MR. J. MACMILLAN BROWN

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLII, Issue 18, 5 May 1909, Page 42

MR. J. MACMILLAN BROWN

'(Late Professor of English and History f at Canterbury College.) prefers Education to Prohibitive Measures. I — Jii reply to your request, I may say that 1 have been so often absent from New Zealand during recent years that 1 don't feel myself competent to give an opinion on tin- growth of the evil influence of such literature as you speak of. But 1 can see that it is becoming serious, and that some steps should be taken to check it. For myself. I prefer educative to prohibitive measures in the sphere of morality. For prohibition is so apt to drive home the evil that it in attempting to suppress, ami the officials who administer the laws have to take rough-and-ready methods that an but superficial in their influence. The means that I should prefer to sec adopted are:—(l) The establishment of free, public libraries for young people, filled with the most wholesome. and, at the same time, interesting literature, each with a man or woman of high principle, line character, and the gifts of sympathy and capacity to appeal to tin youthful imagination as manager: (2) the establishment of similar libraries in all schools with ’provision for constant renewal of books from some central library, and the allowance of a certain time each week to the teachers for investigating and modifying the reading that the pupils indulge in out of school hours: and (.3) the formation of local committees of high-minded and philanthropic people for the supervision ©f the amusements and ths reading of