Library Work with Children | Page 5

was born in Burlington, Vermont, April 28,
1844. He was educated in the Winchester, Mass., schools, and received
the honorary degree of A.M. from Amherst in 1884. He served as
librarian of Amherst College from 1883 to 1911, when he was made
librarian emeritus. Mr. Fletcher was joint editor of Poole's Index to
Periodical Literature, and editor of the continuation from 1882 to 1911;
edited the A. L. A. Index to general literature in 1893 and 1901; the
Cooperative Index to periodicals from 1883 to 1911, and in 1895
published his Public Libraries in America. He was president of the A. L.
A. in 1891-1892.
What shall the public library do for the young, and how? is a question
of acknowledged importance. The remarkable development of "juvenile
literature" testifies to the growing importance of this portion of the
community in the eyes of book producers, while the character of much
of this literature, which is now almost thrust into the hands of youth, is
such as to excite grave doubts as to its being of any service, intellectual
or moral. In this state of things the public library is looked to by some
with hope, by others with fear, according as its management is
apparently such as to draw young readers away from merely frivolous

reading, or to make such reading more accessible and encourage them
in the use of it; hence the importance of a judicious administration of
the library in this regard.
One of the first questions to be met in arranging a code of rules for the
government of a public library relates to the age at which young
persons shall be admitted to its privileges. There is no usage on this
point which can be called common, but most libraries fix a certain age,
as twelve or fourteen, below which candidates for admission are
ineligible. Only a few of the most recently established libraries have
adopted what seems to be the right solution of this question, by making
no restriction whatever as to age. This course recommends itself as the
wisest and the most consistent with the idea of the public library on
many grounds.
In the first place, age is no criterion of mental condition and capacity.
So varying is the date of the awakening of intellectual life, and the
rapidity of its progress, that height of stature might almost as well be
taken for its measure as length of years. In every community there are
some young minds of peculiar gifts and precocious development, as fit
to cope with the masterpieces of literature at ten years of age, as the
average person of twenty, and more appreciative of them. From this
class come the minds which rule the world of mind, and confer the
greatest benefits on the race. How can the public library do more for
the intellectual culture of the whole community than by setting forward
in their careers those who will be the teachers and leaders of their
generation? In how many of the lives of those who have been eminent
in literature and science do we find a youth almost discouraged because
deprived of the means of intellectual growth. The lack of appreciation
of youthful demands for culture is one of the saddest chapters in the
history of the world's comprehending not the light which comes into it.
Our public libraries will fail in an important part of their mission if they
shut out from their treasures minds craving the best, and for the best
purposes, because, forsooth, the child is too young to read good books.
Some will be found to advocate the exclusion of such searchers for
knowledge on the ground that precocious tastes should be repressed in
the interests of physical health. But a careful investigation of the facts
in such cases can hardly fail to convince one that in them repression is
the last thing that will bring about bodily health and vigor. There

should doubtless be regulation, but nothing will be so likely to conduce
to the health and physical well being of a person with strong mental
cravings as the reasonable satisfaction of those cravings. Cases can be
cited where children, having what seemed to be a premature
development of mental qualities coupled with weak or even diseased
bodily constitutions, have rapidly improved in health when
circumstances have allowed the free exercise of their intellectual
powers, and have finally attained a maturity vigorous alike in body and
mind. This is in the nature of a digression, but it can do no harm to call
attention thus to the facts which contradict the common notion that
intellectual precocity should be discouraged. Nature is the best guide,
and it is in accordance with all her workings, that when she has in hand
the production of a giant of