The Iola register., 1889-02-22
PUBLIC SCHOOL LIBRARIES
A weIl-Timed Review of Their Uses
And Abuses.
BY F. h. UMHoLrz, Supt SCHOOLS, lola

Kansas.
"a paper read before the Common and Nor
NAL school section of the Kansas State Teachers
Association in Representative Hall, Topeka,
Dec, >, lSSs.
Books have always been regarded as
prime factors in civilization. Their
influence has been recognized in all
ages. The valley of the Nile abounded
in vast libraries whose volumes were
replete " ith histories, biographies, po-
etry, science, fables. romances aud ev-
en- fairy-tales. More than thirty cent
uries ago the little son of Remeses III
read the story of Cinderella and the
Glass Slipper with the same interest
that our children read it today.
In Chaldea, even during the Turan-
ian period, great public libraries exist.
ed in each of their chief cities, Accad
and Shumir. where, it is said, almost
every one could read and write Sore
nowned for its great library was the
city of Erech, that it was called the
city of books.
Among the recent discoveries made
by Layard at Nineveh. was found the
Royal Library of Sardanapalus, con-
sisting, it is estimated, of ten thousand
books. This, too, according to the in
scriptions, was a public Library; for
the king said: 81 placed them IN, my
palace far tie instruction of my peo-
pie"
Other nations of antiquity, not to
mention the Greeks and Romans, have
likewise had their books, literature.
and libraries.
In every age books have been recog-
nized as Il distinguishing characters
tic between civilization and barbarism
and hence there has always been a
tendency to make collections of them,
thus enhancing the utility of leach
when brought together; for it is well
known fact that whatever value a
book may have in itself, this value is
not only increased, but also intensified
when it is brought into contact with
another book that has something in
common with it. A book is an indi-
viduality, sort of personality; for it
partakes of the personality of the auth
or himself; and just as two men when
brought together into some relation
ship produce greater and better results
conformity than when isolated, SO the
products oftheir inspiration are height
ened i'm their effects when brought to-
gether.
So fully has this value been recog-
nized, that for years libraries have
been established and maintained in
connection with many of our public
schools. and now these libraries are
everywhere regarded as an important
auxiliary in public school education.
The question, then, for us as teachers.
TO answer is: "Ho,D shall ice use
these libraries that our pupils may de-
rive from them the advantages they
ofer?"
In the discussion of this subject it is
assumed, therefore, that in connection
with the school there is library; and
that it contains reference books, such
as dictionaries, cyclopedias of natural
history, of geography. and of general
neutrality-suspicious. Of travel,-biog-
raphies, histories,-poetry, and fiction.
How. then, shall We use these? In
answer to this / remark,
First, as supplementary to the tert
books.
We too often forget that textbooks
are books of texts; that though they
NAV furnish an outline, they do not
contain the body of the sermon. No
such book can presume to give full
discussion on any given subject.
Take for insta ace an ordinary COM
mon school Geography; the texts in it
are very numerous and their discuss
ion must necessarily be limited. The
text book can give the pupil but little
more than an outline of Geographical
phenomena; nor is it possible for the
child unaided to fill in the details of
the subject from few leading facts.
As well might we expect to gather
luscious fruit from a dry tree. Yet
THE is just what we have been expect
lug in many instances. Our pupils
have been gazing upon their maps,
hunting out the various yellow, green,
blue and red patches, the black dots,
lines, and circles in answer to the ques-
tions on the opposite page. without
building up in their imagination even
one mountain system, or one solitary
plain. or following one river in its
winding course TO the sea. They
might almost as well have studied the
patches of crazy quilt with the names
of the States and countries marked up.
on them as to "go through" geography
in this manner. The pupils have been
having only a game of mental gym
n,stics with words and conventional
marks without appropriating the sur
rounding phenomena to impregnate
them with living thoughts and actual
eNistances.
The great purpose of studying geog-
raphy is to enable the child to form an
approximately correct image or concept
of the earth as it is. To form such a
eoocept implies impressions made by
numerous details. For these details