And yet, while teachers tell us that the opening of every new library

witnesses a substitution of wholesome books for "yellow" novels in

pupils' hands; while men in their prime remark their infrequent sight

of the sensational periodicals left on every doorstep twenty years ago;

while publishers of children's books are trying to give us a clean,

safe juvenile literature, and while some nickel novel publishers are

even admitting a decline in the sale of their wares; in spite of these

evidences of success, a warfare is still on, though its character is

changing.

Every librarian who has examined children's books for a few years back

knows exactly what to expect when she tackles the "juveniles" of 1913.

There will be a generous number of books so fine in point of matter and

make-up that we shall lament having been born too late to read these

in our childhood. The information and the taste acquired by children

who have read the best juvenile publications of the past ten years is

perfectly amazing, and those extremists who decry the buying of any

books especially written for children are nearly as nonsensical as the

ones who would buy everything the child wishes.

But when one has selected with satisfaction perhaps a hundred and

fifty titles, one begins to get into the potboiler class--the

written-to-order information book which may be guaranteed to kill all

future interest in a subject treated in style so wooden and lifeless;

the retold classic in which every semblance to the spirit of the

original is lost, and the reading of which will give to the child

that familiarity which will breed contempt for the work itself; the

atrocious picture book modeled after the comic supplement and telling

in hideous daubs of color and caricature of line the tale of the

practical joker who torments animals, mocks at physical deformities,

plays tricks on parents, teases the newly-wed, ridicules good manners,

whose whole aim, in short, is to provoke guffaws of laughter at the

expense of someone's hurt body or spirit. There will be collections

of folk and fairy tales, raked together without discrimination from

the literature of people among whom trickery and cunning are the

most admired qualities; there will be school stories in which the

masters and studious boys grovel at the feet of the football hero; in

greater number than the above will be the stories written in series on

thoroughly up-to-date subjects.

I shall be much surprised if we do not learn this fall that the world

has been deceived in supposing that to Amundsen and Scott belong the

honor of finding the South Pole, or to Gen. Goethals the credit of

engineering the Panama Canal. If we do not discover that some young

Frank or Jack or Bill was the brains behind these achievements, I

shall wonder what has become of the ingenuity of the plotter of the

series stories--the "plotter" I say advisedly, for it is a known fact

that many of these stories are first outlined by a writer whose name

makes books sell, the outlines then being filled in by a company of

underlings who literally write to order. When we learn, also, that an

author who writes admirable stories, in which special emphasis is laid

upon fair play and a sense of honor, is at the same time writing under

another name books he is ashamed to acknowledge, we are not surprised

at the low grade of the resulting stories.

With the above extremes of good and poor there will be quantities on

the border line, books not distinctly harmful from one standpoint--in

fact, they will busily preach honesty and pluck and refinement, etc.,

but they will be so lacking in imagination and power, in the positive

qualities that go to make a fine book, that they cannot be called

wholly harmless, since that which crowds out a better thing is harmful,

at least to the extent that it usurps the room of the good.

These books we will be urged to buy in large duplicate, and when we,

holding to the ideal of the library as an educational force, refuse

to supply this intellectual pap, well-to-do parents may be counted

upon to present the same in quantities sufficient to weaken the mental

digestion of their offspring beyond cure by teachers the most gifted.

There are two principal arguments--so-called--hurled at every librarian

who tries to maintain a high standard of book selection. One is the "I

read them when I was a child and they did me no harm" claim; the other,

based upon the doggedly clung-to notion that our ideal of manhood is

a grown-up Fauntleroy, infers that every book rejected was offensive

to the children's librarian because of qualities dangerously likely to

encourage the boy in a taste for bloodshed and dirty hands.

Now, in this day when parents are frantically protecting their children

from the deadly house fly, the mosquito, the common drinking cup and

towel; when milk must be sterilized and water boiled and adenoids

removed; when the young father solemnly bows to the dictum that he

mustn't rock nor trot his own baby--isn't it really matter for the

joke column to hear the "did me no harm" idea advanced as an argument?

And yet it is so offered by the same individual who, though he has

survived a boyhood of mosquito bites and school drinking cups, refuses

to allow his child to risk what he now knows to be a possible carrier

of disease.

The "what was good enough for me is good enough for my children" idea,

if soberly treated as an argument in other matters of life, would

mean death to all progress, and it is no more to be treated seriously

as a reason for buying poor juvenile books than a contention for the

fetich doctor versus the modern surgeon, or for the return to the foot

messenger in place of electrical communication.

It would be tactless, if not positively dangerous, if we children's

librarians openly expressed our views when certain people point

boastfully to themselves as shining products of mediocre story book

childhoods. So I would hastily suppress this thought, and instead

remind these people that, as a vigorous child is immune from disease

germs which attack a delicate one, so unquestionably have thousands of

mental and moral weaklings been retarded from their best development

by books that left no mark on healthy children. In spite of the

probability that there are today alive many able-bodied men who cut

their first teeth on pickles and pork chops, we do not question

society's duty to disseminate proper ideas on the care and feeding of

children.

Isn't it about time that we nailed down the lid of the coffin on the

"did me no harm" argument and buried the same in the depths of the sea?

Another notion that dies hard is one assuming that, since the

children's librarian is a woman, prone to turn white about the gills

at the sight of blood--or a mouse--she can not possibly enter into

the feelings of the ancestral barbarian surviving in the young human

breast, but must try to hasten the child's development to twentieth

century civilization by eliminating the elemental and savage from his

story books.

If those who grow hoarse shouting the above would take the trouble to

examine the lists of an up-to-date library they might blush for their

shallowness, that they have been basing their opinions on their memory

of library lists at least twenty-five years old.

We do not believe that womanly women and manly men are most

successfully made by way of silly, shoddy, sorry-for-themselves

girlhoods, or lying, swaggering, loafing boyhoods; and it is the empty,

the vulgar, the cheap, smart, trust-to-luck story, rather than the

gory one, that we dislike.

I am coming to the statement of what I believe to be the problem most

demanding our study today. It is, briefly, the problem of the mediocre

book, its enormous and ever-increasing volume. More fully stated it is

the problem of the negatively as the enemy of the positively good; of

the cultivation of brain laziness by "thoughts-made-easy" reading. It

is a republic's, a public school problem, viz.: How is it possible to

raise to a higher average the lowest, without reducing to a dead level

of mediocrity the citizens of superior possibilities? Our relation to

publisher and parent, to the library's adult open shelves of current

fiction enter into the problem. The children's over-reading, and their

reluctance to "graduate" from juvenile books, these and many other

perplexing questions grow out of the main one.

I said awhile ago that the new education has had a tendency to make

life too soft for children, and to give to their parents the belief

that natural instincts alone are safe guides to follow in rearing a

child. I hope I shall not seem to be a good old times croaker, sighing

for the days when school gardens and folk dancing and glee clubs

and dramatization of lessons and beautiful textbooks and fascinating

handicraft and a hundred other delightful things were undreamed-of

ways of making pleasant the paths of learning. Heaven forbid that I

should join the ranks of those who carp at a body of citizens who,

at an average wage in America less than that of the coal miner and

the factory worker, have produced in their schools results little

short of the miraculous. To visit, as I have, classrooms of children

born in slums across the sea, transplanted to tenements in New York,

and to see what our public school teachers are making of these

children--the backward, the underfed, the "incorrigible," the blind,

the anæmic--well, all I can say is, I do not recommend these visits

to Americans of the stripe of that boastful citizen who, being shown

the crater of Vesuvius with a "There, you haven't anything like that

in America!" disdainfully replied, "Naw, but we've got Niagara, and

that'd put the whole blame thing out!" For myself I never feel quite so

disposed to brag of my Americanism as when I visit some of our New York

schools.

And yet, watching the bored shrug of the bright, well-born high school

child when one suggests that "The prince and the pauper" is quite

as interesting a story as the seventh volume of her latest series, a

librarian has some feelings about the lines-of-least-resistance method

of educating our youth, which she is glad to find voiced by some of our

ablest thinkers.

Here is what J. P. Munroe says: "Many of the new methods ... methods

of gentle cooing toward the child's inclinations, of timidly placing

a chair for him before a disordered banquet of heterogeneous studies,

may produce ladylike persons, but they will not produce men. And when

these modern methods go as far as to compel the teacher to divide this

intellectual cake and pudding into convenient morsels and to spoon-feed

them to the child, partly in obedience to his schoolboy cravings,

partly in conformity to a pedagogical psychology, then the result is

sure to be mental and moral dyspepsia in a race of milksops." How

aptly "spoon-fed pudding" characterizes whole cartloads of our current

"juveniles"!

Listen to President Wilson's opinion: "To be carried along by

somebody's suggestions from the time you begin until the time when you

are thrust groping and helpless into the world, is the very negation

of education. By the nursing process, by the coddling process you are

sapping a race; and only loss can possibly result except upon the part

of individuals here and there who are so intrinsically strong that you

cannot spoil them."

Hugo Münsterberg is a keen observer of the product of American schools,

and contrasting their methods with those of his boyhood he says:

"My school work was not adjusted to botany at nine years because I

played with an herbarium, and at twelve to physics because I indulged

in noises with home-made electric bells, and at fifteen to Arabic,

an elective which I miss still in several high schools, even in

Brookline and Roxbury. The more my friends and I wandered afield with

our little superficial interests and talents and passions, the more

was the straightforward earnestness of the school our blessing; and

all that beautified and enriched our youth, and gave to it freshness

and liveliness, would have turned out to be our ruin, if our elders

had taken it seriously, and had formed a life's program out of petty

caprices and boyish inclinations."

And Prof. Münsterberg thrusts his finger into what I believe to be the

weakest joint in our educational armor when he says: "... as there

is indeed a difference whether I ask what may best suit the taste and

liking of Peter, the darling, or whether I ask what Peter, the man,

will need for the battle of life in which nobody asks what he likes,

but where the question is how he is liked, and how he suits the taste

of his neighbors."

What would become of our civilization if we were to follow merely

the instincts and natural desires? Yet is there not in America a

tremendous tendency to the notion, that except in matters of physical

welfare, the child's lead is to be followed to extreme limits? Don't we

librarians feel it in the pressure brought to bear upon us by those who

fail to find certain stories, wanted by the children, on our shelves?

"Why, that's a good book," the parent will say, "The hero is honest and

kind, the book won't hurt him any--in fact it will give the child some

good ideas."

"Ideas." Yes, perhaps. There is another educator I should like to

quote, J. H. Baker in his "Education and life": "Whatever you would

wish the child to do and become, that let him practice. We learn to

do, not by knowing, but by knowing and then doing. Ethical teaching,

tales of heroic deeds, soul-stirring fiction that awakens sympathetic

emotions may accomplish but little unless in the child's early life ...

the ideas and feelings find expression in action and so become a part

of the child's power and tendency...."

Now we believe with G. Stanley Hall that, "The chief enemy of active

virtue in the world is not vice but laziness, languor and apathy of

will;" that "mind work is infinitely harder than physical toil;" that

(as another says) "all that does not rouse, does not set him to work,

rusts and taints him ... the disease of laziness ... destroys the whole

man."

And when children of good heritage, good homes, sound bodies, bright

minds, spend hours every week curled up among cushions, allowing a

stream of cambric-tea literature gently to trickle over their brain

surfaces, we know that though the heroes and heroines of these stories

be represented as prodigies of industry and vigor, our young swallowers

of the same are being reduced to a pulp of brain and will laziness that

will not only make them incapable of struggling with a page of Quentin

Durward, for example, but will affect their moral stamina, since

fighting fiber is the price of virtue.

Ours is, as I have said, a public education, a republic's problem.

To quote President Wilson again: "Our present plans for teaching

everybody involve certain unpleasant things quite inevitably. It is

obvious that you cannot have universal education without restricting

your teaching to such things as can be universally understood. It is

plain that you cannot impart 'university methods' to thousands, or

create 'investigators' by the score, unless you confine your university

education to matters which dull men can investigate, your laboratory

training to tasks which mere plodding diligence and submissive patience

can compass. Yet, if you do so limit and constrain what you teach, you

thrust taste and insight and delicacy of perception out of the schools,

exalt the obvious and merely useful things above the things which are

only imaginatively or spiritually conceived, make education an affair

of tasting and handling and smelling, and so create Philistia, that

country in which they speak of 'mere literature.'"

In our zeal to serve the little alien, descendant of generations of

poverty and ignorance, let us not lose sight of the importance to our

country of the child more fortunate in birth and brains. So strong is

my feeling on the value of leaders that I hold we should give at least

as much study to the training of the accelerate child as we give to

that of the defective. Though I boast the land of Abraham Lincoln and

Booker Washington I do not give up one iota of my belief that the child

who is born into a happy environment, of parents strong in body and

mind, holds the best possibilities of making a valuable citizen; and

so I am concerned that this child be not spoiled in the making by a

training or lack of training that fails to recognize his possibilities.

It is encouraging to find growing attention in the "Proceedings" of

the N. E. A. and other educational bodies to the problem of the bright

child who has suffered by the lock-step system which has molded all

into conformity with the capabilities of the average child.

The librarian's difficulty is perhaps greater than that of the

teacher, because open shelves and freedom of choice are so essential

a part of our program. We must provide easy reading for thousands of

children. Milk and water stories may have an actual value to children

whose unfavorable heritage and environment have retarded their

mental development. But the deplorable thing is to see young people,

mercifully saved from the above handicaps, making a bee line for the

current diluted literature for grown-ups, (as accessible as Scott on

our open shelves) and to realize that this taste, which is getting a

life set, is the inevitable outcome of the habit of reading mediocre

juveniles.

We must not rail at publishers for trying to meet the demands of

purchasers. Our job is to influence that demand far more than we have

done as yet. Large book jobbers tell us that millions and millions

of poor juveniles are sold in America to thousands of the sort we

librarians recommend. I have seen purchase lists of boys' club

directors and Sunday School library committees calling for just the

weak and empty stuff we would destroy. I have unwittingly been an

eavesdropper at Christmas book counters and have heard the orders

given by parents and the suggestions made by clerks. And I feel that

the public library has but skirmished along the outposts while the

great field of influencing the reading of American children remains

unconquered. Until we affect production to the extent that the book

stores circulate as good books as the best libraries we cannot be too

complacent about our position as a force in citizen making.

An "impossible" ideal, of course, but far from intimidating, the

largeness of the task makes us all the more determined.

This paper attempts no suggestion of new methods of attacking the

problem. It is rather a restatement of an old perplexity. I harp

once more on a worn theme because I think that unless we frequently

lift our eyes from the day's absorbing duties for a look over the

whole field, and unless we once and again make searching inventory

of our convictions, our purposes, our methods, our attainments, we

are in danger of letting ourselves slip along the groove of the

taken-for-granted and our work loses in power as we allow ourselves

to become leaners instead of leaders. May we not, as if it were a

new idea, rouse to the seriousness of the mediocre habit indulged in

by young people capable of better things? Should not our work with

children reach out more to work with adults, to those who buy and sell

and make books for the young? Is it not time for the successful teller

of stories to children to use her gifts in audiences of grown people,

persuading these molders of the children's future of the reasonableness

of our objection to the third rate since it is the enemy of the best?

May it not be politic, at least, for the librarian to descend from her

disdainful height and make friends with "the trade," with bookseller

and publisher who, after all, have as good a right to their bread and

butter as the librarian paid out of the city's taxes?

And then--is it not possible that we might be better librarians if

we refused to be librarians every hour in the day and half the night

as well? What if we were to have the courage to refuse to indulge

in nervous breakdowns, because we deliberately plan to play, and to

eat, and to sleep, to keep serene and sane and human, believing that

God in His Heaven gives His children a world of beauty to enjoy as

well as a work to do with zeal. If we lived a little longer and

not quite so wide, the gain to our chosen work in calm nerves and

breadth of interest and sympathy would even up for dropping work on

schedule time for a symphony concert or a country walk or a visit

with a friend--might even justify saving the cost of several A. L. A.

conferences toward a trip to Italy!

This hurling at librarians advice to play more and work less reminds

me of a story told by a southern friend. Years ago, in a sleepy

little Virginia village, there lived two characters familiar to the

townspeople, whose greatest daily excitement was a stroll down to the

railroad station to watch the noon express rush through to distant

southern cities. One of these personages was the station keeper, of dry

humor and sententious habit, whom we will call Hen Waters; the other

was the station goat, named, of course, Billy. Year after year had

Billy peacefully cropped the grass along the railroad tracks, turning

an indifferent ear to the roar of the daily express, when suddenly

one day the notion seemed to strike his goatish mind that this racket

had been quietly endured long enough. With the warning whistle of

the approaching engine, Billy, lowering his head, darted furiously

up the track, intending to butt the offending thunderer into Kingdom

Come. When, a few seconds later, the amazed spectators were gazing

after the diminishing train, Hen Waters, addressing the spot where the

redoubtable goat had last been seen, drawled out: "Billy, I admire your

pluck--but darn your discretion!"

The parallel between the ambitions and the futility of the goat,

and the present speaker's late advice is so obvious that only the

illogicalness of woman can account for my cherishing a hope that I may

be spared the fate of the indiscreet Billy.

Miss CAROLINE BURNITE, director of children's work, Cleveland public

library, delivered the second paper on this subject, presenting the

topic from another viewpoint.

VALUES IN LIBRARY WORK WITH CHILDREN--II

To elucidate principles of value, I shall use, by way of illustration,

the experience and structure of a certain children's department where

the problem of children's reading and the means of bringing books to

them has been more intensively studied in the last nine years than was

possible there before that time. At the time we took our last survey

of the department it was found that probably about six out of ten of

the children of the city read library books in their homes during the

calendar year, and that each child had read about twenty books on

the average. Four of the six procured library books from a library

center; two of the six procured them from collections, either in their

schoolrooms or in homes in their neighborhood. In all, fifty-four

thousand children read a million books, which reached them through

forty-three librarians assigned for special work with these children,

through three hundred teachers and about one hundred volunteers. Now,

we know that six out of ten children is not an ideal proportion and

that fifty-four thousand may endanger the quality of book influence

for each child, but both of these statements indicate conditions to be

adjusted so that the experience of each reading child may contribute

to the whole and experience with numbers may benefit the individual.

To accomplish this end, work with the children was given departmental

organization. My concern in this paper is with departmental

organization as it benefits the reading child, and with the principles

and policies which have been developed through departmental unity.

We think ordinarily that one who loves books has three general

hallmarks--his reading is fairly continuous, there is permanency of

book interest, and this interest maintained on a plane of merit. These

three results always justify the reader and those who have influenced

him, and if the consequent book interests of the library child were

entirely such, they would prove to all laymen, without argument, that

the principles are basic. But in the child's contact with the library

there are many evidences of modifications of normal book interests;

for, instead of continuity of reading, the children's rooms are

overcrowded in winter and have comparatively small book use in summer;

instead of permanency of book interests extending over the difficult

intermediate period, we know that large numbers of those children who

leave school before they reach high school have little or no library

contact during their first working years and we sometimes feel that the

interesting experiences with reading working children, which librarians

are prone to emphasize, give us an impression of a larger number than

careful investigation would show. As for quality of reading of the

individual working child we cannot maintain that it is always on a high

plane.

All these conditions we know to be largely the result of environmental

influences. Deprived for twelve hours a day, twelve months in a year,

of opportunity for normal youthful activities, the child's entire

physical and mental schedule is thrown out of balance and his tendency

is to turn to reading, a recreation possible at any time, only when

there is no opportunity to follow other avenues of interest. The

strain upon the ear and eye, and back and brain, is even greater in

the shop than in the school, and in the consequent intense physical

fatigue the tendency is toward recreations in which the book may have

no place. The power of the nickel library over the child can be broken

by the presence of the public library, but no intermediate gets away

from the suggestion, by voice and print, of the modern novel, with its

present-day social interests. Consequently the whole judgment of the

results of library work with children can not rest upon these general

tests of normal book interests. Rather such variations from the normal

are themselves conditions which influence the structure of the work

and especially the principles of book presentation. If children are

living in an environment which is not the best one for them, all the

forces with which they come in contact should tend to correct the

abnormal and give them the things their moral nature craves--freer

and fuller thoughts, better and freer living, truth of expression,

beauty of feeling. We must recognize that books also must be a force

in reconstructing or normalizing the influences of their environment.

Children with social needs must have books with social values to meet

those needs--right social contacts, true social perspective, traditions

of family and race, loveliness of nature, companionship of living

things, right group association and group interests.

But while the pedagogical and moral values of books, that is the

benefits of right reading for children of normal life, were fully

analyzed, the children's department of which I speak had almost no

written principle to aid in the enormous task of determining the

influence of books on children with social needs. Appreciations of

the social relationships and the interdependence of characters in

books which have proven themselves moving forces in the lives of

children, gained through the testimony of men and women who know their

indebtedness to them--such books as "Little women," "Tom Brown,"

"Heidi," "Otto of the silver hand"--gave a fundamental principle upon

which to work. Books should construct a larger social ideal for the

reader instead of confirming his present one. Then arose this question:

Should we have books with weak social values in the library as a

concession to certain children, or by having them do we harm most those

very children to whom we have conceded them? The gradual solution of

this problem seems to me to be one of the greatest services which a

library can render its children. So long as this question is in process

of solution we may accept the following as a tentative reply: No books

weak in social ideals should be furnished, provided we do not lose

reading children by their elimination. If such books are the best a

child will read and we take them away, causing loss of library reading

interest, we permit him to sink further into his environment. With the

last principle as a basis, the evaluation of books was accomplished

in the evolution of the department. The cumulative experience of

librarians working with children showed that many books which lead only

to others of their kind were weak in social viewpoint, and that such

books were the ones read largely by those children most occasional

and spasmodic in their reading. Here was a determining point in the

establishment of standards of reading, for it brought us face to face

with the question, Shall we consider this situation our fault since we

supply such books to children who need something better vastly more

than do others, or shall we merely justify our selection by maintaining

that those children will under no circumstances read a higher grade

of books? However, it was proven at the same time that other books

were read also by children with social limitations, which, although

apparently no better on first evaluation, lead to a better type of

reading and this gave us a fresh impulse to consider the evaluation

of books as a constantly moving process, and prompted the policy of

the removal of those types of books which were least influential in

developing a good reading taste. This was done, however, with the

definite intention that an increasingly better standard of reading must

mean that no reading children be sacrificed, an end only possible by a

fuller knowledge of the value of the individual book to the individual

child.

Now let us see what changes have been evolved in the book collections

in the department under consideration in the past seven or eight years.

In the first study of the collection and before any final study of

books from the social viewpoint had been reached, the proportion

of books of the doubtful class to those which were standard was

considered, and it was seen that this proportion should be decreased in

order that a child's chances for eventually reading the best might be

improved. It was obvious that the reading of the young children should

be most carefully safeguarded, and this was the first point of attack.

As a result, these two types of books were eliminated:

1. All series for young children, such as the Dotty Dimples

and the Little Colonels.

2. Books for young children dealing with animal life which

have neither humane nor scientific value, such as the

Pierson and Wesselhoeft.

At about the same time stories of child life for young children were

restricted to those which were most natural and possible, and stories

read by older girls in which adults were made the beneficiaries of

a surprisingly wise child hero, such as the Plympton books, were

eliminated.

The successful elimination of these books, together with the study of

the children's reading as a whole, suggested within the next two or

three years that other books could be eliminated or restricted without

shock to the readers. On the pedagogical basis, certain types of books

for young children were judged; on the social basis, certain types of

books for older children, with results as follows:

1. The elimination of word books for little children, and the

basing of their reading upon their inherent love for folk

lore and verse.

2. The elimination of interpreted folk lore, such as many of

the modern kindergarten versions.

3. The elimination of the modern fairy tale, except as it has

vitality and individual charm, as have those of George

MacDonald.

4. The elimination of travel trivial in treatment and in

series form, such as the Little Cousins.

5. The restriction of an old and recognized series to its

original number of titles, such as the Pepper series. The

disapproval of all new books obviously the first in a

series.

6. Lessening the number of titles by authors who are unduly

popular, such as restricting the use of Tomlinson to one

series only.

7. The elimination of those stories in which the child

character is not within a normal sphere; for instance, the

child novel, such as Mrs. Jamison's stories.

8. The restriction of the story of the successful poor boy to

those within the range of possibility, as are the Otis

books, largely.

Without analyzing the weaknesses of all these types, I wish to say a

word about the series form for story and classed books. The series must

be judged not only by content, but it must be recognized that by the

admission of such a form of literature the tendency of the child toward

independence of book judgment and book selection is lessened and the

way paved for the weakest form of adult literature.

The last policies regarding book selection developed on the same

principles within the past three years have been these:

1. The elimination of periodical literature for young

children, such as the Children's Magazine and Little

Folks, since their reading can be varied more wholesomely

without it.

2. The elimination, or use in small numbers, of a type of

history and biography which lacks scholarly, or even

serious treatment, such as the Pratt histories.

3. Lessening the number of titles of miscellaneous collections

of folk lore in which there are objectionable individual

tales; as, for instance, buying only the Blue, Red, Green

and Yellow fairy books.

4. Recognizing "blind alleys" in children's fiction, such as

the boarding school story and the covert love story, and

buying no new titles of those types.

Reports of reading sequences from each children's room have furnished

the basis for further study of children's reading for the past seven

months. These have been discussed and compared by the workers, and are

now in shape for a working outline of reading sequences to be made and

reported back to each room, to be used, amplified and reported on again

in the spring.

While those books which are no longer used may have been at one time

necessary to hold a child from reading something poorer, we did not

lose children through raising the standard, and the duplication of

doubtful books in the children's room is less heavy now than it was

a few years ago. Also there are more than twice as many children who

are reading, and almost three times as many books being read as there

were nine years ago, while the number of children of the city has

increased but 72 per cent. Furthermore, the proportion of children of

environmental limitations has by no means diminished, and the foreign

population is much the same--more than 75 per cent. Of course, the

elimination of some books was accomplished because there were better

books on these subjects, but the general result was largely brought

about because in the establishment of these higher standards =we did

not exceed the standards of those who were working with the children.=

The standards which they brought to the work, and which they deduced

themselves from their experience, were strengthened through Round

Table discussion, where each worker measured her results by those of

the others and thereby recognized the need of constant, but careful

experimentation. A children's department can not reach standards of

reading which in the judgment of the librarians working with the

children are beyond the possibility of attainment, for with them rests

entirely the delicate task of the adjustment of the book to the child.

A staff of children's librarians of good academic education, the best

library training, a true vision of the social principles, a broad

knowledge of children's literature, is the greatest asset for any

library maintaining children's work.

But it is true inversely that in raising the standards of the children

the standards of the workers were raised. By this, I mean that there

were methods of book presentation in use whereby the worker saw

farther and deeper into the mentality of the child and understood

his social instincts better. This has been evidenced in the larger

duplication of the better books. The methods are those which recognize

group interest and group association as a social need of childhood.

Through unifying and intensifying the thoughts and sympathies of the

children by giving them, when in association with their own playmates,

a common experience of living in great and universal thought in the

story hour, the mediocre was bridged and both the child and the worker

reached a higher plane of experience. By giving children a chance for

group expression of something which has fundamental group interest,

not only the children recognized that books may be cornerstones for

social intercourse and that there is connection between social conduct

as expressed in books and social obligation, but, what is also vastly

important, the worker learned that when children are at the age of

group activity and expression they can often be more permanently

influenced through their group relations than as individuals.

Through the recognition of the principle that there are standards of

book use with individual children and other standards of book appeal

for groups of children, it was shown that the organization of the

work as a whole must be such that all avenues of presentation of

literature could be fully developed. It was seen that far less than

with the individual child could we afford to give a group of children

a false experience or impotent interest, and that material for group

presentation, methods of group presentation and the social elements

which are evinced in groups of children should receive an amount

of attention and study which would lead to the surest and soundest

results. This could be fully accomplished only by recognizing such

methods as distinct functions of the department, to be maintained on

sound pedagogical and social bases. In other words, that there should

not only be divisions of work with children according to problems of

book distribution, such as by schools and home libraries, but there

must be of necessity divisions by problems of reading. Whereas, in

a smaller department all divisions would center in the head, the

volume of work in the library above alluded to rendered necessary

the appointment of an instructor in storytelling and a supervisor of

reading clubs, which has resulted in a higher specialization and a

greater impetus for these phases of work than one person could have

accomplished. Here we have an instance of the benefit that a large

volume of work may confer upon the individual child.

With the attainment of better reading results and higher standards

for the workers, it was obvious that the reading experiences of the

children and the standards of the workers must be conserved, that the

organization should protect the children, as far as possible, from the

shock of change of workers in individual centers. Within the past two

years considerable study has been given to this, and yearly written

reports on the reading of children in each children's room are made,

in which variations of the children's reading in that library from

accepted standards, with individual instances, are usually discussed.

However, the children's librarian is entirely free to report the

subject from whatever angle it has impressed her most. Also a written

report is made of the story hour, the program, general and special

reading results, and intensity of group interest in certain types

of stories. This report is supplementary to a weekly report in a

prescribed form of the stories told, sources used and results. All

programs used with clubs are reported and a semi-annual report made of

the club work as a whole. A yearly tabulation is made of registration

from public and parochial schools, giving registration in all

libraries, class rooms and home libraries. By discussion and reports

back to individual centers, these become bases for a wider vision of

work and a wiser direction of energy with less experimentation.

The connection between work with children and the problem of the

reading of intermediates, referred to in the beginning, should not be

dismissed in a paragraph. However, it is only possible to give a short

statement of it. Recognizing that the reading of adult books should

begin in the children's room, a serious study of adult books possible

for children's reading was made by the children's librarians for two

summers, the reports discussed and books added to the department

as the result. A second report of adult titles which children and

intermediates might and do read was called for recently and from that

a tentative list has been furnished both adult and children's workers

for further study. The increasing number of workers in the children's

department who have had general training, and in the adult work who

have had special training for work with children will make such reports

of much value. It may be interesting to know that fifteen of the

children's librarians have had general training and six adult workers

in important positions have had special training for children's work.

Four years ago there were only three in children's work who had had

general training and none in adult work with the special training.

In order to follow the standards of children's work, there is one

principle which is obvious, namely, a book disapproved as below grade

for juvenile should not be accepted for general intermediate work. This

is especially true of books of adventure which a boy of any age between

12 and 18 would read. It has been possible to raise the standard of

books for adults in the school libraries above that of the larger

libraries. This will furnish eventually another angle for the study of

the problem of intermediate reading.

In conclusion, the chief influences in the establishment of right

reading for children are an intensive study of the reading of children

in relation to its social, moral and pedagogical worth to them, the

right basis of education and training for such study on the part of

the workers, the direction of such study in a way that brings about a

higher and more practical standard on the part of the worker, and the

conservation of her experience. These are the great services which the

library should render children, and they can be most fully accomplished

through departmental organization.

These papers were followed by a discussion, led by Miss Stearns and Mr.

Rush, in which advice was given to those selecting children's books to

eliminate, in buying new books, those which would be eliminated later,

and the suggestion was made that children's librarians should enter the

field of writing children's books. Dr. Bostwick of St. Louis then gave

a report on

VOLUME OF CHILDREN'S WORK IN THE UNITED STATES

We may divide the history of work with children into three epochs.

During the first, our libraries were realizing with increasing

clearness the necessity of doing something for children that they were

not doing for adults. During the second this conviction had taken the

practical form of segregation, physical and mental, and its details

were worked out with definiteness. In the third, in which we still are,

the whole administrative work of the library for children is being

systematized and co-ordinated. These three stages may be roughly styled

the era of work with children, the era of the children's room and the

era of the children's department. The first began, in any particular

library, when that library began to do anything whatever for children

that it was not doing for adults; the second, when it opened its first

children's room; the third, when it co-ordinated all its children's

work under one administrative head. In most libraries the first period

was relatively short; the second relatively long. Some libraries began

their work by establishing children's rooms, reducing the first period

to zero. Some large libraries are still in the second period, never

having co-ordinated their children's work. Here are the approximate

dates for a few libraries:

1 2 3

Cleveland 1894 1898 1903

New York 1895 1898 1902

Pittsburgh 1898 1898 1898

St. Louis 1893 1897 1909

Milwaukee 1896 1898 ....

Chicago 1904 1904 ....

Brooklyn 1899 1899 1901

Boston 1895 1895 ....

I lay no stress on the accuracy of these dates, particularly in

the first column, where in some cases they are matters of opinion.

Pittsburgh appears as a unique example of a library that stepped

full-fledged into all three stages at once, starting off, as soon as it

began to do children's work at all, not only with a children's room,

but with a definitely organized department to conduct the work.

With the idea of presenting comprehensively some idea of the volume and

importance of children's work in the United States at the present time,

a questionnaire was sent out to libraries (78 in all) whose total home

use was 100,000 volumes or more. Of these 51 responded. These have

been divided into five groups, five "very large" libraries, circulating

more than 2,000,000; eight "large" ones, between one and two million;

seven "medium," between half a million and a million; thirteen "small,"

between quarter and half a million, and eighteen "very small," from

100,000 to 250,000. The results for each of these groups have been

stated separately--averaged where possible.

First, regarding the total volume of work. The answers to the questions

show that in 51 of the 78 largest public libraries in the country,

graded by circulation--libraries containing altogether nearly 9,000,000

books and circulating a total of over 30 millions--there are now

1,147,000 volumes intended especially for children. Children drew out

during the last year 11,200,000 volumes for home use. Volumes for

children added during the year numbered 280,000. These libraries have

231 rooms devoted entirely to children and 180 used by them in part,

with a combined seating capacity of 15,900. Classroom libraries are

furnished for the children in the schools, by 31 libraries reporting,

to the number of 5,000.

Children in 46 libraries reporting hold altogether 413,000 library

cards. There are 42 supervisors of children's work, with numerous

clerical assistants and staffs of 473 persons, of whom at least 177 are

qualified children's librarians, 108 are graduates of library schools,

and 54 have had partial courses.

The general conclusion deducible from the statistics gathered seems to

be that in some ways library work with children has become standardized

while in others it has not. Standards, whether permanent or not, we

can not tell, have been reached or approximated in the number of books

devoted to children's use and, in general, in the proportion of the

library's resources, time and energy that is given to this branch

of the work. But when we come to the specific number of assistants

assigned to it, their supervision, their pay and the grade of

experience and training required of them, then we all part company. Not

only is there no general agreement here, but some of the discrepancies

are so large that we can ascribe them only to the fact that we are

still in the experimental stage.

For instance, to take first the fairly uniform or standardized

conditions, the fraction of the stock of books allotted to children

is about one-fifth in the larger libraries and decreases slightly in

the smaller; in the very small it is about one-eighth. The proportion

of juvenile books added yearly is much larger; it varies from nearly

one-half in the very large libraries down to one-fourth in the very

small. This would seem to be a result of the increasing stress laid

on children's work. If this proportion is maintained in the annual

purchases, that in the total stock may approximate to it in time,

although we can not be sure of this without knowing the ratio of the

life of a children's book to that of an adult book. The children's

books are doubtless shorter-lived, and this would tend to keep the

proportion down in the permanent stock. The circulation is still more

nearly uniform, being about one-third to children in all the classes of

libraries. The proportion of money spent for children is also uniform,

being about one-fourth in libraries of all sizes. The same is true

of the number of children's rooms, which throughout all classes of

libraries, both large and small, are in the proportion of one to every

60,000 to 70,000 of circulation, and of their seating capacity, which

is 60 to 70 per room.

Looking on the other side of the shield we find the greatest variation

in the proportion of children's cards in use, which runs from less than

one-half up to nearly all. From one to five supervisors are employed

in each library but some of the very large libraries use only one and

some of the small ones as many as three. The same is true of clerical

assistants, of which some of the very small libraries report as many as

three, while some of the very large get along with as few as two.

Salaries are fairly uniform, although apparently smaller than the work

would warrant. Whereas the children's circulation is about one-third

the total, the salaries in the juvenile department are from one-seventh

to one-eighth the total throughout. In the "small" libraries they are

only one-eleventh of the total.

The distribution of library-school graduates is very irregular. Some

libraries in all classes have none at all. In the three lower classes

no library has a larger number than three. In some of the larger

libraries there may be as many as 20 or 30.

I am aware that some of this irregularity, which I have called a

lack of standardization, may be due to differences in nomenclature.

Assistants, for instance, having precisely the same duties may be

described as supervisors in one library and not in another. This will

not explain everything, however, and the conclusion is inevitable

that in the respects just noted no uniformity has yet been reached

by libraries. It seems to me that this lack of standardization has

made its appearance in precisely the place where it might have been

expected--namely in the third of the three periods already mentioned,

that of co-ordination and systematization. This is the latest period;

some libraries have not yet entered upon it and most of them are

young in it. In other words, children's work is much older than the

systematic administration of a children's department, or a system of

children's rooms. Hence, children's work in general--the selection

and purchase of books for children, the planning of children's rooms

and their administration as units--has existed long enough to become

standardized. We know what we want, having passed through the stage of

experimentation.

This is not true of the administration of a children's department--the

grading of assistants, the organization of a compact body of workers

with its expert supervision, the settling of questions of disputed

jurisdiction that necessarily arise in cases of this kind. It is on

this part of their work that children's librarians need to focus their

attention for the next few years. It is time, not perhaps to withdraw

our eyes from the older questions but to transfer our gaze in part

to the newer. We need to talk less about the size of our juvenile

collection, methods of selection of children's books, the salaries of

our assistants, ways of increasing our circulation, sizes and plans

of children's rooms, and so on, and more about the organization and

administration of the children's department as a whole--the duties of

the supervisor and her assistants; her relations with the heads of

other departments and with branch librarians, the measure of control

shared by her with heads of branches in case of children's librarians

of branches, the existence of separate grades, corresponding to

separate duties or variation of qualifications, among the children's

librarians; insistence on training adapted to these different grades.

Time forbids me to go into details, and I can but suggest these points

for your consideration. Into one point, however, I feel like going a

little more fully:

We need more special training for children's work. It is the one

kind of specialization that we have attempted in our schools, and

we must have more of it and more kinds of it. This of course is but

a single case in the more varied program of special training that

I am convinced we shall have to take up before long. In the course

of an interesting debate on this subject in the A. L. A. Council

last January it developed that most of the librarians present looked

upon specialization as impractical. In particular they believed it

impossible for a student to look forward so definitely to special

work that he could decide on the special courses that would benefit

him. The man that had taken the college-library course might become a

superintendent of branches; the qualified municipal reference librarian

would go, perhaps, into an applied science room. This may be so now but

it cannot long remain the case. Even now we can not carry this line

of argument much further without making of it a reductio ad absurdum.

Why go to a library school at all when, after all, you may accept the

headship of a grammar-school on graduation, or even decide to travel

for a hardware house? Why should we attempt to train one man for a

lawyer and another for a physician when both may prefer farming? We

are getting away fast from the old idea, born of pioneer conditions,

that anybody can do anything if he tries. We shall have to travel

further enough from it to satisfy ourselves that an expert university

librarian will have to be trained for his post and not for that of head

of the supply department in a public library. We have learned that a

children's librarian does her work better for special training; may it

not be that we shall have to make some difference in the future between

training, let us say, for supervisory work, for the charge of a branch

children's room, and for the duties of an assistant of lower grade?

In closing, let me say again that we need to focus our attention

at present on the organization and administration of a children's

department, especially on the places where it interlocks with that of

other departments. The study of this matter should not be entrusted to

children's libraries alone, for the standardization of work involving

more than one department should not be =ex parte=. The matter should

be in charge of a committee including in its membership both chief

librarians and the heads of children's departments--possibly also the

children's librarian of a large branch library and a branch librarian.

The volume of the work is now remarkable; its organization has gone

beyond that of some other departments in attention to detail; the

question of its co-ordination and of interdepartmental relations should

now be taken up systematically.

Libraries Very Large Libraries Large

Averaged Over Averaged 1,000,000-

2,000,000 2,000,000

Av. number volumes in library 5 658,416 8 286,643

Av. juvenile volumes in library 3 136,080 7 57,348

Av. cost of juvenile volumes Not given 2 $22,000

Av. volumes added during year 5 73,098 8 30,172

Av. cost of volumes

added during year 5 $70,976.88 7 $27,244.25

Av. juvenile volumes

added during year 4 32,100 6 12,383

Av. cost of juvenile

volumes added 3 $18,928.92 3 $7,801.86

Av. circulation for year 5 3,973,150 8 1,214,068

Av. juvenile

circulation for year 5 1,451,569 6 501,389

Av. number children's

rooms in system 5 23 8 6

Av. number rooms used

in part by children 5 7 7 7

Av. seating capacity of

children's rooms 5 1,502 8 467

Av. classroom libraries 2 314 7 301

Av. home libraries for children 1 56 3 26

Av. deposit or delivery

stations not included in above 4 52 7 22

Av. volumes on shelves

open to children 3 129,413 7 52,067

Av. juvenile cardholders 2 34,942 7 28,501

Av. age limit of

juvenile cardholders 2 15 7 15

Av. estimate of

juvenile cards in use 2 [5]46,332 5 20,845

Av. supervisors of

children's work 4 1 to 5 7 0 to 5

Av. salary paid supervisors 1 $2,000 6 $1,174

Av. clerical assistants

in children's work 1 2 5 2

Av. salary paid

clerical assistants 1 $705 4 $524

Av. children's librarians 4 20 7 1 to 11

Av. salary paid

children's librarians 4 $786.82 7 $896

Av. additional assistants giving

full time to children's work 3 4 to 83 4 2 to 27

Av. salary of such assistants 3 $560.33 4 $714

Av. assistants giving part

time to children's work 1 2 2 10

Av. salary paid such assistants 1 $576 2 $654

Number library school graduates 4 1 to 21 8 0 to 29

Number assistants having had

partial library school courses 4 3 to 11 5 0 to 8

Number trained in local library 4 4 to 56 7 0 to 15

Number trained in

other libraries 4 3 to 10 7 0 to 1

Pages giving full time

to children's work 3 0 to 11 6 1 to 8

Av. yearly salaries for entire

staff (not including janitors) 4 $170,453.82 8 $74,503.90

Av. yearly salaries

children's department 2 $20,080.00 8 $11,032.33

Libraries Medium Libraries Small

Averaged 500,000- Averaged 250,000-

1,000,000 500,000

Av. number volumes in library 7 150,200 13 92,236

Av. juvenile volumes in library 6 26,750 12 16,244

Av. cost of juvenile volumes 5 $21,316 2 $9,750

Av. volumes added during year 7 15,654 13 8,898

Av. cost of volumes

added during year 7 $15,001.75 10 $8,851.81

Av. juvenile volumes

added during year 6 5,875 13 2,661

Av. cost of juvenile

volumes added 6 $4,428.10 3 $2,876.00

Av. circulation for year 7 714,784 13 339,059

Av. juvenile

circulation for year 7 227,697 13 122,739

Av. number children's

rooms in system 7 3 13 2

Av. number rooms used

in part by children 6 3 9 4

Av. seating capacity of

children's rooms 7 233 11 150

Av. classroom libraries 7 201 8 83

Av. home libraries for children 1 25 3 3

Av. deposit or delivery

stations not included in above 7 12 9 12

Av. volumes on shelves

open to children 6 40,326 10 13,721

Av. juvenile cardholders 4 14,470 11 7,056

Av. age limit of

juvenile cardholders 3 14 8 15

Av. estimate of

juvenile cards in use 4 9,436 7 6,172

Av. supervisors of

children's work 5 1 to 2 7 1 to 3

Av. salary paid supervisors 5 $1,070 7 $760

Av. clerical assistants

in children's work 4 1 to 3 5 1 to 3

Av. salary paid

clerical assistants 4 $600 5 $516

Av. children's librarians 5 1 to 9 12 1 to 3

Av. salary paid

children's librarians 5 $648.50 12 $829.16

Av. additional assistants giving

full time to children's work 2 2 4 1 to 3

Av. salary of such assistants 2 $690 4 $524

Av. assistants giving part

time to children's work ... ... 2 1

Av. salary paid such assistants ... ... 2 $288

Number library school graduates 7 0 to 2 11 0 to 3

Number assistants having had

partial library school courses 6 0 to 5 11 0 to 1

Number trained in local library 7 1 to 9 10 0 to 3

Number trained in

other libraries 7 0 to 1 9 0 to 2

Pages giving full time

to children's work 7 0 to 2 12 0 to 2

Av. yearly salaries for entire

staff (not including janitors) 6 $30,844.90 12 $19,984.81

Av. yearly salaries

children's department 6 $4,144.75 12 $1,726.33

Libraries Very Small

Averaged Under

250,000

Av. number volumes in library 18 58,355

Av. juvenile volumes in library 16 7,496

Av. cost of juvenile volumes 2 $3,843.49

Av. volumes added during year 18 4,405

Av. cost of volumes

added during year 17 $4,467.22

Av. juvenile volumes

added during year 17 1,247

Av. cost of juvenile

volumes added 9 $1,207.01

Av. circulation for year 18 175,928

Av. juvenile

circulation for year 17 56,475

Av. number children's

rooms in system 18 1

Av. number rooms used

in part by children 13 3

Av. seating capacity of

children's rooms 17 79

Av. classroom libraries 7 31

Av. home libraries for children 1 6

Av. deposit or delivery

stations not included in above 12 4

Av. volumes on shelves

open to children 13 5,504

Av. juvenile cardholders 14 5,230

Av. age limit of

juvenile cardholders 14 14

Av. estimate of

juvenile cards in use 11 2,704

Av. supervisors of

children's work 3 1

Av. salary paid supervisors 3 $846.66

Av. clerical assistants

in children's work 2 1 to 3

Av. salary paid

clerical assistants 1 $420

Av. children's librarians 17 1

Av. salary paid

children's librarians 17 $801

Av. additional assistants giving

full time to children's work 9 1 to 4

Av. salary of such assistants 9 $512.22

$600[6][7]

Av. assistants giving part

time to children's work 4 2 to 7

Av. salary paid such assistants 4 $591

Number library school graduates 16 0 to 3

Number assistants having had

partial library school courses 13 0 to 2

Number trained in local library 16 0 to 4

Number trained in

other libraries 12 0 to 1

Pages giving full time

to children's work 15 0 to 2

Av. yearly salaries for entire

staff (not including janitors) 17 $10,159.22

Av. yearly salaries

children's department 14 $1,306.01

[5] Not the same libraries as are represented two lines above.

[6] Maximum.

[7] For first year.

SECOND SESSION

The second session of the section was held June 27th, at 2:30 p. m., in

the ballroom. Miss MARTHA WILSON, supervisor of school libraries, state

department of education, St. Paul, Minnesota, read a paper entitled

POSSIBILITIES OF THE RURAL SCHOOL LIBRARY

On the outermost fringe of library influence they wait--the country

children.

To fulfill to them the mission of the library, to make books necessary

and accessible, we must take account of the agency which touches the

life of even the most remote group--the country school.

Relationships between libraries and schools have long afforded

discussion and the librarian is rare who does not feel a sense of her

share in the educational work of the town and her responsibility in

making her library serve as an adjunct to the school, supplementing or

supplanting its library resources.

The country school and its library has in the main been outside this

friendly concern or ministration on the part of the town library and

but little account taken of it as a part of the library resources or

possibilities of a county or state.

The present revival of rural interest has quickened every phase of

country life, social, economic and educational.

The country school has shared in the enlargement of interest and is

undergoing many radical changes in its spirit, its teaching, its

relationships to the neighborhood and the world outside.

While in former times the country child went to school only when not

needed at home and received through the year an intermittent schooling,

amounting in all to but few weeks a year, compulsory education laws in

the majority of states have prolonged the period which he now actually

spends in school, and subsidies in state aid for longer terms have

lengthened the season through which the school is in operation.

The new emphasis on country life is a transforming effect on the

country school, "the ragged beggar sunning" is being replaced by a

modern building planned according to state regulations, with regard to

comfort and convenience, seats and lighting are seriously considered

and the individual drinking cup adds the last touch of modernity.

It is changing its teaching as carefully. The leaders in country school

work are striving to give a standing to country service, to reshape it

to new country conditions and connect its work very definitely with the

neighborhood in which it is placed.

In Minnesota there are three types of rural schools. The first of these

is the one-room, one-teacher school in an isolated community where

every grade is represented and all subjects taught. The second type is

the associated school where several districts have connected themselves

with a town school, where the pupils of high school age are received

on the same term as their town cousins, and the one-room schools

continue the work with the lower grades in the country but under the

supervision of the central school. The third is the consolidated school

where a number of districts have combined and established in a town,

village or open country a modern school for the grades and high school,

transporting to it all the children within the radius of five miles.

In all of these schools, the old course of study is adapted to include

health instruction, nature study or agriculture, some manual training,

sewing and cooking. The high school training departments and the normal

schools are making all haste to prepare teachers to fulfill the new

requirements while the teachers already at work must bring themselves

up to grade at the summer schools. The practical subjects make a strong

appeal. A country teacher at the summer school was heard to remark that

"the rope-tying lessons were awfully interesting and the course in

agriculture was just grand."

As a help in the new order of things a strong school library is

needed more than ever. Even in the smallest school there is indeed a

collection of books known as the school library, the heritage of the

years. These show no design in selection further than meeting the

state aid requirement of the expenditure of a certain amount of money

every year for library books. The trail of the book agent is over them

all: witness the sets; Motley--"History of the United Netherlands,"

Grote--"History of Greece," Gibbon--"Rome," and such subscription books

as "Lights and shadows of a missionary's life" and "The Johnstown

flood."

The erstwhile teachers and their interests have left an impress; the

correspondence courses which they pursued while teaching are reflected

in such books as Hamerton--"Intellectual life"; "The literature of the

age of Elizabeth"; and all the Epochs, and Eras and Periods in which

they delved for credits; their faith bears witness in the "Life of

Luther" found in every school library in one western county and their

hopes in "How to be happy tho' married," common in another.

The average number of volumes in each school is impressive in reports,

but inspection of the libraries too often shows that the majority of

the books are entirely useless in connection with the school work and

quite beyond the grasp and interest of the pupils who may be typified

by little moon-faced Celestia who trudges two miles through the pine

forest to the little log schoolhouse and to whom an illustrated book is

a revelation of worlds unknown; Anna, eleven years old, who at the time

of our visit was doing the work of the household and caring for her

mother and the new baby brother before she came to school, for in this

county the size of the state of Connecticut there are but five doctors

and fewer nurses; Mary, aged 13, who keeps house for an older brother

and his logging "crew" of four grown men; and little Irven, 7 years

old, who reads so fast the words can hardly come and who is willing and

eager to aver in round childish scribble that his favorite books are

"Seven little sisters," Eskimo stories and Fairy stories and fables.

However hard to realize, the needs are simple to state; better books

and direction in their use.

In many of the newer libraries there are many good and suitable books

and the more progressive county superintendents are paying more

attention to their libraries, making use of the suggestive lists

furnished them and selecting all the books for the schools in their

counties. One proudly reports the purchase in his county in the last

year of 2144 =real= children's books. The standardization of the state

school list has helped in later years, and as they are obliged to buy

from this list there is a pleasing lack of "Motor boys" and "Aeroplane

girls."

Some few of the teachers have the notion of the purpose of the school

library and are eager to extend its influence. One teacher, combining

school work with homesteading, asked for help in getting illustrated

books and pictures, explaining that he found it difficult to give

images to the words in their texts as the children in his school had

never seen a locomotive, a train of cars, a bridge, a tower, a brick or

stone building, and the nearest approach to the palace of which they

read in their stories was the two-story square frame building in the

adjoining settlement. The teacher of Anna and Mary realizing that they

would not be allowed to stay in school longer than the law required,

having now had more schooling than their father or mother, was trying

to give them some simple instruction in household work and was glad to

know of "When Mother lets us cook" and the simple books of sewing; and

the town girl teaching her first term in the country school tells of

her experience in using books of drawing to tame the young "Jack-pine

savage" who had been the bully of the school.

The country teacher, as a type, is hardly more than a child herself,

born, or transplanted at an early age, into pioneer conditions of work

and living with the energies and thought of the family concentrated on

getting a start in life in the new land.

In these homes books have not been plentiful, in some the catalog of

the mail order house is often the only printed matter in evidence,

having apparently displaced the family Bible from its time-honored

place on the center table.

In the early schooling and life of the country teacher only the

textbooks have left an impress and when she is asked at a country

teachers' meeting or in the beginning of her normal school course to

name favorite children's books, she puts down the texts she studied in

the country schools, the Baldwins, the Carpenters, the Wheelers and the

rest.

The stage of poverty and extreme hardship is fast passing. With

increased prosperity comes the opportunity for better things, usually

desired by the children, not always by the parents.

The school inspector was urging a new schoolhouse. The farmer thought

this one good enough. After dinner they went out to see the fine stock

and seeing the splendid barns for the stock the inspector said: "You

provide such good buildings for your stock you ought to be willing to

do something for your children." The farmer still demurred and the

inspector pressed the matter. "Do you care more for your stock than

for your children?" The farmer became indignant and said: "I want you

to know that stock is thoroughbred." If the parents have lost or never

had the power to enjoy books, the school and the library must see to it

that this asset is given the child in the country, who tomorrow must

deal with the problems of the new country life more complex than his

fathers have known; the farmer's wife to become emancipated must learn

to use the books which will help her, and there must be foundations

for the larger citizenship for in spite of all efforts to keep the boy

on the farm he will continue to join the ranks of the financiers, the

doctors, the judges, the governors and the like.

The newer idea of the use of books and reading in the country schools

is taking hold if sometimes vaguely. "I tell them to read library

books," she said when asked what use she made of the school library.

"Oh no, I have never read any of them myself," and "Little women" and

"Captains courageous" and many other live children's books stood in

perfect condition on the shelf, though there were a number of children

in the school old enough to enjoy them, and only such books had been

used as the more adventurous spirits in the school had tasted, found

good and passed on to their fellows.

Few children have books of their own--one-third--one-fourth--one in

ten being the answer which comes from the teachers to this query.

Generally speaking, they read the books in the school library or none

at all unless there is a traveling library at hand.

Teachers' training departments in the high schools are doing much to

help the country school. In the year's work the students get much

of the spirit as well as methods of country school teaching for

the training teacher is usually eager to give them all she has of

enthusiasm and efficiency and reaches out for all help in her work.

In one teacher's outlines, familiar looking notes on book selection and

lists of children's books were discovered. She had patiently copied

them from the summer school notes of the librarian in her home town and

was using them with her students. In addition to her regular work she

looks after the school library which is open to the public and also

gives help to schools in the country in the arrangement of their school

libraries. In most of these departments some work is attempted on the

rural school library with required reading of children's books.

The town librarians find these classes an opportunity to extend their

influence by talks in the schools and showing the resources and use of

the library. Acquaintance and work with country teachers helped one

librarian to put through a long-cherished, long-fought scheme of county

extension. As the teachers understand more fully the help they can get

from the library the more eagerly they consult the librarian about

their work.

The inclusion of talks on children's books, reading and school

libraries on the programs of the county teachers' and school officers'

meetings, talks and exhibits at district and state educational

gatherings and the University weeks have helped to give school

libraries new importance in the estimation of the teachers.

The country school library to become useful must be reduced to a

collection of books suited to the ages of the pupils as well as to the

work in the school. As elsewhere, the best way to get the country child

to read the best books is to have no other kind.

Recent library legislation makes it possible for any country or town

school library in Minnesota to combine with a public library for

service. They may turn over their books not needed in the school and

what is more valuable to the library, the fund which they are annually

required to spend for library books. In return the library must furnish

the school with traveling libraries of books selected from the state

school list, suited to the pupils in the school, and the school may

also be a distributing point for books for the neighborhood, a real

branch.

In some of the associated school districts the central library sends to

the associated schools traveling libraries purchased by the district

or borrowed from the library commission. In others, the country pupils

act as a circulating medium for the central school library. In one town

the school and town jointly maintain a good library with a competent

librarian in the schoolhouse and it successfully serves the town, the

pupils for their reference work and the country 'round about through

the country boys and girls who come in every day to school.

The village or open country consolidated school presents yet another

opportunity. These schools are the direct outgrowth of the new spirit

of country life and are planned to minister to the social as well as

the educational needs of the combined districts; and serve as a social

center. The library is an important part of the equipment for this work.

State plans for these buildings include a good-sized assembly room, and

a room for a library is required. The principal of the school must be

shown how the library may help him in his work and he must be assisted

in the selection of books not only for the school work but also for

the boys' and girls' club, the potato and corn growing contests, the

farmers' club, the women's club, the debating societies, literary

evenings, and social gatherings which he plans to make features of his

school.

Such are some of the possibilities. To make them realities, the

teachers must be trained in an understanding of the purpose of a

library and a knowledge of children's books, and every library agency

in every county and state must be quickened toward the most remote of

"all of the children of all of the people."

In the discussion by Mr. Kerr, Miss Burnite, Miss Brown, Miss Allin,

Miss Zachert and Miss Hobart, which followed, the following points

were made: That the time to accomplish the work in question is when

the teachers are in the normal schools, that such work should be based

upon the teachers' intensive knowledge of children's books, and that

influence may be gained by approaching the superintendents and by

using as advertising mediums the school papers to which the teachers

subscribe.

Miss Power then gave the chair to Miss Mary E. Hall, librarian

Girls' high school, Brooklyn, N. Y. Miss Hall introduced Miss MAUDE

McCLELLAND, who told of her work in charge of the library in a high

school in Passaic, N. J., pronounced by Miss Hall to be a model of its

kind. Miss McClelland made a very happy comparison of the old time

school boy and the school boy of today and discussed modern high school

methods of helping children to meet actual problems in life.

Miss McClelland said in part:

THE WORK OF A HIGH SCHOOL BRANCH

In the preface to a volume of essays entitled "Literature and life,"

William Dean Howells defends the doctrine that the tree of knowledge,

so familiar to all of us, is in reality but a branch of the tree of

life. Literature, instead of having a separate existence of its own,

is, as a matter of fact, but a part of life, and all that is necessary

to make it a vital force in the lives of human beings is to establish

its identity with life.

Now the emphasizing of this unity of literature and life has become

the self-appointed task of the modern public library--a task which it

is approaching from a number of different angles, such as work with

children, work with clubs, work with foreigners, and work with schools.

Something of what the library is doing along one of these lines--that

of work with schools--may be learned by studying the methods in use in

the high school branch of a public library.

Perhaps these methods may best be illustrated by contrasting the school

days of two brothers, Adam and Theodore. Now Adam went to school in

the good old days when there were no high school libraries, and indeed

very few libraries of any kind. At 9 o'clock every morning the active

interests of life ceased for him. He then entered the schoolhouse and

began the study of a set of lessons, which far removed from real life

in themselves, could not be made intensely vital even by the best of

teachers, because there was no library in the building upon which the

teachers could draw for books and other materials to illustrate the

connection between the classics and real life.

The first subject upon his program was ancient history. This he

learned with the aid of a textbook, condensed in form, and attenuated

in spirit. To him the book was a collection of disagreeable facts to

be learned by heart and then forgotten as quickly as possible after

examinations were over.

Now, when Adam's brother Theodore entered the school, matters had

changed. A branch of the public library had been installed, and the

history teacher was no longer handicapped in her work. The members of

Theodore's class had all been given special topics for investigation,

so when the class in ancient history was called, one pupil drew upon

the board the plan of a Greek house, which he had copied from Harper's

classical dictionary, while another pupil, who had been to the library

and interviewed Gulick's "Life of the ancient Greeks," described the

furniture and cooking utensils of the Greeks, and told about the kind

of things they had to eat. And Theodore began to realize that after

all, those ancient Greeks were real people, just like other real

people. So from that history lesson he carried away inspiration from

the life of the past toward the living of his own life of the present

and future.

The next lesson on the schedule for the day was English. Now, when

Adam went to school, he had been rather fond of reading--but that

there could be any connection between reading and the English work

given him at school never entered his head for a moment. True, they

did some reading in the English class, but it was reading in which he

wasn't very much interested, though he supposed that in some vague way

it probably did him a great deal of good. The real reading, which he

did surreptitiously at home was of an entirely different kind. Far

from imagining that he derived any benefit from it, he at times even

feared that he was endangering his immortal soul. But he felt that the

pleasure was worth it. The two kinds of reading, if tabulated, would be

about as follows, the comparative amount done being in about the ratio

of 16 to 1 in favor of the kind he liked--if he had luck in borrowing

books from the boys:

School Reading

Rhetoric and composition.

Evangeline.

Pilgrim's progress.

Selections from Milton.

Lady of the lake.

Home Reading

The downward path or A debt of vengeance.

Helping himself.

A leap in the dark.

Trapped in his own net.

The school reading was unexceptionable as to literary character, but,

at least for the growing boy of average intelligence, it seemed to lack

attractiveness.

When Theodore entered the English class in high school, times had

changed. The first thing the teacher did was to give him a list of

books for home reading. At the top of the list was written, "These

books may be borrowed either from the high school branch or from any

other branch of the public library." On the list were such books as

"Huckleberry Finn," "Tom Sawyer," "The jungle books," "Story of a bad

boy," "The wonder book and tanglewood tales," "Treasure island" and

"The man without a country."

Now, these books have literary character; they are attractive;

furthermore, they were written by authors who at all times observe with

proper respect and deference the laws of the English language.

So, once more, through the aid of the library, we find the connection

between literature and the joy of life established.

In the old days, not much had been said about vocations, or working

for a living. Indeed, the only ambition considered really worth while

was that of going to college and becoming educated. To leave school

before graduation was rather a disgrace, and if any boy was, like Lady

Macbeth's guests, by force of circumstances, compelled to "go, and stay

not upon the order of his going," his method of departure can best be

described by the expression, "slinking out." But now, Theodore found

the school ready and willing to help all those who had to leave school

to go to work; and again, the connection between real life and school

was established.

And if Theodore found that the library was not lacking in books that

would help in the practical issues of life, neither did he find a

dearth of the books that are needed for companionship--the books that

we are inclined to group under the heading "Cultural reading." Oliver

Wendell Holmes, in one of his essays, says, speaking of libraries, that

he has the same easy feeling when among books that a stableboy has

among horses. And it is perhaps along this line--that of inculcating a

real love for books--that the greatest work of the high school library

lies.

In an article on "Children's reading" in Harper's Weekly for May 31

there are some valuable suggestions for the librarian, not least among

them that contained in the last paragraph, which I shall quote:

"An excellent suggestion is that in all public schools there should be,

as well as the supervisor of drawing, and the supervisor of music, and

the supervisor of manual training, a supervisor of the art of reading.

For is not reading, after all, an art, and an uplifting, consoling and

educative art?"

Mr. SAMUEL H. RANCK, librarian of the Grand Rapids public library, read

a full and interesting paper on

THE LIBRARY'S OPPORTUNITIES IN VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE

In October, 1911, the Grand Rapids public library published in its

monthly bulletin an outline of the Central high school course in

vocational guidance, with a selected list of the library's books

on this subject for teachers and pupils. Five thousand copies were

printed, and no number of the bulletin we have ever published has

received so much attention. Requests for it have come from all over

the world, and a number of institutions have purchased as many as 50

copies. This bulletin is now out of print. In the near future, on the

basis of our experience of the last few years, we expect to publish a

revised edition of the vocational guidance list, which will include

much new material purchased on this subject in the last two years.

Although this list has received so much attention outside of the city

its greatest success has been in the city itself. It has brought to the

library a great number of young people for the books for circulation

and to the reference department for the preparation of all sorts of

themes on vocational subjects as a part of their high school work

in English. It is not an uncommon thing to find from 20 to 50 high

school students at one time working on this subject in our reference

department. Incidentally this work at the library has been a splendid

training for the boys and girls in the use of the reference books, and

regardless of any direct effect it might have on their choice of a

career it is certain that the consideration of a number of subjects in

connection with the possibility of their being followed as a vocation

tends to broaden the life of any young person.

At first this work was regarded somewhat as a joke by some of the

pupils but there has been less and less of this as time goes on. No

work that the library has ever done in the way of making certain

classes of books known to its readers has met with anything like the

response as has this work of co-operation with the Central high school.

All through this work the thought of the library has been that it is a

co-operating agent rather than an institution working independently,

and it seems to me that in all work of this kind the teacher and the

school through their intimate personal knowledge of the child are in a

much better position to guide the boys and girls than is the library.

The library's place is simply that of being fully alive and sympathetic

with the whole situation, and in putting forth every effort to gather

all available data and to supply the needs of those who can use printed

material on this subject. It does not of course neglect opportunities

for personal influence, but it seems to me that the library can not

take the initiative in the same way nor on the same scale as does the

school. Through the reading rooms the library has special opportunities

to direct the "misfit" who comes to the library for a clue to a better

occupation.

Along with the list in our bulletin of October, 1911, which by the way

includes only things in the circulating department of the library, we

published an outline of work in vocational guidance in the Central

high school by Principal Davis. The following is his statement and

the outline, as then in use, since modified somewhat on the basis of

practical experience.

Outline of Work in Vocational Guidance in the Central High School

By Jesse B. Davis, Principal

"Vocational guidance aims to direct the thought and growth of the pupil

throughout the high school course along the line of preparation for

life's work. The plan is intended to give the pupil an opportunity to

study the elements of character that give success in life, and by a

careful self analysis to compare his own abilities and opportunities

with successful men and women of the past. By broadening his vision

of the world's work, and applying his own aptitudes and tastes to the

field of endeavor that he may best be able to serve, it is attempted

to stir the student's ambition and to give a purpose to all his

future efforts. Having chosen even a tentative goal his progress has

direction. In the later study of moral and social ethics he has a

viewpoint that makes the result both practical and effective.

"In order to reach all the pupils in the high school this work is

carried on through the department of English, which subject all pupils

must take. Brief themes and discussions form the basis of the work.

Pupils are directed in their reading along vocational and ethical lines

and are advised by teachers who have made a special study of vocational

guidance. The following outline is but suggestive of the types of

themes and discussions to be used. Each teacher is given opportunity to

use her own individuality in working out the details of the scheme.

"Outline

First Year

1st Semester--Elements of success in life.

1. Every day problems.

(a) The school. (b) The home. (c) The athletic field.

(d) The social group.

2. Elements of character.

(a) Purpose of life. (b) Habit. (c) Happiness. (d)

Self-control. (e) Work. (f) Health.

2nd Semester--Biography of successful men and women.

1. Character sketches.

2. Comparison of opportunities of ... with self.

3. Comparison of qualities of ... with self.

Second Year

1st Semester--The world's work.

1. Vocations: Professions, occupations.

2. Vocations of men.

3. Vocations of women.

2nd Semester--Choosing a vocation.

1. Making use of my ability.

2. Making use of my opportunity.

3. Why I should like to be....

4. The law of service.

Third Year

1st Semester--Preparation for life's work.

1. Should I go to college?

2. How shall I prepare for my vocation?

3. Vocational schools.

4. How shall I get into business?

2nd Semester--Business ethics.

1. Business courtesy.

2. Morals in modern business methods.

3. Employer and employee.

4. Integrity an asset in business.

Fourth Year

1st Semester--Social ethics: The individual and society--from

the point of view of my vocation.

1. Why should I be interested in

(a) Public schools? (b) The slums? (c) Social

settlements? (d) Public charities? (e) The church?

(f) Social service?

2. The Social relation of the business man.

2nd Semester--Social ethics: The individual and the state--from

the point of view of my vocation.

1. The rights of the individual.

2. Protection of the individual from the state.

3. The obligations of citizenship.

4. The rights of property.

5. The responsibility of power."

The books in the bulletin were arranged in accordance with the

foregoing outline, which takes the pupil through the whole four years

of high school work. Principal Davis' statement of the aims and methods

of vocational guidance as it is being carried on in Grand Rapids

is sufficiently clear I think, and does not require any additional

explanation. It should be clearly understood, however, that vocational

guidance is altogether different from vocational education and from

industrial education, subjects with which it is sometimes confused.

To meet the many demands which come to Mr. Davis for information

regarding vocational guidance he is now at work on a book which will

discuss the whole matter fully. This book will probably be ready in the

fall. It will contain a revised list of our books on this subject.

At a recent meeting of the Board of Education this work was organized

and systematized for the whole city, for all the pupils in the seventh

grade and upwards, with Principal Davis as director of the work.

In the light of our experience we believe that the library, in addition

to printing a list of books such as given in accordance with this

outline, needs a supplementary list arranged according to vocations. On

account of the growing interest in vocational education and industrial

education there have been many useful books published within the

last few years. When this work was first begun there was a dearth

of suitable material on a good many subjects, and it was necessary

for the library to depend largely on magazine articles, pamphlets,

etc., in the reference department, the best of which we have indexed

according to subject, along with our indexing of other material such as

college catalogs, to show the institutions where courses are given on

particular subjects, etc.

The following are a few of the subjects called for recently, as they

were noted in the reference department: Nursing, Teaching, Drafting,

Social settlement work, Dressmaking, Library work, Dentistry, Music,

Mining engineering, Electrical engineering, Farming, Physical

training, Agriculture, Education of defectives, Forestry, Playground

work, Stenography, Art, Mechanics, Magazine illustrating, Domestic

science, Landscape gardening, Designing dresses, Housekeeping, Social

secretary work, Private secretary work, Decorative painting, Baseball

managership, Surveying, Civil service, Kindergarten work, Scientific

farming, Physical culture.

The purpose in all this work is to endeavor to aid boys and girls

to find a work in life that will command their best energies, their

intelligent interest, and is adapted to their capacities, thus avoiding

so far as possible the bane of young people drifting into the first

thing that comes along, whether they are fitted for it or not. This

work puts before them the widest possible range of choice of vocation,

enlarges their horizon, and then endeavors to ground them in those

fundamental moral qualities which are the basis of every successful

life.

By putting the right sort of books into their hands in this way the

library has a tremendous opportunity for influencing their lives at

the most formative period, and at the same time developing in them a

more or less serious attitude toward life and its work. The study of

the lives of successful men and women and the study of the work and

requirements of different vocations can not help but impress upon boys

and girls the importance of preparation and conscientious effort as

prime requisites for success in any line of work.

We of the library in Grand Rapids are of the opinion that the library

alone in such work could do very little. As already stated we believe

that the initiative should come from the school. On the other hand, we

are firmly convinced that the school alone without the co-operation of

the library would be very seriously handicapped. In the first place the

school would be required to duplicate unnecessarily a large number of

the books which are in our public libraries, and this of course would

be an economic waste. In the second place the school would be denying

the children one of the best opportunities to come in contact with an

institution which aids them in the continuation of their education all

through life after they leave school. It is of immense value to the

child to get training in the use of the library in connection with the

thinking he is giving to his work in after life. A better introduction

of the child to the value of books and a public library, the library

itself could hardly ask.

But the library's greatest opportunity in vocational guidance is in the

fact that all this work is really constructive manhood and womanhood,

or if you please, constructive citizenship. And this is not only the

greatest work the library can do, but the greatest work any institution

can do.

This subject proved a timely one and aroused considerable discussion.

Many questions were asked concerning the co-operation of the public

library in Grand Rapids with this department of work in the high

school. Mr. Ranck announced that Mr. Davis, principal of the Central

high school, expects to bring out a book in the fall which shall

include outlines and the list of books which has been in such great

demand and which is now out of print.

The discussion seemed to show that "vocational guidance" is a

legitimate field not adequately covered by libraries. Miss Power now

took the chair.

Miss Burnite made a motion to adopt the following resolution:

Whereas, the members of the American Library Association who

are engaged in work with children feel the great bond of

affection for all those who have rendered that service to child

life which the achievement of efficient library service for

children signifies;

And whereas, the Dayton public library has suffered the

destruction of its children's department and thereby the

children of the city are without the influence of good books

at the time they need them most;

Be it resolved: that we express to the Board of Trustees,

the librarian, Miss Clatworthy, the head of the children's

department, Miss Ely, our deep sympathy and the hope that their

work may be rehabilitated upon a greater plane of service.

Be it resolved also, that these resolutions be spread upon

the minutes of this meeting and the secretary be empowered

to forward them to the library officials mentioned with the

request that the resolutions be forwarded to the Women's

Clubs of the city and especially to the Mothers' Clubs as

an expression of sympathy for them also, in the loss of the

department of the library which has furthered their own efforts

in bettering child life.

The motion was carried and the session adjourned.

BUSINESS MEETINGS

At the business meetings of the section held June 25th at 2:30 p. m.

and after the session, Friday, June 27th, the chairman appointed three

new members of the advisory board, as follows: For one year, Mr. Henry

E. Legler, and, for three years, Miss Linda Eastman and Miss Lutie E.

Stearns. Miss Annie C. Moore, Miss Clara W. Hunt and Miss Caroline

Burnite were appointed members of the nominating committee and upon

their recommendation the following officers for the ensuing year were

unanimously elected: Miss Agnes Cowing, chairman; Miss Mary Ely, vice

chairman; Miss Ethel Underhill, secretary. Miss Adah Whitcomb and Miss

Faith Smith were appointed by the chair to investigate the subject of

simplified headings in several different libraries, to confer with the

Catalog Section and A. L. A. Publishing Board, and to report to the

Section.

COLLEGE AND REFERENCE SECTION

MAIN SESSION

The main session of the College and Reference Section was held on

Tuesday afternoon, June 24th, at the Hotel Kaaterskill. Mr. Andrew

Keogh, reference librarian of Yale University, presided; Miss Amy L.

Reed, librarian of Vassar College, acted as secretary.

The chairman asked for a motion to fill the vacancy on the committee of

arrangements which would be caused by his own retirement. It was voted

that the Chair appoint a nominating committee; Mr. L. L. Dickerson,

librarian of Grinnell College, and Miss Laura Gibbs, cataloger of Brown

University, were asked to serve as such a committee.

The session then proceeded to the program for the day, which was the

work of Miss Sarah B. Askew, New Jersey public library commission, and

of Mr. N. L. Goodrich, librarian of Dartmouth College. In order to

secure pointed discussion Mr. Goodrich had caused brief summaries of

the papers to be printed and distributed to members of the section two

weeks before the meeting.

Miss LUCY M. SALMON, professor of history at Vassar College, read the

first paper, entitled

INSTRUCTION IN THE USE OF A COLLEGE LIBRARY

Students who enter college are in an altogether hopeless state, if we

are to believe the lamentations poured out in educational reviews and

in library journals. In familiar phrase, "they have left undone those

things which they ought to have done, and they have done those things

which they ought not to have done, and there is no health in them."

But it is not given either a college librarian or a college instructor

to remain long hopeless, either for himself or for others,--the

very nature of his calling demands that somebody do something.

Discouragement over ignorant and untrained freshmen dissolves into the

bewildering questions of who is to do what, and when, and where, and

how. And so the college year begins.

It is undoubtedly true that a very large majority of college freshmen

are not familiar with a large library such as they meet in college,

that they have never used a card catalog, and that they would not even

recognize it if they saw one.

But is it reasonable to expect such knowledge? The majority come from

small places where such opportunities are not found, the work of the

secondary schools does not demand extensive use of a library, and

the mental immaturity of pupils of the secondary school age does not

augur well either for an understanding of the intricacies of the card

catalog, or for any special interest in the cataloging of books, or in

general library history and administration. If the entering student

had a knowledge of these things, one reason for going to college would

be lacking,--he goes to college to learn what he cannot reasonably be

expected to know before that time.

Cheerfully accepting then this condition of ignorance of all library

procedure on the part of the rank and file of college freshmen

everywhere, and unanimously agreeing that the college student must in

some way learn how to use a library, diversity of opinion is found in

regard to these two questions:--Is this instruction given better as an

independent course to the entering students, or is it better to give

it in connection with regular college work? Should the instruction be

given by members of the library staff, or by college instructors?

The very fact that this question has been broached is helpful, since

it is significant of the great changes that are coming both in library

administration and in educational theory and practice. It suggests the

increasing specialization in library work, the growing co-operation

between the library force and those engaged in the more technical

side of education, newer and, we believe, higher ideals of the object

and therefore of the process of education, and the reflection of

these changes in the development in the student body of independence,

self-reliance, and the desire to do creative work.

Assuming therefore that we are all interested in securing for the

college student fullness of knowledge at the earliest hour possible, I

venture personally to differ somewhat from the report of the majority

of the committee of the New England college librarians and to say that

from the angle of the college instructor, it seems clear to me that

the knowledge is better acquired in connection with regular college

courses and that it can best be given by college instructors. It is

with most of us a favorite occupation to see how many birds we can

bring down with one stone, and this desire is in a sense gratified if

we can incorporate knowledge of how to use a library with the subject

matter included in a particular course,--it seems a saving of time for

student, instructor and librarian. Everything is clear gain that can be

picked up by the way.

But quite apart from this general desire to telescope several

subjects, there are specific advantages gained by the student when the

instruction is given by the instructor of a regular college class.

The knowledge acquired falls naturally into its place in connection

with definite, concrete work. Abstract theory has little place in the

mental equipment of the fresh man, he seeks out relationships, adds new

knowledge to what he already has, and quite reasonably is impatient,

even intolerant in spirit when new ideas and facts are presented to him

that he cannot immediately assimilate. To use a homely illustration, an

article of food, like butter, that is essential for our physical diet

serves its purpose much better when distributed through other articles

of food than if taken independently and by itself. All new ideas in

regard to library organization, cataloging, bibliography, searching for

material, the handling of books, if gained through the usual channels

of college work, are quickly and easily assimilated by the college

student. If, however, these same ideas are presented to him unrelated

to other work they are in danger of remaining unassimilated and of

becoming a hindrance rather than a help.

On the other hand, the advantages in having the instruction given by

a regular college instructor are that he deals with small sections of

students, not with "numbers which are appallingly large;" that he knows

the individual student; that he is able to relate the bibliographical

work with the individual student on the one hand, and on the other hand

with the special subject with which the student is working.

Personally, I can but feel that the assumption made by the committee

of the New England college librarians, by the librarian of the

Newark public library, by the dean of the collegiate department of

the University of Illinois, and by others in the library field that

college instructors are not interested in this matter and would oppose

instruction in it is not really warranted by the condition that exists.

May I venture to describe somewhat in detail what is done in one

college in showing students how to use books, how to become acquainted

with the opportunities of a large library, and how to avail themselves

of these opportunities in a direct personal way. In giving this account

of what is done in Vassar College, may I emphasize the statement

that the work done is by no means peculiar to one college,--other

institutions all over the country are doing much that in principle is

precisely the same, although the details may vary.

The first aid in knowledge of the library building, of its equipment,

and of how to use its collections is given the Vassar College student

literally during her first hours on the college campus. She is met by

a member of the senior or the junior class and taken about the campus,

and it is the duty of these student guides to give every entering

student a copy of the =Students' Handbook=. In this she is urged

to "become acquainted with the library as soon as possible." "The

reference librarian," the =Handbook= tells her, "expects every new

student to come to the reference desk to be shown about the arrangement

of the library and the use of the catalog and to receive a copy of the

library Handbook."

The guides point out the library and they are instructed to urge the

new students to seek out the reference librarian at once and to make

the library trip immediately. The new student goes to the residence

hall where she is to live and she finds on the bulletin board in this

hall an invitation to take the library trip. The records kept by the

reference librarian show that a very large percentage of the entering

students almost immediately avail themselves of this invitation

extended by guides and reiterated by =Handbook= and by bulletin boards.

When the new student first enters the library she is given a plan of

the building showing the arrangement of the different sections and a

handbook explaining in full the library privileges. Armed with this,

she is met by the reference librarian and then joining a group of three

others she is taken through the library where she makes connections

between the plan in her hand, the books on the shelves, "the inanimate

reference librarian--the card catalog--" and the animate reference

librarian in whom she finds a guide, counselor and friend.

This library trip can be, and is intended to be only general in

character. The student gains from it first of all the consciousness of

having found in the reference librarian a friend to whom she can always

go for help and advice; second, her interest is aroused to become

better acquainted with the card catalog and with the general facilities

for work afforded by the library; and third she gains a determination

to follow the injunction of the =Students' Handbook=, "do your part to

make the library an ideal place in which to work."

It is at this stage, after this general instruction given by the

reference librarian, that the majority of the entering students meet

the officers of the department of history. We give them collectively

during the first week, usually the second day, an illustrated lecture

on the library. This includes slides showing the catalog cards of a few

of the books they will use most in their history work, the cards of

the most important reference works, periodicals, and atlases, slides

showing the difference between a "see" card and a "see also" card,

slides that explain incomplete series, continuation cards, and every

variation that concerns their immediate work. Every slide concerns a

work on history that is to be used almost immediately, and the form

used in cataloging, the notation and the annotation, the hieroglyphics

of the printed card, and the bibliographical features of the card are

fully explained from the screen.

The students then meet their individual instructors, each one having

previously provided herself with a pamphlet called ="Suggestions

for the Year's Study, History I."= This pamphlet, besides giving

detailed instructions for the preparation of the work, includes a

plan of the library; suggestions in regard to its history, as also

the description and the meaning of its exterior and interior; a

facsimile and explanation of the catalog card of the text book used

in the course; hints concerning the general card catalog; an analysis

of the general form and different parts of a book; special directions

for preparing the bibliographical slips or cards that must accompany

every topic presented, together with an illustration of a model card;

a full classification, with illustrations under each, of all the

works of references the class will presumably use, including general

works of reference, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, periodicals, year

books, atlases, autobiographical material, including the various

forms of =Who's Who?= together with biographical, ecclesiastical and

various miscellaneous dictionaries and encyclopaedias; an elaborate

chart devised to show the authoritativeness as history of the text

book used in the course, accompanied by a full explanation of it;

suggestions in regard to the purchase of histories for a personal

library; and finally, a recommendation to make use of another pamphlet

called =Suggestive Lists for Reading in History=. The main points

in the pamphlet =Suggestions for the Year's Study= are talked over

between instructor and students, and constant reference is made to it

throughout the year.

The next step in the history work is to assign each student one or

more questions written on a slip and drawn by lot. These questions are

intended to test her assimilation of the bibliographical help already

given, and her ability to apply to a concrete case what she has gained.

As soon and as often as possible the students in the different sections

of this class in history go to the library with the instructor for such

additional and special help as they may need.

From time to time the students in History I prepare special topics on

limited questions. A bibliography must always preface these topics and

if it is in any way at fault, either as regards form or material, it

must be presented a second time or as many times as is necessary to

correct the defects.

This course in History I is required of every student in college.

Those students who elect other courses based on this become acquainted

with still other features of the library and acquire added facility

in bibliographical work. Every student, for example, who elects the

course in American history has a pamphlet called =Suggestions for the

Year's Study, History A, AA=. This pamphlet includes a chart that shows

the location in the library of all the sections of American history,

each accompanied by the Dewey notation for each section, and also the

notation for the sections in political science, law and government,

American literature, English literature, and English history. It also

considers at length the place in the course of the textbook, secondary

works, collections of sources, almanacs, works on government, guides

to literature, state histories, biographies, travels, and illustrative

material. For the latter the students are again referred to =Suggestive

Lists for Reading in History=.

Another section of the pamphlet considers specific classes of books

which the student uses. It calls attention to the various kinds of

bibliographies, as complete, selected, classified, and annotated; to

library catalogs arranged on the dictionary, author, subject, and

title plan, as also to trade catalogs; to documents classified by form

and by contents; to official publications, and the publications of

historical societies; to every form of personal record; to descriptions

by travelers; and to general and special histories. It also takes up

periodicals; manuscripts; special facsimiles, like the B. F. Stevens;

geographical material; monumental records; inscriptions, and pictorial

material.

Elaborate directions are given for preparing exhaustive bibliographies

of the material in the college library on special subjects and

suggestions for expanding these in the future as other opportunities

for further library work are presented. In addition, tin trays of

cards are provided in the American history sections. These are

bibliographical cards that supplement but do not duplicate the catalog

cards of the general library catalog.

During the year about twenty special topics are prepared by this class,

each prefaced by a bibliography of the subject. At the end of the year,

one special bibliographical topic is presented. This represents what

each student can do in the time given to three classroom hours.

At the end of the first semester of this course the examination given

is not a test of what the students have remembered but rather a test of

what they are able to do under definite conditions. The class is sent

to the library, each member of it usually receives by lot an individual

question, and she then shows what facility she has gained in the use of

books by answering the question with full range of the library.

Other pamphlets of =Suggestions= have occasionally been prepared for

the most advanced courses. At the end of the senior year the students

in my own courses are frequently given an examination that calls for

the freest use of the library in the planning of history outlines

for club work, in arranging for a public library selected lists of

histories suitable for "all sorts and conditions of men," and similar

tests that show how far they are able to apply present bibliographical

knowledge to probable future experiences.

All this instruction and opportunity for practice in bibliography

is not left to "the chance instruction of enthusiastic instructors"

or to "the insistence of department heads" to quote Mr. Kendric C.

Babcock.[8] It is definitely planned, it is systematically carried

out, there is definite progression from year to year in the kind of

bibliographical work required, and it is directly related to the

specific and individual work of every student. From time to time

conferences are held by the members of the library staff and the

instructors in history and these conferences enable each department

to supplement and complement the work of the other and thus avoid

repetition and duplication.

[8] =Library Journal=, March, 1913, p. 135.

This division of labor enables the reference librarian to play the part

of hostess, to make the students feel at home, to secure their good

will and co-operation, to develop a sense of personal responsibility

towards the library and its treasures. Her work as regards the library

is

largely general and descriptive; as regards the students it is that of

a friend and counselor; as regards the other officers of the college it

is that of an ally and co-operator.

It is necessary to emphasize at this point the wide divergence between

the work of the reference librarian in the college or the university

and that of the reference librarian in the public library however large

or small it may be.