SHALL THE HARVARD LIBRARY BE OPEN ON SUNDAY?

WHETHER the question is looked at from a religious or from a utilitarian standpoint, the conclusion reached is always the same, namely, that it is best that one day in seven be given up to rest. If by opening the Library on Sunday the student is encouraged to distribute his work over seven days instead of six, then the change is not a beneficial, but an injurious one.

The question of opening our Library Sunday is to be distinguished from the broad question of opening city libraries on that day. The working-man may, and doubtless does, find in the change from the noisy workshop to the quiet library and from manual to mental labor a real rest. Again, a city library reaches a class of the community which the church has not reached, - a class which needs just such help as a library can give.

Nor is this question analogous to that of opening the Reading-Room Sunday; for there are many students whose work takes so much time during the week that Sunday is the only day when they can read the papers and magazines.

The College Library stands in a different relation to the students from that in which the library of a city stands to the citizens, different even from that in which the Reading-Room stands to the students themselves. The library is the students' workshop; its books are his tools. With the pressure of studies upon him, to open the library on Sunday is to encourage Sunday work on the part of the student.

Some may say that there are many books in the Library besides those connected with our studies, and that from principle the students would abstain from studying on Sunday; but there are so many students in college who can see no harm in studying on that day, that it is not to be supposed that this large body of men would respect a principle that they do not acknowledge.

If Harvard College is prepared to see her Library crowded with workers on Sunday as well as on the other days of the week, she has only to open the doors to those students who are now pushing against them.