THE "RUSTY MIND"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 115, 17 May 1941, Page 11

THE "RUSTY MIND"

MEN WITH THE FORCES

PREVENTIVE EFFORTS

For a considerable time the National Patriotic Fund Board has been alive to the danger of men with the fighting forces returning to civil life "rustyminded." The value of libraries as a means of helping to obviate this has been fully recognised and constitutes one of the main reasons for the establishment of libraries at the camps in New Zealand and at the base camps overseas and for the setting up of a War Library Service to provide these camps and also the transports and naval units with regular supplies of books and periodicals.

The board, however, is anxious to do more in the direction of keeping the men's minds active and encouraging the men to pursue or take up useful studies. Mr. G. A. Hayden, secretary of the board, announced yesterday afternoon that in this work valued assistance was being given by Mrs. Fraser. wife of the Prime Minister, whose keen interest in libraries and in all deserving institutions and movements for the wellbeing of others is well known. Mrs. Fraser is a member of the National Patriotic Council, the advisory body, but the work she is doing with a view to seeing if improvements can be made in this important field is of a personal and voluntary nature.

Mrs. Fraser has found time already to visit Burnham Military Camp and the Air Force Stations at Wigram and Harcwood, as well as the Lyttelton Forts, in the South Island, and is to make similar visits to camps and fortress stations in the North Island. Her observations and recommendations will then be the subject of a report to the conference to be held in Wellington on June 5 of the representatives of the provincial patriotic councils, the National Patriotic Council, and the National Patriotic Fund Board.