It is encouraging to kind growing attention in the "Proceedings"of the N.E.A.and other educational bodies to the problem of the bright child who has suffered by the lock-step system which has molded all into conformity with the capabilities of the average child.
The librarian's difficulty is perhaps greater than that of the teacher,because open shelves and freedom of choice are so essential a part of our program.We must provide easy reading for thousands of children.Milk and water stories may have an actual value to children whose unfavorable heritage and environment have retarded their mental development.But the deplorable thing is to see young people,mercifully saved from the above handicaps,making a bee line for the current diluted literature for grown-ups,(as accessible as Scott on our open shelves)and to realize that this taste,which is getting a life set,is the inevitable outcome of the habit of reading mediocre juveniles.
We must not rail at publishers for trying to meet the demands of purchasers.Our job is to influence that demand far more than we have done as yet.Large book jobbers tell us that millions and millions of poor juveniles are sold in America to thousands of the sort we librarians recommend.I have seen purchase lists of boys'club directors and Sunday School library committees calling for just the weak and empty stuff we would destroy.I have unwittingly been an eavesdropper at Christmas book counters and have heard the orders given by parents and the suggestions made by clerks.And I feel that the public library has but skirmished along the outposts while the great field of influencing the reading of American children remains unconquered.Until we affect production to the extent that the book stores circulate as good books as the best libraries we cannot be too complacent about our position as a force in citizen making.
An "impossible"ideal,of course,but far from intimidating,the largeness of the task makes us all the more determined.
This paper attempts no suggestion of new methods of attacking the problem.It is rather a restatement of an old perplexity.I harp once more on a worn theme because I think that unless we frequently lift our eyes from the day's absorbing duties for a look over the whole field,and unless we once and again make searching inventory of our convictions,our purposes,our methods,our attainments,we are in danger of letting ourselves slip along the groove of the taken-for-granted and our work loses in power as we allow ourselves to become leaners instead of leaders.May we not,as if it were a new idea,rouse to the seriousness of the mediocre habit indulged in by young people capable of better things?Should not our work with children reach out more to work with adults,to those who buy and sell and make books for the young?Is it not time for the successful teller of stories to children to use her gifts in audiences of grown people,persuading these molders of the children's future of the reasonableness of our objection to the third rate since it is the enemy of the best?May it not be politic,at least,for the librarian to descend from her disdainful height and make friends with "the trade,"with bookseller and publisher who,after all,have as good a right to their bread and butter as the librarian paid out of the city's taxes?
And then--is it not possible that we might be better librarians if we refused to be librarians every hour in the day and half the night as well?What if we were to have the courage to refuse to indulge in nervous breakdowns,because we deliberately plan to play,and to eat,and to sleep,to keep serene and sane and human,believing that God in His Heaven gives His children a world of beauty to enjoy as well as a work to do with zeal.If we lived a little longer and not quite so wide,the gain to our chosen work in calm nerves and breadth of interest and sympathy would even up for dropping work on schedule time for a symphony concert or a country walk or a visit with a friend--might even justify saving the cost of several A.L.A.conferences toward a trip to Italy!
This hurling at librarians advice to play more and work less reminds me of a story told by a southern friend.Years ago,in a sleepy little Virginia village,there lived two characters familiar to the townspeople,whose greatest daily excitement was a stroll down to the railroad station to watch the noon express rush through to distant southern cities.One of these personages was the station keeper,of dry humor and sententious habit,whom we will call Hen Waters;the other was the station goat,named,of course,Billy.Year after year had Billy peacefully cropped the grass along the railroad tracks,turning an indifferent ear to the roar of the daily express,when suddenly one day the notion seemed to strike his goatish mind that this racket had been quietly endured long enough.With the warning whistle of the approaching engine,Billy,lowering his head,darted furiously up the track,intending to butt the offending thunderer into Kingdom Come.When,a few seconds later,the amazed spectators were gazing after the diminishing train,Hen Waters,addressing the spot where the redoubtable goat had last been seen,drawled out:
"Billy,I admire your pluck--but darn your discretion!"The parallel between the the ambitions and the futility of the goat,and the present speaker's late advice is so obvious that only the illogicalness of woman can account for my cherishing a hope that I may be spared the fate of the indiscreet Billy.
