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as much time. If a boy knows that he has the privilege of reading when his lessons are prepared, he will make the best of his time.

His association with books, his judgment in looking up references, his depending upon himself to select what he reads, all help to make him strong.

The literature of school libraries is taken into the homes; a deeper interest on the part of parents is aroused; and a warmer feeling for the school is the result. No money was ever invested that pays a higher rate of interest.

When parents feel that books for their children are a necessity instead of a luxury; when the adornment of the body gives place to the adornment of the mind; when home and school join hands in the uplifting of our children, then will a taste for good reading be established, and literature pure and ennobling will predominate in the land.

THE USE OF THE LIBRARY

BY C. C. YOUNG, LOWELL HIGH SCHOOL, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.

I have at hand a little book' compiled almost twenty years ago, composed of papers nearly all twenty years old and more, in which are discussed, and well discussed, the identical questions that are at present occupying our attention. Every article clearly and forcibly presents the thought that those two great co-factors in the education of mankind, the public library and the public school, can most economically and most efficiently perform their offices only when working together in a well-ordered, well-adjusted union. In every paper the same needs are set forth, the same methods are suggested, the same ideals are pictured, the same hopes are raised, that we are today listening to during these sessions of our department. This was twenty years ago; yet today, with certain notable exceptions, the school and the library have never yet been joined in that union which the lovers of both had so fondly hoped and so assiduously labored to bring about.

The subject of library and school co-operation, then, is not one on which anything startlingly new can at present be offered. Neither is it possible to compress within the necessary limits of a single paper anything like an adequate presentation of even the oft-repeated truths upon a matter of such vast and far-reaching importance. Accordingly I shall take the liberty of modifying the very comprehensive subject assigned me, and shall discuss what seems to me to constitute just now the most vital and necessary phase of that subject, "The Educative Value of the 1 Libraries and Schools, by S. S. Green. New York: F. Leypoldt.

Use of Books, and the Responsibility of the School in Inspiring and Directing that Use." The means of securing books and the methods of using them are both interesting questions, but, after all, they are only details, which, in these days of library activity, will work themselves out, if only a sufficiently strong desire to secure and to use them is engendered on the part of the teacher. "Where there is a will" there is always to be found a "way," and the excellence of the way will generally be in direct proportion to the energy of the will.

Ever since the librarian first realized that his mission was something higher than to be a mere custodian of books he has been earnestly and unremittingly seeking alliance with the teacher, his co-worker in the educational world. Time after time has the subject been discussed in his assemblages and brought forward in his journals. From a recent editorial in the official organ of his national association I read: "There is no more important, as there is no more interesting, part of a librarian's work than that dealing with the relations of the library and the school. It seems not too much to say that this is the most vital part of a library's administration. The library that has no connection with the local schools is neglecting its mission and ignoring its noblest opportunities."

So much from the standpoint of the librarian. He would doubtless claim, and could doubtless produce the strongest proofs of his claim, that the teacher has never yet met him half way. To be sure, in the case of certain wide-awake and progressive communities, as in parts of Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Colorado, and in the case of certain individual teachers of many communities, this claim might be gloriously refuted. Still, on the whole, I think we must admit that, from all appearances, the teacher has never yet sufficiently strongly felt any necessity of joining in that alliance which the librarian has so long been striving to accomplish. It seems to me, moreover, that this apparent apathy must be due to the fact that the teacher has never yet felt any great burden of responsibility or consciousness of a privilege or duty as regards the directing of the reading of the young minds under his charge. Consequently, I believe that our first business, as members of the Library Department of this association, is to insist with all our might, in season and out of season, upon this thesis, viz.: The most important duty of the public school, beyond teaching the child to read, is to teach him what to read and how to read; properly to introduce him to the world of good books, and to give him an ability to discover for himself what is soundest and best in literature. To enlarge upon this thesis, then, shall be our aim today; and I am very sure that it will prove defensible from the standpoint of fundamental pedagogic principles.

The drawing out of the child's latent powers and faculties, his physical and intellectual, moral and spiritual development, is a product, not of the school and the teacher, but of many factors, as diverse and

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complex as is society itself. Moreover, these educative forces are present, not alone for a single brief period, but thru all the years of man's existence and of the mind's and soul's activity. A school whose organization is such as to disregard these great truths can never take the high position it is designed to occupy. Yet how many schools are so planned and so carried on that the pupil feels only the drudgery and the humdrum of a round of duties, which, so far as he can see, has little earthly connection with the life he expects to live! And how rarely do we meet the boy who, as he goes out into the world, continues of his own volition those studies which, so short a time before, were deemed the necessary and allimportant factors of his development! The school, and after that life and the world—this fallacy is at the very bottom of the matter. The school does not "prepare for life;" the school is a part of life.

Once granted that the contention is correct that education is not for the few years of a limited school course, but for life, and that the chief function of the school is so to arouse the child's interest and direct his endeavors as to insure a wise and constant future self-education, I think we shall admit that it is not far wrong to say: "This implies that education must be carried on by means of reading." I judge that no great stress need be laid upon this point in an assemblage of this kind. That systematic, well-chosen, properly directed reading is an almost indispensable factor in the training of the mind needs little proof. Its influence in forming correct habits of thought and research, broadening the horizon of the reader, overcoming narrowness and provincialism, quickening the sympathies, awakening the imagination and æsthetic sensibilities, bringing out the ethical consciousness-in short, developing that fullness of culture and roundness and nobility of character which are the prime ends of education-all these are too clearly appreciated to require demonstration. As Dr. Harris has so well said: "It is thru literature that the genius of the race, appearing in exceptional individuals, instructs the multitude, educates man's insight into the distinction of good from evil, reveals to him his ideals of what ought to be, and elevates the banner of his march toward the beautiful good and the beautiful true."

If, then, the reading of good books is so educative in its tendency and so essential to sound development, at what period in the life of man is their properly directed use so important as that at which he is most susceptible to the influences of education? During the years of childhood and youth, when the interest is so easily aroused, when the sympathies are so keen, when the mind is so open to impressions, and the memory so tenacious in retaining them; when the tastes are yet unperverted, and the capacity for forming ideals is so strong; when the natural appetite for reading is so marked, and when the conditions of life give so much leisure to indulge it—at this time, if ever, is there necessity for wise and skillful guidance in the use of books. This necessity is emphasized all

the more by the fact, so constantly evident to all of us, that the reading habits which the child acquires will, for the most part, be identical with the reading habits which the man possesses. A love for the best in literature in most cases comes in childhood, if it comes at all. Consequently, the assistance given to the child in this regard is, perhaps, more efficiently educative than any other form of instruction; for what we are giving to the boy and the girl of today is really given to the man and woman of the future.

That children are at present receiving no such aid is clearly shown by numerous investigations along this line. Without entering into the details of these investigations, I think that I may safely sum them up by saying that not 50 per cent. of the children who are in the habit of reading at all are favored with any real guidance respecting either the nature, the quantity, or the method of their reading. In this, perhaps the most potent of all influences upon the child's development at that adolescent period which is conceded to be the most critical of his life, he is left to wander blindly and aimlessly, absolutely in the dark.

Now, just as it is true that good reading is a positive good in the education of man, so is it also true that bad or slovenly reading is a positive evil. Hence arises the imperative necessity of looking after this matter at that period when the mental habits of a lifetime are being formed. For, as we have seen, children, if left to themselves, will not choose the best reading, but will too frequently choose very bad reading. Who, then, must undertake this supervision?

There are two, and only two, organized institutions whose business it is to look out for the education of the child. These institutions are the home and the school. Consequently, the direction of this branch of the child's education must fall into the hands of either the parent or the teacher. But experience has proved that to rely upon the parent for this is to lean upon a broken reed. If the choice of the child's reading is left to these natural advisers, thru lack of time and interest, or thru ignorance on their part, it will, tho sometimes made wisely, frequently be made very unwisely, and still more frequently be made not at all. At least these three things must be possessed by him who can successfully direct the reading of the child:

1. An understanding of the child mind as distinguished from the adult mind, and an appreciation of its needs and desires at various stages of its growth.

2. A knowledge, not only of literature in general and the principles which underlie it, but more especially a knowledge of the mass, content, nature, and comparative value of the literature adapted to children.

3. An opportunity and ability of scientifically observing the effects of various kinds of reading on children, both individually and in masses, and of correlating this general reading with the special studies, such as

history, geography, and the like, which are taking up the child's attention. It is scarcely necessary to point out that the average parent, even if disposed to give the time, is by no means able to meet all these requirements.

If, then, it is true that the child must have the help of books properly to educate him, and if he cannot, unaided or aided at home, determine what to read, and, what is equally important, cannot learn how to read, in the proper sense of that term, then the proposition that the school must lend a helping hand will scarcely need proof, for the very necessity of the case makes the work devolve upon it. Its duty, which I have mentioned before-that of co-ordinating, as far as possible, the varied factors which go to make up the pupil's education-still further emphasizes its responsibility.

To aid the child in choosing his associates is largely outside the power of the school; the home and the church are jealous of their rights; but that other great educative force, books and their choice, belongs to the child's mental life, and must in all reason be looked after by the power that has the general supervision of his mental growth. The choice and use of books should come under the province of the school. To it the pupil should be accountable for what he reads and how he reads. From it he should get the advice, the inspiration, the foundation of taste, which will make him a wise and careful reader.

Thus it devolves upon the school to see to it that the best and most suitable books are placed before the child, and that his interest is aroused in such a way that he will read them; and, still further, that he will read them in such a way that there may be formed in him a correct taste for books and a correct reading habit, which he may ever take with him as the most precious gift of the school system, and which he will inevitably transmit, at least in some degree, to the generations following him. I should like to see this study of literature the very center around which the work of the school revolves. I would have a course of study so arranged that the child may devote much of the time which so many schools now give to the spiritless and uncomprehending acquisition of dead and dissociated Gradgrind facts to the flesh and blood and life of the never-dying masterpieces of his mother-tongue. I would have him, from the earliest possible moment, begin to realize that there is a world outside the sphere of his small activities, that there is a glorious past of which he is the heir, and that that world and that past have left to him for the asking treasures which he can here and now begin to gather, but whose infinite richness he can never exhaust. And I would have him so directed that during his whole life's reading he may, both artistically and ethically, learn to know the good from the bad, and become accustomed of his own knowledge and volition to choose the good because it is good and to reject the bad because it is bad.

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