Library Work with Children | Page 8

good juvenile books,
a statement which at once raises the question, What are good juvenile
books? This is one of the vexed questions of the literary world, closely
allied to the one which has so often been mooted in the press and the

pulpit, as to the utility and propriety of novel reading. But while this
question is one on which there are great differences of opinion, there
are a few things which may be said on it without diffidence or the fear
of successful contradiction. Of this kind is the remark that good
juvenile books must have something positively good about them. They
should be not merely amusing or entertaining and harmless, but
instructive and stimulating to the better nature. Fortunately such books
are not so rare as they have been. Some of the best minds are now
being turned to the work of providing them. Within a few months such
honored names in the world of letters as those of Hamerton and
Higginson have been added to the list which contains those of "Peter
Parley," Jacob Abbott, "Walter Aimwell," Elijah Kellogg, Thomas
Hughes, and others who have devoted their talents, not to the
amusement, but to the instruction and culture of youth. The names of
some of the most popular writers for young people in our day are not
ranked with those mentioned above, not because their productions are
positively injurious, but because they lack the positively good qualities
demanded by our definition.
There is a danger to youth in reading some books which are not open to
the charge of directly injurious tendencies. Many of the most popular
juveniles, while running over with excellent "morals," are
unwholesome mental food for the young, for the reason that they are
essentially untrue. That is, they give false views of life, making it
consist, if it be worth living, of a series of adventures, hair-breadth
escapes; encounters with tyrannical schoolmasters and unnatural
parents; sea voyages in which the green hand commands a ship and
defeats a mutiny out of sheer smartness; rides on runaway locomotives,
strokes of good luck, and a persistent turning up of things just when
they are wanted --all of which is calculated in the long run to lead away
the young imagination and impart discontent with the common lot of an
uneventful life.
Books of adventure seem to meet a real want in the minds of the young,
and should not be entirely ruled out; but they cannot be included among
the books the reading of which should be encouraged or greatly
extended. In the public library it will be found perhaps necessary not to
exclude this class of juvenile books entirely. Such an exclusion is not
here advocated, but it is rather urged that they should not form the

staple of juvenile reading furnished by the library. The better books
should be duplicated so as to be on hand when called for; these should
be provided in such numbers merely that they can occasionally be had
as the "seasoning" to a course of good reading.
But the young patrons of the library ought not to be encouraged in
confining their reading to juveniles, of no matter how good quality. It is
the one great evil of this era of juvenile books, good and bad, that by
supplying mental food in the form fit for mere children, they postpone
the attainment of a taste for the strong meat of real literature; and the
public library ought to be influential in exalting this real literature and
keeping it before the people, stemming with it the current of trash
which is so eagerly welcomed because it is new or because it is
interesting. When children were driven to read the same books as their
elders or not to read at all, there were doubtless thousands, probably the
majority of all, who chose the latter alternative, and read but very little
in their younger years. This class is better off now than then by the
greater inducements offered them to mental culture in the increased
facilities provided for it. But there seems to be danger that the ease and
smoothness of the royal road to knowledge now provided in the great
array of easy books in all departments will not conduce to the
formation of such mental growths as resulted from the pursuit of
knowledge under difficulties. There is doubtless more knowledge; but
is there as much power and muscle of mind?
However this may be, none can fail to recognize the importance of
setting young people in the way of reading the best books early in life.
And as the public library is likely to be the one place where the masters
of literature can be found, it is essential that here they should be put by
every available means