Part 7 (1/2)

Fifth, the libraries are neglected. In no school did I find a well-appointed one, and where there were bookcases they were tucked aside in corner or entry, thick with dust, unused.

The state statistics as to the growth of this movement ignore absolutely the facts I have mentioned. Therefore, I claim that in no true sense are these statistics representative. The movement, however, has interest. It is alive. It is sweeping through the state. It spends thousands of dollars a year. It concerns itself wholly with children. These are its characteristics. There can be no two opinions as to its lack of balance, for the adult is not even considered. There can be no two opinions as to its intellectual and educational values. Buying only ”juvenile literature” they are of the smallest. There can be no two opinions as to its morality: the people are taxed, yet only a fraction of the people, only those who have children below the seventh and above the first grades, receive a return.

How far North Carolina was seeking guidance of the North, how far the North was also over-emphasizing, if it was, the children's side in library work, I next wished to determine.

This brought me back to Boston, and to my second and final year of service on the Examining Committee. The chairmans.h.i.+p of the sub-committee on branches gave me opportunity for studying library work as it touched the child and the school in cities.

This I supplemented by a less intensive study of library conditions in towns, in Ma.s.sachusetts, Connecticut, New Hamps.h.i.+re, seeking to make my knowledge comprehensive.

The first impression I received was that of the many interpretations put upon library work. These were almost as numerous as were the librarians and custodians. Viewing the work as a whole such divergence in practice seemed an error. There is power in unity; results worth while follow. There is loss in the frittering away of time caused by casual experiment; moreover, it bears heavily on the child. To this you may be inclined to answer that social and moral conditions vary so in each city and town that the individual condition must be faced individually.

Granted, but not to the extent you might wish. To ill.u.s.trate: there is wisdom in allowing a certain station of the Boston system complete liberty of action. But the situation at this station is unique. It could not be duplicated even in Boston. The work is in the hands of a skilled leader, and it forms part of a large private work, financed by a philanthropist noted for leaders.h.i.+p in wise experimentation. The library shows breadth in accepting the situation. But it is not wisdom to allow the introduction of the story hour, or, as is the case in a neighboring town, the throwing wide open of the children's room to tots so tiny that picture blocks have to be furnished them to play with--before the educational authorities have p.r.o.nounced such work necessary and just.

I next noticed and with some alarm the feminization of the library corps. And I confess that I see no remedy. The schools are facing the same difficulty, but eventually it will be solved for them in the raising of certain salaries to a man's standard.

This is not likely to happen in library work. Consequently we have this feminization to reckon with, and to me it is an active factor in the diversity of library practice to which I have referred, for women far more than men are p.r.o.ne to indulge individual fads.

A third impression was the lack of fitness of some library workers for their posts. This is particularly unfortunate when it occurs in a children's room. Unless the person in charge possess the requisite qualifications, better far close the room. The fault lies perhaps with the colleges offering library courses. It may well be that the training in these should be more specialized than it is. Take the case of a student intending to pursue a given line of work--say children's departments. Something definite should be offered her, something corresponding in worth to the graduate courses in practice and observation offered students of education in departments of education at universities. This is a practical suggestion; it only requires on the part of colleges and libraries similar agreements to those already existing between universities and schools. A second phase of this question is that of libraries whose employees are not drawn from library schools or colleges, but who reach the several posts by a system of promotion based on efficiency and faithful service. Is there any reason why employees of such a system, specializing in children's work should not serve an apprentices.h.i.+p in the children's department at central and be required to return to it again and again for further instruction?

As far as I know the heads of these children's departments have no duties of this kind. But would not the value of a library corps be increased tenfold if they had? They seize eagerly the opportunity to go out and instruct the teacher, to go out and instruct the parent. They have cla.s.ses for the schools in the use of the library. But they neglect utterly the training of the library employee who is to serve as a.s.sistant first, as chief later, in the children's room at branch or station. Yet the knowledge acquired by only one day of observation under skillful guidance in the children's department at central would prove invaluable to these women. Broaden the training given employees, and centralize experimentation.

I found no TRUE affiliation with the schools. There was none in North Carolina; there is none here. In countless ways the library and the school are overlapping. Why there should not be a clearer vision as to what is library work and what is school work is incomprehensible to an outsider.

I grew to have a horror of children's rooms--as distinct from children's departments. Intellectually, physically, morally, I believe them harmful. Neither can I see their necessity.

As regards cla.s.sification of books, I received the impression that the broad division into ”adult” and ”juvenile” is too dogmatic, too arbitrary. Whatever other forms or divisions are necessary, this particular one should be abolished. It lowers the intellectual standing of the library with the community.

The splendid character of library work in tenement districts stood out strongly. It is vigorous, alive, with an ever-broadening opportunity.

More vivid, however, than any other impression, stronger still, was that of the time and thought and care bestowed on the Child.

Everywhere, in city, town and suburban library, the effort to reach the Child is apparent. Special attendants are in readiness to meet him the instant he comes into reading room and station after school hours. Thoughtful women are a.s.signed to overlook and guide his reference work. Entertainment is offered him in the form of blocks to play with, sc.r.a.p-books to look at, story hours to attend. Books specially selected with regard to his supposedly individual needs are placed on the shelves. Picture bulletins are made for his use in the schools. Where he is not segregated he is allowed to monopolize tables and chairs. I find no corresponding effort made to reach the adult, to reach the young mechanic, to draw to the library the parent. I at times wonder whether librarians and custodians are even aware that exaggerated leaning toward one phase of library work must throw out of the true the work as a whole.

Nothing has astonished me more than this new development in library practice--the placing of the child in importance before the adult. The old belief that the library is primarily for adults and only incidentally for children still holds good at the central buildings of large city public library systems. In these we find the children's department only one of many departments--the child always subordinate, the adult dominant--the result of a well balanced, admirable whole, each unit in its proper place, all forces pulling together. I fail to see why the same relative balance should not be maintained throughout the entire system, from branch to station, not always in kind and measure, but approximately.

A second thought to which I cannot adjust myself--is that of the parent as a factor in school and library work. The parent believes in the public school, and he pays heavily in taxes for the education of his children by means of it. The parent believes in the establishment of public libraries and he pays heavily in taxes for their equipment. Both sums raised are sufficiently generous to enable school and library to furnish trained, capable, efficient teachers and librarians. Such being the case does not the parent show intelligence in turning over to the public care the direction of his children's education and reading? Is he not justified in so doing? Why then should he be held ignorant or selfish? Eliminate the parent as a factor in library practice. Give the children quality in books. Strike off 50 per cent., if you only will, of the t.i.tles to be found on the shelves of children's rooms. Subst.i.tute ”adult” books, and you will not need to appeal to the parent to guide the child's choice.

That there is similarity of practice in library work, in North Carolina and here, you can hardly deny. Point by point, in so far as the work relates to the child, the problems are mutual. Their solution lies in the getting together of school and library authorities, and the setting aside of the modern thought that library work is primarily educative and primarily for the child.

Let the schools educate the children; and, if you can, let the adult once more dominate in library practice. You will then have a well-balanced whole, free from over-emphasis on the child's side.

LIBRARY WORK WITH CHILDREN

A conception of the meaning and the possibilities of children's work interpreted by means of present day social and industrial conditions is given by Henry E. Legler, librarian of the Chicago Public Library, in a paper on ”Library work with children,” read at the Pasadena Conference of the A L. A. in 1911. Henry Eduard Legler was born in Palermo, Italy, June 22, 1861. He was educated in Switzerland and the United States. In 1889 he was a member of the Wisconsin a.s.sembly; from 1890 to 1894 secretary of the Milwaukee School Board; from 1904 to 1909 secretary of the Wisconsin Library Commission, and since 1909 has been librarian of the Chicago Public Library. In 1912-1913 Mr. Legler was President of the A. L. A.

Not long since a man of genius took a lump of formless clay, and beneath the cunning of his hand there grew a great symbol of life. He called it Earthbound. An old man is bowed beneath the sorrow of the world. Under the weight of burdens that seemingly they cannot escape, a younger man and his faithful mate stagger with bent forms. Between them is a little child. Instead of a body supple and straight and instinct with freedom and vigor, the child's body yields to the weight of heredity and environment, whose crus.h.i.+ng influence press the shoulders down.

In this striking group the artist pictures for us the world-old story of conditions which meet the young lives of one generation, and are transmitted to the next. It is a picture that was true a thousand years ago; it is a picture that is faithful of conditions today. Perhaps its modern guise might be more aptly and perhaps no less strikingly shown, as it recently appeared in the form of a cartoon ill.u.s.trating Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's verse:

The Cry of the Children