The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1915-11-24
Local Institution VIII be One Of Sew
eral Thousand In y. S.. to OBJ
serve Better Book
e.r Week.
RESULT OF AGITATION
Boy Scouts Of America Librarians
Are Back Of Movement to Get
Only Best Books to
the Front.

The week of November 20 to De-
cember will be observed at the Keo-
kuk public library as Safety First
Juvenile Book Week." With other IL
braries throughout the United States.
the keokuk institution will observe
this time for the furtherance Of a
campaign for better books for young
people, especially better boys books.
The agitation begun by the Boy
Scouts Of America through Franklin
K. Matthews, chief scout librarian, is
bearing fruit. Walter Pritchard Eat
on has an article in the Woman's
Home Companion dealing with the
question of whether or not the nickel
thrillers are being re-clothed and sold
for fifty cents.
Next week will be observed as the
week for good books in the Keokuk
library, and there will be all OF the
best books for boys and only the
ones which are Of the best on the
shelves. Some OF these books will
bear the official insignia Of the Boy
Scouts Of America. With this Off
cial stamp, the O. K. of the scouts
goes on the book.
A recent number of the Outlook
contains an editorial on the week for
good books and among other things,
it says: ~
Collect and Exhibit Best.
1.-THE library commission Of the Boy
Scouts Of America proposed to the re-
tail book trade that the first week in
December be set aside as juvenile
book week, and asked all book sellers
to unite in urging the public to buy
nn1x Ire Fpv <s7i1.
dren. Appeals will be sent to ltbrari-
ans asking them to collect and exhibit
the best books, the aid OF the pupil
will be invoked, and newspapers will
be furnished with special articles,
and women's clubs will have an OPP
portunity of doing work of the very
first Importance"
The editorial goes on to speak of
the decline of some Of the books, and
the furnishing OF the nickel thriller
in place of the old dime novel. 1t
says:
These books are not at all the
kind of a book which Anthony Com
stock spent his life in destroying.
Their offense is not that they are i'm
moral, but that they are untrue and
intellectually vulgar They are not in
decent, but exaggerated, and they fill
the minds Of the boys with the same
short of mischievous rubbish with
which the cheap novels fill the minds
Of the shop girls.
Form Of Cheap WhIskey.
1.-THE sin of these books is intem-
perance. They are a form Of cheap
whiskey. They not only intoxicate
but they destroy the tissues of the
brain and contribute to the fostering
Of that lack of discipline which is
shown in every department OF life in
the United States, from the brutal
hanging of man by mob in Geor-
gia, the overturning of the steamboat
tied to a dock, the blowing up Of the
streets OF New York to the so-called
'gentleman's mark in the colleges,
and failure of municipal government
These cheap stories do not stimulate
the Imagination; they dissipate and
waste it, and so destroy the greatest
power with which boys and girls are
endowed. They relax the attention to
such degree that it is impossible to
hold the attention OF their victims eN-
cept by what is called thrills"
The librarians of the Keokuk IL
brary are planning to cooperate with
this national good book movement
next week. The plans for the week
have been sent out by Franklin P.