第12章 BOYS'AND GIRLS'READING(6)

Your work is to change your earth-loving moles into eagle-eyed and intelligent observers of all that is on,in,above,and under the earth."Mr.Bassett writes that as a result of this appeal there was in November,December,January,and February,an increase of nineteen (19)per cent in the circulation of general literature,science,history,travel,and biography,and a decrease in juveniles of ten (10)per cent for January and February,1882,as compared with the same months of 1881,For the first nineteen days of March the increase of the classes first-named was thirty-seven (37)per cent over last year,and the decrease in juvenile fiction twenty-seven (27)per cent.He ends his letter:"As a school officer and acting school visitor,I find that those teachers whose education is not limited to textbooks,and who are able to guide their pupils to full and accurate knowledge of subjects of study,are not only the best,but the only ones worth having."Mr.Rogers,of the Fletcher Free Library,Burlington,Vermont,says:"I have withdrawn permanently all of Alger,Fosdick,Thomes,and Oliver Optic.I have for some time past been making the teachers in the primary schools my assistants without pay.Igive them packages of books to circulate among their respective schools.Very good results have been obtained.The Police Gazette and other vile weeklies have been discarded for books from the Fletcher Library.Most of the young folks are not old enough to draw at the library themselves,and this method has to be used,as in many instances the parents will not or cannot draw books for their children.Each teacher has a copy of Mr.Smart's excellent book,'Reading for Young People.'Such books as are in our collection are designated in their copies."The New York Free Circulating Library is quietly doing good by the establishment of carefully selected branch libraries in the poorest and most thickly settled parts of the city In the words of the last report:"The librarian has been constantly instructed to aid all readers in search of information,however trivial may be the subject,and,while the readers are to have free scope in their choice of books,librarians have attempted,when they properly could do so,free from seeming officiousness,to suggest books of the best character,and induce the cultivation of a good literary taste."Miss Coe,the librarian,adds,"Boys will read the best books,if they can get them."Mr.Schwartz,of the Apprentices'Library,New York,says:"We are always ready and willing to direct and advise in special cases,but have not as yet been able to come across any general plan that seemed to us to promise success.The term 'good reading'is relative,and must vary according to the taste of each reader,and it is just this variety of standards that seems to present an unsurmountable obstacle to any general and comprehensive system of suggestions."Miss Bullard,of the Seymour Library,Auburn,N.Y.,reports a decrease in fiction from sixty-five (65)to fifty-eight (58)per cent in the last five years.She says:"I have endeavored,year by year,to gain the confidence of the younger portion of our subscribers in my ability to always furnish them with interesting reading,and have thus been able to turn them from the domain of fiction into the more useful fields of literature.Another noticeable and encouraging feature of the library is the increasing use made of it by pupils in the high school in connection with school-work."Mr.Larned,of the Young Men's Library of Buffalo,N.Y.,writes:

"I think the little catalogue is doing a great deal of good among our young readers and among parents and teachers.We exert what personal influence we can in the library,but there are no other special measures that we employ."The catalogue,a carefully chosen list of books for young readers,with stars placed against those specially recommended,includes,besides books mentioned in other letters,the Boy's Froissart and King Arthur,Miss Tuckey's Joan of Arc,Le Liefde's Great Dutch Admirals,Eggleston's Famous American Indians,Bryan's History of the United States,Verne's Exploration of the World,Du Chaillu's books,What Mr.Darwin Saw,Science Primers,Faraday's Chemical History of a Candle,Smiles's Biographies,Clodd's Childhood of the World,Viollet Le Duc's Learning to Draw,Dana's Household Book of Poetry,Uncle Remus,Sir Roger de Coverley,several pages on out and in door games,hunting and fishing,with plenty of myths and fairy tales,an annotated selection of historical novels,and a short list of good stories.

The Friends'Free Library,Germantown,Pa.,still excludes all fiction except a few carefully chosen stories for children.The report of the committee says:"Our example has been serviceable in stimulating some other library committees and communities to use more discrimination in their selection of books than may have been the case with them in the past.From our own precious children we would fain keep away the threatening contamination,if in our power to do so,the divine law of love to our neighbor thence instructs us to use the opportunity to put far away the evil from him also."The representatives of the religious Society of Friends for Pennsylvania,New Jersey,and Delaware,have published during the year a protest against demoralizing literature and art,taking the ground that the national standard of moral purity is lowered,and the sanctity of marriage weakened,by most of the books,pictures,and theatrical exhibitions of to-day.