The paper by Edna Lyman Scott,printed in the Wisconsin Bulletin for January,1905,was said to be introductory to a talk which she was to give at Beloit at the Wisconsin State meeting,February 22,1905.The author looks upon the inauguration of the story hour as but the grasping of an opportunity in working with children in the library,as a means of cultivating the love of literature and of introducing the child to books.
Edna Lyman,now Mrs.Scott,was born in Illinois,educated in the schools of Oak Park,Ill.,and at Bradford Academy,Haverhill,Massachusetts.At the time this paper was written she was the children's librarian in the Oak Park Public Library,then known as Scoville Institute.Her work in story telling became known outside the immediate field of its activity,and in 1907Miss Lyman severed her connection with this library to give time to special preparation,and later to become a lecturer on literature for children and story-telling,and a professional story-teller.
She spent portions of three years as Advisory Children's Librarian for the Iowa Library Commission,and during that period published her book "Story-telling:what to tell and how to tell it."She holds the position of non-resident faculty lecturer on Work for Children in the Library School of the University of Illinois,and the Carnegie Library School of Atlanta,Georgia,and lectures regularly in other library schools,before teachers'
institutes and normal schools,women's clubs and study classes throughout the country.
When we touch the question of guiding the reading of children in our libraries we have opened the consideration of a subject which is one of the great arguments for the existence of public libraries.
All about we see and feel the utter indifference of parents to what their children are reading,or whether they are reading at all,and the results of this indifference appear on every hand,in the character of the books which content the child,or in his determination to bury himself in a book to the exclusion of every other interest.
The librarian sees this indifference and its fruit and realizes that it adds another responsibility to her already long list,and another opportunity to serve.She may doubt whether her province is to educate the taste of the public at large,but there can be no question that in the case of the children the choice is not left for her to make;the only reason for the child's reading at all is that he may grow mentally and spiritually.There is no way to protect the child against worthless books except by giving him a decided taste for what is good.Hamilton Mabie says that "tastes depend very largely on the standards with which we are familiar,"and if these standards are acquired hit and miss,without training,they are likely to be of a most doubtful character.
The love of literature,like the love of any of the fine arts,is susceptible of cultivation and is strengthened by constant contact with the beauty and greatness which can compel it."They are exceptional children who read everything regardless of its character and come out all right.We do not know that any child is of such a make-up.We must deal with him as though he were not the exceptional but the normal child."The influence of all that he reads upon the mind of the child is sufficiently appalling,but it is not to be compared with the influence on his character.
