county is Round Up, Montana? Has it ever been in any other county? In what language are the mural inscriptions on the Taj Mahal?

That large number of library patrons who think that the main use of book money for a public library is to supply current fiction, may see in such a range of questions why a good part of such funds needs to be applied to reference books.

Utica. The establishment of a regular branch of the public library in East Utica has been assured by the gift for that purpose of an ideal site in that part of the city by Margaret Bender, and its acceptance by the library trustees. This branch will meet the needs of a very large Italian population and also of the thousands of employees in the mills of East Utica.

I Gives to each free library meeting Regents requirements, an annual grant of $100 for the purchase of books, on condition that an equal amount is applied from local sources for the same object.

2 Incorporates with provisional charter libraries having property to the value of $100, and grants an absolute charter where property worth $1000 is held. No fee is charged for incorporation.

3 Exempts from taxation all property of libraries used for public library purposes.

4 Sends traveling libraries to schools, clubs, granges or small communities; also to local libraries to supplement their collections.

5 Lends pictures and lantern slides to any library which exhibits them to the public without charge.

6 Maintains an advanced school for the instruction and training of librarians, and a summer school for elementary training; also cooperates with the State Library Association in the conduct of library institutes or round tables.

7 Assists in the selection of books: (a) by passing judgment on lists sent in for approval by individual libraries; (b) by printing annually a carefully selected list of 250 "Best Books" of the previous year; (c) by sending to registered libraries gratuitously the A. L. A. Book List; (d) by notes and suggestions in the Quarterly bulletin; (e) by the publication of numerous bibliographies on

various subjects of interest; (f) by advice given on personal visits.

8 Aids local libraries in reference work by sending from the State Library information or material on request.

9 Gives advice and assistance in planning library buildings and furnishes to library boards material on the subject.

10 Provides free of cost the services of an expert in library law in interpreting and applying the law of the State to local conditions.

II Provides for annual visits to libraries from a trained and experienced librarian for the purpose of giving advice and counsel in all matters of library economy.

12 To free libraries just organizing, or to those needing reorganization, provides free of cost the services of an expert library organizer for a period not exceeding two weeks.

13 Publishes a quarterly bulletin for the purpose of disseminating library news and promoting sound ideas in library economy.

VOL. 3

Commissioner of Education

ANDREW S. DRAPER1 LL.B. LL.D.

Editorial Board

J. I. WYER, JR, Director of State Library

W. R. WATSON, Chief of Division of Educational Extension

ASA WYNKOOP, Head of Public Libraries Section

NO. 7

PAGE

... 267

ANDREW SLOAN DRAPER.......
WHAT THE DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT CAN
DO FOR SCHOOL LIBRARIES, Walter S.
Clark.....

269

TRAINING SCHOOL CHILDREN IN THE ART AND TASTE OF READING....

271

The use of school libraries..

Approval of books for school libraries... 282 Annotated list of books for academic

school libraries.... Teachers' reading courses.

THE NEW STATE LIBRARY.

283

283

284

265

Progress in school libraries. The larger part of this number of New York Libraries is devoted to the interests of school libraries in recognition of two facts, the relative value of the material bearing on this phase of library work that has lately come to hand, and the far-reaching effects that work in this field is sure to have on the whole library movement. Schools and schoolmen have unquestionably been slow in giving the library its due place in the work of education, but recent years have seen a great 1 Died April 27, 1913.

L16m-My13-3700 (7-5935) JUN 18 1913

Say

"Library day" in the schools. Among the many excellent suggestions contained in Mr Clark's address to district superintendents, we would especially commend his recommendation regarding the setting apart at regular periods a special day to be observed by appropriate exercises in the schools as "Book day" or "Library day," in which teachers and children shall be reminded of the part that books and reading have in human life and education and in which the various interests of the school library shall be set forth and emphasized. Many topics suggest themselves for such exercises. ings of great men regarding books could be memorized and recited; the part that particular books have had in great lives or in great historic movements could be illustrated and emphasized; stories introducing the great classics for children could be told; or efforts could be directed toward practical means for enlarging or improving the school library. The main thing is that the library be magnified in the minds of children, and given an added power of appeal to their imagination and interest. In larger places where there is a public library, the work of inaugurating such a custom in the school and providing the proper exercises for its celebration may well be undertaken by the head or staff of that library. In many cities this has already been done with the happiest results, and the way from the school library to the public library has thus been made straight, easy and attractive. The school library at best can serve but a temporary purpose. It will accomplish little in most cases unless it leads direct to the public library. And the head of any public library can do nothing more effective in making his institution "an integral part of public education " than by watching for and utilizing every such opportunity for introducing and establishing in the children of the schools the public library habit.

Results from reading. We owe to Doctor Hill, inspector of the prison schools of the State, a sentence which seems well worthy of repetition and special emphasis in this school libraries number. Speaking of his aim in establishing libraries in the prison schools, he says: "Our object is not to get books

read, but to get results from reading." This sentence goes to the very root of the problem in school library work and indeed in all library effort, and puts before us the final test by which all such efforts must be tried. Surely it is a hard saying. It puts on us a duty far harder than the securing of a large circulation, a large registry of borrowers, the stimulating of the reading habit or the stocking of our shelves with the best books. To get books read, to get even good books read, may be and often is a mere waste of effort on the part of teacher, librarian and pupil alike. Often indeed, in both school and home, it is worse than a waste; it creates a positive distaste for reading or for the class of books read. To secure desirable results from reading there must always be two things in combination, the book with a positive contribution to life, thought or imagination and the mind needing and ready to assimilate that contribution. Where this combination is not brought about, neither compulsion nor the application of extraneous motives will be more than superficially effective. The reading can thereby be secured but its proper results will be lacking. The librarian or the teacher who will get the desired results from reading is the one, and only the one, who has both that intimate knowledge of books and that sympathy with and understanding of his readers whereby he is able to bring to each the books which belong to him."

66

Help offered by State Library. It gives us great pleasure to announce that the State Library is again in operation in all of its departments, ready and eager to render its full service to the government, institutions and people of the State. The extent and conditions of this service are impressively and clearly set forth in a new "Handbook for Readers" which has just been issued, a brief summary of which is given in another column of this number of New York Libraries. A copy of this handbook has been sent to the head of every registered library and school in the State, and it is hoped and urged that it be carefully preserved, read and studied by each, not only for the advantages that these institutions themselves may obtain, but for the guidance and direction which they may thus be able to give to their patrons

For a

For those in charge of public libraries, and more especially, those in charge of small libraries, every fact in this handbook should be a matter of familiar knowledge, and the facilities and provisions there set forth should be matters of almost daily practice. librarian in this State not to know of the possibilities of help for him and his library that exist ready at hand in the State Library is almost as inexcusable and almost as serious a limitation to his usefulness and efficiency as not to know what his own library has to offer. The State Library is a part of the resource of every public or school library in New York State. Just how vital and important this part shall be depends on the extent to which the librarian will familiarize himself with and use the facilities offered. The head of a small branch bank or store, who would limit his operations and service by the small resources which he happened to have at hand in his vaults or shelves, ignoring the unlimited resources of the great system to which he belongs, would be no more unfitted for his place and duties than is the head of a small library in New York who persists in operating in ignorance of or in detachment from the great central library, of which his library should be an organic and vital part.

The A. L. A. in the Catskills. The annual meeting of the American Library Association, no matter where it may be held, is always an event of first importance and interest to librarians. The present stage of library development in this country is to a large degree the result of influences directed and set in motion at these national conferences, and there has hardly been a meeting in the history of the association from which some definite advance in library work or method may not be traced. In several instances a distinct library awakening in whole sections of the country has been attributed directly to the ideas, energy and enthusiasm imparted by the national meeting of librarians in those sections; and it is for the sake of obtaining such or similar benefits that different parts of the country actively compete each year for the honor and privilege of entertaining

this privilege falls this year to New York State, and we have no doubt that its benefits will be felt throughout the State for many years to come. To give library workers from all parts of this State the largest possible opportunity and incentive to share in this privilege, the meeting has been given a location and setting which for combined attraction, convenience, comfort and accessibility could not be duplicated. For hundreds of librarians of New York this is an opportunity for professional enrichment that may not for many years, or may never, come so close again. Under the circumstances any word of appeal or urging would seem to be superfluous. Details of the meeting and an outline of the program will be found on another page. Fuller information is given in the May number of the "A. L. A. Bulletin."

ANDREW SLOAN DRAPER

The death of Dr Andrew Sloan Draper, State Commissioner of Education, on Sunday, April 27th, brought to an end at the age of sixty-five years an unusually forceful and fruitful life. He was not a man of markedly varied accomplishments and yet, by the compelling power of his will and by the native force of his intellect, he lifted himself above his fellows and wrought much for the public good in ways in which men of greater versatility and of greater genius might have failed. He came of Puritan stock and was proud of it. He believed in good breeding but there was nothing of the aristocrat in his make-up. There was no alloy in his character or in his actions. His honesty was rugged, his moral vision clear, his habits temperate and exact, his purposes open and direct, his sense of justice keen and powerful, his persistence and his tenacity in the prosecution of any end he sought a wonder to all who knew him. Whatever he did he conceived to be worthy of doing to the very limit of his ability. His whole life was marked by a singular completeness and fulness in every particular piece of work he did.

He attended the public schools of Albany and was graduated from the Albany Academy in 1866 and from the Albany Law School

in 1871. His education in the schools went no further. His rise to prominence in American education began with his election, at the age of thirty-eight years, as Superintendent of Public Instruction in New York State. Before that time he had been a teacher, a successful practitioner of law, a member of the Albany board of education, a member of the New York State Legislature and a judge of the United States Court of Alabama Claims. As a young man he was active in local, and later in State and in national politics, and when he became Superintendent of Public Instruction, while he was highly regarded for his honesty and probity, he was known as a politician rather than as an educator. His transition from lawyer and politician to perhaps the most conspicuous educational organizer and administrator in America forms one of the most interesting records of personal achievement of his generation. In the administration of his first high educational office he set a distinctly new policy and brought about many notable and permanent reforms. His greatest service as Superintendent of Public Instruction lay in his successful efforts to drive political influence out of the employment of school teachers and to establish for the entire State a permanent uniform system of examinations for teachers.

His wonderful executive capacity later found free play in the superintendency of the public schools of Cleveland, Ohio, and in the presidency of the University of Illinois. He is known as the builder of a great university. Before he went to its presidency the University of Illinois had had an unsettled and precarious existence. It was poorly provided for by the state legislature, not greatly respected by the public and attended by less than 800 students. He left it, after a service of ten years, with a beautiful campus, a dozen substantial buildings erected through his activity and with more than 4000 students. But he did much more for the institution than that. He brought the people of the state to see the need of a great free university, to feel a direct personal responsibility for it and to pledge themselves for its continued generous support.

That a man

not trained in any college, who did not profess to know anything about the management of colleges, should in ten years place such a struggling institution upon such a footing

is one of the marvels of his time in the educational world, and is eloquent testimony of the native capacity and of the real greatness of the man.

The crowning effort of his life lies, however, in his successful unification of the conflicting educational interests of his native State. He brought educational peace to the State of New York. The last nine years of his life were crowded with the organizing and building of a department of education upon foundations which will long endure. The complete divorcement of school affairs from politics, the revision and the consolidation of the State's educational laws, the closer supervision of rural schools and the founding of a system of scholarships that bring opportunity for higher education to every ambitious boy and girl in the State, stand out conspicuously among the accomplishments of his administration as Commissioner of Education. The State Education Building, a visible evidence of his genius, is his lasting monument.

Both as president of the University of Illinois and as Commissioner of Education in New York he did much to promote sound library administration. In Illinois he was instrumental in the building of a fine library and in the establishing of one of the leading library schools of the country. His heroic and successful efforts to rehabilitate the New York State Library after the disastrous Capitol fire will long be remembered. In the erection of the State Education Building he was anxious that every provision should be made for the proper housing and for the practical administration of the State Library and of the Library School. He was perhaps sometimes a little impatient with what he termed the "infinite detail" of library work, but he was quick to recognize efficiency in library administration. He always insisted that a library existed to be of actual service, and he was always sympathetic with any movement that tended to bring good books into the hands of the people. He always lent his enthusiastic support to the work of library extension.

The keynote of his life was his passion for free education for the multitude, and he was generous in his recognition of the contribution which well-organized and well-administered libraries make to that end.