College and Research Libraries


B y C . A . M I L L S P A U G H 

The Significance of the Junior 
College Library in M y 
Educational Program 

C. A. Millspaugh, instructor, Frances 

Shimer College, Mount Carroll, III., read 

this paper at the meeting of the Junior 

College Libraries Section of the A.C.R.L., 

June 25, 194.2. 

AN Y DISCUSSION o f " s i g n i f i c a n c e " i n • connection w i t h libraries or w i t h the 
profession of teaching demands a definition 

of that much-abused w o r d . I have a 

strong feeling that the w o r d has become a 

little parcel of j a r g o n in the w o r l d of 

education, w h e r e w o r d s usually lose more 

sense than they gain w i t h the passage of 

seminars, conferences, and conventions. 

Strictly, a significant object or institution 

is one w h i c h betokens an essential mean-

i n g ; it is a symbol of a basic ideal, an 

embodiment of an influential value. 

T o me, as a teacher or as an everyday 

citizen, any library means a house of 

knowledge, a place of experiments among 

knowledges, an available source of w h a t 

past minds have thought and present minds 

remember. 

Indeed, any fairly precise statement of 

the significance of the library requires of 

the teacher an equally precise statement of 

his philosophy of teaching. F o r surely the 

teacher must depend on the library as the 

merchant depends on his storehouse. T h e 

teacher must perceive, I feel quite sure, 

that he is a clerk and guide to minds that 

have come out of the past and that must, 

to live quite happily, be restored to i t — 

restored to it in the sense of being made 

aware of the extent and richness of our 

cultural heritage, restored by means of 

such tools as expert reading, precise oral 

and w r i t t e n expression, restored, as a con-

sequence, to a pattern of spirit designed by 

the great minds of the past. 

N o teacher, of course, ever achieves this 

end. B u t he must make his w a y , if ever 

so slightly, t o w a r d it. H e must think out 

practical means of exposing student mind 

to cultural heritage. H e must g r a t e f u l l y 

adopt, or resolutely reject, past teaching 

methods. H i s only method can be, at 

last, in spite of all the fine textbooks on 

the subject, the result of his ingenuity and 

his understanding of the separate needs 

and hungers and dislikes and indifferences 

of the w i l l i n g , or u n w i l l i n g , minds that 

challenge positive achievement. 

T h e success of such enterprise is quali-

fied and sometimes definitely determined 

by the teacher's use of the library. It 

should be palpably a commonplace in this 

company to say that the teacher w h o feels 

that classroom and textbook w o r k is 

enough can only dismally fail to realize 

the true objectives of his profession. 

I cannot pretend to have exhausted the 

educational possibilities of the library. 

M y experience has been neither long nor 

64 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



varied, but even such short time has shown 

me that certain principles must be adopted 

and the practices they demand unswerv-

ingly pursued. 

T h e s e principles rise out of the nature 

of the immediate educational situation. In 

the junior college the students have little 

cultural or scholarly experience. T h e y 

do not know their w a y about the store-

house and, even after they have found 

their w a y , they cannot begin to appraise 

the differing values of the items housed 

there. 

Such a condition gives rise to the first 

principle—required reading. 

T h i s is a touchy thing. Students shy at 

the phrase, and even when teachers (given 

a measure of sensitiveness) operate on its 

permissible premise they do so w i t h a cer-

tain hidden embarrassment. I confess 

candidly that I am not much deterred by 

such sentimental barriers. I am aware 

of the literature that argues free roving 

but I am not persuaded. I agree that 

there are many w a y s of getting an educa-

tion, and institutionalized methods consti-

tute only one w a y ; but formal education is 

formal education or it is futile play. T o 

me, formal education means a system of 

established disciplines—flexible enough to 

meet the needs of the day, inflexible enough 

to restore the student mind, which w e as 

teachers inherit from the past, to the in-

tellectual and spiritual designs of solid 

knowledge. 

Required Reading in Practice 

I have been talking in large terms. 

Permit me now to describe how this dis-

cipline of required reading works out in 

practice. A s a teacher of English compo-

sition and literature, on both the high 

school and the college levels, and as a lec-

turer in our survey of humanities on w o r l d 

literature, philosophy, and religion, I in-

sist that my students have recognizable 

contact w i t h the literary and philosophical 

masterpieces of the past—selected, of 

course, according to the age and ability of 

the student. I require, as do the other in-

structors in my institution, that the stu-

dent explore a certain minimum of pages 

each week. In my course in the history of 

English literature I require that the stu-

dents read and report on a minimum of 

f i f t y pages every week, in texts that w i l l 

further their biographical and historical 

information and in texts that w i l l give 

them a f u l l e r v i e w of poems, essays, and 

novels not completely treated in the every-

day text. Reports of such reading must be 

carefully made in terms of content and 

criticism. Mimeographed forms for this 

purpose are housed in the library. T h e 

same requirements for the same reasons 

are made in our survey of the humanities. 

A s a teacher of high school senior E n g -

lish it has been my desire and aim to en-

courage as wide and frequent a use of the 

library as possible. A l m o s t daily the stu-

dents have brief library w o r k to do, usually 

biographical in nature. B u t as climax to 

the course the students are held responsi-

ble for a m a j o r undertaking. T h i s year, 

in the carrying out of this enterprise, the 

class w a s divided into research committees, 

headed by students w h o had demonstrated 

their ability for leadership. Each commit-

tee w a s given a definite task. O n e group 

was to acquaint itself w i t h modern M i d d l e 

W e s t e r n poets, another w i t h N e w E n g -

land poets, another w i t h the Imagist move-

ment, another w i t h postwar poets and 

their moral and intellectual problems, and 

so on. T h e s e teams worked, on the whole, 

quite w e l l . A certain spirit of friendly 

rivalry and the stimulation that rose out 

of the need to report findings to the entire 

DECEMBER, 1942 65 



class made for satisfying results. T h e 

library stock w a s sorely tried by this enter-

prise, but not beyond the limits of the 

material resources of the library and the 

enduring patience of the librarian. In ad-

dition, my high school students are encour-

aged to use current periodicals, the 

Readers' Guide, and other indices, as w e l l 

as such w o r k s as the Dictionary of Na-

tional Biography, not only to f u r t h e r their 

knowledge of classroom material but also 

to stimulate thinking and to provide ideas 

for the w r i t i n g of regular themes. 

A s a teacher of college freshman compo-

sition, I make frequent special assignments, 

in the f o l l o w i n g literary forms w h i c h the 

student must eventually be able to analyze 

w i t h respectable s k i l l : the essay, the short 

story, the novel, the biography, the lyric 

poem. Special oral reports are frequently 

called for in each of these fields. T h e 

student must make his o w n w a y as much 

as possible. 

An Analysis of Literary Masterpieces 

T h i s year in freshman composition I 

instituted a new undertaking. M y class 

was a selected one. O n l y students of 

superior ability made up its personnel. 

A f t e r some searching of conscience, I de-

termined to depart f r o m the conventional 

final examination. I assigned to each indi-

vidual student a great masterpiece of fic-

tion, and told the students that analysis 

of fictional structure, awareness of meth-

ods of characterization, explanation of 

ideological themes w o u l d condition my 

j u d g m e n t of the quality of their achieve-

ment. T h e library w a s d r a w n on f o r 

such books as the f o l l o w i n g : War and 

Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, Budden-

brooks, Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering 

Heights, Crime and Punishment, and 

many others of like quality. T h e results 

w e r e good. Required reading and library 

cooperation gave these students experiences 

that they w i l l never forget, experiences, in-

deed, w h i c h many of them some day w i l l 

repeat w i t h pleasure. W i t h o u t require-

ment these people w o u l d , quite naturally, 

postpone the reading of such books. T h e 

first fear is now over. T h e y are ready for 

mature reading. 

T h e next principle that rises out of stu-

dent interest and need is recreational read-

ing. W e use t w o specific devices for en-

couraging w i d e general reading among our 

students. T h e first is the monthly book 

report w h i c h is w r i t t e n in the classroom 

w i t h o u t benefit of text. T h e second is an 

honors reading c r e d i t — g i v e n to students 

w h o successfully complete a stipulated pro-

gram of general reading. T h e standards 

are h i g h ; no vague perusal of the w o r k of 

mediocrities is permitted. 

T h i s , then, is a brief and, I fear, in-

adequate sketch of my use of the library, 

of my single attempt to lead my students 

to an understanding and appreciation of 

w h a t the library storehouse can give. I 

try to make it clear to my students that 

a single book can change one's w h o l e w a y 

of life and can assign to the f u t u r e new 

direction t o w a r d intellectual and spiritual 

delight. 

T h e library w i l l be the student's educa-

tional institution in days w h e n the class-

room and its rigors are forgotten. If the 

students find the library a treasury of de-

light through the years of school, they w i l l 

find it a source of orderly pleasure in years 

hereafter. 

66 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES