Library Work with Children Part 13

With many libraries a children's department on such a scale is an impossibility; but if you cannot give two rooms to the children give them one, and if you cannot do that, at least give them a corner and a table which they can feel belongs to them; and if you cannot give them a special a.s.sistant, set apart an hour or two each day when the children shall receive the first consideration--establish this as a custom, and both adults and children will be better served.

Whatever one's specialty in library work may be, however far removed from the work with the children, it is well to understand something of the principles which underlie this foundation work with the children.

It is only recently that these principles have begun to shape themselves with any definiteness; the children's department, as a fully equipped miniature library, and the children's librarian, as a specialist bringing natural fitness and special preparation to her work, are essentially the product of today; but they have come to stay, and they open to the child-lover, and the educator who works better outside than inside of the schoolroom limits, a field enticing indeed, and promising rich results. It is to the pioneers in this field, the earnest young women who are now doing careful experimental work and giving serious study to the problems that arise--it is to them that the children's departments of the future will be most indebted for perfected methods.

The library must supplement the influence of the schools, of the home, and of the church; with some children it must even take the place of these other influences, and on its own account it must be a source of pleasure and an intellectual stimulus. If it is to accomplish all or any great part of this, not only for one, but for thousands of children, what serious thought and labor must go to its accomplishment! The children's librarian stands very close to the mother and the teacher in the power she can wield over the lives of the little ones. No one who lacks either the ability or desire to put herself into sympathetic touch with child-life should ever be a.s.signed to work in the juvenile department, and the a.s.sistant who avowedly dislikes children, or who "has no patience with them," will work disastrous results if allowed to serve these little ones with an unwilling spirit --she should be relegated to some department of the library to which the sunshine of childhood can never penetrate, and kept there.

I would name the following requisites for the successful accomplishment of the juvenile work:

(1) Love for children.

This being given, the way is open for intimate knowledge and understanding of them, which are likewise essential.

(2) Knowledge of children's books.

This is imperative if one is to give the right book to a child at the right time. Familiarity with the t.i.tles and with the outsides of the books is not enough, nor is it sufficient to know that a certain book is recommended in all of the best lists of children's books. A child will often refuse to take what has been recommended to him as a good book, when, if he be told some graphic incident in it, or have some interesting bit pointed out or read to him, he will bear it off as prize; with it, too, he will carry away an added respect for, and sense of comradeship with, the a.s.sistant, who "knows a good thing when she sees it,"

and he will come to her for advice and consultation about his books the next time and the next, and so long thereafter as she can hold his confidence.

Carefully prepared lists are most valuable in directing your attention to the best books, but after your notice has been called to them read them, form your own judgment on them, and if you recommend them, at least know why. What? some one asks, attempt to read all of the best children's books? Yes, read them, and do more than that with some; the children's cla.s.sics, the books which no child can grow up without reading and not be the poorer, with these one should be so familiar as to be able to quote from them or turn instantly to the most fascinating pa.s.sages--they should form a constant part of her stock in trade.

Other books one could not spend so much time on, nor is it necessary--the critical ability to go through a book quickly and catch the salient points in style, treatment and subject matter, is as essential for the children's librarian as for anyone who has to do with many books, and it therefore behooves her to cultivate what I once heard called the sixth sense, the book sense.

(3) Knowledge of library methods.

In any work, interest and enthusiasm go a great way, but they can never wholly take the place of accurate technical knowledge of the best ways of doing things. The more general knowledge of library work and methods one can bring to the children's department, the better it will be both for the work and for the worker; and given these methods, one must have ability to fit them to the conditions and to the peculiar needs to be accomplished, or, where they will not fit, to modify them or originate new ones which are better for the work in hand.

(4) A thorough knowledge of the course of study of the public schools.

This is very necessary in order to intelligently supplement the work of the schools. A child comes wanting information on some subject upon which his ideas are exceedingly vague; for instance, he wants something about the mayor--what, he cannot tell you, but he was sent by his teacher to look up something about the mayor.

You ask him what grade he is in, and he tells you the fourth.

Your familiarity with the course of study should give you the clue at once, for the fourth grade topics in conduct and government include lessons on the city government, with its princ.i.p.al departments and officers, so you will look up, if you have not already done so, an outline of munic.i.p.al government describing the position and duties of the mayor, which will be within the comprehension of the child. It should not happen that a dozen children ask for Little white lily, and be turned away without it, before it is discovered to be a poem by George MacDonald which the third grade children are given to read.

This course of study the children's librarian should--not eat and sleep with exactly, but verily live and work with; it is one of her most valuable tools, and she should keep it not only within reach, at her finger's end, but as much as possible at her tongue's end, keeping pace with the a.s.signment of work in the different grades and studies from month to month, and from week to week. She should know beforehand when a certain subject will be taken up by a certain grade, and have all available material looked up and ready, and new books bought if they will be needed and can be had--not wait until several hundred children come upon her for some subject on which a frantic search discloses the fact that the library contains not a thing suitable for their use, and then ask that books be bought, which, of course, come in after the demand is over, and stand idle upon the shelves for a whole year, taking the place of just so many more new books on subjects which will be needed later.

The course of study, too, will furnish more useful hints for bulletins, exhibitions, reading-lists, and other forms of advertising, than can come from any other source; and not only in supplementing the school work, but also in directing the children in their general reading, is an intimate knowledge of the course of study an invaluable aid, as it gives you the unit of measurement for any child which enables you to correlate his reading along certain lines to that which has gone before, and to that which is to follow.

(5) A knowledge of the principles of psychology and of education.

I have placed last the requisite which I feel sure some theorists, at least, would place first, because I believe that, as a rule, it will come last in point of time, and will be worked up to through the preceding stages of the development of the children's librarian; but her work will not be grounded upon a firm foundation until she has consciously mastered these principles, and clearly outlined her own work, this new work of the book, in perfect harmony with them.

There are many features of the children's work which I should like to dwell upon in detail, but I can do no more than mention a few of them. One of these is the Library league, with its threefold object of training the children in the proper care of books, of serving as an advertising medium for the library among the children themselves, and of furnishing a means of directing the reading of hundreds of children who cannot be reached individually. The possibilities of the league are beyond anything we have been able to realize.

Another thing is the necessity of guarding against letting children read too much, or too entirely along one line. There is a habit of reading along lines which deaden, instead of stimulating, thought, and the habit, if carried to excess, becomes a mental dissipation which is utterly reprehensible; but the pathway to this habit is entered upon so innocently and unconsciously by the story-loving child that he (perhaps more often she) must be guided very tenderly and wisely past its dangers; the library which ignores this necessity may have much harm laid at its doors.

The importance of providing, either in the school or the library, for systematic instruction in the use of books was emphasized in the report of the library section of the National Educational a.s.sociation at Washington this summer; it is a necessity which must be met somewhere and somehow.

Of one more thing I should speak because of its provision for the children--the expansion of the library ideal; not so many years ago branch libraries and traveling libraries were unknown; now we feel that one library is not enough for a large city; it must have branch libraries and delivery stations to take the books to the people, while traveling libraries carry them into the scattered districts in the country. For the future, we have visions of a system of libraries so complete that in no town or country district of the state will a little child be deprived of the pleasure of good books; and wherever it is possible to put a live, warm-hearted, sympathetic and child-loving woman as the medium between the library and the child, it will be done.

Library work in its entirety offers much play for the missionary spirit, but nowhere else in its whole range is there such a labor of love as is hers who tries to bring the children early to their heritage in the beautiful world of books.

WORK WITH CHILDREN IN THE SMALL LIBRARY

The blessings rather than the limitations of the small library are portrayed and the "possibility of personal, individual, first-hand contact with the children" is emphasized in this paper presented by Miss Clara W. Hunt at the Niagara Conference of the A. L. A. in 1903. A sketch of Miss Hunt appears on page 135.

As the young theological student is p.r.o.ne to look upon his first country parish as a place to test his powers and to serve as a stepping-stone to a large city church, so the librarian of the country town who, visiting a great city library and seeing books received in lavish quant.i.ties which she must buy as sparingly as she buys tickets for expensive journeys out of her slender income, a beautifully furnished, conveniently equipped apartment especially for the children, for the student, for the magazine reader, evidences everywhere of money to spend not only for the necessities but also for the luxuries of library life--so it is quite natural for such a visitor to heave a deep sigh as she returns to her library home and contrasts her opportunities, or limitations as she would call them, with those of the worker in a numerically larger field; and quite natural is it for her to long for a change which she feels would mean a broadening and enlarging of outlook and opportunity.

It is encouraging sometimes to look at our possessions through other people's spectacles, and perhaps I may help some worker in a small field to see in what she calls her limitations, not a hedging in but an opening, by drawing the contrast from another point of view--from that of one who is regretfully forced to give up almost all personal, individual work with the children and delegate to others that most delightful of tasks, because her library is so large and she has so much money to spend that her services are more needed in other directions. With a keen appreciation of the privilege it is to have charge of a small library, I am going to enumerate some of my reasons for having this feeling.

I should explain, in this connection, that my thoughts have centered about the small town library, the library whose citizen supporters do not yet aggregate a population large enough to admit to dignifying their place of residence with the name of a city, a place, therefore, where the librarian may really be able to know every citizen of prominence, every school princ.i.p.al and teacher, the officers of the women's clubs, many of the mothers of the children she hopes to reach, and a very large number of the children themselves.

What are the attractions in a spot like this, the compensations which make up even for the lack of a large amount of money to spend? Let me begin first with the less apparent advantages, the "blessings in disguise," I should call them.

The first is the necessity for economy in spending one's appropriation. I imagine your astonishment and disapproval of the judgment of a person who can count the need of economy as any cause for congratulation. But let us look for a moment at some of the things you are saved by being forced to be "saving." The greatest good to your public and to yourself is that you must think of the ESSENTIALS, the "worth while" things first, last and always. You cannot afford to buy carelessly. Every dollar you spend must bring the best return possible and to the greatest number of people. Every foolish purchase means disappointment to your borrowers and wear on your own nerves. So, instead of being able to order in an off-hand way many things which may be desirable but which are really not essential, one gets a most valuable training in judgment by this constant weighing of good, indifferent and indispensable. To apply this to the principle of the selection of children's books--and nothing in work with children, except the personality of the worker with them is so important as this, we cannot buy everything, we must buy the best, and we therefore have an argument that must have a show of reasonableness to those borrowers who advocate large purchases of books you tell them your income will not cover.

What are the essentials in children's books if your selection must be small? Our children can grow up without Henty. They must not grow up without the cla.s.sics in myth and fable and legend, the books which have delighted grown people and adults for generations, and upon the child's early acquaintance with which depends his keen enjoyment of much of his later reading, because of the wealth of allusion which will be lost to him if he has not read aesop and King Arthur and the Wonder Book, Gulliver, Crusoe, Siegfried and many others of like company, in childhood. Then the librarian cannot afford to leave out collections of poetry. Her children must have poetry in no n.i.g.g.ardly quant.i.ty, from Mother Goose and the Nonsense Book to our latest, most beautiful acquisitions, "Golden numbers" and the "Posy ring." And American history and biography must be looked after among the first things and constantly replenished. So must fairy tales, the best fairy tales--Andersen, Grimm, the Jungle books, MacDonald, Pyle, "The rose and the ring." Much more discrimination must be exercised in selecting the nature and science books than is usually the case.

But, of course, most of the problems come when we are adding the story books. Here, most of all, the necessity for economy ought to be a help. It is a question of deciding on essentials, and having nerve enough to leave out those books whose only merits are harmlessness, and putting in nothing that is not positively good for something. The threadbare argument that we must buy of the mediocre and worse for the children who like such literature (princ.i.p.ally because they know little about any other kind) will look very thin when we squarely face the fact that by such purchases we shut out books we admit to be really better, and when we honestly reflect upon the purpose of the public library.

The sanest piece of advice that I ever heard given to those librarians who argue in favor of buying all the bootblack stories the boys want, was that of Miss Haines at a recent inst.i.tute for town libraries. She asked that those men and women who enjoyed Alger and "Elsie" in childhood and who are arguing in their favor on the strength of the memory of a childish pleasure, take some of their old favorites and re-read them now, read them aloud to their young people at home, and then see if they care to risk the possibility of their own children being influenced by such ideals, forming such literary tastes as these books ill.u.s.trate.

Most of us desire better things for our children than we had ourselves. If a man was allowed to nibble on pickles and doughnuts and mince pie and similar kinds of nourishment before he cut all his teeth, miraculously escaping chronic dyspepsia as he grew older, he does not for that reason care to risk his boy's health and safety by allowing him to repeat the process. A child's taste, left to itself, is no more a safe guide in his choice of reading than is his choice of food. What human boy would refuse ice cream and peanuts and green pears and piously ask for whole-wheat bread and beefsteak instead? Or choose to go to bed at eight o'clock for his health's sake, rather than enjoy the fun with the family till a later hour? It seems such a senseless thing for us to feel it our duty to decide for the children on matters relating to their temporary welfare, but to consider them fit to decide for themselves on what may affect their moral and spiritual nature.

Not only in the selection of books as to their contents, but in the study of the editions the most serviceable for her purposes, will the town librarian gain valuable training from the necessity of being economical. The point is worth enlarging upon, but the time is not here.

It will perhaps be harder to look upon the impossibility of having a separate room for the children as a blessing which enforced economy confers. It will doubtless seem heresy for a children's librarian to suggest the thought. Yet while we recognize the great desirability, the absolute necessity in fact, for the separate room in order to get the best results in a busy city library, we can see the many advantages to the children of their mingling with the grown people in the town library. It is good for them, in the public as in the home library, to browse among books that are above their understanding. It is better for the small boy curiously picking up the Review of Reviews to stretch up to its undiluted world news than to shut into his Little Chronicle or Great Round World. It is good for the American child to learn just a little of the old fashioned "children should be seen and not heard" advice, to learn at least a trifle of consideration for his elders by restraining his voice and his heels and his motions within the library, saving his muscles for the wildest exercise he pleases out of doors. The separate children's room is too apt to become a place for so persistently "tending" the child that he loses the idea of a library atmosphere which is one of the lessons of the place he should NOT miss. I am of the opinion that, while we want to do everything in the world to attract the children to the library and the love of good reading, they should have impressed upon them so constantly the feeling that the children's room is a reading and study room that when a child is wandering around aimlessly, not behaving badly but simply killing time, he should be, not crossly nor resentfully, but pleasantly advised to go out into the park to play, as he doesn't feel like reading and this is a LIBRARY. I know that this has an excellent effect in developing the right idea of the purpose of the place.

Sometimes the town library has a building large enough to admit of a separate room for the children, and books and readers in such numbers as would make the use of this room desirable, but there is not money enough to pay the salary of an attendant to watch the room. Here indeed is a blessing in disguise. This idea that the children must be watched all the time, that they cannot be left alone a minute, is fatal to all teaching of honor and self-restraint and self-help. It will take time and determination and tact, but I know that it is possible to train the children--not the untrained city slum children perhaps, but the average town children--to behave like ladies and gentlemen left almost entirely to themselves through a whole evening.

I must hardly allude to further blessings which to my mind the need of economy insures. It all comes under the head, of course, of forming the habit of asking "What is most worth while?" before rushing headlong into thoughtless imitation of the larger library's methods, regardless of their wisdom for the small one.

The town librarian will thus be apt to use some far simpler but equally effective style of bulletin than the one that means hours of time spent in cutting around the petals of an intricate flower picture, or printing painstakingly on a difficult cardboard surface what her local newspaper would be glad to print for her, thus making a slip to thumb tack on her board without a minute's waste of time.

The question of having insufficient help gives an excuse for getting a personal hold on some of the bright older boys and girls who can be made to think it a privilege to have a club night at the library once in a while, when they will cut the leaves of new books and magazines, paste and label and be useful in many ways. Of course they have to be managed, but you can get a lot of fine work out of a.s.sistants of this sort, and do them a great amount of good at the same time.

Another of the blessings for which the town librarian may be thankful is that her rules need not be cast iron, but may be made elastic to fit certain cases. Because the place is so small that she can get to know pretty well the character of its inhabitants, she need not be obliged to face the crestfallen countenance of a sorely disappointed little girl who, on applying for a library card, is told that she must bring her father or mother to sign an application, and who knows that that will be a task impossible of performance. The town librarian may dare to take the very slight risk of loss, and issue the card at once, enjoying the pleasure of making one small person radiantly happy.

Then there is the satisfaction of doing a little of everything about your library with your own hands and knowing instantly just where things are when you are asked. To ill.u.s.trate from a recent experience of my own. At one of the small branches or stations rather, of the Brooklyn Public Library, a certain small boy used to appear at least two or three times a week and ask the librarian, "Have you got the 'Moral pirates' yet?" And over and over again the librarian was forced wearily to answer, "No, not yet, Sam." Now, although the library's purchases of children's books are very generous, running from 1,500 to 2,000 volumes a month for the 20 branches, of course with such large purchases it is necessary to systematize the buying by getting largely the same 50 t.i.tles for all branches, varying the number of copies per branch according to each one's need. The branch librarian of whom I am speaking did not feel like asking often for specials, realizing that she was only one of many having special wants, and knowing that we would in time reach the "Moral pirates" in the course of our large, regular monthly purchases. But one afternoon I went up to this station and helping at the charging desk, this small boy appeared asking me for the "Moral pirates." The librarian told me of the hopeful persistence of his request, and it did not take long after that to get the "Moral pirates" into the small boy's hands. I only hope the realization of a long antic.i.p.ated wish did not prove to him like that of many another, and that his disappointment was not too unbearable in finding a pirate story minus cutla.s.ses and black flags and decks slippery with gore.

The point of this tale is, that in a great system it is impossible often to get as close to an individual as in this case, while the town librarian, who does everything from unpacking her books to handing them out to her borrowers, can many a time have the personal pleasure of seeing a book into the right hands.

I have only indirectly alluded to the greatest joy of all, the possibility of personal, individual, first-hand contact with the children whom you can get to know so well and to influence so strongly, and another joy that grows out of it--seeing results yourself.

We are so ready to be deceived and discouraged by numbers! The town librarian reads of a tremendous circulation of children's books in a city library, and straightway gets the blues over her own small showing. But I beg such an one to think rather of what the QUALITY of her children's use of the library may be as compared with that of the busy city library. A great department must be so arranged for dispatching a large amount of work in a few minutes of time, that in spite of every effort, something of the mechanical must creep into its administration.

The town librarian may know by name each child who borrows her books. Not only that, but she may know much of his ancestry and environment and so be able to judge the needs of each one. She will not be so rushed with charging books by the hundred that she cannot USE that knowledge to help him in the wisest, most tactful manner. But the joy of watching her children develop, of seeing a boy or girl whom she helped bring up, grow into a manhood and womanhood of n.o.ble promise, of feeling that she had a large influence in forming the taste of this girl, in sending to college that lad who wouldn't have dreamed of such a thing had he not been stirred to the ambition through the reading taste she awakened in him--these are pleasures the city children's librarian is for the most part denied.