PUBLIC LIBRARIES. I.

Patea Mail, 23 December 1881, Page 3

PUBLIC LIBRARIES. I.

The vast machinery of onr Education Department, machinery that in 1879

cost close on half a million sterling, seems to effect little more than this, that onr children do veritably learn to read and write and work sums. A few in each school pick up a little framework of geography and history; but geography can never be more than a lifeless skeleton until a man has travelled, and history is to a child little more than a wearisome list of battles and kings; battles fought ages ago between races with which he has little sympathy, and kings who are to him far less real flesh and blood than Jack the giant-killer. It is only after a child leaves school that his mind expands and he begins to take any intelligent interest in the world of science and art, and in the political struggles outside the little parish in which he was “ educated.” Now we cannot go far wrong in saying that the key to all this knowledge is books. Travelling is excellent, but almost useless without books and maps which are only a pictorial sort of book. Now in books we are poor indeed. There is no library in New Zealand that demands serious mention except that belonging to the General Assembly and it is mainly used by the members, and never open to the public when the House is sitting. Why is it that the treasures of our Literature arc not freely open to all ? Is it that the masses do not care for serious reading ? No statement could be more untrue. A constant visitor to the Dunedin Athenaeum informs us that despite of many inconveniences and much bungling on the part of the committee, the library there, meagre as it is, is put to good use. There is a table on which books are placed as they are returned, and by inspecting it on successive nights the popular taste is ganged. What authors then do the mechanics, tradesmen, and others read ? It is very remarkable that they appear to extract pleasure and therefore presumably some meaning from Huxley and Darwin and Herbert Spencer. They do not ask for Bow Bells or the London Journal; they prefer Scribner’s or the Nineteenth Century. These books enable them to sympathise with and appreciate the movement in the great world outside New Zealand. Without access to books a man can really know nothing but the facts relating to the place where he lives : and these facts are not half understood because he is unaware that they ought to be interpreted by means of knowledge obtained from afar. Let us take an instance that will appeal to practical men. There is no doubt that the future of this district will depend to a great extent on the frozen meat trade. Had we a library in the town, it would be easy to turn up files of the Argus and of the Otago Daily Times , in both of which journals much space has been devoted to the question. It would also be clearly the duty of the committee to instruct their agents to forward any English publications that described the necessary machinery and proper precautions in freezing. We should then have the key to knowledge, not the knowledge itself; for we did not say that knowledge in the truest sense was ever obtained from books. They are the key to it, and their office mainly is to put us on the right scent. At present we know nothing about the matter except what can be gleaned from casual clippings in newspapers. It may be that in a very few months the obstacles will be overcome by others, and Wellington or Dunedin shippers will reap a rich harvest while we stand idle. We believe that if the curious had opportunities of reading what has been written about the matter, they would so work on public opinion as to cause an outcry for the formation of a company at once. But we remain in the dark, and nobody seems to care. In our next issue we shall say something about our Institute,