Away up in the Bronx there is a "Cranford Club," so named by the
girls because of their interest in the story to which they were
introduced four years ago. This club is really a study club and
contains a good proportion of its original members. They meet
twice a month, and a leader is appointed for each meeting, who
chooses her committee to report on the topic for the evening's
study. The topic is sub-divided and each girl does her part in
looking up the bit assigned to her. In this way they have studied
the English poets Tennyson and Milton, although after spending an
evening on Comus the club voted unanimously to change to Dickens.
They have also studied Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell and Whittier,
and the girls were sufficiently familiar with these poems to
recite many from each poet. Then the lives of three English
queens were studied--"Bloody Mary," "Queen Elizabeth," and "Mary,
Queen of Scots"; this year the Norse myths and stories from the
Wagner operas. The librarian's part is to suggest the best books
in which to find what they want, to get any book they may need,
sometimes suggest a line of subjects to choose from, etc, but the
work of preparing the material is done entirely by the girls.
When a book is being read and discussed, they sit around a table
and read in turn the bits that have been selected for them by the
librarian, who tells them the thread of the story between
selected bits read by the girls. Thus they have read "Cranford,"
"Pride and prejudice," "Old curiosity shop," "David Copperfield,"
and "Twelfth night." The teacher of English where most of these
girls attend school was recently an interested visitor at the
club, and she says she has noticed for a long time a difference
in the school work done by these girls, from a broader viewpoint
and outside atmosphere they brought to the class by their
intelligent comments and criticisms, showing that they were
reading outside and beyond the other girls of the class. She
noticed also a difference in their composition work. One of the
girls from that class was sent by this teacher to visit the
library for the first time and when asked what she liked to read
replied, "Wooed and married" and "How he won her" were nice
books. The book given her instead of her favorites was Mary
Johnston's "To have and to hold." It was read and enjoyed. Then
she took Howells' "The lady of the Aroostook," and after the
outline of the story had been told her seemed to read it with
real pleasure. Next Owen Wister's "Virginian" was given her, but
this she did not seem to care for. As a result of this reading
her taste in a better kind of reading seems to have been pretty
well established, as her librarian assures me that she has
continued her reading along the line indicated by the above
titles. The Belmont Club, the best boys' club for debating in
the school, have challenged the "Cranford Club" to meet them in a
debate on "Woman suffrage," to be held in the library at an early
date.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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