This first of a series of yearly reports on "Reading for the
young" was made by Miss Caroline M. Hewins at the Cincinnati
Conference of the A. L. A. in 1882. It embodies answers from
twenty-five librarians to the question, "What are you doing to
encourage a love of good reading in boys and girls?"
Caroline Maria Hewins was born in Roxbury, Mass., October 10,
1846. She attended high school in Boston; received her library
training in the Boston Athenaeum; taught in private schools for
several years, and took a year's special course in Boston
University. In 1911 she received an honorary degree of M.A. from
Trinity College, Hartford. She has been librarian in Hartford,
Conn., for many years, from 1875 to 1892 in the Hartford Library
Association, since that time in the Hartford Public Library. She
has done editorial work for various magazines and has contributed
many articles to the library periodicals. Her list of "Books for
boys and girls," of which the third edition was published in
1915, represents the result of many years' thoughtful and
appreciative study of children's literature. Library work with
children owes to Miss Hewins a debt of gratitude for her unusual
contribution to the establishment of high standards, the
development of a broad vision, and the maintenance of a
wholesome, sympathetic, but not sentimental point of view.
About the first of March I sent cards to the librarians of
twenty-five of the leading libraries of the country, asking,
"What are you doing to encourage a love of good reading in boys
and girls?" and soon after published a notice in the New York
Evening Post and Nation, saying that statements from librarians
and teachers concerning their work in the same direction would be
gladly received The cards brought, in almost every case, full
answers; the newspaper notice has produced few results.
The printed report of the Thomas Crane Public Library, Quincy,
Mass., says: "The trustees have recently made a special effort to
encourage the use of the library in connection with the course of
teaching in the public schools. Under a rule adopted two years
ago the teachers of certain grades of schools are in the practice
of borrowing a number of those volumes they consider best adapted
to the use of their scholars, and keeping them in constant
circulation among them. During the year two lists of books for
the use of the children in the public schools were printed under
the direction of the trustees. One of these lists contained works
in juvenile fiction; the other, biographies, histories, and books
of a more instructive character. All the works included were
selected by the trustees as being such as they would put in the
hands of their own children. The lists thus prepared were then
given to the teachers of the schools for gratuitous circulation
among their scholars."
Mr. Green, of the Worcester, Mass., Free Public Library, writes:
"The close connection which exists between the library and the
schools is doing much to elevate the character of the reading of
the boys and girls. Many books are used for collateral reading,
others to supplement the instruction of text-books in geography
and history, others still in the employment of leisure hours in
school. Boys and girls are led to read good books and come to the
library for similar ones. Lists of good books are kept in the
librarian's room, and are much used by teachers and pupils."
Mr. Upton, of the Peabody Library, Peabody, Mass., gives as his
opinion: "If teachers did their duty, librarians would not be
troubled as to good reading. My experience of about thirty- five
or forty years as a public grammar-school teacher is, that
teachers can control, to a great extent, the reading of their
pupils, and also that, as a class, teachers are not GREAT
readers. We should have little trouble in changing to some degree
our circulation, but our thirteen-foot shelves and long ladders
prevent the employment of the best help. We print bulletins and
assist all who ask aid."
Miss Bean, of the Public Library, Brookline, Mass., says: "I have
no statistics of results relative to my school finding-list. Its
influence is quietly but steadily making itself felt. The
teachers tell me that many of the pupils use no other catalogue
in selecting books from the library, and I know there are many
families where the children are restricted to its use. We keep
two or three interleaved and posted with the newest books when I
think them desirable. Several of the teachers have told me
personally that they had found the list useful to themselves; but
teachers are mortal and human. Many of them think duty done when
the day's session is over, and the matter of outside reading with
their pupils is of little moment to them. I want to get out a
revised list, with useful notes."
Mr. Rice, of the City Library, Springfield, Mass., writes: "We
have a manuscript catalogue of the best and most popular books
for boys and girls. We call attention to the best books as we
have opportunity when the young people visit the library. We
endeavor to influence the teachers in our public schools to aid
us in directing the attention of boys and girls to the best
juveniles, and such other books as they can appreciate."
Mr. Arnold, of the Public Library, Taunton, Mass., says: "What I
am doing is to indicate in the margin of my catalogues the works
which are adapted to the taste and comprehension of young people,
so that not only their own attention may be diverted from the
fiction department, but that their parents and teachers may
easily furnish them with proper lists. We aim at excluding from
the library books of a sensational character, as well as those
positively objectionable on the score of morality."
Miss James, librarian of the Free Library, Newton, Mass., in
speaking of the catalogue, without notes, of children's books,
published by that library in 1878, and given to the pupils of the
public schools, says: "I do not think that catalogue ever
influenced a dozen children. We have just completed a very full
card-catalogue which the children use a great deal in connection
with their studies. Eleven hundred zinc headings are a great
help. I frequently speak to the children to get acquainted with
them, so they are quite free to ask for help. Our local paper has
offered me half a column a week for titles and notices. I shall,
of course, notice children's books as well as others." Mr.
Peirce, the superintendent, says in his last report: "It is only
from homes where the intellectual and moral character of
childhood is neglected, as a rule, that the library with us is
in any wise abused by the over-crowding of the mind with novels.
In many of even these cases kind and wise restraint can be, and
is, exercised by the librarian."
Mr. Cummings, curator of the Lower Hall card-catalogue of the
Boston Public Library, and Miss Jenkins, assistant librarian in
the same place, have kindly sent me the manuscripts of their
forthcoming reports to the trustees. These reports are wholly on
the methods and results of their personal intercourse with
readers, and the increase in special reading during the last few
years. Concerning boys and girls Mr. Cummings writes: "I must not
forget the juvenile readers, school-boys and school- girls, and
the children from the stores and offices about town. These latter
are smart, bright, active little bodies, often more in earnest
than their more fortunate fellows of the same age. They are an
object of special solicitude and care. The school children come
for points in reading for their compositions and for parallel
reading with their lessons in school; and such books are
suggested as may be found useful. The two most available
faculties in children to work upon are the heart and the
imagination. Get a hold on their affections by encouraging words
and manifesting a readiness to help them, and you command their
devotion and confidence. Give them interesting books (Optic and
Alger, if needs be), and you fix their attention. Above all, let
the book be interesting; for the attention is never fixed by, nor
does the memory ever retain, what is laborious to read. But, once
assured of their devotion, with their confidence secured and
their attention fixed, there is nothing to prevent the work of
direction succeeding admirably with them."
Miss Jenkins says: "The use of the library by the young people is
increasing every year. The change in the character of children's
books has been a great help to us, fairly crowding out many of
the trashy stories so long the favorite reading. One of the first
things that attracted my attention was their perseverance in
seeking certain authors, and their continual exchange of books. I
soon found their difficulties with the catalogue. They read only
stories, and wanted those full of incident and excitement; when
their favorite author failed, they sought for something else that
sounded right in the catalogue, or sometimes wrote only the
numbers without much reference to the titles, trusting, I
suppose, to luck. Not liking the looks of the books they would
return them. A steady recurrence of this made it a nuisance.
One of my first steps was to join one of the many groups around
the room, and look over with them, suggest this author, or this,
that, and the other book, until they were furnished with a list
of books fairly suited to their age, and then, suggesting that
the list should be kept for future reference, pass on to another
group. This is now a general practice, and seems to suit the
little folks; if, after several applications, they are
unsuccessful, it is my custom to get them a book. My young people
began to ask me to help their friends, also to help others
themselves; so gradually the bright faces of my boy and girl
friends have grown familiar, and as they gain confidence in me we
strike out into other paths, and many bright, readable books,
historical or containing bits of geography or elementary science,
have been read. It so happened that many of my young friends grew
quite confidential, and told me about their school and lessons.
It was not very difficult to induce them to read some things
bearing upon their studies; these books were shown to their
teachers, and many were ready to cooperate at once; this led to
an acquaintance with several, and the teachers' plan of study
became a basis of selection for reading in history, biography,
travel, and natural science. From books suited to their capacity
much effective work has been done. Several classes have studied
English history, and their reading has been made supplementary
from the topics. Later, when a list of notable persons was given
to them, they showed the effect of their reading by giving very
good short sketches of these persons. American history--colonial,
revolutionary, administrations, civil war, reconstruction--has
been treated similarly, and the teachers are much gratified at
the result. We find that these boys do not fall back to trashy
reading, but ask for better reading in place of their old
favorites.
Several girls of the high school have sought assistance in their
various studies, especially in Greek and Roman history, and have
read, in connection with the histories recommended, novels and
some interesting travels, and have spent much time over
engravings and photographs illustrative of their reading. Two of
these girls, having asked me for a novel, meaning something like
their former reading, I made tests by giving them exactly what
they asked for. Very soon both books were returned, with the
remark, 'I couldn't read it.' In a little talk that ensued, and
in which I drew from them a criticism of their reading, it dawned
upon them that they had developed, or grown, as they said. I
could go on giving instances of this gradual development in
individual cases, and of its influence upon others to whom these
readers recommended what they had read, the increased call for
the better books of fiction, biography, history, travel,
miscellany, and science. In four years' work books of sensational
incident, so long popular, have lost much of their charm. They
have been crowded out by better books and personal interests in
the young people themselves."
Mr. Foster of the Public Library, Providence, R. I., has sent an
account in detail of his work among pupils and teachers, which
may be thus condensed: Soon after the opening of the library, in
1878, he held a conference with the grammar-school masters of the
city, and through them met the other teachers. He printed for the
use of pupils a list of suggestions, some of the most important
of which were summed up in the following words: "Begin by basing
your reading on your school text-books;" "Learn the proper use of
reference-books;" "Use imaginative literature, but not
immoderately;" "Do not try to cover too much ground;" "Do not
hesitate to ask for assistance and suggestions at the library;"
"See that you make your reading a definite gain to you in some
direction."
Mr. Foster soon gained influence among the teachers by personally
addressing them, and began to publish annotated lists of books
for young readers. A reading hour was established in the public
schools, and pupils learned to give in their own language the
substance of books which they had read. Mr. Foster says: "Our
plans were by no means limited to the public schools, but
included Brown University, the Rhode Island State Normal School,
the Commercial College, the private schools for girls, and the
two private boys' schools preparatory for college, one of which
has ten teachers and some two hundred and fifty pupils. One
morning I met the boys of this school in their chapel, and gave
them a twenty minutes' talk on reading, particularly on the
question how to direct one's current reading, as of newspapers,
into some channel of permanent interest and value. Since my
address before the teachers of the State (published in the papers
and proceedings of the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction for
1880) we have had many calls for assistance from outside the
city, from teachers in the high schools and grammar schools of
other places. In 1878 I began the preparation of a bulletin of
new books, issued quarterly by the State Board of Education, and
there have been several instances of a series of references in
connection with school-work. In July, 1880, I sent to the
different teachers a series of suggestions about the reading of
their pupils, covering such points as preserving a record of the
books read, books not being read and returned at too frequent
intervals, and the inspection of these matters by the teacher, or
rather establishing communication between the teacher and pupil
so that these things shall be talked over." Finding-lists have
been checked for the schools, appeals have been made by Mr.
Foster in public addresses for supervision of children's reading
by teachers and parents, and duplicate copies of books have been
placed in the library for school use. In conclusion, Mr. Foster
adds: "There has been a gradual and steady advance in methods of
cooperation and mutual understanding, so that now it is a
perfectly understood thing, throughout the schools, among
teachers and pupils, that the library stands ready to help them
at almost every point."
Mrs. Sanders, of the Free Public Library, Pawtucket, R. I.,
writes: "I am circulating by the thousand Rev. Washington
Gladden's 'How and What to Read,' published as a circular by the
State Board of Education of Rhode Island. I am constantly
encouraging the children to come to me for assistance, which they
are very ready to do; and I find that after boys have had either
a small or a full dose of Alger (we do not admit 'Optic'), they
are very ready to be promoted to something more substantial--
Knox, Butterworth, Coffin, Sparks, or Abbott. I find more
satisfaction in directing the minds of boys than girls, for
though I may and generally do succeed in interesting them in the
very best of fiction, it is much more difficult to draw them into
other channels, unless it is poetry. I should like very much to
know if this is the experience of other librarians. My aim is
first to interest girls or boys according to their ability to
enjoy or appreciate, and gradually to develop whatever taste is
the most prominent. For instance, I put on the shelves all
mechanical books for boys; works upon adornments for
homes--painting, drawing, music, aids to little housekeepers,
etc., for the girls."
Mr. Fletcher, of the Watkinson Library, Hartford, Conn., says, in
a recent address on the public library question in its moral and
religious aspect: "Many of our public libraries beg the whole
question, so far as it refers to the youngest readers, by
excluding them from the use of books. A limit of fourteen or
sixteen years is fixed, below which they are not admitted to the
library as its patrons. But, in some of those more recently
established, the wiser course has been adopted of fixing no such
limitation. For, in these times, there is little probability that
exclusion from the library will prevent their reading. Poor,
indeed, in 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 simply a shutting up of the boy or
girl to the resources of the home and the book-shop or newspaper.
A slight examination of the literature found in a majority of
homes and most prominent in the shops is enough to show what this
means, and to explain the fact, that the young persons first
admitted to the public library at fourteen years of age come to
it with a well-developed taste for trash and a good acquaintance
with the names of authors in that department of literature, but
with apparently little capacity left for culture in higher
directions."
Mr. Winchester, of the Russell Free Library, Middletown, Conn.,
said in his report, last January: "A departure from the ordinary
rules governing the use of the library has been made in favor of
the teachers in the city schools, allowing a teacher to take to
the school, a number of books upon any topic which may be the
subject of study for the class for the time, and to retain them
beyond the time regularly allowed." In a letter three months
later he writes, "I cannot trace directly to this arrangement any
change in the reading of young folks. We have taken a good deal
of pains to get good books for the younger readers, and I make it
a point to assist them whenever I can. I feel quite sure that, if
trash is shut out of the library and withheld from young readers,
and, if good and interesting books are offered to them, they will
soon learn not to care for the trash."
Mr. Bassett, of the Bronson Library, Waterbury, Conn., says in
his printed report: "The librarian can do a little towards
leading young book-borrowers towards the selection of proper
books, but it does not amount to much unless his efforts are
seconded by parents and teachers. It is of little use, I fear, to
appeal to parents to look after their children's reading. It is
possible that they do not know that, in not a few cases, boys and
girls from eight to sixteen years of age, even while attending
school, draw from three to six volumes a week to read, and often
come for two volumes a day. That they fail to realize the effects
of so much reading on their children's minds is evident when we
hear them say, and with no little pride, too, 'Our children are
great readers; they read all the time.' Such parents ought to
know that instead of turning out to be prodigies of learning,
these library gluttons are far more likely to become prodigious
idiots, and that teachers find them, as a rule, the poorest
scholars and the worst thinkers." He adds an appeal to teachers:
"Give out questions that demand research, and send out pupils to
the library for information if necessary, and be assured that a
true librarian enjoys nothing so much as a search, with an
earnest seeker, after truths that are hidden away in his books.
Do not hesitate even to ask questions that you cannot answer, and
rely upon your pupils to answer them, and to give authorities,
and do not be ashamed to learn of your pupils. Work with them as
well as for them. But, whatever else you do, do not waste your
time in urging your pupils to stop story-reading and to devote
their time to good books. A parent can command this, you cannot;
but you can make the use of good books, and the acquisition of
knowledge not found in books, attractive and even necessary, and
your ability to do this determines your real value as a teacher.
Your work is to change your earth-loving moles into eagle-eyed
and intelligent observers of all that is on, in, above, and under
the earth." Mr. Bassett writes that as a result of this appeal
there was in November, December, January, and February, an
increase of nineteen (19) per cent in the circulation of general
literature, science, history, travel, and biography, and a
decrease in juveniles of ten (10) per cent for January and
February, 1882, as compared with the same months of 1881, For the
first nineteen days of March the increase of the classes
first-named was thirty-seven (37) per cent over last year, and
the decrease in juvenile fiction twenty-seven (27) per cent. He
ends his letter: "As a school officer and acting school visitor,
I find that those teachers whose education is not limited to
textbooks, and who are able to guide their pupils to full and
accurate knowledge of subjects of study, are not only the best,
but the only ones worth having."
Mr. Rogers, of the Fletcher Free Library, Burlington, Vermont,
says: "I have withdrawn permanently all of Alger, Fosdick,
Thomes, and Oliver Optic. I have for some time past been making
the teachers in the primary schools my assistants without pay. I
give them packages of books to circulate among their respective
schools. Very good results have been obtained. The Police Gazette
and other vile weeklies have been discarded for books from the
Fletcher Library. Most of the young folks are not old enough to
draw at the library themselves, and this method has to be used,
as in many instances the parents will not or cannot draw books
for their children. Each teacher has a copy of Mr. Smart's
excellent book, 'Reading for Young People.' Such books as are in
our collection are designated in their copies."
The New York Free Circulating Library is quietly doing good by
the establishment of carefully selected branch libraries in the
poorest and most thickly settled parts of the city In the words
of the last report: "The librarian has been constantly instructed
to aid all readers in search of information, however trivial may
be the subject, and, while the readers are to have free scope in
their choice of books, librarians have attempted, when they
properly could do so, free from seeming officiousness, to suggest
books of the best character, and induce the cultivation of a good
literary taste." Miss Coe, the librarian, adds, "Boys will read
the best books, if they can get them."
Mr. Schwartz, of the Apprentices' Library, New York, says: "We
are always ready and willing to direct and advise in special
cases, but have not as yet been able to come across any general
plan that seemed to us to promise success. The term 'good
reading' is relative, and must vary according to the taste of
each reader, and it is just this variety of standards that seems
to present an unsurmountable obstacle to any general and
comprehensive system of suggestions."
Miss Bullard, of the Seymour Library, Auburn, N. Y., reports a
decrease in fiction from sixty-five (65) to fifty-eight (58) per
cent in the last five years. She says: "I have endeavored, year
by year, to gain the confidence of the younger portion of our
subscribers in my ability to always furnish them with interesting
reading, and have thus been able to turn them from the domain of
fiction into the more useful fields of literature. Another
noticeable and encouraging feature of the library is the
increasing use made of it by pupils in the high school in
connection with school-work."
Mr. Larned, of the Young Men's Library of Buffalo, N. Y., writes:
"I think the little catalogue is doing a great deal of good among
our young readers and among parents and teachers. We exert what
personal influence we can in the library, but there are no other
special measures that we employ." The catalogue, a carefully
chosen list of books for young readers, with stars placed against
those specially recommended, includes, besides books mentioned in
other letters, the Boy's Froissart and King Arthur, Miss Tuckey's
Joan of Arc, Le Liefde's Great Dutch Admirals, Eggleston's Famous
American Indians, Bryan's History of the United States, Verne's
Exploration of the World, Du Chaillu's books, What Mr. Darwin
Saw, Science Primers, Faraday's Chemical History of a Candle,
Smiles's Biographies, Clodd's Childhood of the World, Viollet Le
Duc's Learning to Draw, Dana's Household Book of Poetry, Uncle
Remus, Sir Roger de Coverley, several pages on out and in door
games, hunting and fishing, with plenty of myths and fairy tales,
an annotated selection of historical novels, and a short list of
good stories.
The Friends' Free Library, Germantown, Pa., still excludes all
fiction except a few carefully chosen stories for children. The
report of the committee says: "Our example has been serviceable
in stimulating some other library committees and communities to
use more discrimination in their selection of books than may have
been the case with them in the past. From our own precious
children we would fain keep away the threatening contamination,
if in our power to do so, the divine law of love to our neighbor
thence instructs us to use the opportunity to put far away the
evil from him also." The representatives of the religious Society
of Friends for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, have
published during the year a protest against demoralizing
literature and art, taking the ground that the national standard
of moral purity is lowered, and the sanctity of marriage
weakened, by most of the books, pictures, and theatrical
exhibitions of to-day.
The current report of the Cincinnati public schools gives a full
account of the celebrations of authors' birthdays in the last two
years, and the superintendent, the Hon. John B. Peaslee, LL.D.,
in an address on moral and literary training in school, urges
that the custom, so successfully begun, shall be kept up, and
that children in all grades of schools shall be required to learn
every week a few lines of good poetry, instead of choosing for
themselves either verse or prose for declamation. Mr. Merrill
asks in his last report for coooperation between the school and
the library, and says in a letter: "I read a paper some time ago
which was published in a teachers' magazine, and have addressed
our Cincinnati teachers. We purchased a number of the catalogues
of the Young Men's Library of Buffalo, and have written in our
corresponding shelf numbers. A few of our teachers have also
obtained these catalogues. I judge that the children are
beginning to take out better books than formerly. The celebration
of authors' days in the schools has been very beneficial in
making the children acquainted with some of the best literature
in the libraries as well as with the use of books of reference."
Miss Stevens, of the Public Library, Toledo, Ohio, says: "We are
fond of children, and suggest to them books that they will like.
Give a popular boy a good book, and there is not much rest for
that book. Librarians should like children."
Mr. Poole, of the Chicago Public Library, writes: "I have met the
principals of the schools, and have addressed them on their
duties in regulating the reading of their pupils, and advising
their pupils as to what to read and how to read. My talk has
awakened some interest in the teachers, and a committee has been
appointed to consider what can be done about it."
Mr. Carnes, of the Odd Fellows' Library Association, San
Francisco, fires this shot in his report: "Even the child knows
that forbidden fruit is the sweetest on the branch. If you wish
to compel a boy to read a given book, strictly forbid him even to
take it from the shelves. The tabooed books will somehow be
secured in spite of their withdrawal."
Mr. Metcalf, of the Wells School, Boston, who told at the
conference of 1879 of his work in encouraging a love for good,
careful, and critical reading, writes: "My girls have bought
Scott's Talisman, and we have read it together. I have now sent
in a request for forty copies of Ivanhoe. My second class have
read, on the same plan, this year, Mrs. Whitney's We Girls, and
the third class have finished Towle's Pizarro, and are now
reading Leslie Goldthwaite. The City Council refused, last year,
to appropriate the $1,000 asked for. When we have the means, all
our grammar and high school masters will be able to order from
the library such books as are suited to their classes. This plan
introduces the children to a kind of reading somewhat better than
would otherwise reach them, and, best of all, it gives them great
facility in expression."
Hartford, which has now no free circulating library, but hopes
for one within two years, still keeps the old district system of
schools, and several of these schools have a library fund. Mr.
Barrows, principal of the Brown School, writes: "Our library
contains the usual school reference-books. Recently we have added
quite a number of books especially adapted to interest and
instruct children, such as The Boy Travellers, Miss Yonge's
Histories, Butterworth's Zigzag Journeys, Forbes's Fairy
Geography, etc. The children are not permitted to take these
books away from the building. Pupils are invited to bring such
additional facts in geography, or history, as they may obtain by
reading. Topics are assigned. Should spices be the topic, one
pupil would read up concerning cloves; another nutmeg, etc.
Again, pupils are allowed to make their own selections, and
invited to give, at a specified time, any facts in geography,
history, natural science, manufactures, inventions, etc. For
this extra work extra credits are given. Our object is to cause
pupils to realize the conscious and abiding pleasure that comes
by instructive reading; to encourage such as have not been
readers to read, and to influence such as have been readers of
trash to become readers of profitable books. The result, so far,
is very encouraging. Many have become enthusiastic readers, and
can give more facts and information thus obtained than we have
time to hear. As the Christmas holidays approached, many
signified a desire that their presents might be books, such as we
have in our library; for they do not have time at school to
exhaust the reading of these books, and consequently do not lose
their interest."
Within the last few months Mr. Northrop, Secretary of the Board
of Education of Connecticut, has distributed in the high schools
and upper classes of the grammar schools of the State, blanks to
be filled by the pupils with the kind of reading that they like
best, and the names of their favorite authors. Several hundred of
these circulars were destroyed when the Hartford High School was
burned last winter. The publication of a list of books suitable
for boys and girls has been delayed, but Mr. Holbrook, of the
Morgan School, Clinton, Conn., who prepared the list, writes
concerning his work in school: "I have the practical disbursement
of three or four hundred dollars a year for books. In the high
school, in my walks at recess among the pupils, I inquire into
their reading, try to arouse some enthusiasm, and then, when the
iron is hot, I make the proposition that if they will promise to
read nothing but what I give them I will make out a schedule for
them. A pupil spending one hour, even less, a day, religiously
observing the time, will, in five years, have read every book
that should be read in the library. Those who agree to the above
proposition I immediately start on the Epochs of History, turning
aside at proper times to read some historical novel. When that is
done I give them Motley, then Dickens, or Prescott, or Macaulay,
Hawthorne, Thackeray, Don Quixote. Cooper I depend on as a lure
for younger readers. When they have read about enough (in my
opinion), I invite them to go a little higher. Whenever they come
to the office and look helplessly about, I immediately jump up
from my work, and, solving the personal equation, pick out two or
three books which I think adapted first to interest, and then
instruct. I try to welcome their appearance, assuring them that
the books are to be read, urging the older ones to read carefully
and with thought. Some I benefit; others are too firmly wedded to
their idols, Mrs. Holmes and Southworth. Finally, it is my aim to
send them away from school with their eyes opened to the fact
that they have, the majority, been reading to no purpose; that
there are better, higher, and nobler books than they ever dreamed
of. Of course I don't always accomplish this; but he who aims at
the sun will go higher than one aiming at the top of the barn."
A commission of sixteen ladies was appointed last year, by the
Connecticut Congregational Club, to select and print a catalogue
of books for Sunday Schools. During the year it has examined one
hundred and eighty-four, almost all reprints of well-known books,
and has selected one hundred. At least one annotated
Sunday-School catalogue was prepared before the appointment of
the commission, directing the attention of children to such books
as Tom Brown's School Days and Higginson's Young Folks' Book of
American Explorers, and of older readers to Stanley's Jewish
Church, Martineau's Household Education, Robertson's Sermons,
Sister Dora, Hypatia, Charles Kingsley's Life, and Atkinson's
Right Use of Books.
The conclusions to which these opinions, from libraries and
schools in ten different States, lead us, are these: 1. The
number of fathers and mothers who directly supervise their
children's reading, limiting their number of library books to
those which they themselves have read, and requiring a verbal or
written account of each before another is taken, is small.
2. The number of teachers who read and appreciate the best books,
or take pains to search in libraries for those which illustrate
lessons, or are good outside reading for the pupils, is also
small.
3. The high schools, normal schools, and colleges are every year
sending out young men and women with little knowledge of books
except text-books and poor novels.
4. In towns and cities with free libraries, much may be and has
been done by establishing direct communication between libraries
and schools, making schools branch libraries.
5. This can be done only by insisting that teachers in such towns
and cities shall know something of literature, and by refusing to
grant certificates to teachers who, in the course of an hour's
talk, do not show themselves well enough informed to guide
children to a love of good books. The classes now reading under
Mr. Metcalf's direction in Boston, or celebrating authors' days
and the founding of their own state in Cincinnati, will be, in a
few years, the teachers, the fathers, or the mothers of a new
generation, and the result of their reading may be expected to
appear in the awakened intelligence of their pupils and children.
6. Daily newspapers may be used with advantage in schools to
encourage children to read on current events and to verify
references.
7. Direct personal intercourse of librarians and assistants with
children is the surest way of gaining influence over them. Miss
Stevens, of Toledo, has put the secret of the whole matter, so
far as we are concerned, into four words: "Librarians should like
children." It may be added that a librarian or assistant in
charge of circulation should never be too busy to talk with
children and find out what they need. Bibliography and learning
of all kinds have their places in a library; but the counter
where children go needs no abstracted scholar, absorbed in first
editions or black-letter, but a winsome friend, to meet them more
than halfway, patiently answer their questions, "and by slow
degrees subdue them to the useful and the good."