Education by Books.

Hokitika Guardian, 20 January 1923, Page 4

Education by Books.

KNCOriiAGING CHILDKKN IN I MAY SOUTH WALKS. SYDNEY, Jan. 11. The encouragement of children to read hooks for pleasure and profit is being made a feature of civic effort m Sydney. This is being done through the children's department of the Municipal Library. Eire thousand juveniles have become borrowers. By a system that needs to he better understood to be more appreciated by thousands ot children to whom similar privileges apply, there is a constant exchange of books dealing with biography, history, tra.vel, natural science, useful .arts, poetry, stories from poetry and drama, fiction, fairy talcs, games and sports, architecture, and miscellaneous subjects. The Government is being urged to provide more funds for the distributionof books to school children in the country by Ihe country reference In am h of the Public Library of .Sydney. Progressive eiluca lion has vrcati-J a liecil for library work with children, and in aiming at the widest possible reproduction of that: work, story-tell-ing is used as a means of inducing children fo become constant readers. The telling of stories on Monday afternoons, at Hie children's library, bv students of the Kindergarten Union, who have given their services gratuitously, has proved a strong personal means of leading children to good books. Story-telling is not for amusement : it is not lo tempi children to j mmi' lo the library: it is not to help iin the discipline. It does all these things, it. is pointed out. but it must ! also lead to hook', or it is out of place . ip the library. I Another factor in the training of the ! child mind that is receiving greatei 'recognition is tiie educative motion i picture. The city librarian is convinced that films will cuter into our j school life in a few years to a degree j that would he considered larcical toI day. In American schools edm-ative films were playing a great part in the dissemination ol knowledge, and one could hardly conceive the film being put to any heller u-o limn for leaching such subjects as geography. instore, anatomy, and so on.