“There is no problem relating to the equipment of the high school which is more pressing than that of the library,” said a recent editorial writer in the School Review. At the annual meeting of the New York State Library Association, in 1907, Dr. Downing, State Commissioner of Education, suggested that some special study be given to the question of high school libraries and a committee was later appointed to make an investigation of library conditions in high schools and report at the annual meeting in September, 1909. A questionnaire was sent to some eighty-three schools, but only a few of the replies contained more than the briefest answers. Twenty-five out of the fifty-two libraries heard from were in charge of librarians who had some library experience or training. Most of the librarians had been appointed to high school positions since 1903. The first appointment of a high school librarian in New York City was in 1900. The investigation as a whole was unsatisfactory, inasmuch as the high schools reporting were not representative of conditions throughout the State, much less throughout the country generally, and because the replies left much unsaid as to the actual use of and interest in these libraries.

In a discussion of “The difficulty of the high school library,”^[2] Mr. Edwin White Gaillard, supervisor of work with schools, New York Public Library, claims that the problem is largely one of money and deprecates the duplication of work already being done by the public library. This is no more of an argument against high school libraries than are similar objections against departmental libraries in a university. The high school library is for a special kind of work—work that can best be done in the school building, under the supervision and guidance of one familiar with the special needs of the student. Mr. Gaillard grants that much, of course, may be learned about libraries and library methods in the high school library, but claims that the library habit, the habit of going to the public library for all sorts of information, of little or of great interest, cannot be acquired from the high school library. This is a point which cannot be conceded. University librarians are familiar with a similar argument against technical departmental libraries to the effect that they have a tendency to make the technical student feel that there is no need of his going to the University Library, that the departmental library answers all his needs. Experience, however, proves that to have these students use any library you must plant it right in their midst. So with the high school students: give them a good library in their own school building and then see that they use it properly, for this is a part of modern education.

In these days when high schools are extending their work in so many directions and when books must be provided for supplementary work in English, in history, in the preparation of debates, and in other subjects, a well-equipped library is a necessity in the modern high school. A motley array of old text-books, out-of-date encyclopÆdias and miscellaneous volumes from the attics of well-meaning friends of the institution will not make a good high school library. Upon how many school libraries in this country can former pupils look back as did Burne-Jones upon the little school library at Birmingham, as “that blessed institution where we spent many blissful hours.” The failure of many school libraries is due to a lack of proper care and fostering attention after they have been established. The library is there out of deference to a growing public sentiment in favor of such an annex, but the library is too frequently left to run itself, or the responsibility for its care is given to some teacher already overburdened with class-room work. The responsibility ought never to be placed on the teachers, or at least not on one who is doing full work as a teacher. The average teacher, if given charge of a school library, will confine her efforts to seeing that the rules are obeyed, that books are brought in on time, and that silence and order are preserved. She will not have time or energy to devote to the building up of the library, to instruct the pupils in its use, to look after reference work with the students, nor to help the teachers in finding needed material. “Disabuse yourselves of the notion that it is teachers’ work, and a way out of the difficulty will be found,” says a recent writer in the Library Journal.^[3]

The school library differs from the average public library in that it is usually a reference library first and a lending library only so far as the use of its books outside the building does not conflict with the usefulness of its service to the teachers and pupils in the school building.

Duties of the Librarian.—The first duty of the librarian is to make the books, photographs, and other possessions of the library available by a simple and acceptable system of classification and cataloguing. After this has been accomplished it will be necessary to make these possessions known to the teachers and pupils. This can only be done by one who is familiar with the material and trained in its use. If the reference work is done by an untrained worker it is a case of the blind leading the blind. A teacher with no training in library methods will not go to another teacher, known to be similarly deficient, for information in regard to books, and the pupils will get comparatively little real library help from one who is primarily a class-room teacher, untrained to meet all classes of readers and answer a great variety of questions.

The interested librarian will be on the lookout for any new books that may be of use to teachers and pupils; she will try to keep a balance in the matter of books for the various departments of study, to inform herself on current events and, in short, make herself as useful in all lines of high school work as is possible with the time and means at her disposal.

Assistance for the Librarian.—As the work of the library grows it will be necessary for the librarian to have assistance of some kind. The arrangement for this will depend largely upon the circumstances in the given school. In many schools student assistants are employed. In some cases boys are hired at a small sum per hour to give their services as pages. In others good students are allowed to volunteer for library work, giving one hour a day to it. They enjoy the work and find their enlarged knowledge of the library very useful. In some schools the librarian is assisted by a member of the teaching staff, who thus becomes familiar with the library and acquires some knowledge of reference work and can assist the pupils in various ways.

Purposes of a Library.—The purposes of a school library should be not only to provide laboratory material for the pupils’ work in literature and history, to enable the teacher to instruct them in the use of books as sources of information, and to assist the teacher in other ways, but also to instil in the pupils an interest in books as books, to cultivate a taste for reading. Too many high school graduates have no conception of a book, other than fiction, as anything but a task or a text.

The high school library should not try to compete with the public library if there is one in the same town. Literature for recreation pure and simple is better supplied by the public library, where it is available for those who are both below and above the high school age. But, on the other hand, if there is nothing to interest the students by its innate appeal, if everything in the school library suggests lessons, many of the students will view it with suspicion, and avoid it, unless sent there by the teachers.

Teaching the Use of the Library.—Most pupils when they enter the high school are ignorant of the use of the simplest and most common reference books. They do not know the difference between a table of contents and an index, and are so helpless in a library that their teachers hesitate to give them work outside their text-books. Even those who are best informed can be helped to the use of books which will be of the greatest assistance to them in the preparation of their daily lessons, essays, and debates.

Early in the school year the librarian ought to meet the new students and explain to them in the reading-room the grouping of the books and the fundamental principles underlying the making of a dictionary card catalogue. The location of various classes of reference books should be pointed out, the differences between a dictionary and an encyclopÆdia explained, and the various types of both commented upon. The pupils should be shown how to use “Poole’s Index” and the “Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature” and have the helpfulness of these aids clearly brought home to them by concrete illustrations in connection with some practical theme work or preparation for a debate. If this initial visit to the library is made the subject of a required paper in the English course the benefits are doubled. The pupils can be assigned problems of various kinds involving the intelligent use of tables of contents and indexes, and familiarizing themselves with a variety of reference books.^[4] They can be asked to fill out a call slip from the reference in the card catalogue, take the volume to the delivery desk, have it charged out, return it, see it discharged and put back in its regular place on the shelves.

Library Instruction.—The library instruction, in order to be of real benefit to the pupils, should be made a part of the school curriculum and be given credit the same as other work. In most schools where it is given it is counted as a part of the English work. In the high schools of Michigan the time given to the library work varies from one to three exercises for each of the grades. The instruction is given in the form of lectures or informal talks, after which the pupils are required to work out a set of problems on reference books. This work is done in the library under the supervision of the librarian. The completed exercises are in some schools handed in to the librarian and in others to the English teacher, but the credit is usually given the pupil by his English teacher. The talks are arranged to suit the work and needs of the different classes. Those for the ninth grade pupils ordinarily include instruction in the use of dictionaries, encyclopÆdias and atlases, and the use of the table of contents and indexes in reference books. The instruction for the tenth grade takes up the use of the card catalogue, magazine indexes, year-books, and special indexes. The upper classes may be given practice work in comparing the value of different reference books, in learning to get references from various sources not on the reference shelves, and in the use of some of the government publications.

Library Courses.—One of the best library courses of this kind is that conducted by the librarian of the Detroit Central High School, where the work is graded to correspond with the regular grading of the English courses in that school. The librarian has a graded series of library questions which are among the best illustrations of this kind of work for high school courses available in print. We give specimens from the various series as follows:

1. 1. Consult the indexes of poems by Holmes, and give the pages on which you find the following: (a) Poem beginning, “Listen, young heroes! Your country is calling.” (b) Poem entitled, “Dorothy Q.” 2. Between what streets in our city does 870 Lafayette Street come?
2. 1. Look up the “Seven Wonders of the World” in two different books. Do not copy them. Name the books in which you found them. 2. In what work of literature does the “Old Man of the Sea” appear? In what reference book did you find it?
3. 1. Find the allusion to “Field of the Cloth of Gold” in two different books. In what books did you find it? 2. Use the card catalogue and give a reference for the life of John Greenleaf Whittier.
4. 1. (a) Who was governor of Iowa in 1906? (b) Where was he born? 2. (a) Name two good recent encyclopÆdias, (b) Name two good older encyclopÆdias.
5. 1. (a) What is the general index to Government publications? (b) How often is it published? 2. (a) What is the Congressional directory? (b) Examine it and name any one reference point which interested you. (c) What is the Congressional record?
6. Name good reference books under the following heads: (a) Classical dictionary. (b) Gazetteer of the world. (c) Atlas of the world. (d) Year-book for current history.

There is an almost endless variety of questions which can be put to the students to bring out points in connection with reference books. They can be asked to name the various kinds of dictionaries in the library, to tell which is the latest issue, to look up the same word in each, and tell the differences noted in the treatment of the word in question. See whether they can define a gazetteer, a glossary, and a concordance. Ask them where they would go to find a picture of the human skeleton, or colored plates of coats of arms and flags of various nations. See whether the word copyright means anything to them.

The Teacher and the Library.—“The position of a modern librarian in a high school,” says Principal McAndrew,^[5] of the Washington Irving High School, New York, “seems to me like that of a missionary in a heathen country. No one but a librarian can realize what an astounding amount of ignorance we high school teachers exhibit regarding the purpose and operation of a library. Time and again in my library experience I have observed teachers searching through reference books who were too poorly trained to look in the table of contents and too proud to ask for help.” A frank confession from the teacher is good for the soul of both the teacher and the librarian. Certainly the classroom teacher must inform herself more thoroughly on the rudiments of library methods if she is to work in successful co-operation with the school librarian. Normal schools are now giving instruction in library economy. The Oregon Library Commission has published a broadside listing under forty-three heads, “Some things a teacher should know about books and libraries.” The list has been reprinted by the Michigan State Library Commission with slight revision. As specimens the following may be cited:

1. What are the best cyclopedias?

2. What dictionaries are best for school use and how do they differ?

3. What books can you consult to find out whether certain subscription sets urged upon the district by agents have any value?

4. What is the best printed aid to the formation of a teacher’s professional library?

5. Where will you find annual summaries of the books on education, with notes as to their value?

6. What U. S. public documents would be of value to you in your school work and how may they be obtained?

7. What are the best printed lists of books for children and how much will they cost?

8. What are the best graded lists of children’s books?

9. Where can you get notes about children’s books that will be of service in guiding the reading of the children in your grade?

10. What are the best books for reading aloud in your grade?

11. What are the best collections of poetry for children?

12. What books may be the best stepping-stones for the boy who is a slave to the “nickel library” habit?

13. What simple, accurate, scientific books will you give to the boys who are, or may become, interested in natural science; and what will you choose for those who wish to identify specimens of insects, of minerals and rocks, of birds, and of flowers?

14. If you do not know about these books how will you inform yourself?

15. What are some of the best biographies for children?

16. What are some of the good books of travel for use in geography work?

17. How can you find what magazine articles have been written about any subject and how can you get these articles for the use of the debating society?

18. What are the best books for the debating society?

19. What are the best periodicals for children?

20. What are the provisions of the school library law in regard to district-school libraries?

Value of Library Instruction.—Such library instruction as has been described is of great help to teachers assigning work to pupils and of the greatest benefit to the pupils themselves. Without it, the librarian, teachers, and pupils are handicapped in their work and the library fails of its full usefulness. A knowledge of how to use a library will be of the greatest value to the student not only through his high school course, but even more so in college, if he goes that far, or in continuing his reading and self-culture through the means of the public library when he discontinues his academic career. To be able to use books effectively, to know where to find exact information when wanted, is a kind of knowledge that comes from familiarity with reference books and the use of books as sources. Such an acquaintance with books is of infinitely more value in later life than knowing a few text-books from cover to cover. The place in which to lay the foundation for this proper and intimate acquaintance with books as tools is in the school library and the period is that of the high school age.