2016-02-06
The Library: Its social advantages
To appreciate the social advantages of our library at Idaho, one should stroll in during the afternoon. Morning sessions are perhaps very stimulating, but classes are bound to interfere more or less, and, as a whole, the morning lacks the whole-heartedness and abandon of the afternoon.
Thus, if one is wise, a seat facing the main entrance is chosen in the rear of the room. Facing-the-entrance seats are at a premium, and should always be appreciated. To realize the advantage gained, one has only to contemplate the broader view, the better opportunity to see and be seen. From this point of vantage one can watch at ease the development of the social instinct found alike on the campus and in the library.
This instinct seems more dominate in the gentle sex: at least, it shows more varied developments. From the girl who slyly pinches her cheeks while she watches the entrance, to the humming-bird girl fluttering from table to table, the instinct is apparent. With them, one watches the young lady who scans half a dozen magazines, taking each one separately to and from the farthest seat back, while she tries to look gracefully unconscious of the fact that she has vulgarly “stubbed her toe.” The girl who doesn’t see the man until he pulls up his chair beside her is generally seated in the middle of the room, and has never yet been known to sit behind a pillar.
It would indeed be a brave stranger who could, without embarrassment or flush, walk the entire length of our library. For such a feat a hardened politician would be needed. To a stranger the pew system of seating would seem to be in vogue. He, doubtless, could not see that the pews are constantly changing; that a girl seated at a table forms a nucleus around which kindred spirits soon gather. He might be able to surmise, from the surprised, almost accusing, glances of previous occupants, that a girl occasionally stumbles into the wrong pew.
As a matter of fact, there are men who don’t appreciate the social advantages of a library. Such a one was once heard dubbing it a “Date Emporium.” He was, of course, a disgruntled sort of fellow – the kind who never lends his notes. Of course, no one denies that occasionally such things are arranged in the library, but who would have it otherwise?
An account of library advantages would be incomplete without mention of its value in the get-rich-quick method of studying. Five minutes in the library before the recitation bell rings have often been invaluable toward making a good bluff. Someone kinder and more generous than the unappreciative man above is almost sure to have studied the lesson.
As a general rule, the apportionment is one man to a table. However, occasions have been known when the situation was reversed, and the girl’s sweet smile was continuous in its general distribution. Such a girl one recognizes at once as the sort of girl who cares for that kind of thing; the sort of girl who makes a man lose half of his next dance in order to write his name for her seventeenth extra.
There is a curious sheep-like attitude in the movements of a social crowd in the library, whether watching the stranger enter, or listening to the book fall in the stacks. A librarian passing an especially happy table calls to mind the picture of a white-frocked little girl, sticky hands clasped behind her, and juicy lips pouting, gazing with innocent blue eyes and a wonderfully nonchalant manner at her mother in the doorway.
The views from the library windows aid in its social attractiveness. On windy, rainy days the campus is a joy forever; that is, from a point of vantage. On sunny afternoons the hazy blue mountains in the distance are conducive to dreams, and, looking around our library, one can watch many living in the future – hearing, while the stolid, middle-aged chaperon sleeps under a tree, the sparkling stream gurgling over the moss-covered rocks, and the soft wind whispering in the trees, while the shadows lengthen and deepen on some glorious golden Sunday afternoon.
A review of the social advantages of the library, from the 1914 Gem of the Mountains Yearbook. Image of the library in 1930.