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Show Toy Lending Libraries Are Thriving In Many Cities Throughout Country It pays to borrow. That's what the thousands of children think who've been taking advantage of the toy lending libraries now thriving in 50 cities, reveals a New York correspondent cor-respondent in the Boston Globe. A downtown Manhattan settlement house was the first distribution point of reconditioned toys, collected soon after a Brooklyn probation officer conceived the idea of lending toys to children who had few playthings at home. She had found that youngsters young-sters in her precinct were being arrested ar-rested for stealing toys, and launched the toy-lending scheme to help stop the crime wave. The New York office, supported by personal contributions, takes no money from its units, but simply gives advice on organization, and occasionally ships some of its toys back and forth for other branches to use. Usually, toy libraries are located in city settlement houses or in schools. Public School 28. in Brook-lvn. Brook-lvn. for example, ties up the toy-lending toy-lending scheme with its educational program. Toys are made in some manual training classes, repaired and reconditioned in others. Students who have the best marks are rewarded by being made librarians libra-rians to supervise the checking out of toys. Most of the 2,000 students In this school come from underprivileged families, with one toy the most thay have at home. They are permitted to borrow one toy at a time, and keep it a week. Their credit is unlimited, un-limited, providing they return the toy in good condition. A Chicago toy library, established by the park board in co-operation with the WPA, prefers to have parents par-ents sign the borrowing cards. This toyery has an elaborate system of disinfecting the toys after each use. |