Old documents show that many of Alliston’s first settlers could not even write their own names. Their signatures on legal documents were often an “X” witnessed by someone who could write.

Of course, there were many newcomers who were very learned folk. “Book learning” was something that these early people wanted for their children. They believed that the learning which could be gleaned from books could influence the lives of the future generations. They were right.

I recently discovered among my parents’ belongings some old school readers. They were in pretty bad condition but still hanging together. Many young students must have owned them as there are various names written on the inside covers, including mine. Of course, the material inside is much different from that which is available to the pupils of today’s schools.

Looking through these readers, I noticed that a great number of poems were included there. Students used to memorize them and recite them before the class so often that they never forgot them. My father, at age 96, could still recite the poem “Indian Summer” by William Wilfred Campbell. There were stories of romance and adventure upon the land and on the sea, tales of the old sailing ships as well as stories about pioneer life in the forest.

There were legends of ancient Greece and Rome and there were verses directly from the Holy Bible in the old King James English, such as “The harvest truly is plenteous but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth labourers into His harvest.”

Today’s school books have changed a lot. There has been a great movement in recent years to remove all traces of God from our public schools although there is an attempt to teach good morals. Time will tell which method works better.

When I attended Alliston Union Public School, our teachers knew how to awaken our interest in books. Every day after lunch the teacher would read us a chapter from such old classics as Black Beauty or The Old Mother West Wind series and we could hardly wait for the next chapter. It wasn’t very long until we wanted to get our hands on such books to read them for ourselves. That’s when we learned that our town had built a fine library. I knew where The Circle Theatre was on Victoria Street and the source of all those books was in the brick building right beside it. I went there after school one afternoon.

The building was a fine brick structure, not too big, but just right for our little town. It was a two-storey construction of brown brick. I opened one of the big, heavy, wooden doors and made my way up the creaky old wooden stairs to the second floor and stepped into a room full of wooden shelves loaded with every kind of book; a real treasure for me!

 There was a certain hush in the room that seemed almost a reverence. The lighting seemed somewhat dim and there was a wonderful oil painting on the far wall which caught my eye. It was a dark and dusky scene of a sugar camp where pioneers made maple syrup.

The kind lady at the desk seemed almost regal to me. She was Miss Elsie Ney. Her sister usually sat beside her signing out books too. Elsie Ney seemed very gentle and helpful. She filled out a blue library card for me and showed where to find lots of books from the West Wind series, all about Farmer Brown’s boy and Bowser the hound and Peter rabbit and Jimmie skunk and Blackie the crow and all the others that I had met through school stories.

As I grew older, I graduated to the Hardy Boys mysteries, The Lone Ranger, Grey Owl and then a lot of dog and horse stories and always, I was eager to get home and start reading.

On cold winter nights when the winds howled and whistled and our old farm house creaked and cracked, I was covered up to my nose in bed reading one of these writings or the Bible. I have no doubt that books shaped our lives more when there was no television to use up our free hours.

Between 1914 and 1918, Alliston lost many of the fine young generation to the First World War. There were memorial plaques placed in churches and a monument in front of Alliston Union Public School but the Alliston Women’s Institute wanted a library and by 1922 they had raised the funds and erected The Alliston Memorial Library as a memorial to those who gave their lives in the war. the Womens’ Institute occupied the downstairs and the library was upstairs. The building was officially opened by Sir Frederick Banting.

In 1939 it came under the jurisdiction of the province and became officially The Alliston Public Library. With time and growth, the Institute moved upstairs and the books came downstairs. As time passed, of course, a bigger building was needed and the beloved old edifice was torn down and disappeared into the pages of our history in 1981. A fine new one was built and officially opened on June 4, 1982.

Miss Elsie Ney served from June 1938 until December 1968 as our head librarian. She seemed to me, the picture of the ideal librarian. She knew her books and had a wonderful quiet way of helping young and old who came through her doors. Her very manner seemed to earn respect and I don’t remember any loud voices or noise in this sanctuary for readers. She will be long remembered in this town and who knows how many great people she may have influenced in her 30 years among her beloved books.