The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-08-13

some idea of the growth of the rural
Libraries in North Carolina:
Amount appropriated by the
State .$15,OOO
Amount of appropriation ex-
penueQ ~, IoU
Number of libraries provided
for up to Nov. /, 1906. .. 1900
Number of libraries established
by aid of fund ............. 1914
Number of counties having one
or more Libraries ..... SO
Number of counties having no
library ............ i (Clay)
supplementary Libraries.
Amount appropriated by the
State ..................... 5000
Amount of appropriation ex-
pended ................l $50
Number of supplementary IL
braries provided for up to
Nov. /, 1906. .......... 1000
Number of supplementary Ii
braries established by aid Of
this fund ......... 1b6
Number of counties having one
or more supplementary Ii
braries ........... 3S
Number of counties having no
supplementary libraries 49,. So
Total number of Libraries es-
tabished without State aid. 107
Total number of rural libraries
in the State. ............ 1921
Total amount expended in the
State for rural libraries (ex-
elusive of private endeavor) 32,768
Total number of books in rural
Libraries .................. 9O,792
Enrolment in schools having
libraries ................. 76,22S
There are rural libraries in every
county in the State except one (Clay).
Forty-seven counties have the total
number of libraries available from the
appropriation of the four preceding
years and thirteen have already taken
the maximum number allowed for the
next two years available only since
March 1905. Libraries established by
aid of the State appropriation, 1O7
rural libraries have been established
by voluntary subscription and private
donation.
No progressive step yet taken in
public education in North Carolina has
proved more popular and more benef1-
cial than the establishment of these
rural libraries. BY the act of 1901
they have been made a permanent
part of the educational system of the
state. Under the present act it will
be possible within a few years to have
a thirty dollar rural library, enlarged
and supplemented every two years by
a fifteen dollar supplementary library,
in every public school in North Caro-
lima i'm proportion to the amount of
it. the investment made in these rural
libraries is probably yielding and will
continue to yield a larger interest for
the benefit of the public schools than
any other investment made for public
education in this generation. AS Supt
Joyner says in his last report to the
Governor: ''These thousands of books.
masterpieces of thought and feeling
and STYLE are daily going into hun
dreds of homes bearing to young and
old their messages of hope, love,
beauty, wisdom, knowledge, morality,
reverence, religion and joy, cultivat-
ing taste for good literature, form
ing the reading habit and leaving in
their wake q touch at least of that
higher culture which comes only from
communion through books with the
greatest minds and souls of the ages"
In many a bookless school and home
these Libraries have proved a breath
of fresh air, a CLEAN of glorious
light an inspiration to quicken am
bition, to arouse aspiration, to kindle
hope and to set in motion forces the
power of which no man can esti-
mate.