The Greytown Library.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1887, 22 September 1886, Page 2

The Greytown Library.

To the Editor of the Standard. Sir, —l would like to ask who was the person selected to obtain new books for the Wairarapa Institute. If he was a youth accustomed to read periodicals of a farfetched romancing and light Jack Shepherd character I can understand bis choice, but if be should be a person of mature age and intellect I would be astonished a. tbe fact of his having provided for our reading nothing scarcely but the shilling sensational novels to be met with at any Railway Station book

stalls, either in the colonies or the European countries. Were the late entertainments during the winter instituted for the sole purpose of deluging our Institute with cheap literature of a trashy and worthless nature, or were the calls upon the public, to which they so liberally responded, initiated purely for the purpose of instructing and elevating the minds of the local community, young and adult ? Of coarse, Mr Editor, Ido net expect all persons interested to agree with me, but from the samples I have seen of the light literature chosen by some sage committeeman I consider that the result of tbe otherwise praiseworthy efforts of oar Institute Committee will be to an alarming extent a curse, instead of ao)advantage and blessing to onr youthful fellow subscribers. I am not a Puritan, nor a Pharisee, bat I consider that the domestic misery recorded in onr daily newspapers is much due to the insidious and fatal influences of such light reading with which our library is now flooded. I am, &0., Grumbler.

P.S.—lf the Committee themselves will even examine the title pages of these works, I should think from the very uames given these precious productions they could find suggested nothing but the most dangerous social corruption.