Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1916-02-11
RURAL SCHOOL LIBRARY
Books Dowell School Teacher Con-
siders Most Interesting to Rural
School Students - Library Some
thing More Than an Ornament.

There is no phase of rural education
that is more fruitful in its results
than that phase represented by the
well chosen readable school library.
The town schools have their public
libraries and school libraries but the
rural school has ready access to
neither.
When will the creators of rural
school libraries learn, that the names
of those men whose biographies fill
the most of the pages of text book
on literature do not write books that
are readable by boys and girls. with
out very careful previous training
there are very few boys and girls land
these few come from the homes of re-
finement where the true value of good
books is we'll known) who will or can
read Shakespeare, Milton, Browning,
Eliot, Scott, Thackery, Thoreau and
Tennyson. A pupil will now and
then read some of the above but the
taste is inherited, rather than acquir-
ed in school.
Then again there are very few pu-
pills who can read much of Longfel-
low, Irving, Hawthorne, Wordsworth
or Dickens. Although these men are
very much more readable, than the
former group mentioned. For the
average pupil there seems to be no
vein of common interest in the above
mentioned writer's.
The live, alert, wide-awake country
lad however, finds good many things
Gin common" with such authors as
James Otis, G. A. Henty, Oliver Optic
Horatio Alger, Gene Stratton Porter,
Harold Bell Wright, Jack London,
George Barr McCutcheon and a host
of others. Understand, am not say
ing this last list of authors contains
the best in literature for / know bet
ter than this. However do say that
country boys and girls have some
thing Gin common" with these au-
thors. The love of Nature and of
Gods Big Out of Doors, is there, and
expressed in way that they can un-
derstand.
The authors in this last list / call
my starters. / use them on the pu-
pills to start them to reading. 1t is
easier to change an acquired taste
for reading than it is to start pupil
reading.
The library should be the busiest
department in the whole school.
Nicely bound books in orderly rows
do not constitute a working library
Such library is an ORNAMENTAL
one.
After testing for four years the
likes and dislikes of boys and girls
in this interesting subject Of reading
and compiling some interesting facts
of my own, / have found out that the
most popular good books in the rural
schools are the following: The most
popular book is named first, the next
in popularity is second, etc. And
am glad to say that the book that is
read and loved the most is: Aesop's
Fables, Black Beauty, A Boy on a
Farm, The Swiss Family Robinson
Robinson Crusoe, Under brakes Flag
BENJAMIN of Ohio, Stories of Colonial
Children, Abraham Lincoln, The
Hoosier Schoolmaster, Uncle Toms
Cabin, American Book of Colder
Deeds. the Man Without a Country
The Call of the Wild, Ten Nights in q
Bar Room. Four Great Americans anc
With Wolf in Canada follow in the or.
der mentioned.
Other books that have been popular
with certain portion of my pupils
who have become interested in rad
ing are Silas Warner, The Alhambra
Cooper's Works, Ben Hur, The Sketch
Book, Tales of Traveller, Prescott's
Conquest of Mexico, Lorna Doone
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
PILGRIMS Progress, Story of Little
Nell, David Cooperfield and Longfel
lows Poetry.
There is nothing gained in forcing
pupils to read books distasteful tt
them. A book read for pleasure a.
the above books were read will leave
a lasting impression upon the plasti,
minds of boys and girls.
Learn to love books. Thew ar,
good pals and when you do get tiret
of them you can shut them up.
! Next week Pictures for the Rura
School,"