The 13-year-old president of one of the Cleveland library clubs
said recently, in explaining the purpose of the club to a new
member, "The idea of this club is to give you what you couldn't
get anywhere else." This is a rather ambitious program. I should
be slow to say that any club I have known has succeeded in doing
that for its members. Considering the character of the
communities in which the public library is generally placed,
particularly the branches of a large library system, I am
inclined to think, however, that clubs organized and conducted by
the library offer to the children some things they are, at least,
not likely to get anywhere else--and to the library another
means of strengthening its effectiveness as an educational and
social center in the community.
In speaking of library clubs, I have in mind the organized,
self-governing club, with a small and definite membership, as
distinguished from the reading circle. Definite organization
means a constitution, officers, elections, parliamentary
procedure --all the form and ceremonial so attractive to children
of the club age. From the first meeting, when the constitution of
the club comes up for discussion, the organization begins to
develop the child's sense of responsibility. A simple form of
parliamentary procedure will not only prove conducive to orderly
and business like meetings, but, especially with young or
immature children, delight in its formalities will help to hold
the club together while interest in other phases of the club work
is being developed.
The chief advantage of the self-government of the club is as a
first lesson (frequently) in the principles of popular
government. In the club the too-assertive child learns wholesome
respect for the will of the majority, while his more retiring
brother discovers that one man's vote is as good as another's.
When one has seen a club of ambitious lads who, when they first
organized, cared only for success, reject a boy who is a good
debater and athlete on the ground that in another club he had
shown that "he was a sorehead and couldn't seem to understand
that the majority's got to rule," one is tempted to feel that
organization can do so much for the children that an organized
library club justifies itself on that score alone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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