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 in 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 (graduate portrait at left). 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 introduced his study with a brief synopsis of reforms in Ontario's education system that had begun at the outset of the 20th century. The traditional reliance on 'rote learning' and recitation in elementary lessons, the emphasis on the classical languages in secondary schools, strict discipline, the three R's, and standard readers were lessening. Reformers sought to introduce the concept of 'child-centred learning' to better prepare students for adulthood and a rapidly changing, urbanized, and industrialized society. Innovations included kindergartens, nature study programs, gardens, and health examinations into compulsory school programs. Emery summarized this change with an emphasis on social skills, mental and moral development:

The emphasis thrown on civics and the human side of geography and history aims at teaching the child his duties to society, while the attention given to hygiene, physical training, and moral conduct, besides benefiting the child directly, will, through him, work gradual changes for the betterment of his home life (p 2).

He noted one aspect of the 'new education movement' was to point students to sources of knowledge so they might be better prepared for self-education. The gradual improvement of library resources was considered a beneficial element in educational reform. Because educators recognized that school librarianship in Canada was in its infancy, and they looked to children's work in public libraries for ideas and cooperative schemes for assistance. Emery addressed this situation at the outset of his study by focusing on the major trends in school librarianship:

There are two general methods in which the library may conduct its campaign in behalf of the child. It may work through the schools by securing the co-operation of superintendents and teachers, or it may deal with the children in rooms or branches under its own management. In many cities both plans are employed (p 8). 

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 Institute library, c. 1910

At this time, public library provision of books for schools in the United States was a prominent feature of work in major cities such as 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 with a designated librarian, normally in a high school room, was another option. There were a few high school libraries under the control of boards of education in larger Ontario cities, e.g., in Ottawa, where a library room was provided during renovations before 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 for library historians. Emery surveyed pioneering efforts in many cities: Sarnia, Toronto, Ottawa, Victoria, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Westmount, and Saint John, to name a few. His study 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 (unnamed by the author), had taught in Manitoba before getting library training in New York in 1908–09 and taking up work in British Columbia.

Two chapters featured early school libraries (mostly in rural township school sections) in Ontario under Egerton Ryerson, as well as 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 reasoned that the Ryerson system eventually failed because there was too much emphasis on adult books and the libraries were poorly managed with younger readers' interests in mind. In his assessment of how to improve libraries in the rural Ontario school system, he was especially impressed by 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 some 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 in Brantford 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 brief chapter on the work of several education departments, funding by governments, and travelling library services for schools 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 for teacher training in normal schools, 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 fully 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, and John Cotton Dana and Frances Jenkins Olcott in the USA, which are important for the history of cooperation between school and public libraries as well as children's reading resources.

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.