This first of a series of yearly reports on "Reading for the young"was made by Miss Caroline M.Hewins at the Cincinnati Conference of the A.L.A.in 1882.It embodies answers from twenty-five librarians to the question,"What are you doing to encourage a love of good reading in boys and girls?"Caroline Maria Hewins was born in Roxbury,Mass.,October 10,1846.She attended high school in Boston;received her library training in the Boston Athenaeum;taught in private schools for several years,and took a year's special course in Boston University.In 1911she received an honorary degree of M.A.from Trinity College,Hartford.She has been librarian in Hartford,Conn.,for many years,from 1875to 1892in the Hartford Library Association,since that time in the Hartford Public Library.She has done editorial work for various magazines and has contributed many articles to the library periodicals.Her list of "Books for boys and girls,"of which the third edition was published in 1915,represents the result of many years'thoughtful and appreciative study of children's literature.Library work with children owes to Miss Hewins a debt of gratitude for her unusual contribution to the establishment of high standards,the development of a broad vision,and the maintenance of a wholesome,sympathetic,but not sentimental point of view.
About the first of March I sent cards to the librarians of twenty-five of the leading libraries of the country,asking,"What are you doing to encourage a love of good reading in boys and girls?"and soon after published a notice in the New York Evening Post and Nation,saying that statements from librarians and teachers concerning their work in the same direction would be gladly received The cards brought,in almost every case,full answers;the newspaper notice has produced few results.
The printed report of the Thomas Crane Public Library,Quincy,Mass.,says:"The trustees have recently made a special effort to encourage the use of the library in connection with the course of teaching in the public schools.Under a rule adopted two years ago the teachers of certain grades of schools are in the practice of borrowing a number of those volumes they consider best adapted to the use of their scholars,and keeping them in constant circulation among them.During the year two lists of books for the use of the children in the public schools were printed under the direction of the trustees.One of these lists contained works in juvenile fiction;the other,biographies,histories,and books of a more instructive character.All the works included were selected by the trustees as being such as they would put in the hands of their own children.The lists thus prepared were then given to the teachers of the schools for gratuitous circulation among their scholars."
