Contrary to a rather hazy though somewhat general impression, there are only a few choice spirits to whom it is given to love books instinctively and to know them intimately without instruction. The multitude, whatever their rank or fortune, handle them more or less all the time without knowing much about them or caring much about them. It is true that a knowledge of books comes more readily to some than to others, but training will do much for even unpromising people who, without training, would be practically helpless. The need of this training was shown very clearly a decade or two ago when the method of teaching changed rather generally from text-book mastery to the so-called laboratory method. There were few more pathetic sights than many of the older teachers, almost totally untrained in the comparative use of books which the new method involved, and yet forced to give up their reliance on the catechetical method and memorized text-book which could be kept open by the teacher while the pupil recited.
If the library and the school have so much common doctrine and if both recognize in their precept and their practice the importance of books, it seems obvious that some instruction along this line should be given in the high school and, indeed, much earlier. Again, if pupils are to be taught to use books, it seems equally obvious that the intelligent use of books must first be learned by the teacher. That is, there should be a "library course" in the normal school.
If library and school agree so far as to recognize the need of such a course there still remain several general methods of attempting to get the desired results.
(1) By experiment. This is the customary way; the empirical method or, under certain conditions, the inductive method. "We learn to do by doing" was a pedagogical maxim to conjure with some years ago and it has not yet lost its siren's charm. Teachers are still assuming that pupils will learn to use books well by using them without direction, even though an excess of the experimental method has confessedly failed in other directions. We do not often learn to do things in the best way without some direction nor does mere handling of an object teach us much about it. Infinitely more biology can be learned from two or three angle worms studied in a laboratory than from quarts of them used for fish bait. The laissez-faire method and the experimental method without a competent teacher to make it really inductive are both uncertain in result and costly of time and effort.
(2) By sending pupils to the nearest library for all aid outside the text-book and by handing over to the nearest librarian all responsibility for teaching the use of books. Librarians often advocate this method. It is only an application of the specialization which is so common in high schools and by which each subject has its own teacher who may or may not try to correlate his own work with that of his colleagues. The librarian, who at least ought to know about books, is the logical person to plan courses and to give formal instruction and in any school which can possibly have a librarian who devotes her entire time to the library this is the proper course to follow. It happens, however, that many schools which greatly need such a course have no one but the regular teachers to administer the library and to teach its use. In such an emergency no school faculty is complete without at least one teacher who can show the pupils—and her fellow-teachers, if need be—something of the best methods of using books. Moreover, teachers need to know how to use the books connected with their own courses even if they need do little or nothing in the way of general library work.
(3) A third general method remains: systematic training in regularly scheduled classes in the high school and a systematic course in the normal school for the future teachers of elementary and of high schools. This is the plan generally adopted for other subjects and the failure of the schools to provide in their curricula a place for library training can reasonably be attributed only to the fact that librarians have failed to impress on teachers the necessity for such instruction. There are several reasons for the failure. One of the fundamental principles of successful advertising is that the prospective customer must be convinced that the value of the advertised article exceeds its cost. Perhaps we librarians have not always recognized the value of this principle in our own campaigns. We use our library jargon and speak learnedly of "library methods," and "the library world" as though our work were based on some occult secret (which it is not) and as though we who carry it on were a peculiar people (which we sometimes are), and we plan elaborate courses in "library economy" which would strike terror to the heart of any teacher, were any teacher interested enough to look at them.
It is well to remember that, as far as its place in the school is concerned, the library must always be an auxiliary, not an independent affair—an auxiliary of the greatest importance which aids all courses but interferes with none. This is what it is in the increasing number of schools in which the use of the library is being successfully taught and whenever teachers are shown that librarians are urging something that is a time-saver, not a time-consumer, and that the course they suggest is not an independent affair but something which, even in its own lessons and problems can be made to bear directly on the daily work of the school, there will not be much trouble in getting periods in which to teach the use of the library. As we too often present the matter, in the form of courses planned with little reference to actual conditions in the school and with problems compiled from our library-school note-books, or our training-class notes and not from material selected for its direct relation to the subject matter of any course in the school, we are seemingly asking the teacher to become interested in our work, not in a subject that is of importance to teacher as well as to librarian.
No general can plan a successful campaign of invasion without a knowledge of the topography and people of the country to be invaded and no course of study can be successful unless based on sound pedagogy and visibly related to the cultural or vocational need of the persons for whom it is intended. It is also well to remember that in strategy an officer counts for more than a private and that if official recognition is to be secured for any subject, the interest of principals and superintendents, who plan the curricula, is absolutely necessary. Work with subordinate teachers alone will make slow progress.
Another point which we are just beginning to emphasize is the necessity of getting articles in which we desire teachers to be interested, into periodicals intended for teachers instead of confining them to the columns of library periodicals. The advertiser who wants to reach engineers will not send his advertisements exclusively to the "American journal of theology."
Although the high school and the normal school are usually mentioned together in discussions on the general subject of library instruction in schools, there should be decided differences both in content and in general purpose between the courses in the two kinds of schools. In the high school, the purpose should be to teach the pupils to use books efficiently in solving problems arising in their individual experiences. The care and management of libraries can legitimately be taught only in so far as such knowledge helps the pupil to use libraries of all kinds more intelligently. There is no need of detailed instruction in technique, though some elements of method are necessary. The use of the catalog must be taught in order to overcome the prejudices of most readers against card catalogs by teaching the youth before he arrives at obstinate and benighted manhood, that red headings, indentions and other conventions of the catalog are as sensible and necessary as black ruling, red ruling and other conventions of day-book and ledger. A little attention also to the theory of the charging system will help later in preventing honest but inaccurate thrusts at "red tape in libraries."