526 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



Much hampered by the heavy costs of carriage, it was found 

 that the towns did not avail themselves of the travelling boxes 

 " owing to the fact that there were good libraries in many places," 

 and it is quite understandable that the progress would be " slow and 

 difficult " where there were efficient libraries. At places where 

 " books are scarce" the boxes were welcomed with delight — but in 

 going through the published accounts I have only found one place 

 with a library of any size that welcomed the boxes with " much 

 appreciation " and where " fifty " people came to see them in spite 

 of the fact that the town library had 2,000 volumes on its shelves, 

 and had spent no less than ^40 in new books that year ! 



Had these book boxes been handed over for the use of thinly 

 populated centres alone, they would possibly have had an unqualified 

 success, and they have at any rate proved that there is a need in 

 this country for book boxes among the scantily peopled places. 



What suggestions are to be made for the future ? 



I have already pleaded that the libraries of this country should 

 be placed on a wider basis — and that the towns should help the 

 less populated places — and I would go further and suggest that 

 the Government of this country should exercise some sort of control 

 over the money which it provides for library purposes. Money on 

 the pound for pound principle should not be spent in accumulating 

 waste heaps of books soon to be forgotten in every little village or 

 town — but it should be wisely expended upon the building up in a 

 district of one good library from which all the smaller centres can 

 draw. American and English experience has proved this, and if for 

 one moment one proposed to extend to the primary educational system 

 of this country the lax methods of our present library system how 

 great were the outcry. The people who pay the piper are notoriously 

 supposed to call the tune — except in matters educational, and if the 

 Government is to pay library grants on the pound for pound prin- 

 ciple, it should see to it that all the money is not spent upon the 

 lightest of literature. 



Fiction is the thing that most of the people who subscribe to a 

 library read most largely, but should a preponderating amount of 

 library revenues be spent in this? J. K. Jerome recently said that 

 much so-called reading is no more an intellectual process than is 

 smoking a cigar, and while I would not condemn a certain amount 

 of recreative reading, I would plead that if the public library is 

 to be what Carlyle called it, "a people's university," we must 

 relegate recreative reading to much the same place as is given to 

 recreation at a university. Recreation is not lost sight of in any 

 well conducted university, and while I would not lose sight of the 

 ephemeral books of the hour in a library, they should not be made 

 our main work — lest we bring upon the libraries of this colony the 

 fate of the libraries of New Zealand, who largely lost their grants 

 in aid because the Government refused to find money to circulate 

 fiction ! 



The salvation of the public library is to my mind to be found 

 in the National Home Reading Union — and it is encouraging to 



