River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1885-03-05
One View of the Sch3ol library.
BY PROF. C. II. KBYES,

"There is q tide in the affairs of men
which taken at its flood, leads on to for
tune; omitted, all the voyage of their life
is bound in shadows and in miseries" So
there is a time i'll the lives of men and
women when taste for good reading can
be inculcated and an acquaintanceship
with the world of letters begun, which
may easily broaden into ripe scholar
ship and develop i'll the reader, moral and
intellectual forces, which shall conduce
to the upbuilding of humanity, and which
otherwise mi 5ht lie dormant forever.
This period is that of childhood, when
the virgin soil of intellect has not been
burdened with the tares of thistles of
flashy romance and coarse humor, when
the clean seed planted shall yield hun
dred and thousand fold. Youth is the
time and school is the place to form the
habit which shall ensure the full man."
and we do not believe that any earnest
effort in this direction was ever fruitless,
although many teachers are prone to
complain that the pupils in their schools
do not and will not read even when good
books are placed at their disposal and
they are daily ad vised as to the best use of
them. We think it will be safe to pre-
sumo in the vast majority of such cases
that the fault is with the library. Too
many people believe school library
means simply any collection of good
books; and good books are supposed to
be histories, biographies, encyclopedias,
didactic, epic, and pastoral poems; lect-
ures, sermons, essays, etc. All myths,
fairytales, novels, legendary poems, books
of travel and adventure,-in fact every
thing for which the soul of the average
boy or girl 50 eagerly longs,-is excluded
and consigned to the place reserved for
the yellew-back novel. And then COM
plant is heard because the fifteen year
old does not seem to be glowing with en-
thusiastic admiration for Shakespeare,
Milton or Chauoer; because he does not
avidly devour Bacon's Novum Organum,
Diapers intellectual Development of
Europe or Italians History of the Middle
Ages; because he never draws Geike's
Life of Christ, Carlyle's Sartor Resartus OF
even Gibbons Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire. The test of good
school library ought to be us it read by
those for whom it has been selected" If
this question cannot be answered in the
the affirmative, | care not what other
evidence may be introduced to demon
strate its worthiness, it must be held that
the library is a failure. Then the part of
wisdom would be to first make judicious
selections from those particular good
books which it is reasonable to suppose
that the boys and girls will read. And
here it is, that the average collector
makes the fatal mistake. While great
care will be taken to adapt
readers, Biographies, grammars, and
arithmetics to the intellectual stature of
the child for whom they are intended,
intelligent persons will insist on feeding
pupil on the algebra of good literature
before he has mastered his alphabet.
They forget while the boy is giant in
arithmetic he may yet be pygmy in lit
erature. They fondly believe because he
is five feet tall and knows percentage and
syntax, he must be ready for Hamlet or
hOmiletics; and if the boy chooses that
which pleases him first, they are disap-
pointed. Now literary repast IS much
like the one with which we regale the
inner men; and the average hoy or girl at
the table of the gods Is at first much likethe
child who insists on eating his pie or cake
before the bread, eggsand beef-steak. This
we come to see is reasonable enough, in
fact for The boy the very best way; and it
is ONLY necessary to see that the cake is
good, wholesome and health full; the pie
nutritious and palatable, after which the
steak, eggs and graham will not be left
on the table. In other words, supply
your library with good books adapted to
the progress of the pupil; open it to him
and await results. As rule make it a
point to concentrate all your advice in
the selection of the books and save your
self the trouble of retailing it to the pu-
pills. Get none but good books and then
never mind which ones are read first.
We have in the River Falls Schools
three Libraries, to-wit; textbook library
of about ono thousand volumes, a refer
enee library of two hundred volumes, and
reading library of one hundred vol
umes. The first comprises the ordinary
books used by the pupils in all sub
jects in which. texts are deemed neces-
sary. The second consists of enoyclope-
dias, dictionaries, biographies aliases,
histories, scientific works, reviews. etc.
The last includes all the books aimed
particularly at the work of giving the
pupil love for reading, an acquaintance
ship with the mas er minds Of all ages,
the cultivation of his powers of thought,
expression and comprehension. the max
ing of citizen OF the world. | might
readily illustrate the characteristic differ
ences hetwaer these last two by calling
attention TO he difference in the kinds
of historical works appearing in each.
The former is provided with Froude's
History of England in twelve volumes,
while the latter contains Uicken s ChiId's
History 5f England and Younge's His
tory Of England; the former contains