The lending of sets of books for class room libraries is best begun with schools at a distance too great for the children to walk to the library to get their books. These collections are made up of about fifty books, not text books nor required supplementary reading, but books following the line of certain parts of the school work and books of imaginative reading. A simple method is usually devised for statistics of circulation, such as a large card for each book on which is written the name of the child who is reading the book.
Story Hours.—The story hour is an ideal way of presenting the classic literature. If there is plenty of time for story hours and for proper preparation, a satisfactory division of children and of literature is to invite the younger children to hear the folk tales and other literature suited to their age, but not to have an age limit excluding older children who would enjoy coming and perhaps have never heard these stories; the children of ten years and over being invited to hear Greek and Norse myths and cycles, such as the sagas, the mediaeval legends, ballads, stories from Homer, etc., and miscellaneous stories suited to their age. The stories which come to us from the folk literature and other classic sources are to a great extent universal in interest and appeal to all classes and nationalities of children.
One story hour per week is often as much as the small library has time for and no story hour at all is preferable to the telling of stories poorly prepared, or told by one without appreciation. Poetry hours and clubs for reading, debating, travel study, etc., are important methods of interesting, inspiring and guiding children. The love of poetry may be kept alive by giving it orally and for pure joy in the story hour, reading circles or occasional readings to small groups.
Visits to the homes of the children for one reason or another, and visits to the school rooms to tell stories, to remind the children of the library, or merely to show an interest in the work of the different grades, will prove fruitful in many ways. Short printed lists of books on different subjects are useful in suggesting new lines of reading to children.
It is the privilege of the librarian to enrich the lives of her youthful patrons. There are compensations for those in charge of small libraries, where a trained children’s librarian cannot be afforded, in opportunities for a greater share in the joy of working with the receptive thought of the child, while the work with parents and teachers as well gives deeper insight into the sympathy for the needs of the children.
CHAPTER IX.
THE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY.
“There is no problem relating to the equipment of the high school which is more pressing than that of the library,” said a recent editorial writer in the School Review. At the annual meeting of the New York State Library Association, in 1907, Dr. Downing, State Commissioner of Education, suggested that some special study be given to the question of high school libraries and a committee was later appointed to make an investigation of library conditions in high schools and report at the annual meeting in September, 1909. A questionnaire was sent to some eighty-three schools, but only a few of the replies contained more than the briefest answers. Twenty-five out of the fifty-two libraries heard from were in charge of librarians who had some library experience or training. Most of the librarians had been appointed to high school positions since 1903. The first appointment of a high school librarian in New York City was in 1900. The investigation as a whole was unsatisfactory, inasmuch as the high schools reporting were not representative of conditions throughout the State, much less throughout the country generally, and because the replies left much unsaid as to the actual use of and interest in these libraries.
In a discussion of “The difficulty of the high school library,”[[2]] Mr. Edwin White Gaillard, supervisor of work with schools, New York Public Library, claims that the problem is largely one of money and deprecates the duplication of work already being done by the public library. This is no more of an argument against high school libraries than are similar objections against departmental libraries in a university. The high school library is for a special kind of work—work that can best be done in the school building, under the supervision and guidance of one familiar with the special needs of the student. Mr. Gaillard grants that much, of course, may be learned about libraries and library methods in the high school library, but claims that the library habit, the habit of going to the public library for all sorts of information, of little or of great interest, cannot be acquired from the high school library. This is a point which cannot be conceded. University librarians are familiar with a similar argument against technical departmental libraries to the effect that they have a tendency to make the technical student feel that there is no need of his going to the University Library, that the departmental library answers all his needs. Experience, however, proves that to have these students use any library you must plant it right in their midst. So with the high school students: give them a good library in their own school building and then see that they use it properly, for this is a part of modern education.
In these days when high schools are extending their work in so many directions and when books must be provided for supplementary work in English, in history, in the preparation of debates, and in other subjects, a well-equipped library is a necessity in the modern high school. A motley array of old text-books, out-of-date encyclopædias and miscellaneous volumes from the attics of well-meaning friends of the institution will not make a good high school library. Upon how many school libraries in this country can former pupils look back as did Burne-Jones upon the little school library at Birmingham, as “that blessed institution where we spent many blissful hours.” The failure of many school libraries is due to a lack of proper care and fostering attention after they have been established. The library is there out of deference to a growing public sentiment in favor of such an annex, but the library is too frequently left to run itself, or the responsibility for its care is given to some teacher already overburdened with class-room work. The responsibility ought never to be placed on the teachers, or at least not on one who is doing full work as a teacher. The average teacher, if given charge of a school library, will confine her efforts to seeing that the rules are obeyed, that books are brought in on time, and that silence and order are preserved. She will not have time or energy to devote to the building up of the library, to instruct the pupils in its use, to look after reference work with the students, nor to help the teachers in finding needed material. “Disabuse yourselves of the notion that it is teachers’ work, and a way out of the difficulty will be found,” says a recent writer in the Library Journal.[[3]]