Year: 1874

CONCERNING A READING ROOM


There are many in our town who
have long felt, that while we had
many social and educational advan.
tages to be proud of and thankful
for, yet we still need something for
general use, that shall be an -impor.
tant addition to the advantages we
already sposess. This has been es-
pecially felt during the past few
months, and has been talked over in
private way, and the writer would
gather up the feeling of these and
give it to the public, in the hope that
the end desired may be attained.


We need Reading Room, and a
Public Library. We can not truth
fully lift up our boast that ours is a
'Model Town" until we have these
Our Public Schools and our Semin-
aries do much for those who are in
attendance upon them, but we need
something that will encourage read
ing and intellectual advancement in
the general public. Next after good
morals, there is nothing that so fills
a people with hope and strength as
a high degree of intelligence. We
are now proud of our schools, and
justly; and when strangers visit us
we point out these schools, to show
them that we prize intelligence, and
have not neglected to provide for
its attainment. If we had such a
Reading Room and Library as we
should have and might have, we would
lead our visitors to see these, and we
would be proud of them, and very
justly. In truth, it is a matter for
humiliation, that our town with its
5000 inhabitants, with all its schools
and churches, and with its many &C
complished and intelligent house
holds, has no place of habitual public
resort save Billiard Rooms and
Saloons.


We need the Reading Room also
as matter of social protection. Our
young people, especially our young
men, will meet in a social way to
spend their idle hours. 1t is all very
easy to say "Let them stay at home. p"
Some of them have no home, save
lonely bedrooms, and all of them
have social dispositions, that we
should encourage, and direct, not
only III harmless, but also in profit
able ways. Noao, our young men
must sit in stores as loafers, or go
to places that debase and debauch,
while they furnish ready welcome
tits for our community to face the
fact, that we have left our young
men to make of saloons their club
rooms: and to face the probability,
that unless some better place is pro-
vided, many more of our sons will
be ruined for time and eternity; and
to face the duty of generously pro-
viding for and guarding the social
and intellectual and moral interests
of all our people.


I know that I write the feelings of
many when 1 urge upon our excel
lent Town Council the profit of set
ting apart rooms for this purpose in
the new Town Building. Give us
two good rooms, one for Libra
ry and Reading use, and the
other for recreations that are inno-
cent, and you will have answered a
great want in this community. These
rooms are as much needed as a
Mayors Office, or Council room, or
Town Hall, or Calaboose. And
money invested in these rooms will
speak loudly and gloriously for our
town, and will in every respect prove
to be a profitable investment.


Meanwhile, there are two rooms in
the Strauss Building, that may be
secured, and are quite well suited
for the purpose named. Let US go
to work at once. Has not our Coun-
Gil authority to lease these rooms for
such use? If so and the Council
will do it, I will undertake to say
that an effort will be made to furnish
a Reading Room, and to establish
and annually add to a Library. This
can be done either by joint stock
association, by individual donations,
or in some way that may hereafter
be agreed on. If the Council will
only give us the rooms, I trust that
the people will heartily second the
proffer, and will take up the matter
with an interest and purpose that
will insure success.


I may take occasion to write again
on this matter. What has been
here written I hope will lead our
people, and our officials, to think
about this, and lead to such action
as may be of lasting benefit to our
community. W. J. McSURELY.


Hone springs eternal in the hu-