Excerpt from the book...Books are as much a part of the furnishing of a house as tables andchairs, and in the making of a home they belong, not with the luxuriesbut with the necessities. A bookless house is not a home; for a homeaffords food and shelter for the mind as well as for the body. It isas great an offence against a child to starve his mind as to starvehis body, and there is as much danger of reducing his vitality andputting him at a disadvantage in his lifework in the one as in theother form of deprivation. There was a time when it was felt thatshelter, clothing, food and physical oversight comprised the wholeduty of a charitable institution to dependent children; to-day nocommunity would permit such an institution to exist unless it providedschool privileges. An acute sense of responsibility toward childrenis one of the prime characteristics of American society, shown in thevast expenditures for public education in all forms, in the increasingattention paid to light, ventilation, and safety in school buildings,in the opening of play grounds in large cities, in physicalsupervision of children in schools, and the agitation against theemployment of children in factories, and in other and less obviousways.