The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-03-18
SHAME I! FOR SHAME !!
Ruthless Despoilers of Library
Books and Paintings.
PRACTICE MUST CEASE
Stringent Measures Will Be Adopted If
the Outrages Continue = High
School Boys and Girls
the Perpetrators.

Recently, and in fact for considera-
BILE length of time. complaints have
been frequent about school boys and
school girls who make the Hearst Free
library a playground. This practice
has come to such a pass that patience
is no longer a virtue and forbearance
will soon cease and become intolerable.
The librarians complain that the
rooms of the library are used by boys
and girls-young men and women, in
fact. old enough to know better-for
purposes far from what they were in
tended to be used for. The library
rooms and vestibules are for reading.
study and recreation; they are not for
romping and jumping.
But this is not the worst. The very
books on the shelves become victims
of these desecrators, nor do the walls
the pictures, the paintings escape
their malicious sacrileges.
For shame. for shame, school boys
and school girls. Will you have it said
of you that you have no gratitude in
your hearts for the woman who has
given you this most magnificent gift?
Will you have it said of you that you
do not appreciate this munificence with
which you are blessed? Will you have
it said of you that you are so illy-bred
that you thus ruthlessly destroy the
gifts of her whom, above all, we in An
aconda hold in grateful remembrance?
Surely, you will not continue to thus
permit your actions to be held up to
public criticism-to public shame.
This is an outrage that must cease
at once. Parents are vitality concerned
in it. Public school teachers likewise
have a deep interest. Surely, it would
be we'll for parents and teachers to take
in hand these youths who are the de-
spoilers of the grandeGt institution of
which the people Of Anaconda boast.
No more must be heard of such actions;
never again must it come to the
knowledge of the librarians that boys
and girls ruin books and papers and
magazines. Stringent measures will be
resorted to if these more than Grim
inal practices do not cease here and
now.
In speaking of the matter yesterday
one of the librarians said:
1T is strange that some people can
not receive anything without abusing
the gift. There is class of library pa
irons who seem to take pleasure in be-
ing as great a nuisance as possible, and
instead of approaching SO splendid an
institution and using it the way it is in
tended to be used, they turn it into a
resort and abuse the furniture, destroy
the reference books. write on the cost
Hest book there-the Bird book-and
even pencil the walls. Those who do
these things are persons who know
better, or at least, are old enough to
know better if they do not.
THE library is a place of learning, but
it is not meant to teach selfish Doors
at the expense of the building or con-
tents. The notices are even ignored,
when they request only things that
every one ought to know should be done
at such a place.
1T would seem that no one ought 20
be asked not to spit on the floor, OF
carry off the magazines or talk loudly
or sit on tables and such things, but
they are done. The small boys are an
moving enough, but they are manage
able 1t is the older boys and girls,
and even men and women, who cause
the most annoyance.
THE High school pupils and those OF
that age, who should know how to con-
duct themselves, act like hoydens, and
one reference room has come to be used
as a meeting place for the boys and
girls and as a resort for much jollifica-
ton.
'tOf late there seems to be a spirit of
stealing abroad, for almost everything
loose disappears. To be at liberty TO
use everything would seem enough to
satisfy a reasonable person.
The members of the Women's club
We're given permission by Mrs. Hearst
to meet on Saturday afternoons in the
west reference room. and since the
doors are never locked during the SEES
sions and any one is at liberty to enter
and get such books as they wish to use
it is not requiring too much of readers
TO expect they will USE the other room
and leave that one to the club for SC
short a time on Saturday.
when requests kindly given and on
| ~ for good reasons are ignored, more
| rigid requirements will be made. anC
unless such annoEances as spoken OF
| be stopped and the library be treated
as it should be, some severe measure
| will be resOrted to-