Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-08-03
For a State Owned System
Of TRAVELLING Libraries.

1t would be hard to conceive OF legislation that
would bring more helpful pleasure the people of
Georgas rural districts than the bill looking to
the establishment of State system of travelling
libraries. With appropriation of five thousand
dollars year this broadly educational service
be instituted and carried efficiently forward.
Twelve hundred dollars OF the amount will secure
the full time of competent library extension
worker the remainder will be used for the pur-
chase of books which, in thoughtfully selected Ii
braries of fifty volumes each, will be sent through
out the State to every village and farm settlement
asking for them. Further, the assistance of the
extension worker will be freely available to any
community wishing to establish a permanent libra
~ of its own, that in the course of not many
years most Of the counties, no doubt, would have
one more local libraries for public
1t is the testimony of of Americas greatest
thinkers that thirty minutes day earnestly
given the reading of the right books will acquire
any man woman of good intelligence a liberal
education. Every member of the Legislature, we
believe, will say upon reflection that the most en-
richng elements of his education have come from
reading. What an excellent thing it will be to
place within easy reach of every rural home spe-
cifc opportunity for this self-culture, and en-
courage its use! What worlds of pleasure and In
spiration that will open for farm boys and girls,
or, for the matter Of that, for their parents
We say farm boys and girls because while
many of Georgia's towns and cities have good pub
lie libraries the hamlets and rural districts are
for the most part without any such institutions Yet
eighty per cent of people live in the rural dis
tricts, the appeal from that quarter for books is
widespread and nsistent. Every Georgia agency
engaged in library work is flooded with requests
for the loan of books Hardly a mail reaches the
Georgia Library Commission without letters from
groups of people in Georgia communities, saying
that there is an ample fund of local interest with
which to start a library but that they need some
trained person to show them the way. The sgnif-
canoe of these their proof of the wide and
urgent demand for just such service the bill
pending in the Legislature will provide. 1t is
not merely the ideal of few people but the need
and the earnest desire of hundreds of thousands
of people which has prompted the introduction Of
this measure and which, in justice to the States
common interests, ought to make its enactment
sure.
The State Library Commission to which we have
referred was established about ten years ago. 1t
has been highly helpful, particularly to towns
which were planning to organize libraries. But
the Commissions desire and ability to aid have been
sorely handicapped by total lack of funds. OF
the twenty-five States having Library Commissions,
Georgia alone has failed to provide appropria-
ton for carrying on the Commissions work and
conducting a system of travelling libraries Wis
consin devotes to that purpose nearly ffty-four
thousand dollars a year, Indiana twelve thousand,
Kentucky six thousand, North Carolina eight thou
sand Surely Georgia which is just as populous
and in resources richer than any of those States
can afford an appropriation of five thousand dol
lars a year to give its people priceless blessing.
The State spends millions of dollars to teach chill
dren to read Certainly it afford this pittance
to give them something to read.