Carnegie Libraries.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 1, 3 January 1907, Page 9

Carnegie Libraries.

Mr. Carnegie has been- dropping free public libraries, -with generous promiscuity throughout the Englishspeaking world, fiom Thurso to Dunedin. A -,note of warning raised by. us some years ago in regard to' these benefactions has found an echo in a recent letter by Cardinal Logue. Such libraries (he says) might, be made most useful institutions ; but they may also become ' a very great danger if not kept under the strictest supervision!.^ They may easily (he adds) be made the medium for"'the distribution of ant»i-Christian, immoral, or doubtfully moial literature. And if such productions - fall into < the hands of ignorant or halfeducated people, we should soon have conditions as to faith and morality which now exist in France, or perhaps N nearer home.' ( -In those libraries ' the great run', says the Cardinal, ' is on works of fiction which are neither educational^ nor improving, if not positively injurious and corrupting.'

This is also, the general experience of towns in Australasia that possess circulating- libraries. In February of the p.as't year, the scholarly and cultivated vicepresident of the Dunedin Athenaeum (Mr. Whi'tson) sho\ved by .actual returns that the habitues of that library (who are no exception to the general rule) indulge almost exclusively in fiction, and for the greater part in fiction that is mere mental hasheesh— the sort of thing that Samuel Smiles describes as ' intellectual dram-di»inking, imparting a grateful excitement for the moment, without the slightest effect in improving or enriching the mind or building up character '. ' During four months', said" Mr. Whitson, ' out" of a total • circulation of 22,716 books, 20,281 were novels '. ' And I am , sorry to say ', added he, ' that the quality of some books which -'are in' very great demand is of the poorest.' The bcot* writers of liLtion are 'left, in comparative negiect. So arc *v.or!t& on science and 'belles lettres '. And, speaking generally, ' compared "with fic-

tion, the circulation of books in other^ departments of literature is productive of sorrowful reflections.' The /need of our time is not so "much more readers as better readers'. As matters stand, it- seems' that our public circulating libraries are more of a calamity than a blessing to : the communitjKfe? ; -An'd.;--':jtidgJL_ng-;''by the general experience, -Carnegie's benefactions are very likely to be .in part expended in packing- library shelves with namby-pamby and' sensational fifth-rate or tenthrate fiction — with yellow-backed agonies brimful of intrigue, mystery, and blood.- . ' ■ - -.- '

Of the two kinds of "romance that-seem to "be most in demand; Dr. Pryde says v.' If;they are nambypamby,, reading- them is. 'like sipping jelly-water ; if * they are sensational, they are like Mrs. Squeers'posset of brimstone and treacle. In both cases they destroy the mental -appetite and make it loathe all " solid - ffood '. "l" l The. great mass of ,the:no vel-readingf public are finical. about their tea' and beer and beef and 'tobacco. But they seem to ha\e no standard by _which to judge of the quality of the printed stuff on which they goige. For many of ■ them, novel-reading is no.t so much a recreation as a passion—something akin -to-the taste of topers for fiery waters, and'of -Anglo-Indians for red-hot condiments. Mr. Carnegie would have enormously enhanced the value of his gifts, and gone far towards preventing their commonest and most' obvious abuse, had he made some effective provision against converting the new libraiies into distributing centres for rubbishy fiction—and 'little more. We have said full many a time that- one of the pressing needs of our day. is the cultivation of a conscience in regard to printed matter ; and, ■ after that, a ' professor of books ', to guide our reading along paths that shallbe safe and pleasant and profitable. Had Mr. Carnegie only thought of supplying' the professorship of books — that ' is, skilled' and judicious supervision in their choice . —he would have done/..;muclr --towards- supplying the other and primary''heed, "that of gradually" establishing an improved conscience in the matter of reading.