Part 12

A third, for children under 10 years of age, includes Miss Plympton's "Dear daughter Dorothy," and even in one of the best and most recent graded lists it is annotated as a "story of devotion and comradeship between a father and his young daughter." Now "Dear daughter Dorothy" is the best specimen I have ever seen of a kind of book to be kept out of libraries and homes, the story of a little eight-year-old girl, who has the entire control of the $1200 earned yearly by her father, a bookkeeper with literary aspirations. He is arrested on a charge of embezzlement, found guilty in the face of his daughter's testimony, but at last acquitted through the confession of the real criminal, and he and that important little personage, Dorothy, who takes all hearts by storm, sail for England escorted to the ship by a crowd of admiring friends, including the judge who sentenced him.

The next list has Mrs. Burnett's "Little Saint Elizabeth," a morbid tale, and with it a reproduction of "Prince Fairyfoot," a story which the author read when she was a child in a book that she never could find again. In order to understand the pertness and flippancy of her style in this story, one has only to compare it with the original, reprinted within a few months in Frances Browne's "Wonderful chair," or "Granny's wonderful chair," as it is called in one edition. A few lines in the simple, direct English of the old fairy tales, are expanded by Mrs. Burnett into eight or 10 pages, with attempts at wit and allusions to unhappy married life, which should be kept out of books for children.

The same article in the _Nation_ which gives high praise to "Josey and the chipmunk" thinks "The wonderful chair" prosy, but I have tested it on children who do not enjoy stories unless they are simply told, and have found that it holds their attention.

Books on differences of religious belief, books written in a style or on subjects beyond the years of boys and girls, scientific books that are inaccurate or out of date, books that make children despise their elders, or have an overweening sense of their own importance, and books that are cheap, slangy, flippant, or written in bad English, dialect or baby-talk, should have no place in a school list, and books on poor paper and in poor type and binding should also be kept out. There are books that tell stories of wholesome, well-bred children; fairy tales in the simple, old-fashioned style; out-of-door books that are not dull or aggressively instructive; and selections from the best poetry to choose from. There is room yet for the right kind of histories that are interesting without being babyish, and accurate without being dull.

Lists are often made in entire ignorance of the limitations of the children who are to use the books recommended in them. A well-intentioned paper suggests for children of eight or over Ebers' "Uarda" and Thiers' "French Revolution" as attractive historical works. In science it mentions Hooker's books, which are quite out of date, and in biography Lockhart's Scott and Forster's Dickens, which not one boy or girl in a hundred would read through, great as is their charm. Bryce's "American commonwealth" is also named. This list has either been made up from books that the compiler has heard of as classics, or else she is not in the habit of associating on familiar terms with boys and girls, even of high school age. This paper recommends Sophie May for very young children, and also the "Story of liberty," which a mother in the New York _Times_ says is in the library of her daughter of eight. This is a mother who would not allow a child to read Scott's novels till 14 or 15, and thinks Dickens too sad for even that age!

The hundred books recommended in the _St. Nicholas_ for March, 1900, made up from many competing lists, are nearly all good. A few, like Mrs. Richards' "Captain January," Mrs. Wiggin's "The Birds' Christmas Carol," and Munroe's "Through swamp and glade" have no permanent value. If one of Munroe's books is to be included it should be "The flamingo feather," or "Derrick Sterling," both of which are well worth reading many times and are great favorites with children. The defect in the list is the same just spoken of, that too many of the books are for boys and girls from 10 to 14 years old of bookish families, and that little attention is paid to younger or less carefully trained children.

One list puts into the first primary grade, or fourth year of school, for children nine or 10 years old, Abbott's "Cyrus," "Darius," "Xerxes," and other heroes, and Fiske's "War of independence," all of which are entirely beyond the grasp of 499 children out of 500 under 12 or 14. Lists should be shorter, and not too closely divided. A division, "Easy books," should include whatever children need until they can read without difficulty, and should contain books like Longman's adapted stories from the "Blue fairy book" and the earlier volumes of the "Ship" English history, Baldwin's "Fifty famous stories retold" and Eggleston's "Great Americans for little Americans."

In one case where books are not classified by grade, Horace Bushnell's "Woman suffrage," Hinsdale's "President Garfield and education," and Wright's "Industrial evolution of the United States" are in the same class with Emilie Poulsson's "Through the farmyard gate," with no discrimination as to the age for which any one of the four is intended. Three are beyond the understanding of boys and girls below high school age, and if in school libraries should be for teachers only, and the fourth is a book of kindergarten stories.

A book which is often commended by teachers and librarians is Coffin's "Story of liberty," which I said nearly 20 years ago "is so fierce in its Protestantism and so bloody in its details that it causes pain to many a sensitive child." The pictures are too horrible for a child to see, and the book, like any other which wars against any form of religious belief, should not be allowed in a public school.

Some lists admit the "Elsie" books, tearfully sentimental and priggish, where the heroine is held up as a saint and martyr for refusing to obey an entirely reasonable request of her father, and where money, fine clothes, and love-making at an early age hold too prominent a place.

In one list, one of Mayne Reid's books is annotated, "To read carefully any volume of this author is to acquire a considerable knowledge of the trees, the flowers, the animals, the insects, and the human creatures existing in the region where the story takes place." In Mayne Reid's "Desert home" maple sugar trees are tapped in the autumn and yield nearly a hundred pounds of sugar. Emerson's "Trees and shrubs of Massachusetts" states that although sap will flow in summer and early autumn, it has but little saccharine matter. Mayne Reid's stories as stories are delightful for children to read, but should never be used as aids to geography lessons.

One library offers its boy-and-girl readers Bushnell's "Moral uses of dark things," Mrs. Campbell's "Problems of poverty," Ely's "Labor movement in America" and Shinn's "Mining camps."

The lists made by James M. Sawin, of Providence, are good and suggestive, but better for older than younger children, including, however, for beginners in reading some excellent old favorites like Mrs. Follen's "Twilight stories," and for children a little older a book that ought to be in print, Paul de Musset's "Mr. Wind and Madam Rain."

The Milwaukee list for children under 10 is good for the most part, but includes "Dear daughter Dorothy" and "Editha's burglar."

Mrs. Whitney's list of "Books not usually selected by young people" (first published in the _Bulletin of Bibliography_) is for the most part beyond the grammar-school age, including such books as Sismondi's "Literature of the south of Europe" and Ragozin's "Vedic India." It is unclassified, good and not too American.

The Buffalo Public Library lists are the best that I have found, thoroughly practical, well chosen, and in the pamphlet entitled "Classroom libraries for public schools" well graded as far as one can judge. The grading of schools varies so much in different cities that it is impossible unless one knows exactly what "four" or "eight" or "nine" represents to say whether books are suitable for it. A list of this kind cannot be made without a thorough understanding between librarian and teachers, a thorough knowledge of the condition of the schools and the home-life of the children on the part of the librarian, and a knowledge of books on the part of the teachers.

The graded and annotated list from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh is for teachers, not children, and has many suggestive notes, but will bear weeding.

Many lists are almost entirely American, and seem at first sight narrow and one-sided. A little thought and knowledge of the conditions under which they are made shows the cause of this apparent fault. City lists are made for schools which are full of children of newly-arrived emigrants, whose first desire, as soon as they can read English at all, is to know something of the great free country to which they have come. It is to supply this demand that many simple United States histories and historical stories relating to this country have been put upon the market in the last five years, almost to the exclusion of other books of the kind. Teachers and librarians should remember in making lists that there are other countries in the world, and good histories of them, like Longmans' "Ship" series.

The books suggested by public library commissions are usually published in this country, partly for the reasons that it is easier to find them, that they are cheaper than imported books, and that they are in demand in small libraries. The New York State Library lists are of this kind, and the books for children are carefully chosen as far as they can be from this country alone.

With regard to scientific books for children, the Springfield (Mass.) City Library has printed a short list of books on science and useful arts that children really enjoy. This list has been prepared by the children's librarian in connection with the supervisor of science in the Springfield public schools and an out-of-town librarian. The list is the best I have seen, but is open to criticism on account of one or two of the books being out of date. The list for third-grade teachers compiled by Miss May H. Prentice for the Cleveland Library is excellent for supplementary reading and nature-stories and poems.

3. The value of articles on children's reading is variable, but a fair specimen may be found in the _Contemporary Review_ for June, where H. V. Weisse states in his "Reading for the young" that a generation ago the number of published books was small, magazines were high in tone, and in the realm of juvenile literature Ballantyne was "monarch of all he surveyed." On account of the limited supply of children's books, boys and girls were thus driven to standard authors. "Now magazines and so-called 'historical stories' are issued in such quantities that young people read nothing else. They should be trained to better things, and teachers and mothers should read to their children and see that they read good books for themselves, if need be rewarding for a clear reproduction of the sense of any good book, never punishing for a failure to understand, at first hearing or reading, that which involves 'a new form of mental effort.'" We have all heard something like this before! Even Agnes Repplier, with her charm of style and her denunciation of the "little Pharisee in fiction," and the too-important Rose in Bloom in contrast to the well-kept-under Rosamond, makes few suggestions of books which are good for children to read.

The reading lists in the New York _Times_ are based on the experience of the writers, who have often been precocious, over-stimulated children of bookish families without companions of their own age, and have no idea of the needs, wants and limitations of the public library children of to-day, many of whom have few or no books at home. "I have quite a library," wrote one such child. "I have three books, Longfellow's poems, a geography, and a book of fairy tales."

A dreamy boy like "The child in the library" of a recent _Atlantic Monthly_ and the keen little newsboy who snatches a half hour after school is over and he has sold his papers to spell out a simple life of Columbus or the "Story of the chosen people" have little in common, and need different books, but they both need the very best of their kind.

A book reviewer or maker of book lists for children should have an intimate knowledge of the best books which have been written for them, and the unconscious training which this knowledge gives in good taste and a critical sense of style. He (or she) should have also the intimate knowledge of all sorts and conditions of children and their limitations that a teacher or a settlement worker or a wise mother has. More than 20 years ago, in the meeting of the American Library Association in Boston, Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells said: "I would like to have mothers prepare lists, whose headings should vary from any yet given; such as: books that make children cry; books of adventure for unexcitable and unimaginative children; unlovesick novels."

The best reviews of children's books ever written in this country were the work of a woman and a mother--Lucy McKim Garrison, who, in the earlier volumes of the _Nation_, put into her work broad-mindedness, high ideals, and an understanding of children. It is such work as this that should be a model for the reviewers and a guide to the librarians of to-day, and one of the most important duties of the Children's Section is to insist upon higher standards, both in reviewers and through them in the writers of children's books, and upon trained critical knowledge in the makers of children's lists.

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN:

I. FICTION, II. FAIRY TALES, III. SCIENCE.

It seems to have been fairly demonstrated that we have as yet no proper standard of values to guide us in the selection of children's books. Reviews fail: they either do not evaluate the book at all, or they lack appreciation of it or of the children who are to read it--or both. Book lists fail, as a rule, through eagerness to get something printed before we know what to print. Articles upon children's reading fail because the people who have written them are not always familiar with children's books or are not acquainted with the "public library child." We turn to the books themselves, but, having no standard of values, how shall we judge? How are we to know whether a book is good or poor?

It is not possible to reduce the appreciation of literature--whether books for children or for all time--to an exact science. It is difficult to conceive of any formula for the evaluation of books in general or the books of a particular class which would not fail again and again when applied to the individual book through the medium of a personal judgment. We shall not attempt, therefore, to answer the questions which form the substance of our topic. We have endeavored merely to state a question which to all children's librarians seems to be of paramount importance, trusting that we may eventually reach a partial solution of this problem by bringing the thought of many minds to bear upon it.

This collective paper, or, more properly, this collection of ideas upon different classes of books, requires a word of explanation. The contributors were not asked to prepare papers but to furnish ideas and opinions, which should form the basis for discussion of the general principles of selection and of individual books in the several classes considered. The purpose was to present briefly the principles that should apply in each class, and to emphasize these by citation of specific books.

_I. FICTION._

We were recently asked to make out a list of a dozen books suitable as prizes for a Sunday-school class of boys and girls from 12 to 16 years of age. We studied a long and carefully prepared list of stories written for girls of this age and supposed to include what was most desirable. Assuming that the girls had read Mrs. Whitney and Miss Alcott, we did not consider them, and we found not one story which we could recommend as possessing permanent interest and literary value. There were many books which girls read and like but they did not reach a fair standard for this purpose. We filled out the desired number for the girls with books written for older readers. Far different was our experience with the books for the boys. It was only a matter of choice between a large number, both suitable and desirable, and yet the lists which we consulted had been compiled by the same hand.

In making selections of books for her readers, the children's librarian encounters at the first step this difference in the quality of the books written for boys and those written for girls. Judged purely by the standard of taste, she must reject the greater proportion of those written for girls. When she finds so few that reach her standard she may blame herself for ignorance of the better books, but she must ultimately reach the conclusion that whatever her own shortcomings there is a lack of desirable books for girls. However, another most important factor comes into the case on the reader's side of the question. If the librarian is going to meet the needs of her readers she must understand what they are instinctively seeking in books, and she must enlist herself on the side of human nature. She will find at once that a distinct division in the reading of boys and girls springs from the fact that, generally speaking, the mental life of the boy is objective, that of the girl subjective. The boy seeks action in fiction, the girl is attracted by that which moves her emotionally or relates itself directly to her own consciousness, and the last thing that either of them cares about is the literary value of the book. Hundreds--no doubt thousands--of our college graduates look back to the period when, according to their sex, the "Oliver Optic" series, or the "Elsie Dinsmore" series, played a very important part in their existence. The love of adventure in the boy gave the charm to the books. Adventure he must have, whether he finds it in the tinsel setting of Oliver Optic or the refined gold of Robert Louis Stevenson. And the magnet in the nature of the girl draws to herself something helpful even from Martha Finley; otherwise, she would not speak of the "Elsie" books as "beautiful": there is something in them which to her represents "beauty." Nevertheless, while justly condemning the Oliver Optic and the Elsie books as cheap, tawdry things, the librarian must seek among better authors the holding quality on the nature of the child which these books possess. She must search for books in which these elements of interest are incarnated in what we call literature--books which, while rivalling these in attraction, will at the same time refine and broaden the taste of the reader.

Now, the lovers of Oliver Optic and Mrs. Finley do not take kindly to the classics and as, in the modern stories for young people, few will pass muster as literature, all that the librarian of to-day can do is to use her judgment and discrimination among those the writers have provided. The boys are readily turned from Oliver Optic to Henty, Tomlinson, Jules Verne, and on to "Ivanhoe," but with the girls the case is hard. The girl tells us that she likes stories about boarding-school. It is a capital subject: in the hands of a writer sympathetic with girls, of fertile imagination and vigorous power of characterization, boarding-school life affords material for most entertaining combinations--but the literature of the boarding-school has yet to be written. The average boarding-school story has three main characters--the attractive, impulsive heroine, always getting into trouble; the cruel, cold-blooded, unscrupulous rival, habitually dealing in falsehood, and the teacher who is singularly devoid of discernment or intuition. The heroine inevitably falls into the snare of the rival, and things are usually set right all around by a death-bed scene--although actual death is sometimes averted. "Louie's last term at St. Mary's" is one of the better stories of this kind, and Mrs. Spofford's "Hester Stanley at St. Mark's" is fairly well written, with a touch of the charm of the author's personality. "Chums," by Maria Louise Pool, is one of the worst of its kind, where envy, hatred, and malice run riot through the pages and the actors in the story are wholly lacking in vitality. The experiences of Miss Phelps's "Gypsy Breynton" and Susan Coolidge's "Katy" are as satisfactory pictures of boarding school life as we have; and Helen Dawes Brown's "Two college girls" is a good story. "Brenda, her school and her club," by Helen L. Reed, is a recent valuable addition to books for girls.

In stories of home life Miss Alcott still easily takes the lead, with Susan Coolidge and Sophie May following in merit and popularity. The boys have an excellent story of home life in Rossiter Johnson's "Phaeton Rogers." The setting is perfectly simple, every day surroundings, but the characters have the abounding vitality that keeps things moving. The entertaining succession of events proceeds directly and naturally from the ingenuity and healthy activity of the young people grouped together. The book is a model in this respect as well as in the use of colloquial English which never loses a certain refinement. Every boy, while reading "Phaeton Rogers," finds himself in touch with good companions--and this is true as well, in Charles Talbot's books for boys and girls.

The most important books for boys are the historical stories, appealing at once to the hero worship and the love of adventure common to boyhood; at the same time they should give a good general idea of history. The story in historical setting is, also, most desirable for girls--in that it balances the too subjective tendency; it carries the mind of the reader beyond the emotional condition of the heroine--indeed the heroine has no time to study her own emotions when brought into vital relation with stirring events. Apart from the value of the historical facts imparted is the indirect but more valuable habit of mind cultivated in the girl reader. Vivid, stirring, absorbing stories for girls can be and should be written in this field, which is practically unlimited. Miss Yonge has done some good service here. "The prince and the pauper" and the "Last days of Pompeii" are also illustrations of the kind of work that should be done--they are both strong in the direct interrelation between the imaginary characters and real history--and both appeal alike to the boy and the girl.

Books written with a direct moral purpose seldom achieve popularity with boys--and yet one of the most popular of all their books is "Captains courageous," which is of the highest moral value though without one line of religious preaching in its pages. Here the boys are in touch with a real, living character, acted upon and developed, through the moulding pressure of life itself--from first to last the aim of the story is the boy; and yet the moral outcome is simple, natural, inevitable and manly; it appeals to the common sense which is strong in boys.

Now when a woman writes for girls on the subject of the transformation of a frivolous butterfly into a girl of sense, instead of giving us character and action with a moral outcome, we have a religious setting with the action of the story and the conduct of the characters bent in every direction to illustrate the motive of the story--the religious idea.