If this class in philanthropy could be carried on in any city for
10 or 15 years, the charities of the city would feel the effect
of the work. Instead of crudity there would be strength,
enthusiasm would be supplemented by wisdom. The result would be
the strengthening of the personal character of the poor and the
enrichment of the whole city life. For we rise or sink together.
The higher groups of society cannot develop without a
corresponding development in the lower groups.
And so I call you to study the problems of philanthropy, to
follow intelligently the history of home libraries, to approve
this plan of training if it be wise, if not to work out a better
one. Neither is this to go outside your natural course on the
ground of sentiment. You are to study the community on broad
lines that you may give back to the community through many
channels that abundant life which is the highest service.
LIBRARY DAY AT THE PLAYGROUNDS
The Monthly Bulletin of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh for
October, 1901, includes an account of summer playground work
which was begun three years before. Playground libraries as an
introduction to regular library agencies are described by Miss
Meredyth Woodward.
Meredyth Woodward, now Mrs. J. Philip Anshutz, was born in
Waterloo, N. Y., in 1869, and was educated in the schools of
Tecumseh, Michigan. She took special work in the State Normal
School at Oswego, N. Y., and later studied in the Law Froebel
Kindergarten Training School at Toledo, Ohio, and in the Chicago
Kindergarten College. After teaching in this institution she
became Principal of the San Jose Normal School in California.
After this she studied in the Leland Stanford University. She
took charge of the Home Library Work in the Carnegie Library of
Pittsburgh in 1901, where she remained until 1904, part of the
time acting as assistant in the Training School for Children's
Librarians.
The work of supplying the summer playgrounds with books, begun as
an experiment three years ago, was continued this summer as a
part of the work done by the Children's department of the Library
for the children of this city. During the initial summer, five
playgrounds were supplied, the total circulation being about
1,600. Last year the needs of seven playgrounds were met, with a
result of 1,833 in circulation, while the present year nine
playgrounds have given a circulation of 3,637 volumes, and this
during one day in each of six weeks. At a joint meeting of the
Library workers with the Kindergartners who had charge of the
playgrounds, it was decided to set apart this day as Library day,
and as high as 117 volumes have been issued in a single
playground on that day, while one week every available book was
issued in spite of a drenching rain outside.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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