The girls have accepted the challenge, and the fact that
the boys question their ability to equal them is sufficient spur
to make them work every moment they can spare from their school
duties to prepare for this important event. Added to this is the
fact that every one of them is an ardent "suffragette."
The need of social centers in the schools and libraries is
becoming insistent. The increasing demand on the part of children
for clubs of all kinds shows plainly their desire for some place
other than the street, where they can be amused and occupied in
the natural desire for self-development and expression. Early
last fall in one of the libraries the librarian met by
appointment a group of girls from eleven to fourteen years old.
These girls were wayward and troublesome, had formed a "gang"
which was more difficult to control than the usual gang of boys.
There was a room in her library quite apart from the rest of the
building where they could meet as a club if it should prove
desirable. "What would you like to do?" she asked. "Dance!" was
the reply. "Well, then, dance, and show me what dances you like,"
replied the librarian, and immediately the girls formed for a
figure of a folk-dance, and each girl humming softly the tune
they danced it through. "The Girl Scouts" Club was formed, and in
a day or two the secretary of the club submitted the following
program for the librarian's approval: Program. 1. Chapter from
the life of Louisa M. Alcott; 2. Recitations; 3. Games, Flinch; 4
One folk dance. From this beginning six other clubs have been
established: two for the older girls, two for the boys, one for
the little girls from eight to eleven years old, and one for a
group of troublesome young men from sixteen to twenty years old.
So keen has been the interest of these young people in these
clubs that the "gang" spirit has long since disappeared, and at
the end of the club season an open meeting was held, a program
arranged in which members from each club took part, and the
ushers and guards of honor were some of those same troublesome
young men. There was no place in this community where the young
people could meet for any kind of simple amusement, the only
"social centers" being the cheap vaudeville theater, the usual
moving picture show and the streets, until the little branch of
the public library opened its doors, and so popular has the
library become that 960 children have taken cards at the library
since the first of September and are borrowing books on these.
Besides the large number of card holders there is a still larger
number of children who do all their reading and studying at the
library. Although they may not know the old English verse from
which the lines are taken they feel them:
"Where I maie read all at my ease, Both of the
newe and olde, For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke
Is better to me than gold."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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