524 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



The extension of this concession to the methods of communica- 

 tion to the outlying districts away from the railways were most 

 desirable — and the great need of the moment is some method by 

 which town and country may be linked together for library purposes. 



The library system of this country has on the whole worked 

 fairly well — and I would suggest that with a very little more state 

 help it might be possible to so develop it as to cover all the needs 

 of the present and future. 



In another direction we have recently seen how a voluntary but 

 state-aided system of primary schools is being developed into a 

 state-aided compulsory system of education. The old school com- 

 mittees of this country had done excellent and pioneer work, but 

 Parliament in its wisdom has welded these local and volunteer school 

 committees into school boards that cover much wider areas, and link 

 up town and country. Similarly the library committees should be 

 welded together, and the larger libraries of the towns should be 

 welded with the little libraries of the country villages — and something 

 should be done so that no man who desires books should be out of 

 touch with a library any more than a child should be out of touch 

 with a school. If not — of what use educating the children in the 

 scantily populated districts — of what use trying to settle educated 

 men on the land ? 



Do educationists wish the knowledge of and the custom and 

 use of books which is inoculated in the schools to be cast aside with 

 the school satchel when a boy or girl leaves the primary school, or 

 do they desire that the custom and the use and the influence of the 

 best books of the world should remain with the children who have 

 passed through the schools ? 



If we turn for a moment to other countries we see that the 

 provision of books for the people in scantily populated districts 

 has engaged the serious attention of the authorities. In the United 

 States of America, and in Germany, countries to which our educa- 

 tionists so often turn their eyes to see w'hat pioneer work has been 

 done, the various states have grappled wdth this problem of books 

 for the dweller in the scantily peopled places, and have granted 

 specially cheap rates of carriage on all parcels of library books 

 going out to, or coming back from country residents. In America 

 an effort is being made to make a general law of only one cent per 

 pound postage apnlicable to library books — while Canada has similar 

 proposals now before it. 



What individual states are doing to extend the usefulness of 

 their libraries to country residents were a tale too long to tell here 

 to-dav. Library boards controlling whole states or districts are 

 frequently found — and these work in the closest harmony with the 

 school boards. 



What one little state has done may be told in a few words. 

 Washington County, Maryland, has an area of only 500 square 

 miles, and has a population mainly agricultural. It has only one 

 town of any size — Hagerstown, and when the country decided to 



