登陆注册
15365500000056

第56章 VALUES IN LIBRARY WORK WITH CHILDREN(2)

But when one has selected with satisfaction perhaps a hundred and fifty titles,one begins to get into the potboiler class--the written-to-order information book which may be guaranteed to kill all future interest in a subject treated in style so wooden and lifeless;the retold classic in which every semblance to the spirit of the original is lost,and the reading of which will give to the child that familiarity which will breed contempt for the work itself;the atrocious picture book modeled after the comic supplement and telling in hideous daubs of color and caricature of line the tale of the practical joker who torments animals,mocks at physical deformities,plays tricks on parents,teases the newlywed,ridicules good manners,whose whole aim,in short,is to provoke guffaws of laughter at the expense of someone's hurt body or spirit.There will be collections of folk and fairy tales,raked together without discrimination from the literature of people among whom trickery and cunning are the most admired qualities;there will be school stories in which the masters and studious boys grovel at the feet of the football hero;in greater number than the above will be the stories written in series on thoroughly up-to-date subjects.

I shall be much surprised if we do not learn this fall that the world has been deceived in supposing that to Amundsen and Scott belong the honor of finding the South Pole,or to Gen.Goethals the credit of engineering the Panama Canal.If we do not discover that some young Frank or Jack or Bill was the brains behind these achievements,I shall wonder what has become of the ingenuity of the plotter of the series stories--the "plotter"I say advisedly,for it is a known fact that many of these stories are first outlined by a writer whose name makes books sell,the outlines then being filled in by a company of underlings who literally write to order.When we learn,also,that an author who writes admirable stories,in which special emphasis is laid upon fair play and a sense of honor,is at the same time writing under another name books he is ashamed to acknowledge,we are not surprised at the low grade of the resulting stories.

With the above extremes of good and poor there will be quantities on the border line,books not distinctly harmful from one standpoint--in fact,they will busily preach honesty and pluck and refinement,etc.,but they will be so lacking in imagination and power,in the positive qualities that go to make a fine book,that they cannot be called wholly harmless,since that which crowds out a better thing is harmful,at least to the extent that it usurps the room of the good.

These books we will be urged to buy in large duplicate,and when we,holding to the ideal of the library as an educational force,refuse to supply this intellectual pap,well-to-do parents may be counted upon to present the same in quantities sufficient to weaken the mental digestion of their offspring beyond cure by teachers the most gifted.

There are two principal arguments--so-called--hurled at every librarian who tries to maintain a high standard of book selection.One is the "I read them when I was a child and they did me no harm"claim;the other,based upon the doggedly clung-to notion that our ideal of manhood is a grown-up Fauntleroy,infers that every book rejected was offensive to the children's librarian because of qualities dangerously likely to encourage the boy in a taste for bloodshed and dirty hands.

Now,in this day when parents are frantically protecting their children from the deadly house fly,the mosquito,the common drinking cup and towel;when milk must be sterilized and water boiled and adenoids removed;when the young father solemnly bows to the dictum that he mustn't rock nor trot his own baby--isn't it really matter for the joke column to hear the "did me no harm"idea advanced as an argument?And yet it is so offered by the same individual who,though he has survived a boyhood of mosquito bites and school drinking cups,refuses to allow his child to risk what he now knows to be a possible carrier of disease.

The "what was good enough for me is good enough for my children"idea,if soberly treated as an argument in other matters of life,would mean death to all progress,and it is no more to be treated seriously as a reason for buying poor juvenile books than a contention for the fetich doctor versus the modern surgeon,or for the return to the foot messenger in place of electrical communication.

It would be tactless,if not positively dangerous,if we children's librarians openly expressed our views when certain people point boastfully to themselves as shining products of mediocre story book childhoods.So I would hastily suppress this thought,and instead remind these people that,as a vigorous child is immune from disease germs which attack a delicate one,so unquestionably have thousands of mental and moral weaklings been retarded from their best development by books that left no mark on healthy children.In spite of the probability that there are to-day alive many able-bodied men who cut their first teeth on pickles and pork chops,we do not question society's duty to disseminate proper ideas on the care and feeding of children.

Isn't it about time that we nailed down the lid of the coffin on the "did me no harm"argument and buried the same in the depths of the sea?

Another notion that dies hard is one assuming that,since the children's librarian is a woman,prone to turn white about the gills at the sight of blood--or a mouse--she can not possibly enter into the feelings of the ancestral barbarian surviving in the young human breast,but must try to hasten the child's development to twentieth century civilization by eliminating the elemental and savage from his story books.

同类推荐
  • 佛说法律三昧经

    佛说法律三昧经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 慎子

    慎子

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 困学斋杂录

    困学斋杂录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 劝发菩提心文

    劝发菩提心文

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 壹输卢迦论

    壹输卢迦论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 世界波

    世界波

    林返在足球场上有着超群的天赋,却在参加全国少年联赛前夕诊断出骨癌,高昂的治疗费用让本就窘迫的家庭一筹莫展,截肢的命运让热爱绿茵的他如何接受....选择离家出走的林返偶遇理念被同行排斥的人体基因科学康肖教授,违反常规的治疗方法让林返腿部骨骼肌肉韧带基因突变....力量远超常人!重返绿茵....跌宕起伏激情飞扬的一生就此开始....
  • 神想观一部剧

    神想观一部剧

    神想看一部剧,证明在一个人得以改变些什么之前,一定有什么先改变这个人。神设定一个命运赋给他,想要栖息,必先流浪。然后所有都错了,她们错在使他喜欢,他错在喜欢上她们,故事错在人所共弃,而神错在永远只是冷眼旁观。
  • 灰姑娘的黑心天使

    灰姑娘的黑心天使

    小女生枕边秘语灰姑娘的黑心天使,爱住在屋檐,爱挂在树梢……都说天使是白翅膀,一天到晚傻笑,开口闭口就要拯救世人,错!本小姐才不喜欢天使,我喜欢恶魔!为什么?因为恶魔帅啊!天!怎么有那么帅的天使怎么长着黑翅膀……好你个黑心天使,接招吧!
  • 书香剑

    书香剑

    刀戈剑弩,血证江湖,朱染刃角,刀头添血,四方纷争是为武林,然至今似秋暮湖水之平静近数十余年,此间从未出现过你争我夺你欺我凌之事却又是何故?
  • 超能软件都市行

    超能软件都市行

    一个平凡的不良少年,在意外得到了一个超能软件后,走上人生的巅峰,黑道?臣服。御姐,校花?臣服。古武家族你觉得自己很牛叉吗?且看,楚梦龙得到系统后,如何浪迹都市。
  • 强化传说

    强化传说

    新人新书,写着玩,一个善良少年在异界用神话崛起的故事,主角不小白,熟知异界套路
  • 赛尔号之永恒誓约

    赛尔号之永恒誓约

    我们本来是处于两个不同的平行世界,但在下一刻,两个世界相交了,是偶然亦或是必然?也许这一切是命运的刻意安排,一切早已注定,是否不可逆改?不,我们不应该成为命运的奴隶,而要将它掌握在自己的手里。那么,从这一刻开始,就叫使命好了……使命完成之时,我们匆匆地告别,走向各自的远方,没有语言,更没有眼泪,只有永恒的思念和祝福,在彼此的心中发出深沉的共鸣。我们不得不分离,轻声地说声再见,心里存着感谢,感谢你曾给过我一份深厚的情谊……
  • 乾元仙乱

    乾元仙乱

    众仙之中谁为善,众魔之内善为谁。一个修仙小子行走于三界之中,奇遇连连,危险不断,为救自己的亲人,力排众难,为追求道之大成,乾坤奥妙,不断成长的一部经典小说。
  • 彼岸倾城之杯具人生无人怜

    彼岸倾城之杯具人生无人怜

    握着酒瓶摇摇晃晃地向马路走去,正对上迎面开来的大卡车,看到这一幕的青瑶不知哪里来的勇气,奔跑上前,用力地推开冷寒,而自己却躲不开车祸的命运。
  • 闺蜜

    闺蜜

    所谓闺蜜,是青春岁月的那些支离破碎,是喜悦忧伤时的一堆窃窃私语。书中首次尽情显现了闺蜜间的那些私语话题,有关生活,有关爱情,有关情事。在这里,你可以寻觅到你和闺蜜间的影子,你可以嗅到思想同类的气味,你可以探知她们的所思所想。你,和你的她、她们又有着怎样的窃窃私语呢?