NORMAL SCHOOLS AND THEIR RELATION TO LIBRARIANSHIP
That there is a close relation between librarianship and the forces of education is implied both in the special topic of this paper and in the general theme of the morning: "Children and young people; their conditions at home, in the school, and in the library." Indeed librarian and teacher have more in common than we yet think. For real library work is teaching, and real teaching is guidance in living, and to live well for thy neighbor and thyself is—real library work.
The burden of this discussion will be, not whether the library is an integral part of education, but rather what modern education, as an art, science, and practice, has to say about the attitude and method and practice of library work. With open mind and modest, may we attempt a statement of "library pedagogy" to parallel current educational practice? How may we librarians knit our work more effectively into the educational fabric? How best correlate people and books?
If such a statement of library pedagogy is possible, even though tentative, it is worth our while. From college days there rings in my ears the topic of an address by Dr. Samuel B. McCormick, now President of the University of Pittsburgh: "We can achieve that which we can intelligently conceive and adequately express." We must see our whole job through and through if we are to cope with our friends who do not yet see what we are at. The good brother, a Ph. D. of one of our best universities, a successful city school superintendent, now a fellow professor, who said, "I can see how instruction of our normal school students in library methods will help them in their work here, but how will it help them as teachers? Anyone can find a book in a school library." The superintendent who complained that all his pupils got at the public library was sore eyes and ruined minds from reading trashy fiction; the library trustee who likened library work and salary to dry-goods counter service and wage; the typewriter salesman who objected to open shelves and book wagons and story hours, because they cost—I won't say how much he said; what infinite patience, what skillful teaching power must we librarians have, to turn this tide and use it?
Lest we paint the picture too darkly, let it be said with all thankfulness and cheer that multitudes of teachers, superintendents, boys, girls, men and women, do understand. There is Superintendent Condon, formerly of Providence, now of Cincinnati, of whom Mr. Foster says in the last (1912) Providence report: "Mr. Condon's co-operation with the library was constant, intelligent, and effective." There is Mary Antin and her brothers and sisters, Americans all, to whom one of the richest gifts of the "Promised Land" is the public library. There is State Superintendent Alderman, of Oregon, and Mrs. Alderman. There is the United States Commissioner of Education, Mr. Claxton, and Mrs. Claxton. In every state are men like a western Kansas superintendent (way out next to Colorado, on the prairies), who found his community destitute of books; even school books and tablets had to be ordered by the drug store from a distant city; no community interest, no debating societies, no class plays, no school athletic teams. He made school vital to the boys and girls. Then because to his thinking education does not end with school days, and because he had the library vision, before he was there a year he passed the subscription paper, organized the library association, got the books and magazines, and opened the public library. He gave that town something to live for. And every state has librarians like the little Kansas lady in a country community who does reference work and draws patrons from sixteen surrounding school districts by the use of the rural telephone.
What have the normal schools to do with all this? Before answering this question, it may be well to note that the term "normal school" has not always the same significance. In the United States there are 194 public normal schools. Scholastic standards are of three general types: First, the old-time normal school, whose graduates have little more than completed a high school course including some required pedagogy. Second, the largest division, the two-year normal school, which requires two years of college cultural and professional work, high school graduation being required for entrance. Third, the normal college or state teachers' college, which grants the bachelor's degree for the completion of four years of college cultural and professional work. As a rule the graduates of the high school normal course go into the rural or the small-town schools; the graduates of the two-year college course, into elementary schools and special subjects; and the graduates of the four-year college course, into high school subjects, principalships, and superintendencies. The four-year state teachers' colleges of the United States can be counted on the ten fingers, and their ultimate sphere of influence is being debated. It would seem, however, that the adequate teacher-training institution must be as broad in its facilities and standards as are the conditions of modern life with which teachers must cope.
In the normal schools of these three types, student attendance varies from 100 to nearly 3,000, the average being about 600. Faculties vary from 8 or 10 members to 125. Equipment varies correspondingly, the better schools having very complete facilities. For example, the Eastern Illinois State Normal School, at Charleston, which is said to have a faculty ranking in scholarship with the universities, has 1,200 students, 31 members of faculty, offers two college years of teacher-training, has three buildings, a library of 16,000 volumes, and like many other normal schools of its type has an assured future and a fine field of influence. You will pardon another example, I hope, cited because I can be still more definite in describing it: The Kansas State Normal School, at Emporia, is a type of the four-year normal college. It was established in 1865. Last year it had 2,750 students, 350 in the training school (comprising kindergarten and grades one to eight), 1,100 in the normal high school, and 1,300 in the college. It had a faculty of 100, nearly half of these being men, many of the best universities being represented. It has 11 buildings, including an enormous gymnasium, a library, a hospital, a training school, science building, etc. It has a department of library science, in charge of a professor giving full time to that department, and on the same plane as other departments of instruction. Of this same general type, in equipment, numbers, and standards, are the schools at Ypsilanti, Michigan; Cedar Falls, Iowa; Kirksville, Missouri; Greeley, Colorado; Terre Haute, Indiana;—I do not mean to slight other worthy examples.
Aside from these three types of public normal schools, another important type of teacher-training organization is the department of education and psychology in our best colleges and universities, exemplified notably by the School of Education of the University of Chicago, and Teachers' College of Columbia University, the last-named being perhaps the most efficient teachers' college in the world. I hasten to add mention of the conspicuously helpful work in educational psychology, pure and applied, which is being done at Clark University, Massachusetts, under the inspiring leadership of Dr. G. Stanley Hall.
Now, using the term "normal schools" to include all of these types of institutions and as representing their practices and ideals, may we ask the question we left a moment ago, "What have the normal schools to do with librarianship?" This: The normal schools have now consciously taken up the task of preparing teachers who understand the life that now is and can teach boys and girls to live that life and to be useful members of society here and hereafter. These organized institutions of teacher-training take themselves seriously, they accept the responsibility of their task, and they are measurably succeeding; despite the declarations of popular magazines and investigating committees that our schools are a colossal failure. Which they are not, for didn't they train Mary Antin, and Miss Stearns, and you and me? If librarianship is educational work, and it is, the normal schools may therefore have some suggestion of educational practice worthy the consideration of librarians.