BOOKLESS HOMES
The bookless homes of the well-to-do people are familiar to all. Inside those walls no books are to be found but a few gift books, chosen for their bindings rather than their contents, and perhaps others which some agent has pressed upon them. What can be done to stimulate reading in these homes? Ten-cent magazines and cheap stories are devoured by mother and daughters to the destruction of sane thoughts and connected ideas. The man of the house each day reads his newspaper, containing accounts of crimes, accidents and the funny paper. Happily, it also contains articles of travel, invention and discovery, otherwise his brain would be weakened.
Young people come from these bookless homes to college each year, showing great confusion of ideas, vacuity of mind and utter lack of information. They need us, need libraries, need the force of the state to help them. Ninety-four per cent of our young people never get into college. Ninety per cent, it is said, never go to school after they have passed the age of fourteen years.
The contribution of the library is to elevate the standard of the town. Books depicting noble, earnest, well-meaning lives will cause the social standard to progress, and other standards with it.
OREGON LIBRARY COMMISSION.