te 
 
 Stimulation to Reading 
 for High School Students 
 
 PBA 
 
 JESSIE M. TOWNE 
 Department of English, Omaha High School 
 
 Read before the Nebraska Library Association at the Nineteenth Annual 
 Meeting, held in Omaha, Nebraska, October 15-17, 1913 
 
 Printed for the Omaha Public Library by the courtesy of Mr. C. N. Dietz 
 President of the Omaha Public Library Board 
 

 
3 My 15-0. 
 
 Stimulation to Reading for High 
 School Students 
 
 In this discussion I have, of course, to talk from the point 
 of view of the English teacher, since that is my only experience. 
 Some things that we have tried to do, librarians could do just as 
 well; some devices perhaps seem better fitted to the relation of — 
 teacher and class. But the librarian and the teacher ought to 
 work together; no two public agencies should be more closely 
 knit in purpose. We rely on our own public library as an abound- 
 ing source of supply, as a constant reference, yet we are always 
 aware that we do not use it as much as we might. This is partly 
 because of the size of our school—it is difficult to refer three © 
 hundred pupils at a time to one library for one purpose, but some 
 day we surely shall work it out. There must be a way. 
 
 It is probably because I deal with that age of young people, 
 but 1t seems to me that boys and girls from fourteen to eighteen 
 are in the “critical period” for the cultivation of reading habits. » 
 They are still impressionable, at least we think that they are; 
 their habits are not fully formed; they are still in our hands, and 
 many of them will not be connected with educational influences 
 in any vital way after their High School course; we still have 
 something of a: personal connection with them, far less than we 
 wish, but more than those students who leave school will ever 
 have again; more than some get in our great universities. So it 
 seems as if we ought to do something, and as if it were our last 
 chance. 
 
 That there is a great deal to do needs not to be said. Some- 
 times the present conditions seem very dreadful. Every year in 
 our institution we find some pupils who have never read through 
 a book outside of required work in school. I have in mind one 
 
 boy who took an English course, in which four weeks were given 
 
 to the reading of “Ivanhoe,” who found it impossible to read the 
 book and failed in the course. The second time that he took the 
 work he passed without having read the book because he learned 
 enough from class,recitation to make 70 on the examination. 
 
 a 
 
That sort of pupil forms a small proportion, of course, but there 
 are more than we think. 
 
 The large number of pupils read enough, but read very poor 
 stuff—The Post, The Blue Book, McGrath, David Graham 
 Phillips, and their ilk bound the literary horizon for many of 
 them. They have in consequence very bad habits of reading; they 
 read hurriedly and carelessly, with ability to get only the most 
 obvious points in a story; they require of an author no skill in 
 construction, no truth to life, no greatness or nobility of concep- 
 tion; and never do they remember what they read. 
 
 In addition to this prevalent custom of reading poor books, 
 there are many difficulties in the way of stimulating to read good. 
 literature, difficulties especially of these latter days, and for the 
 High School age. The lives of our pupils are filled with things 
 that distract. Many have to work; they possibly are more for- 
 tunate, for that obligation may shut them away from useless or 
 harmful things. Many, in the vigor of their youth, turn to diver- 
 sions which give them physical activity. They do not feel them- 
 selves yet old or feeble enough for the book and the chimney 
 corner ; for them we have no difficulty in finding an excuse. But 
 for too many the moving picture shows, vaudeville, cheap stock 
 companies, automobiles, club dances, all the devices for offering 
 distraction with a minimum of intellectual effort, make the read- 
 ing of a good book seem a wearisome task. When little children 
 they are protected from these distractions, but from the High 
 School years on they meet them all and are both literally and 
 metaphorically “whirled about.” 
 
 I think, too, that the present condition of material luxury 
 affects many young people. They enjoy good things and they 
 are surrounded with them. Satisfied in every physical sense, 
 they are not forced to seek pleasure in the world of the imagina- 
 tion or of great thought. They are helped into an easy accept- 
 ance of a materialistic attitude that distresses the thoughtful 
 observer. Since they are enjoying life to the full, why should 
 they seek for higher means of enjoyment? Only the dissatisfied 
 long for the “life that is more than meat.” Many of our students 
 also have no books at home, no traditions of reading, no scholarli- 
 ness behind them. We must never forget that here and now in 
 America we are trying an experiment in education which has 
 never been tried in the world before, for we are attempting to 
 give all classes of people an opportunity to get the same sort of 
 education. So in our public schools we expect from the son and 
 
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daughter of the plowman or the ditch-digger the same scholarly | 
 habit as from the child of the clergyman or the lawyer. Some- 
 times he shows it, but sometimes his inheritance makes intel- 
 lectual pursuits difficult. 
 
 In urging reading upon our young people, some purposes 
 apply, not exclusively perhaps, but especially, to them. First, it 
 is an age for forming habits, and the habit of reading, like other 
 habits, must be cultivated. They smile when we who have tested 
 it tell them the solace and stimulus that grown people find in it, 
 but grown people do not turn to books readily without previous 
 acquaintance. This is the time to make that acquaintance. In 
 trying to reach this need, we have begun in our schools to pay 
 considerable attention to the intensive study of. literary classics. 
 This process, while it accomplishes some things, does not seem 
 to do all that we hoped. 
 
 It is a truism that reading stimulates the imagination, but 
 to the teacher this truism is ominous. Young people are supposed 
 to have imaginative power, but many of our present young people 
 do not have it to command. They do not appear able in reading 
 a story to see a single picture. Brian’s scarlet mantle in “Ivan- 
 hoe,’ Rowena’s jewelled braids, Gurth’s collar of serfdom, make 
 no impression on their sensibilities. Are their carelessly written 
 books responsible? Or is it that the poor intellectual inheritance 
 of some, and the material satisfaction in the lives of others, have 
 prevented growth in this direction? 
 
 Another quality that they need to cultivate is sympathy. 
 They have plenty of it for people of their own kind, under cir- 
 cumstances which they have experienced; but in a story which 
 deals with another time than our own, with other conditions of 
 race, religion, or human emotion, something not now in fashion, 
 like the religious intolerance of Beaumanoir in “Ivanhoe,” the 
 superstition of the village folk in “Silas Marner,” the supernatural 
 element in ‘“The Ancient Mariner,’ these characteristics have to 
 be very carefully handled to gain any tolerance from the youthful 
 reader. So the vicarious experience of stories, both of fiction 
 and of actual fact, ought to bring him something that Americans 
 especially need. For in this “melting pot” of the nations we 
 shall have to understand and to help many kinds of men. 
 
 Closely connected with this is what we feel is the most 1m- 
 portant purpose for them—the gaining of spiritual values. It is 
 a great thing for them to look at life through the eyes of one 
 
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 who sees clearly the laws of character, of sin and punishment, of 
 suffering and growth. They enjoy it. Many of them are still at 
 the age when the moral point of view is most attractive, and when 
 they watch for it in an author. It is the more essential, therefore, 
 that they should read books that give it to them with truth, avoid- 
 ing alike such pitfalls as the sentimentality or the materialism of 
 some recent popular fiction. 
 
 For the child who has never read at all, one’s first aim is, 
 of course, to get him to read anything. The first book must be 
 easy, not too youthful, for his lack of reading does not argue 
 immaturity ; it must not be too long, or too different from every- 
 day life-—R. H. Davis’ short stories, Stevenson’s ‘‘Treasure 
 Island,’ or if he is impatient of fiction, Parkman’s “Oregon 
 Trail,’ may turn the trick. Sometimes the first book proves the 
 only necessary spur, sometimes we seem to accomplish nothing. 
 I very rarely find a girl-who has not read at all, but often they 
 read so slowly that one of Dickens’ long stories, or even “Lorna 
 Doone,” proves an impossible task. 
 
 The other and more numerous class of pupils, those who 
 have done some reading, I find almost always eager for lists of 
 books to read, a condition which would seem to argue that one 
 reason they do not read good books is that they do not know 
 which they are. Unfortunately we cannot tell how much or how 
 long they use these lists. Almost every term I have one or two 
 pupils who read six or more books in the four months; some- 
 times I have none. Conditions vary so that it is impossible to 
 make any general statement. Sometimes we require the reading 
 of a book or two outside of class. ‘This measure, I know, does 
 not meet with favor in the eyes of many people, but there are 
 reasons for it. There is a convention among children that they 
 do not like anything that the teachers or schools uphold. That 
 convention prevents their attempting things that we know they - 
 would like if they once tested them. Their continual distractions 
 prevent it, and they are really ignorant of the books to which 
 they might turn. 
 
 Miss Taylor recently asked a boy to read Booker Washing- 
 ton’s “Up from Slavery.” He objected a little, not seeing any 
 reason for his being interested in that book. But after he had 
 ' had the book a little while he brought to her a news clipping of 
 Booker Washington’s report of Tuskegee, very much pleased that 
 his eyes had been opened to a new phase of life. She had a 
 somewhat similar experience with Mary Antin’s “The Promised 
 
 6 
 
 ¢ 
 
Land.” In this case she is not requiring a complete reading of 
 the book, only some acquaintance with it. Sometimes we give 
 extra credit for books read outside of class, if a short informal 
 report is handed in, or an oral report is made merely to show 
 that the book has been read. This proves the best bait, and occa- 
 sionally a child appears who forgets the bait in the joy of the 
 reading. The lists may be many and varied, but each should not 
 be very long—perhaps of fifteen or twenty titles of a kind. I 
 have never attained it, but some of us have thought that a list 
 typewritten on the size paper that would fit into the pupil’s note- 
 book would be most useful, being always at hand—in our school 
 the student’s notebook is his inseparable companion. 
 
 In making these lists we try to keep in mind several different 
 purposes ; to point the way for those who do not know it, to good 
 reading ; to try to prepare for the future, by showing them books 
 fit for maturity; to distinguish somewhat the quality of books, 
 so that they may have a basis for judgment; to try to consider 
 the different individualities of the pupils. Our lists have been 
 mainly fiction. 
 
 I always start, accordingly, with the classics. I name two 
 or three of Scott’s—we read “Ivanhoe” in school—I add “The 
 Talisman,” “Kenilworth,” “Rob Roy ;’ two or three of Dickens’: 
 _ “David Copperfield,” “Oliver Twist,” “A Tale of Two Cities ;” 
 we read “Silas Marner” in school, I add “The Mill on the Floss”’ 
 and “Adam Bede;” Blackmore’s “Lorna Doone;’ Kingsley’s 
 “Westward Ho,” and “Hereward the Wake.” I do not usually 
 give Thackeray or Jane Austen to High School pupils; but I do 
 give “Jane Eyre,” especially to the girls. For the boys, “The 
 Three Guardsmen” and ‘The Count of Monte Cristo,’ Steven- 
 son’s adventure yarns, and Jules Verne. Occasionally a boy who 
 reads quickly reads “Les Misérables” and is proud of his achieve- 
 ment. A list of short stories always is welcomed: Richard Hard- 
 ing Davis’ earlier ones, ““Gallegher” and the “Van Bibber”’ stories, 
 T. B. Aldrich, Mary E. Wilkins, Sarah Orne Jewett, F. Hopkin- 
 son Smith, E. FE. Hale. Hawthorne is often too subtle; Poe | 
 give with a caution, for sometimes the girls feel his stories too 
 horrible; of Kipling, too, | name only “The Day’s Work,” “Kim,” 
 “The Jungle Books’ (often they have not read them), “The 
 Naulahka,” and “Puck of Pook’s Hill,’ which last [ have never 
 succeeded in getting read. I have made partial lists of historical 
 novels such as Scott, of course, Bulwer-Lytton, Kingsley, and 
 some which the passing of time has made historical. I have never 
 
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~- 
 
 had much success with these lists, but I have always wished to 
 do more. Ought not a course which would follow the history of 
 England, for example, through the centuries, to be very attrac- 
 tive, and though the history teachers of to-day would scorn it, 
 would not the historical imagination and sympathy thus stimulated 
 form a good basis for more scholarly work later? Once when [| 
 was trying to make a class understand the horrors of the Black 
 Plague, in the midst of a lack of comprehension that seemed 
 stupid, I caught from one pupil a gleam of real understanding. 
 I asked him about it and received the reply that he had read 
 Henty! I do not feel like recommending Henty, but that boy 
 had something that no other pupil had. | 
 
 In connection with ‘Ivanhoe,’ a short list of books of 
 approximately the same period will sometimes start them. “The 
 Talisman,” “Men of Iron,” “Hereward,” “Via Crucis,” and “The — 
 White Company” make a typical group. Detective stories are~- 
 not perhaps the highest form of literature, but they are after all - 
 legitimate amusement; so “The Moonstone” and “The Woman 
 in White” are suggested as a good basis. “Sherlock Holmes” 
 needs no introduction, but I have occasionally spoken of Leroux, 
 Gaboriau and Anna Katharine Green.’ Sometimes travels or 
 biography will catch the boy who has,his eye on the facts of life; 
 and for him there is Parkman, or Nansen, or Stanley, or Mary 
 Antin. . 
 
 Our constructive English course makes a good foundation 
 on which we are trying to build. In the first year we work on 
 description ; in the second, narration; in the third, exposition and 
 argument. Miss Taylor, the head of this department, has re- 
 cently prepared a list of supplementary reading: for the first 
 year, of nature books—Thoreau, Burroughs, John Muir, Bradford 
 Torrey; for the third, of essays—some classic like Emerson, 
 Lowell, Lamb; some more modern, like Stevenson, Crothers, 
 Burroughs. Her main purpose is to introduce them to a delight- 
 ful world of which they are totally ignorant. In a year or two 
 I could perhaps tell you how much seemed to be accomplished. 
 Our new text-book in the ninth grade, Ashmun’s “Prose Litera- 
 ture,’ published by Houghton, Mifflin, is very helpful for this kind 
 of effort. It contains selections of different sorts, a nature story, 
 a bit of detective yarn, a humorous story, letters, descriptions, 
 with lists after each selection of books of the same kind. 
 
 The course in narration offers the best possible opportunity 
 for an introduction to fiction. We read “Ivanhoe,” rather rapidly, 
 
 8 
 
for the historical sense, the movement, and the broad characteri- 
 zation. We study “Silas Marner” for the plot structure, the truth 
 to life, the careful sympathetic characterization, the lessons 
 George Eliot enforces. The teacher is supposed to read some 
 short stories aloud in class; and outside reading of Dickens, if 
 they have not read him, and of two short stories from the four 
 or five best magazines is to be required. In connection with this 
 the technique of story writing is studied; the methods of por- 
 trayal of mood and character, the giving of the setting, the 
 securing of suspense, the structure of a plot; and the pupils prove 
 their understanding of these principles by working out simple 
 problems for themselves. All this is not to make them writers 
 but to endeavor to train them into the appreciation of the art of 
 a story. I cannot tell how good critics they grow to be, but I am 
 sure that the reading of a story aloud is the best method to 
 incite them to read. Invariably some one asks for author and 
 ‘title, or for other books. They enjoy M. E. Wilkins most of all, 
 I think, and R. H. Davis and Aldrich are close seconds. They 
 do not care so much for the foreign stories as is shown by de 
 Maupassant and Francois Coppée, which I have read them. I 
 twice tried “The Need” by Zona Gale from The Atlantic of last 
 _ June and they loved it. 
 
 One thing which has been done successfully in our school is 
 the keeping of a small book-case of books in the teacher’s room. 
 One teacher of English has supplied such a case of about seventy- 
 five volumes at her own expense for several years and it is con- 
 stantly used. I have done it with a few volumes at various times. 
 I know that if I had a case of about fifty volumes I could keep 
 them busy. I have often meditated buying them; but it is too 
 expensive for me or for almost any teacher. The Boards of 
 Education fit up elaborate laboratories for the teaching of science, 
 but they leave the teacher of English literature bare of equipment. 
 There would be more expense than would at first sight seem 
 justifiable, for the books would get very hard wear, and they 
 would be hard to keep track of—for the pupils forget, and they 
 move away without notice, and the teacher would have to do the 
 distributing in the four minutes between classes, and before and 
 after school when she is supposed to be busy about other things ; 
 but I would gladly give the thought and attention if some one 
 would furnish the books, and I know other teachers who wou!d 
 do the same thing. Our great school on the hill has no general 
 library and we often feel disgraced by the fact. 
 
 9 
 
-_ 
 
 In South Omaha considerable reading was accomplished with — 
 ten copies each of about twenty of the standard works of fiction. 
 One consideration in dealing with the child is to catch him when 
 his interest is aroused.. He wishes to read when you talk about 
 it. Give him the book then, and you will accomplish something. 
 Reading only a part of a story or essay will always produce 
 results, of course. And a hint about a story, an attempt to arouse 
 curiosity in the manner of the modern advertisement, seems 
 rather childish, but we do it. 
 
 One teacher of exposition has read bits of essays from 
 library copies, and left them on her desk with permission for 
 any one who chose to borrow the book from her to read more. 
 She has had very gratifying results in the interest shown. 
 
 In this whole matter, however, the great difficulty is that as 
 in all education, the most effective work is that done with the 
 individual. A little conversation with the boy or, girl alone often 
 accomplishes more than hours of talk to the whole class, or miles 
 of lists. It is personal work, after all—meeting the needs of one, 
 whose circumstances are different from every one else’s, giving 
 him a book that is suitable for him, keeping after him until he 
 reads it, discussing it with him, and trying to adjust the second 
 book better to his needs, trying to show him that there is some- 
 thing for him to gain by it. We can do this occasionally with 
 one, but where is the time or strength for teacher or librarian to 
 do it as we should like? If here again we might be treated as a 
 science teacher is, and have laboratory periods in which we 
 might meet pupils and discuss their reading with them, it would 
 help. 
 
 In one other place we try to point the way. In our last term 
 we give a rapid survey of the history of English literature with 
 Newcomer’s “Twelve Centuries,” a very discriminating selection, 
 as a basis for reading. To many pupils it is a weariness to the 
 flesh, for they have so little background that the learning of 
 names and facts seems an almost impossible task; but now and 
 then we find a pupil who suddenly begins to read; who reads our 
 collection through and goes on to others and finds in the glorious 
 pageant of English prose and poetry an inspiration for future 
 hours. 
 
 And what are the results? Who can tell? Our students go 
 away—we never see them again—we do not know of many of 
 them, whether they ever read anything worth while or not. There 
 
 10 
 
are no statistics, like those of birth and death, to tell us. We can- 
 not even approximate a guess. Perhaps the librarians could tell 
 us something, but I am not sure that they would encourage us. 
 Once in a while an old pupil comes back with a request for a 
 reading list of books; once in a while one testifies to the value 
 of reading, or the inspiration given him to make the effort. But 
 from the vast majority, of course, we never hear. Did you 
 happen to read a sketch in The Atlantic a year or so ago by 
 Margaret Lynn? She pictured ideal conditions. If I could say 
 what should be done for young people to get them to read | 
 should put them in a house like the one in which she grew up— 
 set in the middle of a Kansas prairie, where, as she says, there 
 was time to read, with a library collected by a family of three or 
 four generations of booklovers, so that she would have in addi- 
 tion to the books the inherited desire. Then, perhaps, one could 
 accomplish something and be sure of it. 
 
 But failing this, for these circumstances are as rare as 
 Margaret Lynn’s, 1f we could have time, if we could have books, 
 we could, I am sure, get a few interested who have never read, 
 tell some where to go who are ignorant, help some to get some 
 standards which will make them intolerant of the poor stuff 
 which now is their only literary food—and you and we are the 
 people to do it together. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
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