56 -LIBRARIES FOR SCANTILY POPULATED 



DISTRICTS. 



By B. L. Dyer. 



Some few weeks ago it was suggested to me by the President 

 of this section that it would be of interest to this meeting if I would 

 say something about the desirability and the practicability of keeping 

 the teachers on farm schools in touch with the libraries of this 

 country. 



Life in the larger centres of population has certain advantages, 

 and your educationist has found it within the region of practical 

 politics to make education compulsory in such centres. But when 

 he comes to deal with the people dwelling in the scantily populated 

 districts he finds much more difficulty in making education compul- 

 sory — and he has to adopt the expedients of farm schools. In these 

 schools he wishes to have an educated man or woman in charge — and 

 he sees the difficulty of expecting men and women to keep in touch 

 with education, or to keep up to the desired level of culture if they 

 are out of touch with books and libraries. 



But this is a part of a larger question — for how can one expect 

 to settle an educated population in the areas which will only support 

 a limited population if they are out of touch with books ? 



Educationists recognise the right of the children on widely 

 separated farms to a participation in the state provision of education, 

 and I would advance a plea that the people resident on these farms 

 are as actually entitled to a share in the library provision of this 

 country as are their children to a share in its educational provision. 

 The model community is one that has community of ideal, of interest 

 and purpose — " likeminded persons who know and enjoy their like- 

 mindt'dness and are therefore able to work together for common 

 ends." 



We have a partially state-aided voluntary system of libraries in 

 this country, and I would enter a plea that the farmer who desires 

 books to read is as much entitled to the use of the public library 

 as the town dweller, and that the library system of this country will 

 not be satisfactory so long as the residents in the scantily peopled 

 districts, whether farmers, teachers, or miners, are entirely out of 

 touch with it. 



If the communal or public library is necessary in the town, 

 how much the more necessary is it to the scantily peopled district 

 where people have less opportunity for exchange of thought. The 

 state aids the library by grants on the pound for pound principle, 

 and wherever it has been found possible to establish libraries the 

 groups of people who are in touch with them have been so assisted. 

 But if an educated man is dropped down into a district without a 

 library, the whole system of state aid breaks down, and he can only 

 borrow books from the nearest library at a cost of 8d. per pound 

 on the journey to and from the library — unless he lives near a railway 

 line, when the railway authorities very kindly carry his books to 

 and from the library at single rates for the double journey ! 



