Mr. J. T. Kay, Librarian of Owens College, raised, on
Wednesday, before the Library Association, now sitting at Manchester, a question which will often be argued, as the free library system extends. He wished novels to be excluded from libraries supported by rates, arguing that it was unfair to provide out of taxes hooks which were mere means of amusement, and indeed injurious amusement. The motion was not received with any cordiality, and was de- feated by a large majority ; but it will be raised again, in in- dividual towns. The true answer to Mr. Kay's contention seems to be, not that English novels are harmlessly amusing—the answer accepted at the conference a last year—but that they supply a useful stimulus to dull imaginations. The imagination wants food, as well as the intelligence, and a very poor novel is better food than the kind of reverie in which a working-lad too frequently indulges. Besides, whatever Mr. Kay may say, reading in itself is a mental luxury, and the man who has acquired the taste will gratify it on anything—Owens College lectures even—rather than go without it.
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