SCHOOL LIBRARIES. The school library is a compara tively late development in British Elementary Education. (For the school library in the U.S., see LIBRARIES.) Under the old system of payment by results there was little opportunity of straying from the narrow path represented by the "three Rs." But teachers have gradually learnt that with teaching to read, the appetite for reading must come with the eating; the mere teaching of the principles of mastication is of little good. This appetite has undoubtedly been developed within the classroom itself by the system of circulating libraries of reading books, giving a far wider range and choice of interests than when each school had a limited set of readers of its own. But care must be taken to create first an appetite and then taste, though the more ambitious teachers have often begun with the latter. To-day a properly equipped school library contains books for enjoyment and books for information and the cultivation of taste. Books for enjoy ment especially, should be attractively bound and if possible illustrated. Children's books should look as tempting as their games and toys, and indeed many school books are attractively got-up to-day, the line of demarcation between the ordinary book and the school book being often very thin. Children should be taught to take reasonable care of books, but they must not be made afraid of them. A set of well-thumbed books is a finer testimonial to a school than a set of immaculate volumes. To tempt the children on to more serious books is part of the teacher's task. Once they have caught the reading habit they may be diplo matically led on to something a little better. The longer works of Dickens and other standard authors may be tackled, provided the teacher knows how to put forward what is best, and how to pass over what is likely to be tedious or unintelligible. Valuable books of voyages, travel, biography should also be brought into their ken. Books for information will include books too difficult to read as a whole, but not too difficult to be used for reference or simpler research. Boys of 13 cannot be expected to read a whole history of English literature, but they ought to be able to consult one. Again, when reading a play of Shakespeare they should have at hand a life of Shakespeare, and a glossary of Shakespeare and other similar books. Among the books of refer ence Whitaker's Almanac should have an honoured place, espe cially in those schools where the daily paper is used to stimulate curiosity (by extracts on current events being placed on the notice-board).
Both for pleasure and for profit, a close touch should be estab lished with the local free library wherever one exists. Many free libraries have a juvenile section including sometimes a junior reading room, and work in full co-operation with the elementary school. Private reading makes a full child, and should be one of the best antidotes to the elementary pupils' faults of thinness and discontinuity in reading. The large sale of such series as the
Everyman Library, the Home University Library, etc., is clear evidence of the great advance in the standard of popular reading since the beginning of the century. The reference library for teachers must not be forgotten. It ought to be not merely for reference but for more extensive reading. The more advanced local authorities not only provide circulating libraries of books for children, often with the aid of the Carnegie Trust, but have also central libraries where teachers can borrow or consult books connected with any side of learning and culture.
A similar revolution has taken place in the English secondary schools. Books for individual reading are available in class libraries or in the general section of the library. The most ad vanced schools draw up lists of story books, often in modern languages, suitable to the age and the class. Some teachers go still further and keep a register under each pupil's name of the books read, which enables them to see that each pupil takes out at least one book per term. Others devote part of the English lesson to description or discussion by the individual pupils of the books read. In spite of the bad name the holiday task has acquired in some instances, a good deal of voluntary reading is done in the holidays. An excellent system is to have a list lof books for the pupils to buy and read in the holidays throughout their school life. In this way practically every child on leaving the school has voluntarily purchased and read a nucleus library of some 20-30 books.
Reference libraries have developed in the same fashion, being open alike to the teachers and the children, especially in cases where the Dalton plan has been adopted. Advanced courses have given them a further impetus, as a good reference library in all subjects is indispensable to the advanced student. Local author ities now often make yearly grants for libraries to their elementary and secondary schools. But in spite of much that has been done there still remains a great deal to do in the way of raising all schools to the level of the best and in making the reference library sufficiently comprehensive to meet the requirements of the cur riculum and the needs of the teachers.
Similar developments have taken place in the Evening Insti tutes and Training Colleges and the introduction in the uni versities of Seminar Libraries in different subjects also marks a great advance. Mention should also be made here of the Central Library for students as well as that in connection with the Workers Education movement, while the Board of Education Library with its 6o,000 books and pamphlets is of special interest to teachers and students of education. (G. SN. C. BR.)