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 him even to
take it from the shelves. The tabooed books will somehow be
secured in spite of their withdrawal."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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