One of the first librarians to give to library work with children
a full appreciation of its possibilities in extension work was
Salome Cutler Fairchild. An address given by her on January 10,
1898, before the New York Library Association and the New York
Library Club on the development of the home library work in
Albany describes some modifications of Mr. Birtwell's plan, and
is especially interesting because it indicates the relation of
this method of extension work to the "new philanthropy."
Mary Salome Cutler was born in Dalton, Mass., in 1855, was
educated at Mt. Holyoke Seminary, and received the degree of
B.L.S. from the University of the State of New York in 1891. In
1897 she was married to the Rev. Edwin Milton Fairchild. From
1884 to 1889 she was cataloguer in the Columbia College Library
and Instructor in the Columbia College Library School. She became
Vice-Director of the New York State Library School in 1889 and
remained there until 1905. Since that time she has been a
lecturer on selection of books and American libraries. Mrs.
Fairchild was chairman of the committee in charge of the library
exhibit of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893
and was identified with the publication of the A. L. A. Catalog.
It is probable that some of the readers of the Journal are
unfamiliar with the idea of the home library. In a few words,
this is its motive and its plan: To help the children of the poor
in developing and ennobling their lives by giving them books and
a friend.
The home library idea was evolved, not by a librarian, but by Mr.
Charles W. Birtwell, secretary of the Children's Aid Society in
Boston, a very old non-sectarian society. It grew up in a most
natural way. He fell into the habit of lending books to poor
children of his acquaintance and of talking with them about the
books after they had been read. This took time, and the result
was organization. The children were formed into little groups,
books were bought systematically, and his friends were
interested to form regular visitors.
And so a home library involves a group of 10 poor children, a
library of 20 carefully selected books placed in the home of one
of the children and circulating among them all, a visitor, who
should be a person of rare wisdom and sympathy, who meets the
children once a week, talks over the books with them, and during
the hour gives them all possible help in any way she chooses.
Each group contains both boys and girls from eight to fifteen
years of age.
There are several groups of children and several little
libraries. Once in three or four months the libraries pass from
one group to another. The personal element supplied by the
visitor is quite as valuable as the influence of the books. It is
hard to tell just what the visitor does. It is perhaps simplest
to say that she is a friend to the children and that she studies
how to help them. That means a great deal. The plan is elastic
and each visitor chooses her own methods.
Doubtless many librarians listened to Mr. Charles Birtwell's
paper on home libraries at the Lake Placid conference, September,
1894, and are thoroughly familiar with the central thought and
its application in the parent libraries in Boston. To such I
would like to call attention to some modifications of the plan in
the Albany libraries, to a few new points which we have worked
out and old ones which we have emphasized.
It goes without saying that each book is read carefully by at
least one member of the selection committee with special
reference to the home libraries. It is not enough that a
competent judge has read it without having that in mind. We are
constantly tempted to give these readers books a little too old
for them. They enjoy books which children who have always been
familiar with books would be ready for three or four years
earlier.
Visitors should be prepared for disappointment in the quality of
the reading that is done. At the beginning of my work with the
children I was delighted with their enthusiasm over the books. To
be sure their choice was often determined by the attractiveness
of the cover or big type, or the bigness or littleness of the
book. I soon found that it was a rare thing for a child to read a
book through. They would often say with pride "I read 30 or 60
pages" and were unwilling to take the book again, though claiming
to like it. It is a slow process, but now after over two years
they read with much more enjoyment and thoroughness. It was a
long step ahead when the brightest child in the group began to
read the continued stories in the St. Nicholas and to watch
eagerly for the next number.
I wonder if these children are not in a way a type of the readers
in our larger libraries. We fondly hope that there will be an
immediate and hearty acceptance of the good things which we have
spread out with such lavish expenditure of our own life, later we
learn that even among the educated classes the genuine reading
habit is the heritage of the few and among the many must be the
result of a slow and steady growth.
I think we have improved on the Boston plan in dealing with the
magazines. They take nine different periodicals and break the
year up so that with one library of 15 books the children have
parts of five periodicals. We put 18 books in each library and
subscribe regularly for each group of children for St. Nicholas
and Youth's Companion. In some of the groups the children have
not cared for Youth's Companion. It has been given a fair trial
since July, 1894, and we have just substituted Harper's Round
Table as an experiment. Other groups, however, are devoted to the
Youth's Companion. St. Nicholas is a prime favorite with all.
We do not buy cheap editions. Grimm's "Fairy tales" is selected
in the tasteful Macmillan edition with illustrations by Walter
Crane. Hawthorne's "Wonderbook" is given to them in the exquisite
illustrated edition of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. We consider the
illustrations and the dainty covers a part of the educative value
of the book. We do not cover the books permanently, but give them
covers which slip on and off easily that they may use them at
their pleasure. A good deal of pride is developed in each group
of children in having the little library clean when it passes on
to the next group.
An effort is of course made to balance the libraries, putting in
each a volume of history, one of light travel, and a book about
animals like Mrs. Jackson's "Cat stories," "Buz," "Sparrow, the
tramp." Stories of course predominate. Fairy-tales are by all
odds the most popular and get the hardest wear. I have noticed
that this is also true in the children's travelling libraries
sent out by the New York state library. In one group of home
library children Grimm's "Household tales" was such a favorite,
and they called for it so persistently, that an extra copy was
bought for their benefit and is almost constantly in use. They
much prefer it to Andersen. The naming of the libraries and of
the groups of children is a new feature. Of our nine libraries
five are named for children. Any person, or number of persons,
giving $25 (the cost of a new library with its bookcase) is
entitled to name the library. The plan is a popular one and
several gifts of that sort have been received. In one case a
small framed picture of the child for whom the library is named
goes with it and the children seem to have a positive affection
for the picture.
The children choose for themselves some hero to give the name to
their club, or group. We have the Washington, the Columbus, the
Anthony Wayne, the Lincoln, and the Edison groups, and one more
recently formed, not yet named. It is a significant fact that the
children knew and admired Anthony Wayne because they read about
him in Coffin's "Boys of '76."
One beauty of the home libraries is the simplicity of the central
idea and the natural relations between the children and the
visitor. It is quite possible to combine with this much direct
educational work. Games are almost always used by the visitors.
The skilful visitor, who should have the spirit of the
kindergarten and might well have also her training, may develop
through the games attention, concentration, and courtesy,
qualities in which these children are especially lacking. It is
an interesting study to watch the development of the game of 20
questions; e.g. from a wandering, haphazard medley asked in a
slow and painful way by self-conscious children, to quick,
intelligent, carefully planned questions
To illustrate more specifically an attempt at educational work,
the Columbus group may be taken as an example.
There is a badge consisting of a bronze medal with the head of
Columbus, fastened with a knot of red, white, and blue ribbon.
The rule of the group is the rule of the majority; e.g., when
games are to be played a vote is taken and all are expected to
enter heartily into the one chosen by the majority. By constant
application of this plan and the discussion which it involves,
those children have come to understand pretty well the nature of
a vote. There is a child's life of Columbus and a scrap-book
containing pictures of him. The Columbus group are appropriately
discoverers, and as they have set out to find out everything
possible about their own city, once a month the group goes out
together for a long walk. They have visited the capitol,
geological hall, city hall, the Schulyer mansion, etc. Every week
10 minutes are spent in studying the city, the name and location
of the streets, the city buildings, the government of the city,
its history and antiquities, the cleanliness of the city, etc.
Many problems of city government which are taking the attention
of the best minds to-day can be studied in simple form here. And
this is real study. It is simple and elementary, but not
haphazard, and what they get is definite and organized. It is not
merely amusement, though they are interested and take hold
heartily. A simple statement of each lesson is duplicated and put
into the hands of the children. These will be combined into a
handbook useful for all children in the city and suggestive for
other cities. I hope that some line of study may be taken up by
the other groups, each visitor choosing that which she can best
develop. Light science would be attractive to some and of real
service to the children.
Music, always a powerful agent in the development of life, is
specially useful in this city because the music taught in the
public schools is purely technical. All the children have met on
Saturday afternoons in the kindergarten room of one of the public
schools to sing under the direction of a competent director of
music who loves children and takes genuine pleasure in the work.
This gives them a little repertoire of choice children's songs to
take the place of the street songs which was about all they knew
before, helps to soften their voices in speaking, and also serves
as an excuse for bringing together the children of the various
groups about once a month and making a little esprit de corps,
which is desirable. It is wonderful when they are inclined to be
boisterous and unmanageable in their games what a humanizing
influence a sudden call for one of these songs will produce.
It is proposed to circulate games suitable for playing at home,
also small framed pictures after the plan of the Milwaukee Public
Library. The books are often read by the parents and older
brothers and sisters. The games and pictures would help in like
manner to sweeten and ennoble the home life.
But why should you be interested in the home library and in
allied movements? Is it simply because they are an extension of
the book power to which you have pinned your faith? There is, I
think, a deeper reason. The movement known as the new
philanthropy is one of the strong factors in our civilization to-
day. The life of the community is the study of the man who serves
the public as librarian. Nothing which is an essential part of
that life is foreign to him. As distinguished from the old-
fashioned charity which relieved individual suffering without
regard to its effects on society, the new movement is
characterized by two tendencies:
1. A scientific study of the principles of philanthropy:
information before reformation.