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: