A conception of the meaning and the possibilities of children's
work interpreted by means of present day social and industrial
conditions is given by Henry E. Legler, librarian of the Chicago
Public Library, in a paper on "Library work with children," read
at the Pasadena Conference of the A L. A. in 1911. Henry Eduard
Legler was born in Palermo, Italy, June 22, 1861. He was educated
in Switzerland and the United States. In 1889 he was a member of
the Wisconsin Assembly; from 1890 to 1894 secretary of the
Milwaukee School Board; from 1904 to 1909 secretary of the
Wisconsin Library Commission, and since 1909 has been librarian
of the Chicago Public Library. In 1912-1913 Mr. Legler was
President of the A. L. A.
Not long since a man of genius took a lump of formless clay, and
beneath the cunning of his hand there grew a great symbol of
life. He called it Earthbound. An old man is bowed beneath the
sorrow of the world. Under the weight of burdens that seemingly
they cannot escape, a younger man and his faithful mate stagger
with bent forms. Between them is a little child. Instead of a
body supple and straight and instinct with freedom and vigor, the
child's body yields to the weight of heredity and environment,
whose crushing influence press the shoulders down.
In this striking group the artist pictures for us the world-old
story of conditions which meet the young lives of one generation,
and are transmitted to the next. It is a picture that was true a
thousand years ago; it is a picture that is faithful of
conditions today. Perhaps its modern guise might be more aptly
and perhaps no less strikingly shown, as it recently appeared in
the form of a cartoon illustrating Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett
Browning's verse: