The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1945-02-23
Dinner Meeting
OF Lions Club
Guest Speaker Tells Of
Remarkable Growth
of Local Library

AT the dinner meeting of Rising
sun Lions Club on Thursday evening,
Feb. Is, Mr. Barclay Reynolds, pres
ident of the Community Library of
this town, reviewed the wonderful
growth of the Library, since its small
beginning, and gave statistics show
ing its healthy expansion and ever
increasing interest, judged by the
number of books in circulation each
week. OF especial interest is the re-
markable increase in juvenile readers
in our community.
Mr.. Reynolds has always taken a
Keen interest in the library and it's
development, and has been instru-
mental, in no small measure, in Sc
curing additional books for it's
shelves, this interest in turn being
reflected in the increasing patronage
OF the reading public. In his review,
the speaker stated:
''The library was organized in
1912 and opened to the public March
14th of that year. At that time there
were fifty-five members. The library
opened with IS books, ten of which
the library owned, the other rs loan
ed by the Maryland Public Library
Commission. Today the library owns
outright, six hundred books, and with
the aid of the M. P. L. c., is able to
carry on the shelves about seven or
eight hundred volumes of good read
ing matter The membership has in
creased to one hundred and fifty. The
circulation of books has increased
from 500 in 1912 to nearly 1900 in
1914. II the circulation continues to
increase as it has the first month of
1916, it should almost reach the
5000 mark this year. One of the most
interesting and valuable points con-
corning the expansion of the library
has been the steady increase in juve-
nile membership and the decided in
crease in circulation of books among
the juvenile members. Financially,
the library is solvent
Following this brief summary of
the library's growth, Mr.. Reynolds,
whose life work has identified him
with education, touched on the real
value OF books, in his closing remarks
stating the historical fact that the
Nazi leaders in 1888 burned between
$4,000 and 10000 books because
they fully recognized that books are
weapons with which free men fight
weapons of such edge and weight
and power that those who would de-
stroy the world of freedom must first
destroy the books that freedom fights
with. He then posed the following
question: do we, for all our profess
tations, and all our talk about books,
do we really and honestly recognize
the power of books as truly as the
NaZi mob which dumped them on a
fire?
1t is now fairly we'll established
fact that if ever the people of great
nation were ignorant of the secret
changes of the world in which they
lived-if ever the people of a great
nation were unprepared to face the
gathering and unfamiliar dangers of
changing time-the people of this
country were ignorant and unprepar-
ed when first the Nazis struck for
power. 1t is now a fairly well estab-
lished fact that much of that ignor-
ance and unpreparedness was due to
an unfamiliarity with books-books,
which, if read and believed, would
have given the people of this country
some understanding of the dangers
they faced.
Forty-two Lions and guests were
present to enjoy the meeting and par
take of the excellent roast chicken
dinner prepared and served by the
ladies of the w. S. c. S. in the base
ment of the church.