AN EXPERIMENT CONCLUDED

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21386, 31 January 1935, Page 15

AN EXPERIMENT CONCLUDED

CAR SCHEME FOR ADULT EDUCATION SURVEY BY MR G. T. ALLEY The Workers' Educational Association car scheme for adult education has been in operation for five years under a grant of £SOO per annum from the Carnegie Corporation. The grant has now ceased, and the work during the period was reviewed in an interview yesterday by Mr G. T. Alley, who has ■ conducted the work under the direction of Professor J. Shelley. The library contains, some 2500 books, Mr Alley stated; these are housed at the association's rooms at Canterbury College. The motor-van, which has visited about 30 rural cer.i tres can accommodate about 600 volumes, and a selection, has been brought to each centre once a fortnight. Catalogues have been, supplied to members, a nominal annual --.subscription of one shilling being made, with a fee of a penny for every book borrowed. About 400 books have also been borrowed from the public library through the generosity of the librarian, Mr E. J. Bell. Value of the Library Each centre gets a minimum library service of one hour each fortnight, the value of this is made apparent by the fact that very few have their own libraries and that these arejmostly collections of light fiction. Th e car scheme has provided reading of a more substantial kind for country dwellers, —biography, plays, poetry, and the better type of novel. Mr Alley said that in some districts the borrowings had been very heavy—for instance, at Lake Coleridge, Hanmer Springs, Russell's Flat, Rotherham, and Springfield New books- were generally in demand; Plutarch's "Lives," however, enjoyed considerable popularity, and so too did works of travel and the "Everyman's Library reprints. There were a handful of people who borrowed poetry, mostly in anthologies, Masefield here was most popular. Tutorial Work Another feature of the work was the organisation of tutorial groups Vhich were conducted by Mr Alley whenever he spent an evening at any centre. Play-reading and production, talks, gramophone and radio programmes were included here, and some very useful work had been aceomplished A notably fine presentation of Arnold Bennett's three-act play The Title had been made at Hanmer, it had been considered quite up to the stan dard of the Repertory Society s work. Alley pointed out that the scheme had had very small beginnings. Originally a very small library had served the tutorial work, and it had gradually to its present dimensions. It was far from perfect, but it had served a large number of districts which would otherwise have been without library facilities. The Carnegie grant was to have been subsidises by the Government; but this was done for only one year. The favourable rate of exchange for the dollar had, however, been a great advantage. The scheme was in the nature of an experiment in community culture, and the five years had shown considerable progress. In 1930 4748 borrowings had been made; last year. there had been 11,773.