The elementary school library

Abstract

If ever the educational cart were placed in front of the horse it has been in the American system of public school libraries, for oddly enough emphasis on the elementary school library has come last, and in far too many school communities the need for good library facilities is not yet recognized much less achieved. Since reading habits formed during childhood help to determine reading habits in adulthood and since the elementary school is really the school of the masses, why have education-conscious Americans failed to rally to provide adequate facilities for the vast stream of youngsters who file through the doors of the country's elementary schools? Perhaps there is no definitive answer to this question; however, some insight into the problem may be gained by looking retrospectively. The history of the early elementary school library usually presents no major revelation other than the lethargic attitude of the citizenry toward this adjunct to learning. Although in 1835 New York passed the first permissive legislation to allow for a small collection of books in every school house, the law was on a local option basis and very few school districts took advantage of this privilege. Other states soon followed the New York pattern of legalizing elementary school libraries, but actually doing little to promote them. Therefore, many of the first libraries in elementary schools seem to have just appeared. Perhaps an agent dropped a book or two on the principal's desk, or maybe some very prominent family decided to clean out the attic and sent the worst of their book collection to the local school. This, then, could well have been the beginning of some elementary school library. Often books that were designed as texts or for adults, or even for both, were consigned to the school library where they were likely kept locked in a glass case or some other place where they could not even be seen by the students, much less used by them. But time marches on and certain enterprising teachers began to ac-