In the following article, contributed to Public Libraries for
November, 1908, Mr. John Cotton Dana protests against the popular
idea of library story-telling and advocates instruction given to
teachers both in story- telling and in the use of books as a
better method "as to cost and results." John Cotton Dana was born
in Woodstock, Vermont, in 1856, received the degree of A.B. from
Dartmouth in 1878, and studied law in Woodstock from 1878 to
1880. He was a land surveyor in Colorado in 1880-1881, was
admitted to the New York bar in 1883, and spent 1886-1887 in
Colorado as a civil engineer. He was Librarian of the Denver
Public Library from 1889 to 1897; of the City Library,
Springfield, Mass., from 1898- 1902, and since 1902 has been
Librarian of the Free Public Library of Newark, N. J.
Story-telling to groups of young children is now popular among
librarians. The art is practiced chiefly by women. No doubt one
reason for its popularity is that it gives those who practice it
the pleasures of the teacher, the orator and the exhorter. It
must be a delight to have the opportunity to hold the attention
of a group of children; to see their eyes sparkle as the story
unwinds itself; to feel that you are giving the little people
high pleasure, and at the same time are improving their language,
their morals, their dramatic sense, their power of attention and
their knowledge of the world's literary masterpieces. Also, it is
pleasant to realize that you are keeping them off the streets;
are encouraging them to read good books; are storing their minds
with charming pictures of life and are making friends for your
library.
In explaining its popularity I have stated briefly the arguments
usually given in favor of library story-telling. There is another
side.
A library's funds are never sufficient for all the work that lies
before it. Consequently, the work a library elects to do is done
at the cost of certain other work it might have done. The library
always puts its funds, skill and energy upon those things which
it thinks are most important, that is, are most effective in the
long run, in educating the community. Now, the schools tell
stories to children, and it is obviously one of their proper
functions so to do at such times, to such an extent and to such
children as the persons in charge of the schools think wise. It
is probable that the schoolmen know better when and how to
include story-telling in their work with a given group of
children than do the librarians. If a library thinks it knows
about this subject more than do the schools, should it spend time
and money much needed for other things in trying to take up and
carry on the schools' work? It would seem not. Indeed, the
occasional story-telling which the one library of a town or city
can furnish is so slight a factor in the educational work of that
town or city as to make the library's pride over its work seem
very ludicrous.
If, now, the library by chance has on its staff a few altruistic,
emotional, dramatic and irrepressible child-lovers who do not
find ordinary library work gives sufficient opportunities for
altruistic indulgence, and if the library can spare them from
other work, let it set them at teaching the teachers the art of
story-telling.
Contrast, as to cost and results, the usual story-telling to
children with instruction in the same and allied arts to
teachers. The assistant entertains once or twice each week a
group of forty or fifty children. The children--accustomed to
schoolroom routine, hypnotized somewhat by the mob-spirit, and a
little by the place and occasion, ready to imitate on every
opportunity --listen with fair attention. They are perhaps
pleased with the subject matter of the tale, possibly by its
wording, and very probably by the voice and presence of the
narrator. They hear an old story, one of the many that help to
form the social cement of the nation in which they live. This is
of some slight value, though the story is only one of scores
which they hear or read in their early years at school. The story
has no special dramatic power in its sequence. As a story it is
of value almost solely because it is old. It has no special value
in its phrasing. It may have been put into artistic form by some
man of letters; but the children get it, not in that form, but as
retold by an inspired library assistant who has made no mark in
the world of letters by her manner of expression. The story has
no moral save as it is dragged in by main strength; usually, in
fact, and especially in the case of myths, the moral tone needs
apologies much more than it needs praise.
To prepare for this half hour of the relatively trivial
instruction of a few children in the higher life, the library
must secure a room and pay for its care, a room which if it be
obtained and used at all could be used for more profitable
purposes; and the performer must study her art and must, if she
is not a conceited duffer, prepare herself for her part for the
day at a very considerable cost of time and energy.
Now, if the teachers do not know the value of story-telling at
proper times and to children of proper years; if they do not
realize the strength of the influence for good that lies in the
speaking voice--though that this influence is relatively
over-rated in these days I am at a proper time prepared to
show--if they do not know about the interest children take in
legends, myths and fairy tales, and their value in strengthening
the social bond, then let the library assistants who do know
about such things hasten to tell them. I am assuming for purposes
of argument that the teachers do not know, and that library
assistants can tell them. I shall not attempt to say how the
library people will approach the teacher with their information
without offending them, except to remark that tactful lines of
approach can be found; and to remark, further, that by setting up
a story-hour in her library a librarian does not very tactfully
convey to the teachers the intimation that they either do not
know their work or willfully neglect it.
With this same labor of preparation, in the room used to talk 30
minutes to a handful of children, the librarian could far better
address a group of teachers on the use of books in libraries and
schoolrooms. Librarians have long contended that teachers are
deficient in bookishness; and it is quite possible that they are.
Their preparation in normal schools compels them to give more
attention to method than to subject matter. They have lacked
incentive and opportunity to become familiar with books, outside
of the prescribed text-books and supplementary readers. They do
not know the literature of and for childhood, and not having
learned to use books in general for delight and utility
themselves they cannot impart the art to their pupils. As I have
said, librarians contend that this is true, yet many of them with
opportunities to instruct teachers in these matters lying unused
before them, neglect them and coolly step in to usurp one of the
school's functions and rebuke the teacher's shortcomings.
This is not all. A library gives of its time, money and energy to
instruct 40 children--and there it ends. If, on the other hand,
it instructs 40 teachers, those 40 carry the instruction to 40
class rooms and impart knowledge of the library, of the use of
books, of the literature for children and--if need be--of the art
of story-telling, to 1,600 or 2,000 children. There seems no
question here as to which of these two forms of educational
activity is for librarians better worth while.