DISCUSSION

R. H. EMBERSON.—I cannot agree with Mr. Greenwood that teachers do not read. They read a great deal, but they do not read to advantage, or with any system. It is more like browsing than studying. I would emphasize heartily the point that the best results come from the hearty and constant co-operation of teacher and librarian.

MAY H. PRENTICE.- Dr. Greenwood's paper did not exactly tell us what the schools should demand from the library, but rather the reverse. Are not librarians doing more for schools than they are ready for? I am rather of the opinion that book lists are a help. Children do use them to choose from. It is not so much the teacher's business as the librarian's to concern herself intimately with what the children are reading. The teacher's efforts should be directed more toward sympathetic, thoro work in the schoolroom. Don't teachers read as much as other professionals, even if not as much as they

should?

DR. GREENWOOD.-I do not mean that teachers do not read something, but that they do not read the great books. Juvenile book lists without sympathetic and earnest help from teacher and librarian are of no use.

A. H. HOPKINS.- We do not blame the teacher because she does not read more; perhaps she cannot. The thing we do blame the teacher for is that she will not or does not join hands with the librarian in helping the children to read to better advantage.

SCHOOL LIBRARIES IN THE RURAL DISTRICTS

MISS AGNES ROBERTSON, COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, CHEROKEE, IA.

"The Public Library," says Mr. Melvil Dewey," forms one side of a grand trinity as a means of public advancement-the library, the school, and the church; its base, the public school; the church, with its moral teachings and care for the spiritual man, forms one of the sides; the public library forms the other, by its broad and general training of all classes and sects."

The late Matthew Arnold, in one of his lecturing visits to this country, said that he saw nothing in America that impressed him so much as the sight of a ragged and almost shoeless little boy sitting in the reading room of one of our public libraries, studying his book or newspaper with all the sang froid of a member of a West End London club.

The growth of the public library movement has been phenomenal during the last century. One hunderd years ago public libraries were almost unknown. Prior to 1810 there were but ten in existence, and these were chiefly subscription and society libraries collected and used by those who were able to pay for the privilege.

To America belongs the honor of founding and perfecting the free library system, which reaches all classes of people, carrying light and happiness into homes lofty and lowly, into jails and prisons and reformatories, opening its doors to the dwellers of the slums, leading them into

purer avenues of thought and feeling; fitting all for better citizens in this great commonwealth of ours.

The first movement toward a free public library was made by a citizen of New Lebanon, N. Y., so that to New York state is due the honor of instituting the real initiatory movement. This was in 1817, when, according to a writer in The Nation, Dr. Jesse Torry published a pamphlet on the subject, bearing the somewhat high-sounding title of The Intellectual Torch, purporting to develop "an original, economical, and expeditious plan for the universal dissemination of knowledge and virtue by means of a free public library." He urged the legislatures, both national and state, to establish public schools and judiciously selected public libraries in every part of the republic.

The matter was a subject of much discussion and many fruitless efforts for years, until in 1835 a law was passed by the state legislature of New York which permitted the voters in many school districts to levy a tax of $20 to begin a library, and a tax of $10 each succeeding year to provide for its increase. Later, other laws were passed, but for various reasons the work was not wholly a success. Interest declined, books were scattered and lost, and ultimately the libraries were almost entirely unused. This was chiefly because of the poor selection on the part of the committees and unbusinesslike methods on the part of the librarians.

Massachusetts, under the leadership of Horace Mann, also early took up the work, and other states rapidly followed the good example, until today libraries are as common as public schools, and there is no town or village of any consequence that cannot boast of one or more libraries. Even mining towns, which spring up within a single round of the moon, as soon as pockets are sufficiently well lined to warrant it, begin to clamor for some more solid intellectual food than that furnished by the daily paper.

It has been estimated that there are in the United States over 23,000 school libraries, containing 45,000,000 books, which is 12,000,000 more than are found in all the public libraries of Europe. This estimate was made several years ago. Probably today there would be found at least one book for every inhabitant of this country of an age to be able to read it.

But the library movement in the rural districts is of more recent date, especially in the West and Middle West and South. Many states are still without a law by which rural schools must be provided with books. The state superintendent of Illinois, in his biennial report for 1900, says there are in that state 5,000 schools without libraries. And the same is true of other states. Many districts have no reading matter aside from that found in the ordinary text-book. Under these circumstances, the best results cannot be obtained. It is said that the amount of reading matter in one set of ordinary school readers does not exceed that in one of

Dickens' novels. Just think of a boy or girl spending from six to eight years on one set of readers containing selections having no relation to each other, and selected without regard to the needs of the child's heart! It has been well said: "If a piece were cut from the canvas of a painting and given to us to admire, it would be no surprise if we found no beauty in it; nor should we expect the child to be interested in the middle of a story which has lost the pervading spirit of the whole." Such disconnected fragments cannot form a basis for future growth.

Right here the library fills a long-felt want; it is the link that binds. the home and the school life. That it is necessary and desirable, even indispensable, is not to be questioned, for children so often leave school before they reach the stage of self-education. It has been estimated that four-fifths of the school children pass out into active life before reaching the high school; hence the importance of an early taste for reading being formed, which becomes a safeguard and lifelong means of education.

The methods of obtaining rural-school libraries vary with the needs of the district and the state laws governing expenditures of public money, each state making its own laws. In Iowa, a few years ago a law was passed providing for $25 being taken from the contingent fund each year for each school for the purchase of books and apparatus. Many counties did not take advantage of this law, and in 1900 another law was passed making it mandatory upon the treasurers of rural-school districts to withhold annually not less than five cents, nor more than fifteen cents, from the apportionment for every person of school age. The law has been in operation now two years, and the results are very satisfactory. Last year nearly $50,000 were expended out of the district funds for library books, and in addition to this $28,426 have been raised by voluntary efforts on the part of patrons, pupils, and teachers.

In Iowa, over 9,400 school districts have school libraries, containing 453,554 books; 110,815 were purchased during the past year. Minnesota, Wisconsin, and South Dakota have laws similar to the Iowa library law. In some states, if the districts have raised $20 each by subscription, the state gives the same sum, and $10 every year thereafter on the same conditions.

The rural-school library movement in Iowa, started some years ago by teachers, thru the influence of county superintendents, deciding that instead of giving cards to each pupil at the close of school, as had been the custom, they would give one or more books to the entire school, which would go toward starting a library. This system of itself is bound to build up a library slowly; but the wide-awake teacher soon thought of other ways of arousing an interest in this important work. Within the last two or three years, thru the munificence of a friend of the public schools, George W. Schee, of Primghar, Ia., the schools of about twenty

counties in northwestern Iowa have received large sums of money to be expended for school libraries. Some counties received as high as $1,500. This money was given as prizes to the school raising a certain amount. The school in each county raising the largest amount was to receive a prize of $30 for books, and each school that raised $20 would receive $10 more. The money, aside from the gift, was raised principally by subscription, donation, entertainments, sociables, and in some instances by the work of the teachers and pupils in cleaning the schoolroom. Thru this stimulus it is safe to say that from 1,400 to 1,600 rural school districts have established libraries.

The influence of this movement extends beyond the schoolroom. It is a silent and powerful stimulus which is given by them to the cultivation of the community in which they stand, and will brighten many lives for years to come. Great improvements are now apparent in schoolrooms and surroundings; framed pictures, copies of masterpieces, adorn the walls, making the schoolroom more cheerful and attractive. Bookcases are now a part of every rural schoolroom. Boards have become more liberal in the purchase of maps, globes, and other necessary apparatus.

Some are apt to think rural life very dull and monotonous, but with access to a good library the young people in the country have all the advantages of their city brothers and sisters, without any of the disadvantages of city life. In a Farmer's Institute report we find the following:

A man well along in years, living on a ranch in the West, one hundred miles from a railroad, and twenty miles from the nearest neighbor, was asked how he could endure such isolation and solitude. "I am not lonely," he replied. "Have I not nature all around and close to me everywhere? Besides, I have the best of company. Thoreau comes and talks to me of Waldon Pond and Boston, its environments and people; Burroughs and Audobon make trips with me to the mountains and the woods; Charles Dickens brings his friends and acquaintances to see me, and they have become my friends. When I feel the need of a change, I explore Africa with Livingstone or Stanley, or talk with George Kennan about the hardships of Siberia. The travelers from "The Wayside Inn" drop in and recite their tales to me anew; I have reserved seats for Shakespeare's plays for any night in the week. I awaken every morning to the matin-song service of the birds, and am never lonely. But I pity the poor fellows in the city who are crowded and hurried by people everywhere, and yet have no time to know any one, and who do not read any books.

If the reading of good books can have such an influence upon one life, why should not every boy and girl in our rural districts be surrounded with like privileges? No school district is too poor to buy a few good. books. The library need not be large to begin with; in fact it is better. to begin with a few books, and let the library grow as the books are needed.

After a library is begun, some system of arrangement and management must be adopted. A system of loaning and some elementary rules.

and records are almost necessary. The selection of books becomes a study, and it is an art which all teachers should cultivate. It should be kept in mind that the school library is to supply books which will interest and instruct the youthful mind, but not necessarily to furnish amusement. In states where the law requires books to be purchased from public funds, the books must be selected from lists prepared at the state department, but the responsibility of selecting books to be purchased with money raised by voluntary effort falls upon the teacher, with the assistance of the county superintendent.

Instruction upon simple library methods and the choice of books. should be given in the county normal institutes and teachers' meetings. There are many useful lists of books which will help in making a selection, and even the best of them are to be had for almost nothing. The American Library Association has printed a select list of books for children, compiled by Miss Hewins, of Hartford Public Library. The Buffalo Public Library has issued a good graded list of books for children up to eighteen years of age. The Bulletin of Bibliography, No. 13, gives an excellent list of fairy stories. The report of the Committee on the Relation of Public Libraries to Public Schools is a most interesting, comprehensive, and practical list, and it does not include an undesirable volume. McMurray's Special Methods in History and Literature, and the Elementary School Record, of the Chicago University, contain good lists of books.

Every library should contain a good international dictionary and an encyclopedia. There should be history stories and biographies to supplement the history; books of travel to supplement the geography; and masterpieces in prose and poetry to supplement the reading.

The teacher should not only know the books contained in the library, but should also know his pupils and their need, and thus be able to guide him in the selection of books, rather than to let him select at random or from hearsay.

Pupils should be required to make a report of books read. I would suggest the following questions, which have been used with good results in some of our schools:

1. Name of book.

2. Name of author.

3. Name other books you have read by same author.

4. Write what you know about the author.

5. Character of book-history, biography, adventure, romance, science, etc.

6. Give a brief description of the book, locality, time, season, character, incidents, etc.

7. Which was the strongest character? Why? Which character did you like best?

Why?

8. Did it pay you to read the book? How?

9. What class of books do you like best?

10. If given $5 with which to purchase books, what would you select?