BOOKS FOR BACKBLOCKS.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 April 1922, Page 6

BOOKS FOR BACKBLOCKS.

AN URGENT NEED. Mrs- C. H. Burgess writes to the editor: “Will you help the Victoria League by making an appeal through your valuable columns for books and illustrated papers for the children in the back-blocks? There is a splendid opportunity for the good folk of this town to either donate books or donations toward a book fund. The Victoria League will do all the work (and it is not a little, either), but they cannot supply all the material. There is always a way out of the difficulty. Your trip through the back country recently will help you to see the great need that exists.” The two letters which follow show how hungrily the books are awaited: To the Secretary, Victoria League, NJ 3 .

Dear Madam, —Mr. W. A. Curteis, the organising teacher for this district, has informed me that you very kindly distribute books for children in the Jaackblocks. If this is so, I should be very grateful if you could see your way to send some to /he children of this school (attendance 12). It is a tedious task trying to foster a love of reading in a far back district such as this, where books, in the winter time especially, are at a premium, and I am quite sure that the books you would send would be of immense value. The easiest way to send them is to post them direct to Tatu, in parcels not exceeding 51bs. —I am, etc-, C. V. SMITH. Tatu Schoolhouse, Tatu. April 3, 1922. To the Secretary, Victoria League, N.P. Dear Madam, —Has your league books to give to the State schools ? If your league does this I wish to draw your kind attention to the Awakino School, and ask that you consider us in your next distribution. There are 36 children attending the school, and we are very short of reading matter. Thanking you in anticipation of an early and favorable reply.—l am, etc., A. P. CALVERT.

Awakino, April 4. [The above appeal needs no emphasis from us- There is a very real need for books in the back country. For a great many months of the year the settlers are isolated, owing to the state of the roads, and books of any kind are welcome, serving, as they do, to relieve the tedium of the long evenings of the winter. The children particularly look forward to magazines and illustrated books, and anyone in the towns who can spare literature of this nature would be doing a very material service to the settlers of .the backblocks by forwarding it for distribution to the Victoria League, which is to be commended for the real and practical interest it is displaying in the welfare of a very deserving class of people.—Ed.]