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They appeared, to tell the honest truth, with late reference-books under their arms, and in their heads the faculty for asking the most annoying sort of questions. More than one honest Solon was seen to stammer and turn red under their interrogations, so often stiffened by a date and a little figure or so. And these troublesome "thinking women" had not retired when the legislature did.
A child will get more ideas from one page of pictures than from a dozen or more pages of description and hard words. If lack of space compels one to deny the privilege of going to the shelves, it seems to me more essential for children to have ready access to reference-books, and especially to be taught how to use them, than for grown-up people.
Eight libraries report no reference-books on the children's shelves and the majority of the others only a few such works. The largest number of periodicals taken appears to be our own list of 10, though by this time the libraries reporting in 1896 may have increased their number. Instead of taking a variety of periodicals, they seem to prefer duplicating a few favorites.
Barrows, principal of the Brown School, writes: "Our library contains the usual school reference-books. Recently we have added quite a number of books especially adapted to interest and instruct children, such as The Boy Travellers, Miss Yonge's Histories, Butterworth's Zigzag Journeys, Forbes's Fairy Geography, etc. The children are not permitted to take these books away from the building.
He printed for the use of pupils a list of suggestions, some of the most important of which were summed up in the following words: "Begin by basing your reading on your school text-books;" "Learn the proper use of reference-books;" "Use imaginative literature, but not immoderately;" "Do not try to cover too much ground;" "Do not hesitate to ask for assistance and suggestions at the library;" "See that you make your reading a definite gain to you in some direction."
For the rest, a huge table, a single chair, and two bookcases filled with a small, but remarkably well-chosen collection of reference-books, finished the characteristic arrangement of the room.
Quiet games in the evening for the older children, of a nature to require the use of reference-books, would be strictly within the library's province. Personal talks with the children about their reading, if judiciously conducted, are always in order.
At the end of the room, lighted by the wide windows, was a long desk which was really a writer's assembly line, with typewriter, reference-books, stacks of notes and manuscripts, and a big dictionary on a stand beside a comfortable swivel-chair. "What are you writing?" Rand asked. "Science-fiction. I do a lot of stories for the pulps," Pierre told him.
The house, then, is the first element of home to be considered and studied; and we have settled certain points as to location and arrangement. This is no hand-book of plans for houses, that ground being thoroughly covered in various books, the titles of two or three of which are given in a list of reference-books at the end.
There are other lives than those of purely literary men and women which I should recommend. You must have become aware of the great value of historical literature in this age. One can hardly be without such valuable reference-books as Green's "History of England," Freeman's various histories, and those included in the Epoch Series.
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