Part 10 (1/2)

Democracy, machine industry, immigration and child psychology combine to make the child a new problem to the modern state and city, especially in America. With the problems of the child's normality and defectiveness, discipline and delinquency, work and play, and its a.s.similation into the body politic, our towns and cities, states and nation have been forced to deal. Hitherto we have dealt far more with the negative and repressive aspects of these problems than with any constructive ideal, purpose and method respecting them. We have, for instance, paid more attention to defective children than to the prenatal antecedents and early conditions of child life. We have been too long punis.h.i.+ng juvenile delinquency without trying to help the backward and wayward child. We have let young children work without regard to the industrial efficiency of their whole life.

We are only beginning to share the attention we have paid to the education of our children with the equally serious problem of their recreation. We have been content merely with their physical exercise and have been stupidly obtuse to awaking and satisfying the pleasurable interest of the child in his play and the organization of it. Where there have been an un-American fear of immigration and feeling against the immigrant there has been all too little effort put forth to a.s.similate the foreign elements of our local population.

But we are coming to see that to prepossess is better than to dispossess. Prevention is found to be a surer and cheaper solvent of our child problems than punishment. The child's own resources for self development and self mastery prove to be greater than all the repressive measures to obtain and maintain our control over him. Thus our very disciplinary measures have become saner and more effective. No way-mark of our civilization registers greater progress than our abandonment of the criminal procedure against children and our adoption of the paternal spirit and method of our juvenile courts and reformatory measures. To our agencies for dealing with defectives and delinquents we have added the kindergarten and all the kindred principles, methods and instrumentalities of constructive work with children.

Chief among these is the use we are making of the child's instinct for play and mental diversion as a means of building up both the individual and the social life. Chicago has made the discovery of the civic value of recreation centers for the play of the people. Not since old Rome's circus maximus and the Olympic games of Greece has any city made such provision for the recreation of its people as is to be found in these great playfields, surrounding the beautifully designed and well equipped field houses, which at a cost of $12,000,000 of the tax payers' money have been built in the most crowded districts of Chicago. The recreation centers ill.u.s.trate the civic opportunity and value of library work with children. For the Chicago public library was quick to see and seize the advantage thus offered to serve the city. The delivery stations and reading rooms established in these field houses are already recognized to be the most useful of its centers to the child life of the city. The organized volunteer cooperation of several groups of women has added the story hour as a regular feature of the library work at these playgrounds, and at two public school buildings where similar stations are to be established in cooperation with the Board of education. At the central library building the work in the Thomas Hughes Young people's reading room has also been successfully supplemented by the story hour appointments in a large hall, with the same efficient cooperation.

The quick and large response given by the people to these civic extensions of library service in every city and town where they have been offered, demonstrates what a large field of usefulness awaits public library enterprise and occupancy. But the experiment has gone far enough to prove the absolute necessity of having librarians especially trained for work with children; and to that end, the addition of the position of children's librarian to the cla.s.sified civil service lists for which special examinations are set.

Equally with the schools and playgrounds, our library centers are essential to American democracy. All three are to be cla.s.sed together as our most democratic and efficient agencies for training our people into their citizens.h.i.+p and a.s.similating them into the American body politic. Nowhere are we on a more common footing of an equality of opportunity than in the public schools, the public playground and the public library.

The public school stands upon that bit of mother earth which belongs equally to us all. The playground is open alike to all comers. And the public library is not only as free and open to all as to any of our whole people, but also confers citizens.h.i.+p in that time-long, world wide democracy of the Republic of Letters.

The civic service thus democratically to be rendered by library work with children is indispensably valuable. It may be made more and more invaluable to any community by intelligent insight into the needs of the people, and by the practical and prompt application of library resources which are limited only by our capacity, enterprise and energy to develop and apply them.

ESTABLIs.h.i.+NG RELATIONS BETWEEN THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY AND OTHER CIVIC AGENCIES

A broader idea of library work with children necessitates greater knowledge of other agencies which work with them and a spirit of willing cooperation on the part of the children's librarian. From her experience in the city of Was.h.i.+ngton Miss Herbert contributed the following article of The Library Journal. Clara Wells Herbert was born in Stockbridge, Ma.s.s.; was a student in Va.s.sar from 1894 to 1896; received a special certificate from the Training School for Children's Librarians in 1904; was children's librarian in the Brooklyn Public Library from 1904 to 1907, and since that time has been the head of the Children's department in the Public Library of the District of Columbia.

The children's departments of many city libraries are carrying on a fine aggressive work and through branch children's rooms, close work with schools, including deposits of books in cla.s.srooms, deposits of books and story-telling in playgrounds, home libraries and home visiting, are coming close to the children and putting good books within their reach. Such work rests upon a large staff and a generous appropriation. On the other hand, the small town library has the advantage of informal relations with its people and is a part of the various activities of the town.

Between these two types of libraries is a third. It is located in a city too large for the helpful informal relations of the town library. It cannot, on the other hand, carry on its own aggressive work, for it is hampered by the smallness of its staff and the meagerness of its appropriation.

To libraries of this sort the effecting of cordial relations with other civic inst.i.tutions is of the utmost importance. Upon it depends largely the outside work of the library and a specialized knowledge of conditions very essential for intelligent work.

Nor is the library the only one to profit by cooperation.

”I never thought of asking for help there,” said a probation officer recently when talking of her difficulties in keeping a record of the use of the withdrawn books given to the court by the library. Not more than we need the benefit of the intimate personal knowledge of conditions of such workers, do they often need the help the library stands ready and eager to give but which they do not think to ask.

The work of the children's department should be then twofold in purpose--to reach the children directly as far as possible, and to establish such relations with other organizations as will render it a vital interested force in the community, a place where people will naturally turn for help along the line of its work.

Certain practices which have been found useful in effecting this cooperation may be suggestive, but the basis of any satisfactory relations.h.i.+p is interest and the desire to help and has its beginnings in the children's room.

The children's librarian should keep always in mind that the city is full of workers who, strong in the belief that the hope of the future is in the children, are doing devoted work in their behalf. Sooner or later they will visit the children's room and the opportunity presents itself to know their particular line of work. It is interesting to note in how many of such cases the conversation contains something which may be applied with advantage to the library's activities. At least, the visitor receives the impression that the library a.s.sistant is interested in any work done for children and, if at some future time a need presents itself, turns to her for a.s.sistance.

This interest is also shown if the children's librarians attend meetings or conferences held in behalf of children or from which they may gather information on home conditions. Frequently there are courses of lectures given by charity organizations or club meetings of sociological workers where the problems of the city are discussed.

Libraries having staff or apprentice meetings frequently invite as speakers persons representing some particular phase of work, and these occasions engender mutual interest. In other cases librarians have added to their staffs former kindergartners and charity workers that they might profit by their special training and the knowledge of conditions gathered from their former experiences.

Much may be said of the undesirability of distributing withdrawn books among inst.i.tutions. But in libraries where the maintenance of travelling collections is limited they afford perhaps the only opportunity of reaching the children in orphanages, reform schools and similar inst.i.tutions. Such distributions should be followed by visits to the inst.i.tutions to talk, if possible, to the children and to get an idea of their needs and tastes.

Collections of withdrawn books at the juvenile court are used by the children while on probation and often after release, and by the grown people of their families as well. In Cleveland the list of official parents and paroled boys is furnished the library and booklists and information about the nearest branch are sent them.

In Was.h.i.+ngton the library supplies the probation officers with application blanks. When a child who has shown a taste for reading is to be discharged the officer on the last visit to his home takes the application blank and secures the parent's signature. The child brings the application to the library, obtains cards immediately and is helped in his selection of books.

The attendance or truant officers of the schools know home conditions better than teachers. They have a general knowledge of the city and the peculiarities of the different sections that is most helpful in the selection of places for home libraries or deposit stations. Their knowledge of the home life of troublesome children will often throw light on difficult cases of discipline.

In Was.h.i.+ngton the attendance officer issues permits under the child labor law. From this office may be secured a list of stores and other places of employment for children. The library should send notices to such buildings and place at the office invitations to use the library to be distributed at the time the permits for work are issued.

The Cleveland Public Library uses for a mailing list for publications pertaining to children's work a card directory of social workers. This directory gives the name, address and connection of each individual and includes board members of set- tlement houses, a.s.sociated charities, visiting nurses'

a.s.sociations, pastors and their a.s.sistants, of churches conducting club work, and others similarly engaged. In some cities this same information may be gathered from the published directory of philanthropic agencies and their reports. Lists such as those published by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, ”Stories to tell to children,” ”Books for reading circles,”