Page:Roads to Childhood (1920).pdf/130

Primers and easy reading-books were by no means as attractive as they are now, and a child who was not a natural reader had very little incentive unless he could range over a number of picture books and illustrated books. What was to be done for these children who had no books at home, or having them felt no desire to open them for their pleasure?

What is to be done for such children anywhere? That thousands of them have been growing up in America, we have only to look at our statistics of illiteracy to learn.

Fortunately for us and for the children of those pioneer days in the history of children’s libraries, the director of the Pratt Institute Free Library, Mary Wright Plummer, was a poet—with a deep realization of the needs and the desires of children—as well as a practical administrator and educator of international reputation. Into the plans of the architect for this library she had set a children’s room with southern exposure, connected by open archways with the book stacks and