The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1916-07-20
PEOPLE and EUents p.
By Celia Myrover Robinson
Phone So

following very excellent expression
from the Tallahassee Record:
There can be no two opinions as
to the need of maintaining the
schools of learning in this city. ANY
movement to remove these iustitu-
tons from the capital would be fought
to the last ditch by the people of
Tallahassee. There is no reason to
suspect that these institutions will be
abandoned, nor will they be stinted of
funds to develop them and to keep
them in the forward ranks of state
and civic schools.
A condition measurably important
confronts the wiser people of this
city. It is the maintenance of the
Walker Public Library. The burden
of the upkeep of this library has
fallen upon the few, who are deeply
interested in the city and in all that
makes for the public uplift and the
educational and Locial betterment Of
our citizens and of the young to whom
the reins of government and social di-
rection must soon pass.
The library cannot be open to the
public longer unless ( foundation fund
be created at once. The property now
belonging to the library is located in
the most ideal section of the city for
the purposes for which it was design
ed. 1t must have an endowment fund
and that fund should come from the
while citizenry and not from some
philanthropist. The ends sought are
to interest personally every man,
woman and child, that all may have
an active part in the perpetuity of
this educative work for the masses.
! This library, like all free public
libraries, cannot live and become
| largely useful unless not only patron
lied by all classes, but supported as
we'll by the many, not the few. No
reading room and library, which pur-
ports to be public and for all, can
live if it becomes the resort of the
elite and the aristocrat. The failure
of this library in Tallahassee to re-
ceive the support of its citizenry is
largely due to the lack of general pat
ronage. 1t must become a free library
and it must be known as the Tallahas-
see Free Library. It must lose its
identity and become the wholesome
property of the masses. Its honored
patron saint, who founded it, would
rejoice to see it the source of COM
mon good to the masses of this city.
To become such a means for educa-
ton and refinement and intellectual
inspiration it must be shorn of its
class discrimination and get down
to the business of entertaining, in
structing and fascinating the youth
and grown folk of this favored COM
munity. 1t must have for its directo-
rate people whose eleemosinary spirit
is predominant. To whom all, re-
garded from the viewpoint of common
good, are alike entitled to every good
that comes of educational effort. The
places, already made more conven,
| lent than ever before, are beginning
| to attract the young, summer, idler
for which cities and towns of this
, character are notorious.
t These young people can become
eminently useful in assisting in the
r creation of the Tallahassee Free Lii
= brary Foundation.
t A complete reorganization of the
. board of managers might help solv,
t the problem. Men who will give thefl
i, time, enegry and moral as we'll a
n financial support to the library SHOULD
= be chosen.