“There are coming to be more purely social meetings of younger grade pupils. In some cases, these children are not organized, but merely claim to be in order to get the halls. In other cases, relatives who come with them to make application are frank to confess that they want the hall to avoid inconvenience at home, especially the protracted house-cleanings which are the pre-requisite at most home parties. One mother said that the last time there was a birthday party in her house, the man who lived upstairs, after rapping repeatedly on the floor to stop the children's noise, came down and said, that ‘the party would simply have to bust up.’ She wanted to hold this party in the library, because her husband had such a bad temper, that she was sure he would murder the man if such a thing happened again, and, of course, it would happen again, for no children's party would ever be quiet enough to suit the man upstairs.
“Adult clubs as a whole ask very little of us beyond the occasional use of the telephone, and they often come and go without our being conscious of them. This is especially true of day-time meetings. It must be admitted, that in addition to those who are very friendly and those who do not make either criticism or appreciation articulate, there are some who break the monotony of the librarian's existence by thinking ‘they owns the place,’ to quote the janitor. The younger social meetings need considerable attention, too. They overflow upstairs, are always noisy and sometimes not as agreeable as they should be. A member of a new club of girls said, ‘I guess we rented this building for the evening—we can make as much noise as we please.’”
Within certain limits, particularly the powder-cans and lead pencils of the staff, we want the clubs to think that they do own the place. The surest proof that the St. Louis plan works, is to have the scions of our democracy feel that they are getting their money's worth from the institution that their taxes support.
A group of young socialists was formed too late in the season to secure a regular meeting night. They finally decided that they would have to be satisfied with meeting, for the winter, at K——'s—a delicatessen store a few blocks away. K——'s has an advertisement every week in the Jewish Record, inviting men to come and read the papers there and make use of the free meeting-room. Like all Jewish delicatessens, this shop contains everything that any patron is willing to buy, and in addition, elaborates the coffee-house idea into any shape that circumstances may suggest. When the young men said individually on later occasions that they were not contented at the delicatessen, they always added, “It's because we feel so at home at the library; because we've always gotten books out there.” The next winter their application was handed in several months in advance.
In a neighborhood where conditions are the exact antithesis of Crunden's, the same feeling exists. Miss Pretlow was talking one evening to a young man who belonged to a group giving a dancing party at Cabanne Library. She said that she could not but remark how well-dressed and well bred and altogether prosperous the dancers were. They very evidently could have met in any one of a number of large homes or could have paid for one of the best halls in the city; so she said to the young man, “How is it you do not rent Blank's Hall, but use the Library instead? I know it can't be the difference in cost that influences you.” The young man answered in very evident astonishment: “Why, we like this place; we all grew up in this Library.”
When adolescents of both sexes meet together, their meetings are purely for a good time. Their behavior is extremely immature from the social side; either very wooden or very uncontrolled. This is the period when the librarian must insist upon strict chaperonage, and it is also the period when resentment of discipline, or even of suggestion, runs high. They would no more follow the advice of the Librarian in the matter of invitations, introduction of wall-flowers and how a dance is to be “run off” generally, than they would copy her taste in dress, which they invariably consider very “old-maidy.” The standards to which social clubs adhere rigidly are those observed in places of commercialized amusement. One group of boys met to teach each other dancing, where the girls would not see them. As it was a case of the blind leading the blind, a volunteer who had been teaching folk-dancing to the girls all winter, offered her services. After one trial she was persona non grata, because she wouldn't let them “rag.”
Some of the dances are quite grim. One will not hear a note of laughter all the evening. Five or six girls will often come together. Those who know boys will dance with them, and between dances will not make the slightest effort to introduce their friends to possible partners. The friends, instead of resenting this inactivity, often sit all the evening on the side lines watching and chewing gum, apparently perfectly satisfied.
At the opposite pole is the wild desire for “rough house.” In the early stages of auditorium work and before these days of H.C.L., pieces of cake have occasionally gone flying across the hall.