Public School Libraries

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 23, 11 June 1908, Page 10

Public School Libraries

We have more than once forcibly directed attention to the manner in which the distribution of book prizes in specific public schools has from time to time been made the medium of disseminating *omc of the most odious forms of No-Popery ' literature '. In at: least two specific instances (one in Southland, the other on the West Coast) we had the satisfaction of knowing that our protest produced good results.. A report of a recent meeting of the Pukahu School Committee shows how easily the public school may, through the ' children's libraries ' (where such exist), be utilised for the propaganda of sectarianism. Whether the local c children's library ' has so utilised we are not at present in a position to say. We are, however, entitled to assume that even the school library should be free from sectarian leanings, and that it is the duty of those concerned to scrutinise, before 'accepting, gifts of books from any source of a decidedly sectarian kind.