0 & a. 
 
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 ! SOME FEATURES OF THE RELATIONS BE= 
 
 i 
 
 TWEEN PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND 
 PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 
 
 FRANK C. PATTEN, LIBRARIAN PUBLIC LIBRARY, 
 HELENA, MONTANA. 
 
 [Paper 'presented before the Montana State 
 Teachers’ association, December 28, 1895, at the 
 annual conference at Anaconda. Reprinted from 
 Montana Educator , April, 1896.] 
 
 More and more, interest is everywhere being 
 shown in means for bringing public libraries and pub- 
 lic schools into closer relations. Librarians are in- 
 quiring how they can make the library of more ser- 
 vice to teachers and pupils, and superintendents and 
 teachers are devising ways of using the resources of 
 the library so as to make its influence more effective 
 in the lives of pupils. Many means are being used 
 for bringing the work of the public library and the 
 work of the public school into closer and more inti- 
 mate connection. I purpose in this paper to make brief 
 mention of some of these means now employed in our 
 own city and elsewhere. 
 
2 
 
 The best general plan that I know of is one that 
 is in very successful operation at Milwaukee, Wis- 
 consin. ‘'The teacher comes to the library and se- 
 lects from the shelves a number of books, in propor- 
 tion to the size of her class, i. e. , 50 pupils — 50 books. 
 These are sent to the schools, and issued by the 
 teachers for home use. The selection is made from 
 all branches of literature — mythology, science, useful 
 arts, fine arts, poetry, history, travel, biography, fairy 
 stories, stories of adventure, etc.” Each pupil is 
 provided with a borrower’s library card in the regu- 
 lar way. In this manner 43,000 books were loaned in 
 1894. A full account of the Milwaukee plan may be 
 found in the Educational Review for November, 
 1894, written by the superintendent of the Milwaukee 
 public schools. By practically the same method the 
 number of loans was 16,000 in Grand Rapids, Michi- 
 gan, and 38,000 in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1894. A sim- 
 ilar plan is in operation in many cities. 
 
 Among the public libraries there is now a tend- 
 ency to provide a department for young people. At 
 the Minneapolis public library there are in this de- 
 partment about 10,000 volumes. A person specially 
 fitted for the work is in charge of the department. 
 The children are allowed to go to the shelves and 
 select for themselves, there being some supervision on 
 the part of the lady in charge. The young people are 
 
3 
 
 attracted to this department because the books and 
 periodicals of interest to them are to be found there. 
 They are not excluded from the other departments of 
 the library. The plan has been in operation about 
 two years and the librarian considers the results ex- 
 cellent. There are many other plans which might be 
 mentioned. 
 
 In Helena, the public library is much hampered 
 by lack of funds. Too small a building and rush of 
 work make it impossible for us to do all we wish to 
 do. Teachers seem ready and willing to make good 
 use of such library facilities as we have. The library 
 staff desires to co-operate with them to the fullest 
 possible extent. Children in the public schools are 
 learning to use the public library by actual use. 
 Teachers send pupils to the library to ascer- 
 tain certain facts, and they thus learn the use of ref- 
 erence books. They come to find answers to ques- 
 tions that will introduce them to the books of his- 
 tory, economics and the trades and practical arts. 
 They are sent to get certain books to read that will 
 introduce them to the great literature of the world. 
 Pupils are sent to get books of travel to read in con- 
 nection with their geography lessons, and the same 
 with reference to other school studies. Teachers get 
 books in order to read them to their pupils, and in or- 
 der to awaken the interest of pupils in the books by 
 
4 
 
 showing the illustrations, reading extracts, talking 
 about them, etc. Teachers get books to help them 
 in their own work of presenting their pupils with in- 
 teresting facts in botany, zoology, mineralogy, etc. 
 
 There is great gain in all the possible ways of 
 using the library with definite ends in view. If a 
 teacher wishes to come to the library with her class 
 in order to examine all the histories, the pictures and 
 the reference books relating to the history of Eng- 
 land in the time of Henry VIII, we want she should 
 have every possible facility for doing so; for the li- 
 brary should be just such a laboratory. If a teacher 
 wishes to come to the library with her class in order 
 to examine the best books on economics, tell her class 
 the special merits and demerits of each, tell them the 
 standing of the authors in the world of thought and 
 on which side of the question each has written, tell 
 them which books are the latest contributions to the 
 subject, which are clear in style and lucid in thought, 
 which are for the beginner and which are for the ad- 
 vanced student — if she wishes thus to spread forth to 
 her pupils the literature of the subject in discriminat- 
 ing fashion, we want she should come and have every 
 needed opportunity; for books are tools and the 
 library is a workshop, the uses of which cannot be 
 too well taught or learned. If a teacher comes to us 
 and says: “In our class for the next four weeks we 
 
5 
 
 are to make special use of Emerton’s Middle Ages; 
 can you make one of your copies a reference book for 
 that length of time, so that every pupil will have a 
 chance to use it?” our reply would most certainly be 
 an assent. And so we ever try to co-operate with 
 the teacher in her plans. 
 
 The young people of Helena are learning better 
 
 and better how to use the public library. About 15 
 per cent of our books are books for the young. We 
 wish that the percentage were larger. The use of 
 these keeps increasing, and it is now about one third 
 of the whole use. We take great pains in the selection 
 of the books we buy for young people. There is some 
 light reading, but bad books are excluded, so that 
 the future increase in this proportion of use of books 
 for the young will be as gratifying to us as has been 
 the past increase. 
 
 The Helena public library has issued two bul- 
 letin lists of young people’s books. Both of these 
 lists have been something more than mere lists. 
 Descriptive notes have been given in connection with 
 each title, intended to give to the reader a better idea 
 of the book and its author than the title alone would 
 convey. One of these lists was issued in June, 1894, 
 and the other in December, 1895. In the latter bul- 
 letin I have had a few words to say about the reading 
 of young people, and have mentioned and character- 
 
6 
 
 ized seven valuable lists of books for the young. The 
 best of these lists are mentioned first and are quite 
 inexpensive. It would be well for the teacher to own 
 them. It is hoped that this second bulletin list of 
 books for young people may prove to be as useful to 
 teachers and pupils as the former list seemed to be. 
 There was a large call for the former bulletin, both at 
 home and outside of the city and state. Copies of 
 both may be had on application. 
 
 I would like to call attention to three little books, 
 not lists, that I am sure would prove helpful and in- 
 spiring to many a teacher. These are: 
 
 1. Literature in school, by Horace E. Scudder, 
 1888. (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 15 cents.) Mr. 
 Scudder was formerly a teacher, has written good 
 books for young people, and has given this matter 
 lifelong attention. 
 
 2. On the study of literature, a university ex- 
 tension address in London in 1887, by John Morley. 
 (Macmillan & Co., 50 cents.) 
 
 3. The choice of books, by Frederic Harrison, 
 1888. (Macmillan & Co., 75 cents.) 
 
 Teachers have the opportunity to acquire a very 
 keen sense of the needs of their pupils. They get 
 acquainted with them individually, study the nature 
 of each child, and come to the library for co-opera- 
 tion. Mr. James M. Sawin, principal of one of the 
 
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 grammar schools of Providence, Rhode Island, speaks 
 from an experience of 27 years in guiding the reading of 
 pupils. He is described as a man whose “choice of 
 a book for a given purpose is made with as minute 
 care as a surgeon would use in selecting his instru- 
 ments.” It is his belief “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 
 unequalled opportunity in his hands, for diverting the 
 stream of reading into the channels of the best litera- 
 ture or not.” Nearly all children easily gain a taste 
 for good literature, if they only get the right start. 
 After their tastes are formed otherwise, it may be a 
 difficult matter to effect the desired change. The 
 whole question of a taste for good literature is largely 
 the problem of children’s reading. I want to quote 
 to you a striking statement from the experienced pen 
 of Mr. Horace E. Scudder. It is in the Atlantic 
 monthly for February, 1894, (v. 73, p. 257), in an 
 article entitled “The educational law of reading and 
 writing.” “There can be no manner of question that 
 between the ages of six and sixteen a large part of the 
 best literature of the world may be read, if taken up 
 systematically in school, and that the man or woman 
 who fails to become acquainted with great literature 
 in some form during that time is little likely to have 
 a taste formed later.”