The special report on "Public Libraries in the United States of
America," published in 1876 by the U. S. Bureau of Education
includes the following paper by Mr. W. I. Fletcher, in which he
advocates the removal of age-restriction and emphasizes the
importance of choosing only those books which "have something
positively good about them." This and the following eight papers
give, in some measure, a history of library work with children.
William Isaac Fletcher was born in Burlington, Vermont, April 28,
1844. He was educated in the Winchester, Mass., schools, and
received the honorary degree of A.M. from Amherst in 1884. He
served as librarian of Amherst College from 1883 to 1911, when he
was made librarian emeritus. Mr. Fletcher was joint editor of
Poole's Index to Periodical Literature, and editor of the
continuation from 1882 to 1911; edited the A. L. A. Index to
general literature in 1893 and 1901; the Cooperative Index to
periodicals from 1883 to 1911, and in 1895 published his Public
Libraries in America. He was president of the A. L. A. in
1891-1892.
What shall the public library do for the young, and how? is a
question of acknowledged importance. The remarkable development
of "juvenile literature" testifies to the growing importance of
this portion of the community in the eyes of book producers,
while the character of much of this literature, which is now
almost thrust into the hands of youth, is such as to excite grave
doubts as to its being of any service, intellectual or moral. In
this state of things the public library is looked to by some with
hope, by others with fear, according as its management is
apparently such as to draw young readers away from merely
frivolous reading, or to make such reading more accessible and
encourage them in the use of it; hence the importance of a
judicious administration of the library in this regard.
One of the first questions to be met in arranging a code of rules
for the government of a public library relates to the age at
which young persons shall be admitted to its privileges. There is
no usage on this point which can be called common, but most
libraries fix a certain age, as twelve or fourteen, below which
candidates for admission are ineligible. Only a few of the most
recently established libraries have adopted what seems to be the
right solution of this question, by making no restriction
whatever as to age. This course recommends itself as the wisest
and the most consistent with the idea of the public library on
many grounds.
In the first place, age is no criterion of mental condition and
capacity. So varying is the date of the awakening of intellectual
life, and the rapidity of its progress, that height of stature
might almost as well be taken for its measure as length of years.
In every community there are some young minds of peculiar gifts
and precocious development, as fit to cope with the masterpieces
of literature at ten years of age, as the average person of
twenty, and more appreciative of them. From this class come the
minds which rule the world of mind, and confer the greatest
benefits on the race. How can the public library do more for the
intellectual culture of the whole community than by setting
forward in their careers those who will be the teachers and
leaders of their generation? In how many of the lives of those
who have been eminent in literature and science do we find a
youth almost discouraged because deprived of the means of
intellectual growth. The lack of appreciation of youthful demands
for culture is one of the saddest chapters in the history of the
world's comprehending not the light which comes into it. Our
public libraries will fail in an important part of their mission
if they shut out from their treasures minds craving the best, and
for the best purposes, because, forsooth, the child is too young
to read good books.
Some will be found to advocate the exclusion of such searchers
for knowledge on the ground that precocious tastes should be
repressed in the interests of physical health. But a careful
investigation of the facts in such cases can hardly fail to
convince one that in them repression is the last thing that will
bring about bodily health and vigor. There should doubtless be
regulation, but nothing will be so likely to conduce to the
health and physical well being of a person with strong mental
cravings as the reasonable satisfaction of those cravings. Cases
can be cited where children, having what seemed to be a premature
development of mental qualities coupled with weak or even
diseased bodily constitutions, have rapidly improved in health
when circumstances have allowed the free exercise of their
intellectual powers, and have finally attained a maturity
vigorous alike in body and mind. This is in the nature of a
digression, but it can do no harm to call attention thus to the
facts which contradict the common notion that intellectual
precocity should be discouraged. Nature is the best guide, and it
is in accordance with all her workings, that when she has in hand
the production of a giant of intellect, the young Hercules should
astonish observers by feats of strength even in his cradle. Let
not the public library, then, be found working against nature by
establishing, as far as its influence goes, a dead level of
intellectual attainments for all persons below a certain age.
But there is a much larger class of young persons who ought not
to be excluded from the library, not because they have decided
intellectual cravings and are mentally mature, but because they
have capacities for the cultivation of good tastes, and because
the cultivation of such tastes cannot be begun too early. There
is no greater mistake in morals than that often covered by the
saying, harmless enough literally, "Boys will be boys." This
saying is used perhaps oftener than for any other purpose to
justify boys in doing things which are morally not fit for men to
do, and is thus the expression of that great error that
immoralities early in life are to be expected and should not be
severely deprecated. The same misconception of the relations of
youth to maturity and of nature's great laws of growth and
development is seen in that common idea that children need not be
expected to have any literary tastes; that they may well be
allowed to confine their reading to the frivolous, the merely
amusing. That this view is an erroneous one thought and
observation agree in showing. Much like the caution of the mother
who would not allow her son to bathe in the river till he had
learned to swim, is that of those who would have youth wait till
a certain age, when they ought to have good tastes formed, before
they can be admitted to companionship with the best influences
for the cultivation of them. Who will presume to set the age at
which a child may first be stirred with the beginnings of a
healthy intellectual appetite on getting a taste of the strong
meat of good literature? This point is one of the first
importance. No after efforts can accomplish what is done with
ease early in life in the way of forming habits either mental or
moral, and if there is any truth in the idea that the public
library is not merely a storehouse for the supply of the wants of
the reading public, but also and especially an educational
institution which shall create wants where they do not exist,
then the library ought to bring its influences to bear on the
young as early as possible.
And this is not a question of inducing young persons to read, but
of directing their reading into right channels. For in these
times there is little probability that exclusion from the public
library will prevent their reading. Poor, indeed, in all manner
of resources, must be the child who cannot now buy, beg, or
borrow a fair supply of reading of some kind; so that exclusion
from the library is likely to be a shutting up of the boy or girl
to dime novels and story papers as the staple of reading.
Complaints are often made that public libraries foster a taste
for light reading, especially among the young. Those who make
this complaint too often fail to perceive that the tastes
indulged by those who are admitted to the use of the public
library at the age of twelve or fourteen, are the tastes formed
in the previous years of exclusion. A slight examination of
facts, such as can be furnished by any librarian of experience in
a circulating public library, will show how little force there is
in this objection.
Nor should it be forgotten, in considering this question, that to
very many young people youth is the time when they have more
leisure for reading than any other portion of life is likely to
furnish. At the age of twelve or fourteen, or even earlier, they
are set at work to earn their living, and thereafter their
opportunities for culture are but slight, nor are their
circumstances such as to encourage them in such a work. We cannot
begin too early to give them a bent towards culture which shall
abide by them and raise them above the work-a-day world which
will demand so large a share of their time and strength. The
mechanic, the farmer, the man in any walk of life, who has early
formed good habits of reading, is the one who will magnify his
calling, and occupy the highest positions in it. And to the
thousands of young people, in whose homes there is none of the
atmosphere of culture or of the appliances for it, the public
library ought to furnish the means of keeping pace intellectually
with the more favored children of homes where good books abound
and their subtle influence extends even to those who are too
young to read and understand them. If it fails to do this it is
hardly a fit adjunct to our school system, whose aim it is to
give every man a chance to be the equal of every other man, if he
can.
It is not claimed that the arguments used in support of an age
limitation are of no force; but it is believed that they are
founded on objections to the admission of the young to library
privileges which are good only as against an indiscriminate and
not properly regulated admission, and which are not applicable to
the extension of the use of the library to the young under such
conditions and restrictions as are required by their peculiar
circumstances.
For example, the public library ought not to furnish young
persons with a means of avoiding parental supervision of their
reading. A regulation making the written consent of the parent a
prerequisite to the registration of the name of a minor, and the
continuance of such consent a condition of the continuance of the
privilege, will take from parents all cause for complaint in this
regard.
Neither should the library be allowed to stand between pupils in
school and their studies, as it is often complained that it does.
To remove this difficulty, the relations of the library to the
school system should be such that teachers should be able to
regulate the use of the library by those pupils whose studies are
evidently interfered with by their miscellaneous reading. The use
of the library would thus be a stimulus to endeavor on the part
of pupils who would regard its loss as the probable result of
lack of diligence in their studies.
Again, it must be understood that to the young, as to all others,
the library is open only during good behavior. The common idea
that children and youth are more likely than older persons to
commit offenses against library discipline is not borne out by
experience; but were it true, a strict enforcement of rules as to
fines and penalties would protect the library against loss and
injury, the fear of suspension from the use of the library as the
result of carelessness in its use, operating more strongly than
any other motive to prevent such carelessness.
If there are other objections to the indiscriminate admission of
the young to the library, they can also be met by such
regulations as readily suggest themselves, and should not be
allowed to count as arguments against a judicious and proper
extension of the benefits of the library to the young.