Ours is, as I have said, a public education, a republic's problem. To quote President Wilson again: "Our present plans for teaching everybody involve certain unpleasant things quite inevitably. It is obvious that you cannot have universal education without restricting your teaching to such things as can be universally understood. It is plain that you cannot impart 'university methods' to thousands, or create 'investigators' by the score, unless you confine your university education to matters which dull men can investigate, your laboratory training to tasks which mere plodding diligence and submissive patience can compass. Yet, if you do so limit and constrain what you teach, you thrust taste and insight and delicacy of perception out of the schools, exalt the obvious and merely useful things above the things which are only imaginatively or spiritually conceived, make education an affair of tasting and handling and smelling, and so create Philistia, that country in which they speak of 'mere literature.' "

In our zeal to serve the little alien, descendant of generations of poverty and ignorance, let us not lose sight of the importance to our country of the child more fortunate in birth and brains. So strong is my feeling on the value of leaders that I hold we should give at least as much study to the training of the accelerate child as we give to that of the defective. Though I boast the land of Abraham Lincoln and Booker Washington I do not give up one iota of my belief that the child who is born into a happy environment, of parents strong in body and mind, holds the best possibilities of making a valuable citizen; and so I am concerned that this child be not spoiled in the making by a training or lack of training that fails to recognize his possibilities.

It is encouraging to kind growing attention in the "Proceedings" of the N. E. A. and other educational bodies to the problem of the bright child who has suffered by the lock-step system which has molded all into conformity with the capabilities of the average child.

The librarian's difficulty is perhaps greater than that of the teacher, because open shelves and freedom of choice are so essential a part of our program. We must provide easy reading for thousands of children. Milk and water stories may have an actual value to children whose unfavorable heritage and environment have retarded their mental development. But the deplorable thing is to see young people, mercifully saved from the above handicaps, making a bee line for the current diluted literature for grown-ups, (as accessible as Scott on our open shelves) and to realize that this taste, which is getting a life set, is the inevitable outcome of the habit of reading mediocre juveniles.

We must not rail at publishers for trying to meet the demands of purchasers. Our job is to influence that demand far more than we have done as yet. Large book jobbers tell us that millions and millions of poor juveniles are sold in America to thousands of the sort we librarians recommend. I have seen purchase lists of boys' club directors and Sunday School library committees calling for just the weak and empty stuff we would destroy. I have unwittingly been an eavesdropper at Christmas book counters and have heard the orders given by parents and the suggestions made by clerks. And I feel that the public library has but skirmished along the outposts while the great field of influencing the reading of American children remains unconquered. Until we affect production to the extent that the book stores circulate as good books as the best libraries we cannot be too complacent about our position as a force in citizen making.

An "impossible" ideal, of course, but far from intimidating, the largeness of the task makes us all the more determined.

This paper attempts no suggestion of new methods of attacking the problem. It is rather a restatement of an old perplexity. I harp once more on a worn theme because I think that unless we frequently lift our eyes from the day's absorbing duties for a look over the whole field, and unless we once and again make searching inventory of our convictions, our purposes, our methods, our attainments, we are in danger of letting ourselves slip along the groove of the taken-for-granted and our work loses in power as we allow ourselves to become leaners instead of leaders. May we not, as if it were a new idea, rouse to the seriousness of the mediocre habit indulged in by young people capable of better things? Should not our work with children reach out more to work with adults, to those who buy and sell and make books for the young? Is it not time for the successful teller of stories to children to use her gifts in audiences of grown people, persuading these molders of the children's future of the reasonableness of our objection to the third rate since it is the enemy of the best? May it not be politic, at least, for the librarian to descend from her disdainful height and make friends with "the trade," with bookseller and publisher who, after all, have as good a right to their bread and butter as the librarian paid out of the city's taxes?

And then—is it not possible that we might be better librarians if we refused to be librarians every hour in the day and half the night as well? What if we were to have the courage to refuse to indulge in nervous breakdowns, because we deliberately plan to play, and to eat, and to sleep, to keep serene and sane and human, believing that God in His Heaven gives His children a world of beauty to enjoy as well as a work to do with zeal. If we lived a little longer and not quite so wide, the gain to our chosen work in calm nerves and breadth of interest and sympathy would even up for dropping work on schedule time for a symphony concert or a country walk or a visit with a friend—might even justify saving the cost of several A. L. A. conferences toward a trip to Italy!

This hurling at librarians advice to play more and work less reminds me of a story told by a southern friend. Years ago, in a sleepy little Virginia village, there lived two characters familiar to the townspeople, whose greatest daily excitement was a stroll down to the railroad station to watch the noon express rush through to distant southern cities. One of these personages was the station keeper, of dry humor and sententious habit, whom we will call Hen Waters; the other was the station goat, named, of course, Billy. Year after year had Billy peacefully cropped the grass along the railroad tracks, turning an indifferent ear to the roar of the daily express, when suddenly one day the notion seemed to strike his goatish mind that this racket had been quietly endured long enough. With the warning whistle of the approaching engine, Billy, lowering his head, darted furiously up the track, intending to butt the offending thunderer into Kingdom Come. When, a few seconds later, the amazed spectators were gazing after the diminishing train, Hen Waters, addressing the spot where the redoubtable goat had last been seen, drawled out: "Billy, I admire your pluck—but darn your discretion!"

The parallel between the the ambitions and the futility of the goat, and the present speaker's late advice is so obvious that only the illogicalness of woman can account for my cherishing a hope that I may be spared the fate of the indiscreet Billy.

VALUES IN LIBRARY WORK WITH CHILDREN

This second paper on Values in library work with children, was presented at the Kaaterskill Conference of the A. L. A. in 1913 by Caroline Burnite. In it are discussed "departmental organization as it benefits the reading child, and the principles and policies which have developed through departmental unity." For inclusion in this volume it has been somewhat condensed by the author.

Caroline Burnite was born in Caroline County, Maryland, in 1875; was graduated from the Easton, Maryland, High School in 1892 and from Pratt Institute Library School in 1894. From 1895 to 1901 she was librarian of the Tome Institute in Port Deposit, Maryland. She was an assistant in the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh from 1902 to 1904, when she became Director of Children's Work in the Cleveland Public Library, the position she now holds. Miss Burnite is also an instructor in the Western Reserve Library School.

To elucidate principles of value, I shall use, by way of illustration, the experience and structure of a children's department where the problem of children's reading and the means of bringing books to them has been intensively studied for some nine years.... Probably about six out of ten of the children of that city read library books in their homes during the year, and each child reads about twenty books on the average. In all, fifty- four thousand children read a million books, which reach them through forty-three librarians assigned for special work with these children, through three hundred teachers and about one hundred volunteers.

Now, we know that six out of ten children is not an ideal proportion of the total number. We know also, inversely, that the volume of work entailed in serving fifty-four thousand children may endanger the quality of book service given to each child. Both of these conditions show that the experience of each reading child should make its own peculiar contribution to the general problem of children's reading and that the experience of large numbers of reading children should be brought to bear upon the problem of the individual. To accomplish this, work with the children was given departmental organization. My concern in this paper is with departmental organization as it benefits the reading child, and with the principles and policies which have been developed through departmental unity.

We think ordinarily that one who loves books has three general hallmarks: his reading is fairly continuous, there is a permanency of book interest, and this interest is maintained on a plane of merit. But in the child's contact with the library there are many evidences of modifications of normal book interests. Instead of continuity of reading, the children's rooms are overcrowded in winter and have far less use in summer; instead of permanency of book interest extending over the difficult intermediate period, large numbers of those children who leave school before they reach high school have little or no library contact during their first working years, and without doubt the interesting experiences with working children, which librarians are prone to emphasize, give us an impression that a larger number are readers than careful investigation would show. And as for the quality of reading of many children who are at work we cannot maintain that it is always on a high plane.

Such results are largely due to environmental influences. Deprived for the greater part of the year at least, of opportunity for normal youthful activities, the child's entire physical and mental schedule is thrown out of balance and he turns to reading, a recreation at his service at any time, only when there is little opportunity to follow other interests. Since the strain upon the ear and the eye, and back and brain is so great in the shop, the tendency in the first working years is too often toward recreations in which the book has no place. The power of the nickel library over the younger boy and girl can be broken by the presence of the public library, but the quality of the reading of the intermediate is often due to the popularity of the mediocre modern novel, with its present-day social interests. For these and other reasons, the whole judgment of the results of library work with children can not rest upon such general tests of normal book interests as we have stated. Rather such variations from the normal are themselves conditions which influence the structure of the work and especially the principles of book presentation. Children with pressing social needs must have books with social values to meet those needs; chiefest of these are right social contacts, true social perspective, traditions of family and race, loveliness of nature, companionship of living things, right group association and group interests.

Starting with the principle that books should construct a larger social ideal for the greater number of children instead of confirming their present one, it was first necessary to find out from actual work with children, what their reactions to books with various interests are. Such knowledge was supplemented by the recorded testimony of men and women of their indebtedness to children's books, especially such as "Tom Brown" and "Little Women," and especially of their youthful appreciation of the relationships and interdependence of the characters.

After we were able to evaluate books and to have some definite idea of which were good and which poor, the question arose: Should we have books with manifestly weak values in the library as a concession to some children who might not read the better books, or by having them do we harm most those very children to whom we have conceded them? The gradual solution of this problem seems to me to be one of the greatest services which a library can render its children. A safe answer seems to be: No books weak in social ideals should be furnished, provided we do not lose reading children by their elimination. If such books are the best a child will read, and we take them away, causing him to lose interest in reading, he is apt to come under even less favorable influences.

Another problem which arose was that the cumulative experience of librarians working with children showed that many books, weak in social viewpoint, lead only to others of their kind, and that such books are the ones read largely by those children which are most occasional and spasmodic in their reading. Here was a determining point in the establishment of standards of reading, for it brought us face to face with the question: Shall we consider this situation our fault since we supply such books to children who need something better vastly more than do children in happier circumstances, or shall we merely justify our selection by maintaining that those children will under no circumstances read a higher grade of books? However, observation showed that other books were read also by children with social limitations; books which, although apparently no better, lead to a better type of reading, and this prompted the policy of the removal of books which had little apparent influence in developing a good reading taste. This was done, however, with the definite intention that an increasingly better standard of reading must mean that no children cease using the library, an end only made possible by a knowledge of the value of the individual book to the individual child.

Now let us see what changes have been evolved in the book collections in the department under consideration:

At first the proportion of books of the doubtful class to those which were standard was considered, and it was seen that this preponderance of the doubtful class should be decreased in order that a child's chances for eventually reading the best might be improved. It is obvious that the reading for the younger children should be the more carefully safeguarded, and this was the first point of attack. As a result, two types of books were eliminated:

1. All series for young children, such as Dotty Dimples and Little Colonels.

2. Books for young children dealing with animal life which have neither humane nor scientific value, such as Pierson and Wesselhoeft.

Also stories of child life for young children were restricted to those which were more natural and possible, and on the other hand, stories read by older girls in which adults were made the beneficiaries of a surprisingly wise child hero, such as the Plympton books, were eliminated.

The successful elimination of these books, together with the study of the children's reading as a whole, suggested later, that other books could be eliminated or restricted without loss of readers. In the course of time, the following results were accomplished:

1. The restriction of the stories of the successful poor boy to those within the range of possibility, as are the Otis books, largely.

2. The elimination of stories in which the child character is not within a normal sphere; for instance, the child novel, such as Mrs. Jamison's stories.

3. Lessening the number of titles by authors who are undeservedly popular, such as restricting the use of Tomlinson to one series only.

4. The restriction of any old and recognized series to its original number of titles, such as the Pepper series. The disapproval of all new books obviously the first in a series.

5. The elimination of travel, trivial in treatment and in series form, such as the Little Cousins.

6. The elimination of the modern fairy tale, except as it has vitality and individual charm, as have those of George McDonald.

7. The elimination of interpreted folk lore, such as many of the modern kindergarten versions.

8. The elimination of word books for little children, and the basing of their reading upon their inherent love for folk lore and verse.

Without analyzing the weakness of all these types, I wish to say a word about the series. This must be judged not only by content, but by the fact that in the use of such a form of literature the tendency of the child toward independence of book judgment and book selection is lessened and the way paved for a weak form of adult literature.

The later policies developed regarding book selection have been these:

1. Recognizing "blind alleys" in children's fiction, such as the boarding school story and the covert love story, and buying no new titles of those types.

2. Lessening the number of titles of miscellaneous collections of folk-lore in which there are objectionable individual tales, for instance, buying only the Blue, Green and Yellow fairy books.

3. The elimination, or use in small numbers, of a type of history and biography which is not scholarly, or even serious in treatment, such as the Pratt histories.

4. The elimination of such periodical literature for young children, as the Children's Magazine and Little Folks, since their reading can be varied more wholesomely without it.

Reports of reading sequences from each children's room have furnished the basis for further study of children's reading. These are discussed and compared by the workers, a working outline of reading sequences made and reported back to each room, to be used, amplified and reported on again.

While those books which are no longer used may have been at one time necessary to hold a child from reading something poorer, we did not lose children through raising the standard, and the duplication of doubtful books in the children's room is less heavy now than it was a few years ago. This is shown by the fact that there are more than twice as many children who are reading, and almost three times as many books being read as there were nine years ago, while the number of children of the city has increased but 72 per cent. Furthermore, the proportion of children of environmental limitations has by no means diminished, and the foreign population is much the same—more than 74 per cent.

Of course, the elimination of some books was accomplished because there were better books on the subject, but the general result was largely brought about because in the establishment of these higher standards we did not exceed the ideals and standards of those who were working with the children. The standards which they brought to the work, and which they deduced themselves from their experience, were crystalized through Round Table discussion, where each worker measured her results by those of the others and thereby recognized the need of constant, but careful experimentation.

Experience has proved that a children's department can not reach standards of reading which in the judgment of librarians working with the children are beyond the possibility of attainment, for with them rests entirely the delicate task of the adjustment of the book to the child. A staff of children's librarians of good academic education, the best library training, a true vision of the social principles; a broad knowledge of children's literature is the greatest asset for any library doing children's work.

But it is true, inversely, that in raising the standards of the children the standards of the workers were raised. By this I mean that with definite methods of book presentation in use, the worker saw farther into the mental and material life of the child and understood his social instincts better. This has been evidenced in the larger duplication of the better books. Among the methods are those which recognize group interest and group association as a social need of childhood. Through unifying and intensifying the thoughts and sympathies of the children by giving them great and universal thought in the story hour, the mediocre is often bridged and both the child and the worker reaches a higher plane of experience. Also by giving children a group interest, not only children recognize that books may be cornerstones for social intercourse and that there is connection between social conduct as expressed in books and their own social obligations, but what is also important, the worker learns that when children are at the age of group activity and expression they can often be more permanently influenced as a group than as individuals. This prompted the organization of clubs for older children.

Through the recognition of the principle that there are methods of book appeal for use with individual children and other methods for groups of children, it was shown that the organization of the work as a whole must be such that the chief methods of presentation of literature could be fully developed. It was seen that, far less with a group of children than with the individual child, could we afford to give a false experience or an unfruitful interest, and that material for group presentation, methods of group presentation and the social elements which are evinced in groups of children should receive an amount of attention and study which would lead to the surest and soundest results. This could be fully accomplished only by recognizing such methods as distinct functions of the department. In other words, that there should not only be divisions of work with children according to problems of book distribution, such as by schools and home libraries, but there must be of necessity, divisions by problems of reading. Whereas, in a smaller department all divisions would center in the head, the volume of work in a large library renders necessary the appointment of an instructor in story-telling and a supervisor of reading clubs, which results in a higher specialization and a greater impetus for these phases of work than one person can accomplish. Here we have a concrete instance of the benefit that a large volume of work may confer upon the individual child.

With the attainment of better reading results and higher standards for the workers, it is obvious that the reading experiences of the children and the standards of the workers must be conserved, and that the organization should protect the children, as far as possible, from the disadvantage of change of workers. Considerable study has been given to this, and yearly written reports on the reading of children in each children's room are made, in which variations from accepted standards of the children's reading in that library, with individual instances, are usually discussed. However, the children's librarian is entirely free to report the subject from whatever angle it has impressed her most. Also a written report is made of the story hour, the program, general and special results, and intensity of group interest in certain types of stories. This report is supplementary to a weekly report in prescribed form, of the stories told, sources used and results. All programs used with clubs are reported and semi-annual report made of the club work as a whole. By discussion and reports back to individual centers, these become bases for a wider vision of work and a wiser direction of energy with less experimentation.

The connection between work with children and the problem of the reading of intermediates, referred to in the beginning, should not be dismissed in a paragraph. However, it is only possible to give a short statement of it. Recognizing that the reading of adult books should begin in the children's room, a serious study of adult books possible for children's reading was made by the children's librarians, the reports discussed and the books added to the department as the result. A second report of adult titles which children and intermediates might and do read was called for recently and from that a tentative list had been furnished to both adult and children's workers for further study. The increasing number of workers in the children's department who have had general training, and in the adult work who have had special training for work with children make such reports of much value. In order to follow the standards of children's work, there is one principle which is obvious, namely, a book disapproved as below grade for juveniles should not be accepted for general intermediate work. This is especially true of books of adventure which a boy of any age between 12 and 18 would read.

In conclusion, the chief means of determining values in library work with children are these: An intensive study of the reading of children in relation to its social and informational worth to them; the right basis of education and training for such study, on the part of the workers; the direction of such study in a way that brings about a higher and more practical standard on the part of the worker; the conservation of her experience. These are the great services which the library may render children and they can be most fully accomplished, I believe, through departmental organization.

ADMINISTRATION AND METHODS; REFERENCE WORK; DISCIPLINE

The section devoted to administration and methods records the "expansion of the library ideal" in multiplying the sources from which books may be borrowed; pictures the opportunities of the small library; emphasizes the importance of personal work, since the "child must be known as well as the book"; explains the library league as a means of encouraging the care of books and as an advertising medium; gives a thorough discussion of the use of the picture bulletin, and suggests systematic work with mothers as an important and resultful method.

Four articles on reference work and instruction in library use bring out the importance of careful cataloguing, of thorough knowledge of resources, and of practical plans to enable the children to help themselves.

Three articles on discipline present this sometimes difficult problem from varying viewpoints. It is said to resolve itself "into the exercise of great tact, firmness, and, again, gentleness." Again, "many of the problems of discipline in a children's room would cease to be problems if the material conditions of the room itself were ideal." The Wisconsin report is of special value because it represents the experiences of small as well as of large libraries. It lays stress on some of the points brought out by Miss Dousman, who says: "In our zeal to control the child, some have lost sight of the fact that it is quite as important to teach the child to control himself; that if he is to become a good citizen, he cannot learn too early to respect the rights of others."

THE CHILDREN'S ROOM AND THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARIAN

Some of the principles of library work with children, and the qualifications of a children's librarian were discussed by Miss Eastman in the following paper read at the fourth annual meeting of the Ohio Library Association held in Dayton in 1898. Linda Anne Eastman was born in Oberlin, Ohio, in 1867; was educated in the Cleveland Public Schools, and taught in the public schools of West Cleveland and Cleveland from 1885 to 1892, when she became an assistant in the Cleveland Public Library. In 1895-1896 she was assistant librarian and cataloguer in the Dayton, Ohio, Public Library, and in 1896 became vice-librarian of the Cleveland Public Library, where she has since remained. Since 1904 she has been an instructor in the Library School of Western Reserve University. She was a charter member of the Ohio Library Association, and its president in 1903-1904, Miss Eastman has made frequent contributions to library periodicals.

In the planning of a new library building, or the remodeling of an old one, there is no department to which I should give more thought in the working out of the details than in the children's department, in order to best adapt the arrangement to its use.

Its location in the building is the first matter for consideration. It should be easy of access from the main entrance, or, better still, have an entrance of its own directly from the outside, in order that the noise of the children may not become a disturbing element in the corridors and in other parts of the library. It would seem desirable, also, for many reasons, to have the children's department not too far removed from the main circulating department.

The children's department in a large library should contain at least two large rooms, one for the reading and reference room, the other for the circulating books. The rooms should be light, bright and cheery, as daintily artistic and as immaculately clean as it is possible to make and keep them. Wall cases seem best for the shelving of the books, low enough for the children to reach the shelves easily. These low cases also allow wall space above for pictures, and plenty of this is desirable. A children's room cannot have too many pictures,[1] nor any which are too fine for it; choose for it pictures which are fine, and pictures which "tell a story." Provide, also, plenty of space for bulletins, for the picture bulletins have become an important factor in the direction of the children's reading. One enthusiastic children's librarian wrote me recently that her new "burlap walls, admitting any number of thumb-tacks" were the delight of her heart. There should be reading tables and rubber- tipped chairs, low ones for the little children; and wherever there is space for them, the long, low seats, in which children delight to snuggle down so comfortably.

[1] If this paper were now open to revision, the writer would omit "cannot have too many pictures." The reaction against bare, bleak walls may not make it necessary to warn against over-decoration, but its undesirability should he recognized.—L. A. E.

As to the arrangement of the books, I should divide them into three distinct classes for children of different ages:

(1) The picture books for the very little ones, arranged alphabetically.

(2) The books for children from seven to ten or twelve years of age. While these books should be classified for the cataloging, I should place them on the shelves in one simple alphabetical list by authors, mixing the fiction, history, travel, poetry, etc., just as they might happen to come in this arrangement. I believe this would lead the children to a more varied choice in their reading, and that they would thus read and enjoy biography, history, natural science, etc., before they learned to distinguish them from stories, whereas by the classified arrangement they would choose their reading much more often from the one class only.

(3) The books for boys and girls from ten or twelve years of age to fifteen or sixteen. These should be arranged on the shelves regularly according to class number, in order that the children may become acquainted with the classification and arrangement, learn to select their books intelligently, and be prepared to graduate from here into the adult library.

Where it is possible to duplicate the simple and more common reference books in the juvenile department, these should form a fourth class. Then there should be all of the good juvenile periodicals, with some of the best illustrated papers, such as Harper's weekly, for the reading room.

With many libraries a children's department on such a scale is an impossibility; but if you cannot give two rooms to the children give them one, and if you cannot do that, at least give them a corner and a table which they can feel belongs to them; and if you cannot give them a special assistant, set apart an hour or two each day when the children shall receive the first consideration—establish this as a custom, and both adults and children will be better served.

Whatever one's specialty in library work may be, however far removed from the work with the children, it is well to understand something of the principles which underlie this foundation work with the children.

It is only recently that these principles have begun to shape themselves with any definiteness; the children's department, as a fully equipped miniature library, and the children's librarian, as a specialist bringing natural fitness and special preparation to her work, are essentially the product of today; but they have come to stay, and they open to the child-lover, and the educator who works better outside than inside of the schoolroom limits, a field enticing indeed, and promising rich results. It is to the pioneers in this field, the earnest young women who are now doing careful experimental work and giving serious study to the problems that arise—it is to them that the children's departments of the future will be most indebted for perfected methods.

The library must supplement the influence of the schools, of the home, and of the church; with some children it must even take the place of these other influences, and on its own account it must be a source of pleasure and an intellectual stimulus. If it is to accomplish all or any great part of this, not only for one, but for thousands of children, what serious thought and labor must go to its accomplishment! The children's librarian stands very close to the mother and the teacher in the power she can wield over the lives of the little ones. No one who lacks either the ability or desire to put herself into sympathetic touch with child-life should ever be assigned to work in the juvenile department, and the assistant who avowedly dislikes children, or who "has no patience with them," will work disastrous results if allowed to serve these little ones with an unwilling spirit —she should be relegated to some department of the library to which the sunshine of childhood can never penetrate, and kept there.

I would name the following requisites for the successful accomplishment of the juvenile work:

(1) Love for children.

This being given, the way is open for intimate knowledge and understanding of them, which are likewise essential.

(2) Knowledge of children's books.

This is imperative if one is to give the right book to a child at the right time. Familiarity with the titles and with the outsides of the books is not enough, nor is it sufficient to know that a certain book is recommended in all of the best lists of children's books. A child will often refuse to take what has been recommended to him as a good book, when, if he be told some graphic incident in it, or have some interesting bit pointed out or read to him, he will bear it off as prize; with it, too, he will carry away an added respect for, and sense of comradeship with, the assistant, who "knows a good thing when she sees it," and he will come to her for advice and consultation about his books the next time and the next, and so long thereafter as she can hold his confidence.

Carefully prepared lists are most valuable in directing your attention to the best books, but after your notice has been called to them read them, form your own judgment on them, and if you recommend them, at least know why. What? some one asks, attempt to read all of the best children's books? Yes, read them, and do more than that with some; the children's classics, the books which no child can grow up without reading and not be the poorer, with these one should be so familiar as to be able to quote from them or turn instantly to the most fascinating passages—they should form a constant part of her stock in trade. Other books one could not spend so much time on, nor is it necessary—the critical ability to go through a book quickly and catch the salient points in style, treatment and subject matter, is as essential for the children's librarian as for anyone who has to do with many books, and it therefore behooves her to cultivate what I once heard called the sixth sense, the book sense.

(3) Knowledge of library methods.

In any work, interest and enthusiasm go a great way, but they can never wholly take the place of accurate technical knowledge of the best ways of doing things. The more general knowledge of library work and methods one can bring to the children's department, the better it will be both for the work and for the worker; and given these methods, one must have ability to fit them to the conditions and to the peculiar needs to be accomplished, or, where they will not fit, to modify them or originate new ones which are better for the work in hand.

(4) A thorough knowledge of the course of study of the public schools.

This is very necessary in order to intelligently supplement the work of the schools. A child comes wanting information on some subject upon which his ideas are exceedingly vague; for instance, he wants something about the mayor—what, he cannot tell you, but he was sent by his teacher to look up something about the mayor. You ask him what grade he is in, and he tells you the fourth. Your familiarity with the course of study should give you the clue at once, for the fourth grade topics in conduct and government include lessons on the city government, with its principal departments and officers, so you will look up, if you have not already done so, an outline of municipal government describing the position and duties of the mayor, which will be within the comprehension of the child. It should not happen that a dozen children ask for Little white lily, and be turned away without it, before it is discovered to be a poem by George MacDonald which the third grade children are given to read.

This course of study the children's librarian should—not eat and sleep with exactly, but verily live and work with; it is one of her most valuable tools, and she should keep it not only within reach, at her finger's end, but as much as possible at her tongue's end, keeping pace with the assignment of work in the different grades and studies from month to month, and from week to week. She should know beforehand when a certain subject will be taken up by a certain grade, and have all available material looked up and ready, and new books bought if they will be needed and can be had—not wait until several hundred children come upon her for some subject on which a frantic search discloses the fact that the library contains not a thing suitable for their use, and then ask that books be bought, which, of course, come in after the demand is over, and stand idle upon the shelves for a whole year, taking the place of just so many more new books on subjects which will be needed later.

The course of study, too, will furnish more useful hints for bulletins, exhibitions, reading-lists, and other forms of advertising, than can come from any other source; and not only in supplementing the school work, but also in directing the children in their general reading, is an intimate knowledge of the course of study an invaluable aid, as it gives you the unit of measurement for any child which enables you to correlate his reading along certain lines to that which has gone before, and to that which is to follow.

(5) A knowledge of the principles of psychology and of education.

I have placed last the requisite which I feel sure some theorists, at least, would place first, because I believe that, as a rule, it will come last in point of time, and will be worked up to through the preceding stages of the development of the children's librarian; but her work will not be grounded upon a firm foundation until she has consciously mastered these principles, and clearly outlined her own work, this new work of the book, in perfect harmony with them.

There are many features of the children's work which I should like to dwell upon in detail, but I can do no more than mention a few of them. One of these is the Library league, with its threefold object of training the children in the proper care of books, of serving as an advertising medium for the library among the children themselves, and of furnishing a means of directing the reading of hundreds of children who cannot be reached individually. The possibilities of the league are beyond anything we have been able to realize.

Another thing is the necessity of guarding against letting children read too much, or too entirely along one line. There is a habit of reading along lines which deaden, instead of stimulating, thought, and the habit, if carried to excess, becomes a mental dissipation which is utterly reprehensible; but the pathway to this habit is entered upon so innocently and unconsciously by the story-loving child that he (perhaps more often she) must be guided very tenderly and wisely past its dangers; the library which ignores this necessity may have much harm laid at its doors.

The importance of providing, either in the school or the library, for systematic instruction in the use of books was emphasized in the report of the library section of the National Educational Association at Washington this summer; it is a necessity which must be met somewhere and somehow.

Of one more thing I should speak because of its provision for the children—the expansion of the library ideal; not so many years ago branch libraries and traveling libraries were unknown; now we feel that one library is not enough for a large city; it must have branch libraries and delivery stations to take the books to the people, while traveling libraries carry them into the scattered districts in the country. For the future, we have visions of a system of libraries so complete that in no town or country district of the state will a little child be deprived of the pleasure of good books; and wherever it is possible to put a live, warm-hearted, sympathetic and child-loving woman as the medium between the library and the child, it will be done.

Library work in its entirety offers much play for the missionary spirit, but nowhere else in its whole range is there such a labor of love as is hers who tries to bring the children early to their heritage in the beautiful world of books.

WORK WITH CHILDREN IN THE SMALL LIBRARY

The blessings rather than the limitations of the small library are portrayed and the "possibility of personal, individual, first-hand contact with the children" is emphasized in this paper presented by Miss Clara W. Hunt at the Niagara Conference of the A. L. A. in 1903. A sketch of Miss Hunt appears on page 135.

As the young theological student is prone to look upon his first country parish as a place to test his powers and to serve as a stepping-stone to a large city church, so the librarian of the country town who, visiting a great city library and seeing books received in lavish quantities which she must buy as sparingly as she buys tickets for expensive journeys out of her slender income, a beautifully furnished, conveniently equipped apartment especially for the children, for the student, for the magazine reader, evidences everywhere of money to spend not only for the necessities but also for the luxuries of library life—so it is quite natural for such a visitor to heave a deep sigh as she returns to her library home and contrasts her opportunities, or limitations as she would call them, with those of the worker in a numerically larger field; and quite natural is it for her to long for a change which she feels would mean a broadening and enlarging of outlook and opportunity.

It is encouraging sometimes to look at our possessions through other people's spectacles, and perhaps I may help some worker in a small field to see in what she calls her limitations, not a hedging in but an opening, by drawing the contrast from another point of view—from that of one who is regretfully forced to give up almost all personal, individual work with the children and delegate to others that most delightful of tasks, because her library is so large and she has so much money to spend that her services are more needed in other directions. With a keen appreciation of the privilege it is to have charge of a small library, I am going to enumerate some of my reasons for having this feeling.

I should explain, in this connection, that my thoughts have centered about the small town library, the library whose citizen supporters do not yet aggregate a population large enough to admit to dignifying their place of residence with the name of a city, a place, therefore, where the librarian may really be able to know every citizen of prominence, every school principal and teacher, the officers of the women's clubs, many of the mothers of the children she hopes to reach, and a very large number of the children themselves.

What are the attractions in a spot like this, the compensations which make up even for the lack of a large amount of money to spend? Let me begin first with the less apparent advantages, the "blessings in disguise," I should call them.

The first is the necessity for economy in spending one's appropriation. I imagine your astonishment and disapproval of the judgment of a person who can count the need of economy as any cause for congratulation. But let us look for a moment at some of the things you are saved by being forced to be "saving." The greatest good to your public and to yourself is that you must think of the ESSENTIALS, the "worth while" things first, last and always. You cannot afford to buy carelessly. Every dollar you spend must bring the best return possible and to the greatest number of people. Every foolish purchase means disappointment to your borrowers and wear on your own nerves. So, instead of being able to order in an off-hand way many things which may be desirable but which are really not essential, one gets a most valuable training in judgment by this constant weighing of good, indifferent and indispensable. To apply this to the principle of the selection of children's books—and nothing in work with children, except the personality of the worker with them is so important as this, we cannot buy everything, we must buy the best, and we therefore have an argument that must have a show of reasonableness to those borrowers who advocate large purchases of books you tell them your income will not cover.

What are the essentials in children's books if your selection must be small? Our children can grow up without Henty. They must not grow up without the classics in myth and fable and legend, the books which have delighted grown people and adults for generations, and upon the child's early acquaintance with which depends his keen enjoyment of much of his later reading, because of the wealth of allusion which will be lost to him if he has not read aesop and King Arthur and the Wonder Book, Gulliver, Crusoe, Siegfried and many others of like company, in childhood. Then the librarian cannot afford to leave out collections of poetry. Her children must have poetry in no niggardly quantity, from Mother Goose and the Nonsense Book to our latest, most beautiful acquisitions, "Golden numbers" and the "Posy ring." And American history and biography must be looked after among the first things and constantly replenished. So must fairy tales, the best fairy tales—Andersen, Grimm, the Jungle books, MacDonald, Pyle, "The rose and the ring." Much more discrimination must be exercised in selecting the nature and science books than is usually the case.

But, of course, most of the problems come when we are adding the story books. Here, most of all, the necessity for economy ought to be a help. It is a question of deciding on essentials, and having nerve enough to leave out those books whose only merits are harmlessness, and putting in nothing that is not positively good for something. The threadbare argument that we must buy of the mediocre and worse for the children who like such literature (principally because they know little about any other kind) will look very thin when we squarely face the fact that by such purchases we shut out books we admit to be really better, and when we honestly reflect upon the purpose of the public library. The sanest piece of advice that I ever heard given to those librarians who argue in favor of buying all the bootblack stories the boys want, was that of Miss Haines at a recent institute for town libraries. She asked that those men and women who enjoyed Alger and "Elsie" in childhood and who are arguing in their favor on the strength of the memory of a childish pleasure, take some of their old favorites and re-read them now, read them aloud to their young people at home, and then see if they care to risk the possibility of their own children being influenced by such ideals, forming such literary tastes as these books illustrate. Most of us desire better things for our children than we had ourselves. If a man was allowed to nibble on pickles and doughnuts and mince pie and similar kinds of nourishment before he cut all his teeth, miraculously escaping chronic dyspepsia as he grew older, he does not for that reason care to risk his boy's health and safety by allowing him to repeat the process. A child's taste, left to itself, is no more a safe guide in his choice of reading than is his choice of food. What human boy would refuse ice cream and peanuts and green pears and piously ask for whole-wheat bread and beefsteak instead? Or choose to go to bed at eight o'clock for his health's sake, rather than enjoy the fun with the family till a later hour? It seems such a senseless thing for us to feel it our duty to decide for the children on matters relating to their temporary welfare, but to consider them fit to decide for themselves on what may affect their moral and spiritual nature.

Not only in the selection of books as to their contents, but in the study of the editions the most serviceable for her purposes, will the town librarian gain valuable training from the necessity of being economical. The point is worth enlarging upon, but the time is not here.

It will perhaps be harder to look upon the impossibility of having a separate room for the children as a blessing which enforced economy confers. It will doubtless seem heresy for a children's librarian to suggest the thought. Yet while we recognize the great desirability, the absolute necessity in fact, for the separate room in order to get the best results in a busy city library, we can see the many advantages to the children of their mingling with the grown people in the town library. It is good for them, in the public as in the home library, to browse among books that are above their understanding. It is better for the small boy curiously picking up the Review of Reviews to stretch up to its undiluted world news than to shut into his Little Chronicle or Great Round World. It is good for the American child to learn just a little of the old fashioned "children should be seen and not heard" advice, to learn at least a trifle of consideration for his elders by restraining his voice and his heels and his motions within the library, saving his muscles for the wildest exercise he pleases out of doors. The separate children's room is too apt to become a place for so persistently "tending" the child that he loses the idea of a library atmosphere which is one of the lessons of the place he should NOT miss. I am of the opinion that, while we want to do everything in the world to attract the children to the library and the love of good reading, they should have impressed upon them so constantly the feeling that the children's room is a reading and study room that when a child is wandering around aimlessly, not behaving badly but simply killing time, he should be, not crossly nor resentfully, but pleasantly advised to go out into the park to play, as he doesn't feel like reading and this is a LIBRARY. I know that this has an excellent effect in developing the right idea of the purpose of the place.

Sometimes the town library has a building large enough to admit of a separate room for the children, and books and readers in such numbers as would make the use of this room desirable, but there is not money enough to pay the salary of an attendant to watch the room. Here indeed is a blessing in disguise. This idea that the children must be watched all the time, that they cannot be left alone a minute, is fatal to all teaching of honor and self-restraint and self-help. It will take time and determination and tact, but I know that it is possible to train the children—not the untrained city slum children perhaps, but the average town children—to behave like ladies and gentlemen left almost entirely to themselves through a whole evening.

I must hardly allude to further blessings which to my mind the need of economy insures. It all comes under the head, of course, of forming the habit of asking "What is most worth while?" before rushing headlong into thoughtless imitation of the larger library's methods, regardless of their wisdom for the small one. The town librarian will thus be apt to use some far simpler but equally effective style of bulletin than the one that means hours of time spent in cutting around the petals of an intricate flower picture, or printing painstakingly on a difficult cardboard surface what her local newspaper would be glad to print for her, thus making a slip to thumb tack on her board without a minute's waste of time.

The question of having insufficient help gives an excuse for getting a personal hold on some of the bright older boys and girls who can be made to think it a privilege to have a club night at the library once in a while, when they will cut the leaves of new books and magazines, paste and label and be useful in many ways. Of course they have to be managed, but you can get a lot of fine work out of assistants of this sort, and do them a great amount of good at the same time.

Another of the blessings for which the town librarian may be thankful is that her rules need not be cast iron, but may be made elastic to fit certain cases. Because the place is so small that she can get to know pretty well the character of its inhabitants, she need not be obliged to face the crestfallen countenance of a sorely disappointed little girl who, on applying for a library card, is told that she must bring her father or mother to sign an application, and who knows that that will be a task impossible of performance. The town librarian may dare to take the very slight risk of loss, and issue the card at once, enjoying the pleasure of making one small person radiantly happy.

Then there is the satisfaction of doing a little of everything about your library with your own hands and knowing instantly just where things are when you are asked. To illustrate from a recent experience of my own. At one of the small branches or stations rather, of the Brooklyn Public Library, a certain small boy used to appear at least two or three times a week and ask the librarian, "Have you got the 'Moral pirates' yet?" And over and over again the librarian was forced wearily to answer, "No, not yet, Sam." Now, although the library's purchases of children's books are very generous, running from 1,500 to 2,000 volumes a month for the 20 branches, of course with such large purchases it is necessary to systematize the buying by getting largely the same 50 titles for all branches, varying the number of copies per branch according to each one's need. The branch librarian of whom I am speaking did not feel like asking often for specials, realizing that she was only one of many having special wants, and knowing that we would in time reach the "Moral pirates" in the course of our large, regular monthly purchases. But one afternoon I went up to this station and helping at the charging desk, this small boy appeared asking me for the "Moral pirates." The librarian told me of the hopeful persistence of his request, and it did not take long after that to get the "Moral pirates" into the small boy's hands. I only hope the realization of a long anticipated wish did not prove to him like that of many another, and that his disappointment was not too unbearable in finding a pirate story minus cutlasses and black flags and decks slippery with gore.

The point of this tale is, that in a great system it is impossible often to get as close to an individual as in this case, while the town librarian, who does everything from unpacking her books to handing them out to her borrowers, can many a time have the personal pleasure of seeing a book into the right hands.

I have only indirectly alluded to the greatest joy of all, the possibility of personal, individual, first-hand contact with the children whom you can get to know so well and to influence so strongly, and another joy that grows out of it—seeing results yourself.

We are so ready to be deceived and discouraged by numbers! The town librarian reads of a tremendous circulation of children's books in a city library, and straightway gets the blues over her own small showing. But I beg such an one to think rather of what the QUALITY of her children's use of the library may be as compared with that of the busy city library. A great department must be so arranged for dispatching a large amount of work in a few minutes of time, that in spite of every effort, something of the mechanical must creep into its administration.

The town librarian may know by name each child who borrows her books. Not only that, but she may know much of his ancestry and environment and so be able to judge the needs of each one. She will not be so rushed with charging books by the hundred that she cannot USE that knowledge to help him in the wisest, most tactful manner. But the joy of watching her children develop, of seeing a boy or girl whom she helped bring up, grow into a manhood and womanhood of noble promise, of feeling that she had a large influence in forming the taste of this girl, in sending to college that lad who wouldn't have dreamed of such a thing had he not been stirred to the ambition through the reading taste she awakened in him—these are pleasures the city children's librarian is for the most part denied.

The latter can see that her selection of books is of the best, she can make her room as attractive as money will admit, she can choose her staff with great care. She knows that good must result in the lives of many and many a child from contact even in brief moments with people of strong magnetic personality, and from constantly taking into their minds the sort of reading she provides. But very rarely will she be permitted to see the results in individual cases that make work seem greatly worth while, and that compensate in a few brief minutes, for weeks and months and years of quiet, uninspiring, plodding effort.

And so I congratulate the worker with children in the small library. It would be a delight to me if I could feel that my appreciation of the blessings that are yours might help you to look upon your opportunity as a very great and worthy one. The parents of the small town need your help, the teachers cannot carry on their work well without you, the boys and girls would miss untold good if you were not their friend and counselor, the library profession needs the benefit of the practical judgment your all-round training gives. And so you may believe of your position that though in figures your annual report does not read large, in quality of work, in power of influence it reads in characters big with significance, radiant with encouragement.

PERSONAL WORK WITH CHILDREN

"The whole secret of success is really to be in sympathy with children, quick to see their needs and to look at things from their point of view; but above all to have a genuine, common-sense love for them." This point of view is expressed in the following paper on Personal work with children, read by Miss Rosina Gymer before the Ohio Library Association annual meeting in 1905. Rosina Charter Gymer was born in Cleveland, Ohio; received a special certificate from the Training School for Children's Librarians in 1904; was children's librarian in the Cleveland Public Library from 1904 to 1907; supervisor of children's work in small branches from 1907 to 1910, and since that time has been a branch librarian.

Work with children is so large in its scope and so rich in its possibilities that we shall only consider work in the library proper, passing over home visiting, school visiting and cooperation with social settlements and like institutions, all of which, however, are of the greatest importance to the work as a whole.

Work with children may be grouped under three heads— that with girls, that with boys and that with little children. While in each group the work differs in nearly every point, one point they have in common—the choosing of fiction according to the individual child, boy or girl; the choosing of classed books for the book itself. In giving fiction, the child must be known as well as the book, his character and needs, for it is on the character that fiction has most influence. In classed books, on the other hand, the book is the thing to know, for if a child wants to know something about electricity or carpentry, he is not being influenced so much in character as in education. If the book is not as good as some other, it will not injure him especially as to morals and character, but of course he should have the very best you can give him that he can mentally understand. Girls almost always become interested in books through the personality of the children's worker. While it is very desirable to use this regard as a means of influencing their reading, care must be taken to guard against a merely sentimental attitude on the part of the girls toward the worker. As a rule, girls want stories about people, other girls, school stories and so forth, and will take a book that you say is a good one without looking into it. If she likes it she will come to you to select another, and in this way you can lead her from pure fiction to historical fiction and biography and so on up to good literature, all through, at the first, knowing a book that would please and attract her. This is done, in great measure, through the girl's liking for the worker and also through her interest in people rather than things.

Boys, on the other hand, are not so much interested in people as in things, and when they ask for a book it is usually on some specific subject—electricity, carpentry, how to raise pigeons, how to take care of dogs. When the book is given them they usually examine it pretty thoroughly to see whether or not it is what they want or can use. To know what book will give the boy what he wants to know and in the most interesting way is to gain that boy's confidence. To sum up: Boys like you through the books you give them, while girls learn to like good books through their liking for you. The result is the same in either case—the personal influence of the worker with the children.

The problem of managing children is much the same everywhere. Wherever they are there are sure to be some restless and disobedient boys and girls whose confidence and good will must be gained. A willing obedience must be sought for untiringly. The children's worker must be for and not against the child. To win is far better than to compel. Conquering may do for those who are expected to remain as enemies, but friends are won. While a display of authority should be avoided, a firm attitude must at times be taken, but it should be an attitude of friendship and fairness. If a loss to the child of some coveted pleasure can be made to follow his fault it is an effectual punishment. For instance, if a boy never misses the story and yet his general behavior in the library leaves a good deal to be desired, do not allow him to attend the story hour for one or two weeks. In extreme cases the plan of not allowing the boys to come to the library for a number of days or weeks has been tried with good results.

An endeavor should be made so far as possible to follow the inclinations of children. Every boy likes the idea of belonging to a club and if advantage is taken of this fact it will prove a great help in discipline. When a gang of boys comes to the library night after night, apparently for no reason except to make trouble, the best solution of the problem is to form them into a reading circle or club. They usually prefer to call themselves a club. A good plan in starting is to ask three or four of the troublesome boys if they would like to come on a certain evening and hear a story read. An interesting story is selected, carefully read and cut if too long, and at the end of the evening the boys are invited to bring some of their friends with them next time. It is well to begin in this small way and thus avoid the mistake of having too many boys at the start or of getting boys of different gangs in the same club, for this will always cause trouble. Seven o'clock is a good time for them to meet. If the hour is later the boys who come early get restless and it is difficult for them to fix their attention. It is better to take the boys to a separate room as their attention is easily distracted from the reading by people passing back end forth. It is a great effort for boys with, one might say, wholly untrained minds to concentrate for any length of time, and it is well not to ask them for more than half an hour at first. Unless the selection holds their interest they will disappear one after another, for they simply refuse to be bored. For this reason, begin with popular subjects, such as animal stories, Indian stories, fire stories, railroad stories, gradually leading them on to more solid reading. That this can be done was proved by the boys' attention to Sven Hedin's account of his search for water in his Through Asia. The incident is most graphically told of the repeated disappointments, of the sufferings of the caravan and the dropping out of one after another until only the author is left staggering across the sand hills in his search for the precious water. The boys listened breathlessly until one boy finally burst out, Ain't they never going to find no water?

Very often the subject of the next evening's reading is determined by the boys themselves who, if they have been particularly interested, will ask for another story "just like that only different." If possible, have good illustrated books to show them on the subject of the evening's reading. This serves two purposes —it fixes the awakened interest of the boys and it also prevents the rush for the door they are apt to make to work off the accumulated energy of the hour of physical inactivity. In libraries where there are few assistants it ought not to be difficult to find some young man or woman interested in work of this sort to come and read to the boys once or twice a week, but the same person should have the club regularly.

Work with little children is important because in a year or two they are going to be readers, and yet they are a problem to the busy librarian from the fact that they require a good deal of attention. Perhaps the best plan is to set a time for them to come to the library, say Saturday morning at ten, when they can feel that the children's worker is all their own. They like to be read to, but they love to hear stories told. Telling stories to them is a great pleasure to the story-teller, because of their responsiveness, their readiness to enjoy. But besides the enjoyment of the children there is something far higher to work for—the development of the moral sense. The virtues of obedience, kindness, courage and unselfishness are set forth over and over again in the fairy tale. The story East o' the sun and west o' the moon, is nothing but a beautiful lesson in obedience, The king of the golden river in unselfishness, Diamonds and toads, kindness— and many others could be named, all with a lesson to be learned. Little children love repetition and when a story pleases them ask for it again and again. They do not see the lesson all at once, but little by little it sinks into their hearts and becomes a part of their very life. This is where the fairy tale, properly and judiciously used, does its great work. Be most careful to give children stories that are wholly worthy of their admiration. Know your story thoroughly and in telling it present strong, clear pictures. Tell the story in such a way that the child's heart swells within him and he says, I can do that, I could be as brave as that.

But let not the children's worker labor under the delusion that when she closes the door of the library her work is finished. On the contrary, another phase of it is only beginning, for she is constantly meeting the children on the street, in the stores, in fact almost everywhere she goes, and it behooves her to be on the watch for friendly smiles, to listen with interest when Johnny tells her that Mary is coming out of the hospital tomorrow, or when Mike calls across the street, Did you know Willie was pinched again? to make a note of it and take pains to find out whether Willie is paroled under good behavior or whether he has been sent to a boys' reformatory school; or, when she is waiting for a street car and a newsboy rushes up and says he can't get his books back in time and will she renew them for him, the children's worker takes his library number and renews the books when she returns to the library.

If the worker is at all earnest in her work she can not help but have her heart wrung time and again by the sufferings of the children of the poor. Not that they complain—they take it all as a matter of course, but by some unconscious remark they quite often throw an almost blinding light on their home conditions showing that family life for a good many of them is anything but easy and pleasant. Children of the poor often have responsibilities far beyond their years, and the library with its books, pictures, flowers and story-telling means much more to them than to a child who has all these at home. One little girl about 10 years old came one afternoon and was so disappointed to find there was to be no story. On being told to come at ten o'clock next morning, she said: What, do you think I can get here at ten o'clock with four kids to dress! As first heard, funny; but after all showing a pathetic side, a childhood without childhood's freedom from care.

The whole secret of success is really to be in sympathy with children, quick to see their needs and to look at things from their point of view; but above all to have a genuine, common sense love for them so that we may feel as did the little girl who missed one of the assistants, and asking for her was told that she was taking a vacation. I love her, said the child, and then, fearing she had hurt the feelings of the one to whom she was speaking added, I love all the library teachers, 'cos we're all childs of God.

THE LIBRARY AND THE CHILDREN: AN ACCOUNT OF THE CHILDREN'S WORK IN THE CLEVELAND PUBLIC LIBRARY

The interesting experiment of conducting a Library League is described by Miss Linda A. Eastman in the following account of the children's work in the Cleveland Public Library. A sketch of Miss Eastman appears on page 159.

Work with the children assumed its first real importance in the Cleveland Public Library when the library began, about 10 years ago, to issue books to the teachers for reissue to their pupils. This brought the books to the hands of thousands of children who had never drawn them before, although at no time has the library been able to furnish all of the books asked for by the teachers. The next step came with the establishment of our branches, where it was soon noticed that a most important part of the work done was that with the children, and that very few of these children had ever used the main library.

Early in 1897 a notable change was made at the main library in bringing all of the juvenile books together in what was known as the juvenile alcove, but which heretofore had contained the juvenile fiction only, the classed books having been shelved with the other books on the same subject. This change meant much planning and shifting in our cramped quarters, and writing of dummies and changing of records for every book; but it proved to be well worth all the work, for the children seldom went beyond this alcove, and those who had been reading fiction only, began to vary it with history, travel, science, until about half of the books issued from the department are now from the other classes.

During the Christmas holidays, 1896, we advertised "Children's week," and the numbers and evident enjoyment of the children who then accepted the invitation to visit the library or its branches, led to similar plans for the spring vacation. At this time we were able to put into circulation about a thousand bright new books, and the desire to impress upon the children the necessity for their proper care resulted in starting the Library League, the general plan of which is so familiar that I need not go fully into the details concerning it.[2]

[2] For accounts of the Library League, see Library Journal October and November, 1897.

Without question, the labor spent upon the Library League has been more than repaid in the greater care which the children take of their library books. Dirt is at a discount; it is noticed that many more children than formerly now stop to choose the cleanest copy of a book, and many are the books reported daily by the little people as being soiled or torn. A boy, not long ago, brought a book up to the information-desk, reported a loose leaf, then very seriously, by way of explanation, opened his overcoat and displayed his league badge; another replied in all good faith to a query about a damaged book, "Why, I belong to the Library League"—proof quite sufficient, he thought, to clear him of any doubt. Most of the children stop at the wrapping- counter before leaving the library, to tie up their books in the wrapping paper which is provided, and which saves many a book from a mud-bath on its way to or from the library.

But aside from the better care of the books, the Library League has done much as an advertising medium among the children; the league now numbers 14,354, and many of its members had never used the library until they joined the league. Something has been accomplished through it, too, in directing the reading of the children, as it gives opportunities, in many ways, for making suggestions which they are glad to accept. At the South Side branch a club-room has been finished off in the basement, and two clubs formed among the members of the league: one, a Travel Club, is making a tour of England this winter; the other is a Biography Club, which is studying great Americans; the children who compose these two clubs are largely of foreign parentage, almost without exception from uncultured homes, and the work our earnest branch librarian is beginning with them cannot fail in its effect on these young lives. A boy's club-room is to be fitted up at the new West Side branch, in addition to the children's room, which is already proving inadequate.

The Maxson book marks have been very useful in connection with the league, and have suggested a series of book marks which will also serve as bulletins for league notes, little lists of good books, suggestions about reading, etc. The color will be changed each time, as variety is pleasing to children. The

================================================== Cleveland Public Library. LIBRARY LEAGUE BOOK MARK NO. 1.

Boys and Girls: How would you like to have a new book mark every month or two with Library League news, and suggestions about good books? That is what the Library is going to try to give you. Read this one through, use it until you get the next one, which will be Library League Book Mark No. 2; then put No. 1 away with your League certificate and keep it carefully as a part of your League records, that some day you will be proud to own and to show.

League Report: The Library League was started March 29th, 1897. On December 31st, 1897 it numbered 14,074. How large is it going to be on its first birthday anniversary? What the League has done: It has brought many children to the Library who never used it before. It has taught many boys and girls to love books and to handle them carefully with clean hands. Many books have been reported which were in bad condition, and the juvenile books are now in better shape than before the League began its work.

Library League Reading Clubs: Some of the League members have been starting reading clubs. One of these clubs is a Travel Club, and another is a Biography Club. The Library assistants will be glad to tell League members about these clubs if they would like to form others.

Library League Motto: Clean hearts, clean hands, clean books. (OVER) ==================================================

The other side of this book mark contains a list of the juvenile periodicals in the library. No. 2 gives the beginning of a little serial, in which a thread of story will weave in hints on reading and on the care and use of books.

At our main library the children have come in such numbers after school and on Saturdays, that it has been impossible to push the work much this past winter, for fear the adults should suffer. It was finally decided that we must achieve the impossible, and by shifting about and putting up glass partitions, have a separate children's room instead of the open juvenile alcove. This room, while not half so large as it should be to meet the needs of the work, is indeed a great improvement in giving the children a place which they feel to be really their own; the change has involved the re-registration of the children having cards here, but it is affording much needed relief at the general receiving desks, and will greatly facilitate the service to adults, at the same time making it possible to do much more for the little people.

The library is endeavoring to co-operate more and more closely with the schools. More books have been issued to the teachers this winter than ever before. A new course of study having been published, all of the books referred to in it were looked up, and if not in the library or its branches, were purchased as largely as seemed desirable or possible. A list of "References for third-grade teachers," compiled by Miss May H. Prentice, training teacher in the Cleveland Normal School, has recently been published by the library. It was given to all of the third-grade teachers of the city, and sold to others. This is, we believe, the most comprehensive list ever prepared for a single grade of the common schools. We are hoping that it will prove so helpful to third-grade teachers that all of the other grades will demand similar ones for themselves, and that somehow the way will be found to meet the demand. The list of books noted by Miss Prentice for the children's own reading has been reprinted, without the annotations, in a little folder and 5,000 copies of it have just been distributed among the children of this grade.

Recently our school children were treated to the largest exhibition ever made in the United States to photographic reproductions of the masterpieces in art; to the work of the library in circulating pictures to teachers and children for school-room decoration and for illustration, is due no small share of this new interest in art.

While the children come to the library daily to look up subjects in connection with their school work, very little attention can be given to training them to use reference books as tools. Somewhere, either in the school or the library, this systematic teaching should be given. It is one of the things which is not being done.

And another thing is not being done—we are not reaching all of the children; in spite of our branches, our stations, our books in the schools, our Library League, there are many children who sadly need the influence of good books, who are not getting them—whole districts shut off from the use of the library by distance and inability to pay carfare. And we cannot give them branches or send books—for lack of funds.

It is a growing conviction in my own mind that the library, aside from its general mission, and aside from its co-operation with the schools in the work of education, has a special duty to perform for the city child. No one can observe city life closely without seeing something of the evil which comes to the children who are shut up within its walls; the larger the city the greater is the evil, the more effectually are the little ones deprived of the pure air, the sweet freedom of the fields and woods, to be given but too often in their stead the freedom of the streets and the city slums. The evil is greater during the long vacations, when the five-hour check of the school room is entirely removed, and many a teacher will testify to the demoralization which takes place among the children who are then let loose upon the streets. For these the library must to some extent take the place of Mother Nature, for under present condition it is through books alone that some of them can ever come to know her; books must furnish them with wholesome thoughts, with ideals of beauty and of truth, with a sense of the largeness of life that comes from communion with great souls as from communion with nature. If this be true, the school vacation ceases to be the resting time of the children's librarian; she must sow her winter wheat and tend it as in the past, but she must also gather in her crops and lay her ground fallow during the long summer days when school does not keep; she must find ways of attracting these children to spend a healthy portion of their time among the books, always guarding against too much as against too little reading. For this work the individual contact is needed, and there must be more children's librarians, more branch libraries. This necessity and the problem of meeting it require grave consideration by the librarian of to-day.

PICTURE BULLETINS IN THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY

The practical usefulness as well as the artistic merit of picture bulletins is discussed in this report prepared for the Club of Children's Librarians for presentation at the Waukesha Conference of the A. L. A. in 1901. It is based upon answers received in response to a circular letter sent to various libraries.

Mrs. Mary E. S. Root was born and educated in Rhode Island, studied art before her marriage, became interested in children's literature through her own children, and organized the children's work in the Providence Public Library, where she still has charge of this work. She has held many offices in educational and civic organizations, and has lectured on children's literature. For two summers she conducted a course in children's work in the Simmons College Library School.