How to Form a Library, 2nd ed

by Henry B. Wheatley

The idea of a Child's Library is to a great extent modern, and it is not altogether clear that it is a good one, except in the case of those children who have no books of their own. It is far better that each child should have his own good books, which he can read over and over again, thus thoroughly mastering their contents.

It is a rather wide-spread notion that there is some sort of virtue in reading for reading's sake, although really a reading boy may be an idle boy. When a book is read, it should be well thought over before another is begun, for reading without thought generates no ideas.

One advantage of a Child's Library should be that the reader is necessarily forced to be careful, so as to return the books uninjured. This is a very important point, for children should be taught from their earliest years to treat books well, and not to destroy them as they often do. We might go farther than this and say that children should be taught at school how to handle a book. It is really astonishing to see how few persons (not necessarily children) among those who have not grown up among books know how to handle them. It is positive torture to a man who loves books to see the way they are ordinarily treated. Of course it is not necessary to mention the crimes of wetting the fingers to turn over the leaves, or turning down pages to mark the place; but those who ought to know better will turn a book over on its face at the place where they have left off reading, or will turn over pages so carelessly that they give a crease to each which will never come out.

For a healthy education it is probably best that a child should have the run of a library for adults (always provided that dangerous books are carefully excluded). A boy is much more likely to enjoy and find benefit from the books he selects himself than from those selected for him.

The circumstances of the child should be considered in the selection of books; thus it is scarcely fair when children are working hard at school all day that they should be made to read so-called instructive books in the evening. They have earned the right to relaxation and should be allowed good novels. To some boys books of Travels and History are more acceptable than novels, but all children require some Fiction, and, save in a few exceptional cases, their imaginations require to be cultivated.

It will soon be seen whether children have healthy or unhealthy tastes. If healthy, they are best left to themselves; if unhealthy, they must be directed.

It is easy for the seniors to neglect the children they have under them, and it is easy to direct them overmuch, but it is difficult to watch and yet let the children go their own way. We are apt, in arranging for others, to be too instructive; nothing is less acceptable to children or less likely to do them good than to be preached at. Moral reflections in books are usually skipped by children, and unless somewhat out of the common, probably by grown-up persons as well. Instruction should grow naturally out of the theme itself, and form an integral part of it, so that high aims and noble thoughts may naturally present themselves to the readers.

One of the chapters in the United States Libraries' Report is on "School and Asylum Libraries" (pp. 38-59), in which we are informed that New York was the pioneer in founding school libraries. "In 1827 Governor De Witt Clinton, in his message to the legislature, recommended their formation; but it was not till 1835 that the friends of free schools saw their hopes realized in the passage of a law which permitted the voters in any school district to levy a tax of $20 to begin a library, and a tax of $10 each succeeding year to provide for its increase."

Another chapter in the same Report is on "Public Libraries and the Young" (pp. 412-418), in which Mr. Wm. J. Fletcher advocates the use of the library as an addition to the school course. He writes, "It only remains now to say that, as we have before intimated, the public library should be viewed as an adjunct of the public school system, and to suggest that in one or two ways the school may work together with the library in directing the reading of the young. There is the matter of themes for the writing of compositions; by selecting subjects on which information can be had at the library, the teacher can send the pupil to the library as a student, and readily put him in communication with, and excite his interest in, classes of books to which he has been a stranger and indifferent."