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The librarian can hardly be expected to talk with every child who draws out a book. Time alone would prohibit such a policy, where crowds come after school hours or on Saturdays. How then, can she keep a gauge of the general charac ter of reading done by each individual? The method adopted by the Pratt Insti tute is an excellent one, but could be modified with improvement, even though the change might cost some additional time at the expense of the librarian The book number is placed upon the child's library card, as well as the date upon which the book is drawn. these numbers are significant only to the librarian who is familiar with the catalogue notation; another step should be taken. The title of the book, even in abbreviated form, should be recorded instead of the book number, and at the expiration of each month the signature of the parent or guardian should be required, as an indication that the home has at least been given an opportunity of noting what the child is reading. Without such signature the card should become void, unless the regulations are complied with. Not that it is well to have the child feel the rigor of system too apparently, but it certainly is wise to count the parent as a factor in the work.

As regards the form of the library card, there should be some change. In New York it is the same as that of the adults. There is the arbitrary distinction made between fiction and non-fiction, which a young reader is scarcely able to understand; and, furthermore, this distinction has a paralyzing effect upon juvenile taste, which confounds literature

with dullness and the classics with the school-room.

There is an innate critical discrimination given to those simple juvenile natures whose response is based upon no canon of art; yet it would seem that the special mission of the library should be to place the child at once within reach of the very best, instead of subjecting him to the difficult task of finding the very best for himself. The child is quick to say what he does not like; as Mr. Charles Welsh has declared, his discrimination from generation to generation has always indicated where the classics are to be found; he has, by his unwavering loyalty, stamped certain books as eternally vital in their appeal. Yet the text book habit is largely responsible for a danger which at present besets us. It is editing, twisting, turning, simplifying, for fear that stories which have been understood through the ages will not be understood by childhood in the years to come. And so the library has a special task: to chip off the edges of a graded school system; to afford the child an opportunity of developing his individual taste; and, should teaching become necessary to do so in a broadly human way

A book has recently been published entitled Finger post to Children's Reading and its author Walter Taylor Field,egards the subject in sections; he attempts to reconcile the educational theory with the good old love of reading for its own sake; he tries to define books for the home, books for the school, books for the library, and books for the Sunday-school. But he does not persuade us that it is not far better to do away with such hard-not to say artificial-classification. In making lists and guides, the principle which is safest to follow is to adopt a clear distinction between good and bad; then a further distinction between good and best. The policy of exclusion is always the safest.

No one can deny that the ideal condition would be for every child to own an individual collection of books; perhaps this was more generally an ambition when the home was counted as a chief feature of city life. It is now to be wondered whether the library, with its public

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At the Hamilton Grange Branch of the New York Public Library at 145th Street

house visitation or any settlement guidance; yet, hard to say, though the fact is none the less true, these parents have willingly thrust upon the library, as their civic right, this supervision, and have thus shirked a large part of the responsibility for their children's tastea taste which should be developed at home.

As a social factor, therefore, the library finds itself closely allied with the school, the settlement, and the home. It is a generous and a tempting field. In large cities, where there are so many branch buildings, the work would have

ing of the library as a cultural force in a neighborhood.

The social settlements, if they are to exist distinctively, must not expect the library to assume the whole responsibility; there should be co-operation here, as in the home. The mechanism of the mere institution should not hide the full force of its human scope.

The cultural phase of library work for grown people as well as for children has largely been lost sight of. In our schools we spend long, unnecessary hours on the study of one poem; the "Wreck of the Hesperus" fever rages

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A STORY HOUR GROUP

In the museum corner of the Children's Room in the Webster Branch of the New York Public Library

It indicates how eager the library is to include the home in its working plan. A parent's ignorance of the subject of juvenile literature is at no time better exhibited than when he or she purchases a story book. How many parents arrange for a child's vacation reading, or even give it a thought?

The librarian has to sift all this material; has to select from the sameness, the colorless abundance, of juvenile fiction. A mild passiveness pervades the yearly output, and the parent remains ignorant of even the wheat that might be separated from the chaff. Should not the home be made to feel some of

A distinct change can be detected in this responsibility?

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THE JAMESTOWN EXPOSITION

BY HENRY HOYT MOORE

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WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR

MEMOR AL GATE AT JAMESTOWN ISLAND

T

HE Jamestown Exposition of 1907 is, with good reason when its purpose is considered, an American Exposition and not a World's Fair. Visitors who keep this fact in mind will not be disappointed in it. They should not go to the Exposition with the expectation of seeing an exhibition comparable in its entirety with the great fairs at St. Louis in 1904, at Paris in 1900, with the beautiful White City at Chicago in 1893, or even with that first of the big exhibitions in the United States, the Centennial at Philadelphia in 1876. These were all international

affairs, so to speak, and were planned on a lavish scale of expenditure by foreign. governments and individuals as well as by those of the originating countries. The Jamestown Exposition does not rival them. It is American and indeed to some extent almost sectional in its origin, purpose, and appeal.

And yet in some respects it is more interesting than any of the exhibitions mentioned. It has perhaps a grander setting than any of them. Hardly anywhere in the world is there a more magnificent harbor than Hampton Roads. Deep, commodious, safely landlocked, with shores lined with pleasant summer resorts and busy ship-building towns, with here a strip of peaceful woodland and there a frowning fort, its ample surface dotted with fishing boats, racing yachts, tugs, ferryboats, ocean-going steamers, and the war vessels of many nations, it presents an inspiring sight. "The navies of the world," in the familiar phrase, could ride at anchor here. And many of them, or representatives of them, are or have been here during the Exposition. No other commemorative fair has had such opportunities for picturesque naval celebration. And not only has the Jamestown Exposition this splendid natural setting, but the historic background presented by these waters is of absorbing interest to every American, and indeed to every intelligent traveler. For here was fought the battle whose shot was heard round the world as truly as was that at Lexington. Here disappeared the wooden walls of the old navies that from Salamis to Trafalgar filled the annals of history with stirring pages, and here began the era of the metal war-ships which to-day cover all seas. Somewhere beneath these deep waters lie the bones of the wooden battle-ships destroyed by the Merrimac at the beginning of her eventful career in 1862, and here the Merrimac herself ended her fighting career after meeting the little Monitor in the historic combat that led to a revolution in naval architecture. The visitor may see in the harbor, in the little Canonicus anchored there, a duplicate of the original Monitor that was so patly described by her opponents as "a Yankee cheese-box on a raft;" a little farther on he may see in the Miantonomoh the later development of the monitor class of war vessels, and elsewhere he may see and study the various modern examples of the art of naval shipbuilding as practiced by all nations. Furthermore, he may see in the Exposition.

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