The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-09-20


of The Progressive Farmer, has the fol
lowing in the September Review of Re-
views:
Just now, when the princely donations
of Mr.. Andrew Carnegie have given new
stimulus to library building in American
cities, it may be we'll to urn our eyes to
the "other half the rural half,-of our
population, for although, until quite re-
Gently, no enc thought of the public Ii
brary as possible rural institution, it
has now made an suspicious entry into
this new field, and is destined to play an
important part among the twentieth-cen-
tury forces,-rural mail delivery, coed
roads, rural telephones, etc.,-that make
for the uplift of American country life.
The need of the rural library must be
apparent to all who are familiar with
country school methods. Reading is. the
magic key to all our storehouses of intel
lectual wealth; it is the basis of all edu-
cation. 1.-THE true university of these
days." says Carlyle, sis a collection of
books" And it is here, of all points in
its curriculum, that the country school
has failed most grievously,-it has not
taught the child to read, to use books.
Do not understand me to charge that the
rural school is literally and avowedly dis
loyal to the first of the immortal three
Rs, for it is not. But only in the mar
rowest sense does it teach reading,-read-
ing as the mere pronunciation of words
and the observance of punctuation marks;
the unlovely, mechanical side of reading.
The brighter side of reading the country
pupil does not get; the city pupil does.
Aided by the prescribed supplemental lit
erature, and guided by the teacher, the
child of the townsman learns to find JOY
in reading, learns not only how to read,
but actually learns to read, to use books.
If you know the country school as the
writer does, you know the other side of
this picture. You know children who
live out long school career without learn
ing anything of literature beyond the mo-
mentous rehearsal of dry text book mat
ter Cold hard facts about the bounda-
ries of foreign states, the dates of am
cient battles, the rules of the Stock Elk
change, are regarded as matters OF i'm
portance, but the teacher does not see
that it is better to foster love of read
ing than to teach history or geography.
Or if he sees the duty, and longs 20 di-
rect the child to the beauties of literature.
he is shackled by the lack of facilities for
such work. Year after year, there is the
same old drill in the same old readers. no
classics are studied, and there is no sup
Elemental reading to give the spice of
variety.
1t is inevitable that children reared in
such schools come to regard reading not
ac l1X hut n,
potentially, if not in the strictest sense,
illiterate. II confess, says Thoreau,
somewhere in his walden" chat 1 do
not make any broad distinction between
the illiterateness of my townsman who
cannot read at all and the illiterateness Of
him who has learned only to read what is
for children and feeble intellects" How
much narrower, then, should be the dis
tinction between the ''illiterateness of
him who cannot read at all and the il
literateness of him who cannot read at ALL
and the illiterateness of him whose train
ing has been such that he regards read
ing only as a task to be shunnedi I'cople
everywhere are now beginning to zee the
mistake pointed out, ten years ago. by
President Eliot in his essay wherein
Popular Education Has Failed"
We have heretofore put too much
confidence in the mere acquisition Of
the arts of reading and writing. AZ
ter these arts are acquired, there is
much to be done to make them cffec-
tive for the development of the chill's
intelligence. If his reasoning power IS
to be developed through reading, lie
must be guided to the right sort Of
reading. The school must teach not
only how to read, but what to read,
and it must develop taste for whole
some reading.
1t is to remedy just this defect that
the rural school library has been intro
duced into twenty-nine American States.
And though widely varying plans have
been adopted, in no other State, dare
say, has more rapid progress been made
or greater results accomplished in pro-
portion to capital expended than in North
Carolina. For this reason l may be par
doned for referring at some length to this
North Carolina plan, which seems to be
the one best adapted to States having a
large rural population and a small rev.
enue. The law as passed by the General
Assembly of 1901 provides, in substance
That wherever the friends or patrons
OF any rural public school contribute $40
or more for starting library In connec-
ton with the school, $40 of the district
school fund shall also be set apart for the
same purpose, while another $40 will be
given from the State appropriation,-thus
insuring at the outset at least $50 for
each school library; in many cases, of
course, the patrons contribute more than
the minimum sum, $40, needed to secure
the $50 from other sources. The county
board of education then names some COM
petent person to manage the prospective
library and buy the books for it, these
to be chosen from a remarkably well-se-
1ected list of standard works recently pre-
pared by a committee of distinguished
educators. The same committee, by the
way, obtained competitive bids from prom
inent publishing houses, thus forcing
prices to strikingly low figures, even for
classics. The smallest libraries have sew
enty-five or eighty neat and substantial
ly bound volumes
BY the earnest efforts of the North
Carolina Literary and Historical Asso-
-. g i