The library is a storehouse of great thought, an unfailing source of healthful recreation, but also the library is the mine in which the practical man and woman, the lawyer, the machinist, the scientist, the teacher, must dig deep for information, if he is to keep near the head in his own line of work.
So far, as I have said before, nearly all organized effort to teach the teachers along these lines has come from the library. Certain normal school and college librarians have done much, but to a large extent the work has been on sufferance. Odds and ends of the students' time and attention have been given to it.
The desirable thing is that the study of juvenile literature and the use of the library shall take equal rank with other studies in the preparation of prospective teachers; that the normal school, the pedagogical department of the college and university, the teachers' [summer-school] and institute, shall recognize this subject in their curricula.
The practical side of library use—its use for information—is easily seen by the public, and schools for teachers can quite readily be induced to make room for the course of study suggested.
In the Cleveland City Normal Training School an attempt to carry out such a course of study has been made. A term's work is given in juvenile literature and the use of the library. Moreover, this subject is placed upon an equality with the philosophy of teaching, history of education and psychology.
As yet the work is not thoroughly organized. We feel, however, that some things of value have been already accomplished.
In a twelve-weeks' term a class of 116 prospective teachers (the junior class of the school) have taken notes on a series of talks on reference books. They have learned something of the comparative value of various standard encyclopædias, gazetteers, dictionaries and indexes, and they have been sent to the public library a half-day at a time to do work which required the use of these.
For instance, a study of the life of Robert Louis Stevenson was made for the purpose of giving a talk on the subject to fifth-grade pupils. The students were required to look up all the available material in the library, looking not only in the printed and card catalogs for individual and collective biography, but in the various indexes—Poole's, the Annual, the Cumulative—for magazine articles. They were required to select the four or five articles found most valuable and to estimate their comparative value for the purpose in hand, making definite statements of the points of value. They were required to make careful and well-worded notes from the best material available, either books or periodicals, always giving the source, and to read these notes in class subject to the criticism of their instructor and school mates. And, lastly, they were required to write the story of Stevenson's life as they would tell it to the children.
Careful instruction in the use of the printed and card catalogs and of indexes had preceded this assignment. We were fortunate in possessing quite a large number of issues of the Cumulative index unbound. It was thus possible to place one of these in the hands of each student during instruction on the subject. This was a considerable aid.
There was too much work with the less-used ready-reference books. Next year the number will be largely reduced.