Such a course is a well-nigh perfect combination of general and individual teaching. It can be employed by any teacher who is not afraid of work.

The student club is another way by which an instructor may be brought into closer personal contact with his men. Intercourse between teacher and taught, outside the classroom, is deplorably lacking. It is easy, however, to form a club of students who will be glad to meet their instructor in a friendly way once or twice a month. A classical club will find many interesting things to discuss that never form part of a regular course. A Deutscher Verein can supply the touches for which a German class has neither place nor time. The same is true of a Politics Club, a History Club, a Philosophical Club, and numerous others. To talk of the work of the Egypt Exploration Fund, to sing a few German songs, to discuss the Transvaal war, the government of this or that country, the poetry and philosophy of Browning or Tennyson may not have high disciplinary value, but it will be good for both man and boys in so far as it leads to a better understanding of one another and of the thing at which they are both at work. Talks of books and men, hints given almost unconsciously, may supply the very influence that can permanently change the boy's life.

Such methods the college must employ, if it is not to ignore the problem that comes with increased numbers and endangers its very existence. Its place is between the secondary school and the university, or life. It must continue the discipline that the school has begun and awaken the responsibility which the future career will demand. When college means four years of steady development of the individual, it performs successfully this twofold function; and its future is secure.

BOWDOIN College,

BRUNSWICK, ME.

H. DE F. SMITH

V

THE SCHOOL AND THE LIBRARY 1

1

This very welcome report will be read with close interest by teachers and librarians alike. It will be remembered that since 1896 the National Educational Association has comprised among its "sections" a Library Department, and that the papers and discussions of this section have been printed in the successive annual volumes of the Association's proceedings and addresses. The burden of these discussions, as well as that of the present report, might well be summed up in this one. word-Co-operate. The report is dated May 31, 1899, and is signed by J. C. Dana, Frank A. Hutchins, Charles A. McMurry, Sherman Williams, and M. Louise Jones.

Plainly the time is ripe for this comprehensive survey of the subject. While co-operative measures between the school and the library have been by no means unknown, in many portions of the country, yet they have hitherto been largely sporadic. In certain favored communities these measures have been in force for decades; and the report gives well-deserved credit to the "pioneer" work of Mr. S. S. Green and the Worcester library in this respect. (Page 77.) In communities such as these, patient employment of co-operative measures, thru a series of years, has borne abundant fruit, in training up a constituency of adult readers whose intelligent use of the library's resources dates from their school days. And yet, in an overwhelming majority of other communities (frequently in these same neighborhoods indeed), co-operation is as yet only a The present report lacks some of the systematic and exhaustive features of the Report of the Committee of Ten, and the other justly memorable reports, cited in Mr. Van

name.

1 Report of Committee on the Relations of Public Libraries to Public Schools; appointed by authority of the National Council [of the National Educational Association] at the meeting of the Association held in Washington, D. C., July, 1898. Published by the National Educational Association, 1899. 80 p. 15 cents.

Sickle's "preparatory note" (page 5), but it can hardly fail to be a most influential educator of public sentiment, among teachers and librarians. It is influential because of its unmistakable basis of first-hand experience, which enables the writers to speak to the point, as well as out of the heart. Such a teacher as Mr. Robert C. Metcalf of Boston (pages 18-24), such a school superintendent as Mr. Sherman Williams of Glens Falls, N. Y.; such a librarian as Mr. J. C. Dana of Springfield, Mass., and such a library organizer as Mr. Frank A. Hutchins of the Wisconsin Free Library Commission, could hardly do otherwise than kindle enthusiasm and extend the knowledge of their subject, besides affording most welcome answers to not a few practical questions.

For this interesting field of school and library co-operation is by no means without its problems of practical difficulty. One such difficulty is embodied in the objection that the pupil's time is already overcrowded. A strikingly noteworthy solution of this difficulty has been offered by an intelligent grammar-school teacher, with an experience of more than twenty years in co-operating with the public library. He assumes that reading of some kind, on the part of the pupil, is inevitable, and that it is simply a question whether the teacher shall use the unequaled opportunity in his hands, for diverting the stream of reading into the channels of the best literature, or not. Seldom has the principle of "parsimony" been more intelligently called into play than in such methods as these, where the child's interest in the current events of the day, or in some fascinating bit of nature study, or in some little section of the great field of good literature, has been so seized upon that he has absolutely no time left for that which is vicious, or even the merely trashy. It is the testimony of teachers, in the city already referred to, that pupils frequently come under the influence of the school and its co-operative relations with the library, feeling a strong interest in "nickel stories" and the like, but are led to acquire the taste for reading such works as Scott's Marmion, Franklin's Autobiography, Parkman's Montcalm and Wolfe, John Burroughs's Winter sunshine, Dr. John James M. Sawin of Providence, in Library journal, vol. xx. p. 378.

Brown's Rab and his friends, and Tennyson's Idylls of the king.3

It is a teacher who points the way to the solution of the difficulty above mentioned. Let us see how another teacher, in the report now under consideration, points the way, in dealing with another very real difficulty, namely, that of lack of time on the part of the teacher himself. To quote from Mr. Metcalf: "It is when the pupil is eager to learn, when his interest is most intense, that the information should be furnished . . . 'Strike when the iron is hot' is a rule equally applicable to pedagogics and mechanics." (P. 19.) (P. 19.) In other words do not fail to utilize the enormous advantage of making the courses of study in the school text-book itself serve as the natural basis of the pupil's wider reading.

It is, however, far more likely that, in overcoming the inertia of the average community, demand will arise for some kind of answers to the question-" What specific measures have been tried and found effectual?" The report does not fail to supply such answers. These results of experience are scattered thru the various chapters of the report, but they may be briefly summed up in the following general principles. The library needs to provide itself with such books as will hold the interest of the child; and to make plain the path of the teacher or pupil to securing these books special lists or bulletins should be prepared, and circulated. Books should be made accessible on open shelves. There should be the utmost liberality in the extension of library privileges, and the utmost heartiness in welcoming teachers and pupils to the library. These methods at least are possible in the "average library," even. This report aims, as is eminently proper, at meeting the requirements and conditions of the average instance; and yet it ought to be added that, where the resources of the library will admit of it, librarians have been only too glad to go beyond these narrower limits, in their desire to co-operate with the schools.

The choice of books for the Children's Library is not always easy; and in deciding on the classes of books which should be 3 Library journal, vol. xx. p. 379.

ruled out, there will be no hesitation, of course, in rejecting the positively vicious. Obviously also the merely trashy should be refused admission to the shelves. To quote from Mr. Dana: "Low-grade books, no matter how popular they may have proved themselves to be, are not needed in order to attract children.' Emphasis is repeatedly laid, in this report, on the value of "instructive" works, containing trustworthy information, and the shelves of the children's room should certainly contain many of these. This side of the children's reading comes uppermost in connection with the teaching of such subjects as history, geography, natural science, or mechanics. For the pupil whose tastes lie in that direction the lesson in the properties of matter affords a natural introduction to the works in the library on the steam engine, steel vessels, or roadbuilding. The lesson on natural science again sends the pupils to the library for the colored plates of birds. The lesson in geography or history makes the local landmarks more familiar, and leads to the interested perusal of whatever printed accounts of the "historic spots" can be found. In every department, moreover, are the invaluable books of reference. Intelligent counsel is given by Mr. Metcalf in regard to this class of books. "To use reference-books to advantage requires much skill. To 'run down' a subject will often require the use of several collateral or reference books, and the pupil needs training in this work." 'Knowing how to consult books for information is often of more value than the facts themselves." (P. 19-20.) So also Mr. Dana counsels: "To help the children to make use of reference-books," [the Children's Librarian]"calls attention to such helps as tables of contents, pageheadings, indexes, and bibliographies." (P. 76.)

66

The distinction between the "information studies" and the culture studies" finds emphatic recognition in the pages of the present report, in its bearing on the reading of the pupils. Information is good, yet inspiration is better. Surely one can hardly speak more emphatically than Superintendent Williams, when he says: "Training pupils to read and love good literature is by far the most important work done in school. There P. 75 of the report. See also Mr. Hutchins's remarks on p. 61-62.