The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1915-05-28
THE SCHOOL LIBRARY
Shall We Have One?

1'Ldl U6pSuuS OH NudL you WISH your
school to be- Are you willing for it
to remain unequipped, lacking the most
important piece of apparatus next to
seats and blackboard? Do you wish
it to stand still while everything else
is moving forward? Would you have it
turn its back on a great opportunity
that is almost thrust upon it? Do you
feel that it is worth no effort to make
the lives of your children fuller and
richer? Do you wish them to remain
slaves to an environment little wider
than the range of their five senses and
the senses of their neighbors? If so,
you do not want library.
If, on the other hand, you feel that
your children should nave as good
chance as any others; if you desire
them to get that whole schooling of
which the work of teacher and text
book is only half; if you wish to
sharpen their wits, increase their in
tellectual power, and ennoble their
ideas by contact with the brightest,
the strongest, and the best minds of
all the world; if you would like to
put within their reach one Of the keen
est, least expensive, most refining and
eleVating means of pleasure; finally, if
you would see your school source
and center of quickening and light
to the whole community, you can not
afford to wait another session for a
school library.
What Books Shall We Buy?
Choose, of course, from the excellent
list of TIE State board. Buy, first Of
all, books which will interest the cnil-
dren, which they will read for pleas
ure. Be sure to get some books for
the smallest tots, and some tales OF
fighting, hunting and travel for the
boys of the ''wild Indian age" Books
for higher tastes and works of refer
ence may follow later.
How Shall 1 Use the Library?
The getting is merely start. Buy
irg a tool is not doing the work. To
use the library successfully will call
for your strongest effort and highest
skill. The best teacher in the school
should be the librarian. How can
this great work be done successfully?
AT request, l make suggestions as I
can in answer to this question:
The fsrt thing to do is to set def
nitely before your mind the aim of
your library work. The main purpose
undoubtedly, is to cultivate in pupils
a love for good reading.
Next, make a study of the reading
tastes of children. Learn their favor
ties, not as tie fisherman learns the
worms that the fish will bite, but as
the housekeeper knows the yiands that
will please her guests, because they
please herself. That is, develop in
yourself a love for clildren's books
and familiarity with, at least, the
chief favorites of the library. Sup
pose you resolve to read one child's
book every fortnight of the next ses-
sion.
In eultivating children's tastes, be-
gin early. Tell good stories to the
youngest; read good stories to the
others, and soon they will want to
read stories for themselves. No school
program is so crowded that it can not
afford two or three periods week for
reading to the children. This reading
will pay, not only in the finer culture,
but in actual progress in the other
studies.
Be ready to help vupils find books to
their liking, but let the selection be
their own. This, of course, takes for
granted that you have not any impure
books il your library; no others can
hurt. Gain the pupils confidence in
your suggestions by never fooling them
into reading something profitable un-
der pretense that it is interesting. If,
against your advice pupil insists
on taking a book that is "over his
head" let him try it. The best way
to convince him that he can not jump
to the moon is to let him Jump. The
experiment will hurt neither him nor
the moon, but it will increase his re-
spect for your judgment.
Have attractive books within easy
reach during senool hours, that the pu-
pills may re- in odd minutes not re-
quired for their lessons 1t is easier
to prevent abuse of this privilege than
to dispense with the use of it as a
promoter of order, to say nothing of
its direct fruits. In this way many
will get start toward becoming read