Schoolbook

“ If the plan is followed of requiring that a certain number of books be read, precaution must be taken against making the outside reading a formal task rather than a pleasure. The teacher can do much toward interesting the pupils in the library reading. By reading aloud to the class a chapter or two of a book, he may lead many of the pupils to read the whole book. By referring in the class work to the characters, plots, and other details of the books on the reading list, or by quoting from them, he will often arouse the pupils’ curiosity and create a desire to read the books. ”

“ Those used in the highest two grades need, perhaps, somewhat more supplementing than those in the high school. But in the middle grades this need is still greater. In the more prominent studies calling for text-books, such as history, geography, and English language or grammar, nearly the same topics are treated as in the higher grades, and in substantially the same manner. But since the younger children are not expected to take as long lessons,—and perhaps, too, because they cannot carry as large books,—their texts are made briefer. ”

“ Purposes of a Library.—The purposes of a school library should be not only to provide laboratory material for the pupils’ work in literature and history, to enable the teacher to instruct them in the use of books as sources of information, and to assist the teacher in other ways, but also to instil in the pupils an interest in books as books, to cultivate a taste for reading. Too many high school graduates have no conception of a book, other than fiction, as anything but a task or a text. ”

“ In each period one or two typical authors should be selected whose works are to be studied in the class room. Selections from writers contemporary with these authors may be read by the pupils as library reading. In a course of this kind it is much more important to have the pupils read the literature than to have them read about literature. It is also much more important to lead the pupils to perceive the characteristics of the author in a selection read in or out of the class room than to have these characteristics called to their attention by the teacher or by reading criticism. ”

“ One book must be studied closely by the teacher, and that is his pupils. During the last thirty years human nature in all its stages, as child, as youth, during adolescence, and in maturity—especially in the earlier periods—has been investigated as never before. The student in our time can enter into the results of special study upon these subjects. He needs to know what the best books can give him of child study and mind study; and to supplement book-knowledge in this department with watchful eyes and close thought upon the traits which he finds in his own scholars. ”

“ To be capable of guiding the reading of children it is necessary for one, first, to have appreciation and discernment in adult literature, second, to gain the child’s point of view. The various printed book lists are helpful, but the librarian should depend upon her own judgment as final critic in the selection of books for her children’s collection. She must realize the qualities essential to particular classes of books, such as history, and biography, science, travel, fiction, and the qualities which make them suitable for children. ”

“ Every teacher should read every book in the library that is within the range of his scholars' comprehension. How otherwise can he guide their reading? Of course the most hasty perusal will be sufficient, provided it shows the teacher the heart of the book. A teacher should learn the useful art of rapid reading.
Let the teacher, as part of his preview of the quarter's lessons, make out a list of library books that teach the principal truths of the quarter ahead of him, and give this list to each scholar with the first lesson. ”

“ The twentieth century school or college textbook, and the means employed in making it, evidence a progress in the art of book-making and the character of the book made equally wonderful; for the modern educational publication differs in content and format from the textbook of the early days even more than the modern schoolhouse from the log cabin used a century or two ago to shelter the unfortunate youngsters who shivered and suffered therein while they were receiving such poor instruction as ignorant masters and dames could give them. ”

“ For his reading must lead up to the reading of the pupils; and they ought not to be confronted with the finished product of a culture turned out, all ready-made by the mechanism of the handbook. So that we should now complete our previous statement, and say that the teacher re-creates the book when he revives it in the mind of the one for whom the book was written; when author, teacher, and pupil constitute but one single spirit, whose life animates and inwardly vivifies the manual, which therefore ought not to be called, as it is, a 157 hand-book, but a spiritual guide for the mind. ”

“ Those for the ninth grade pupils ordinarily include instruction in the use of dictionaries, encyclopædias and atlases, and the use of the table of contents and indexes in reference books. The instruction for the tenth grade takes up the use of the card catalogue, magazine indexes, year-books, and special indexes. The upper classes may be given practice work in comparing the value of different reference books, in learning to get references from various sources not on the reference shelves, and in the use of some of the government publications. ”

“ There it is first sought to develop the child's intellectual faculties, prepare it for school, inculcate habits of cleanliness and morality, and instruct it in the rudiments of reading and writing. Between the ages of six and fourteen children are admitted into the schools, and, nominally at least, go through the plan of study drawn up by the board of primary education, and which is as follows: Reading, writing, geography, spelling, arithmetic, compendium of sacred and French history, linear drawing, singing, the rudiments of physics, geometry and natural history, and calligraphy. ”

“ It requires extensive knowledge of literature and experience in [Pg 208] its use in classes. A masterpiece may be read in several grades, and teachers will differ in judging its true place. Schools and classes differ also in their capacity and previous preparation for classic readings, so that no course of reading will fit all schools, or, perhaps, any two schools. Many principals will prefer to use the books one or two grades lower, or higher, than here indicated. Every teacher should use such a list according to his best individual judgment as based upon the needs of his school. ”

“ In the elementary school the library should reach to every class-room and offer there a few very attractive and very carefully selected books, so attractive and so well graded that the most indifferent boy or girl will be led by easy stages into the green fields of literature.
“The class-room is still the strategic point, for even homes of refinement are wont to delegate the work of directing the children’s reading to the school, and the teacher with her case of well-known books has every day opportunities denied to public librarian and to the majority of parents. ”

“ When the children have advanced to some proficiency in reading, they will, of course, begin to read some of their own literature, reading aloud in the class and often having the text before them as the teacher reads. All the children that can read at all should, as a rule, have a printed copy of anything they are asked to memorize; and as a matter of social duty, the teacher of literature, or the teacher in the literature class, will from time to time have a careful exercise in reading for the younger readers ”

“ They care nothing for any books save the text-books indispensable to their profession, and for these only so far as necessity obliges them to do so. The libraries of many persons calling themselves teachers consist solely of school-books, many of which have been presented them by accommodating book-agents, “for examination with a view to introduction.” And yet we hear such teachers talk learnedly about the introduction of English literature into the common schools of the country, and the necessity of cultivating among the children a wholesome love and taste for reading. ”

“ A fitting close to a course in elementary book-binding is such a problem. If pupils choose to make articles such as the memorandum pad or the hinged covers which have already been taught, they should be accepted as original work, provided that each pupil selects the size and proportions himself, and does not depend on the teacher to repeat the instruction in detail. Yet more credit should be given one whose originality extends further as in the case of a boy who made for his father’s use a holder for conductor’s checks, or the one who made a mount for telephone numbers. ”

“ USE OF THE LIBRARY.-The teacher should endeavor to create an interest in those books from which the selections in the Reader are taken, and in others of equal grade and quality. Encourage the children to take books from the library. Direct them in their choice. Encourage home reading. The reading of good books should be a part of regular school work; otherwise little or no true progress can be made in speaking and writing. The best way to learn to speak and write good English is to read good English. ”

“ The habit of association with good books is, therefore, one which our school systems need to inculcate. The supervisor of class-room libraries should strive to supplement the text-book with something that is not a text-book; the outlines of history should be strengthened by bona fide biography instead of by the hybrid type of fiction. A committee in Germany, after working some years over the recommendations of books for children, finally printed a list of 637 volumes—calling attention to a weakness in travel, popular science, and biography. ”

“ The reading and study of literature in class in each year is to be supplemented by library reading of literature, the amount of which will be determined by library facilities and other local conditions.
3. Arrangement of Classes If the English work is being taught by several teachers, the distribution of classes among the teachers deserves careful consideration. No English work should be entrusted to a teacher who is not interested in the subject and who is not adequately prepared to teach it. ”

“ Of course work of this kind presupposes the use of some books other than a single textbook; and to go very far in giving children the command of the technique of study we shall have to provide ourselves with more than a single book for a subject.
Another way by which children can be greatly helped is teaching them how to take notes and how to annotate. There is no exercise more valuable to the student, so far as his future work is concerned, than practice in writing in a very few words the gist of a paragraph or page. ”

“ School-Libraries.—I am desirous of ascertaining whether any of our public schools possess any libraries for the general reading of the scholars, in which I do not include mere school-books of Latin, Greek, &c., which, I presume, they all possess, but such as travels, biographies, &c.
Boys fresh from these schools appear generally to know nothing of general reading, and from the slight information I have, I fear there is nothing in the way of a library in any of them. ”

“ It would seem that in the complete organization of the public schools all education of the pupil is turned over to them as it was not formerly, and it is possible that in the stress of text-book education there is no time for reading at home. The competent teachers contend not merely with the difficulty of the lack of books and the deficiencies of those in use, but with the more serious difficulty of the erroneous ideas of the function of text-books. ”

“ In our emphasis of certain phases of the new education, there is a tendency to swing away from the use of the text-book, so that the children depend largely upon the teacher’s oral instruction and explanation. It often happens that the teacher, in her zeal, forgets that the growth of the children depends upon their own doing, and imagines that her thought and experience will suffice, without effort on the part of her pupils. This state of affairs exists in the reading class oftener than in any other. ”

“ Every library should have one, though it is only a home-made affair, manufactured on a typewriter or a hectograph. Every book should be briefly described, so that the scholars may know, for instance, the scene and purpose of each story, the kind of man described in each biography, and whether it is a book for old, young, or primary scholars. Some librarians mark one catalogue for each class, indicating the books especially pleasing to scholars of the average age of the class, so that the teacher may guide their selection. ”

“ Ordinary textbooks are prepared for students in school and are intended to be supplemented by the personal instruction and guidance of a teacher, standing at the pupil's elbow, or readily approachable. But the reader who wishes to inform himself upon some progressive branch of science after his school days are over needs to have the teacher included in the book itself. ”

“ When the school bell rings in the morning the children come carrying their books and their lunches—a gay little procession from far and near, each wearing a quaint bonnet, dress, and shoes like those you see in the picture.
In our picture, school has begun, the opening exercises are over, and the first class of beginners is reciting. The little girl leaning against the teacher is just learning to read, and points to 15each word as she pronounces it. She seems to have come to a word she does not know. ”