of books and manuscripts.
Throughout the history of i
braries are found stories of de-
struction and rebuilding. Librar-
les were wilfully destroyed for the
same reason in the most recent
war they had been destroyed i'll
earlier struggles. The reason has
always been fear-of the power
of the free mind. It was fear that
lay behind one of the earliest
burnings of books in China. More
than two hundred years before
Christ, the man who ruled China
called himself the First Emperor
Since he wished to be remembered
as the creator of all things, he
had to destroy all of the scholarly
evidence of time that had passed
before him. But this tyrant could
not stop at the burning of books
and manuscripts. Scholars, who
had memorized the classics, were
forced into hiding, for fear that
he would behead anyone who had
the classics preserved where he
could not touch them with fire.
After the First Emperor's" death,
great efforts were made to recover
the classics and commit them
again to writing. Collections OF
books grew to be much larger
than they had been before the de-
struction.
One of the greatest Libraries in
history was destroyed by Caesar,
when he burned the harbor of
Alexandria. Scholars would give
a great deal to recover the Greek
and Roman manuscripts that per-
isiled there. They would never see
them any more than we will ever
see the original books of the great
library of Louvain, in Belgium,
destroyed by the Germans of
Toungoos Jubilee Library, de-
stroyed by the Japanese; or CT
Leipzig.
The story of other geat libraries
throughout history is much the
same. When wars have passed,
many have been rebuilt by such
eager hands that the new collec-
tions of books are much larger
and better. But it is one of the
horrors of modern warfare that
powers of destruction are out of
control. Books are no longer de-
stroyed only by Wilful tyrants.
Libraries are often reduced TO
ashes by the very people who
figh; to protect them.
During the second world war,
so many valuable manuscripts and
books were lost, both purposely
and accidentally, that their re-
placement became a worldwide
problem, library authorities as
sert. But the books that can help
us to build a world of under
standing between peoples and ma
tions-novels of law, medicine an
politics, books that show every
side 70 every question-can be re-
assembled. Today, large-scale Ii
brary and Recommendation surveys
are being made by international
organizations which believe the
free exchange of knowledge trans
cerds national boundaries.
Chief among these is the United
Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization
tUnesco)