Fred Bucheit

Mill Hall

How many people are aware that they took the library out of our school?

A school without a library is a body without a mind. To deprive children of books is to fulfill the book-burner’s fondest dream: the beginning of mass mind control. When we remove a child’s access to diverse literature, we allow a “cult leader” mentality to take over, telling them not just what to think, but how to think.

Book deprivation is the antithesis of intellectual freedom. An uninformed mind is easily manipulated, becoming a pawn of the state. While some argue that budget constraints necessitate these cuts, we must ask: if the budget can handle the cafeteria, why can’t it handle the library? We acknowledge that children need food to live, but a library is equally necessary to live as a free person rather than a slave. History shows that the first act of any tyrant is to destroy the library and replace it with propaganda. Books are the eternal enemies of oppression.

A book is a vessel. It carries mankind’s hopes, fears, successes and failures. It offers a blueprint for a full life and a record of our past mistakes so that we might avoid repeating them. Most importantly, books carry ideas–the grand, creative sparks that solve the curses of disease and ignorance. From ancient philosophy to modern medical breakthroughs, our progress is indexed on the printed page.

Libraries also serve as a moral compass. They house the stories of our shared human weaknesses–pride, greed and anger–teaching us how to avoid the vices that lead to misery. They teach us how to govern, how to balance order with freedom and how to understand the world’s religions, wars and paths to peace.

Books may be the greatest invention of humanity. Denying them to our children is no different than denying them nutritious food; one nurtures the body, the other nurtures the mind. Without the latter, we are doomed to a life of intellectual servitude.

We must re-evaluate our priorities. Instead of cutting the library like a chainsaw through a log, we should scrutinize the rest of the budget. Does a team truly need an acre of ground for a stadium but the library has zero square feet? While some claim the internet renders libraries obsolete, they forget that a library is a symbol, much like a church. We do not abandon places of worship because religious texts are online; we do not abandon stadiums because sports are streamed.

A library is the foundation upon which children build their knowledge. It is the reason we no longer believe the earth is flat or that disease is caused by “bad air.” It is the light that brought us out of the Dark Ages. Please, let us come to our senses. Denying access to books is as destructive as burning them. It is time to put the books back.

There is room for discussion here. Used books are cheap and plentiful. We could have a smaller library with a collection of the 100 or 500 best books ever written. Students could check them out for a month or two. If the student loses the book they could buy another used book on Amazon for a couple dollars. We could give a teacher a free period when they could check books in and out. A count of how many books were taken out might give us a clue as to how we are doing as an educational system.