Library Work with Children Part 30

Chapone, she chose extracts from Shakespeare, Milton, Addison, and Goldsmith. Indeed, if it were possible to ask our great-grandparents what books they remembered reading in their childhood, I think we should find that beyond somewhat hazy recollections of Miss Edgeworth's books and Berquin's 'The looking gla.s.s for the mind' they would either mention 'Robinson Crusoe,' Newberry's 'Tales of Giles Gingerbread,' 'Little King Pippin,' and 'Goody Two-shoes' (written fifty years before their own childhood), or remember only the cla.s.sic tales and sketches read to them by their parents."

Now it seems to me that our great-grandparents were very lucky to have been so delightfully introduced to the great things in literature, and in these days when the art of reading aloud is almost a lost art how can we expect the modern child to turn with a natural appreciation to the best in literature when he is almost submerged by the mediocre and vulgar inside and outside the home, his appreciation undeveloped, not old enough in years or intelligence to comprehend the beauty we so delight in. We are disappointed when he does not respond, and wonder why. Is it not the result of forcing him to use these things before he is ready, and thus only fostering his distaste?

Believing this to be so, I have gone to work to try to induce the boys and girls to read more widely, and cultivate appreciation, by using this old-fashioned method of reading aloud or telling a part of the story and reading here and there bits of the text, thus letting the author tell his own story, and as far as we have been able we have tried to give the children the KIND of story they wanted--WHEN they wanted it--but in the best form in which it could be found. For instance Poe's "The purloined letter" when a detective story is asked for, followed by a story from Stevenson's "New Arabian nights" or "Island nights'

entertainments."

In eleven of the boys' clubs we have been using this year special collections of duplicate books, on topics suggested by the boys themselves. These collections have been kept together for from four to six weeks, and the stories that have been told or read from these books are mentioned in the notice, with a list of all the books in the collection and posted near where the books are shelved. The topics suggested by the boys are as follows: railroad stories; ghost stories; humorous stories; adventure on land; heroes; adventure on sea; history stories, this last topic including Italy, France, England, Scotland, Germany, Canada, and "The winning of the West" in American history, and each group decided on which country they would read about.

On the lower West side, where the Irish-Americans live in large numbers, where street fights and fires contribute a constant source of excitement, there is a library club of girls who have been meeting twice a month for two years. Last year we studied Joan of Arc, completing our study by reading Percy Mackaye's play. This year, not feeling satisfied that I was on the right path, I called a meeting to make sure. After trying in vain to get an expression of opinion I finally asked the direct question, "What kind of books do you really LIKE to read?" and for a moment I waited in suspense, fearing someone would answer to please me by mentioning some cla.s.sic. But to my great relief one girl replied at last timidly, but decidedly, that she liked "Huckleberry Finn." This gave another the courage to add that she had enjoyed the chapter on whitewashing the fence in "Tom Sawyer." My clue had been found--a reading club of adventure was formed, and though we began with the "Prisoner of Zenda" we have wandered with "Odysseus," and sighed over the sacrifice of "Alcestis," and thrilled over the winning of "Atalanta" this winter.

A girls' club on the lower East side have been reading the old English comedies--"She stoops to conquer," "The rivals," "Lady Teazle"; then there is a flourishing Shakespeare club, which to honor the d.i.c.kens centenary this year, voted to make the study of the great writer a part of this year's program. This club meets once a week, and at one meeting the outline of one of the great tales was told by the librarian. This was followed by the girls reading one or more of the most famous chapters or dialogues. At the alternate meetings the girls read plays, varying the program by choosing first a Shakespeare drama and then a modern play.

Each act is cast separately, so that all the girls may have a chance to take part, and in this way we read "Twelfth night,"

"Romeo and Juliet," "The taming of the Shrew," "Macbeth," "The bluebird," "The scarcecrow," and "Cyrano de Bergerac."

Away up in the Bronx there is a "Cranford Club," so named by the girls because of their interest in the story to which they were introduced four years ago. This club is really a study club and contains a good proportion of its original members. They meet twice a month, and a leader is appointed for each meeting, who chooses her committee to report on the topic for the evening's study. The topic is sub-divided and each girl does her part in looking up the bit a.s.signed to her. In this way they have studied the English poets Tennyson and Milton, although after spending an evening on Comus the club voted unanimously to change to d.i.c.kens.

They have also studied Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell and Whittier, and the girls were sufficiently familiar with these poems to recite many from each poet. Then the lives of three English queens were studied--"b.l.o.o.d.y Mary," "Queen Elizabeth," and "Mary, Queen of Scots"; this year the Norse myths and stories from the Wagner operas. The librarian's part is to suggest the best books in which to find what they want, to get any book they may need, sometimes suggest a line of subjects to choose from, etc, but the work of preparing the material is done entirely by the girls.

When a book is being read and discussed, they sit around a table and read in turn the bits that have been selected for them by the librarian, who tells them the thread of the story between selected bits read by the girls. Thus they have read "Cranford,"

"Pride and prejudice," "Old curiosity shop," "David Copperfield,"

and "Twelfth night." The teacher of English where most of these girls attend school was recently an interested visitor at the club, and she says she has noticed for a long time a difference in the school work done by these girls, from a broader viewpoint and outside atmosphere they brought to the cla.s.s by their intelligent comments and criticisms, showing that they were reading outside and beyond the other girls of the cla.s.s. She noticed also a difference in their composition work. One of the girls from that cla.s.s was sent by this teacher to visit the library for the first time and when asked what she liked to read replied, "Wooed and married" and "How he won her" were nice books. The book given her instead of her favorites was Mary Johnston's "To have and to hold." It was read and enjoyed. Then she took Howells' "The lady of the Aroostook," and after the outline of the story had been told her seemed to read it with real pleasure. Next Owen Wister's "Virginian" was given her, but this she did not seem to care for. As a result of this reading her taste in a better kind of reading seems to have been pretty well established, as her librarian a.s.sures me that she has continued her reading along the line indicated by the above t.i.tles. The Belmont Club, the best boys' club for debating in the school, have challenged the "Cranford Club" to meet them in a debate on "Woman suffrage," to be held in the library at an early date. The girls have accepted the challenge, and the fact that the boys question their ability to equal them is sufficient spur to make them work every moment they can spare from their school duties to prepare for this important event. Added to this is the fact that every one of them is an ardent "suffragette."

The need of social centers in the schools and libraries is becoming insistent. The increasing demand on the part of children for clubs of all kinds shows plainly their desire for some place other than the street, where they can be amused and occupied in the natural desire for self-development and expression. Early last fall in one of the libraries the librarian met by appointment a group of girls from eleven to fourteen years old.

These girls were wayward and troublesome, had formed a "gang"

which was more difficult to control than the usual gang of boys.

There was a room in her library quite apart from the rest of the building where they could meet as a club if it should prove desirable. "What would you like to do?" she asked. "Dance!" was the reply. "Well, then, dance, and show me what dances you like,"

replied the librarian, and immediately the girls formed for a figure of a folk-dance, and each girl humming softly the tune they danced it through. "The Girl Scouts" Club was formed, and in a day or two the secretary of the club submitted the following program for the librarian's approval: Program. 1. Chapter from the life of Louisa M. Alcott; 2. Recitations; 3. Games, Flinch; 4 One folk dance. From this beginning six other clubs have been established: two for the older girls, two for the boys, one for the little girls from eight to eleven years old, and one for a group of troublesome young men from sixteen to twenty years old.

So keen has been the interest of these young people in these clubs that the "gang" spirit has long since disappeared, and at the end of the club season an open meeting was held, a program arranged in which members from each club took part, and the ushers and guards of honor were some of those same troublesome young men. There was no place in this community where the young people could meet for any kind of simple amus.e.m.e.nt, the only "social centers" being the cheap vaudeville theater, the usual moving picture show and the streets, until the little branch of the public library opened its doors, and so popular has the library become that 960 children have taken cards at the library since the first of September and are borrowing books on these.

Besides the large number of card holders there is a still larger number of children who do all their reading and studying at the library. Although they may not know the old English verse from which the lines are taken they feel them:

"Where I maie read all at my ease, Both of the newe and olde, For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke Is better to me than gold."

The outline I have given will give you some idea of how we are developing the story hour and reading clubs in the New York Public Library. This work is made possible by the splendid cooperation on the part of the branch librarians and their a.s.sistants, without whom it would be impossible to carry on a work of such proportions.

HOME LIBRARIES

The history of the home library movement in its beginnings is recorded in a paper read before the Congress of Charities held in Chicago, June 15, 1893, by Mr. Charles W. Birtwell, general secretary of the Boston Children's Aid Society, who claims for it a "natural and simple origin," a method of multiplying the personal work which he was doing among the poorer children of Boston. Another paper on the same subject was read by Mr.

Birtwell at the Lake Placid Conference of the A. L. A. in 1894.

Appreciation of this work is expressed in the 1915 report of the Children's Aid Society: "The most important service we render as a society is to show that the constructive forces within the average family, if properly directed, are tremendous in their power and effect. The home libraries do a work for children in their homes that is quite distinct from all the other services we render as a society."

Charles Wesley Birtwell was born in Lawrence, Ma.s.s., November 23, 1860, and graduated at Harvard in 1885. He was general secretary of the Boston Children's Aid Society from 1885 to 1911. He has been prominent in social and charitable work, and in 1887 originated the "home library" system of the Children's Aid Society, the first general plan of this kind on record.

The first Home Library was established by the Boston Children's Aid Society in January, 1887. Now it has seventy libraries here and there throughout Boston, and regards them as an important department of its work. The origin of the plan that has found so much favor in our eyes was simple. I had been connected with the Children's Aid Society but a short time when many avenues of work opened up before me, and it was quite perplexing to see how to make my relations to the various children I became acquainted with real and vital. Among other things the children ought to have the benefit of good reading and to become lovers of good books. Indeed, a great many things needed to be done for and by the children. Out of this opportunity and need the Home Library was evolved.

A little bookcase was designed. It was made of white wood, stained cherry, with a gla.s.s door and Yale lock. It contained a shelf for fifteen books, and above that another for juvenile periodicals. The whole thing, carefully designed and neatly made, was simple and yet pleasing to the eye.

I asked my little friend Rosa at the North End, Barbara over in South Boston, and Giovanni at the South End, if they would like little libraries in their homes, of which they should be the librarians, and from which their playmates or workmates might draw books, the supply to be replenished from time to time. They welcomed the idea heartily, and with me set about choosing the boys and girls of their respective neighborhoods who were to form the library groups. Then a time was appointed for the first meeting of each library. The children who had been enrolled as members met with me in the little librarian's home, and while one child held the lamp, another the screwdriver, another the screws, and the rest did a heap of looking on, we sought a secure spot on the wall of the living-room of the librarian's family and there fastened the library.

I remember that to start the first library off with vigor, and secure the benefit from the beginning of a little esprit de corps, I went with the children the evening before the establishment of the library to see the Cyclorama of the battle of Gettysburg. We rode in a driving snowstorm in the street-cars from the North end, and had a gala evening. We got a bit acquainted, and on the next evening, the time appointed for the laying of the cornerstone of the whole Home Library structure, the first library, you may be sure the children without exception were on hand. I believe we had to wait a little while for Jennie, who lived across the hallway from Rosa, to "finish her dishes"; then up went the library. Very quickly the second library was established in South Boston, the third at the South End, and before long some neighborhoods were dotted with libraries.

The idea at the beginning was that the groups should be made up of fifteen children, but later we adopted ten as a better number.

So the family in which a library was placed would have the books always within reach, and a handful of children from the same tenement-house or near neighborhood would have access to the books at the time set for their exchange, and when a group had extracted the juice from one set of books we would send them another. It was understood at the start that the children outside of the librarian's family should exchange their books only once a week. I dropped in on the children when I could, but soon saw that the effectiveness of the work would be increased by regular weekly meetings of each group. As it would be impossible for me to visit them all myself, volunteers were sought to take charge each of a single library. Quickly the visitors began to come to me with all manner of puzzles--how to get the children to keep their hands clean, how to induce them to read thoroughly, what to do for a child who was ill, or a lad who was playing truant. Out of these interviews with individual visitors grew naturally the thought of a monthly conference of the visitors; and from an early period in the history of the libraries we have met once a month, except during the summer, and spent an hour and a quarter in discussing a great variety of questions, some general and some particular, that arise in connection with the libraries.

I must dwell a moment on the selection of books. The aim was to put really good literature into the hands of the poor in such a way that they would grow to love that literature. People, after all, are not so unlike. A really good book, a book that is human, that touches our sense of rugged reality, or the fancy or imagination which is native to us and as real as anything in us, is sure of a welcome among all cla.s.ses of people, if it is couched in intelligible terms. I chose some books that I happened to have read myself, but soon coming to the end of the list of which I was perfectly sure, and finding it impossible to review enough books myself, I secured the volunteer help of a number of ladies who understood the children of the poor and knew how to pa.s.s judgment on books proposed for their reading. It was definitely understood that every book should be read by the reviewers from cover to cover. We would not depend upon advertis.e.m.e.nts, hearsay, or vague recollections of books read by ourselves years ago, but every book should be read from beginning to end with the immediate question in view of the admission of the book to the little libraries to be read by the poor in the homes of the poor. Publishers and book-dealers sent us books for examination. Upon a careful consideration of the written reviews of the volunteer readers, prepared according to certain canons, was based the decision as to their acceptance or rejection. It seemed clearly not worth while to take to the poor books not really worth their reading. If good books would not be read, then the plan should be given up. Had we been careless in the selection of books we easily might have done no little harm, and should not have learned that clean, unsensational, vigorous books that are loved by children in the homes of the well-to-do are welcome to children in the homes of the poor. The way to good taste in reading is not, as some curiously declare, through the mire of the dime novel and the sensational story, but straight along the clean, bright path of decent literature.

Although, by reason of the natural preference of some visitors, or the effect of changes in groups at first made up of both s.e.xes, some groups are wholly made up of boys and others of girls, the ideal group is a mixed one as regards both s.e.x and age--ten boys and girls from seven or eight to fifteen or sixteen years of age. Thus we provide for a healthful, unconscious a.s.sociation of the s.e.xes and the training of the younger and older in their behavior toward one another, and in general touch the maximum range of relations, difficulties and services.

It follows from this make-up of a group that our books must be varied in order that in each set there shall be food for each child. So every library is made up of fifteen volumes, running the whole gamut from the nursery tale to Tom Brown at Rugby or Uncle Tom's Cabin, and also selections from juvenile periodicals suited to children of different ages, there being five collections of periodicals in each library, each collection comprising a bound portion of the annual issue of some periodical. You will readily see, therefore, that in order to select a new library it is necessary to have forty or fifty approved and una.s.signed books to choose from, and never is a set made up with its fairy tales, pictures of sweet domestic life, stories of adventure, simple history and biography, short stories, long stories, fact and fancy, humor and pathos--never is a set made up, preliminary to starting out upon its first visit, without my mouth watering to read them all myself.

To put the books to an interesting test, but more especially to induce the children to read appreciatively and really use their minds as they read, a form was made out on which the librarian or visitor should record the opinion of each child in regard to each book he returns. The evolution of these opinions from the obnoxiously frequent "nice" and "very nice," or the occasionally refreshing "no good," of the early history of a group into really intelligent and discriminating opinions, is one of the sure marks of progress and value in the work.

A set of books usually remains with one group of children ten weeks or three months before it is exchanged for a fresh set and in turn goes to another group. So you see the Home Libraries stand for nothing less than a perennial and constantly fresh stream of good literature.

To make sure of the parents being back of us in our relations to the children, we have a little blank application for membership, which is signed by the parent or guardian as well as the child.

It is noticeable that on many of these cards the children write not only their own names but the names of their parents, the latter, themselves unable to write, affixing their cross.

The volunteer visitors, as opportunity offers, on cards placed in their hands for the purpose, make a record of information concerning the family, their history, condition, habits, their reading at the inception of the library, and subsequently such items as may reveal their further history and the possible relation of the library to their life.

Close upon the heels of this effort to make books mean to poor children what they mean to the more fortunate, followed the idea of bringing to them a knowledge of those ways of having a good time within the walls of one's own castle that are so familiar in families where parents have leisure and ingenuity, and that make our childhood seem to our adult years, of a truth, a golden age.

Without the elbow-room that some kinds of fun require, without money to buy games, without leisure to play them or to teach them to their children, forever held down by drudgery, forever pressed upon by the serious hand-to-hand fight to keep the wolf from the door, is it strange that the poor know next to nothing of the commonest home games and diversions? To the Home Libraries, a name sweet and dear to us who have had to do with them, came this further idea of Home Amus.e.m.e.nts. After the exchange of books, conversation about them, the recording of opinions, perhaps also reading aloud by the visitor or the children, they turn from books to play. It is the duty of the visitor to be informed in the art of merriment, and to teach the children all sorts of ways of having fun at home. Nor is it a slight advantage that thus inducement comes to the grown-up folks to look on and laugh too.

But as naturally as the rose-bush grows and more than a single bud appears and turns to blossom, so came another unfolding from the Home Libraries stock. "The destruction of the poor is their poverty." Might we not add to the home reading and home amus.e.m.e.nts inducements to Home Thrift? We began to get the children to save their pennies. Presently the Boston Stamp-Savings Society was established. So we purchase stamps from that society and supply them to visitors. The visitors in turn sell them to the children at the weekly meetings. The children are supplied with cards marked off into s.p.a.ces in which they paste the pretty stamps as they buy them. When a card is filled, or when the total value of the stamps on a card is sufficient to make it worth while, perhaps fifty or seventy-five cents or a dollar, the stamps are redeemed, and the visitor goes with the child to open an account at some regular savings bank. The collection of pennies is resumed, to be followed by another redemption of the stamps and the swelling of the account at the savings bank.

I hardly need tell you that the Christmas festivities of the children are largely held under the auspices of the little libraries, or that in the warmer season you will find the visitors and children taking excursions together to the lovelier spots in the woods and at the sh.o.r.e. Once a year, too, we have a sale of plants. Last spring we sold three hundred and eighty-three plants to the children for windows and gardens. We have promised that all who will appear this autumn with live plants shall have a treat.

Through the visitors, too, we hear of cases of dest.i.tution, truancy, waywardness and moral exposure, of unfit dwellings, and illegal liquor-selling. Such things we report to suitable agencies--the other departments of our Children's Aid Society, the a.s.sociated Charities, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Board of Health, the Law and Order League.

From all of this you will easily see why we think that ten children are enough for a single group or visitor. We expect the visitor to know not only the children of the group, but the families to which they belong, and as the children grow older, and are graduated from the little libraries, to follow them still as their friends. It is a highly important function of the Home Library to bring with good books a good friend, whose advice the children will seek, whose example they will aim to follow, and whose esteem they will not wish to forfeit.

We are having to face more and more the question of the graduates of the libraries. One thing we propose for them is a printed list of selected books that are in the Public Library with the numbers that they bear. These lists in the hands of our graduates we think will continue to guide them to the choice of good reading.

So, too, we hope to see our graduates go from the little libraries into the working girls' clubs, the a.s.sociations for young men, and the workingmen's and workingwomen's clubs. And we want the love of good books, and all that good books stand for, to follow them.

We have now, about six years and a half since the first library was established, seventy libraries scattered throughout Boston, with sixty-three volunteer visitors and a membership of six hundred and thirty-four children. Since June, 1889, one paid a.s.sistant, a lady who was among the first volunteers in the work, has been employed, and has rendered most interested and efficient service. For the past two years we have employed also an extra summer-a.s.sistant, as so many of the visitors are away during that season, and as we try to give every library group at least one outing during the midsummer months. A committee of the Board of Directors of the Boston Children's Aid Society have acted as volunteer visitors, and promoted and strengthened in various ways this department of the Society.

From the beginning it has seemed best to let the experiment work itself out somewhat fully before attempting to say too much about it. A widespread demand, however, for fuller information has arisen, and home libraries are being established in various cities I hope that before long a full record of the establishment and growth of the Home Libraries in Boston may be placed at the service of any who seek to adopt this form of philanthropic effort among the children of the poor.

HOME LIBRARIES

One of the first librarians to give to library work with children a full appreciation of its possibilities in extension work was Salome Cutler Fairchild. An address given by her on January 10, 1898, before the New York Library a.s.sociation and the New York Library Club on the development of the home library work in Albany describes some modifications of Mr. Birtwell's plan, and is especially interesting because it indicates the relation of this method of extension work to the "new philanthropy."

Mary Salome Cutler was born in Dalton, Ma.s.s., in 1855, was educated at Mt. Holyoke Seminary, and received the degree of B.L.S. from the University of the State of New York in 1891. In 1897 she was married to the Rev. Edwin Milton Fairchild. From 1884 to 1889 she was cataloguer in the Columbia College Library and Instructor in the Columbia College Library School. She became Vice-Director of the New York State Library School in 1889 and remained there until 1905. Since that time she has been a lecturer on selection of books and American libraries. Mrs.

Fairchild was chairman of the committee in charge of the library exhibit of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 and was identified with the publication of the A. L. A. Catalog.