Chapter 24
Library work in summer playgrounds is one development of cooperation with other institutions. The first article included may be supplemented by a statement made by Miss Frances J. Olcott in an article on "The public library, a social force in Pittsburgh," printed in the Survey magazine, March 5, 1910. She states that "Perhaps the most important phase of the library's work with children which is being developed at present is that of playground libraries. ... Now that the Playground Association is establishing recreation centers for winter as well as summer, arrangements have been made with the library to supply books, the Association providing the necessary reading rooms in its new buildings." Practical difficulties in administration are discussed in the second article.
The last group of articles brings together several unrelated phases of work. Two special kinds of children's libraries are mentioned, one a type--the Sunday School library--and one a library organized for specific work in connection with the Children's Museum in Brooklyn. Work with colored children in a colored branch library is described. The last paper gives a vivid picture of work with children in a foreign district of a large city.
THE STORY HOUR
The paper by Edna Lyman Scott, printed in the Wisconsin Bulletin for January, 1905, was said to be introductory to a talk which she was to give at Beloit at the Wisconsin State meeting, February 22, 1905. The author looks upon the inauguration of the story hour as but the grasping of an opportunity in working with children in the library, as a means of cultivating the love of literature and of introducing the child to books.
Edna Lyman, now Mrs. Scott, was born in Illinois, educated in the schools of Oak Park, Ill., and at Bradford Academy, Haverhill, Massachusetts. At the time this paper was written she was the children's librarian in the Oak Park Public Library, then known as Scoville Institute. Her work in story telling became known outside the immediate field of its activity, and in 1907 Miss Lyman severed her connection with this library to give time to special preparation, and later to become a lecturer on literature for children and story-telling, and a professional story-teller. She spent portions of three years as Advisory Children's Librarian for the Iowa Library Commission, and during that period published her book "Story-telling: what to tell and how to tell it." She holds the position of non-resident faculty lecturer on Work for Children in the Library School of the University of Illinois, and the Carnegie Library School of Atlanta, Georgia, and lectures regularly in other library schools, before teachers' institutes and normal schools, women's clubs and study classes throughout the country.
When we touch the question of guiding the reading of children in our libraries we have opened the consideration of a subject which is one of the great arguments for the existence of public libraries.
All about we see and feel the utter indifference of parents to what their children are reading, or whether they are reading at all, and the results of this indifference appear on every hand, in the character of the books which content the child, or in his determination to bury himself in a book to the exclusion of every other interest.
The librarian sees this indifference and its fruit and realizes that it adds another responsibility to her already long list, and another opportunity to serve. She may doubt whether her province is to educate the taste of the public at large, but there can be no question that in the case of the children the choice is not left for her to make; the only reason for the child's reading at all is that he may grow mentally and spiritually. There is no way to protect the child against worthless books except by giving him a decided taste for what is good. Hamilton Mabie says that "tastes depend very largely on the standards with which we are familiar," and if these standards are acquired hit and miss, without training, they are likely to be of a most doubtful character.
The love of literature, like the love of any of the fine arts, is susceptible of cultivation and is strengthened by constant contact with the beauty and greatness which can compel it. "They are exceptional children who read everything regardless of its character and come out all right. We do not know that any child is of such a make-up. We must deal with him as though he were not the exceptional but the normal child." The influence of all that he reads upon the mind of the child is sufficiently appalling, but it is not to be compared with the influence on his character. Henry Churchill King says: "It is his susceptibility to the faintest suggestion that makes the child so marvelous an imitator." The significance of this truth lies not only in the fact that he responds to the example in manners and morals of those about him, but equally, and perhaps even more exactly, to the heroes who live within the covers of his books. If the dangers are great, our response must be as forceful and our search untiring for the influence which will most surely lead the child to the best.
And what means shall be found? The answer seems ready to hand in the use of one of the oldest, yet one of the newest arts, the art of story-telling. You may talk to a child about books, he will give a certain kind of response, particularly if he respects your judgment because of previous experience, but tell him a story and you have fastened him with chains he does not care to resist.
The inauguration of the story hour then is but the grasping of an opportunity, first of all to give keenest joy to the child, and at the same time to set his standard for judging the value of other stories by those he hears, to give him a love for beautiful form, to introduce him to books he might never choose for himself and to bind him to the friend who tells him stories, so that he will feel a confidence in her suggestions.
Before choosing our stories for telling it will be well to remind ourselves of our purpose in telling stories, namely, to give familiarity with good English, to cultivate the imagination, to develop the sympathy, and to give a clear impression of moral truth. With this purpose in mind we shall gather our children into groups whose ages are near, and will be reached by the same tales. We must be methodical in this as in all our library work, and have our campaign well planned before we begin.
Not everyone has the gift of telling stories, but if one is not gifted with the art himself, there will doubtless be someone who is, who can be secured for the purpose, if we only feel that the need is great enough.
The way is open to the minds and hearts of the children. Shall we neglect it because it is old, or because it is new, or because we seem somewhat hampered by existing conditions? Why not follow the successes of others, and then find our own?
The above paper by Miss Lyman is offered as introductory to a talk which she will give at Beloit at the Wisconsin state meeting, February 22, 1905. The story hour has been most successfully conducted in a few of our libraries. To be sure every librarian is not qualified to conduct a successful story hour, but it is usually possible to find someone in the community who will tell the stories. The story hour requires a good deal of preparation. In Pittsburgh the librarians who were to tell stories had special training under Miss Shedlock, a well-known English story teller, and gave thorough study to the subject before attempting to interest the children. This library has published a pamphlet on Story telling to children from Norse mythology and the Nibehulgenlied. This pamphlet contains references to material on selected stories, an annotated reading list for the story teller and for young people, a full outline of a course, and many valuable suggestions. The same library published in its bulletin, October, 1902, the following outlines:
LEGENDS OF KING ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE Story 1. Merlin the Enchanter Story 2. How Arthur won his kingdom and how he got his sword Excalibur. Story 3. The marriage of Arthur and Guinevere and the founding of the Round Table. Story 4. The adventure of Gareth Story 5. The adventure of Geraint. Story 6. The adventure of Geraint and the Fair Enid. Story 7. The story of the dolorous stroke. Story 8. How Launcelot saved Guinevere; or, The adventure of the cart. Story 9. Launcelot and the lily-maid of Astrolat. Story 10. The coming of Galahad Story 11. The quest of the Sangreal Story 12. The achieving of the Sangreal. Story 13. The passing of Arthur.
LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE AND HIS PALADINS
Story 14. The adventures of Ogier the Dane. Story 15. More adventures of Ogier the Dane. Story 16. The sons of Aymon. Story 17. Malagis the wizard Story 18. A Roland for an Oliver Story 19. The Princes of Cathay. Story 20. How Reinold fared to Cathay. Story 21. The quest of Roland Story 22. In the gardens of Falerina. Story 23. Bradamant, the warrior maiden. Story 24. The contest of Durandal. Story 25. The battle of Roncesvalles.
This regular story course will be broken into at the holidays when stories appropriate to the season will be told.
Their bulletin for November, 1904, gives the program for 1904-5 on Legends of Robin Hood and Stories from Ivanhoe. The outline follows:
LEGENDS OF ROBIN HOOD
Story 1. How Robin Hood became an outlaw. Story 2. How Robin Hood outwitted the Sheriff of Nottingham Town. Story 3. A merry adventure of Robin Hood. Story 4. How Robin Hood gained three merry men in one day. Story 5. The story of Allin a Dale. Story 6. The story of the Sorrowful Knight. Story 7. The Queen's champion. Story 8. Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne. Story 9. How King Richard visited Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest. Story 10. Robin Hood's death and burial. Story 11. The tournament at Ashby-de-la-Zouche. Story 12. The second day of the tournament. Story 13. The siege of Torquilstone.
The following extract on the children's story hour is taken from the Pittsburgh bulletin of December, 1901.
THE CHILDREN'S STORY HOUR
The Library story hour for the children began in a very modest way at our West End branch. It has passed through the experimental stage and is now a part of the regular routine of our six children's rooms. At first disconnected stories were told but when we found how much the stories influenced the children's reading, we began to follow a regular program, which has proved more effective than haphazard story telling. Last year we told stories from Greek mythology and Homer and had an attendance of over 5,000 children. The books placed on special story hour shelves were taken out 2,000 times.
This year the stories are drawn from the Norse myths and the Niebelungen Lied. They are told by the children's librarians and the students of our Training school for children's librarians, every Friday afternoon from November first to April first. As the hour draws near, the children's rooms begin to fill with eagerly expectant children. There is an atmosphere of repressed excitement, and when the appointed minute comes, the children quickly form into line and march into the lecture room where the story is told. Once there, the children group themselves on the floor about the story teller, and all is attention. It may be that the story is a hard one to tell, the process of adapting and preparing it may have been difficult, but in the interested faces of the children and in the bright eyes fixed upon her face, the story teller finds her inspiration.
Extra copies of books containing Norse myths have been provided for each children's room. Since few of these books are for very young children, we tell these poetic stories of our Northern ancestors to the older boys and girls only. For the younger ones there are such stories as The Three Bears, Hop-o'-my-thumb, and other old nursery favorites. At Thanksgiving, Christmas and a few other holidays, the program is dropped and one full of the spirit of the season is told instead. That the children enjoy and appreciate the stories is seen by the steadily increasing attendance, and by the fact that the same children return week after week. Teachers say the very worst punishment they can inflict is to detain a child so late on Friday that he misses his story hour. During the summer months, and early fall, when no stories were being told, there were many anxious inquiries as to when the story hour would begin. At our West End branch the children clamored so for their stories that the work was commenced a month before the time for beginning the regular program.
And what is the use of story telling? Is it merely to amuse and entertain the children? Were it simply for this, the time would not seem wasted, when one recalls the bright and happy faces and realizes what an hour of delight it is to many children oftentimes their only escape from mean and sordid surroundings Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson once said that to lie on the hearth rug and listen to one's mother reading aloud is a liberal education, but such sweet and precious privileges are only for the few. The story hour is intended to meet this want in some slight degree, to give the child a glimpse beyond the horizon which hitherto has limited his life, and open up to him those vast realms of literature which are a part of his inheritance, for unless he enters this great domain through the gateway of childish fancy and imagination, the probability is that he will never find any other opening. To arouse and stimulate a love for the best reading is then the real object of the story hour. Through the story the child's interest is awakened, the librarian places in his hands just the right book to develop that interest, and gradually there is formed a taste for good literature.
STORY-TELLING IN LIBRARIES
In the following article, contributed to Public Libraries for November, 1908, Mr. John Cotton Dana protests against the popular idea of library story-telling and advocates instruction given to teachers both in story- telling and in the use of books as a better method "as to cost and results." John Cotton Dana was born in Woodstock, Vermont, in 1856, received the degree of A.B. from Dartmouth in 1878, and studied law in Woodstock from 1878 to 1880. He was a land surveyor in Colorado in 1880-1881, was admitted to the New York bar in 1883, and spent 1886-1887 in Colorado as a civil engineer. He was Librarian of the Denver Public Library from 1889 to 1897; of the City Library, Springfield, Mass., from 1898- 1902, and since 1902 has been Librarian of the Free Public Library of Newark, N. J.
Story-telling to groups of young children is now popular among librarians. The art is practiced chiefly by women. No doubt one reason for its popularity is that it gives those who practice it the pleasures of the teacher, the orator and the exhorter. It must be a delight to have the opportunity to hold the attention of a group of children; to see their eyes sparkle as the story unwinds itself; to feel that you are giving the little people high pleasure, and at the same time are improving their language, their morals, their dramatic sense, their power of attention and their knowledge of the world's literary masterpieces. Also, it is pleasant to realize that you are keeping them off the streets; are encouraging them to read good books; are storing their minds with charming pictures of life and are making friends for your library.
In explaining its popularity I have stated briefly the arguments usually given in favor of library story-telling. There is another side.
A library's funds are never sufficient for all the work that lies before it. Consequently, the work a library elects to do is done at the cost of certain other work it might have done. The library always puts its funds, skill and energy upon those things which it thinks are most important, that is, are most effective in the long run, in educating the community. Now, the schools tell stories to children, and it is obviously one of their proper functions so to do at such times, to such an extent and to such children as the persons in charge of the schools think wise. It is probable that the schoolmen know better when and how to include story-telling in their work with a given group of children than do the librarians. If a library thinks it knows about this subject more than do the schools, should it spend time and money much needed for other things in trying to take up and carry on the schools' work? It would seem not. Indeed, the occasional story-telling which the one library of a town or city can furnish is so slight a factor in the educational work of that town or city as to make the library's pride over its work seem very ludicrous.
If, now, the library by chance has on its staff a few altruistic, emotional, dramatic and irrepressible child-lovers who do not find ordinary library work gives sufficient opportunities for altruistic indulgence, and if the library can spare them from other work, let it set them at teaching the teachers the art of story-telling.
Contrast, as to cost and results, the usual story-telling to children with instruction in the same and allied arts to teachers. The assistant entertains once or twice each week a group of forty or fifty children. The children--accustomed to schoolroom routine, hypnotized somewhat by the mob-spirit, and a little by the place and occasion, ready to imitate on every opportunity --listen with fair attention. They are perhaps pleased with the subject matter of the tale, possibly by its wording, and very probably by the voice and presence of the narrator. They hear an old story, one of the many that help to form the social cement of the nation in which they live. This is of some slight value, though the story is only one of scores which they hear or read in their early years at school. The story has no special dramatic power in its sequence. As a story it is of value almost solely because it is old. It has no special value in its phrasing. It may have been put into artistic form by some man of letters; but the children get it, not in that form, but as retold by an inspired library assistant who has made no mark in the world of letters by her manner of expression. The story has no moral save as it is dragged in by main strength; usually, in fact, and especially in the case of myths, the moral tone needs apologies much more than it needs praise.
To prepare for this half hour of the relatively trivial instruction of a few children in the higher life, the library must secure a room and pay for its care, a room which if it be obtained and used at all could be used for more profitable purposes; and the performer must study her art and must, if she is not a conceited duffer, prepare herself for her part for the day at a very considerable cost of time and energy.
Now, if the teachers do not know the value of story-telling at proper times and to children of proper years; if they do not realize the strength of the influence for good that lies in the speaking voice--though that this influence is relatively over-rated in these days I am at a proper time prepared to show--if they do not know about the interest children take in legends, myths and fairy tales, and their value in strengthening the social bond, then let the library assistants who do know about such things hasten to tell them. I am assuming for purposes of argument that the teachers do not know, and that library assistants can tell them. I shall not attempt to say how the library people will approach the teacher with their information without offending them, except to remark that tactful lines of approach can be found; and to remark, further, that by setting up a story-hour in her library a librarian does not very tactfully convey to the teachers the intimation that they either do not know their work or willfully neglect it.
With this same labor of preparation, in the room used to talk 30 minutes to a handful of children, the librarian could far better address a group of teachers on the use of books in libraries and schoolrooms. Librarians have long contended that teachers are deficient in bookishness; and it is quite possible that they are. Their preparation in normal schools compels them to give more attention to method than to subject matter. They have lacked incentive and opportunity to become familiar with books, outside of the prescribed text-books and supplementary readers. They do not know the literature of and for childhood, and not having learned to use books in general for delight and utility themselves they cannot impart the art to their pupils. As I have said, librarians contend that this is true, yet many of them with opportunities to instruct teachers in these matters lying unused before them, neglect them and coolly step in to usurp one of the school's functions and rebuke the teacher's shortcomings.
This is not all. A library gives of its time, money and energy to instruct 40 children--and there it ends. If, on the other hand, it instructs 40 teachers, those 40 carry the instruction to 40 class rooms and impart knowledge of the library, of the use of books, of the literature for children and--if need be--of the art of story-telling, to 1,600 or 2,000 children. There seems no question here as to which of these two forms of educational activity is for librarians better worth while.
STORY TELLING--A PUBLIC LIBRARY METHOD
The National Child Conference for Research and Welfare was organized at a meeting held at Clark University, Worcester, Mass., in July, 1909. Several papers on library topics were presented at this meeting, one of the most interesting of which was given by Miss Olcott. In this paper she presents the story hour as a method of introducing "large groups of children simultaneously to great literature," and asserts that "the library story hour becomes, if properly utilized, an educational force as well as a literary guide."
Frances Jenkins Olcott was born in Paris, France; was educated under private tutors, and was graduated from the New York State Library School in 1896. From 1898 to 1911 she was Chief of the Children's Department of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. In 1900 she organized and became the Director of the Training School for Children's Librarians. Since 1911 Miss Olcott has contributed to library work with children by writing and editing books for parents and for children.
The library is a latter day popular educational development. It supplements the work of the church, the home, the school and the kindergarten. Its function is to place within the reach of all the best thought of the world as conserved in the printed page. This being its natural function, all methods selected by the library should tend directly to arouse interest in the best reading. Methods which do not do this are, for the library, ineffective and a waste of valuable energy and public funds.
The library movement has grown with such startling rapidity that it has not been possible to codify the best methods of library work, but there has been an earnest endeavor to establish a body of library pedagogy by careful experimentation. Unfortunately during this experimental stage methods have been introduced which do not produce direct library results. Many of these methods, which in this paper it is not expedient to enumerate, are interesting and appeal to the imagination; they may impart knowledge, but they are not, strictly speaking, library methods.