Birds, the new magazine with its colored plates, is a boon for
the children's room, The Great Round World is good for the
assistant-in-charge and the teachers who come to the room, as
well as for the children.
In order to add to the number of books without overstepping our
rules as to quality, we are beginning, though not yet very
systematically, to look over the works of certain authors of
grown-up books with a view to finding material that can be
understood sufficiently by children to interest them. A number of
Stevenson's books can be given to boys and girls, and we hope to
find many others. Most children, I think, read books without
knowing who has written them, and if we can induce them to learn
to know authors and can interest them in a writer like Stevenson,
we can feel fairly secure that they will not drop him when they
are transferred from the children's room to the main library.
Perhaps it is best always to have a working hypothesis to begin
with, in children's libraries as elsewhere; but we can assure
those who have not tried it that facts are stubborn things, and
the hypothesis has frequently to be made over in accordance with
newly-observed facts, and theories may or may not be proven
correct. The whole subject is as yet in the empirical stage, and
the way must be felt from day to day. If the children's librarian
lives in a continual rush, what "leisure to grow wise" on her
chosen subject does she have? and if she is hurried constantly
from one child to another, what chance have the children for
learning by contact with the individual? which, as Mr. Horace E.
Scudder truly says, is the method most sure of results. This
contact may be had most naturally, it seems to us, through the
ordinary channels of waiting on the children, provided it is
quiet, deliberate waiting upon them. We go out of our way to
think out new philanthropies and are too likely to forget that,
as we go about our every-day business, natural opportunities are
constantly presenting for strengthening our knowledge of and our
hold upon the people who come to us--who are sent to us, I might
almost say.
The registry and the charging-desks offer chances for
acquaintance to begin naturally and unconsciously and for much
incidental imparting of seed-thoughts. And it is in these
every-day chances, if appreciated and made the most of, that the
work of the children's library is going to tell. The necessity of
especial training in psychology, pedagogy, child study, and
kindergarten ideas, has been treated of recently in a paper
before the A. L. A. There is no doubt that the "called" worker in
this field will be better for scientific training, but let him or
her first be sure of the call. It is quite as serious as one to
the ministry, if not more so, and no amount of intellectual
training will make up for the lack of patience and fairness and
of a genuine interest in children and realization of their
importance in the general scheme.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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