Library Work with Children

by Alice Isabel Hazeltine

One of the most effective means of sustaining and promoting such a sense of library membership as I have indicated is the extension of reading-room work by placing on open, or on closed shelves, if necessary, a collection of the best children's books in the best editions obtainable, to be used as reading-room books. Children may be so trained in the careful handling of these books as to become very much more careful of their treatment of the book they take home and the experiment is not a matter of large expense to the library. The reading-room books should never be allowed to become unsightly in appearance if they are to do their full work in the room as an added attraction to the children and as suggestive to parents, teachers and other visitors who may wish to purchase books as gifts.

The value of a well conducted Story hour or Reading club as a means of sustaining the library connection and of influencing the spontaneous choice of books by boys and girls has not been fully recognized because it has been only partially understood. There are various methods of conducting Story hours and Reading clubs. There are many differences of opinion as to whether the groups should be large or small, differentiated by age or by sex, whether the groups should be made up entirely of children or whether an occasional adult may be admitted without changing the relation between the story teller and the children. Those who desire suggestion of material and specific information as to method and practice will find much that is valuable and practical in the publication of the Carnegie library of Pittsburg and in the Handbook of the Cleveland public library. Those who are seeking to place a Story hour in work already established will do well to remember that it is a distinctly social institution and as such is bound to be colored by the personality of its originator whether she tells the stories herself or finds others to carry out her ideas. Make your Story hour the simple and natural expression of the best you have to give and do not attempt more than you can perform. I believe the Story hour is the simplest and most effective means of enlisting the interest of parents and of stirring that active recollection of their own childhood which leads to sharing its experiences with their children. Folk tales told in the language his father and mother speak should give to the child of foreign parentage a feeling of pride in the beautiful things of the country his parents have left in place of the sense of shame with which he too often regards it. The possibilities in this field are unlimited if wisely directed.

The value of exhibits depends upon the subject chosen and the exercise of imagination, good taste and practical knowledge of children's tastes in selecting and arranging the objects or pictures. The subject must be one which makes an immediate appeal to the passing visitor. There should not be too much of it and it should not be allowed to remain too long in the room. A single striking object is often more effective than a collection of objects. Some interpretation of an exhibit in the form of explanation or story is needed if the children are to become very much interested in reading about a subject.

To those who believe that Story hours, Clubs, Exhibits, and Picture bulletins are not "legitimate library work," I would say, suspend your judgment until you have watched or studied the visible effects of such work in a place where it is properly related to the other activities of the library and to the needs of the community in which it is situated. If by the presence of an Arctic exhibit in an Italian and Irish-American non-reading neighborhood an interest is stimulated which results in the circulation and the reading of several hundred books on the subject during the time of the exhibition and for months afterward, the exhibit certainly seems legitimate.

5. Since it is true that social conditions, racial characteristics and individuality in temperament enter very actively into the problems of the care of children in libraries and since it is also true that the books children read and the care which is given to them in libraries are frequently reflected in their conduct in relation to the School, the Church, the Social settlement, the Playground, the Juvenile court and to civic clubs as well as to the Home, a more enlightened conception of the work of all these institutions is essential if the Children's library is to play its full part in the absorption of children of different nations into a larger national life. This need is being recognized and partially met by lecture courses and by the practice work of students in library training schools but listening to lectures, reading, and regulated student practice does not take the place of that spontaneous eagerness to see for one's self, the social activities of a neighborhood or town which makes a library in its town a place of living interest. Librarians, en masse, in relation to other institutions, stand in a similar position to that of the representative of those institutions. On both sides a firsthand knowledge of the aims and objects and methods of work of all the forces at work in a given community and a perception of their interrelationship is essential if we wish to do away with the present tendency to duplicate work which is already being carried on by more effective agencies. How far a library should go in relating its work to that of other institutions it is impossible to prescribe. The aim should be to make its own work so clear to the community in which it is placed that it will command the respect and the support of every citizen.

THE CIVIC VALUE OF LIBRARY WORK WITH CHILDREN

The second paper at the Minnetonka sectional meeting, mentioned in the introduction to the preceding article, was presented by Dr. Graham Taylor, Director of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, who believes that "equally with the schools and playgrounds, our library centers are essential to American democracy." Dr. Taylor was born in Schenectady, N. Y., in 1851; received the degree of A.B. from Rutgers College in 1870, and was graduated from the Reformed Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, N. J., in 1873. He has since been granted the honorary degrees of D.D. and LL.D. From 1873 to 1892 he remained in the pastorale; from 1888 to 1892 was Professor of Practical Theology in Hartford Theological Seminary, and in 1892 became Professor of Social Economics in the Chicago Theological Seminary. In 1894 he became the founder and resident warden of the Chicago Commons Social Settlement. Dr. Taylor is associate editor of the Survey.

The child is coming to be as much of a civic problem as it ever has been a family problem. Upon the normality of its children the strength and perpetuity of the state depend, as surely as the dependency and delinquency of its children undermine the prowess and menace the life of the state. The education and discipline, labor and recreation of the child figure larger all the while in our legislation and taxes, our thinking and literature.

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 assimilation 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 punishing 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 assimilate 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.