THE BELLE RIVER COMMUNITY 125

much in the submerged tenth as in the swimming tenth. He wrote:

I choose free libraries as the best agencies for improving the masses of the people, because they give nothing for nothing. They only help those who help themselves They never pauperize. They reach the aspiring and op en to these the chief treasures of the world—those stored up in books. A taste for reading drives out lower tastes. . . . I prefer the free public library to most if not any other agencies for the happiness and improvement of a community.

Prince Edward Island was extremely fortunate. She was chosen as the scene of a Carnegie library demonstration. Branch libraries were established in about twenty villages, and a main library in Charlotte— town. Through these branches requests for books not in that particular branch can be sent and the books usually obtained. The demonstration was to last for three years, then the government was invited to take it over. It did. And now that the people have experienced the joys and comforts of libraries they will never give them up. There are books to suit every one’s taste—from freckled-faced Junior’s to old Uncle Tom’s. There are the leading magazines from Canada, the United States, England, and France; newspapers and the latest books.

Closely connected with the library work is the Adult Education Movement, which has swept like a storm over the entire Island, burying isolated communities with a bewildering variety of material. Study clubs sprang up like mushrooms, and fostered an interest in intelligent subjects. Soon the Island people were busy discussing in their little gatherings, Money, Credit Unions, F ishermen’s Problems, Consumer Education.