bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
THE “LEADING SECTOR” MODEL OF GROWTH IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Authors: CURRIE LAUCHLIN
Published: March 2008

Since the original Harrod‐Domar capital‐output models, and the highly influential work of Ragnar Nurkse, nearly all writers have found the effective constraints on growth to be on the side of supply. Thus stress has been placed on the “exchange gap” (shortage of imports) or the “savings gap” (shortage of capital formation) or on shortages in skills or natural resources. Others focus on constraints imposed by institutional or cultural factors, though often these are assumed to be fixed. An implicit assumption of all such models is that no problem will be posed by lack of effective demand, which may therefore be safely neglected. The apparent basis for this view is the presence of inflation, which suggests excessive demand. However, many writers do express great anxiety about the possibility of an inadequate demand for labour. They claim that excessive concern for the goal of maximum output gives rise to a shortage of capital and a “maluse” of capital in capital intensive processes, thus reducing the demand for labour and causing growing unemployment. The inconsistency of an insufficient demand for labour and an excessive demand for goods is not recognized nor is explained in terms of maldistribution of income or excessive use of capital intensive methods of production.
FRIEDMAN ON THE THEORY OF INCOME ADJUSTMENT
Authors: WILLIAMSON JOHN , RAU NICHOLAS
Published: March 2008

A recent symposium in the Journal of Political Economy was devoted to two papers in which Professor Friedman had developed more explicitly than previously the theoretical framework underlying his monetary analysis. In the view of the present authors — and, to judge from his reply to his critics, in Friedman's view as well — the symposium was disappointing in its concentration on secondary and polemical questions to the neglect of the basic issues that Friedman had raised. The present paper therefore returns to a consideration of what we conceive to be the fundamental questions posed by Friedman's two papers. The most important of these is, we shall argue, an issue that was never raised in the symposium at all: namely, whether it is appropriate to construct a theory which seeks first to predict changes in nominal income and then to determine the price‐output breakdown, rather than to predict price and output changes separately and to obtain changes in nominal income by aggregating the two. But discussion of this question requires a brief survey of one of Friedman's models, and two related models specified at the same level of generality.
THE ROLE OF R&D IN THE INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND INVESTMENT OF U.K. MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY
Authors: PARRY THOMAS G.
Published: March 2008

The general importance of technological advances, based on successful industrial research and development, is well established in the economics of international trade and investment. A part of the emphasis on technology as a factor in international trade has resulted from the general reaction to Leontief's findings about the apparent factor intensity of U.S. trade: findings which went against the accepted pattern of the capital‐ and labour‐ based Heckscher‐Ohlin model of international trade. More important though is the recognition of the commercial significance of product‐ and process‐ oriented industrial innovation in an industry's international operations. There is ample evidence to support the usually accepted connection between research and development and international trade and investment in the case of United States' manufacturing industry. There has not, however, been a proper examination of the nature of this relationship in U.K. manufacturing industries. With the availability of new data on book values of British direct investment abroad by industry groups, some assessment of the connection between research activity and export‐ and foreign‐investment positions can now be undertaken.
MONETARY CORRECTION, CAPITAL MARKETS, AND OPEN‐MARKET OPERATIONS IN COLOMBIA
Authors: BARRO ROBERT J.
Published: March 2008

This paper is concerned with three interrelated aspects of financial development in Colombia‐first, the use of monetary correction, which involves the adjustment of various assets and liabilities for changes in the price level; second, the development of efficient capital markets; and, third, the use of open‐market operations by the central bank to control money and inflation. The discussion of monetary correction begins with a consideration of the recent experience of the savings and housing corporations, which have applied a form of adjustment for price level changes to their assets (mortgages) and liabilities (deposits). Further, unlike other financial institutions in Colombia, these corporations have been largely immune from governmental restrictions on criteria for approving loans. It is suggested that a major positive impact of the particular type of monetary correction that has been used by the savings and housing corporations is the creation of flexibility in nominal rates of interest. This flexibility has led, in turn, to a tremendous short‐term increase in deposits and loans. However, it appears that the short‐term success of this sector is likely to become a long‐term contribution to financial development in Colombia only if monetary correction becomes widespread throughout the economy.
RURAL CREDIT AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN COLOMBIA
Authors: THIRSK WAYNE R.
Published: March 2008

Recently the World Bank, aid donors, and others have shown greater interest in improving the income prospects of small farmers in LDC's. This interest springs in part from the fact that small farmers are at the bottom of the income ladder in many poor countries (though landless rural workers may be even worse off). Proposals to raise small farmer incomes have run the gamut from “wide‐spread” land reform to urban migration. Credit reallocation towards small and away from large farms has also been consistently advocated and has received renewed impetus due to the perceived failure of other alternative measures. Effective land reform has been found difficult to achieve short of full scale political revolution while enthusiasm for nonagricultural solutions has been tempered, at least until recently, by disappointing growth of high income employment opportunities in urban sectors.
INFLATION, UNEMPLOYMENT AND EXTERNAL DEFICIT: THEORETICAL OBSERVATIONS AND POLICY CONSIDERATIONS
Authors: WEXLER IMANUEL , MILLER STEPHEN M.
Published: March 2008

Students of balance of payments theory are undoubtedly familiar with the various discussions concerning the use of monetary‐fiscal policies to attain internal and external balance. The seminal contributions to this particular branch of balance of payments theory are commonly associated with R.A. Mundell [1960, 1961, 1962, 1963], though it might be noted, in passing, that the problem had received attention even earlier from W.M.Corden [1960], T.W.Swan [1955], and others. Mundell's efforts, in turn, stimulated during the 1960's a considerable body of literature on the subject, a representative sample of which includes contributions by Fleming [1962], H.G. Johnson [1966], Krueger [1967], Levin [1968], Ott and Ott [1968], and Sohmen [1967]. That the subject continues to command interest is evidenced by such recent papers as those of Argy [1971], Fausten [1971], Leighton [1970], Wrightsman [1970], and Zelder, Ross, and Collery [1972]. Moreover, it is quite apparent that this interest is further reinforced by the current preoccupation with the implications of the proposed European monetary unification for the domestic policies of the individual EEC countries.
WANTS, NEEDS, WELL‐BEING AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
Authors: CURRIE LAUCHLIN
Published: March 2008

This paper attempts to clarify the issues involved in the recurrent debate on the justification for identifying growth with increased well‐being.
GOVERNMENT DEBT, AGGREGATE SUPPLY AND FISCAL POLICY
Authors: MILLER NORMAN C.
Published: March 2008

The objective in this paper is to review several theoretical issues associated with fiscal policy and to test these theories via a reduced form real GNP equation using quarterly U.S. data from 1958 through 1966. Theoretical work by Friedman, Holmes and Smith, and others suggest (for different reasons) that fiscal policy may be ineffective. Holmes and Smith point out that increases in taxes may conceivably increase aggregate demand if the demand for money depends on disposable income. Higher taxes shift the IS curve to the left as usual. However, higher taxes reduce disposable income and decrease the demand for money. With a constant money supply, the LM curve shifts to the right and the lower equilibrium interest rate increases aggregate demand. The net effect of the opposite shifts in IS & LM could conceivably be an increase in income. Similarly, lower taxes may conceivably lower equilibrium income. The argument of Friedman and others runs along different lines. They emphasize that any change in government expenditure or change in taxes may temporarily alter real income, but any “pure” fiscal policy must be accompanied by a change in government debt. The larger debt that accompanies a fiscal expansion raises interest rates and eventually reduces private demand. The fiscal expansion can allegedly “crowd out” private expenditure completely so that the net long run effect on real income is zero.
KINKED SUPPLY CURVES AND THE LABOUR MARKET
Authors: COYNE JOHN
Published: March 2008

This paper seeks to explain various aspects of labour market activity under oligopsonistic conditions by means of a kinked labour supply curve, the development of which appears to have been neglected in the literature. The ideas for this approach arose out of an ongoing empirical study of a large local labour market during which it became apparent that an extension of the case stated by Bronfenbrenner (1940) could be used to account for a wide range of observed behaviour. It is apparent that dominant employers can dictate conditions in the market even in situations where their concentration of employment is as low as 15–30% of total employment, and at this level one would expect the incidence and effect of oligopsony to be significant within the economy as a whole. Major labour market studies in the U.K. (MacKay et al 1971) and the U.S.A. (Rees and Shultz, 1970) have tended to ignore the consequences of employer interdependence, basically because they were centred on large conurbations. This is an area that may fruitfully be more extensively explored.
THE DETERMINATE SOLUTION FOR BILATERAL MONOPOLY AND THE OPERATION OF CARTELS
Authors: SMITH BEN
Published: March 2008

In a recent paper in this Journal, Z.A. Spindler has proposed a determinate solution for bilateral monopoly, taking issue with the conclusion of many microeconomics textbooks that both the equilibrium price and the equilibrium quantity are theoretically indeterminate. His analysis relates to what may be termed ‘pure’ bilateral monopoly — in which there is literally only one seller and only one buyer. In practice, however, bilateral monopoly situations frequently are characterised by the existence of some sort of cartel arrangement on one side or the other, if not on both. The purpose of this paper is to consider the circumstances under which Spindler's determinate solution applies to these more general formsof bilateral monopoly.
THE LEADING SECTOR DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF INSTITUTIONAL REFORM: A REINTERPRETATION
Authors: HANSON JAMES A.
Published: March 2008

The Leading Sector interpretation of development originates from the observation that all multisectoral economies exhibit a certain degree of intersectoral interdependence, through either the incomes generated in each sector and the corresponding final demand for other products, or through interindustry relations. The sectors in such an economy grow at different rates, as determined by the product of the appropriate income elasticities of demand and the overall growth rate, the latter factor being the weighted sum of the sectoral rates. However in a stagnant economy, as opposed to a dynamic one, even the fastest growing sectors are undynamic. To increase the overall growth rate, the foremost proponents of the leading strategy— Hirschman and Currie—recommend an increase in the growth rate of a few, key, potentially dynamic sectors; then the rest of the economy will be pulled along through the intersectoral relations.
THE STRUCTURE OF PROTECTION IN COSTA RICA— A NEW APPROACH TO CALCULATING THE EFFECTIVE RATE OF PROTECTION
Authors: BULMER‐THOMAS VICTOR
Published: March 2008

This paper estimates the Effective Rate of Protection (E.R.P.) for Costa Rica, the first time such an estimate has been provided for any Central American Republic. It also employs a new method for calculating each E.R.P. which, it is argued, offers at least a partial solution to the problem of tariff redundancy. The main conclusions are as follows:—
EMMANUEL ON UNEQUAL EXCHANGE: A MARXIST CONTRIBUTION ON TRADE RELATIONS BETWEEN RICH AND POOR
Authors: CLUNIES ROSS ANTHONY
Published: March 2008

Unequal Exchange (L'échange inégal) by Arghiri Emmanuel attempts a Marxist treatment of trade between poor and rich countries. Published with it are four appendices in which Charles Bettelheim and Emmanuel debate the issues raised by the main work, and a fifth appendix in which Emmanuel replies to other critics. Emmanuel aims, he says, to address himself “to economists of all tendencies in a common language” (p.323). This aspiration, which is reprehended by Bettelheim (p.349) — either you stand on Marxist ground or you don't — makes the book a particularly interesting one for the non‐Marxist interested in the same range of issues. Though some of the terms used are Marxist or have a peculiarly Marxist meaning, the approach — again to Bettelheim's dismay (p.284) — is through analytical models whose internal logic and empirical realism can be rigorously discussed.
LONG‐TERM EFFICIENCY IN THE NEW ISSUE MARKET
Authors: NEWBOULD G.D. , STRAY S.J. , WILSON K.W.
Published: March 2008

Significant differences in efficiency among issuing houses existed in the period 1959—63. Against that background two hypotheses from industrial economics are tested: that resources tend to flow from inefficient firms toward the efficient firms, and, efficiency tends to rise where freedom of entry exists. The first hypothesis is inherent in market‐based economics and the second originates in the work of Bain. The hypotheses are important because earlier work showed a significant maldistribution of financial resources and financial rewards was taking place at a most critical time in a company's development.
INTERNAL BALANCE, EXTERNAL BALANCE AND RELATIVE SIZE
Authors: RODNEY THOM D.
Published: March 2008

In a recent contribution to this Journal, Imanuel Wexler and Stephen M. Miller (1975) analyse the appropriate policy measures by which a country can correct an external imbalance while adhering to a predetermined mix of domestic inflation and unemployment. Wexler and Miller concentrate their attention on a case in which the domestic inflation/unemployment target coincides with external defect. They assume that the authorities are willing to tolerate a given inflation/unemployment mix but wish to erradicate the external imbalance. This problem is analysed within the context of two assumptions about the domestic rate of inflation relative to the foreign rate.
INTERNAL BALANCE, EXTERNAL BALANCE AND RELATIVE SIZE : A REJOINDER
Authors: RODNEY THOM D.
Published: March 2008

There appear to be four points of disparity between my analysis and that of Wexler and Miller.
REGULATION OF THE BLACK FOREIGN EXCHANGE MARKET
Authors: LADANY SHAUL P. , ARBEL AVNER
Published: March 2008

In many countries there is no free foreign exchange market. There exists an official exchange rate, and besides it — due to liberal law enforcement policies — a black market flourishes. One such country is Israel, where the black market exchange rate is commonly known, and the daily rate is published in newspapers. Since the establishment of the State several devaluations have taken place which raised the official exchange rate from IL0.333 per dollar in 1949 to IL6.00 in the middle of 1975. Except for the immediate periods after the devaluations the black market rate of exchange was significantly higher than the official one. However, while till 1962 the average difference between the two was about 45%, with a high variance of 36.3, it went down to less than 10% with much smaller variance of 11.2 since then. This reduction in the free market premium and its variability over time could partially be explained by more frequent changes in the official exchange rate, but part of it is probably a result of government intervention in the free foreign currency exchange market.
THE VALUATION OF TRANSACTIONS IN INPUT‐OUTPUT TABLES
Authors: BULMER‐THOMAS VICTOR
Published: March 2008

There has been very little written discussion of how transactions should be valued in an input‐output table. Conventional wisdom, however, prefers the use of ‘basic’ prices (in which flows are valued net of distributive margins and net indirect taxes) and the first part of this paper explores the reasoning behind this approach.
THE ACCOUNTING FRAMEWORK OF CERTAIN BALANCE OF PAYMENTS THEORIES: A DIDACTIC NOTE
Authors: WINTERS L.A.
Published: March 2008

Balance of payments theory is endowed with several schools of thought each approaching the problem from a slightly different angle. To most professional economist this multiplicity is a source of strength, each school highlighting certain problems and largely ignoring others, but to many students it is, in my experience, a source of confusion. This note, pedagogical in intent, seeks not to draw fresh parallels between the various schools but to place them all within a single accounting framework so that their similarities and differences are readily apparent. The model used for this purpose is perhaps overly simple but it does, I believe, capture the essential features and it is amenable to expansion and adaptation to illustrate particular points. Above all I have, for several years, found it a useful vehicle for illustrating the common ground in the various approaches to the theory of the balance of payments.
LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION AND THE JOB SEARCH THEORY: TESTS OF SOME NEGLECTED IMPLICATIONS
Authors: FEINBERG ROBERT M.
Published: March 2008

The job search theory, as developed since the early 1960s, is primarily a theory predicting the behaviour of unemployed job‐seekers responding to the costs of acquiring information about the wage possibilities available to them. However, implications can be derived for the influence on the individual's labour force participation (LFP) decision of the factors used in search theory, and these implications have never been tested. This paper will present a number of hypotheses regarding LFP and then test these hypotheses against a broad and diverse cross‐section sample of male heads of households, using ordinary least squares regression analysis. The results generally confirm the hypotheses and the view that the variables of the job search theory have a significant influence on the LFP decision.
CUSTOMS UNION AND THE ESTIMATION OF THE IMPORT LEAKAGE EFFECT
Authors: ZAKI M.Y.
Published: March 2008

The purpose of this paper is to present estimates of the maximum potential import leakage effect (decrease in the multipliers) as a result of the U.K.'s joining the E.E.C. The 1970 U.K. input‐output model was used. As a first step the domestic input coefficient matrix was adjusted for changes in the relative price of domestic inputs under the assumption that all import duties on competitive imports from the E.E.C. were eliminated. Considerable variation in the ranking of each endogenous sector according to its leakage coefficient for output, income, and employment was found.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF SOME PROPOSITIONS ON PRODUCER TAXATION
Authors: ULPH ALISTAIR , SMITH BEN
Published: March 2008

This paper uses simple examples and diagrams to illustrate some of the more important propositions relating to producer taxation which have emerged from the literature on optimal taxation. Although a few less complex surveys of this literature are now available (Bradford and Rosen, 1976; Sandmo, 1974), most of the debate is still to be found in relatively technical papers. Since the four propositions here examined are important, we feel that their separation from the technical literature may serve a useful pedagogical purpose.
THE USE OF THE MEASURES OF ECONOMIC SURPLUS IN COST‐BENEFIT ANALYSIS
Authors: PLATTS A.R.
Published: March 2008

In cost‐benefit analysis the test that is most commonly adopted in order to apply the compensation principle is the Kaldor‐Hicks test, which is also referred to as the strong compensation test. This seeks to determine whether, after a policy move has taken place and new relative prices have been established, the gainers could hypothetically compensate the losers and still be collectively better off than before. Attention is also paid, in theory but seldom in practice, to the possibility of a Scitovsky paradox. This would arise if the Kaldor‐Hicks criterion is satisfied for both the policy move itself and its reversal. The Scitovsky double test can then be introduced in order to reject a policy move which produces such a result. A move passes this test if it both satisfies the Kaldor‐Hicks criterion in the forward direction and does not satisfy it in reverse.
Blasing Trails
Authors: FERGUSON MILTON J.
Published: March 2008

IN California we have been doing county library work so long that we may possibly be assuming rather a grand‐fatherly air toward this service. It is easy to forget the early days when conditions were crude and primitive, and to feel that we were always tenants of regular houses with proper facilities for contributing our part towards human culture and enjoyment. Gradually most of our counties are growing into better central offices, with plans and ambitions for special buildings of greater or lesser pretensions. Here and there over the state local communities, in one way or another, are finding their branches housed in small but real library buildings. The people have quite come to the conclusion that books properly administered are a necessary feature in this modern world—and are willing to pay the price.
A National Book Pool
Authors: NEWCOMBE LUXMOORE
Published: March 2008

“My local librarian tells me that he has not a copy of the book I want and that he cannot buy me a copy. How am I to obtain one, and what business has the local library— for which I pay rates—to fail me?”
Interest at a Local Centre
Authors: TEACHER COUNTRY
Published: March 2008

MY first title for this paper was the forbidding one of “Adult Education at a Local Centre,” but I should not like to raise the idea in the minds of my educationist colleagues that I am desiring to proffer new ideas on educational method,—far from it. I leave that to those who sit in chairs, All I want to do is to state briefly and with candour what my impressions are as to the achievement as I have seen it at my own library centre over a short term of years. I am glad of the opportunity presented in this friendly magazine to say most heartily that I regard my casual work as a voluntary librarian as of as great importance, from the viewpoint of citizenship, as my work in the school. I like school work and teaching, but am not blind to the fact that any influence I have on the scholars is as likely as not to pass away at adolescence. The library work at least is telling; and in this case such influence as I may have is with formed minds. I have seen the broad educational results of the library work to much more effect than in the case of the school work in which one marks time always. I have had young men and young women and older folk come to the library casually, have got to know their tastes, and have seen miracles happen.
Kent County Library Book Van
Authors: COOKE A.S.
Published: March 2008

THE county library in Kent had been in existence for four years when the need for a change in the book‐box method of distribution became evident. There were then just under 200 centres and as the number of books issued to these centres steadily increased the actual manual labour of unpacking and reassembling the collections became too great. The danger was that the librarian would of necessity become merely a packer of boxes and a routine clerk.
The Drama in the Countryside
Authors: OSBORNE EDGAR
Published: March 2008

DURING the past few years interest in the drama has been quite as strong in the countryside as in the towns. This activity in the years following the war is a remarkable feature, and can hardly be attributed to economic prosperity. It is, however, well‐known that there are some movements that do not always synchronise with material prosperity, and it appears that the drama can be included with these. Another factor bearing on the revival in this vital form of art is the increased interest taken in adult education. Courses in literature and drama are general throughout the country, and these courses have, naturally, stimulated interest in the drama as a mode of artistic expression. The fact that people are showing pleasure and aptitude in dramatic art is proof that it is deep‐rooted in the instincts of the nation, and under right guidance can be an instrument of artistic and intellectual progress.
Student Books at the Local Centre: A Comment
Authors: NEWCOMBE LUXMOORE
Published: March 2008

THE article “Student Books at the Local Centre” by A Country Teacher in the Autumn number of the Library Review is most encouraging to those of us who are trying to provide a source for the supply of those books which might otherwise be unobtainable. I am especially grateful for the statement that “there are sometimes delays, but I have learned to expect to get the book sooner or later,” because it recognises the fact that the Central Library for Students never says “No” to any reasonable request until it has exhausted all possible sources of supply.
Running Thoughts on the Library Association Meeting
Authors: FERGUSON MILTON J.
Published: March 2008

IT may be safe enough to have thoughts, running or otherwise, on British libraries and librarians after so brief an experience of them in their habitat: the folly may well be in the expression thereof. In this case, however, I have no hesitancy in speaking because my treatment was so generous and so kind that only pleasant, even flattering, thoughts remain.
An American's Sounding
Authors: STROHM ADAM
Published: March 2008

OUR approach to the season of “good will to all men” reminds us of some recent experiences. A few months ago we travelled forth to greet workers and institutions in other lands enlisted in services for public good. Opportunities developed in the course of our wanderings to bide within the homes and be honoured with the confidences of many people, thereby learning a bit of their outlook on the world, their endeavours, individual and national.
The Threshold of Bookland
Authors: SCOULLER EDWARD
Published: March 2008

ONCE when I was very young, about twelve years of age, I stumbled against a problem in criticism. I had been reading somewhere a list of authors of great adventure stories. Scott, Stevenson, Blackmore, Kingsley, Defoe, were all there; so were Dumas and Hugo; even Kipling, Henty, Ballantyne, Rider Haggard and Jules Verne had intruded into the fold. With all of these I had some acquaintance—although I had neither the advantage of money nor yet access to the libraries which children of to‐day take all too fatally for granted—and I loved each of them with a steady or a frantic devotion.
Prison Libraries
Authors: KENT MURIEL
Published: March 2008

IT is hardly an exaggeration to say that the general public knows nothing about reading in prison—and very little of the conditions of life to‐day in, let us say, Wormwood Scrubs, Nottingham, or Holloway. Nor is it easy to obtain details of the prison libraries which are already in being, for only the Commissioners, the officials (including the educational advisers now attached to most of the large prisons), and those for whom they exist, have much practical knowledge of their present status or future possibilities.
Bookish America
Authors: BOSTWICK ARTHUR E.
Published: March 2008

FROM the standpoint of an American librarian busy in acquiring, cataloguing and distributing books, his country is naturally very bookish indeed, though there are doubtless points of view from which it might appear quite otherwise. We librarians frequently make the mistake of confounding the public in general with the part of it that makes use of public libraries. As a matter of fact this latter is not even “the reading public,” certainly not all of it; probably not even a typical cross section of it. This makes any conclusion drawn by librarians from their own statistics regarding the volume or quality of reading, subject to grave suspicion. What goes on in the way of reading outside of our institutions—in society libraries, in clubs, in millions of private houses,—we know only by hearsay or guess‐work.
The South African Library Position
Authors: FREER PERCY
Published: March 2008

WHAT were the circumstances that prompted the Carnegie Corporation of New York to send to South Africa last year its President and Secretary; to make subsequently a liberal grant to libraries here, and further to delegate Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Pitt to report on them? Did our silence forbode feverish activity or stagnation? In either case the matter should be investigated, and if accused of suspecting the latter state, the Corporation could plead its interest in the former only. However, without ascribing to the instigators of the present survey any but philanthropic motives, its inception was obviously not without reason. The most self‐satisfied amongst us would not imagine for one moment that current South African library practice reflects the professional Manual. Is our conservatism due entirely to financial impoverishment, or has the enervation of a South African summer produced a winter lassitude in would‐be reader and librarian alike? Let us hastily glance at existing conditions.
County Library Work in a Village
Authors: THOMAS F.G.
Published: March 2008

IT was in September, 1927, that the rural extension scheme of the South‐West was launched in Devon, financed by the Carnegie Trustees. The faith and persistence of a few gained recognition for the county, and their optimism has been justified. In six months fifteen new centres have been opened in villages with group meetings of four and eight talks, with a total average attendance of some 550 adults and with some 750 people passing through these groups. From the inception of the scheme, there has been close and reasoned co‐operation with the county library. These notes are based on our experience. They are not intended to be dogmatic generalisations; anyone who realises the social barrier of Dartmoor in the life of Devon, the intimacy of its valleys, the difference between Exmoor and Dartmoor, the different type of valley farmer and the small holder wrestling with the upland for his scant food, will know that any generalisation will be but a half truth, necessarily modified in each village. On the other hand, an intimate study of the varied types of villages, together with a more desultory knowledge of the difficulties over a wider area, may indicate some of the possibilities and the obstacles in the true functioning of a county library.
Mediæval Encyclopedias
Authors: WILLOUGHBY EDWIN E.
Published: March 2008

EVEN when in a dim monastic cloister he presided over his twenty treasured volumes, the librarian had his vade mecum, his refuge and strength in time of trouble. When asked an unexpected question, he, like his successor of the twentieth century, rushed to the encyclopedia. Indeed, it would seem that during the middle ages, when books were few and parchment was dear, the encyclopedia, the work which attempts to include all human knowledge, reached its greatest popularity.
A Travel‐book Causerie
Authors: TOMLINSON H.M.
Published: March 2008

THIS is a subject which is supposed to be next to my heart. I am not sure it is quite so close. It may have been so at one time, but if ever I had a predilection for stories of travel it was soured long ago by literary editors. They have favoured me with so many travel books for reviewing that now the innocent face of another is enough to make me “reach back”; and a reviewer of books ought never to do that, on instinct.
Town Libraries in France
Authors: LEMAÎTRE HENRI
Published: March 2008

IMPROVEMENTS effected in the administration of French municipal libraries in the past few years are mainly due to the untiring and vigorous efforts of the librarians, who have exerted themselves to the utmost to develop the institutions of which they are in charge, and to increase their usefulness and to obtain for them the funds which the public authorities hesitate to grant. At Havre, for example, the hours have been considerably lengthened, the reading room being open from half‐past nine in the morning to eleven at night. So great has been the response of the public to this encouragement that the municipality has been obliged to recognise, by an increase of credits, the value of the service rendered. Elsewhere, branches for the general reading public have been created in addition to the reference library. Thus at Rouen, a branch which has proved to be of the utmost service has been founded in the suburb of St. Sever. Other libraries, as that of St. Die, have supplemented the reference rooms intended for more scholarly readers by a room for the “general reader”; or have organised, as at Tours, a lending service. In this last named town the lending service has since last year been placed on a payment basis; but far from diminishing, it has prospered the more.
More and Better Books
Authors: GREEN EDWARD
Published: March 2008

IN the Board of Education Report of the Consultative Committee on Books in Public Elementary Schools we get a document of some interest and importance, and one that should be carefully examined, not only by those responsible for the schools, but also by library workers and others who are equally interested in a better use of books.
Books Read in an Agricultural County
Authors: BROOKS E.
Published: March 2008

THE county librarian is often asked in amused, curious or contemptuous tone “what do the “villagers” read?” In a purely agricultural county consisting of small villages with no urban area it is possible that literary appreciation is on a lower level than in counties where there are a number of towns; for it is an undeniable fact that although a country man's ability may be equal to that of his town cousin, the standard of education is higher in the towns than in the country. Town dwellers have more varied interests and as a rule have had to make more use of the education received in youth than the village folk whose daily work makes less demand upon the mental faculties.
Getting the Best out of Fiction
Authors: NIELD JONATHAN
Published: March 2008

THE scope of this article is, it should be clearly understood, confined to offering a few suggestions that may be found useful by those who desire something more than haphazard novel‐reading; no attempt will be made to discuss fiction as a wholes—to survey, for example, the numerous questions with which learned critics have dealt in tracing the experiments and evolutionary influences that have resulted in that form of literature which the word “novel” connotes for us men and women of to‐day. Nor will any appraisal of authors be attempted, though certain individual novelists will, doubtless, be specified by way of illustrating the argument which it is sought to maintain.
South Africa from the Library Angle
Authors: FERGUSON MILTON J.
Published: March 2008

WHETHER one journeys by the west coast or the east coast, South Africa is far away from the rest of the world. Even the traveller of to‐day, making the trip in all ease and comfort on the excellent liners which plough the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, can imagine something of the dismay of the earlier explorers when, after weeks and months of sailing, they touched the southern tip of the continent only to find the interior cut off by sharply rising mountains and anchorage room lacking. To‐day that terror is gone; and one is lost in wonder and admiration at the splendid setting of Cape Town, the gateway to the country, with her two oceans thundering at her battlements and majestic Table Mountain like a steadfast friend at her back. A great harbour built by human energy insures shipping conveniences and safety. And ashore a new sort of city greets the visitor, with all modern facilities and, as befits the crossroads of the world, a mingling of races and customs strange and alluring to all who look with seeing eyes.
Books for the Traveller
Authors: MORTON H.V.
Published: March 2008

MONTHS ago I met the editor of this journal in Melrose, Scotland, where, sharing a meal of bread and cheese, I promised to do a thing which I have consistently declined to do for years—write an article on books for the traveller.
The Public Library and the School Child
Authors: LILLIE ROBERT
Published: March 2008

THE Report of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education on Books in Public Elementary Schools gives a fair account of the position when it suggests that the book supply in schools has not kept pace with the new technique of teaching which has increasing regard to the function of individual study in the school and the extension of the reading habit at home.
The Value of Reference Books
Authors: MINTO JOHN
Published: March 2008

IT has been said of the late David Laing, who for so many years was guide, philosopher and friend to all workers in the field of Scottish history and antiquities who came to consult him in the Signet Library, that he had little need for a catalogue of the library since he knew all the important works by head and horn, and could lay his hands upon them at any moment. He was, it is true, endowed with a prodigious memory, and no doubt could have made good his claim at a time when the field was more restricted and the collections of smaller extent than they are now. Sad it is, however, to think that knowledge acquired and so well retained by such gifted individuals perishes with them, whilst we are left lamenting that their knowledge and learning is of so little value to us who come after them. Vox emissa volat—litera scripta manet.
A Book Room
Authors: ROBERTS MORLEY
Published: March 2008

THERE are rooms with books in them, there are book‐rooms, and there are libraries. Every book‐lover will recognise these statements as solemnly true. It seems to me that the real library might be known by a blind man: for it smells like a library: it speaks at once of old leather and ancient glue and calf and morocco binding and has in it the very fume of history and the passage of time. Blessed are those who possess one and the capacity of enjoying its odorous sanctity. This is not given to many. I am not of that high order. True that I have some rooms with books in them, but such can satisfy none but meagre souls. As I was brought up among books I have over and above these a book‐room in which nothing really counts but books at which good people hasten to peer, while the unitiated merely wonder.
The Library of Congress
Authors: MEYER H.H.B.
Published: March 2008

THE Act of Congress approved by the President of the United States on April 24, 1800, providing for the removal of the seat of government from Philadelphia to the newly created city of Washington, contained a provision for the purchase of books, and “for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them” for the use of both houses of Congress. This was the origin of the Library of Congress. It is not likely that either Mr. Otis of Massachusetts who introduced the original resolution, nor Mr. Harper of South Carolina who reported out the bill from the Committee on Ways and Means, had an idea that they were laying the foundation of one of the greatest libraries of the world.
Art and the Time‐Spirit
Authors: DRINKWATER JOHN
Published: March 2008

THE question is often being raised—why is it that there has been no outburst of art as a result of the period of stress through which Europe passed in the Great War? But this question seems to me to be based on an assumption which is entirely erroneous. A period of stress never does produce great art. To start with, the artist is not subject for his mental excitement to any extraneous occurrence: he is dependent on the impulse within him, not on external excitement. It is there. In any other condition of life and in any other period of history the artist would still be an artist. Take Wordsworth for example. At the time when he was producing the great bulk of his philosophic poetry, he was living the life almost of a recluse at Grasmere, watching but not participating in the march of events in the outside world. The poetic spirit in him was self‐nourishing, and did not need any such adventitious stimulus as was to be derived from playing a part in the stirring events which were going on in the world at that time.
The Passing of the Private Library
Authors: HOLLAND CLIVE
Published: March 2008

“TELL me a man's friends and I will tell you what manner of man he is,” a well‐known philosopher has said. Years ago, even so late as the Victorian age, one might have paraphrased this saying into “Tell me a man's books, and I will tell you the manner of man that he is.” But now?
Bookish Scotland
Authors: MALCOLM BULLOCH JOHN
Published: March 2008

THE editor of this journal has asked me to write about “Bookish Scotland,” taking the “broadest view of the subject.” But when I come to think of it, I wonder if there really is any such entity as a “Bookish Scotland.”
Alcoves of Memory
Authors: McFEE WILLIAM
Published: March 2008

HOW it may be now I do not know, but in England in the first years of this century a youth with a desire to accumulate knowledge was left pretty much to his own devices. His approach to learning was influenced largely by his social status, and to a smaller degree by the nature of his occupation. There was nothing inherently snobbish about this, because what I call his social status was in itself determined by the school his parents had been able to provide. Those of us who struggled through adolescence in middle‐class homes, and received what was known as “tuition” in middle‐class secondary schools, emerged into a world admirably furnished with continuation classes, polytechnics, evening colleges and technological institutes. We were spared those elaborately paternal schemes now designed to make the acquisition of learning almost painless and entirely impermanent. We had to work I To learn a language the teachers insisted upon our memorising words, conjugations and rules, to say nothing of the exceptions. I can remember a vigorous Gallic oration by a French teacher in reply to an egregious student who had asked why, when he wanted merely to learn French “for commercial purposes,” he had to read Molière, Racine, and things like Telemaque and Voltaire's ironical fictions. The student's theory, so far as I can remember it now, was that the only Frenchmen he was likely to meet in business would be illiterates unable to appreciate a correct rendering of their own tongue. And to those who were in the way of being engineers, as I was, the doctrine was preached that only steady, grinding labour in a large number of co‐ordinated sciences would get us anywhere at all.
The Platoon School Library
Authors: HAMILTON WILLIAM J.
Published: March 2008

IT is quite impossible to write dogmatically about the general topic of the library and the platoon schools, any more than about the platoon schools themselves,—which differ so widely from each other in their approaches to the pedagogic problems of education. An interesting brief article by E. D. MacPhee in the August, 1917, number of The Canadian Forum on “New Horizons in Education” indicates the differences between some seven well known plans. Gary differs from Winnetka and the Dalton plan in retaining “class” teaching, while they abandon it for “individual” work, yet Gary and Winnetka agree in modifying the curriculum, while the Dalton plan retains it. Concerning the Gary work‐study‐play plan MacPhee says “a lengthened school day and week allow for class and individual work in regular school subjects and in the application of the knowledge and skill so acquired in the shop and the laboratory. There is specific training by practice in social activities.” The library hour, the gymnasium, the private music lesson, the voluntary week‐day church‐school classes to which the child may be released, the auditorium programmes, etc., are among the “social activities” which share in the extra‐academic half of the Gary child's schoolday, which lasts from 8–15 a.m. to 4–15 p.m., with an hour intermission for luncheon.
Books as News
Authors: TOMLINSON H.M.
Published: March 2008

A BRITISH author visiting America is surprised by many things, and one is that native journalists seem disposed to pay attention to any casual comment he may make about a new world of which he can know little; hardly more than a 16th century goatherd knew of Cathay, (He is never likely to admit he knows so little, yet that is about all he knows; he is more likely to be considering a book about the re‐discovery of America).
Bookstalls and Book‐Hunters in Paris
Authors: HOLLAND CLIVE
Published: March 2008

TO the lover of books Paris is one of the most charming of cities, for almost from time immemorial she has had bookstalls and book‐sellers, and for two or three centuries at least there have been delightful open‐air book boxes ranged along the quais, especially those from the Pont Royale to the Pont Notre Dame, with their actual interests and potential treasures. The bookstall keepers are of many types and of both sexes. Some are good natured philosophers who, plying their trade for the sake of a living, are always open to bargain if one spots a treasure that one desires to possess. Others are more serious salesmen who well know the value of their wares, unless perchance some rara avis has got into their possession which is in value beyond their ken. Yet others are wonderful scholars, who not only know the value of the books, but love books for their own sake, and actually suffer pangs of regret to part with them when a customer comes along. These are mines of information regarding editions, title pages, colophons, and all the small data which may make a book extremely valuable, and without which the book may be worth next‐door to nothing. The women book‐sellers, mostly buxom dames with smiling faces and bright alert eyes, are keener over a bargain when selling their books than their male confreres, and though often possessing expert knowledge have a tendency—some of them—to over‐estimate the value of their possessions, and to say “But yes, monsieur, this is a rare edition,” when one questions the price, and knows quite well that there is nothing at all special about the book.
The Index Bibliographicus
Authors: VORSTIUS JORIS
Published: March 2008

BIBLIOGRAPHIES are essential tools to all searchers after knowledge. Scholars themselves are much too neglectful of such aids, yet the best kinds of bibliographies give clues to sources of information and save the scholar an enormous amount of time and trouble. To the working scholar the most valuable are the current bibliographies, because they indicate at short and regular intervals the most up‐to‐date treatments on all sorts of subjects. Without such guides the scholar and researcher cannot keep up‐to‐date in the literature of his subject.