The children's library, a dynamic factor in education

Front matter

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Preface

This book is addressed to those interested in children, whether teachers, Hbrarians or parents. It has not been written from the standpoint of any one group, because there seems to be a need for a study of library work with children based upon broad educational principles and concrete facts, and not upon the opinions of any one class of workers. It does not present definite conclusions or technical information which is already available; but it is submitted as a basis for further discussion.

School authorities are often indifferent to the value of libraries for children ; librarians are none too familiar with educational ideas and ideals, and frequently seem to judge modern education, not by its aims but by its immediate accomplishments. While the teacher is likely to underestimate the value of books other than text books, the librarian is in danger of over-emphasizing the esthetic and literary values of reading for children, and of overlooking the tremendous changes in the attitude of the educational world toward books, due to developments . in sociology, psychology, applied science and industry, The statements of educators and of librarians in regard to children's reading bear an astonishing similarity; yet it seems to be the general opinion among librarians, judging from their printed words, that the scho'ol gives too little attention to the cultural side of books and reading. This book is pre-

Vlil THE CHILDREN S LIBRARY

sented in the hope that it will help librarians to understand better the modern educational attitude toward children in relation to books, and teachers to appreciate the value of the work which could be done by the public library for the schools.

The function of the public library as a continuation school has not been fully recognized. How to educate adolescent children, who are often working children, is a problem as yet unsolved. The use of books in vocational and trade education is especially emphasized, partly because such training is well within the pale of liberal culture if properly handled, and partly because the significance of books as literature has been adequately treated elsewhere. Whatever doubts one may have about vocational education, in some form or other, it is here to stay, and probably for others than prospective wage earners. The public library as yet plays a small part in the lives of working children. Here is an attempt at an explanation of this fact, with suggestions which may help to make the library more useful to that class for which it has always been primarily intended — those unable to take advantage of formal education.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge indebtedness to those who have read the manuscript in whole or in part and have contributed criticisms and suggestions.

S. H. P.

Glen Ridge, New Jersey January 20, 1917

Contents

Introduction xi

I. The place of books in education i

II. Early libraries for children 33

Introduction

A careful study of the relations of children's reading to teachers, parents and librarians has long been needed, and this is precisely what Mrs. Powell has given us. Her book is a cool and dispassionate statement of facts. Included in the facts are not only the relations which children's reading bears to schools, to libraries and to homes, but also the opinions on these relations which are held by the advocates of the varied theories that have arisen in recent years as to what those relations should be. Extremists on either side of the many questions that the modern practice of guiding children's reading has brought forward, may find here what seem at first to be special pleas for and against their several theories. Investigation will show them that, in the progress of her study, the author has but calmly presented both sides, letting conclusions fall with the weight of testimony, as they should.

The equipment of the author for the production of such a book as this, a book which will rank among the few careful studies yet made of any part of the public librarian's field, is of interest and value to the reader and should be noted. The manner in which the book was written, the process, that is, by which it grew from a preliminary study of writings on the immediate subject to a careful examination of so much of the whole

Xll INTRODUCTION

field of education as is covered by the voluntary, guided and obligatory reading of children, — this also is worthy of brief presentation. A new author speaking on a debatable subject is entitled to have her claims for a hearing fairly set forth, even though, as here, she may make somewhat of a protest against such a presentation in her own book.

Before her marriage Mrs. Powell had wide experience in library practice. After graduating from the Pratt Institute Library School she worked in the Osterhout Free Library of Wilkes-Barre ; in a branch library ?n Cleveland ; in New York as a children's librarian ; and then in Queensborough as branch librarian. She also organized a library in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

From her report of her library experience it is evident that she was an enthusiastic advocate of the teaching and entertaining attitude of public libraries toward young people. As time passed and her experience broadened she came to the conclusion that work done from' this attitude was not as satisfactory and helpful in the long run as the enthusiasm of others, and as the personal pleasure she had herself derived from it, had led her to think it was. At length, having more leisure for thinking and study, she found herself asking two questions, "Is the position which public libraries have taken in recent years toward children's reading, the proper and helpful one? That is, should public libraries enter the formal education liedd, and if so, how far ought they to venture therein?"

To those questions her book is the answer, — an

INTRODUCTION xui

answer brought forth by some four years of intensive study, including an examination, not only of the literature of the subject, but also of the actual practice in such libraries as those of St. Louis, Chicago, and Philadelphia. She studied, observed and talked with both teachers and librarians, getting at their theories and learning of their work.

And so, for several- years, the book grew, widening in scope as new studies opened the field, and becoming each year more truly a presentation of all aspects of the subject and less and less a series of arguments in favor of any group of theories. Even after it was complete, as she tried to believe, in content and amply scientific in manner, and after it had been accepted for publication, Mrs. Powell continued to subject it to careful scrutiny and to a resulting revision, in an effort to free her book of statements born merely of enthusiasm or prejudice and to make it tell precisely what her studies disclosed, and no more.

The preface says, in confirmation of what has been here set down, that this book "does not present definite conclusions, or technical information which is already available ; but it is submitted as a basis for further discussion." For this purpose it is admirably full and rich. It discusses the place of reading in education, the history of books and libraries for children and of the library in the elementary school ; and then goes on to the high school, to the library itself, to the latter's place in education and to the special activities of the library toward children which have been so highly de-

XiV INTRODUCTION

veloped in recent years. It opens out a wide field, and one may well say that, for some years to come, any enthusiastic advocate of any special cult in library service for children, who attempts to uphold his theory without having first examined carefully the facts this book presents, will find himself very poorly equipped for his task.

John Cotton Dana Newark, New Jersey March, igij.

A DYNAMIC FACTOR IN

Chapter One The Place Of Books In Education

Although much has been written and said about the influence of books, few learn to read; that is, to assimilate ideas from a printed page. Printed characters are still comparatively new to the human mind, and the mastery of them is not nearly complete. Furthermore, the use of books generally has been taught according to medieval and even ancient conceptions, which do not fit modern requirements. As a result, the reading of the majority is aimless and superficial, and confined largely to newspapers and magazines; and there is too little practical recognition of the service which books and periodicals might be made to perform in modern industry and business. Books are not used enough by those who should be getting practical help from them, and are depended upon too much by a small number who regard them chiefly as aids to culture.

The reading done by children, which is important from both a cultural and a practical standpoint and which should make them reading men and women, usually fails to acquaint them with books as sources of help and information in their hobbies and other interests. Nor does it develop in them a discriminating taste, because reading as a merely mechanical art is difficult for young children. Serious reading habits are acquired only after long and patient practice and by some not at all.' Many educational authorities contend, therefore, that school children should do most of their reading in school, or at least under the direction of teachers, whose constant supervision might help them to master some of its difficulties; also that children's reading generally should not be hampered by the indiscriminate use of public library books by which the child is liable to destroy any skill in the use of print he may be in the way of acquiring.

Some librarians have maintained, on the other hand, that young people will read out of school, and that the public library should furnish them with the proper kind of reading, which, in contrast to that done in school, should be chiefly recreational and cultural. This implies that everything done in school is irksome, and that all outside reading is recreation, an opinion which does not seem to be justified by the facts. Publishers of the five-cent weeklies report that the boy of

1 "It is a sad and significant fact that most people who attend public schools never learn to read even the most simple material with a fair degree ot ease and speed. Most people find the reading of a simple story or the morninR paper a tiring and difficult task. Reading is drudgery for most of them because they have never mastered the mechanics of the process. The most difficult part of elementary school wqrk IS learning to read, and it is the one in which the least satisfactory results have been secured." — Ayres and McKinnie, The public library and the public schools, 76 (19 16).

to-day wants technical books. Even if he uses the pubhc Hbrary for recreational reading, he will also read his "Bowery Billy" until he acquires more serious interests. The cultural and literary side of education receives much attention from the leaders in school matters, as is shown by the amount of material on this subject, and they have the assistance of child experts and the advantage of long years of experience with children. To be sure the school is not yet able to apply psychological principles to the education of all children. Much less has the public library the means by which to discover those children to whom reading is a hindrance rather than a help. The public library is supported by public funds upon the theory that it is part of the educational system; therefore, in dealing with school children it should proceed only in cooperation with the older institution. The librarian is necessarily the book expert, not the child expert.

In maintaining children's rooms in public libraries, many librarians have sought to give each child a substitute for a well chosen private library in which to browse. Well selected books in a home usually imply well educated and cultivated parents ; in the school the use of such books is accompanied by constant supervision and study and thus in both instances the influence of books is only one of the many factors of environment. To duplicate the child's library, without being able to duplicate the condition of his being well born, without the subtle refinements of a good home, and also without the supervision possible in the school — and the public library cannot and does not give such

4 THE CHILDREN 8 LIBRARY

supervision — will not produce even approximately similar results. On the other hand, there have been certain consequences of the indiscriminate and excessive use of libraries by school children which have been unforeseen and not always desirable.

First, there is the possible hindrance to school work due chiefly to the library's independence of the school. Probably Doctor Brumbaugh expressed the opinion of many educators when he said, "The free use of libraries undirected is a pernicious practice. It is far better to have the teachers select and restrict the reading of the pupils. Many a complaint of poor work is due to the fact that the mental energy of the pupil is appropriated to reading books of no value in his educational progress, leaving him dull and listless for the specific work of the schools.'" Since only about half the school children are getting more than a smattering of an education,' such a complaint is not without significance. At a time when the backward child is making no progress in his classes, and as a result is in danger of drifting with scanty equipment into the ranks of unskilled labor, neither public library nor school points out to him the value of books as vocational aids. When vocational guidance is given it is usually to high school pupils; thus the great majority of children who are about to go to work receive no benefit. Some changes in the right direction have been made in the child labor laws, but they provide, for the most part, that

' Less than half the children finish well more than the first six maes, only one-fourth enter high school, and only one child in ten eoei through high school. Ayers, Laggards in our schools, 4 (1909): V. S. commissioner of education. Report, i9ii:I,xiii.

THE PLACE OF BOOKS IN EDUCATION S

children may leave school at a certain age, and specify no grade which the children must have reached or finished. Accordingly, many children leave school before they finish the sixth grade, before vocational guidance or help has been offered them. In one typical industrial city' over half the working papers were issued to children from the fourth, fifth and sixth grades.

The librarian is sometimes misled into thinking that he is accomplishing satisfactory results, by the fact that the children who come to the public library show an overpowering eagerness to get "liberries." Young people generally pass through a reading crazy period, which may begin at eight and last until fourteen or sixteen." The library is able to gratify the desires of such children, but the librarian does not and perhaps cannot decide when this craze is merely a waste of mental energy, and there are no available records which show that he is able to use this craze to promote reading habits that will be increasingly useful.

This does not mean that young people may not profitably use a public library. They would use books just as eagerly if they could find material upon the subjects to which their tastes and aptitudes directed them. In any case the school record of each child seems to offer the only sure basis for determining whether he should be allowed to stuff himself with thoroughly innocuous literature or whether he should be directed to books which will establish a definite aim

* Van Sickle, Report on the examination of the school system of Bridgeport, Conn., 63-5 (1913).

" See Bullock, Some observations on children's reading. National education association, Proceedings, 1897:1015-21; Vostrovsky, A study of children's reading tastes. Pedagogical Seminary, 6:523-35 (1898).

in reading. This individual direction is possible only in the school, and is the business of the school. The library furnishes it only spasmodically at best, and is not equipped either with money or methods to assume what is clearly a teaching function.

Few wage earners are aware of the contribution that books could make to their progress by increasing the range of choice of vocation or by furnishing technical information by means of which they might get better jobs. The librarian is likely to overlook the opportunity for such service because he has no way of classifying the interests of readers except according to their reading tastes, which, in the case of children, may be entirely disassociated from their interest in doing things. Theoretically maintained as an educational institution for those who cannot aflford to buy their own books or otherwise continue their education, the public library sometimes seems to be conducted upon the theory that its mission is chiefly to provide good literature for those who have learned to like it, thus neglecting the interests of the child as prospective wage earner. It is only natural, therefore, that when they go to work young people too often fail to recognize the library as an agency which can be of practical help to them. There seems to be nothing which leads out from their use of the children's room into the use which intelligent working men may make of a public library. By insisting that only literature so-called can be read for pleasure and by over-emphasizing the value of good literature, some librarians have brought it about that the library is considered as chiefly recreational in its function ; an opinion which is not confined to the "pub- He," but prevails among sociologists and educators.

These may be some of the reasons why so few wage earners are using our public libraries in a serious way. Although some attempts have been made in this direction, there is no far-reaching, systematic method whereby children are taught either by the library or by the public school to use a public library for other than recreational purposes. Yet one of the earliest developments of the public or free library idea was the apprentices' library for working boys and girls. Mr. Andrew Carnegie has declared that the benefits which he, as a working boy, derived from books was the direct inspiration of his gifts to public libraries, that other working boys might be helped by books."

If the librarian's attention is given mainly to school children already provided for, instead of to working children for whom the public library is the only educational resource, the latter will certainly suffer from neglect, since there is neither time, money, nor energy for the service of both.

It has been claimed that the only way to reach the older children is by encouraging them to make free and

•* "My own personal experience may have led me to value a free library beyond all other forms of beneficence. When I was a boy in Pittsburgh, Col. Anderson of Allegheny — a name I can never speak without feelings of devotional gratitude — opened his little library to boys. Every Saturday afternoon he was himself in attendance at his home to exchange books. No one but him who has felt it can know the intense longing with which the arrival of Saturday was awaited, that a new book might be had. My brother and Mr. Phipps who have been my principal business partners through life, shared with me Col. Anderson's precious generosity, and it was when reveling in these treasures that I resolved that if ever wealth came_ to me it should be used to establish free libraries, that other boys might receive opportunities similar to those for which we were indebted to that noble man." In Adams, Public libraries and popular education. Home education bulletin (N. Y. state), 31:61.

unrestricted use of the library from early years. This practice has been followed for over fifteen years; yet librarians complain that the adolescent child is not using the library. The adolescent child in the majority of cases is the working child, and the library does not know his interests, nor is it prepared to further them. If the teaching of school children to use a public library will result in their using it when they become working children, it should be encouraged in all possible ways. Even so, who is to direct such lessons? If the library continues to do so, the librarian cannot afford to work independently of the schools and of the information as to individual children which only the teacher can give. However well or ill the school may be meeting its responsibilities, the teacher knows the child and his needs better than the librarian can. It is possible to teach children how to use a library without allowing them to monopolize the librarians' attention or to crowd out those beyond school age. It is not necessary to attract the younger children to the children's room every day in the week, making thoughtful work on the part of the librarian impossible, in order to teach them how to use books intelligently. Such a practice does not acquaint them with the best uses of the library, and if it did, there is a less expensive and a more effective way to accomplish the desired result. One such way is suggested by the system of education in use at Gary, Indiana, where the children are assigned in small groups to library hours, and where a special literature teacher interviews each child several times a week as to his reading interests. The librarian, like the teacher, cannot do good work with large groups of children.

In considering libraries for children, it is necessary also to recognize the changing attitude toward books on the part of progressive educators. Educational authorities such as Dewey, McMurry, and Huey, suggest the entire elimination of reading from the first three years of the child's school life, that is, to about his tenth year. Doctor Klapper' gives their reasons very concisely. The first is hygienic. Reading requires certain functions of the eyes for which they were not primarily designed. The untrained eye of the young child should not be subjected to this unusual strain upon nerves and muscles without due recognition of this fact.^ If all the books used by young children in the library had the proper kind of paper, print and spacing, educators might feel less reluctant to have children read outside of school. But unfortunately an examination of large numbers of children's books convinces one that while the books in the ordinary children's room have been chosen carefully with regard to literary and artistic quality, less study has been given to the physiological requirements of young children's eyes. One very popular series found in nearly all children's rooms violates in almost every particular

'Teaching children to read. 19 14.

" Some of the considerations touching the physiology and hygiene of the eye as they affect the reading of young children may be found in: Briggs, Eye and the printed page. Education, 33: 550-62; Cohn, Hygiene of the eye, 215-9: Dearborn, The psychology of reading, Columbia university, Contributions to philosophy and psychology, XIV, no. i (1906); Koopman, Eye and the printed page. Education, 33:503-9; Kotelmann and Bergstrom, School hygiene, 239-78; Patrick, Should children under ten learn to read and write? Popular Science Monthly, 54: 382-91; Shaw, School hygiene, 170-95; Whipple, Eye and the printed page. Education, 33:552-8.

the rules for the kind of book a young child ought to read. The print is too fine, the lines too close together and too long, and the paper glazed.

Further considerations are advanced by these authorities against the reading of young children upon psychological grounds. The act of reading requires fine psychological adjustments, and the coarser adjustments should come first Concrete knowledge by means of observation and sensation should be taught before symbolism. Bad mental habits result from the concentration on symbolism, because the interpretation of symbols is opposed to the child's natural cravings and interests. Reading (interpretation of symbols) requires him to concentrate in a way for which he is not equipped. Consequently his mind wanders, and the habit of concentration is weakened before it is fairly formed. "Taking our school population as a whole," says one educator, "I do not believe there is more than one in ten who will be much benefited by such reading as he is likely to do in early childhood ; and this mainly on account of the excess of it, which often forms a glaze over the intelligence and sensibilities, or else induces a grasshopper habit of skipping from page to page in search of exciting episodes.""

The reading process is so difficult for young children that mental effort is concentrated upon the deciphering of the symbols and not on the thought. Thus a child acquires early the habit of reading without thought.

There are also social considerations advanced

" Russell, Voluntary reading in the elementary school. School Review, 13: 166 (1905).

against early reading, which it is said, is too individuaHstic for the young child. He should be taught social duties. The culture epoch theory, accepted by one group of psychologists, simply reinforces the idea that a young child like the young race is fitted for other activities than the highly Complicated one of reading.

From the pedagogical point of view much valuable time is lost in the attempt to teach a child a very difficult process which he would find easy a little later on. According to this theory, other activities are more helpful than reading. The interests and the means of development for the young child lie in doing things. He needs more physical activity than he is likely to get through our present educational methods. Consequently, young children- ought to be discouraged from reading. This does not mean that they should be deprived of the literature suitable to their years, for teachers can read to them and cultivate in them a much more unusual faculty than that of reading — the faculty of listening. For example, poetry was intended to be sung and heard and not to be read silently. Children with their instinct for rhythm readily learn to appreciate verse at an early age if it be read to them properly. Folk tales and fairy stories, which are so well adapted to the early years of childhood are of greater advantage to children when dramatized than when read. Folk dances, songs, and games make literature live for children ; whereas on a printed page it is likely to be lifeless and cold." These methods

"See Chubb, Festivals and plays (1912).

are not unknown in the modern school room, where the dramatization of legends and tales is part of the routine. In some such way literature should be translated into action, then the children can be shown how the knowledge to be gained from books may supplement activity.

The recreational value of reading literature cannot be urged against these conclusions, since a child will approach books just as eagerly if he finds them telling him how to do things as if they were so-called pure literature which some adults read for rest and recreation. Such a thought may not meet with ready acceptance among librarians, whose tools are books, and whose every performance centres in and around books. As Professor Huey remarks, "The written or printed 'word' and, especially, as of old, if it be written in strange characters, still awes us and controls us by its appeal to the old folk soul which is the deepest soul in us all.""

These ideas are by no means accepted by all educational authorities. Some point out that many children show interest in books before their eighth or ninth years ; that reading is social as well as individualistic, for it teaches children how others think and feel and live; that since the majority of children leave school at the sixth grade, they will go out into life even more poorly equipped than at present, if reading be postponed. Such considerations, both pro and con, are of great importance to the librarian who would direct the reading of young children.

" The psychology and pedagogy of reading, 4 (1908).

Not only has the opinion of educators regarding the value of reading for children undergone a change ; their attitude, as well as that of sociologists and philosophers, toward books themselves has been undergoing changes even more profound. To be sure, leisure class standards persist — notwithstanding the progress which has been made in the direction of democracy — and determine our conventional attitude toward clothes, conduct, and education. The words "culture" and "liberal education" still convey to many minds the idea of mere bookishness and learning for ornamental purposes. The assumption that knowledge is not cultural when it is practical, has always been apparent in the utterances of the disciples of the printed page.

The root of liberal is Uber, "free," and not liber, "book." A liberal education is one which liberates, sets free the mind. Many get much pleasure, too, out of reading for information, and perhaps more culture than in making their way through five feet of selected masterpieces. We can no longer believe that the reading of literature for recreation and the use of books for information can be divided into cultural and non-cultural processes. We now know that there cannot be any fast and hard line between liberal and practical education. Educators are not so certain as they were what culture is, still less certain that it comes from reading selected literature or that it may not also proceed from reading other kinds of books and doing other things than reading.