THE Paarl Public Library, fount of recreational reading, is soon to move from its well-loved old Victorian house to a more central location – an office block at the corner of Market and Main.
Less romantic, without a garden and benches for quiet meditation (or waiting for parents), it should nevertheless provide less cramped facilities for the staff and a well-equipped research and reading room.
We simply have to regenerate the habit of reading and meditation, which will open the wisdom and wealth of the ages to our young people. He who can read need never be bored or without plans to improve the world around him.
Thanks to the indefatigable Martie Kruger, chairperson of The Friends of the Library, an appeal is going out to the civic minded for new or nearly new books to replace the well-thumbed veterans that might not survive the transfer to their new quarters.
Some local booksellers are prepared to assist by providing books at discounted prices. We hope there will be a generous response in the interests of a more stable community.
So, in a world of Google, tablets and other wonderful electrical devices designed to improve communication, why the emphasis on the book?
We may have just seen the proof in the mindless recreational rioting and looting all over England. Thousands of youngsters and not so young, but often illiterate, bored and disillusioned, were prepared to foul their own doorsteps in the “English Spring”.
Like the Arab Spring it could as easily become unsprung and leave everyone worse off.
The Sceptered Isle set in a silver sea, suddenly exposed its seamier multicultural underbelly – a “Sceptic Isle” beset by a sea of teenage resentment and flame, reminiscent of the Blitz, but without the heroism.
Illiterate yobs lusting for large tellies, mobiles and trainers, did some “take-away” late night shopping, taunted and stoned the police and blamed everyone but themselves for not having jobs or a future. Even university graduates complained that they had trouble finding even menial work.
It was all the fault of the “Govvemint”, and the “nobs” who weren’t listening, did not care or keep them and their Blackberries in the style to which they were entitled.
South Africans will know that they are not the first, nor will they be the last to be faced with the meagre pickings and bleak future of a worldwide economic downturn.
I was lucky myself to find a job just after the Second World War at nine pounds (R18) a month and little prospect of ever getting out of that hole. They even stole my new bicycle the first day at office and I had to borrow from my girlfriend (my precious wife for the past 62 years) to get a new one.
Together we eventually learned how to bite the bullet with the aid of a marriage allowance of R8 per month.
Books and a well-rounded education at least seem to provide some of the answers even for our own tortured youth, whom we neglect at our peril. We cannot afford to churn out mindless, faithless and semi-literate youngsters, not motivated by much of enduring human value, but searching continuously for something that would ensure them a life of pleasure and diversion.
We need to ensure that our youngsters are once more motivated by discipline, self-reliance, industrious application to learning or hard work and desire to put something away for a rainy day.
The battle begins in our homes and it is the (often absent) mothers and fathers who must guide their brood away from the worship of sloth, greed, envy and materialistic ambitions.
There is one good book that will help them, but also a copious library that can guide us all into the path of truth and a more well rounded existence – a healthy mind in a healthy body as my spinster primary school teachers once advocated.
Woodwork and nationalisation might be useful, but beyond the school syllabus, there is a wonderful world out there just waiting to be explored and improved!
