LEDGER AND THE ROAN 327 
time of Professor Wing's first coming scarcely any 
one in that region could read or write, but that this 
was the fault of circumstances alone was shown by 
the fact that there were two hundred and fifty 
applicants the first year the school was opened, these 
ranging from six years old to forty, and this school 
was successfully conducted without the infliction 
of any sort of punishment. 
The library was in time supplied with some fifteen 
thousand books which were sent to Professor Wing 
by friends who wanted to help from all over the 
country. The library was kept by a native youth 
who was trained for the purpose and taught to 
rebind books, a very necessary art, since some of 
the most-used books were those that had been dis- 
carded by the Boston Public Library. At the little 
Good-Will Library in the heart of the Carolina 
mountains, the old volumes were cleansed and re- 
paired and books sent out all over the mountains, 
being loaned not only to those who came for them, 
but sent in the form of small, traveling libraries, 
each box containing seventy-five books, wherever a 
man would " tote " them in his wagon, be responsible 
for their distribution, and after three months bring 
them back again — and get another set if he so 
desired. The library was free, with rules but no 
fines, and it is illustrative of the quality of the 
people that the rules were not broken and that at 
the end of the first year not a book was missing, none 
had been kept out overtime, while less than six per 
cent of those taken out had been fiction! What a 
