FOOTNOTES:
[18] The Adult Education Committee may have been justified in laying the blame for this state of things on “the want of foresight of the original promoters of the movement, who assumed that the institutions would appeal only to the artisan classes of the large centres of population”; but they were hardly right in going on to ascribe it more particularly to their mistake in allowing the legislature “to restrict the expenditure of public money to the product of a penny rate.”
[19] A Report on Library Provision and Policy, by Professor W. G. S. Adams (1915), p. 15.
[20] “Prior to 1920, pioneer rural schemes had been financed or assisted by the Trust in the counties or areas noted in column ‘A’ below; column ‘B’ shows the counties to which grants have been sanctioned this year; column ‘C’ shows the counties whose Authorities are in negotiation (preliminary or advanced) with a view to a grant.”
A
Perthshire
Caithness
Montrose District
Nottinghamshire
Staffordshire
Wiltshire
Gloucestershire
Buckinghamshire
Dorsetshire
Somersetshire
Yorkshire Village Library
Cardigan
Carnarvon
Brecon & Radnor
Denbighshire
Montgomeryshire
Grantham District
Westmorland
Warwickshire
B
Sutherland
Clackmannan
Renfrewshire
Forfar & Kincardine
Midlothian
Berwickshire
Peeblesshire
Dumbartonshire
Kent
Pembrokeshire
Glamorganshire
West Sussex
Cheshire
Inverness
C
Flint
Carmarthen
Anglesey
Middlesex
Hampshire (Isle of Wight)
Hampshire (Southampton)
Worcestershire
Northamptonshire
Cumberland
Durham
Northumberland
Kirkcudbright
Nairn
Fife
Bedfordshire
Surrey
Linlithgow
Shropshire
Cambridge
Isle of Man
(Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, Seventh Annual Report, 1921; p. 9.)
[21] Library Association Record—“The Gloucestershire Rural Library Scheme,” by Miss A. S. Cooke (Feb., 1921).
[22] S. B. Antrim and E. I. Antrim, The County Library (1914), p. 238.
[23] Total number of vols. accessioned (Dec. 31, 1920) 37,302; number in the library 30,597.
[24] J. H. Friedel: Training for Librarianship, p. 106.
[25] pp. 141-5.
[26] The character of the best type of village institute may be judged from the following account of the Nettlebed Working Men’s Club and Institute:—
“Perhaps the most original feature of the equipment of the hall is the provision of a cinematograph apparatus. The provision of picture palaces in all English villages would be a doubtful advantage, if they showed the baser sort of ‘cowboy’ and other sensational films. Given some restraint in the choice of subject, however, moving pictures make winter evenings more changeful. During 1918 the cinema was used very little, but it is now running every Saturday evening, and draws full houses. Mr. Fleming’s main idea in installing a cinema at Nettlebed was to make use of its educational possibilities. The Oxfordshire Education Committee welcomed the provision, as also did the Inspector of Schools, the more so because it extended advantages to the school children of six parishes near Nettlebed. The Education Code permits teachers to take the whole or part of a school for rambles or visits to places of educational interest during school hours, and films have been shown at Nettlebed on certain afternoons to a concourse of children. The subjects of the pictures were chosen to illustrate geography, history, English, and nature study. A village club can conduct its ‘cinema department’ by joining a lending library of films, so that the subjects can be duly varied.
“The higher aspects of village life have not, however, been neglected at Nettlebed. Concerts, lectures, and dances are held in the men’s hall, which is laid with a special dancing floor of oak, famous throughout the district, and this is protected in the ordinary way by a cloth covering. Dancing classes are held weekly for children in the afternoon and for adults in the evening, and are conducted by a lady resident in the village. An instructress, under whose care the young girls in the village and district are taught cookery, laundry work, and housekeeping, lives in a house near the hall. Across the road is the school garden, divided into some fourteen plots, each cared for by one boy. At the back of the playground is an old building converted into a carpenter’s shop, in which another section of the boys work under the supervision of the village schoolmaster. All of these branches are under the control of the County Education Authority. Altogether, it will be seen that in these various ways instruction as well as amusement is provided.” Sir Lawrence Weaver, Village Clubs and Halls (1920), pp. 82-3.