Boston (Mass.) -- Fiction; Women philanthropists -- Fiction
Well, after a while, Onetumka heard what the other towns near by were
doing, and one or two of the mill hands wrote me that they had been
around collecting money and had secured fifty dollars, beside gaining
the free use of a suitable room. So I went there and succeeded in
raising the sum to seventy-five dollars, to which I added as much
more. Then I managed to get the selection of the periodicals myself,
and excluded the “Police Gazette” and some others that had been asked
for. As there is a large number of Germans here, I subscribed for
several German publications; also for a generous list of illustrated
papers of a harmless sort, knowing that “Puck” and “Life” would be
better appreciated than the “Fortnightly” or the “Contemporary.” Then
I saw that a committee was appointed to provide voluntary service in
looking after the room and circulating the magazines. I arranged that
the reading-room should be open and some one in attendance on Sunday
afternoon and evening, as that is the time when the men have a little
leisure and the saloons do a great business.
In no place has there been so marked a result as in Onetumka. A record
is kept of the attendance, and it has averaged seventy-five every day.
“The reading-room is really a means of grace,” the minister writes. I
myself am aware of that, and shall not fail to keep them stimulated
until they have a good library.
I started a reading-room at Buggsville during my first six weeks in
the state. Here I found good ground for work. Most of the people were
ambitious, and some of the young ladies had formed a Chatauqua circle,
the only one that I have found thus far.
There were three little feeble churches, Methodist, Presbyterian, and
Baptist, each having about half a congregation, and each unable by
itself to support a minister decently. They were willing to make
sacrifices for the library, however. I suggested that while waiting
for the new building they should make use of the vestry of the
Methodist church. This is a large and well-lighted room, and at a
slight expense for shelves could accommodate as many books as we could
buy, and also serve excellently for a reading-room. I found, however,
that this aroused a good deal of sectarian feeling and would not do.
The Presbyterians and Baptists said that if their children should get
accustomed to going there during the week they would want to go there
on Sunday, and their own Sunday-schools would dwindle. In order to
leave their vestry to be used solely as a reading-room, I suggested
that the Methodist Sunday-school should meet at the Baptist church,
holding its session at an hour when the two Sunday-schools should not
conflict. But this, I discovered, was even worse in the minds of these
would-be Christians, who were so afraid of each other, and I found
that I was sowing discord instead of harmony.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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