THE LIBRARY AND KNOWLEDGE AND LIFE 213 



men." Much has already been done, but doubtless there are still 

 many ways in which the relations of the library, the school, 

 the university, and the individual student may be improved. The 

 possibilities of cooperation and serviceable help are practically 

 illimitable. In the morning of life, when the direction of the student's 

 energies are still undetermined, the resort to a library, with its inviting 

 panorama of human learning, will often give the impulse to fruitful 

 endeavor. Reverence as well as the desire for knowledge is in- 

 spired in generous minds by the sight of a great collection of books. 

 Pope's words have often been quoted: 



A little learning is a dangerous thing, 

 Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. 



The doctrine, if not a fallacy, is a half-truth at the best. A little 

 learning has some dangers, but a little less learning has more, and 

 no learning is the most dangerous of all. And the wider our know- 

 ledge grows the keener will be our sense of the limits of acquirement, 

 our eagerness to profit by the labors of the students who have gone 

 before, and the true humility of our desire to add to the sum of human 

 knowledge or at least to make straight some part of the way of those 

 who shall enlarge the boundaries of learning. 



The library has relation to life as well as to learning. It can aid 

 us in acquiring the practical wisdom for the management of daily 

 affairs, for the right relationship to our fellow men. It can help us 

 to moderation in prosperity, to humility in success, to courage in 

 adversity, and to endurance and resignation in affliction. 



" There is no God," the foolish saith, 

 But none, " There is no sorrow." 



How many sorrowing hearts have found consolation in the com- 

 panionship of books! How tender are the accents of Plutarch 

 striving to allay the grief of his wife for the death of their beloved 

 daughter! How many have been strengthened by the words of 

 those who have been dust and ashes for centuries, men who belong 

 to an empire that has past away, to a faith that has become ex- 

 tinct, to a race alien to our own, but whose message still lives and 

 has powder for consolation, for reproof, and for inspiration. Litera- 

 ture can give us rest as well as inspiration, nor is it only the great ones 

 who are of service to us in the work of life. There are moments when 

 the melody of the milkmaid's song is a better tonic than the pealing 

 grandeur of a great cathedral's organ. How well has Longfellow 

 expressed this feeling when he asks for 



. . . some poem, 

 Some simple and heartfelt lay, 

 That shall soothe this restless feeling, 

 And banish the thoughts of day. 



