The Library, the School and the Child (1917) by John Whitehall Emery

The Library, the School and the Child by J.W. Emery. Toronto: Macmillan Co., 1917. ix, 216 pages, illus. Published version of Emery's Doctor of Pedagogy dissertation at the University of Toronto.

J.W. Emery graduate portrait 1904

John Whitehall Emery was born in 1871 in New Sarum, a rural community southeast of London, Ont. He attended schools locally and graduated from Aylmer Collegiate Institute. Then he taught public school in Elgin County until he entered the University of Toronto in 1893. Shortly after, he recommenced teaching science at high schools in Kemptville and Port Hope for several years before returning to Toronto in 1902-04 to earn his bachelor's degree. He continued teaching, notably at the Stratford Normal School for teachers. He earned his D.Paed. from the Faculty of Education in Toronto in 1917 and then resumed work at the teachers' training school. He was also chair and secretary-treasurer of the Stratford Public Library in the early 1920s. He died in London in 1929.

Emery's thesis dealt with two major topics related to school librarianship. First, in five chapters, he studied the work of public libraries for children as public school pupils and as children. Second, in his following six chapters, he treated government efforts in the United States, Canada, and Britain to provide books for the young through school libraries.

Ottawa Collegiate library, 1910

At this time, public library provision of books for schools in the United States was a prominent feature of work in Buffalo, Cleveland, and Newark. The classroom library was the preferred choice for small book collections and was heavily used in these cities, although a branch library, normally in a high school room, was an occasional option. There were a few high school libraries under the control of a board of education in larger Ontario cities, e.g., Ottawa where a new library was constructed during renovations in 1910. Cooperation at the local level with teachers on a variety of reference materials, picture collections, and professional texts was also a common practice. Children's departments and story hours in public libraries were another topic Emery examined, and he provided interesting information on subjects such as "home libraries" for students who could share books with friends. Another topic included librarians working in playgrounds where many children who did not normally have access to books were active in the summer months.

Children's work in Canada was less developed than in the United States. Activity in Canadian public libraries received attention in one chapter and remains a valuable starting point in history. Emery surveyed pioneering efforts in many cities: Sarnia, Toronto, Ottawa, Victoria, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Westmount, and Saint John, to name a few. Emery reveals some interesting statistics, for example, he notes that Winnipeg was circulating 300,000 (!!) books to children in 1915. In his opinion, Victoria "has one of the most advanced children's departments in Canada, and keeps in close touch with the schools as well" (p. 94). This is not surprising because the chief librarian, Helen Gordon Stewart (who Emery does not name), had taught in Manitoba before getting library training in New York in 1908-09 and taking up work in British Columbia.

Two chapters featured the early school libraries (mostly in rural township school sections) in Ontario under Egerton Ryerson, and also the development of district school libraries in the United States. These libraries had a dual function: they provided books for adult readers and texts for school children. Emery was especially impressed with the contemporary California county system, whereby schools could affiliate with the county public library system and benefit from centralized, professionally trained library services and coordinated book purchases and distribution. However, this type of service would not develop until after his death, notably in southwestern Ontario counties, in the 1930s. He provides a good survey of current (i.e., post-1900) conditions in Ontario's rural school libraries and even provides illustrations (p. 152) to show the gradual evolution under the direction of interested teachers who developed these classroom libraries.

After 1902, Ontario's provincial government reintroduced small grants (originally cancelled in 1888) to rural schools to encourage library development in 5,000 school sections. However, as Emery notes, public libraries and especially the Ontario Library Association did little to further public library-school library cooperation despite efforts of members such as James P. Hoag, a teacher and school inspector and library promoter, and William F. Moore (OLA President in 1913-14), the Principal of Dundas High School for three decades. There is an informative short chapter on the work of several education departments in other provinces as well.

John W. Emery's thesis came at an opportune time. In the USA, the School Libraries Section of the American Association of School Librarians was beginning its activities, and after WW I, the Ontario Department of Education began to take more interest in teacher training in library work. Librarians, such as Jean Merchant at the Normal School in Toronto, and others were being appointed (and trained in library work) as librarians and instructors at normal schools in Ontario. This action can be attributed in part to Emery's 1917 thesis. On balance, Emery found that the success of school libraries was due, in the main, to the attentiveness and training of teachers in library work. After surveying teacher training in library methods and the libraries in normal schools (p. 160-173), which were mainly managed by the principal's secretary at each school, he recommended that Ontario's normal schools follow American precedents. Emery made a number of suggestions, the most important being (p. 206-208) --
1) to have all students attend a course in library instruction that included reference work, children's literature, and rural school library administration;
2) to permanently engage a regularly qualified librarian with teaching experience for each normal school;
3) to equip each normal school with a model rural school library;
4) to establish in each of the normal schools a collection of fifty or more of the best children's picture books and story books for the very young;
5) to permit normal schools to make small loans of books or pictures to teachers of rural schools in the vicinity.

Of course, not all of Emery's suggestions were adopted, but his work formed a basis for more standardized approaches to bringing library methods to the fore in teacher training. Although his publication was a doctoral thesis, Emery had a pragmatic touch, evident in his careful survey of library conditions. His work continues to impress a century later. His suggestions for books for rural schools, such as Thompson Seton's Lobo, Rag, and Vixen; Johnny Crow's Garden by Leslie Brooke, the Canada Year Book, or Walter S. Herrington's Heroines of Canadian History, reached a variety of interests and ages in elementary education. Emery's bibliography of school library work is also very useful: he mentions works by early promoters such as Harry Farr in Britain, John Cotton Dana, and Frances Jenkins Olcott in the USA, which are important for writing the history of school libraries.

Emery's death in 1929 cut short his career before his sixtieth birthday; nonetheless, he made a lasting contribution to the development of teacher training for school libraries in Ontario. 

Emery's publication is available online at the Internet Archive.

My blog on Egerton Ryerson's school district libraries is at this link.