DR. EDWARD BROOKS, of Philadelphia: I have listened with great interest to this paper on the use of the public library, and shall await its publication with still greater interest, on account of its valuable and practical suggestions. The subject is of special interest to me at this time, as councils in Philadelphia have just made an appropriation for the establishment of several public libraries to be used for the benefit of the children in our public schools. The movement is experimental with us, but it is an experiment that if properly carried out must prove successful. Indeed, I believe that it will be found before long that the public library is one of the most important factors in this problem of public education. We teach our pupils to read, and thus put into their hands the key of knowledge a key that may unlock a treasure-house of good or evil. The destiny of a child is not determined by the ability to read, but by what use it makes of this ability. "Knowledge," it is said, "is power," but it is the use of knowledge which gives it power. A truer maxim is, that culture and knowledge combined give power. Culture or discipline is the effect of knowledge in proper relation to the human mind. The sources of knowledge are at least threefold-perception, reading, and thinking. The child gets its first knowledge through its perceptive powers, a knowledge of objects and their qualities. But we need more than perceptive knowledge for an education. The untutored savage has as good perceptive powers as we have, and as clear an idea of objects and their qualities, but he is an untutored savage still. It is the rich inheritance of knowledge, and the culture that comes from it, that lift us above the savage tribes. The best knowledge of the race, and the richest culture, we find recorded in books. The great thinkers of every age, those deep and rich souls who have caught the inner meanings of things, to whom the universe has whispered her profoundest secrets-they have embalmed their thoughts and sentiments in language; and it is our privilege to go to the printed page and take into our souls the richness and beauty and truth that came from these gifted sons of genius. One of the pleasantest recollections of my childhood is the district-school library-of only a few volumes, but these volumes were to me a source of inspiration and success. They have left indelible impressions on my memory and taste, and have contributed largely to shape my thought and action in life. The spiritual nature needs more than the forms and objects of the material world for its growth and development. It needs the thoughts of the great thinkers to awaken it to original thought and investigation. This is true in the domain of science; each individual has not the time to discover what has already been discovered; he must avail himself of the results of previous investigations as recorded in books. But this principle is even more important in the domain of literature and philosophy. High thoughts lead to high thinking and noble action. One of the best parts of an education is for a young mind to come in contact with and feel the touch of a soul full of high thoughts and noble aspirations and lofty sentiments. Spiritual power and spiritual ripeness come from the communion with such lofty spirits as Plato, Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, Emerson, etc. ones. In the education of our children, therefore, we need the accessory of the school library. We want to train our pupils to read good books, which shall give both knowledge and culture. "Good books," I say, for children, if properly guided, will learn to love good books better than poor I think we often underrate the abilities of children or young persons to understand and appreciate the higher class of literature. A young lady at my house last week told me with what pleasure she read The Merchant of Venice and The Tempest when she was only twelve or thirteen years of age. These higher forms of literature become models of taste that protect many people from that which is inferior and trashy. Cultivate in early life a fondness for good reading, and we open avenues of culture and pleasure that will be of inestimable value. And so I look forward to the establishment of libraries to be used in connection with the work of our public schools as one of the most important factors in the solution of the great problem of education. REBECCA D. RICKOFF, of New York: When we think of the great numbers of children in our vast country that are in attendance in our public schools, and then consider that these children represent an even greater number of parents, the question of what these parents are doing in regard to the kind of reading their children have becomes of grave importance; and more especially so, in view of the fact that the children are tempted on all hands by that which is pernicious. I have for years been observing in the shops how parents buy books for their children: this is especially interesting during the Christmas holidays. How many times, unfortunately, have I seen fathers and mothers hurriedly glancing over the juvenile literature that crowd the counters, utterly helpless before the confusing piles of books, and painfully ignorant of their duty. With no previous preparation for making a selection, with no knowledge or thought of the author, hardly even understanding what is the subject of the book, and much less of its motive or probable influence, they spend less time and consideration on the purchase of a book than on that of a toy. How many thousands of books are bought in this haphazard way! We who attend these conventions and are kept en rapport with the best educational thought of the time can scarcely realize, without an effort, the difficulties of parents who are not thinking in this line. Naturally, all wish their children to read what is best for them, as they wish them to eat what is best; but the trouble is too many of them do not understand what is most wholesome for children, either in the one particular or the other. Then, too, we must consider the multitudes of foreigners amongst us, whose children are to be our citizens. Even if they know something of their own literature, they are entirely ignorant of ours; and to whom can they look, and to whom do they look, for assistance but to the teachers and the librarians? Even a little attention to this matter, just enough to give a trend of thought to the fact that there are things that children ought not to read, will be prolific of good results. It can be easily managed to give no offense to the self-pride of parents, who might justly resent what would appear as officious meddling with their prerogatives. In this connection I cannot commend too highly the plan spoken of by Prof. Leipziger, that of free lectures for the people. Here can be found the needed opportunity and the occasion to set a community to thinking about what to read, not for themselves only, but for their children also. I repeat, it is needed only to set the parents thinking of this matter to make them watchful and eager for the assistance of teachers and librarians. SUPT. W. B. POWELL, of Washington: I am interested in the subject under discussion because it affects the methods of instruction in almost every branch of education. The chief purpose of the union of the library with the schools of the community is not that children may have books to read after they have finished their school tasks, but that they may have books to consult while preparing their school tasks, books by which they best prepare their school tasks. It is not the business of the librarian to determine the books the school should read. This is the business of the teacher. He should know the author that should be consulted, the volume that should be consulted, the chapter where the desired information may be found. Thus may the child be introduced to books by the means in which they may be made most profitable to him. Thus may he come to know what a library is, what its relation is to the world of formulated knowledge, what its relation is to his school work, what its relation is to the purpose of his school life. Thus may the child learn to know where information is to be found and how he can find it; thus may he be trained to use information found in books to his educational advantage. If the child is studying colonial history, let him be sent to McMaster to learn of the habits and customs of colonial days. He will thus learn to know the value of McMaster; he will learn to like McMaster, he will be induced to read McMaster beyond the limits of the requirements of his recitation assignments. Such reading is a safe occupation for him. Ask him to read Hawthorne's Pine Tree Shilling and tell him where to find it; thus will he be introduced to Hawthorne, in whose company when reading he is safe. Almost every topic of history may be treated in a corresponding way. How easy it is thus to teach history, and how surely when history is thus taught does the child learn of authors, and learn to like them for what their writings can do for him! The study of geography is made interesting by corresponding methods by which pupils learn to read understandingly and with profit. The investigation of nature resulting in the discovery of facts, or the physical experiment resulting in the discovery of phenomena, should be followed by reading authors that treat on the subjects investigated. Thus is the knowledge discovered confirmed, and thus are pupils best led to read works on science. JOHN AMOS COMENIUS. EXERCISES IN COMMEMORATION OF THE THREE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH, 1592-1892. I. HIS PRIVATE LIFE AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. BY JOHN MAX HARK, D.D., OF LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA. On this occasion, when you are gathered together here, as representatives of the noble cause of popular education, to call to remembrance the services rendered that cause by one of its most heroic pioneers, it is but natural and altogether proper that most stress should be laid on Comenius the schoolman. Yet will it not be deemed improper, I trust, if I briefly speak of him simply as a man-the man whose intense patriotism and fervent piety, whose loyalty to his country and his God, were the very traits out of which grew all his educational work, and an acquaintance with which will help to make the latter more correctly and fully understood. There are several portraits of John Amos Comenius extant, all of which agree in representing him as a man of stately bearing, dignified and venerable; with a face refined and eminently intellectual, crowned with a high forehead; a heavy beard covers his long chin and partly hides a sensitive mouth, while the soft, gentle eyes are full of a profound sadness, that gives to the whole expression a sorrowful cast as pronounced as that on Dante's face; but, in place of the settled gloom and sternness of the latter, there is markedly present a look of tender yearning, and even of confident hopefulness. Perhaps this latter, however, would not appear so plainly in his outward features did we not know it to have been a leading feature of his soul. At all events, whether visible in the flesh or not, these characteristics were all present in his life. They are clearly revealed in all his works, and shine forth distinctly through all his history, which is preeminently that of one who, with Lowell, could say : ""Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up, Whose golden rounds are our calamities, |