With our experience in this work with the children since the opening of our library in 1876, and knowing the possibilities only waiting for development, I am emboldened to speak earnestly.
Let us gather the children in; give “milk for babies,” in the illustrated books which they may understand though they cannot read; juvenile magazines and literature of a healthy nature to counteract the pernicious trash that is flooding our communities.
It is only necessary to refer you to the specimens of flash literature which our boys have relinquished to us, with pale faces and trembling hands, after reading from the scrapbook here on exhibition the cuttings from the newspapers of the day showing the bad influence of the dime novel. It tells its own story far better than I can tell it, and the one in whose mind this great remedial agent originated is daily blest in seeing the good results of his experiment.
Help the children to begin early to understand that even they are of use in a community; awaken their pride and ambition in the right direction, and their future is assured.
If there are those who doubt the practicability of this work, and, like Hosea Bigelow, would
“Give more for one live bobolink
Than a square mile of larks in printer's ink,”
come and see our “Flower Band,” numbering 200 children, gathered from the little girls and boys who frequent our library and reading-room, from five years of age to fourteen; from the little fellow who brings three wilted daisies, or a rose without a stem, to the dainty miss with a bouquet from the greenhouse.
Their badges signify a pledge to bring flowers once a week (if possible), and to respond to a call to distribute them in any place where they will add a bit of brightness to a shadowed household; also to seek out such homes and report them. Several names have been already stricken from our list, of those who have died leaving a blessing for these little missionaries.
The influence of this work upon the children and the community cannot be told. It must be seen to be appreciated.