Library serves the purpose of a public institution. Its privileges are extended not only to students, but to parents, graduates, and all persons of good standing in the community. This means that practically all the English-speaking population of Honolulu is included in its possible clientele.

Library of Hawaii. This is a merger of two previously existing agencies in a new institution proposed and supported by the territorial government. Until it was perfected the only popular library in Hawaii with the exception of that at Oahu College was a small subscription collection of eighteen thousand volumes. This was housed in a rented building, together with the exceedingly valuable Hawaiiana gathered and preserved by the Hawaiian Historical Society. Local officials suggested that with this material as a nucleus a building gift might be asked of Mr. Carnegie. It was necessary to persuade the existing board of trustees to devote its endorsement to the new organization, and to work out a plan whereby the additional support conditioning a Carnegie offer might be pledged. The scheme as consummated involves management by seven trustees-three elected by the Honolulu Reading Room and Library Association under its own rules, one designated by the Hawaiian Historical Association, and three appointed by the governor of the territory. Since the legislature is the one taxing body in the territory, an annual appropriation could be looked for only from it, and as the members from island districts could not be expected to set aside funds for the benefit of Honolulu alone it was necessary to promise a traveling library system which should reach out across the channels and make the institution group-wide in its usefulness. With the procedure thus far arranged Mr. Carnegie gave $100,000. The legislature added $25,000 to the building fund, and a modern structure with a capacity of about one hundred thousand volumes was planned by Mr. Whitfield.

The new building is situated on King street in Honolulu, opposite the grounds of the old palace, which now serves as the territorial capitol. Effort was made in its

designing to adapt the canons of library construction to the requirements of comfortable living and working conditions in a sub-tropical climate. The concrete walls have a slight green tint and green tile is used upon the roof, this color being selected for harmony with the palms in the immediate vicinity and the wooded Koolau mountains which form the background. front of the building is rendered imposing by a colonnade, a lanai or porch, and a series of copper doors. The general environment adds to the pleasing effect, for Honolulu is ever green with algaroba, monkey-pod, banana plants and palms, and often gorgeous with bougainvillea, poinciana, poinsettia, hibiscus, Japanese trumpet vine and night blooming cereus.

Climatic conditions in the group make the observation of certain building principles imperative. Hawaii is only half tropical and is tempered by kindly trade winds, nevertheless its sunlight is sufficiently intense to require soft wall and roof tints. Similarly neutral shades are essential to restful interiors. The Library of Hawaii has used gray and white for this, with furniture of oak in a finish of colonial gray. Desiderata of equal moment are airiness and ventilation. Comfort demands these, and they serve in addition as the one practical protection against the numerous insect foes which infest frostless lands. Roaches, silver-fish and termites are much feared by book collectors and librarians in Hawaii, but lightness and airiness of buildings and particularly of stacks (in this case furnished by the Snead Company) are a sure preventative of their ravages. A striking feature of the library building in this connection is a lanai or porch reading room. This is located on the second floor level, and in such a position as to catch the trade winds from the mountains. Adjoining this outside reading room is a series of small rooms used regularly for study classes.

Expansion from a subscription library to a public territorial institution has meant for the Library of Hawaii not only growth, but an increase in the forms of its work. A juvenile collection was begun under the old order, but it is only recently that the

department has developed. A children's librarian will probably soon be added to the staff. This will bring the force up to six, exclusive of pages and janitors. Two of those on the staff have library school training. The other important departure is the inauguration of a territorial traveling library system. Ten stations have already been designated about the group, and several more are to be selected. Because of transportation difficulties this enterprise is less simple than is the case on the mainland. Carriage charges are high, and freight must be entrusted to stormy channels, treacherous landings, and perilous mountain trails. Successful distribution is in operation, however, and a territorial library project which at first suggestion

seemed questionable has proved workable. With the establishment of her library Hawaii strengthens her claim to recognition as a factor in American life. She caught the spirit of New England education early in the last century. She possessed the first college and operated the first printing press beyond the Rocky mountains. For a period she fed the western slopes of the Sierras with potatoes and wheat. For two decades she has been actually at work solving many problems of race intercourse which the mainland as a whole is but beginning to feel. Her library stands as proof of her refined ideals and of the efficient machinery she has erected for the social and educational advance of her cosmopolitan population.

THE American Federation of Arts was formed at a convention held in Washington in May, 1909, with the purpose of stimulating appreciation for art all over the United States among all classes of citizens. The basis of organization was "team work," and its development has been entirely in accordance with a program of coöperation.

The American Federation of Arts has an individual membership, but more important is its chapter membership-the affiliation of organizations throughout the country. This chapter membership now numbers 187, and extends from Maine to California and from Michigan to Texas. It includes associations of professional artists, such as the National Academy of Design and the National Sculpture Society; non-professional organizations such as the Washington Society of the Fine Arts and the Municipal Art Society of Chicago; civic bodies, as for example the Art Commission of the City and County of Denver; educational institutions, among which is the University of Pennsylvania; art museums almost without exception, handicraft societies, and public libraries

of the last not a few. These aggregate a very large and a very representative membership, and by being bound together through a central organization constitute a strong, vital force.

By serving as a bond of union between these organizations and as a "clearing house" for all, the American Federation of Arts is enabled to prevent a great deal of duplication of effort as well as to make more effectual each movement promulgated for the advancement of art.

The work of the American Federation of Arts has been to a great extent educational. The means it employs are these: It sends out exhibitions of paintings and other works of art of high standard; it circulates typewritten lectures on the fine and applied arts accompanied by illustrative stereopticon slides; it publishes a magazine, Art and Progress, which is specially purposed for the general reader; and it maintains at its main office in Washington a bureau of information.

Last year the American Federation of Arts sent out twenty-two exhibitions which

were shown in fifty-seven cities in the north, south, east and middle west. They comprised oil paintings, water colors, original works by American illustrators, representative art school work and work done in elementary schools, large photographs of mural paintings, of American sculpture and American paintings, etchings, wood block prints, mezzotints, bronzes and other works in sculpture. These exhibitions ranged in value from $50 to $50,000 and cost the organizations to which they were sent from $15 to $200. To organizations which are chapters of the American Federation of Arts no fee is charged for expert and clerical services, but each place pays its proportionate share of actual cost incident to collection, transportation and insurance.

The first exhibition that the American Federation of Arts sent out was shown in a public library-the Carnegie Library of Fort Worth, Texas. It comprised forty oil paintings, and led not only to the formation of an art association in Fort Worth, but to the establishment of a permanent art collection and a Texas exhibition circuit, including San Antonio, Austin and Houston. Other exhibitions sent out by the American Federation of Arts have been shown in public libraries, which are to-day found to be one of the strongest factors in the upbuilding of appreciation of art. Notable among those to which the Federation's more important exhibitions have gone are the St. Louis Public Library, the Public Library in Denver, the Public Libraries in Omaha, Louisville, Muskegon, Newark, Syracuse, and Nashville. From the exhibition galleries in both the Newark and the Muskegon Public Libraries permanent museums of art have been the outgrowth. Very often the public library has been the sponsor for an art association through the instrumentality of which in time exhibitions have been secured.

In many instances public libraries have not the means to meet the expense of exhibitions of oil paintings, nor possibly the facilities for display, in which instances they have been able to avail themselves of the American Federation of Arts' minor exhibitions composed of mounted but un

framed exhibits or exhibits lightly framed, such as collections of large photographs, engravings, colored prints, etc. These are obtainable at very moderate cost.

The American Federation of Arts has been fortunate in having the coöperation of the Library of Congress in the matter of loan exhibitions. Through the operation of the copyright law the Library of Congress comes into the possession of much material of very genuine value. Material so acquired forms what are known as "duplicate collections," and from these the Federation has been permitted to draw for exhibition purposes. The collection of mezzotints, comprising ninety exhibits of superior engravings of old English portraits, is thus secured, as are the collections of colored etchings, wood block prints and lithographs which have been shown with great success in several library galleries as well as in art museums and colleges.

Of the exhibition of photographs and original sketches of American mural paintings sent out by the American Federation of Arts the librarian of the public library in St. Louis reported recently as follows:

"The library has become a member of the American Federation of Arts, and has displayed five of its exhibitions during the year. That of American mural paintings has attracted the most attention, having been seen by three thousand persons or more-many of them architects, decorators, stained-glass designers and students. . . . As a result of this and other exhibitions, many people are using the library who never used it before, and the number of books used in the room has decidedly increased."

The illustrated lectures circulated by the American Federation of Arts have been in no less demand. At present these number seven and are on the following subjects: American painting, American sculpture, Civic art, American mural paintings, Whistler's etchings, Tapestries, and Furniture. Each has been written by an authority and is illustrated by about fifty slides. The lectures are adapted to accompany the illustrations so they can be delivered by any good reader. These are sent out to places

where authoritative lecturers cannot be readily secured, without fee to chapters but upon the payment of $3 by others, the cost of transportation and a guarantee against loss by breakage. Other lectures and collections of slides illustrating significant subjects will be added later.

The American Federation of Arts' official publication, Art and Progress, is a monthly illustrated magazine. Its object is to give publicity to all progressive movements in the field of art and to definitely relate art to everyday life. It is a general readers' magazine, but is upheld to a professional standard, and through its articles, editorials and news notes the reader is kept in touch with current activity in all the branches of art. It is now in its fifth year of publication, and has a circulation which is fairly well distributed throughout the United States. Its news notes and illustrations are made special features. The subscription price is $2 a year, but special rates are offered public libraries that subscribe directly from the publishers.

The Federation's bureau of information is made possible and of utmost value by the maintenance of standing committees composed of men of distinction in the several professions and branches of art. The chairman of the committee on museums is Dr. Edward Robinson, director of the Metropolitan Museum; of landscape architecture, Mr. Frederick Law Olmsted; of craftsmanship, Mr. C. Howard Walker. Questions of an important nature presented to the American Federation of Arts are referred to these committees and given serious consideration and response.

The annual dues for chapter membership in the American Federation of Arts are $10, which entitles to the privileges already named and also representation at the annual conventions.

The present officers of the American Federation of Arts are: Robert W. de Forest, president; Leila Mechlin, secretary; N. H. Carpenter, treasurer; Charles L. Hutchinson, first vice-president; W. K. Bixby, E. H. Blashfield, Mitchell Carroll, Cass Gilbert, Archer M. Huntington, Hennen Jennings, Gardiner M. Lane, John F.

Lewis, E. D. Libbey, Mrs. E. W. Pattison, Mrs. Charles Scheuber, and C. D. Walcott, vice-presidents; Ralph Clarkson, Mrs. Gustave Radeke, Phillips B. Robinson, G. D. Seymour, Lloyd Warren, Charles L. Hutchinson, H. W. Kent, Bryan Lathrop, Miss Florence N. Levy, Lee McClung, Thomas Nelson Page, Marvin F Scaife, John W. Alexander, Charles W. Ames, Ames, David Knickerbacker Boyd, Glenn Brown, N. H. Carpenter, Francis C. Jones, and C. Howard Walker, directors.

All communications should be addressed to the secretary, 1741 New York avenue, Washington, D. C.

WHAT OUR CHILDREN READ
AND WHY *

So much has been said and written on what books children should or ought to read that certain facts have been drilled into us almost as axioms.

We have it down pat, for instance, that a child in his development reproduces the various stages of race development. We are prepared to classify a child as being in the wonder age, the credulous age, the barbaric age, the transitional or the adolescent. We know that each of these periods has its definite mental needs, and we attempt to supply these needs by deciding which mental food is best suited. This implies, among other things, the selection of certain kinds of books for certain periods; the myth, the folklore, the animal story, the standard classic, each has its allotted period. The boy or girl who reaches the High School is supposed to have had them just as he is supposed to have had the measles and chicken pox and whooping cough. We give the children literary food in just about the way old Mammy Susan down in Kentucky insisted upon giving the children of the household their regular dose of sulphur and molasses every spring because it had always been done so in that household 'way back yonder, when "Ole Mistis" was a baby, and besides, it was good for them. We are careful to give them portions of myths and folk tales of

A paper read before the Library Section of the New York State Teachers' Association, Syracuse, N. Y., Nov. 25, 1913.

history and biography in very harmless, diluted or sugar coated doses.

The educational publishing houses vie with each other in producing attractive, predigested, ready-to-assimilate, ready-to-assimilate, supplementary readers warranted to be strictly harmless. Ask the average teacher what her pupils read and she will probably tell you some of the following titles: "Fifty famous stories," "Old Greek heroes," "Heidi," "Great Americans for little Americans," "Tom Brown's schooldays," "Norse stories," and "Lads and lassies of other lands," for these are some of the staples of the literary diet usually provided by a more or less generous Board of Education. It is not a bad diet as diets go, but the question intrudes itself: How much of this do the children really assimilate ?

Suppose you ask the average mother what her children read. She will look a little bewildered until, with a relieved sense of having remembered, she'll probably tell you: "Oh, yes, that big red book that their Uncle Ed gave them for Christmas, and those cunning little books bound in white with the forget-me-nots on them that Cousin Mary sent them; and, of course, there's the set of books that I bought from that agent who used to wear out my front steps. I guess the children are reading them. I've been too busy getting the monthly payments ready for the agent really to bother." As for father, he will frankly tell you he doesn't know, but he guesses there are plenty of books around the house. There ought to be, for isn't he always buying another new one that teacher says Johnny or Mary must have?

Next to the home and school, the church and Sunday school are recognized as wielding the largest influence in the development of the character of children. Ask the average Sunday school teacher what her pupils are reading and she will tell you something like this: "Why, I don't know. The children mark the numbers on their book card from a catalog. I guess the books are all right. I used to read the Dotty Dimple books and the Pansy books and Rosa Carey's, and we girls wore out a set of the Elsie books. They've replaced

them now by the Little Colonel books and the Motor Girls, and the girls seem crazy about them." Should you ask the children's librarian of a public library, she would take out her sheet of circulation statistics and tell you exactly what per cent. of fiction or non-fiction was read, also how many titles of folklore, science, useful arts, literature, history, travel and biography are circulated each day. But would that give you exact information? No, for we must take all the various agencies from which reading material is supplied to children, and we must not forget the "underground library," by which we mean the books that travel from boy to boy and girl to girl without the knowledge of the parent, teacher or librarian.

If we would know what children read we must get it directly from them.

During the last five weeks I have visited forty-one representative classes of the sixth, seventh and eighth grades in the public schools of Rochester with a view of taking an inventory of the pupils' reading and of teaching them to tell about the essentials of a book in a brief book note written on a slip of paper the size of a post card. The pupils were asked to think of the one book which they know best. To give the author if possible, to tell in one word each the kind of a book, and when and where the story took place. Only big divisions of time and place were asked for. Then they were told to tell in two or three sentences what they thought of the book, and finally, how they came to read it.

The results were read in class and an opportunity was taken to talk briefly on what stamps a book as good or bad or mediocre. As these tests in book selection were "sprung upon" the pupils by a person whom most of them had never before seen, the replies reflected unhampered original thought. The children really did choose in practically all cases the book which they liked best, and not the one which they might suppose teacher or parent would want them to choose.

Nearly a thousand of these replies were tabulated. The results were most interesting and often surprising. There were prac