Funding for a portion of this collection came from a Local History Digital Resource Project grant . The Local History Digital Resource Project is supported by the U. S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian. For more information, please visit: http://www.califa.org/lhdrp.php
Brownson Settlement House,Nov.29, 1919. Is it the least bit interesting and pregnant with meaning to an American tohear that his dark skinned brother from Mexico is reading the classics, is reading about the same heroes, and is living in the same books as his American brother is? It was at the Brownson Settlement House on Friday afternoon that I watched the children in the library department. Most of the children came into the libra-ry ready to change their books for [strikethrough: another] others just as good. One little group sat on the floor enjoying the highly colored picture book, another group of larger boys were enthusiastically talking about Tom Sawyer and how he got his fence whitewashed, while another group of girls were talking how they had formed a story reading club-- the largest of the group having read after school to the smaller ones.Upon investigating [strikethrough: o] I discovered that fairy tales are in greatest demand. That Brownson House with its capable librarian who knows the children and what they most enjoy from her eight hundred volumes,that Brownson House is able to furnish dreams and air castles for children who live in mere shacks andhave so little of material luxury is rather significant. It is the dream that helps one to live down the unhappy present condition; it is the dream that helps one to rise and find that air castle in some form or other later on. It is therefore significant that our Mexicans are given an op-portunity to dream and live in castles in the sky, and one day from those dreams they will rise up above the shacks into the realms of America's highest ideals.
