第14章 BOYS'AND GIRLS'READING(8)

Again,pupils are allowed to make their own selections,and invited to give,at a specified time,any facts in geography,history,natural science,manufactures,inventions,etc.For this extra work extra credits are given.Our object is to cause pupils to realize the conscious and abiding pleasure that comes by instructive reading;to encourage such as have not been readers to read,and to influence such as have been readers of trash to become readers of profitable books.The result,so far,is very encouraging.Many have become enthusiastic readers,and can give more facts and information thus obtained than we have time to hear.As the Christmas holidays approached,many signified a desire that their presents might be books,such as we have in our library;for they do not have time at school to exhaust the reading of these books,and consequently do not lose their interest."Within the last few months Mr.Northrop,Secretary of the Board of Education of Connecticut,has distributed in the high schools and upper classes of the grammar schools of the State,blanks to be filled by the pupils with the kind of reading that they like best,and the names of their favorite authors.Several hundred of these circulars were destroyed when the Hartford High School was burned last winter.The publication of a list of books suitable for boys and girls has been delayed,but Mr.Holbrook,of the Morgan School,Clinton,Conn.,who prepared the list,writes concerning his work in school:"I have the practical disbursement of three or four hundred dollars a year for books.In the high school,in my walks at recess among the pupils,I inquire into their reading,try to arouse some enthusiasm,and then,when the iron is hot,I make the proposition that if they will promise to read nothing but what I give them I will make out a schedule for them.A pupil spending one hour,even less,a day,religiously observing the time,will,in five years,have read every book that should be read in the library.Those who agree to the above proposition I immediately start on the Epochs of History,turning aside at proper times to read some historical novel.When that is done I give them Motley,then Dickens,or Prescott,or Macaulay,Hawthorne,Thackeray,Don Quixote.Cooper I depend on as a lure for younger readers.When they have read about enough (in my opinion),I invite them to go a little higher.Whenever they come to the office and look helplessly about,I immediately jump up from my work,and,solving the personal equation,pick out two or three books which I think adapted first to interest,and then instruct.I try to welcome their appearance,assuring them that the books are to be read,urging the older ones to read carefully and with thought.Some I benefit;others are too firmly wedded to their idols,Mrs.Holmes and Southworth.Finally,it is my aim to send them away from school with their eyes opened to the fact that they have,the majority,been reading to no purpose;that there are better,higher,and nobler books than they ever dreamed of.Of course I don't always accomplish this;but he who aims at the sun will go higher than one aiming at the top of the barn."A commission of sixteen ladies was appointed last year,by the Connecticut Congregational Club,to select and print a catalogue of books for Sunday Schools.During the year it has examined one hundred and eighty-four,almost all reprints of well-known books,and has selected one hundred.At least one annotated Sunday-School catalogue was prepared before the appointment of the commission,directing the attention of children to such books as Tom Brown's School Days and Higginson's Young Folks'Book of American Explorers,and of older readers to Stanley's Jewish Church,Martineau's Household Education,Robertson's Sermons,Sister Dora,Hypatia,Charles Kingsley's Life,and Atkinson's Right Use of Books.

The conclusions to which these opinions,from libraries and schools in ten different States,lead us,are these:

1.The number of fathers and mothers who directly supervise their children's reading,limiting their number of library books to those which they themselves have read,and requiring a verbal or written account of each before another is taken,is small.

2.The number of teachers who read and appreciate the best books,or take pains to search in libraries for those which illustrate lessons,or are good outside reading for the pupils,is also small.

3.The high schools,normal schools,and colleges are every year sending out young men and women with little knowledge of books except text-books and poor novels.

4.In towns and cities with free libraries,much may be and has been done by establishing direct communication between libraries and schools,making schools branch libraries.

5.This can be done only by insisting that teachers in such towns and cities shall know something of literature,and by refusing to grant certificates to teachers who,in the course of an hour's talk,do not show themselves well enough informed to guide children to a love of good books.The classes now reading under Mr.Metcalf's direction in Boston,or celebrating authors'days and the founding of their own state in Cincinnati,will be,in a few years,the teachers,the fathers,or the mothers of a new generation,and the result of their reading may be expected to appear in the awakened intelligence of their pupils and children.

6.Daily newspapers may be used with advantage in schools to encourage children to read on current events and to verify references.

7.Direct personal intercourse of librarians and assistants with children is the surest way of gaining influence over them.Miss Stevens,of Toledo,has put the secret of the whole matter,so far as we are concerned,into four words:"Librarians should like children."It may be added that a librarian or assistant in charge of circulation should never be too busy to talk with children and find out what they need.Bibliography and learning of all kinds have their places in a library;but the counter where children go needs no abstracted scholar,absorbed in first editions or black-letter,but a winsome friend,to meet them more than halfway,patiently answer their questions,"and by slow degrees subdue them to the useful and the good."