Chapter 5

The Educational Club, an organization of parents, teachers and others interested in education, began in 1897 with very informal meetings, suggested by the school section of the Civic Club, which were held in my office for three years, until they outgrew it and needed a more formal organization. The directors of the Civic Club and managers of the Social Settlement have met there for years, and the Connecticut Public Library Committee found it a convenient meeting place until it seemed better to hold sessions in the Capitol, where its office is.

The history classes of the North School, of whose principal I have spoken, used to make a pilgrimage every year to points of interest in the city, ending with an hour in the rooms of the Historical Society in the building, where they impersonated historical characters or looked at colonial furniture and implements. After the hour was over they used to come to the office for gingerbread and lemonade, which strengthened their friendly feeling for the library. This lasted until the principal went to another city.

In 1898, in a talk to some children in one of the schools just before the summer vacation, I asked those who were not going out of town to come to the library one afternoon every week for a book-talk, with a tableful of books such as they would not be likely to find for themselves. The subjects the first year were:

Out-of-door books and stories about animals, Books about Indians, Travellers' tales and stories of adventure, Books that tell how to do things, Books about pictures and music, A great author and his friends (Sir Walter Scott), Another great author and his short stories (Washington Irving), Old-fashioned books for boys and girls. The talks have been kept up ever since.

The series in 1900 was on Books about knights and tournaments, what happened to a man who read too much about knights (Don Quixote), Books about horses, Two dream-stories, (The divine comedy and The pilgrim's progress), Some funny adventures (A traveller's true tale and others), Some new books, How a book is made, Stories about India, Pictures and scrap-books.

The next year, 1901, the talks were about stories connected with English history, the Old-English, the Normans, the Plantagenet times, King Henry V., the Wars of the Roses, King Henry VII, and King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots, the Stuarts, and the English Revolution and eighteenth- century England.

The year after, 1902, the talks were on "Books that you have not read," under the titles Sea stories, Indian stories, Horse stories, Wonder stories, Hero stories, African stories, South Sea stories, School and college stories, Old stories. A table of books was in the room, and I took them up one by one and told a little about the story, sometimes reading aloud and stopping at a very interesting point.

In 1903, the subjects were Stories about dragons, Stories about soldiers, Stories about shipwrecks, Stories about out-of- doors, Stories of real people told by themselves, Stories about adventures, Stories about pictures, Stories about the West, the object being to give the children of the upper grammar grades a glimpse into interesting books of which they might otherwise never hear. In that year we printed a list of novels for young readers that is now ten years old and needs revision, but still has its uses.

The use of the reference-room by children steadily increased, until the need of a room for them became evident, both on weekdays and Sundays. The Bulletin for March 1, 1900, says: "On Sunday, Feb. 25, there were eighty-one children in the small room, filling not only chairs too high for their short legs, but benches extending into the circulation room. They were all quiet and orderly, and some of them read seriously and absorbedly for several hours on 'The twentieth century,' 'The boundaries of the United States,' and 'The comparative greatness of Napoleon and Alexander.' The younger children read storybooks in the same quiet manner. A children's room would relieve the pressure on all three departments of the library." The "last straw" that led to the grant of rooms was a newspaper article illustrated by a photograph of the reference-room on a Sunday afternoon with one man, one woman and fifty-one children in it.

In 1904, the library came into possession of two large, bright sunny rooms and a smaller one adjoining in an old-fashioned house next door, which belonged to the Athenaeum and had been released by the removal of the Hartford Club to a large new house across the street. We opened rooms in November, just before Thanksgiving, and from then till New Year's Day we received gifts from many friends: a pair of andirons for the open fireplace, several pictures, a check "for unnecessary things" from one of the women's clubs, another for wall-decoration from teachers, students and graduates of the Albany Library School, fifty Japanese color-prints of chrysanthemums from the Pratt Institute children's room, a cuckoo clock that is still going, though it demands a vacation about once a year, and a Boston fern that is now in flourishing condition. A large Braun photograph of the Madonna del Granduca came later from the Pittsburgh School for Children's Librarians.

The furniture is of the simplest kind. We used some tables that we had, and bought one new one, some bentwood chairs for the older children and others such as are used in kindergartens for the younger. Pratt Institute lent us that first winter the very attractive illustrations by the Misses Whitney for Louisa Alcott's "Candy country." Some friends who were breaking up housekeeping gave the room a case of native and foreign stuffed birds with the hope that they might be as great a source of pleasure to the children as they had been to them in their childhood. Another friend sent us two trunks of curiosities from Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, which are shown a few at a time.

The next summer, 1905, the book-talks were about pictures in the room, most of which had been bought with our friends' gifts. Windsor Castle, Kenilworth, Heidelberg Castle, The Alhambra, St. George, King Arthur, Sir Walter Scott, the Canterbury Pilgrims, some Shakespeare stories. On the Alhambra afternoon, a girl who had spent her first year out of college in Spain described the palace and showed curiosities from Granada. One day a Civil War nurse who happened in was persuaded to tell the boys and girls in the room about the three weeks she spent in the White House, taking care of Tad Lincoln through a fever. Some years later we were fortunate enough to hear her again in the room above, on Abraham Lincoln's hundredth birthday, when she held the attention of a large number of boys and girls for more than an hour.

The next summer "What you can get out of a Henty book" was used as an excuse for showing books and pictures about the Crusades, Venice, the knights of Malta, the Rebellion of the Forty-five, the East India Company, the siege of Gibraltar, the Peninsula war, and modern Italy.

That summer we had a puzzle-club to show younger children how to work the puzzles in St. Nicholas and other magazines and newspapers. We held our first Christmas exhibition that year, 1906, in the room itself, for one day only, before the hour of opening.

After an exhibition of lace in the Athenaeum the next spring, the specialist who arranged it held the attention of her audience of girls between ten and fourteen, giving a practical illustration of the making of pillow-lace, showing specimens of different kinds, pointing out the use of lace in old-fashioned costumes for children, and exhibiting a piece of Valenciennes which had been stolen by a catbird and recovered before it was woven into a nest. This talk was given at my request, because we could find almost nothing on lace in books for children, and the exhibit was then attracting much notice.

That year our first children's librarian, who had given only a part of her working hours to the room, the rest to the loan- desk, left us to be married. The school work had grown so fast that it had become necessary for us to find a successor who was equal to it, and whose sole time could be given to that and the care of the room, which is open only from 3.30 to 6 on school- days, except on Wednesdays, Saturdays and in vacations, when we have all-day hours. The children in vacation-time may change story-books every day if they like--practically none of them do it--but in school time they are allowed only one a week. This is not a hardship, for they may use their non-fiction cards, which give them anything else, including bound magazines.

Our children's librarian makes up for lack of library technique by her acquaintance with teachers, and experience in day, evening and vacation schools, that have brought her into contact with children of all sorts and conditions.

The summer before her coming I had charge of the room for a part of every day, and observing that children under fourteen were beginning to think that they had read everything in the room and were asking to be transferred, I made a collection of books, principally novels, from the main library, marked them and the bookcards with a red star, and placed them on side shelves, where the younger children soon learned that they would find nothing to interest them. This keeps the older boys and girls in the room until they are ready for the main library, and when they are transferred they are sent to me in my office, where they are told that some one is always ready to give them help if they ask for it. The list of books for the first year after coming into the library is handed to them, and they are also referred to the high school shelves, to be mentioned later.

We insist on a father or mother coming with a child and leaving a signature or mark on the back of the application-card. This is placing responsibility where it belongs, and as we always have at least one of the staff who can speak Yiddish, and others who speak Italian, the parents are usually willing to come.

We are very strict in exacting fines as a means of teaching children to be responsible and careful of public property.

One summer the children acted simple impromptu plays, Cinderella, Blue Beard, Beauty and the beast, on the lawn outside the long windows. The lawn has been in bad condition for nearly two years, on account of the building of the Morgan memorial, but has now been planted again. One May-day we had an old English festival around a Maypole on the green, with Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, Will Scarlett, the hobby- horse, the dragon and all the rest, including Jack in the Green and an elephant. This was such a success that we were asked to repeat it across the river on the East Hartford Library green, where it was highly complimented on account of being so full of the spirit of play.

Our Christmas exhibits have been held every year, at first, as I have said, for one day only, then for two or three in the rooms above, and for the last two years in a large room used by the Hartford Art Society as a studio until it moved to a whole house across the street. This room has space for our school libraries, and the room which they had outgrown was fitted up at no expense except for chairs and a change in the lighting, as a study-room for the older boys and girls, who also have the privilege of reading any stories they find on the shelves, which are on one side only. The other shelves, placed across the room, were moved to the studio, which is so large that it has space for story-telling, or oftener story-reading. The winter of the Dickens centennial, through the month of February, the beginnings of "David Copperfield," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Dombey and son" and "Great expectations" were read.

In 1911, a gift of twenty-five dollars from a friend was spent for the boys' and girls' room, and has bought specimens of illustration, Grimm's "Fairy tales," illustrated by Arthur Rackham; Kate Greenaway's "Under the window," "Marigold garden," "Little Ann" and "Pied piper", Laura Starr's "Doll book," and a fine copy of Knight's "Old England," full of engravings, including a morris dance such as has been performed here, and Hare's "Portrait book of our kings and queens." The rest of the money bought a globe for the older boys' and girls' reading-table, and sent from Venice a reproduction of a complete "armatura," or suit of Italian armor, eighteen inches high.

In 1912 the boys and girls of grades 7 to 9 in the district and parochial schools were invited to listen to stories from English history in the Librarian's office of the Hartford Public Library on Tuesday afternoons in July and August. Some of the subjects were The Roman wall, The Danish invasion, King Alfred and the white horses said to have been cut to commemorate his victories, The Crusades, and The captivity of James I. of Scotland. The Longman series of colored wall-prints was used as a starting point for the stories. Children in grades 4 to 6 listened at a later hour to stories from Hawthorne's "Wonderbook" and "Tanglewood tales."

The Hartford Public Library had an exhibit at the state fair, September 2-7, 1912, in the Child-welfare building. In a space 11 by 6 were chairs, tables covered with picture-books, a bookcase with libraries for school grades, probation office, and a settlement, and another with inexpensive books worth buying for children. Pictures of countries and national costumes were hung on the green burlap screens which enclosed the sides of the miniature room. At about the same time we printed a list of pleasant books for boys and girls to read after they have been transferred to the main library. They are not all classics, but are interesting. The head of the high school department of English and some of the other teachers asked the library's help in making a list of books for suggested reading during the four years' course. This list has been printed and distributed. Copies are hung near two cases with the school pennant above them, and one of the staff sees that these cases are always filled with books mentioned in it. The high school has a trained librarian, who borrows books from the Public Library and tries in every way to encourage its use.

From Dec. 3 to 24, 1912 and 1913, the exhibit of Christmas books for children and young people was kept open by the library in the large room in the annex. The exhibit included three or four hundred volumes, picture books by the best American, English, French, German, Italian, Danish, and Russian illustrators, inexpensive copies and also new and beautiful editions of old favorites, finely illustrated books attractive to growing-up young people, and the best of the season's output. It had many visitors, some of them coming several times. We sent a special invitation to the students in the Hartford Art Society, some of whom are hoping to be illustrators, and appreciate the picture- books highly.

The boys' and girls' room received last winter a fine photo- graphic copy of Leighton's "Return of Persephone," in time for Hawthorne's version of the story, which is usually read when pomegranates are in the market and again six months later, when Persephone comes up to earth and the grass and flowers begin to spring.

One day John Burroughs made an unexpected visit to the room, and it happened that when the children reading at the tables were told who he was, and asked who of them had read "Squirrels and furbearers," the boy nearest him held up his hand with the book in it. That boy will probably never forget his first sight of a real live author!

Last winter we received a gift of a handsome bookcase with glass doors, which we keep in the main library, filled with finely illustrated books for children to be taken out on grown-up cards only. This is to insure good care.

For several years we have been collecting a family of foreign dolls, who are now forty-five in number, of all sorts and sizes, counting seventeen marionettes such as the poor children in Venice play with, half a dozen Chinese actors, and nine brightly colored Russian peasants in wood. The others are Tairo, a very old Japanese doll in the costume of the feudal warriors, Thora from Iceland, Marit the Norwegian bride, Erik and Brita from Sweden, Giuseppe and Marietta from Rome, Heidi and Peter from the Alps, Gisela from Thuringia, Cecilia from Hungary, Annetje from Holland, Lewie Gordon from Edinburgh, Christie Johnstone the Newhaven fishwife, Sambo and Dinah the cotton- pickers. Mammy Chloe from Florida, an Indian brave and squaw from British America, Laila from Jerusalem, Lady Geraldine of 1830 and Victoria of 1840. Every New Year's Day, in answer to a picture bulletin which announces a doll-story and says "Bring your doll," the little girls come with fresh, clean, Christmas dolls, and every one who has a name is formally presented to the foreign guests, who sit in chairs on a table. Lack of imagination is shown in being willing to own a doll without a name, and this year the subject of names was mentioned in time for the little girls to have them ready. Mrs. Mary Hazelton Wade, author of many of the "Little cousins," lives in Hartford, and lately gave us a copy of her "Dolls of many countries." I told her about the party and invited her, and she told the fifty children who were listening about the Feasts of Dolls in Japan. The doll-story was E. V. Lucas's "Doll doctor," and it was followed by William Brightly Rands's "Doll poems."

In 1893, the year after the library became free, the Connecticut Public Library Committee was organized. For about ten years it had no paid visitor and inspector, and I, as secretary of the committee, had to go about the state in the little time I could spare from regular duties, trying to arouse library interest in country towns. Now most of the field work is done by the visitor, but I have spoken many times at teachers' meetings and library meetings. We began by sending out pamphlets--"What a free library can do for a country town"--emphasizing what its possibilities are of interesting children, and "What a library and school can do for each other." Every year the libraries receive a grant of books from the state, and send in lists subject to approval. We often found the novels and children's books asked for unworthy of being bought with state money by a committee appointed by the Board of Education, and began to print yearly lists of recommended titles of new books, from which all requested must be chosen. The standard is gradually growing higher. The Colonial Dames have for years paid for traveling libraries, largely on subjects connected with colonial history, to be sent to country schools from the office of the committee, and have also given traveling portfolios of pictures illustrating history, chosen and mounted by one of their number. The Audubon Society sends books, largely on out-of-door subjects, and bird-charts, to schools and libraries all over the state. Traveling libraries, miscellaneous or on special subjects, are sent out on request.

A Library Institute has been held every summer for five years under the direction of the visitor and inspector. It lasts for two weeks, and several lectures are always given by specialists in work with children.

The choice of books, sources of stories for children, and what to recommend to them are frequently discussed in meetings for teachers and librarians.

A book-wagon has for the last two or three years gone through a few towns where there is no public library, circulating several thousand books a year for adults and children, and exciting an interest which may later develop into the establishment of public libraries. The committee has now 105 which receive the state grant. Wherever a new library is opened, a special effort is made through the schools to make it attractive to children.

At this time of year the mothers' clubs in the city and adjoining towns often ask for talks on what to buy, and boxes of books are taken to them, not only expensive and finely illustrated copies, but the best editions that can be bought for a very little money. These exhibitions have been also given at country meetings held by the Connecticut Public Library Committee.

A library column in a Hartford Sunday paper is useful in showing the public what libraries in other states and cities are doing, and in attracting attention to work with children. Letters to the children themselves at the beginning of vacation, printed in a daily paper and sent to the schools, invite them to book-talks. Other printed letters about visits to places connected with books and authors, sent home from England and Scotland with postcards, have excited an interest in books not always read by children. This year the Hartford children's librarian has read the letters and shown the books referred to, post-cards and pictures, to a club of girls from the older grammar grades, who were invited through the letters just spoken of to leave their names with her.

A club of children's librarians from towns within fifteen miles around Hartford meets weekly from October to May. Meetings all over the state under the Public Library Committee have stimulated interest in work with children, and Library Day is celebrated every year in the schools.

The visitor and inspector reports visits to eight towns in December, and says: "Somewhat more than a year ago, at the request of the supervisor, I made out a list of books for the X---- school libraries. These were purchased, and this year the chairman of the school board requested my assistance in arranging the collection in groups to be sent in traveling library cases until each school shall have had each library. I spent two days at the town hall working with the chairman of the school board, the supervisor, a typist and two school teachers.

"A new children's room has been opened in the Y---- library since my visit there. It is double the size of the room formerly in use, and much lighter and more cheerful. The first grant from the state was expended entirely for children's books, the selection being made in this office.

"In Z---- I gave an Audubon stereopticon lecture, prefacing it with an account of the work on the Audubon Society, and an enumeration of the loans to schools. The audience in a country schoolhouse, half a mile from Z---- village, numbered 102."

A CHAPTER IN CHILDREN'S LIBRARIES

The following account of the beginning of children's work in Arlington, Mass., in 1835, marks the earliest date yet claimed for the establishment of library work with children, and was written for the January, 1913, number of The Library Journal. Alice M. Jordan was born in Thomaston, Maine, and was educated in the schools of Newton, Massachusetts. After teaching for a few years she entered the service of the Boston Public Library in 1900, Since 1902 she has been Chief of the Children's Department in that library, and since 1911 a member of the staff of Simmons College Library School.