One day, not long ago, a neighbor of Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson,
of honored memory, was talking to me about him. Among the score of
charming anecdotes of the dear Colonel that she told me, there was one,
the most delightful of all, that related to the time-worn subject of the
child in the library. "As a family, we were readers," she said. "The
importance of reading had been impressed upon our minds from our
earliest youth. All of us liked to read, excepting one sister, younger
than I. She cared little for it; and she seldom did it. I was a mere
child, but so earnestly had I always been told that children who did not
read would grow up ignorant that I worried greatly over my sister who
would not read. At last I unburdened my troubled mind to Colonel
Higginson. 'She doesn't like to read; she doesn't read,' I confided. 'I
am afraid she will grow up ignorant; and then she will be ashamed! And
think how we shall feel!' The Colonel considered my words in silence for
a time. Then he said: 'There is a large and finely selected library in
your house; don't be disturbed regarding your sister, my dear. She will
not grow up ignorant. You see, she is exposed to books! She is certain
to get something of what is in them!'"
Colonel Higginson's neighbor went on to say that from that day she was
no longer haunted by the fear that her sister, because she did not read,
would grow up ignorant. Are many of us in that same condition of feeling
with respect to the children of our acquaintance, even after we have
provided them with as excellent a library as had that other child in
which they may be "exposed to books"? On the contrary, so solicitous are
we that, having furnished to the best of our knowledge the best books,
we do not rest until we are reasonably sure that the children are, not
simply getting something from them, but getting it at the right times
and in the right ways. And everything and every one conspires to help
us. Publishers issue volumes by the dozen with such titles as "The
Children's Reading" and "A Guide to Good Reading" and "Golden Books for
Children." The librarian of the "children's room" in many a library sets
apart a certain hour of each week or each month for the purpose of
telling the children stories from the books that we are all agreed the
children should read, hoping by this means to inspire the boys and girls
to read the particular books for themselves. No effort is regarded as
too great if, through it, the children seem likely to acquire the habit
of using books; using them for work, and using them for recreation.
Certainly our labors in this direction on behalf of the children are
amply rewarded. Not only are American children of the present time fond
of reading--most children of other times have been that; they have a
quite remarkable skill and ease in the use of books.
A short while ago, spending a spring week-end with a friend who lives in
the country, I chanced to see a brilliant scarlet bird which neither my
hostess nor I could identify. "It was a redbird, I suppose," I said, in
mentioning it later to a city acquaintance.
"What _is_ a redbird?" she asked. "Is it a cardinal, or a tanager, or
something still different?"
"I don't know," I replied. "Perhaps," I added, turning to her little
girl often who was in the room, "_you_ know; children learn so much
about birds in their 'nature study.'"
"No," the child answered; "but," she supplemented confidently, "I can
find out."
Several days afterward she came to call. "Do you remember _exactly_ the
way that red bird you saw in the country looked?" she inquired, almost
as soon as we met.
"Just red, I think," I said.
"Not with black wings?" she suggested.
"I hardly think so," I answered.
"P'aps it had a few _white_ feathers in its wings?" she hinted.
"I believe not," I said.
"Then," she observed, with an air of finality, "it was a cardinal
grosbeak; and the other name for that _is_ redbird; so you saw a
redbird. The scarlet tanager is red, too, but it has black wings, and it
isn't called a redbird; and the crossbill is red, with a few _white_
feathers, and _it_ isn't called a redbird either. Only the cardinal
grosbeak is. That was what you saw," she repeated.
"And who told you all this?" I queried.
"Nobody," the little girl made reply. "I looked it up in the library."
She was only ten. "How did you look it up?" I found myself asking.
"First," she explained, "I picked out the birds on the bird charts that
were red. The charts told their names. Then I got out a bird book, and
looked till I found where it told about those birds."
"Do you look up many things in the library?" I questioned.
"Oh, yes," the child replied.
"And do you always find them?" I continued.
"Not always by myself," she confessed. "Everything isn't as easy to look
up as birds. But when I can't, there is always the librarian, and she
helps; and when she is helping, 'most _anything_ gets found!"
The public library of my small friend's city, not being the library I
habitually used, was only slightly familiar to me. Not long after I had
been so earnestly assured that the scarlet bird I had seen was a
redbird, I made occasion to go to the library in which the information
had been gathered. It was such a public library as may be seen in very
nearly every small city in the United States. Built of stone; lighted
and heated according to the most approved modern methods; divided into
"stack-rooms" and "reading-rooms" and "receiving-rooms"--it was that
"typical American library" of which we are, as we should be, so proud. I
did not ask to be directed to the "children's room"; I simply followed a
group of children who had come into the building with me.
The "children's room," too, was "typical." It was a large, sunny place,
furnished with low bookcases, small tables, and chairs. Around two
walls, above the shelves, were pictures of famous authors, and
celebrated scenes likely to be known to children. At one end of the room
the bird charts of which I had so interestingly heard were posted,
together with flower charts and animal charts, of which I had not been
told. At the other end was the desk of the librarian, who so helped
young investigators that, when she helped, _anything_ got found.
I seated myself at the little table nearest her desk. She smiled, but
she said nothing. Neither did I say anything. The time of day was just
after school; the librarian was too much occupied to talk to a stray
visitor. I remained for fully an hour; and during that hour a steady
stream of children passed in and out of the room. Some of them selected
books, and, having obtained them, departed; others stayed to read, and
others walked softly about, examining the pictures and charts. All of
them, whatever their various reasons for coming to the library, began or
ended their visits in conference with the librarian. They spoke just
above a whisper, as befitted the place, but I was near enough to hear
all that was said.
"We want to give a play at school the last day before Christmas
vacation," said one small girl; "is there a good one here?"
The librarian promptly recommended and put into the child's hands a
little volume entitled "Fairy Tales a Child Can Read and Act."
A boy, entering rather hurriedly, asked, "Could I have a book that tells
how to make a wireless set--and have it quick, so I can begin to-day
before dark?"
It was not a moment before the librarian found for him a book called
"Wireless Telegraphy for Amateurs and Students."
Another boy, less on pleasure bent, petitioned for a "book about Abraham
Lincoln that will tell things to put in a composition on him." And a
girl, at whose school no Christmas play was apparently to be given,
asked for "a piece of poetry to say at school just before Christmas."
For these two, as for all who preceded or followed them, the librarian
had help.
"How wonderful, how unique!" exclaimed an Italian friend to whom I
related the experiences of that afternoon hour in the "children's room"
in the library of that small city.
But it seems to me that the wonderful thing about it is that it is not
unique; that in almost any "children's room" in almost any public
library in America practically the same condition prevails. Not only are
"children's rooms" of a very fine order to be found in great numbers;
but children's librarians, as sympathetic and as capable as the
librarian of my small friend's library, in as great numbers, are in
charge of those rooms. So recognized a profession has theirs come to be
that, connected with one of the most prominent libraries in the country,
there is a "School for Children's Librarians."
The "children's librarians" do not stop at assisting them in choosing
books. The story hour has come to be as important in the "children's
rooms" as it is now in the school, as it has always been in the home.
Telling stories to children has grown to be an art; there is more than
one text-book laying down its "principles and laws." Many a librarian is
also an accomplished story-teller, and in an increasing number of
libraries there is a story hour in the "children's rooms." Beyond
question, we in America have taken every care that our public libraries
shall mean something more to the boys and girls than places in which
they are merely "exposed to books."
American children read; it is doubtful whether any other children in the
world read so much or so intelligently. In our public libraries we plan
with such completeness for their reading that they can scarcely escape
becoming readers! At home we keep constantly in mind the great
importance of inculcating in them a love of books and a wontedness in
their use. To so many of their questionings we reply by advising, "Get a
book about it from the library." So many of the fundamental lessons of
life we first bring to their attention by putting into their hands books
treating of those lessons written by experts--written, moreover,
expressly for parents to give to their boys and girls to read.
A few days ago I received a letter from a mother saying: "Do you know of
a book on hygiene that I can give to my children to read--a book on that
subject _for_ children?"
Within reach of my hand I had such a book, entitled "The Child's Day," a
simply, but scientifically, written little volume, telling children what
to do from the hour of rising until the hour of retiring, in order to
keep well and strong, able to do good work at school, and to enjoy as
good play after school. It was a book that a child not only could read
with profit, but would read with pleasure.
At about the same time a father said to me: "Is there any book written
for children about good citizenship--a sort of primer of civics, I mean?
I require something of that kind for my boy."
A book to meet that particular need, too, was on my book-shelves.
"Lessons for Junior Citizens," it is called. In the clearest, and also
the most charming, form it tells the boys and girls about the
government, national and local, of their country, and teaches them their
relation to that government.
It is safe to say that there is practically no subject so mature that it
is not now the theme of a book, or a score of books, written especially
for children. Every one of the numerous publishing houses in the United
States issues yearly as many good volumes of this particular type as are
submitted. A century ago a new writer was most likely to win the
interest of a publisher by sending him a manuscript subtitled, "A
Novel." At the present time a beginner can more quickly awaken the
interest of a publisher by submitting a manuscript the title of which
contains the words, "For Children."
"Authors' editions" of books we have long had offered us by publishers;
"_éditions de luxe_" too; and "limited editions of fifty copies, each
copy numbered." These are all old in the world of books. What is new,
indeed, is the "children's edition." We have it in many shapes, from
"Dickens for Children" to "The Children's Longfellow." These volumes
find their way into the "children's rooms" of all our public libraries;
and, quite as surely, they help to fill the "children's bookcases" in
the private libraries to be found in a large proportion of American
homes. For no public library can take the place in the lives of the
children of a private library made up of their "very own" books. The
public library may, however, often have a predominant share in
determining the selection of those "very own" books. The children wish
to possess such books as they have read in the "children's room."
Sometimes a child has still another similar reason for wishing to own a
certain book. Only the other day I had a letter from a boy to whom I had
sent a copy of "The Story of a Bad Boy." "I am glad to have it," he
said. "The library has it, and father has it. I like to have what the
library and father have."
Parents buy books for their children in very much the proportions that
parents bought them before the land was dotted with public libraries.
Indeed, they buy books in larger proportions, for the reason that there
are so many more books to be bought! The problem of the modern father or
mother is not, as it once was, to discover a volume likely to interest
the children; but, from among the countless volumes offered for sale,
all certain to interest the children, to choose one, two, or three that
seem most excellent where all are so good. A mother of a few generations
ago whose small boy was eager to read tales of chivalry simply gave him
"Le Morte D'Arthur"; there was no "children's edition" of it, no "Boy's
King Arthur," no "Tales of the Round Table." The father whose little
girl desired to read for herself the stories of Greece he had told her
put into her hands Bulfinch's "Age of Fable"; he could not, as can
fathers to-day, give her Kingsley's rendering, or Hawthorne's, or Miss
Josephine Preston Peabody's. Like the father of Aurora Leigh,--
"He wrapt his little daughter in his large
Man's doublet, careless did it fit or no."
At the present time we do not often see a child wrapped in a large man's
doublet of a book; even more seldom do we see a father careless if it
fit or no. What we plainly behold is that doublet, cut down, and most
painstakingly fitted to the child's little mind.
Unquestionably the children lose something by this. The great books of
the world do not lend themselves well to making over. "Tales from
Shakespeare" are apt to leave out Shakespeare's genius, and "Stories
from Homer" are not Homer. In cutting the doublet to fit, the most
precious part of the fabric is in danger of being sacrificed.
But whatever the children lose when they are small, they find again when
they come to a larger growth. Most significant of all, when they find
it, they recognize it. A little girl who is a friend of mine had read
Lambs' "Tales." The book had been given to her when she was eight years
old. She is nine now. One day, not long ago, she was lingering before my
bookcases, taking out and glancing through various volumes. Suddenly she
came running to me, a copy of "As You Like It" in her hand. "This story
is in one of my books!" she cried.
"Yes," I said; "your book was written from this book, and some of those
other little red books there with it in the bookcase."
The child went back to the bookcase. She took down all the other volumes
of Shakespeare, and, sitting on the rug with them, she spent an utterly
absorbed hour in turning over their leaves. Finally she scrambled to her
feet and set the books back in their places. "I've found which stories
in these books are in my book, too," she remarked. "Mine are easier to
read," she added; "but yours have lovely talk in them!"
Had she not read Lambs' "Tales" at eight I am not certain she would have
ventured into the wide realms of Shakespeare at nine, and tarried there
long enough to discover that in those realms there is "lovely talk."
Occasionally, to be sure, the children insist upon books being easy to
read, and refuse to find "lovely talk" in them if they are not. It was
only a short time ago that I read to a little boy Browning's "Pied Piper
of Hamelin." When I had finished there was a silence. "Do you like it?"
I inquired.
"Ye-es," replied my small friend; "it's a nice story, but it's nicer in
my book than in yours. I'll bring it next time I come, so you can read
it."
He did. The story was told in prose. It began, "There was once a town,
named Hamelin, and there were so many rats in it that the people did not
know what to do." Certainly this is "easier to read" than the forty-two
lines which the poem uses to make an identical statement regarding the
town named Hamelin. My little friend is only six. I hope that by the
time he is twelve he will think the poem is as "nice" as, if not "nicer"
than, the story in his book. At least he may be impelled by the memory
of his pleasure in his book to turn to my book and compare the two
versions of the tale.
The children of to-day, like the children of former days, read because
they find in books such stuff as dreams are made of; and, in common with
the children of all times, they must needs make dreams. Like the boys
and girls of most eras, they desire to make also other, more temporal,
things. To aid them in this there are books in quantities and of
qualities not even imagined by the children of a few generations ago.
The book the title of which begins with the words "How to Make" is
perhaps the most distinctive product of the present-day publishing
house. No other type of book can so effectively win to a love for
reading a child who seems indifferent to books; who, as a boy friend of
mine used to say, "would rather hammer in nails than read." The "How to
Make" books tell such a boy how to hammer in nails to some purpose. I
happened to see recently a volume called "Boys' Make-at-Home Things."
With much curiosity I turned its pages,--pages illustrated with pictures
of the make-at-home things of the title,--glancing at directions for
constructing a weather-vane, a tent, a sled, and a multitude of smaller
articles. I thought of my boyfriend. "Do you think he would care to have
the book?" I inquired of his mother over the telephone.
"Well, I _wish_ he would care to have _any_ book!" she replied. "If you
want to _try_ this one--" She left the sentence unfinished, unless a
sigh may be regarded as a conclusion.
I did try the book. "This will tell you how to have fun with your
tools," I wrote, when I sent it to the boy.
Except for a laconic note of thanks, I heard nothing from my young
friend about the book. One day last week I chanced to see his mother.
"What do you think I am doing this afternoon?" she said. "I am getting a
_book_ for my son, at his own request! He is engrossed in that book you
sent him. He is making some of the things described in it. But he wants
to make something _not_ mentioned in it, and he actually asked me to see
if I could find a book that told how!"
"So he likes books better now?" I commented.
"Well--I asked him if he did," said the boy's mother; "and he said he
didn't like '_booky_' books any better, but he liked this kind, and
always would have, if he'd known about them!"
Whether my boy friend will learn early to love "booky" books is a bit
doubtful perhaps; certainly, however, he has found a companion in one
kind of book. He has made the discovery quickly, too; for he has had
"Boys' Make-at-Home Things" less than a month.
It was an easy matter for that boy's mother to get for her son the
particular book he desired. She lives in a city; at least three large
public libraries are open to her. As for book-shops, there are more
within her reach than she could possibly visit in the course of a week,
much less in an afternoon.
The mothers who live in the country cannot so conveniently secure the
books their boys and girls may wish or need. I know one woman, the
mother of two boys, living in the country, who has to exercise
considerable ingenuity to provide her sons with books of the "How to
Make" kind. There is no public library within available distance of the
farmhouse which is her home, and she and her husband cannot afford to
buy many books for their children. The boys, moreover, like so great a
variety of books that, in order to please them, it is not necessary to
select a book that is not "booky." Their parents are lovers of great
literature. "I cannot bring myself to buy a book about how to make an
aeroplane, for instance," their mother said to me one day, "when there
are so many wonderful books they have not read, and would enjoy reading!
Since I must limit my purchase of books, I really think I ought to
choose only the _real_ books for the boys; and yet they want to make
things with their hands, like other boys, and there is no way to teach
them how except through books. My husband has no time for it, and there
is no one else to show them."
The next summer I went to spend a few days with my friend in the
country. The morning after my arrival her boys proposed to take me "over
the place." At the lower edge of the garden, to which we presently came,
there was a little brook. Across it was a bridge. It was plainly to be
seen that this bridge was the work of the boys. "How very nice it is!" I
remarked.
"We made it," the older of the boys instantly replied.
"Who showed you how?" I queried, wondering, as I spoke, if my friend
had, after all, changed her mind with respect to the selection of books
for her children, and chosen one "How to Make" volume.
"It told how in a book," the younger boy said; "a Latin book father
studied out of when he was a boy. There was a picture of the bridge; and
on the pages in the back of the book the way to make it was all written
out in English--father had done it when he was in school. It was a long
time before we could _quite_ see how to do it; but mother helped, and
the picture showed how, and father thought we could do it if we kept at
it. And it is really a good bridge--you can walk across on it."
When the boys and I returned to the house my friend greeted me with a
merry smile. As soon as we were alone she exclaimed, "I have _so_ wanted
to write to you about our bridge, patterned on Caesar's! But the boys
are so proud of it, they like to 'surprise' people with it--not because
it is like a bridge Caesar made, but because it is a bridge they have
made themselves!"
[Illustration: THE CHILDREN'S EDITION]
Another friend of mine, the mother of a little girl, has had a different
problem, centring around the necessity of books for children, to solve.
She, too, lives in the country, and her little girl is a pupil at the
neighboring district school. During a visit in the city home of a cousin
the small girl had been a spectator at the city child's "school play,"
which happened to consist of scenes from "A Midsummer-Night's Dream."
When she returned home, she wished to have such an entertainment in her
school. "Dearest," her mother said, "we have no books of plays children
could act."
"Couldn't we do the one they did at Cousin Rose's school?" was the next
query. "Papa says we have _that_."
"I am afraid not," her mother demurred. "Ask your teacher."
The child approached her teacher on the subject. "No," the teacher said
decisively. "'A Midsummer-Night's Dream' is too long and too hard. Read
it, and you'll see. But," she sagely added, "if you can find anything
that is suitable, and can persuade the other children to act in it, I
will help you all I can."
That evening, at home, the little girl read "A Midsummer-Night's Dream."
"Mamma," she suddenly cried, as she neared the end, "my teacher says
this is too long and too hard for us children to do. But we _could_ do
the play that the people _in it_ do--don't you think? It is _very_
short, and all the children will like it because it is about poor
Pyramus and Thisbe, that we have all read about in school. It isn't
_just_ the same as the way it was in the story we read; but it is about
them--and the wall, and the lion, and everything! Don't you think we
could do it? They did the fairy part when I saw it at Cousin Rose's
school, and not this at all. But couldn't _we_?"
"I did not like to discourage her," my friend said when she related the
tale to me. "_All_ the other children were willing and eager to do it,
so her teacher couldn't refuse, after what she had said, to help them. I
helped with the rehearsals, too, and I doubt if the teacher or I ever
laughed so much in all our lives as we did at that time--when there were
no children about! The children were so sweet and serious over their
play! They acted it as they would have acted a play on the subject of
Pyramus and Thisbe written especially for them. _They_ weren't funny.
No; they were perfectly lovely. What was so irresistibly comic, of
course, was the difference between their performance and one's
remembrance of regular performances of it--to say nothing of one's
thoughts as to what Shakespeare would have said about it. How those
children will laugh when they are grown up! They will have something to
laugh at that will last them a lifetime. But _poor_ Shakespeare!"
I did not echo these final words of my friend. For does not Shakespeare
rather particularly like to bless us with the laugh that lasts a
lifetime, even if--perhaps especially if--it be at our own expense?
Books are such integral parts of the lives of present-day children,
especially in America. Their elders appreciate, as possibly the grown-
ups of former times did not quite so fully appreciate, the importance of
books in the education of the boys and girls. It may even be that we
over-emphasize it a bit. We send the children to the book-shelves for
help in work and for assistance in play. In effect, we say to them,
"Read, that you may be able to mark, learn, and inwardly digest." It is
only natural that the boys and girls should read for a hundred reasons,
instead of for the one reason of an older day--the pursuit of happiness
in the mere reading itself. "How can you sit idly reading a book when
there are so many useful things you might be doing?" was the question
often put to the children of yesterday by their elders. To-day we feel
that the children can hardly do anything likely to prove more useful
than reading a book. Is not this because we have taught them, not only
to read, but to read for a diversity of reasons?
American children are so familiarly at home in the world of books, it
should not surprise us to find them occasionally taking rather a
practical, everyday view of some of the things read. A little girl
friend of mine chanced to begin her reading of Shakespeare during a
winter when her grown-up relatives were spending a large portion of
their leisure going to see stage representations of Shakespeare's plays.
She therefore heard considerable conversation about the plays, and about
the persons acting the chief rôles in them. It happened that "As You
Like It" was one of the comedies being acted. The little girl was
invited to go to see it. "Who is going to be Orlando?" she inquired; she
had listened to so much talk about who "was," or was "going to be," the
various persons in the several dramas!
"But," she objected, when she was informed, "I think I've heard you say
he is not very tall. Orlando was _such_ a tall man!"
"Was he?" I ventured, coming in at that moment. "I don't remember that
about him. Who told you he was tall?"
"Why, it is in the book!" she exclaimed.
Every one present besought her to mention where.
"Don't you remember?" she said incredulously. "He says Rosalind is just
as high as his heart; that wouldn't be _quite_ up to his shoulder. And
she says she is _more than common_ tall! So he must have been
_'specially_ tall. Don't you remember?" she asked again, looking
perplexedly at our blank faces.
There are so many bonds of understanding between American children of
the present time and their grown-up relatives and friends. Is not one of
the best of these that which has come out of our national impulse toward
giving the boys and girls the books we love, "cut small"; and showing
them how to read those books as we read the larger books from which they
are made? "What kinds of books do American children read?" foreigners
inquire. We are able to reply, "The same kinds that grown-up Americans
read." "And why do they read them?" may be the next question. Again we
can answer, "For much the same reasons that the grown-ups read them."
"How do they use the libraries?" might be the next query. Still we could
say, "As grown people use them." And if yet another query, "Why?" be
put, we might reply, "Because, unlike any other children in the world,
American children are almost as completely 'exposed to books' as are
their elders."