PAGE SALE PUBLIC LIBRARY WINSFORD PUBLIC LIBRARY, GROUND PLAN IPSWICH PUBLIC LIBRARY, MUSEUM, AND SCHOOL OF ART READING PUBLIC LIBRARY, GROUND PLAN .. 196 197 212 217 ... DUNDEE PUBLIC LIBRARY, MUSEUM, AND ART GALLERY EDINBURGH PUBLIC LIBRARY, ELEVATION EDINBURGH PUBLIC LIBRARY, REFERENCE LIBRARY FLOOR PETERHEAD PUBLIC LIBRARY AND MUSEUM SWANSEA PUBLIC LIBRARY, ART GALLERY, AND SCHOOL OF ART 275 244 246 249 250 258 PUBLIC LIBRARIES. PART I. T CHAPTER I. Introduction. At HE most sanguine friends of the Public Library movement could scarcely have desired a healthier rate of progress than has been seen during the past few years. It is of comparatively recent date that the leaders of public instruction have had to lament that so few districts had availed themselves of the Public Libraries Acts, and voluntarily taxed themselves for the support of an institution, which should be the common property of the people, and the home of the productions of the great minds of past and present periods. After an interval of thirty-six years from the passing of the Ewart Act of 1850, only 133 districts had taxed themselves with the library rate. the present time the total number of adoptions of the Acts is approaching 240, making an addition of more than 100 in five years. This indicates that we have reached a rung of the ladder in our national life when these institutions are now looked upon as one of the chief requisites of our modern civilized life, and as an inseparable corollary of our system of education. It is furthermore becoming an accepted principle that no district can be considered complete and possess a progressive character unless it has a building inscribed as a Public Library. Pessimistic writers are fond at times of assuring us that the loving study of books is a thing of the past, that the hastilywritten columns of the newspaper, with its list of murders, burglaries, railway accidents, prize-fights, and its sporting reports, have taken the place of literature in the estimation of the people. The facts hardly seem to warrant this assertion. District after district is seen adopting the Public Libraries Acts, purchasing, or collecting from the benevolent, sets of valuable books, and placing them at the disposal of the inhabitants of such localities. The old idea, which the political economists of a generation ago disseminated so persistently, that the only business of a municipality was to pave the streets, look after the lighting and watering, and maintain public order, never took a firm hold of the people. The satisfactory rate of progress which has taken place in all directions is largely due to the fact that such an idea as that just indicated is to-day openly scouted by the majority. The passing of the Elementary Education Act in 1870 was a proclamation of the belief that the cultivation of the minds of the people was a matter of public interest. It was soon felt that the mental cultivation with which the community was concerned could not logically be confined to the training afforded by the elementary school. Further facilities were needed, and so the Public Library has come to be regarded as a legitimate part of the educational machinery of the municipality. Thanks to the enlightenment of individuals, and the generous help of public-spirited men and women, the movement for establishing these centres of knowledge has very rapidly developed during recent years; and it will soon be looked upon as displaying a great lack of public spirit to any district to be without such an institution. But still, notwithstanding the change which has come over public opinion with regard to these institutions, there is yet a mountain of work to be done, and our appeal is to all in towns and rural districts who care for the welfare of the community among whom they dwell, to agitate and discuss the advisability as to the formation of these institutions where they are not already established. Representatives on Town Councils, and other governing bodies, clergymen and ministers of all denominations, members of political clubs, debating and literary societies, and friends of the people of every shade of opinion, this is a question for you. Those with well-filled book-shelves of their own can and ought the more readily to sympathize with those who are less favoured, and should exert themselves to place within the reach of all a Public Library which shall be as free to them as the highways upon which they walk. The task of advocating and defending these institutions is becoming lighter with each succeeding year, for there is now a consensus of opinion that the Public Library is an institution of unquestionable utility, and it may be affirmed that the trifling addition which it makes to the rates is infinitely more than repaid by the advantages which the ratepayers reap from these institutions. The next generation will look back with astonishment at the prolonged opposition, coming sometimes from sources the least expected, with which the proposal to found these libraries has been met in certain centres usually regarded as enlightened. Some of the Continental countries may have in the aggregate more books in their libraries than we have in the libraries of Great Britain. Taking, however, a general survey of them, and especially viewing the progress that has been made in recent years, it can now be said that in none of the European countries are the libraries more free, or accessible, to the public at large |