PUBLIC LIBRARY CENSORS.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11749, 25 November 1903, Page 6

PUBLIC LIBRARY CENSORS.

In * letter whjch it printed &» another column, Mr O. W. Russell, «a oat of tbe Publio Library Committee, exniaioe his views in regard to tho eaolttcww «| book* fiom the shelvea, eoootmbf vrttieh' we bad tome armaria yarterday, Mr BmßeD'* argwnent ankmnte \» this, that ju» book should tjt allowed in the Circulating library which ought not to tie mcd by the youths of bdth texts who fom * oar. | tain proportion_of the ' ,4a * \ member of Abe Committee of Selection, Mr Russell tells us he hat made it * rule to j put no book on the thelvet fct would sob wish any member of bis «w» family to bring into hit house to read lor heratlL |If this ia co, we can only o_i>oHde thai, s -umber of books' now In the Library wtera plaoed.there without Mr BaaiiallV oonteat. A great un_u[ubtedly "be* upqn fathew of families in the tvnerrieion of itheir children's reading. If the Libmrr ; QouautOee, ' am ewtj-qgv on Sir $_«»*_'* pt-ecipU that no book wnicb it is inadvisablt for » flfteeM-yearokt- girl to wad should find a place in the Library, they are ateply falling into &» error, co prevalent in How Zetland, of mahetstatiag outtide anthority for parental controL The power of veto on ehUdentw reading rightfully xotfa with their paractf, and should be - esewited Vy tbem. It would be ridiculous, 'at we taid yesterday, to select books for a large Public Library «j if it were a Sonday achool library. There ere many book* which should find a- place in the one, tad should be read by men end women to their advantage, though they would be extremely out of place in the other. - Butler's book, in out opinion, is one of these. It ia, written by a man whoa* standing in liter-tare is undeoiabl*. The "delicate quaa-iona'' dealt with by the author ere the vital snbjeots [of edneaUo-, moralitf, end nUjion, end,

we do hot think anY exceptioa ".ci-t' ■- I'**f|fflß taken to the language in which these : handled!' although,. Of conres.'many peofislPlP will object to Uie wnduaiouJi arrived Many other books,, jodged by their as literature, are properly allowed on:tlrt'i'i|ffif library shelves, though they would be »fr'i|||f jected under the "domeatia cjrde". tetit, which ia Mr ißusseU's guiding principle, '.Hlili If the committee were to take' this' «k, ;|>|l tremely narrow view of their functiafii,; ; they would banish from the shelves tli* works of Shakespeare, Byron, Sterne, Swift, George Eliot, Tolstoi, IbsskvllS and numbers oi othen, since all theosV "j writers deal here ami them with B^jecta, n in-i»et-_aet with no -|3 To exclude these would, of course, be . surd in the extreme, but it' would be tli»':, logical result of the principles of. aelec*';-f|« tion enunciated by Mr Russell, and ■wouM-IfKl be no more foolish than.the removal the ahelvea of ♦The.Way of All Fleah. w * ; |» To banish that book and permit the Ua> mk| restricted., circulation of some' 'of rubbish that is' to be found «a/l|iw' the library, in the shape of "up-to-iat<P-'.' : [novels, is indeed to strain at a gnat «_i|f||Mi! fwallow a camel. •• , '-^5118!