Library Work with Children [13]
Library of Buffalo, N. Y., writes: "I think the little catalogue is doing a great deal of good among our young readers and among parents and teachers. We exert what personal influence we can in the library, but there are no other special measures that we employ." The catalogue, a carefully chosen list of books for young readers, with stars placed against those specially recommended, includes, besides books mentioned in other letters, the Boy's Froissart and King Arthur, Miss Tuckey's Joan of Arc, Le Liefde's Great Dutch Admirals, Eggleston's Famous American Indians, Bryan's History of the United States, Verne's Exploration of the World, Du Chaillu's books, What Mr. Darwin Saw, Science Primers, Faraday's Chemical History of a Candle, Smiles's Biographies, Clodd's Childhood of the World, Viollet Le Duc's Learning to Draw, Dana's Household Book of Poetry, Uncle Remus, Sir Roger de Coverley, several pages on out and in door games, hunting and fishing, with plenty of myths and fairy tales, an annotated selection of historical novels, and a short list of good stories.
The Friends' Free Library, Germantown, Pa., still excludes all fiction except a few carefully chosen stories for children. The report of the committee says: "Our example has been serviceable in stimulating some other library committees and communities to use more discrimination in their selection of books than may have been the case with them in the past. From our own precious children we would fain keep away the threatening contamination, if in our power to do so, the divine law of love to our neighbor thence instructs us to use the opportunity to put far away the evil from him also." The representatives of the religious Society of Friends for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, have published during the year a protest against demoralizing literature and art, taking the ground that the national standard of moral purity is lowered, and the sanctity of marriage weakened, by most of the books, pictures, and theatrical exhibitions of to-day.
The current report of the Cincinnati public schools gives a full account of the celebrations of authors' birthdays in the last two years, and the superintendent, the Hon. John B. Peaslee, LL.D., in an address on moral and literary training in school, urges that the custom, so successfully begun, shall be kept up, and that children in all grades of schools shall be required to learn every week a few lines of good poetry, instead of choosing for themselves either verse or prose for declamation. Mr. Merrill asks in his last report for coooperation between the school and the library, and says in a letter: "I read a paper some time ago which was published in a teachers' magazine, and have addressed our Cincinnati teachers. We purchased a number of the catalogues of the Young Men's Library of Buffalo, and have written in our corresponding shelf numbers. A few of our teachers have also obtained these catalogues. I judge that the children are beginning to take out better books than formerly. The celebration of authors' days in the schools has been very beneficial in making the children acquainted with some of the best literature in the libraries as well as with the use of books of reference."
Miss Stevens, of the Public Library, Toledo, Ohio, says: "We are fond of children, and suggest to them books that they will like. Give a popular boy a good book, and there is not much rest for that book. Librarians should like children."
Mr. Poole, of the Chicago Public Library, writes: "I have met the principals of the schools, and have addressed them on their duties in regulating the reading of their pupils, and advising their pupils as to what to read and how to read. My talk has awakened some interest in the teachers, and a committee has been appointed to consider what can be done about it."
Mr. Carnes, of the Odd Fellows' Library Association, San Francisco, fires this shot in his report: "Even the child knows that forbidden fruit is the sweetest on the branch. If you wish to compel a boy to read a given book, strictly forbid
The Friends' Free Library, Germantown, Pa., still excludes all fiction except a few carefully chosen stories for children. The report of the committee says: "Our example has been serviceable in stimulating some other library committees and communities to use more discrimination in their selection of books than may have been the case with them in the past. From our own precious children we would fain keep away the threatening contamination, if in our power to do so, the divine law of love to our neighbor thence instructs us to use the opportunity to put far away the evil from him also." The representatives of the religious Society of Friends for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, have published during the year a protest against demoralizing literature and art, taking the ground that the national standard of moral purity is lowered, and the sanctity of marriage weakened, by most of the books, pictures, and theatrical exhibitions of to-day.
The current report of the Cincinnati public schools gives a full account of the celebrations of authors' birthdays in the last two years, and the superintendent, the Hon. John B. Peaslee, LL.D., in an address on moral and literary training in school, urges that the custom, so successfully begun, shall be kept up, and that children in all grades of schools shall be required to learn every week a few lines of good poetry, instead of choosing for themselves either verse or prose for declamation. Mr. Merrill asks in his last report for coooperation between the school and the library, and says in a letter: "I read a paper some time ago which was published in a teachers' magazine, and have addressed our Cincinnati teachers. We purchased a number of the catalogues of the Young Men's Library of Buffalo, and have written in our corresponding shelf numbers. A few of our teachers have also obtained these catalogues. I judge that the children are beginning to take out better books than formerly. The celebration of authors' days in the schools has been very beneficial in making the children acquainted with some of the best literature in the libraries as well as with the use of books of reference."
Miss Stevens, of the Public Library, Toledo, Ohio, says: "We are fond of children, and suggest to them books that they will like. Give a popular boy a good book, and there is not much rest for that book. Librarians should like children."
Mr. Poole, of the Chicago Public Library, writes: "I have met the principals of the schools, and have addressed them on their duties in regulating the reading of their pupils, and advising their pupils as to what to read and how to read. My talk has awakened some interest in the teachers, and a committee has been appointed to consider what can be done about it."
Mr. Carnes, of the Odd Fellows' Library Association, San Francisco, fires this shot in his report: "Even the child knows that forbidden fruit is the sweetest on the branch. If you wish to compel a boy to read a given book, strictly forbid