The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-02-27
Conservation Of Child Life.
By Frederic J. Haskin.
W-Librories for Children
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1 There are 5000 children in all the schools of that city, but only 4s,ooo Juvenile books in the libraries. so there Is a rather difficult mathemati- cal problem to be solved. The city has seven reading rooms for children, and these are working in co-opera- ton with the Society for Improving the Poor. with the social settlements. the Juvenile courts and the newsboys homes The geography of PittsburR has offered room for the development of many small circles among the street boys, and very often a gang" has been found with sort of circulating library of Its own-the blood and : thunder novels that they like to road. To circumvent this form of reading the libraries are sending trained workers into the homes of the boys and girls whom they desire to reach.
 They know that through books, care fully read. much good uplift work can be done. So the workers call a lew children together and tell them a story or two-usually stories of he- roes or of fairies. This so wbets the appetite for more that when a visitor suggests that the books she has in the box with her have more stories like the ones she told. there is a wild scramble to get possession of the alluring volumes. The New York City Public Library does the same kind of work. sending trained librari- ans Into the tenement districts, where they form circles among the children and tell them stories. Imagination Is one of the biggest characteristics of a child. and hero tales. fairy stories. folk tales and myths of other lands take the minds for awhile from the sordidness of poverty stricken lifs. give higher, cleaner ideals The list. ener. In his small way, soon wants to achieve something good and noble in the world. Into each pair of willing hands the librarian puts a book. and when she comes again she finds that all the family have listened to the reading. that she is no longe ra mere visitor but friend who must hear what everyone thinks of the story
 Throuhh the child readers in many Dig cities more homes are reached than the average person might imagine. One little girl always seized her book and ran home eagerly from the reading room. rarely waiting for a chat with the librarian. Careful ques- tioning elicited the informatio that she was teaching her mother to read English from the new book. It was an indirect lesson. however, for the mother hadn't time to leave her Kitchen work to hold the book. SO the child laboriously wrote out a lesson on the kitchen door every morning. inc mother learned 1t while she worked and the child heard 1t recitei when she came home In the evening.
 A little boy took certain book home through three months, whenever he could have 1t. It was a collection of hero tales. All endeavor to make him take another failed. He wanted that one. "She won't learn to read out of no other one" he finally explained with tears. Inquiry revealed the fact that this little boy was teaching grown Italian girl the language of her new country. and this was the only way he knew to teach her. The books children ask for when left to their own devices are sometimes amusing. One little girl insisted on taking home Maeterlinck's Essays" because she liked the cover design tiny negro boy carried away a government mono graph on "The Bats of North Ameri- ca" and read it,
 Tn order to attract their young read CTS fifty eight libraries In this coun- try advertise their Juvenile books in some particular way. At the library of Pratt Institute distinctive occasions