Library Work with Children Part 4

Our children's librarian makes up for lack of library technique by her acquaintance with teachers, and experience in day, evening and vacation schools, that have brought her into contact with children of all sorts and conditions.

The summer before her coming I had charge of the room for a part of every day, and observing that children under fourteen were beginning to think that they had read everything in the room and were asking to be transferred, I made a collection of books, princ.i.p.ally novels, from the main library, marked them and the bookcards with a red star, and placed them on side shelves, where the younger children soon learned that they would find nothing to interest them. This keeps the older boys and girls in the room until they are ready for the main library, and when they are transferred they are sent to me in my office, where they are told that some one is always ready to give them help if they ask for it. The list of books for the first year after coming into the library is handed to them, and they are also referred to the high school shelves, to be mentioned later.

We insist on a father or mother coming with a child and leaving a signature or mark on the back of the application-card. This is placing responsibility where it belongs, and as we always have at least one of the staff who can speak Yiddish, and others who speak Italian, the parents are usually willing to come.

We are very strict in exacting fines as a means of teaching children to be responsible and careful of public property.

One summer the children acted simple impromptu plays, Cinderella, Blue Beard, Beauty and the beast, on the lawn outside the long windows. The lawn has been in bad condition for nearly two years, on account of the building of the Morgan memorial, but has now been planted again. One May-day we had an old English festival around a Maypole on the green, with Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlett, the hobby- horse, the dragon and all the rest, including Jack in the Green and an elephant. This was such a success that we were asked to repeat it across the river on the East Hartford Library green, where it was highly complimented on account of being so full of the spirit of play.

Our Christmas exhibits have been held every year, at first, as I have said, for one day only, then for two or three in the rooms above, and for the last two years in a large room used by the Hartford Art Society as a studio until it moved to a whole house across the street. This room has s.p.a.ce for our school libraries, and the room which they had outgrown was fitted up at no expense except for chairs and a change in the lighting, as a study-room for the older boys and girls, who also have the privilege of reading any stories they find on the shelves, which are on one side only. The other shelves, placed across the room, were moved to the studio, which is so large that it has s.p.a.ce for story-telling, or oftener story-reading. The winter of the d.i.c.kens centennial, through the month of February, the beginnings of "David Copperfield," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Dombey and son" and "Great expectations" were read.

In 1911, a gift of twenty-five dollars from a friend was spent for the boys' and girls' room, and has bought specimens of ill.u.s.tration, Grimm's "Fairy tales," ill.u.s.trated by Arthur Rackham; Kate Greenaway's "Under the window," "Marigold garden,"

"Little Ann" and "Pied piper", Laura Starr's "Doll book," and a fine copy of Knight's "Old England," full of engravings, including a morris dance such as has been performed here, and Hare's "Portrait book of our kings and queens." The rest of the money bought a globe for the older boys' and girls'

reading-table, and sent from Venice a reproduction of a complete "armatura," or suit of Italian armor, eighteen inches high.

In 1912 the boys and girls of grades 7 to 9 in the district and parochial schools were invited to listen to stories from English history in the Librarian's office of the Hartford Public Library on Tuesday afternoons in July and August. Some of the subjects were The Roman wall, The Danish invasion, King Alfred and the white horses said to have been cut to commemorate his victories, The Crusades, and The captivity of James I. of Scotland. The Longman series of colored wall-prints was used as a starting point for the stories. Children in grades 4 to 6 listened at a later hour to stories from Hawthorne's "Wonderbook" and "Tanglewood tales."

The Hartford Public Library had an exhibit at the state fair, September 2-7, 1912, in the Child-welfare building. In a s.p.a.ce 11 by 6 were chairs, tables covered with picture-books, a bookcase with libraries for school grades, probation office, and a settlement, and another with inexpensive books worth buying for children. Pictures of countries and national costumes were hung on the green burlap screens which enclosed the sides of the miniature room. At about the same time we printed a list of pleasant books for boys and girls to read after they have been transferred to the main library. They are not all cla.s.sics, but are interesting. The head of the high school department of English and some of the other teachers asked the library's help in making a list of books for suggested reading during the four years' course. This list has been printed and distributed. Copies are hung near two cases with the school pennant above them, and one of the staff sees that these cases are always filled with books mentioned in it. The high school has a trained librarian, who borrows books from the Public Library and tries in every way to encourage its use.

From Dec. 3 to 24, 1912 and 1913, the exhibit of Christmas books for children and young people was kept open by the library in the large room in the annex. The exhibit included three or four hundred volumes, picture books by the best American, English, French, German, Italian, Danish, and Russian ill.u.s.trators, inexpensive copies and also new and beautiful editions of old favorites, finely ill.u.s.trated books attractive to growing-up young people, and the best of the season's output. It had many visitors, some of them coming several times. We sent a special invitation to the students in the Hartford Art Society, some of whom are hoping to be ill.u.s.trators, and appreciate the picture- books highly.

The boys' and girls' room received last winter a fine photo- graphic copy of Leighton's "Return of Persephone," in time for Hawthorne's version of the story, which is usually read when pomegranates are in the market and again six months later, when Persephone comes up to earth and the gra.s.s and flowers begin to spring.

One day John Burroughs made an unexpected visit to the room, and it happened that when the children reading at the tables were told who he was, and asked who of them had read "Squirrels and furbearers," the boy nearest him held up his hand with the book in it. That boy will probably never forget his first sight of a real live author!

Last winter we received a gift of a handsome bookcase with gla.s.s doors, which we keep in the main library, filled with finely ill.u.s.trated books for children to be taken out on grown-up cards only. This is to insure good care.

For several years we have been collecting a family of foreign dolls, who are now forty-five in number, of all sorts and sizes, counting seventeen marionettes such as the poor children in Venice play with, half a dozen Chinese actors, and nine brightly colored Russian peasants in wood. The others are Tairo, a very old j.a.panese doll in the costume of the feudal warriors, Thora from Iceland, Marit the Norwegian bride, Erik and Brita from Sweden, Giuseppe and Marietta from Rome, Heidi and Peter from the Alps, Gisela from Thuringia, Cecilia from Hungary, Annetje from Holland, Lewie Gordon from Edinburgh, Christie Johnstone the Newhaven fishwife, Sambo and Dinah the cotton- pickers. Mammy Chloe from Florida, an Indian brave and squaw from British America, Laila from Jerusalem, Lady Geraldine of 1830 and Victoria of 1840. Every New Year's Day, in answer to a picture bulletin which announces a doll-story and says "Bring your doll,"

the little girls come with fresh, clean, Christmas dolls, and every one who has a name is formally presented to the foreign guests, who sit in chairs on a table. Lack of imagination is shown in being willing to own a doll without a name, and this year the subject of names was mentioned in time for the little girls to have them ready. Mrs. Mary Hazelton Wade, author of many of the "Little cousins," lives in Hartford, and lately gave us a copy of her "Dolls of many countries." I told her about the party and invited her, and she told the fifty children who were listening about the Feasts of Dolls in j.a.pan. The doll-story was E. V. Lucas's "Doll doctor," and it was followed by William Brightly Rands's "Doll poems."

In 1893, the year after the library became free, the Connecticut Public Library Committee was organized. For about ten years it had no paid visitor and inspector, and I, as secretary of the committee, had to go about the state in the little time I could spare from regular duties, trying to arouse library interest in country towns. Now most of the field work is done by the visitor, but I have spoken many times at teachers' meetings and library meetings. We began by sending out pamphlets--"What a free library can do for a country town"--emphasizing what its possibilities are of interesting children, and "What a library and school can do for each other." Every year the libraries receive a grant of books from the state, and send in lists subject to approval. We often found the novels and children's books asked for unworthy of being bought with state money by a committee appointed by the Board of Education, and began to print yearly lists of recommended t.i.tles of new books, from which all requested must be chosen. The standard is gradually growing higher. The Colonial Dames have for years paid for traveling libraries, largely on subjects connected with colonial history, to be sent to country schools from the office of the committee, and have also given traveling portfolios of pictures ill.u.s.trating history, chosen and mounted by one of their number. The Audubon Society sends books, largely on out-of-door subjects, and bird-charts, to schools and libraries all over the state. Traveling libraries, miscellaneous or on special subjects, are sent out on request.

A Library Inst.i.tute has been held every summer for five years under the direction of the visitor and inspector. It lasts for two weeks, and several lectures are always given by specialists in work with children.

The choice of books, sources of stories for children, and what to recommend to them are frequently discussed in meetings for teachers and librarians.

A book-wagon has for the last two or three years gone through a few towns where there is no public library, circulating several thousand books a year for adults and children, and exciting an interest which may later develop into the establishment of public libraries. The committee has now 105 which receive the state grant. Wherever a new library is opened, a special effort is made through the schools to make it attractive to children.

At this time of year the mothers' clubs in the city and adjoining towns often ask for talks on what to buy, and boxes of books are taken to them, not only expensive and finely ill.u.s.trated copies, but the best editions that can be bought for a very little money.

These exhibitions have been also given at country meetings held by the Connecticut Public Library Committee.

A library column in a Hartford Sunday paper is useful in showing the public what libraries in other states and cities are doing, and in attracting attention to work with children. Letters to the children themselves at the beginning of vacation, printed in a daily paper and sent to the schools, invite them to book-talks.

Other printed letters about visits to places connected with books and authors, sent home from England and Scotland with postcards, have excited an interest in books not always read by children.

This year the Hartford children's librarian has read the letters and shown the books referred to, post-cards and pictures, to a club of girls from the older grammar grades, who were invited through the letters just spoken of to leave their names with her.

A club of children's librarians from towns within fifteen miles around Hartford meets weekly from October to May. Meetings all over the state under the Public Library Committee have stimulated interest in work with children, and Library Day is celebrated every year in the schools.

The visitor and inspector reports visits to eight towns in December, and says: "Somewhat more than a year ago, at the request of the supervisor, I made out a list of books for the X---- school libraries. These were purchased, and this year the chairman of the school board requested my a.s.sistance in arranging the collection in groups to be sent in traveling library cases until each school shall have had each library. I spent two days at the town hall working with the chairman of the school board, the supervisor, a typist and two school teachers.

"A new children's room has been opened in the Y---- library since my visit there. It is double the size of the room formerly in use, and much lighter and more cheerful. The first grant from the state was expended entirely for children's books, the selection being made in this office.

"In Z---- I gave an Audubon stereopticon lecture, prefacing it with an account of the work on the Audubon Society, and an enumeration of the loans to schools. The audience in a country schoolhouse, half a mile from Z---- village, numbered 102."

A CHAPTER IN CHILDREN'S LIBRARIES

The following account of the beginning of children's work in Arlington, Ma.s.s., in 1835, marks the earliest date yet claimed for the establishment of library work with children, and was written for the January, 1913, number of The Library Journal.

Alice M. Jordan was born in Thomaston, Maine, and was educated in the schools of Newton, Ma.s.sachusetts. After teaching for a few years she entered the service of the Boston Public Library in 1900, Since 1902 she has been Chief of the Children's Department in that library, and since 1911 a member of the staff of Simmons College Library School.

"In consequence of a grateful remembrance of hospitality and friendship, as well as an uncommon share or patronage, afforded me by the inhabitants of West Cambridge, in the Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts, in the early part of my life when patronage was most needful to me, I give to the said town of West Cambridge one hundred dollars for the purpose of establishing a juvenile library in said town. The Selectmen, Ministers of the Gospel, and Physicians of the town of West Cambridge, for the time being shall receive this sum, select and purchase the books for the library which shall be such books as, in their opinion, will best promote useful knowledge and the Christian virtues among the inhabitants of the town who are scholars, or by usage have a right to attend as scholars in their primary schools. Other persons may be admitted to the privilege of said library under the direction of said town, by paying a sum for membership and an annual tax for the increase of the same. And my said executors are directed to pay the same within one year after my decease."

This "extract from the last will and testament of Dr. Ebenezer Learned, late of Hopkinton, N. H.," forms the first book plate of the Arlington (Ma.s.s.) Public Library, founded in 1835. It appears to be the earliest record we have of a specific bequest for a children's library, free to all the children of the town receiving it.

In the late eighteenth century it was the custom at Harvard College to grant a six-weeks' vacation in winter and summer, when students could earn money for college expenses. The popular way of doing this was to teach school. Ebenezer Learned, a young man in the cla.s.s of 1787, availed himself of this opportunity and taught in West Cambridge, or Menotomy. His a.s.sociations there were pleasant ones, and the memory of the friends then made persisted through his later successful career. Dr. Learned became a practicing physician, first in Leominster (Ma.s.s.) and later in Hopkinton, N. H. He is said to have been warmly interested in education and science throughout his life, and was the originator of the New Hampshire Agricultural Society and vice-president of the New Hampshire Medical Society. And yet with all these later interests, his thought, toward the end of his life, was of the little town where he taught his first school.

At the time of receiving this legacy there were in West Cambridge two ministers--a Unitarian and a Baptist--and one physician.

Together with the selectmen, they formed the first board of trustees, which met on Nov. 30, 1835, and voted that the books selected for the library should be such as were directed by Dr.

Learned's will, "the same not being of a sectarian character."

Selection of books was left largely to Mr. Brown, of the newly formed firm of Little & Brown, publishers. He was directed to spend at least half of the bequest for books suitable for the purpose, and these were sent to the home of Dr. Wellington, the physician on the board.

Then followed the task of selecting a librarian, and the obvious choice was Mr. Dexter, a hatter by trade and already in charge of the West Cambridge Social Library. This was a subscription library, founded in 1807, and consisting mainly of volumes of sermons and "serious reading." The question of the librarian's salary was the next care, for the state law authorizing towns to appropriate tax money for libraries was yet ten years in the future. At town meeting, in 1837, however, one of the trustees called attention to the clause in Dr. Learned's will which provided that others, beside children, might use the library by paying a sum for membership and an annual a.s.sessment. "Why should not the town pay the tax, and thus make it free to all the inhabitants?" he asked. And this was done. The town at once appropriated thirty dollars for the library, and the right to take books was extended to all the families in town. From this time the inst.i.tution has been a free town library, the earliest of its cla.s.s in Ma.s.sachusetts.

The little collection of books for the West Cambridge Juvenile Library traveled to its first home on a wheelbarrow. "Uncle"

Dexter would make hats during the week, and on Sat.u.r.day afternoons open the library for the children. Three books were the limit for a family, and they could be retained for thirty days. That the books were actually read by the children is vouched for by those who remember the library from its beginning.

Even free access to the shelves was permitted for a while. But we come to a period, later, when the by-laws declare, "No person except the librarian shall remove a book from the shelves."

One would like to know just what those books were for which one-half of that precious bequest was first spent. The earliest extant catalog of the juvenile library is dated 1855, though there exists an earlier list (1835) of the Social Library.

Tradition has handed down the names of two books said to be in the first collection, but one of these is certainly of later date. The first is still in existence, a copy of the "History of Corsica," by James Boswell. One who as a boy read this book, years ago, in the West Cambridge Juvenile Library, recalled it with delight when he visited Corsica years afterward.

The other t.i.tle, mentioned as belonging to the first library, is "The history of a London doll." But this delightful child's story, by Richard Hengist Home, was not published until 1846.

Some of the Waverley novels are also remembered as being among the earliest purchases. Of course, we realize that books which "will best promote useful knowledge and the Christian virtues" in school children are not necessarily children's books. So we may be tolerably sure that Rollins' and Robertson's histories, as well as Goldsmith and Irving, would have appeared in the catalog had there been one.

The juvenile library remained a year in its first home, the frame house still standing near the railroad which runs through Arlington. There have been five library homes since then, including the meeting house, where the collection of books was nearly doubled by the addition of the district school libraries and a part of the Social Library.

In 1867 the town changed its name to Arlington, discarding the Indian name of Menotomy, by which it was known before its incorporation as West Cambridge. The library then became known as the Arlington Juvenile Library, and, in 1872, its name was formally changed to Arlington Public Library. With the gift of a memorial building, in 1892, the present name, the Robbins Library, was adopted by the town.

It is characteristic of our modern carelessness of what the past has given us, that we have lost sight of this first children's library. Not Brookline in 1890, not New York in 1888, but Arlington in 1835 marks the beginning of public library work with children. Here is one public library, with a history stretching back over seventy-five years, which need not apologize for any expenditure in its work with children. Its very being is rooted in one man's thought for the children of the primary schools. Dr.

Learned could think of no better way of repaying the kindnesses done to a boy than by putting books into the hands of other boys and girls. A children's librarian may well be grateful for the memory of this far-seeing friend of children, who held the belief that books may be more than amus.e.m.e.nt, and that the civic virtues can be nourished by and in a "juvenile library."

THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY IN NEW YORK

The leading editorial in The Library Journal for May, 1887, says: "The plan of providing good reading for very little children begins at the beginning, and the work of the Children's Library a.s.sociation, outlined in a paper in this number, may prove to be the start of a movement of great social importance." This interesting personal account was written by Miss Emily S.

Hanaway, princ.i.p.al of the primary department of Grammar School No. 28, in New York City, to whom came the thought, "Why not give the children reading-rooms?", and through whose efforts the a.s.sociation was organized.