THE NEW BOOKS FOR THE LIBRARY.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 120, 11 September 1877, Page 2

THE NEW BOOKS FOR THE LIBRARY.

■*> TO THE EDITOR OF THE AKAROA MAIL. Sib—ln your issue of Friday last appeared a letter animadverting on the class of books just received for tlielibrary. In that letter the statement was made that the committee is filling tlve library with i abstruse and too difficult books, and so wasting money. Any one not acquainted with the character of- the books last introduced, and of the library generally, would conclude from your correspondent's letter that our library is full or dry, learned, abstruse, and heavy volumes, , tit it may be for a University, but quite unsuited to the humble attainments of the people of Akaroa ; who, it appears, are not only backward in their education, but are excessively pressed for want of spare time. Now, I am not going to discuss the brain or the business of Akaroa, though I might point to several members of the library who are not quite so deficient as your correspondent • would insinuate, and who suiely have a rig!it to have their tastes consulted as much as , that of others. Nor am I to enter on the question of the want of time to read : the less said about that the better. But, to show the unfounded nature of your correspondents remarks, let me state that out of five classes of books, viz.: Fiction, Essays and Pbetry, Histories and Biographies, Books of Reference, the class for Fiction contains more than all the rest put together. There are twenty-sis (26) volumes of Fiction, and all the rest amounting to twentythree (23). In other words, out of 50 volumes there are only half-a-uozen or so that can by any stretch of conscience' be called abstruse or heavy. There are 26 of them light as air, and close on a score that anyone might digest without stimulants. But what about those ponderous tomes that fill your correspondent with such indignation ? They are classical works, and certain to be relished by a fair average. of the subscribers. The} are useful for reference. They keep us abreast of the thought of the day (would we had ten times as many of them). They are instructive ; and one can read them without the miserable feeling that he is only wasting arid killing time. They exercise the mind and awake it out of the dormant state into which we are so apt' to fall. And, if nothing else, they shew us how far back we are, and how much ; we haxe $o learn. The policy hitherto,' or till of late, has been not to fill the library with heavy, but with light literature (a good deal of it light, morally, as well as otherwise). I defy anyone-to say that our library has too many • Instructive.-, and . substantive books. On the contrary, j know of no library, town, or country that is so weak in such books. There ought to be a fair representation'of the various branches of knowledge in any library worthy the name. In ours there is no sach .thing*

Your correspondent says, it is a, Country Library. And so Akaroa, that has of late risen to the dignity of Borough, has now declined into a country district. But be it so that it is a mere country village; is it always to remain such V Are there no young men growing up among us that require more than cheese and bread and novels ? Are there no visitors to our town, who ought, might, and would, patronise our library, and help to pay for it—were it made really good ? Are there no burning questions stirred which it is a shame to be ignorant of ? Are there no quacks abroad that need to be guarded against? Is life, I ask, a mere amusement ? Is spare time of no more importance than that it should be dissipated away in novel reading ?

I have the deepest interest in our library, therefore hail such books as your correspondent sneered at. Rest assured the way to make it prosperous is to make it classical and useful, not frothy. Yours, &c, HEADER.