Part 34 (1/2)

Last year when we decided to tell stories from English history to this mixed group of little folks we felt that probably the stories would not be received with the same interest as were the stories of the previous year. Strange to say, these stories appealed keenly to the children, and our number increased weekly and interest did not wane. Many copies of English histories were placed on our shelves, and these were eagerly read. Even now it is difficult to find an English history in our children's room.

A remarkable feature of the work at our branch is the small amount of fiction read, only 45 per cent. We had a decided advantage here, because our children had never learned to read fiction. Having read but very little, their power of concentration was small, and the book that contained a story that ”went all the way through” did not appeal to them. Their great regard for ”teacher's” opinion helped us at the library to please them by giving them non-fiction. For instance, when the boys came, as most boys do, with a request for a story about Indians, we gave them Grinnell's ”Story of the Indian,” or Wade's ”Ten Big Indians,” the binding and high sounding t.i.tle of which would attract them, and they would find their way to the shelf where the Indian books were and would read nearly all we had there.

They were then prepared to thoroughly enjoy our Indian stories in fiction.

Ours is an emotional race, and as religion appeals much to this element in our nature, our parents have always been church- goers, and the reverence for sacred things which our children manifest is inherent. Therefore it is no cause for wonder that the stories of the Old and New Testament find children anxious to read them.

Our children read more biography than would be supposed. That book that will tell them about a boy who, though poor and otherwise handicapped, struggled, overcame and became famous, appeals to them; therefore ”Poor boys' chances” and Bolton's ”Poor boys who became famous” are called for constantly. There are few of our boys and girls who will not gladly take a copy of the life of Abraham Lincoln, or Booker T. Was.h.i.+ngton and read them over and over, their parents often having them read the same to them also. The self-made element in the lives of these men strikes a responsive chord in the hearts of our young people.

They are easily led from the lives of these to the life of Napoleon, Edison, Was.h.i.+ngton and others.

During the school months the tables of our reference room are usually crowded. The pupils of the High School, near by, often deluge us, after the closing of school, with anxious requests for information on every topic from ”the best mode of pastry making to Halley's comet.”

The Library Board has been generous in granting our request for more and more books. Our supply, however, is still far too small for the demand made upon it, our circulation having increased from 17,838 to 55,088 for the present year. We have two library stations and 35 cla.s.s room collections, all demanding more books.

When we look back now at the time of our beginning we see that our fears were unfounded. Our people needed only an opportunity and encouragement. The success of the branch has exceeded the hope of the most sanguine of those interested in its organization, and we feel justly proud of the results attained.

THE FOREIGN CHILD AT A ST. LOUIS BRANCH

Present-day conditions in a branch library in a crowded district of a large city are pictured in the last paper to be included in this compilation, with special emphasis on the necessity of understanding the traditions and customs of foreign peoples in order to know how to appeal to them. It was read by Miss Josephine M. McPike before the meeting of the Missouri Library a.s.sociation at Joplin, Missouri, in October, 1915.

Josephine Mary McPike was born in Alton, Illinois, and studied in Shurtleff College, Upper Alton, and in the University of Illinois. She became a member of the staff of the St. Louis Public Library in 1909. In February, 1917, she resigned from the position of First a.s.sistant at the Crunden Branch to become the librarian of the Seven Corners Branch of the Minneapolis Public Library.

Crunden branch is the kind of place, the thought of which makes you glad to get up in the morning. It is an inst.i.tution a state of mind. And as we workers there feel, so do the people in the neighborhood. We have heard over and over again the almost worn-out appellation ”The people's university”; Crunden has a different place in the thoughts of its users. It is really the living-room of our neighborhood--the place where, the dishes having been washed and the ap.r.o.n hung up, we naturally retire to read and to muse.

True, it is a large family foregathered in this living-room of ours, much greater in number than the chairs for them to sit upon, but, as in all large families, there is much giving and taking. In the children's room, crowded to overflowing, the Jewish child sits next to the Irish, and the Italian and the Polish child read from the same book. Children of all ages; babes from two and a half years to boys of twenty who spend their days in the factory, and are still reading ”Robinson Crusoe” and the ”Merry adventures of Robin Hood.” There too, sometimes comes the mother but lately arrived from the ”Old Country,” wearing her brightly colored native costume. Unable to read or to write, she feels more at home here with the children whom she understands, and beams proudly to see her little ”Izzey” reading ”Child life”

or ”Summers' reader.”

Some social workers report that their greatest difficulty in dealing with the children of the tenement district is absolute lack of the play spirit. Our observations have been quite to the contrary; in all of the children there is a fresh and healthy play- fulness--indeed, we feel at times that it is much too healthy. Our constant attendance is needed to satisfy them all, insatiable little readers that they are.