Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/48

38 The Library. is, however, no reason to suppose that there are no libraries in those places from which there was no response, inasmuch as the circular, being addressed to the village librarian, might possibly have failed to reach the managers of the Sunday school libraries in the locality. Apart from these possible omissions, the details to hand from the other districts will probably be deemed of sufficient importance to justify the effort made to obtain them. The body of information thus procured has been carefully tabulated under the above headings, each village being arranged in its alphabetical order, and the whole formed into two groups, one including the West Riding, and the other the North and East Riding portions. It may be mentioned here that the York- shire Union of Mechanics' Institutes has a system of travelling libraries, of which advantage is taken in some places, a charge of one guinea a year being made for the loan of 50 books per quarter, but this excellent organization cannot, in the nature of things, fully meet the requirements of the case, although it per- forms a very important work in distributing healthy literature in the country districts. While it is impossible to place the returns in your hands at the present time, 1 it will perhaps be worth while to bring before your notice one or two main facts embodied in them, and also some conclusions drawn therefrom. The first thing which strikes one in analysing the information received, is the total inadequacy of the existing libraries to cope with the work they are intended to perform. Some of them have been formed through the efforts of the ministers and school- masters, and some by the combined efforts of the villagers them- selves ; others have been established by gifts of small collections of a theological character, which, however admirable in them- selves, are admittedly not the best for our general reader. But the returns show quite clearly that however well-meaning efforts of this kind may be, the results are by no means of a satisfactory character, and that, as a rule, they fail to meet the reasonable requirements of those they are intended to serve. The obvious cause of this failure is the lack of adequate funds for efficiently carrying on the library work ; indeed, some of the letters which have accompanied the forms, give plain indications of the heroic 1 The returns were not printed when this paper was read, but they are now appended herewith.