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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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