The children's librarian should have the sort of nerves that are not set on edge by children.This does not mean that she may not be a nervous person in other ways,indeed she must be,for the nerveless,jelly-fish character can never be a success in dealing with children.But I have seen people of highly nervous organization who were really unconscious of the ceaseless tramp,tramp,of the children's feet,the hum and clatter and moving about inevitable in a children's library.Visitors come into the room and say to such a person,"How can you stand this for many minutes at a time?"and the librarian looks round in surprise at the idea of there being anything hard to bear when she hears only the little buzz that means to her hundreds of little ones at the most susceptible age,eagerly,happily absorbing the ennobling ideals,the poetic fancies,the craving for knowledge that are going to make them better men and women than they would have been without this glimpse into the realms beyond their daily surroundings.
To attempt to enumerate,one by one,the qualities that combine to make a wise and successful disciplinarian would be fruitless.
We can talk endlessly about what OUGHT to be.The most practical thing to do to obtain such a person,is not to take a raw subject and pour advice upon her in hopes she will develop some day,but to hunt till you find the right one and then offer her salary enough to get her for your library.And this suggests a subject worthy of future discussion,that head librarians should reckon this to be a profession within our profession,just as the kindergartner is a specialist within the teaching body,demanding a higher type of training than is the rule,and PAYING THE PRICETO GET IT.
Just a word about what degree of order and quiet to expect,and to work for,in a children's room.Are we to try to maintain that awful hush that sends cold chills down the spine of the visitor on his first entering a modern reading room,and tempts him to back out in fright lest the ticking of his watch may draw all eyes upon him?
I should be very sorry to have a children's room as perfectly noiseless as a reading room for adults.It is so unnatural for a roomful of healthy boys and girls to be absolutely quiet for long periods that if I found such a state of affairs I should be sure something was wrong--that all spontaneity was being repressed,that that freedom of the shelves which is a great educator was being denied because moving about makes too much noise,that the question and answer and comment which mark the friendly understanding between librarian and child,and which make a good book circulate because one boy tells another that it is good,were done away with in order that no slight noise might be heard.
If there were such a thing as a meter to register sound to be hung in a children's room beside the thermometer,I should not be alarmed if it indicated a pretty high degree,provided I could look around the room and observe the following conditions:a large room,full of contented children,no one of whom was wilfully noisy or annoying,most of them being quietly reading,the ones who were moving about asking in low tones the children's librarian or each other,perfectly legitimate questions that were to help them choose the right thing.It is inevitable that heavy boots,young muscles that have not learned self-control,the joyous frankness of childhood that does not think to keep its eager happiness over a good "find"under decorous restraint,will result in more actual noise than obtains in the adults'reading room.And yet,while the "sound meter"of the children's room would register farther up,it might really be more orderly than the other room,for every child might be using his room as it was intended to be used,while the adult department might contain a couple of women who came in for the express purpose of visiting,and yet who knew how to whisper so softly as not to be invited to retire.We must remember that,if children make more noise,they do not mind each other's noise as adults do.The dropping of a book or overturning of a chair,the walking about do not disturb the young student's train of thought;and while I do not wish to be quoted as advocating a noisy room,but on the contrary would work for a quiet one,day in and day out,I do feel that allowances must be made for noises that are not intended to be annoying,and that we should not sacrifice to the ideal of deathly stillness the good we hope to do through the child's love for the room in which he feels free to express himself in a natural,friendly atmosphere.
