Don"t buy "fads." Wait and see whether the book now so much lauded is heard of next year.
Don"t buy the books that have fittingly been called "a-little-child-shall-lead-them" stories. Bill Nye described them as tales relating how a dear little boy, though but five and a half and crippled, took in back stairs to scrub, and supported his widowed mother, and sent his sister to college.
Don"t buy "libraries." As sensibly let a man that has never seen you order for you a suit of clothes.
Don"t buy "sets" and "series" and "sequels." Judge every book on its merits.
Don"t buy the books of one publishing-house alone, however excellent, any more than you would fill your home with the works of only one painter.
Don"t confine your choice merely to the "Sunday-school writers." Books that are not virile enough to attract and help folks outside the Sunday-school are not likely to prove very useful inside.
Don"t buy by authors. "Aunt Mary"s Candlestick," by Jemima Jones, may have been the greatest success of the year in your school; but that is no reason why you should load up with "Aunt Mary"s Dust-brush" and "Aunt Mary"s Needlecase" and "Aunt Mary"s Dish-mop," by the same industrious author.
In fine, don"t buy any book, no matter who is its publisher or author, or what its reputation, unless that particular book meets some particular need of your particular school.
And now, what shall we buy? Stories, of course, in delightful measure.
The Sunday-school library has the highest authority for teaching in parables. And for these stories there are three requirements.
First, they must be attractive. What is the use of a book if it will not be read?
Second, they must be natural. He who is the Truth will never bless a story of lifeless, jerking, galvanized puppets, gibbering forced aphorisms and preposterous piety, and acting in a red fire of sensational incidents. Real boys and girls, real men and women, real life, and therefore life intensely interesting,--these must dwell in our Sunday-school stories.
And finally, the stories must be helpful. Each must have a point, a purpose. They must be outright for Christ, if they are to make outright Christians.
Don"t neglect the old-fashioned stories, such as the Rollo books. They are full of meat. Especially helpful are such stories of Bible times as "Ben Hur." Provided their imaginings do not outrun the Bible facts, we can scarcely have too many of them. Do not forget, either, the books that tell the Bible stories themselves, in simple language, for the little ones. Above all stories, do not omit the "Pilgrim"s Progress," but buy a volume in large type and beautifully ill.u.s.trated.
Next to stories, what? Emphatically, lives of the great Christians; above all, missionaries. There are brief, bright, well-ill.u.s.trated lives of Mackay, the marvelous mechanic, Carey, the consecrated cobbler, Paton, the hero of the New Hebrides, Livingstone the daring, Martyn the saintly, Judson the sagacious, Patteson, the white knight of Melanesia, and a host of other grand men. What inspiration to a splendid life is to be gained from the story of Madagascar"s dusky martyrs, or the account of Allen Gardiner"s magnificent death in Patagonia! What a spur to active service is the tale of the winning of Hawaii, the opening up of j.a.pan, the self-sacrificing missions of the Moravians, the daring ride of Whitman across the continent for the salvation of Oregon!
Then, there are the lives of great reformers like Luther, John Howard, Wilberforce, John B. Gough, and of such superb Christians as Gladstone, Wesley, Washington, William of Orange. There is no need of a long list. The trouble is not to find the books, but to awaken among your scholars a hunger for the real heroism of real men as opposed to the imaginary heroism of fiction.
Another section of your library should contain books that bear directly on the work of the school. There must be the best works on teaching, such as Trumbull"s "Teachers and Teaching," Schauffler"s "Ways of Working," Boynton"s "The Model Sunday-school," and Du Bois"
"The Point of Contact." There must be some account of the Bible, like Rice"s "Our Sixty-six Sacred Books"; some brief and attractive manual of Christian evidences, like Fisher"s or Robinson"s; some life of Christ, like Geikie"s or Farrar"s; some account of the history, polity, and teachings of your denomination. Thompson"s "The Land and the Book," Smith"s "Historical Geography of the Holy Land," Geikie"s "Hours with the Bible," Taylor"s "Moses, the Lawgiver," Deems" "The Gospel of Common Sense," Pierce"s "Pictured Truth," b.u.t.terworth"s "The Story of the Hymns,"--each of these is a type of a cla.s.s of books helpful to teachers,--and to scholars also, if they can be brought to read them. Add, for the temperance lessons, such books as Banks" "The Saloon-keeper"s Ledger," Gustafson"s "The Fountain of Death," and Strong"s "Our Country" and "The New Era."
I wonder that so few Sunday-school libraries contain the great Christian poems, such as "Paradise Lost," Browning"s "Saul," Lowell"s "Vision of Sir Launfal," Arnold"s "The Light of the World," and many more that would illuminate the lessons.
Many fascinating books of science for young folks have been written expressly from the Christian stand-point. Why not add to the library such books as Kingsley"s "Glaucus," Burr"s "Ecce Clum," Agnes Gibberne"s "Sun, Moon, and Stars," Keyser"s "In Bird-land"?
I may seem to be suggesting books for the older scholars mainly. Let me here urge that equal care and thought be spent on the volumes for the little tots and the "intermediates." Their books are not so interesting to the mature-minded committee, and so they are more likely to be chosen at haphazard.
This is especially true of the books for the primary department. Two or three pounds of their diminutive volumes are shoveled up in a ma.s.s, read by t.i.tle, and tucked in at the end of the list. This carelessness is especially injurious, because it is at their age that the reading habit is formed, and it is of the utmost importance that the tiniest books in the library shall be bright, helpful, and of real literary value. To discover these will prove one of the most difficult tasks of the conscientious committee.
Do not give up the old favorites. When Susan Coolidge"s "Katy Did"
series wears out, give the old books away to some poorer school and get a fresh set of the same. Remember that new scholars are all the time entering, and that there is no recommendation for a book so effective as the young people"s own testimony, "I have read it, and I know you will like it."
Have an eye to the paper and type and binding. Many books intended for Sunday-school libraries are printed on stiff, pulpy paper, that refuses to remain open at any place without cracking the back, and use a cramped and formal typography more suitable to a funeral sermon than to a book intended to attract young folks.
If your funds allow, it is an admirable plan to obtain more than one copy of certain books especially likely to be needed by several cla.s.ses at once, such as books on Christian evidences, on the Bible, and on the themes of the current lessons.
It is one thing to gather a library, and quite another to get it used, and well used. The first point is to introduce it to the teachers.
They must consider these "teachers in 8vo" to be their a.s.sistants, and must be thoroughly acquainted with them. _Every teacher should read every book in the library that is within the range of his scholars"
comprehension._ How otherwise can he guide their reading? Of course the most hasty perusal will be sufficient, provided it shows the teacher the heart of the book. A teacher should learn the useful art of rapid reading.
Let the teacher, as part of his preview of the quarter"s lessons, make out a list of library books that teach the princ.i.p.al truths of the quarter ahead of him, and give this list to each scholar with the first lesson. A few minutes of each teachers" meeting might well be spent in giving suggestions regarding the use of the library to ill.u.s.trate the next lesson. Let the teacher often refer to these books in the course of his teaching, learn what appropriate books each scholar has been reading, and get him to give the cla.s.s some account of them.
Often it will be well for the teacher to ask some scholar to read a certain story or biography or poem during the week, and be ready to tell about it for an ill.u.s.tration of next Sunday"s truths.
If you have no teachers" meeting, once in a while the librarian may mention at the prayer-meeting some library book of timely helpfulness, or the pastor might even speak of it from the pulpit.
It is far better to buy the books a few at a time. In some schools a new book is added to the library every Sunday of the fifty-two. The chairman of the library committee comes forward with the book in his hand, and describes it in a few bright, brisk sentences. Its t.i.tle and number are plainly written on the blackboard in front of the school.
The choice is varied,--now a book for the youngest, next week one for the older scholars.
Some libraries have a special case for the new books, where every one can readily find them and examine them. Indeed, the scholars are far more easily introduced to all the books, new and old, if they have free access to the shelves and can handle the books themselves, thus coming to know each as an old friend. By the way, I do not believe in covering the books. Covered books have no individuality.
Happy the school that has a good-sized room for its library. Some even get it by placing the books in a house next door to the church.
I have known schools to get acquainted with their books by coming together for a "library evening," in which the wealth of the library was disclosed by various speakers, each trying to interest the school in one book, or cla.s.s of books.
After all, the library catalogue may be the best agent of introduction. Every library should have one, though it is only a home-made affair, manufactured on a typewriter or a hectograph. Every book should be briefly described, so that the scholars may know, for instance, the scene and purpose of each story, the kind of man described in each biography, and whether it is a book for old, young, or primary scholars. Some librarians mark one catalogue for each cla.s.s, indicating the books especially pleasing to scholars of the average age of the cla.s.s, so that the teacher may guide their selection. Others divide the catalogue into sections, each containing the books appropriate to one division of the school.
Not only should a teacher know _what_ his scholars are reading, but he should find out _how_ they read. He should try to teach them the art of reading. The demoralizing habit of reading merely for the moment"s pleasurable excitement and the next moment"s forgetting may be formed as easily with Sunday-school stories as with newspapers.
Some librarians, to this end, place in each book a slip of paper, and the scholar is expected to write upon this at least one thing he has learned from the book, telling at the same time how he likes it.
If the scholars, as will likely happen, are reading little but stories, the librarian himself can do much to promote more solid reading by reporting every month to the school the number of stories read, the number of biographies, etc. This report may be made by cla.s.ses, and teachers and scholars should be urged to make a better record next month.
Let me close this chapter with a few points regarding library management.
It is poor economy of labor to change the librarian frequently, so much of his usefulness depends on his familiarity with the books, and that familiarity requires time to gain. If you can find a librarian that does not especially need the benefit of the Bible study, one that loves and understands children, keep him in office as long as may be.
But be sure to give him an a.s.sistant to aid the children in their selections, or record the books while the librarian is consulting with the children; also to take the librarian"s place when he is sick or absent, or possibly to take turns with him in presiding over the library, so that each may recite the lesson half the time.
The books will be gathered up on the entrance of the scholars. A table or a basket or an usher may be placed at the door for this purpose. If the scholars cannot be given access to the books and select them themselves, the librarians will pa.s.s quietly around among the cla.s.ses, leaving the new books at each table; but these books are never to be given to the scholars until just before they leave.
The most effective record, yet a very simple one, may be made by any librarian. Give to each scholar a card bearing his name and his number. On this he writes a list of about ten numbers of the books he prefers. As the librarian places his card in one of these new books, that number is scratched off and the date written opposite. At the same time the librarian writes the scholar"s number and the date in his library catalogue after the number of the book taken out, and upon a list of the scholars" numbers writes the number of the book after the number of the scholar. When the book is returned lines are drawn through these records. Thus at any time the librarian can see what books are out, who has them, how long they have had them, what books each scholar has read, and how often each book has been taken out.
As the Sunday-school library should teach punctuality, among other good things, the librarian should strictly require every book to be brought back at the end of the week or fortnight, no matter who the scholar may be, or whether the book is in much or little demand. It may not be best to establish any system of fines, but a postal-card notice should be sent in aggravated cases, and sometimes the teacher should be asked to look up the book. It will spur the scholars to promptness if they know that each instance of tardiness is recorded against their names on the library"s records.
The proper care of books is another good thing the library should teach.
Any marked blemish in a book should be noted when it is sent out; and when a book is injured by a scholar, the librarian should always speak to him about it, or get the teacher to do this if the child is a stranger to him. A plainly printed slip urging careful handling, forbidding dog"s ears, and the like, may well be pasted in each book.
It is sometimes possible and advantageous to open the library at some time during the week, especially on prayer-meeting evenings, when the older folks can select their books, or, for the benefit of the children, on Friday afternoons after school.
Some cla.s.ses will like to have little libraries of their own, containing Bibles for each scholar, Bible atlas, a Revised Bible, a Bible dictionary, a concordance, etc. Always it is well to arrange for the entire school a special reference library, the contents of which will largely change from quarter to quarter. In it will be placed the general Bible helps and whatever books are of special interest for the quarter"s lessons. The scholars may be sent to these reference shelves during the lesson hour. At least one school has a special case, always open, for books of this nature, and places the case in the front of its main schoolroom.
On the whole, it will be seen that this chapter is a plea for a Sunday-school library that is a corporate part of the Sunday-school teaching, that will help the teacher on Sunday, and carry his teaching through the week. Such a library virtually adds scores of the wisest men and women to the teaching force of the school, and multiplies by many hours the pitiful thirty minutes given to the lesson.