III. Book-lists and Book-selecting.
“Shall we permit our children,” wrote Plato in the “Republic,” “without scruple to hear any fables composed by any authors indifferently, and so to receive into their minds opinions generally the reverse of those which, when they are grown to manhood, we shall think they ought to entertain?” To a negative reply from Adeimantus, Glaucon’s brother, Plato continued: “Then apparently our first duty will be to exercise a superintendence over the authors of fables, selecting their good productions, and rejecting the bad. And the selected fables we shall advise our nurses and mothers to repeat to their children, that they may thus mould their minds with the fables, even more than they shape their bodies with the hand.”
Upon the broad principles here formulated the value of the children’s rooms depends. For it will be conceded that the two requisites of a library are to place good books upon the shelves and to see that they are read.
In the first section of this chapter, the individual promptings of a conscientious person were suggested; but a more systematic method of book-selection should be adopted, whereby a book is chosen because it has passed scrutiny of a committee elected for the special purpose. In order to protect the average demand, such a board should, of necessity, be a body catholic in taste, and not wholly academic in tone. It should bear in mind that a consulting library is different in function and in appeal from the general circulating branches; that the specialised critic must pass, not always upon whether there is sufficient fact in the book, but upon whether what fact there is has been dealt with truly, rather than fully.
As early as 1893, Paul Ziegler established a German monthly, the Jugendschriftenwarte, in which he purposed to teach the German people how to examine children’s books, classical and modern. He believed firmly that he would be able to reach some scientific basis, some consistent standard, which would be founded upon psychological, pedagogical, and æsthetic experience. This ambitious beginning by Ziegler led to the organisation of committees for the same purpose. In 1900, there were twenty-six centres throughout the Empire engaged in the study, and they were soon gathered together by Heinrich Wolgast,[55] a specialist on the subject of children’s reading, into a “union” called “Die vereinigten deutschen Prüfungsausschüsse für Jugendschriften.”
By 1906, the movement had so grown that seventy-eight local committees, with a common interest and a strong organisation, were working in twenty-six German States, their energy being felt and their example being followed in Austria, Switzerland, and France.
These committees have been weeding out, according to their æsthetic, educational, and national ideals, all undesirable literature for children, leaving nothing but the best. It would appear that in the course of their examination they called into account the opinions of parent, teacher, librarian, author, illustrator, and publisher. The local committees, working in hearty sympathy with the local libraries, had but one watchword, excellent; the book was read three times by a number of committees—sometimes as many as six, when the book would pass through eighteen hands. If a committee’s decision was unanimous, the result was sent to the central office of the confederation; if there was a difference of opinion, an arbitrator was called in.
Miss Isabel Chadburn, in a suggestive article,[56] quotes fully some of the final reports which are always sent to the Jugendschriftenwarte for publication. Here is one dealing summarily with a book:
“‘The Lifeboat,’ Ballantyne (From the English of). Four pictures in colour, black-and-white illustrations in the text; second edition; 8vo, 122 pages. Leipzig: Otto Spamer, 1892. Price 1 m.
“Tested by: Berlin (no); Breslau (no); Halle (no); Königsberg (yes); Posen (no); Stettin (yes).