The Columbian Reading Union [pp. 902-904]

THE COL UMBIA,4N READING UNION.
The question of the future life and success of the Summer-School is now en tirely in the hands of the wealthier class of the faithful. We have demonstrated
that able lectures and earnest students are forthcoming in abundance, if the
managers receive sufficient financial backing to enable them to change their
four hundred and fifty acres into a fitting dwelling-place for the school. All
that we ask is that those who can afford the expense hasten to buy building-lots
from us and erect cottages. The prices of the lots range from two hundred dol lars upwards, and even from a business stand-point the investment is quite safe
and desirable. But here more than ever the proverb is verified:
"He giveth double who giveth quickly."
We have already received much (some of it good) advice. Now for the men who
are willing to venture a little money in a great cause.
* * *
We wish that many of our friends would take the time to write an account
of rare books for this department such as is contained in this letter:
Members of Reading Circles must delight in good books of all kinds. The
more cultivated the taste for good reading the deeper the interest in good books.
The more one concerns himself about books, editions, publishers, catalogues,
writers, magazines, papers, etc., etc., the stronger and stronger grows the
attraction toward libraries and books, till at last one becomes infatuated and
takes on that quiet mania-not a bad mania to have if ills of any kind be good bibliomania. If this does not suit you, I will say that by reading and studying
and seeing and talking about books one becomes a bibliophile. I have just had an
evidence of this in a Reading Circle man.-I mean a man deeply interested in the
success of the Reading Circle work. By gradual process he has arrived at that
stage of " bibliophileness" to seek for the rare edition. He recently put in my
hands a book published by subscription in I8oo, at Liverpool, by J. McCreery,
Haughton Street, The Life of Robert Burns, being Volume I. of the Works of
Robert Burns in four volumes. Alas! three volumes are missing, being given
away by the father of my friend to whom these volumes once belonged. By the
way, did you ever notice that a love of books goes along with a love of men?
The volume contains that admirable letter of Burns's, written to Dr. Moore, giving
a sketch of his own life, written while Burns was suffering from that fatal illness
which cost him his life-written, as Burns says, "to divert my spirits a little in
the miserable fog of ennui." Those of your readers who find pleasure and profit in the study of the composite in character, let them read the life of Burns. By
the way, there is an interesting bit of history recorded in the volume before me in
regard to the effects of the legal establishment of parochial schools in Scotland.
In I646 the Parliament of Scotland made provision for the establishment of a
school in every parish in the kingdom. Under Charles II., in I66o, this statute
was repealed, but was re-enacted by the Scottish Parliament in I696-" and," says
the author, who wrote in i8oo, "this is the last provision on the subject." Appendix I., Note A, gives an interesting account of these legislative provisions,
in which reference is made to the beginning of our common-school system.
"There is now," says the writer, "a legal provision for parochial schools, or
rather for a school in each of the different townships into which the country is
divided, in several of the Northern States of North America." There is much
that is interesting and instructive in this old volume published in r800.
M. C. M.
[Mar., I 894.
904