go PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



By provinces the 480 libraries are distributed : 



Province. No. Pamphlets. Books. 



"Ontario 374 32,922 942,187 



Quebec 39 3iM^ 531.356 



Nova Scotia 26 17,756 97.521 



New Brunswick 15 2,6«g 54,787 



Prince Edward Island 3 500 8,528 



Manitoba 8 5,014 34,73° 



British Columbia 10 i,554 11,303 



North-West Territories 1 140 2,15c 



476 93.416 1,682,572 



Dominion 4 29,330 192,060 



Totals 480 122,746 1,874,632 



We may conclude, therefore, from these figures, that so far as the ordinary reader 

 and University student are concerned, Ontario, at least in the cities and towns, is not 

 badly served. Ihe percentage of books per head is not unworthy of a Province 

 which has only been redeemed from the wilderness during the past fifty years. In 

 two directions, however, do we find shortcomings, if not actual want. Outside of 

 the larger cities, towns and villages lies a large proportion of the population of this 

 Province as well as in the others, which are entirely without access to books. There 

 are whole townships and numbers of villages where the weekly newspaper is the 

 only connecting link with modern science and literature. 



If we wish to create an attachment by the farmer for his farm, to give an interest 

 in life to his children in their surroundings instead of in the city, and, in other words, 

 to lay the basis for a successful and pleasant country life, we must try to make his 

 intellectual surroundings more attractive and profitable. 



And this is not a new problem. Men who have had their country's good at 

 heart have tried for years to meet the difficulty. The late Dr. Ryerson, as we have 

 seen, attempted to make every school-house in the country a centre of " light and 

 sweetness" by the school library, but failed because the effort was premature and 

 because no effort was made to add to or exchange the books. 



Since 1892 an effort has been made in New York State to meet it in a different 

 manner. The State law of that year authorized the Regents of the State Library 

 to lend for a limited time selections of books from the duplicate department of the 

 State Library, or from books specially given or bought for this purpose, to Public 

 Libraries under State supervision or to communities meeting required conditions. 

 Out of $25,000 appropriated for Free Libraries, a portion was at once set apart to 

 buy and prepare books to be loaned under these rules. 



The rules then adopted provide that a selection of one hundred books may be 

 lent for six months to the trustees of any Public Library in the State on payment 

 of a fee of five dollars to cover the expense of cases, catalogues, stationery and 

 transportation both ways. Where no such library exists, the books will be lent on 

 petition of any twenty-five resident taxpayers. Special collections of books may also 

 be lent to the officers of a University extension centre, reading course or study club, 

 if properly registered. A later rule offers selections of fifty volumes for a fee of 

 three dollars. In 1893 the Librarian at Albany began to send out a number of 

 small libraries, of 100 volumes each, to such of the small towns and villages as were 

 not provided with Free Libraries. One of these small libraries remained in the 

 community but six months, and was then exchanged for another — hence the name 

 " travelling libraries," which has been applied to them. 



The leading purpose seems to have been to incite communities to found permanent 

 local libraries, but the scope of the work has been widened, and the system now 

 provides smaller collections of books for rural communities. So successful has it 

 proved that in 1895 the State of Michigan appropriated $2,500 to buy books for a 

 similar system and in 1896 the State of Iowa set aside $5,000 for a like purpose. 



In the same year Mr. Hutchins reports to the State Library Commission that 

 in two counties of Wisconsin similar work had been commenced by private individuals 

 He says that each small library was put up in a substantial case, with double doors, 



