Chapter XIII: Part 13

"The first day to gain an audience I went up to a group of children who were playing together and asked them if they would like to hear a story. Four or five replied that they would, while some fifteen or twenty disappeared as though by magic, and I decided that they were not interested. I then took the children who wished to listen, over to a large tree in one corner of the grounds, and told them that for the rest of the summer that tree would be known as 'the storytelling tree.' They would, I told them, find me there every day promptly at half-past one, and that I would tell stories for a half hour to the whole playground. Then from half-past two until three I would tell stories to the older girls. The first day I had a very small audience, the next day it doubled, and then increased daily until I had from eighty to a hundred children in a group. As to forming a group, I think it is impossible in playground work, for a group worth having must form itself, the reputation of the storyteller being the foundation of its formation, and this reputation can only be gained through constant systematic labor, and a thorough knowledge of your daily audience. That is why I think a professional visiting storyteller would be a failure in playground work, as in visiting each playground once or twice a week it would be impossible for her to gain that intimate personal knowledge of her audience, which is so necessary to the playground storyteller, as she must appeal to a different class of children on each playground.

"The experience of a professional storyteller with a group of boys, already assembled as a club, is also quoted for its valuable suggestion and independence of method in gaining the interest of boys who had been much experimented upon.

"The most interesting experience I have had in a developed series of stories was with the Boys' Club of Greenwich, Connecticut, last year. The club is supported by the wealthy women of the place, and is an outgrowth of a rather serious and perplexing boy problem. A number of picture shows, pool rooms, cheap vaudevilles, etc., have crept into the town, and life on the street is most attractive.

"The head worker of the club wrote that they had failed to hold the boys in everything but manual training and baseball; that the boys were insubordinate and unresponsive, and that their school reports were very poor. I found the conditions even worse than I had anticipated. It was necessary to train eighty boys to listen, as well as to interest them, and so, I told very short stories at first. I chose the ones that were full of dramatic action, that had little or no description, and a good deal of dialogue. The stories were strongly contrasted, and there was no attempt at literary or artistic finish. I used a great many gestures and moved about on the platform frequently; it is the quickest way of focusing laggard attention. To be absolutely honest, I had to come very close to the level of the moving picture show, and the ten-cent vaudeville, at first.

"The fourth night I eliminated all but a few gestures, and told the stories sitting down. I also used less colloquial English; and from then on, until the end, when I told the stories from Van Dyke in his own words, there was a steady growth in literary style. I append the programs in the order they were given:

STORY PROGRAM

1. Irish Folk-tales. 2. Stories from Scandinavian Myths. 3. The Rhinegold Stories. 4. German Folk-tales. 5. Arthurian Tales. 6. Stories of Charlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa. 7. Tales of American Indians. 8. Negro Tales. 9. Stories of the Carnegie Heroes. 10. Kipling--Captains Courageous, Jungle Stories. 11. Van Dyke--A Friend of Justice, The Keeper of the Light. 12. Irish Folk-tales (Requested).

"The practical results were very satisfactory. The books in the club library were used more, the boys' composition and recitation work at school improved, and they acquired the habit of polite, attentive listening."

SUGGESTIONS

The importance of a definite time and place for the story hour, for a prompt beginning and for an ending before it becomes tedious, cannot be too strongly urged. The storyteller should "size up" the conditions and suit the story hour to them. If she is simple, natural and unaffected, and sufficiently resourceful to vary her program to suit the interests of the children, the story hour will be successful.

Various practical forms of co-operation have been suggested, notably in the visits of library storytellers to playgrounds wherever the public library is actively interested in storytelling, and such visits are desired by the playground.

The story hour season in most libraries ends in April, making it possible in some libraries to release assistants once or twice a week to visit playgrounds. The benefit derived from such visits is mutually endorsed by playground and library assistants.

Conferences of groups of workers interested in storytelling, under the leadership of a professional storyteller, who also understands the practical conditions and limitations under which the playground and library assistants do their work have proved stimulating and suggestive in a number of places. Volunteer workers who have the ability to tell stories and who can so adapt themselves to their surroundings as to make their story hours effective, can do much for storytelling. This is especially true of men who have had actual experience of the life from which their stories are taken and can make these experiences of absorbing interest to their listeners.

In conclusion, the committee recommends that wherever practicable, storytelling in playgrounds be placed under a leadership corresponding to that now given to games and to folk dancing. That a clear distinction be preserved between storytelling and dramatics, as differentiated, though closely related, activities of the playground and the settlement. That the story hour be valued as a rest period; for its natural training in the power of concentration, and in that deeper power of contemplation of ideal forms in literature and in life. That storytelling in settlements be more widely developed as a feature of social work worthy of a careful plan and of sustained effort. That storytelling in libraries be made more largely contributory to storytelling in other institutions by a thoughtful and discriminating study of story literature, and by effective means of placing such literature in the hands of those who desire to use it.

The committee also suggests that the subject of storytelling is worthy of the consideration of the universities, the colleges, and the high schools, of the country, to the end that students may appreciate and value the opportunities for service in a field of such possibilities as are presented to those who possess, and who have the power to communicate, their own love of literature to the boys and girls of their time.

READING CLUBS FOR OLDER BOYS AND GIRLS

Another method used successfully by a number of libraries to interest older boys and girls as they grow away from the story hour is that of the reading circle or reading club. Miss Caroline Hewins' contribution to the Child Conference at Clark University in 1909 was an account of this work in the Hartford Public Library, of "book-talks at entirely informal meetings." A sketch of Miss Hewins appears on page 23.

The boys and girls who are growing up in libraries where story-telling is a part of the weekly routine, at thirteen or fourteen are beginning to feel a little too old to listen to fairy tales or King Arthur legends, and look towards the unexplored delights of the grown-up shelves. Many librarians are taking advantage of this desire for new and interesting books to form boys' and girls' clubs with definite objects. One whom I know after a training with large numbers of children in a city branch library, became librarian in a manufacturing town where there were no boys' clubs, and soon formed a Polar Club, for reading about Arctic exploration. She was fortunate in having an audience hall in the library building, and before the end of the winter the boys had engaged Fiala, the Antarctic explorer, to give a lecture, sold tickets and more than cleared expenses. This, be it remembered, is in a town with no regular theatre or amusement hall, and the librarian is young, enthusiastic, and of attractive personality. The branch libraries in Cleveland have been successful in their clubs, and in back numbers of the Library Journal and Public Libraries, you will find records of organizations of young folk who meet out of library hours, under parliamentary rules, for more or less definite courses of reading. For the reason that the experiments are in print and easily accessible, I shall merely give you a record of my own book-talks at entirely informal meetings.

Long ago, before there were library schools, Harlan H. Ballard, now librarian of the Pittsfield Athenaeum, used St. Nicholas as the organ of the Agassiz Association, which had been in existence for several years with about a hundred members in Berkshire County. The Association grew and soon had chapters all over the world. In the number of St. Nicholas for December, 1881, I find the record of ours, and the name of the first secretary, then a boy of ten or twelve years, now a prominent citizen, a member of the Board of Park Commissioners and School Visitors. We used to go out of doors looking for birds and insects through the spring and fall, and meet in the library in winter for reading from authors like John Burroughs, Dr. C. C. Abbott and Frank Buckland, or the lives of Thomas Edward, Robert Dick, Agassiz and other naturalists, or sometimes a story from a grown-up magazine like one of Annie Trumbull Slosson's or an account of real pets like Frank Bolles's owls. The children in "A. A. Chapter B" all had good homes, good vocabularies and reading fathers and mothers, and listened with interest to books that are far in advance of the children of their age who began to come to the library after it was made public. The chapter lived long enough to admit the children of at least one of its original members, and only died because Saturday morning, the only morning in the week when children are free, had important business engagements for the librarian, who feels that "Nature-study," too, plays an important part in schools now-a-days, and that in the language of "My Double", "there has been so much said, and on the whole so well said," that there is less need than there used to be of such a club, although it is a great deprivation not to have the long country walks and the Saturday readings and talks with the children. A librarian or a settlement worker who sees only children from non-English speaking homes is in danger of forgetting that there are others who can use books in unsimplified form.

This is the only club connected with the library which had a formal organization, but in giving a talk one day several years ago to the upper grades of a school, I asked how many boys and girls were going to stay in town through the summer, and invited all who were to come to the library one afternoon a week for a book-talk. The next year I sent the same invitation to several schools, and gave in both summers running comments and reading of attractive passages from books on Indians, animals, the North Pole, adventures, machines, books of poetry, stories about pictures and some out-of-the-way story books, with a tableful of others that there was not time to read from. The titles of the books are in Public Libraries, June, 1900, and are largely from the grown-up shelves. This was five or six years before our boys' and girls' room was opened and the children had free access to all their own books.

The third year the programme was a little varied. Some of the subjects were "Books that tell how to do things," "A great author and his friends (Sir Walter Scott)," "Another great author and his short stories (Washington Irving)." I have always made a great deal of the friendship between these two authors, and as most of our children are Jewish, I have often told the story and shown the portrait of Rebecca Gratz, the Philadelphia Jewess, who was too true to her religion to marry a Christian, and whose story as told by Irving, whose promised wife had been her friend, gave Scott his noble ideal of the character of Rebecca.

One year we had an afternoon about knights and tournaments, and by an easy transition, the subject for the next week was "What happened to a man who read too much about knights," giving an opportunity for an introduction to Don Quixote. After that two dream-stories opened the way to a fine illustrated edition of the Pilgrim's Progress, and stories from Dante.

The next year, I tried stories of English history, in nine or ten different periods, reading from one book every week and suggesting others. After the opening of the boys' and girls' room, the book-talks for one or two summers for seventh and eighth grade pupils, were upon some of the pictures in the room: Windsor Castle, Kenilworth, Heidelberg Castle, the Alhambra, the Canterbury Pilgrims and some Shakespeare stories. Afterwards, "What you can get out of a Henty book" gave a chance for interesting picture bulletins, and the use of other books referring to the times of "Beric the Briton," "The Boy Knight," "Knights of the White Cross," "Bonnie Prince Charlie,"

"In the Reign of Terror." Last year and this I have been reading Scott and Dickens aloud.

We have some of the Detroit colored photographs of places of historic interest, Windsor Castle for which I used Lydia Maria Child's story of "The Royal Rosebud," although most of the little princess's early life was passed in sanctuary at Westminster. On the afternoon when Kenilworth was the subject, I read all of Scott's novel that we had time for. Once on the Alhambra day, we have had Irving's story of the Arabian astrologer, and again a description of the palace and the Generalife who had just come from Spain. There was little in print about Heidelberg that I could use, and I had to write out the whole story of the Winter King and his Queen, James First's daughter Elizabeth, ancestress of the present king of England and mother of a large family.

Two years ago, in the interim between one children's librarian who was married in June and her successor who could not come till September, I spent most of the summer in the boys' and girls' room, and learned two things. Some of the children thought that they had read all the books on the shelves, and were asking for grown-up cards. They were kept in the room by transferring some duplicate copies of novels best worth reading from the main library and putting red stars on the back and the book-card. Then I was able to talk with girls who had read all of Laura Richards's Hildegarde books, but had never thought of looking up one of the poems or stories that she loved, or one of the pictures in her room. I have sometimes read the description of the room to a class in a schoolroom, and put on the blackboard all the names of places, persons, books and poems in it. One year I invited girls to form a Hildegarde Club for reading these very things, and in writing to Mrs. Richards on another subject, mentioned it. She wrote me an answer that I have had framed for the girls to see. The Club lived for a few months and used to meet on Saturday afternoons for reading "The Days of Bruce," but at the Christmas holidays the girls went into the department stores for a few weeks and forgot to come back. However, I am very happy to tell the story of another Hildegarde Club that is still flourishing. The teacher of a ninth grade class loves books, and was quick to seize the hint of such a club, which she organized from the girls in her room, and asked permission to bring to my office for its weekly meetings. She is keeping them up to their work because she sees them every day, and they are interested and learning how much they can find in a book besides the story. Besides this, they are observant and appreciative of whatever they see on the walls of my room. The girls to whom I gave a general invitation by means of a newspaper article were not from the same school and did not all know each other. It is better in organizing a club to have some common ground of interest and begin with a small number. It cannot always be done in a city in or through the library, except indirectly, by means of a Settlement or other club. One that I know does very good work in its meetings with the Settlement headworker and has a small collection of books and pictures from the main library for six months, and a more elementary bookshelf for a younger club with whom one of the members is reading the same subject.

A librarian or library assistant can do some of her best work in a Settlement club either in connection with the Settlement library or independently. Readings from Dickens can be illustrated by scenes acted in pantomime, with very simple properties. Indeed, we had not even a curtain when Miss La Creevy painted Kate's miniature, when the Savage and the Maiden danced their inimitable dance, when Mrs. Kenwigs and Morleena held a reception for Mrs. Crummles, the Phenomenon and the ladies of their company, when after they had recited from their star parts, Morleena had the soles of her shoes chalked and danced her fancy dance, and Henrietta Petowker took down her back hair and repeated "The Blooddrinker's Burial." The old man looked over the wall, too, and threw garden vegetables and languishing glances at Mrs. Nickleby who encouraged his advances. There was no time for the girls to learn the parts in the busy, crowded, late-open holiday evenings of department stores, but they all entered into the pantomime and interpreted the reading with spirit, as they did at another time in some of the Shakespeare scenes, Rosalind, Celia and Touchstone, Hamlet and Ophelia, Bottom and Titania, with attendant fairies, and Shylock and Portia. The Dickens scenes were repeated for a younger club, just trying its dramatic wings in charades, and when May-time came these younger girls of twelve to fifteen gave a very successful representation of an old English May-day with Robin Hood and his merry band, a Jester, a Dragon, a Hobby-horse and Jack in the Green, Maid Marian and the Lord and Lady of the May on the library green.

The opportunity of a library in a small town, where there is more leisure than in a city, is in the formation of young people's clubs. One day, a year or two ago, I visited three libraries on the Sound shore in Connecticut. In one, the librarian had made her basement useful out of library hours by organizing a class of chair-caning for boys who were beginning to hang around the streets, and were in danger of being compelled to learn the art in the Reform School if they did not acquire it as a means of keeping their hands from mischief at home. In the next town, the librarian mounted and identified all the moths and butterflies that the children brought to her and gave them insect books. In the library beyond, the children were formed into a branch of the Flower Mission in the nearest city. The club need not always be for reading, but must depend on the resources or interests of the boys and girls. There is no need of debating clubs in our library, for the city is full of them, but they may be the very best thing that the librarian in the next town can form.

A reading club must not necessarily be a club for the study or enjoyment of stories, history or poetry. Under the guidance of the kind of librarian who aims far above her audience, it may turn into something like Mr. Wopsle's quarterly examinations of his great aunt's school, "when what he did," says Pip, "was to turn up his cuffs, stick up his hair and give us Mark Antony's oration over the body of Caesar. This was always followed by Collins's Ode on the Passions, wherein I particularly venerated Mr. Wopsle as Revenge, throwing his bloodstained sword in thunder down, and taking the war-renouncing trumpet with a withering look." There may be a club for making things out of the Beard books, for the study of sleight-of- hand, for exchanging postcards with children in other countries and reading about the places on them. It may make historical pilgrimages to places of interest in the town or may collect stones and clay nodules, and read about them. The important thing is to find children of nearly the same age and neighborhood with interests in common, and let them decide whom they shall ask to join the club after it is formed. Better yet if they ask for the club in the first place. One not very long-lived Settlement club which I knew was of boys who wished to read and act Shakespeare, but a very few evenings convinced them that as they could not even read the lines without stumbling, they were not on the road to the actors' Temple of Fame. They were boys who had left school at fourteen in the lower grades, except one, who had taken his High School examinations and is now at the head of a department in a large department store and a prominent member of a political study club. The others, who had expected to play prominent Shakespearean parts with little or no work, were easily discouraged, dropped off and were seen no more. The reading of very simple plays at first is a good stepping-stone to a study of Shakespeare later, but the plays must be interesting enough to hold the attention of boys who do not read fluently.

LIBRARY CLUBS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

The usefulness of the reading club as an opportunity of broadening the interests of the child is emphasized in the following paper, printed in the Library Journal, May, 1911, which gives an account of the organization of clubs under the direction of a supervisor in the Cleveland Public Library. Marie Hammond Milliken was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., was graduated from Wellesley College in 1905 and from the Training School for Children's Librarians in 1907; was children's librarian in the Cleveland Public Library from 1907 to 1910; Supervisor of reading clubs from 1910 to 1912, and since that time has been a branch librarian.

The 13-year-old president of one of the Cleveland library clubs said recently, in explaining the purpose of the club to a new member, "The idea of this club is to give you what you couldn't get anywhere else." This is a rather ambitious program. I should be slow to say that any club I have known has succeeded in doing that for its members. Considering the character of the communities in which the public library is generally placed, particularly the branches of a large library system, I am inclined to think, however, that clubs organized and conducted by the library offer to the children some things they are, at least, not likely to get anywhere else--and to the library another means of strengthening its effectiveness as an educational and social center in the community.

In speaking of library clubs, I have in mind the organized, self-governing club, with a small and definite membership, as distinguished from the reading circle. Definite organization means a constitution, officers, elections, parliamentary procedure --all the form and ceremonial so attractive to children of the club age. From the first meeting, when the constitution of the club comes up for discussion, the organization begins to develop the child's sense of responsibility. A simple form of parliamentary procedure will not only prove conducive to orderly and business like meetings, but, especially with young or immature children, delight in its formalities will help to hold the club together while interest in other phases of the club work is being developed.

The chief advantage of the self-government of the club is as a first lesson (frequently) in the principles of popular government. In the club the too-assertive child learns wholesome respect for the will of the majority, while his more retiring brother discovers that one man's vote is as good as another's. When one has seen a club of ambitious lads who, when they first organized, cared only for success, reject a boy who is a good debater and athlete on the ground that in another club he had shown that "he was a sorehead and couldn't seem to understand that the majority's got to rule," one is tempted to feel that organization can do so much for the children that an organized library club justifies itself on that score alone.

Club work is a very effective means of extending the active educational work of the library. In the clubs conducted by the Cleveland Public Library, the plan has been to encourage the children themselves to make suggestions for the club work. Then a tentative program is made out, based on some general interest shown in the suggestions made by the club. As far as possible, the program is planned with the idea of stimulating broad, as well as careful and intelligent reading. The program is, of course, subject to changes which may suggest themselves to the club or to its leader. Travel in foreign lands, the study of the lives of great women, nature study, the reading and discussion of Shakespeare's plays, in the girls' clubs, and, in the clubs for boys, debating and reporting on current events, have been the subjects most successfully worked out for club consideration, probably on account of the variety of interest which they present. Travel means not only the manners and customs side of the country--it means the art, the literature, the history, the legend; biography, not simply the life of the individual studied, but the period and country that produced it. The subjects discussed in the debating clubs are almost always of the boys' choosing, and represent a broad field of interest, economic, social, moral and political. They range from "Resolved, That Washington did more than Lincoln for his country," "That civilization owes more to the railroad than the steamboat," "That the fireman is braver than the policeman," in the clubs of boys from the sixth and seventh grades, to the discussion of municipal ownership, tariff commission, establishment of a central bank, and commission government for cities, in clubs composed of high school boys. Aside from what practice in the form of debating means to the boys in developing ability to think clearly and to speak to the point, discussion of vital questions of national and municipal interest encourages the boy to turn to more trustworthy sources of information than the daily press. He learns to refer to books and the better sort of periodicals for his authority, and, gradually, through reading and discussion, begins to substitute convictions for inherited prejudice or indifference.

The club's greatest usefulness lies in the opportunity it presents of broadening the interests of the child, of opening to him, through books and discussion, new fields of thought and pleasure. Compared with this, information acquired and number of books read are comparatively unimportant. The smallness of the group with which he has to deal and the children's invariable response to his special interest in them create an unusual opportunity for the club leader. In the informal discussions in the club he may pass on to the children something of his own interests, and direct theirs into channels which would probably never be opened to them otherwise. From our experience in one of the branches of the Cleveland Public Library, where club work has presented great difficulties, I know that, given a leader who understands, girls whose standard of excellence has been met by boarding- school stories, can be interested in studying and reading in their club the plays of Shakespeare or in listening to extracts from Vasari's "Lives of the painters" or Ruskin's "Stories of Venice." Beyond his opportunity to interest the club in better reading, the leader may help the children in a general way, by unconsciously presenting to them his standards of thought and conduct. Through him they may become aware of finer ideals of courtesy, bravery and honesty.

Not the least important contribution of club work to the library is the direction of the reading of boys and girls of the intermediate age--always such a difficult problem. Most of the children of the age when clubs begin to appeal to them strongly --from 12 years on--have reached a stage of mental development at which they should be reading, under direction, books from the adult as well as the juvenile collection. In the Cleveland Public Library clubs books from the adult collection are used whenever possible in connection with the club programs, and the leaders are encouraged to recommend books from that collection for the personal reading of the children. The result is that the children are gradually made acquainted with the adult department, and come to feel as much at home there as in the children's room.

The club very seldom fails to establish a feeling of friendliness and personal interest in the library among its members. It has proved itself, in this way, a very decided aid in reducing the librarian's "police duty." Moreover, the club is a privilege, and as such not to be enjoyed by those who habitually break the law, so that what it fails to accomplish in one way may be brought about in another.

As this paper is based on experience gained in the Cleveland Public Library, it would not be complete without mention of one important phase of the club work there.

To a very great extent the club work in the Cleveland Public Library owes its growth in size and efficiency to the time and interest given to it by the volunteer club leaders, of whom, during the year 1910, there were 60. Looking over the work of the boys' clubs for the year, it is interesting to note the influence of the leader's interests upon the boys. All but one of the boys' clubs whose leaders are attorneys devoted their club meetings to debating, mock trials and parliamentary drill. Among the clubs under the leadership of students in Western Reserve University (and these represent more than half of the total number of boys' clubs) the predominant interest is in the discussion of current events, the subjects for occasional debates being suggested by these discussions. In two or three clubs too young for such discussion, the leaders, who were especially interested in civics, were able to interest the boys in the study of the work of the various departments of our city government. In another instance a leader, a business man, deeply interested in the history of Cleveland and its industries has succeeded in holding the interest of his club boys in this subject for three months, though these were boys whose indifference to anything but "Wild West" stories was proverbial in the branch library.

Clubs for boys and girls in the Cleveland Public Library are under the direction of a club supervisor, who organizes the clubs, secures the services of the volunteer leaders, and helps them in preparing programs for the clubs. The work has been conducted in this way for three years, and has become a vital part of the work of the library as a whole.

LIBRARY READING CLUBS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

The successful development of reading clubs by the New York Public Library is evidenced by the fact that at the time the following paper was written, in 1912, there were reported twenty-five boys' clubs and seventeen girls' clubs. The paper is by Anna C. Tyler, and was read before the New York meeting of school librarians in Brooklyn, N. Y., May 25, 1912.

Anna Cogswell Tyler was born in Detroit, Michigan, and was graduated from the Hartford, Conn., High School in 1880. She attended Mrs. Julie Goddard Piatt's boarding school in Utica, New York, from 1880 to 1882, and Mademoiselle Taveney's school for girls at Neuillysur- Seine near Paris from 1883 to 1885. She was graduated from the Pratt Institute Library School, taking the two-year course, 1904-1906. She was an assistant in the Pratt Institute Free Library from 1906 to 1908. In 1908 she was made assistant in charge of story-telling and library reading-clubs in the New York Public Library.

The library reading clubs have sprung into being as a natural result of the library story hour, and for two very potent reasons --the boys and girls of from twelve to fifteen years old, however much they enjoy listening to a good story, are extremely afraid of being classed as children. Therefore when such a boy or girl comes to the branch library which he uses and sees a very attractive little notice reading "Story hour this afternoon at four o'clock for the older children" he shakes his head and goes his way saying, "Oh, they don't mean me, that's for the kids!" But when he sees a notice reading "The Harlem Boys' Club" meets such a day and hour his attention is immediately arrested, and he asks, "What do you have to do to join this club?"

This is the first reason for the rapid growth of these library reading clubs, the magic contained in merely the sight or sound of the word "club"--the spur it gives to the imagination of even the apparently unimaginative child, and the stigma it removes from the mind of the adolescent boy or girl of being considered a child. By conferring upon him the dignity of membership in a club we can make it possible for him to enjoy to the extent of his capacity the pleasure the majority of children so delight in--the listening to a good story well told or well read. His mind is at peace, his dignity unquestioned, for, since no stripling likes to be taunted with his green years, his being a member of such a club or league has forever precluded such a possibility.

The matter of joining these clubs is made as simple as possible, and the great democracy of the public library spirit is kept uppermost in the minds of librarians who have charge of this work, and by them instilled into the minds of the children as rapidly as possible. Any boy or girl is welcome to the club who wishes to come, provided he or she is of the right age or grade to enjoy the stories, reading, or study that is interesting the others. Boys and girls who are doubtful are invited to come and see what the club is as often as they will, until they have quite made up their minds whether or not it is something they want. The only thing required of them is to follow the one general rule underlying all the clubs of the library--the Golden Rule, that their behavior shall in no way interfere with the pleasure or rights of the other members. Some of them stay only a short time, but on the other hand we have many children who were charter members when the clubs were formed four years ago, and they have attended the meetings regularly, though they have long since passed from the grammar schools and have reached the heights of the third year in high school.

The difficulty of finding stories which will interest in the same degree mixed groups of older children is the second reason for the growth and popularity of the library reading clubs. Some of the great stories of the world, like "The Niebelungenlied," "The Arthurian cycle," Beowulf, and a few others may be used, or the life of a great man or woman may be told, and listened to with interest, provided there is plenty of romance in the life, and the book which contains the story is attractive in appearance and tempts one to read it at first glance. One can also find good material for club programs in the romance of some period in the history of a country not our own. The difficulty of choosing story literature suitable and interesting for mixed groups of boys and girls and the difference in their reading tastes make the segregation of the library reading clubs a wise method. The boy during these years is eager to acquire information on all subjects--one can appeal to his love of adventure, of heroes, and mystery. The girl is full of romance--poetry and drama make their appeal.

The difficulty of maintaining and controlling successful library reading clubs is frequently lost sight of because of the ease with which they can be formed. Our experience has taught us that in planning the library activities of the New York Public Library the reading clubs must come last--they must only be established when they can take their place as one of the regular functions of the library. The librarian who is to be club leader must be able to interest, influence and control the club members as well as to tell a story.

The club season lasts from the first of October to the end of May, and at present we have twenty-five boys' clubs and seventeen girls' clubs reported. Some of these are formal in organization with regularly appointed officers chosen, of course, by the boys and girls themselves. These officers hold their office for periods of varying length, some clubs electing new officers each month, others at the beginning of each club season. Some of the clubs are clubs only in name--entirely informal, but meeting regularly once or twice or oftener each month throughout the season to listen to the stories. Many of the clubs are entirely selfgoverning and they also arrange their own programs. The librarian who is the club leader is present as a member, but takes no active part in the entertainment of the club unless invited to do so.

And now just for a moment let us consider the kind of literature we are trying to interest the youngsters in. Being a radical it pleased me very much recently to come across the following passage in an interesting new book by Miss Rosalie V. Halsey, entitled "Forgotten books of the American nursery." Miss Halsey says: "Reading aloud was both a pastime and an education to families in those early days of the Republic. Although Mrs. Quincy made every effort to procure Miss Edgeworth's stories for her family, because, in her opinion, they were better for reading aloud than were the works of Hannah More, Mrs. Trimmer and Mrs. Chapone, she chose extracts from Shakespeare, Milton, Addison, and Goldsmith. Indeed, if it were possible to ask our great-grandparents what books they remembered reading in their childhood, I think we should find that beyond somewhat hazy recollections of Miss Edgeworth's books and Berquin's 'The looking glass for the mind' they would either mention 'Robinson Crusoe,' Newberry's 'Tales of Giles Gingerbread,' 'Little King Pippin,' and 'Goody Two-shoes' (written fifty years before their own childhood), or remember only the classic tales and sketches read to them by their parents."

Now it seems to me that our great-grandparents were very lucky to have been so delightfully introduced to the great things in literature, and in these days when the art of reading aloud is almost a lost art how can we expect the modern child to turn with a natural appreciation to the best in literature when he is almost submerged by the mediocre and vulgar inside and outside the home, his appreciation undeveloped, not old enough in years or intelligence to comprehend the beauty we so delight in. We are disappointed when he does not respond, and wonder why. Is it not the result of forcing him to use these things before he is ready, and thus only fostering his distaste?

Believing this to be so, I have gone to work to try to induce the boys and girls to read more widely, and cultivate appreciation, by using this old-fashioned method of reading aloud or telling a part of the story and reading here and there bits of the text, thus letting the author tell his own story, and as far as we have been able we have tried to give the children the KIND of story they wanted--WHEN they wanted it--but in the best form in which it could be found. For instance Poe's "The purloined letter" when a detective story is asked for, followed by a story from Stevenson's "New Arabian nights" or "Island nights' entertainments."

In eleven of the boys' clubs we have been using this year special collections of duplicate books, on topics suggested by the boys themselves. These collections have been kept together for from four to six weeks, and the stories that have been told or read from these books are mentioned in the notice, with a list of all the books in the collection and posted near where the books are shelved. The topics suggested by the boys are as follows: railroad stories; ghost stories; humorous stories; adventure on land; heroes; adventure on sea; history stories, this last topic including Italy, France, England, Scotland, Germany, Canada, and "The winning of the West" in American history, and each group decided on which country they would read about.

On the lower West side, where the Irish-Americans live in large numbers, where street fights and fires contribute a constant source of excitement, there is a library club of girls who have been meeting twice a month for two years. Last year we studied Joan of Arc, completing our study by reading Percy Mackaye's play. This year, not feeling satisfied that I was on the right path, I called a meeting to make sure. After trying in vain to get an expression of opinion I finally asked the direct question, "What kind of books do you really LIKE to read?" and for a moment I waited in suspense, fearing someone would answer to please me by mentioning some classic. But to my great relief one girl replied at last timidly, but decidedly, that she liked "Huckleberry Finn." This gave another the courage to add that she had enjoyed the chapter on whitewashing the fence in "Tom Sawyer." My clue had been found--a reading club of adventure was formed, and though we began with the "Prisoner of Zenda" we have wandered with "Odysseus," and sighed over the sacrifice of "Alcestis," and thrilled over the winning of "Atalanta" this winter.

A girls' club on the lower East side have been reading the old English comedies--"She stoops to conquer," "The rivals," "Lady Teazle"; then there is a flourishing Shakespeare club, which to honor the Dickens centenary this year, voted to make the study of the great writer a part of this year's program. This club meets once a week, and at one meeting the outline of one of the great tales was told by the librarian. This was followed by the girls reading one or more of the most famous chapters or dialogues. At the alternate meetings the girls read plays, varying the program by choosing first a Shakespeare drama and then a modern play. Each act is cast separately, so that all the girls may have a chance to take part, and in this way we read "Twelfth night," "Romeo and Juliet," "The taming of the Shrew," "Macbeth," "The bluebird," "The scarcecrow," and "Cyrano de Bergerac."

Away up in the Bronx there is a "Cranford Club," so named by the girls because of their interest in the story to which they were introduced four years ago. This club is really a study club and contains a good proportion of its original members. They meet twice a month, and a leader is appointed for each meeting, who chooses her committee to report on the topic for the evening's study. The topic is sub-divided and each girl does her part in looking up the bit assigned to her. In this way they have studied the English poets Tennyson and Milton, although after spending an evening on Comus the club voted unanimously to change to Dickens. They have also studied Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell and Whittier, and the girls were sufficiently familiar with these poems to recite many from each poet. Then the lives of three English queens were studied--"Bloody Mary," "Queen Elizabeth," and "Mary, Queen of Scots"; this year the Norse myths and stories from the Wagner operas. The librarian's part is to suggest the best books in which to find what they want, to get any book they may need, sometimes suggest a line of subjects to choose from, etc, but the work of preparing the material is done entirely by the girls. When a book is being read and discussed, they sit around a table and read in turn the bits that have been selected for them by the librarian, who tells them the thread of the story between selected bits read by the girls. Thus they have read "Cranford," "Pride and prejudice," "Old curiosity shop," "David Copperfield," and "Twelfth night." The teacher of English where most of these girls attend school was recently an interested visitor at the club, and she says she has noticed for a long time a difference in the school work done by these girls, from a broader viewpoint and outside atmosphere they brought to the class by their intelligent comments and criticisms, showing that they were reading outside and beyond the other girls of the class. She noticed also a difference in their composition work. One of the girls from that class was sent by this teacher to visit the library for the first time and when asked what she liked to read replied, "Wooed and married" and "How he won her" were nice books. The book given her instead of her favorites was Mary Johnston's "To have and to hold." It was read and enjoyed. Then she took Howells' "The lady of the Aroostook," and after the outline of the story had been told her seemed to read it with real pleasure. Next Owen Wister's "Virginian" was given her, but this she did not seem to care for. As a result of this reading her taste in a better kind of reading seems to have been pretty well established, as her librarian assures me that she has continued her reading along the line indicated by the above titles. The Belmont Club, the best boys' club for debating in the school, have challenged the "Cranford Club" to meet them in a debate on "Woman suffrage," to be held in the library at an early date. The girls have accepted the challenge, and the fact that the boys question their ability to equal them is sufficient spur to make them work every moment they can spare from their school duties to prepare for this important event. Added to this is the fact that every one of them is an ardent "suffragette."

The need of social centers in the schools and libraries is becoming insistent. The increasing demand on the part of children for clubs of all kinds shows plainly their desire for some place other than the street, where they can be amused and occupied in the natural desire for self-development and expression. Early last fall in one of the libraries the librarian met by appointment a group of girls from eleven to fourteen years old. These girls were wayward and troublesome, had formed a "gang" which was more difficult to control than the usual gang of boys. There was a room in her library quite apart from the rest of the building where they could meet as a club if it should prove desirable. "What would you like to do?" she asked. "Dance!" was the reply. "Well, then, dance, and show me what dances you like," replied the librarian, and immediately the girls formed for a figure of a folk-dance, and each girl humming softly the tune they danced it through. "The Girl Scouts" Club was formed, and in a day or two the secretary of the club submitted the following program for the librarian's approval: Program. 1. Chapter from the life of Louisa M. Alcott; 2. Recitations; 3. Games, Flinch; 4 One folk dance. From this beginning six other clubs have been established: two for the older girls, two for the boys, one for the little girls from eight to eleven years old, and one for a group of troublesome young men from sixteen to twenty years old. So keen has been the interest of these young people in these clubs that the "gang" spirit has long since disappeared, and at the end of the club season an open meeting was held, a program arranged in which members from each club took part, and the ushers and guards of honor were some of those same troublesome young men. There was no place in this community where the young people could meet for any kind of simple amusement, the only "social centers" being the cheap vaudeville theater, the usual moving picture show and the streets, until the little branch of the public library opened its doors, and so popular has the library become that 960 children have taken cards at the library since the first of September and are borrowing books on these. Besides the large number of card holders there is a still larger number of children who do all their reading and studying at the library. Although they may not know the old English verse from which the lines are taken they feel them:

"Where I maie read all at my ease, Both of the
newe and olde, For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke
Is better to me than gold."

The outline I have given will give you some idea of how we are developing the story hour and reading clubs in the New York Public Library. This work is made possible by the splendid cooperation on the part of the branch librarians and their assistants, without whom it would be impossible to carry on a work of such proportions.

HOME LIBRARIES

The history of the home library movement in its beginnings is recorded in a paper read before the Congress of Charities held in Chicago, June 15, 1893, by Mr. Charles W. Birtwell, general secretary of the Boston Children's Aid Society, who claims for it a "natural and simple origin," a method of multiplying the personal work which he was doing among the poorer children of Boston. Another paper on the same subject was read by Mr. Birtwell at the Lake Placid Conference of the A. L. A. in 1894.

Appreciation of this work is expressed in the 1915 report of the Children's Aid Society: "The most important service we render as a society is to show that the constructive forces within the average family, if properly directed, are tremendous in their power and effect. The home libraries do a work for children in their homes that is quite distinct from all the other services we render as a society."

Charles Wesley Birtwell was born in Lawrence, Mass., November 23, 1860, and graduated at Harvard in 1885. He was general secretary of the Boston Children's Aid Society from 1885 to 1911. He has been prominent in social and charitable work, and in 1887 originated the "home library" system of the Children's Aid Society, the first general plan of this kind on record.

The first Home Library was established by the Boston Children's Aid Society in January, 1887. Now it has seventy libraries here and there throughout Boston, and regards them as an important department of its work. The origin of the plan that has found so much favor in our eyes was simple. I had been connected with the Children's Aid Society but a short time when many avenues of work opened up before me, and it was quite perplexing to see how to make my relations to the various children I became acquainted with real and vital. Among other things the children ought to have the benefit of good reading and to become lovers of good books. Indeed, a great many things needed to be done for and by the children. Out of this opportunity and need the Home Library was evolved.

A little bookcase was designed. It was made of white wood, stained cherry, with a glass door and Yale lock. It contained a shelf for fifteen books, and above that another for juvenile periodicals. The whole thing, carefully designed and neatly made, was simple and yet pleasing to the eye.