The second paper at the Minnetonka sectional meeting, mentioned
in the introduction to the preceding article, was presented by
Dr. Graham Taylor, Director of the Chicago School of Civics and
Philanthropy, who believes that "equally with the schools and
playgrounds, our library centers are essential to American
democracy." Dr. Taylor was born in Schenectady, N. Y., in 1851;
received the degree of A.B. from Rutgers College in 1870, and was
graduated from the Reformed Theological Seminary, New Brunswick,
N. J., in 1873. He has since been granted the honorary degrees of
D.D. and LL.D. From 1873 to 1892 he remained in the pastorale;
from 1888 to 1892 was Professor of Practical Theology in Hartford
Theological Seminary, and in 1892 became Professor of Social
Economics in the Chicago Theological Seminary. In 1894 he became
the founder and resident warden of the Chicago Commons Social
Settlement. Dr. Taylor is associate editor of the Survey.
The child is coming to be as much of a civic problem as it ever
has been a family problem. Upon the normality of its children the
strength and perpetuity of the state depend, as surely as the
dependency and delinquency of its children undermine the prowess
and menace the life of the state. The education and discipline,
labor and recreation of the child figure larger all the while in
our legislation and taxes, our thinking and literature.
Democracy, machine industry, immigration and child psychology
combine to make the child a new problem to the modern state and
city, especially in America. With the problems of the child's
normality and defectiveness, discipline and delinquency, work and
play, and its assimilation into the body politic, our towns and
cities, states and nation have been forced to deal. Hitherto we
have dealt far more with the negative and repressive aspects of
these problems than with any constructive ideal, purpose and
method respecting them. We have, for instance, paid more
attention to defective children than to the prenatal antecedents
and early conditions of child life. We have been too long
punishing juvenile delinquency without trying to help the
backward and wayward child. We have let young children work
without regard to the industrial efficiency of their whole life.
We are only beginning to share the attention we have paid to the
education of our children with the equally serious problem of
their recreation. We have been content merely with their physical
exercise and have been stupidly obtuse to awaking and satisfying
the pleasurable interest of the child in his play and the
organization of it. Where there have been an un-American fear of
immigration and feeling against the immigrant there has been all
too little effort put forth to assimilate the foreign elements of
our local population.
But we are coming to see that to prepossess is better than to
dispossess. Prevention is found to be a surer and cheaper solvent
of our child problems than punishment. The child's own resources
for self development and self mastery prove to be greater than
all the repressive measures to obtain and maintain our control
over him. Thus our very disciplinary measures have become saner
and more effective. No way-mark of our civilization registers
greater progress than our abandonment of the criminal procedure
against children and our adoption of the paternal spirit and
method of our juvenile courts and reformatory measures. To our
agencies for dealing with defectives and delinquents we have
added the kindergarten and all the kindred principles, methods
and instrumentalities of constructive work with children.
Chief among these is the use we are making of the child's
instinct for play and mental diversion as a means of building up
both the individual and the social life. Chicago has made the
discovery of the civic value of recreation centers for the play
of the people. Not since old Rome's circus maximus and the
Olympic games of Greece has any city made such provision for the
recreation of its people as is to be found in these great
playfields, surrounding the beautifully designed and well
equipped field houses, which at a cost of $12,000,000 of the tax
payers' money have been built in the most crowded districts of
Chicago. The recreation centers illustrate the civic opportunity
and value of library work with children. For the Chicago public
library was quick to see and seize the advantage thus offered to
serve the city. The delivery stations and reading rooms
established in these field houses are already recognized to be
the most useful of its centers to the child life of the city. The
organized volunteer cooperation of several groups of women has
added the story hour as a regular feature of the library work at
these playgrounds, and at two public school buildings where
similar stations are to be established in cooperation with the
Board of education. At the central library building the work in
the Thomas Hughes Young people's reading room has also been
successfully supplemented by the story hour appointments in a
large hall, with the same efficient cooperation.
The quick and large response given by the people to these civic
extensions of library service in every city and town where they
have been offered, demonstrates what a large field of usefulness
awaits public library enterprise and occupancy. But the
experiment has gone far enough to prove the absolute necessity of
having librarians especially trained for work with children; and
to that end, the addition of the position of children's librarian
to the classified civil service lists for which special
examinations are set.
Equally with the schools and playgrounds, our library centers are
essential to American democracy. All three are to be classed
together as our most democratic and efficient agencies for
training our people into their citizenship and assimilating them
into the American body politic. Nowhere are we on a more common
footing of an equality of opportunity than in the public schools,
the public playground and the public library.
The public school stands upon that bit of mother earth which
belongs equally to us all. The playground is open alike to all
comers. And the public library is not only as free and open to
all as to any of our whole people, but also confers citizenship
in that time-long, world wide democracy of the Republic of
Letters.
The civic service thus democratically to be rendered by library
work with children is indispensably valuable. It may be made more
and more invaluable to any community by intelligent insight into
the needs of the people, and by the practical and prompt
application of library resources which are limited only by our
capacity, enterprise and energy to develop and apply them.
ESTABLISHING RELATIONS BETWEEN THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY AND OTHER
CIVIC AGENCIES
A broader idea of library work with children necessitates greater
knowledge of other agencies which work with them and a spirit of
willing cooperation on the part of the children's librarian. From
her experience in the city of Washington Miss Herbert contributed
the following article of The Library Journal. Clara Wells Herbert
was born in Stockbridge, Mass.; was a student in Vassar from 1894
to 1896; received a special certificate from the Training School
for Children's Librarians in 1904; was children's librarian in
the Brooklyn Public Library from 1904 to 1907, and since that
time has been the head of the Children's department in the Public
Library of the District of Columbia.
The children's departments of many city libraries are carrying on
a fine aggressive work and through branch children's rooms, close
work with schools, including deposits of books in classrooms,
deposits of books and story-telling in playgrounds, home
libraries and home visiting, are coming close to the children and
putting good books within their reach. Such work rests upon a
large staff and a generous appropriation. On the other hand, the
small town library has the advantage of informal relations with
its people and is a part of the various activities of the town.
Between these two types of libraries is a third. It is located in
a city too large for the helpful informal relations of the town
library. It cannot, on the other hand, carry on its own
aggressive work, for it is hampered by the smallness of its staff
and the meagerness of its appropriation.
To libraries of this sort the effecting of cordial relations with
other civic institutions is of the utmost importance. Upon it
depends largely the outside work of the library and a specialized
knowledge of conditions very essential for intelligent work.
Nor is the library the only one to profit by cooperation.
"I never thought of asking for help there," said a probation
officer recently when talking of her difficulties in keeping a
record of the use of the withdrawn books given to the court by
the library. Not more than we need the benefit of the intimate
personal knowledge of conditions of such workers, do they often
need the help the library stands ready and eager to give but
which they do not think to ask.
The work of the children's department should be then twofold in
purpose--to reach the children directly as far as possible, and
to establish such relations with other organizations as will
render it a vital interested force in the community, a place
where people will naturally turn for help along the line of its
work.
Certain practices which have been found useful in effecting this
cooperation may be suggestive, but the basis of any satisfactory
relationship is interest and the desire to help and has its
beginnings in the children's room.
The children's librarian should keep always in mind that the city
is full of workers who, strong in the belief that the hope of the
future is in the children, are doing devoted work in their
behalf. Sooner or later they will visit the children's room and
the opportunity presents itself to know their particular line of
work. It is interesting to note in how many of such cases the
conversation contains something which may be applied with
advantage to the library's activities. At least, the visitor
receives the impression that the library assistant is interested
in any work done for children and, if at some future time a need
presents itself, turns to her for assistance.
This interest is also shown if the children's librarians attend
meetings or conferences held in behalf of children or from which
they may gather information on home conditions. Frequently there
are courses of lectures given by charity organizations or club
meetings of sociological workers where the problems of the city
are discussed.
Libraries having staff or apprentice meetings frequently invite
as speakers persons representing some particular phase of work,
and these occasions engender mutual interest. In other cases
librarians have added to their staffs former kindergartners and
charity workers that they might profit by their special training
and the knowledge of conditions gathered from their former
experiences.
Much may be said of the undesirability of distributing withdrawn
books among institutions. But in libraries where the maintenance
of travelling collections is limited they afford perhaps the only
opportunity of reaching the children in orphanages, reform
schools and similar institutions. Such distributions should be
followed by visits to the institutions to talk, if possible, to
the children and to get an idea of their needs and tastes.
Collections of withdrawn books at the juvenile court are used by
the children while on probation and often after release, and by
the grown people of their families as well. In Cleveland the list
of official parents and paroled boys is furnished the library and
booklists and information about the nearest branch are sent them.
In Washington the library supplies the probation officers with
application blanks. When a child who has shown a taste for
reading is to be discharged the officer on the last visit to his
home takes the application blank and secures the parent's
signature. The child brings the application to the library,
obtains cards immediately and is helped in his selection of
books.
The attendance or truant officers of the schools know home
conditions better than teachers. They have a general knowledge of
the city and the peculiarities of the different sections that is
most helpful in the selection of places for home libraries or
deposit stations. Their knowledge of the home life of troublesome
children will often throw light on difficult cases of discipline.
In Washington the attendance officer issues permits under the
child labor law. From this office may be secured a list of stores
and other places of employment for children. The library should
send notices to such buildings and place at the office
invitations to use the library to be distributed at the time the
permits for work are issued.
The Cleveland Public Library uses for a mailing list for
publications pertaining to children's work a card directory of
social workers. This directory gives the name, address and
connection of each individual and includes board members of set-
tlement houses, associated charities, visiting nurses'
associations, pastors and their assistants, of churches
conducting club work, and others similarly engaged. In some
cities this same information may be gathered from the published
directory of philanthropic agencies and their reports. Lists such
as those published by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh,
"Stories to tell to children," "Books for reading circles,"
"Games," or lists made especially in connection with the
activities of a settlement, playground, etc., mailed to its club
workers attract them to the library.
Rainy days when the hours drag and the children cannot be out of
doors are good times to visit summer camps and vacation homes.
There may be an opportunity to tell stories or for a talk to the
children which, when their vacation is over, they are glad to
remember.
There are two special collections which it is well for the
children's department to have--one for the children and one for
grown people.
It should follow Newark's notable example in putting into form,
adapted for children's use, all the information regarding the
city, its institutions, historic spots, etc. The collection of
such material informs the assistants, attracts the cooperation of
those from whom the information is sought and by acquainting the
child with the manifold features of the life of the city, helps
to prepare him for intelligent citizenship.
It should collect, also, all material relative to the children of
the city. It should have reports of settlements, institutions,
summer camps and homes, day nurseries, work with foreigners,
mounted maps of the location of schools and playgrounds, copies
of the child labor law, compulsory education act, in fact, any
information obtainable about the conditions of the child life of
the city. Such material will draw interested people to the
library and thus open up opportunities for further cooperation.
Such are a few of the many ways in which the children's room may
be tied to other organizations working for children. Under the
varied conditions of different cities they develop indefinitely.
Only a few could be mentioned here. Even the work with schools
and playgrounds, the importance of which is generally
established, has not been included. As these relations grow
closer and closer the library's work broadens and deepens and the
realization that all are workers in a common cause brings
encouragement and inspiration for the daily task.