Time, and health, and mental energy may be wrongfully frittered away in reading as well as in tippling. But a temperate gratification of one pleasure is the strongest of all checks to excessive indulgence in another. The natural faculties of the mind are exercised in wholesome recreation in the Public Library. They ripen in the active work of life, in intercourse with active minds but in solitude and in idle company they rot. And from a literary playground, where they may gain health and vigour for these faculties, many of the poorer classes, who may in no disrespectful sense be called children in intellect, are debarred by lack of means. Thus, to view the matter from a point whence only its narrow aspect of mere entertainment is visible, much may be said for the institution of Public Libraries throughout the entire country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer promised us in his 1891 Budget a considerable share of the surplus towards assisted education, and many people who are protesting loudly against what is not quite accurately called "free education" in elementary schools, seem to overlook the fact that, under the Public Libraries Acts, something very much like free education is being provided not only for the children of the poorer classes, but for the sons and daughters of the middle classes, and all classes, so far as they choose to read or borrow the thousands of educational works placed at their disposal. The Public Library is the university of the working man. But a university is not for every man. Its true value is only appreciated by those whose previous training fits them to profit by its advantages. Books are only valuable to those who know how to read them, and libraries are only valuable to those who know how to use them. Nevertheless, the growth of the Public Library system is at least a proof of the gradual development of more active intellectual interests throughout the industrial community. This is an advantage in every way. It is indisputable that the industrial competition throughout the world is daily becoming more and more a competition of intelligence. It is certain that if we cannot hold our own in this competition, we must make up our minds to witness the beginnings of national decline. Knowledge is power, and in the long run it is the only power that prevails. But it is as well not to forget, in the recognition of the power that dwells in knowledge, that knowledge is a good in itself, and contains attractions within itself. Intellectual pursuits, even such as men immersed in daily industry can compass, often carry within themselves their own best fruits to the pursuer. In the present condition of the world we can none of us afford to neglect the material profit that resides in knowledge and in the cultivation of the intelligence; but knowledge, like virtue, is its own true reward, and the pleasures of a cultivated intelligence are so pure and so unalloyed that even if no profit ensued from them they are worthy of pursuit for their own sake alone. It is clear that as a nation we are on the right road to educational excellence, and have become, if we may put any trust in arithmetic and appearances, a nation of learned and learning people. From the swaddling clothes of Celtic Druidism, the youthful habiliments of Saxon Paganism, and the corduroys of mediæval barbarism and ignorance, we have come to the full, well-made garments (mentally) of science, art, and general useful knowledge. Epictetus said that you will "do the greatest service to the State if you should raise not the roofs of the houses, but the souls of the citizens; for it is better that great souls should dwell in small houses rather than for mean slaves to burrow in great palaces." Sir John Herschel uttered a similar truth when he said that "there is a want too much lost sight of in our estimation of the privations of the humbler classes, though it is one of the most incessantly craving of all our wants, and is actually the impelling power which, in the vast majority of cases, urges men into vice and crime-it is the want of amusement." Like the indulgence of all other appetites, it only requires to be kept within due bounds, and turned upon innocent or beneficial objects, to become a spring of happiness; but gratified to a certain moderate extent it must be, in the case of every man, if we desire him to be either a useful, active, or contented member of society. It is therefore a matter of very great consequence, that those who are at their ease in this world should look about for means of harmless gratification to the industrious and well-disposed classes, who are prepared to prize highly every accession of true enjoyment. Of all the amusements which can possibly be imagined for a hard-working man after his daily toil, or in its intervals, there is nothing like reading an entertaining book. It calls for no bodily exertion, of which he has had enough or too much. It relieves his home of its dulness and sameness, which, in nine cases out of ten, is what drives him to the ale-house, to his own ruin and to that of his family. Supposing him to have been fortunate in the choice of his book, and to have alighted upon one really good, what a source of domestic enjoyment is laid open! He may read it aloud, or get his wife to read it, or his eldest boy or girl, or pass it round from hand to hand. A feeling of common interest and pleasure is excited. Nothing unites people like companionship in intellectual enjoyment. It does more, it gives them self-respect, that corner-stone of all virtue. If we would generate a taste for reading, we must begin by pleasing. Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making him a happy man. He is at once placed in contact with the best society in every period of history, with the wisest, the wittiest, with the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. It is hardly possible but the character should take a higher and better tone. There is a gentle, but perfectly irresistible coercion in a habit of reading, well directed over the whole tenor of a man's character, which is not the less effectual because it works insensibly. The one truth which it appears necessary to bring home again and again to the heart of the people is the sense of the duties and responsibilities of citizenship, and it may be maintained that Public Libraries and Museums, with their concomitants of reading-rooms, lectures, and all the other departments which are now being added are the institutions, par excellence, which are best calculated to bring home the privileges of citizenship. And so in the immediate future the place of Public Libraries in our national life will be more and more firmly established. These progressive instincts in our national life find an echo in the language of Lowell : A "New occasions teach new duties ! Time makes ancient good uncouth; CHAPTER III. The Plea for Public Libraries. s a question purely social and absolutely free from the influences of party politics or religious prejudices, the Public Library movement has rapidly risen to importance. All movements, however, having for their object the good of the commonwealth, appear to the promoters to make but slow progress, and were it not that the leading force in efforts for social reforms comes, as a rule, from men of persistent determination and undaunted perseverance, many a question would be allowed to die a natural death long before it passed the Rubicon. The process of educating the public on a subject requires unlimited time and patience; and opposition, coming as it frequently does from unexpected sources, makes the work at times difficult and very arduous. Not a few pressing reforms, again, are doomed to still further delay by the Education Act of 1870 coming a full ten or twenty years too late, and foremost among the subjects which has had, on this account, to bide its time is that of Public Libraries. Considering that the existing institutions, especially those in large commercial centres of the provinces, have so fully and conclusively justified their existence, the wonder is that we have not now from four to five hundred, instead of the comparatively insignificant number which exist. Truly the number is meagre enough to meet the book-hunger of a reading people, and is not by any means creditable to the enlightened and practical character which we Britishers claim to possess. In the provision of books for free-lending we are in danger of being left so far behind by the United States, France, Germany, and our Australian colonies, that the nation may well ask itself a few serious questions respecting the cost, uses, and operations of these institutions, and seek especially to solve the problem of their extension. The purpose of this chapter is to endeavour to reply to some of the arguments usually advanced against Public Libraries. The first and foremost reason is that the British taxpayer objects on principle to any increase in his rates. All that the Act permits is one penny in the pound per year on the ratable value, and no possible manipulation on the part of the authorities can make it more than this very small sum. There is somehow a chronic objection to rates, and there are not a few people who think we ought to be able to live anywhere without the troublesome quarterly visits of the ubiquitous rate-collector. The author of "More Worlds than One" does not enlighten us how the supposed inhabitants of those regions get on about the rates, or, what would be still more interesting to us, whether they have Public Libraries. What the comforts and conditions of life would be if there were no rates, the good people who object to them do not stop to inquire. It is this penny in the pound per year which forms the barrier to their extension, and yet nothing could be simpler and more just to all classes of citizens than this vital principle of the entire question. The interests which each man has in common with his fellows tend more and more to outweigh those which are peculiar to himself. In no better way could this be illustrated than by the institutions on behalf of which the present plea is made. As soon as a Public Library is opened the workman finds how poor a means for the production of happiness are the few books on his own shelf, compared with the share he has in the public collection, though that share may have cost even less to produce than his own little stock of literature. The language used against this additional penny on the rates by the economists on the one hand, and those who object to all efforts towards the uplifting of the people on the other hand, is invariably so strong that it tells perceptibly upon the ratepayers, and effort after effort is frequently defeated, until eventually the question is settled by sheer force of moral suasion. There are rates for police, lighting, paving, cleansing, improvements, and the support of the poor, and surely a rate for the mental health of a town is just as necessary as any of these. Public Libraries are no longer a luxury, for the march of education has made them absolute necessities. They are, in the truest sense, educational institutions, and as such are as deserving of support out of the rates as are the Board schools. They provide facilities in a way that is provided by no other institution for the continuing of study after school days are over, and, more than any other institution, they are the best link between leaving school and adult citizenship. The statement has gone forth that in London alone, out of the 80,000 boys and girls who leave our elementary schools yearly, a small minority only continue their education at evening classes; and this may to a great extent be attributed to the lack of Public Libraries, for there is clear evidence of a very important section of young people in the large towns continuing their education by means of the Public Libraries. Even on the score of this additional penny to the rates, a town cannot make a wiser investment for its citizens than to build, stock, and maintain a Public Library, and it would be impossible to name any outlay so small as this which produces so much far-reaching utility as this penny. The benefit out of the rates for the poor, police, drainage, lighting, &c., is indirect, but the benefit out of the penny library rate is direct and personal. It is within the reach of all adults where these Public Libraries exist, to derive a benefit so great that, if they had to pay for it at the current rate of subscription library fees, would cost them ten or twenty times as much. The aggregation of the infinitely little could not be better exemplified than in the penny library rate, for in some towns it means an annual income of over £10,000. Unfortunately, as long as the environments of life and human nature are what they are, it will not be possible to do without rates. But rate economists usually begin at the wrong end, for they resent and oppose educational rates and meekly pay the police, gaol, and workhouse rates without any inquiry as to whether there might not be some saving in those directions. England is the only country with an elaborate poor law system, and whether the labour of those in our workhouses could not be made more remunerative and so reduce the rates for their maintenance, is a question which must sooner or later come to the front. When this happy time arrives, there will then be more to spend for libraries and museums. At present the rate expenditure is chiefly for the improvident, the criminal, and the generally troublesome citizen, and the peaceable and respectable citizen is left to take care of himself; whereas the cases ought to be reversed, and as the public become educated to the needs and vast utility of Public Libraries they will demand them. The avowed enemies everywhere of Public Libraries are the publicans, and yet it is acknowledged on all hands that their business creates the necessity of the workhouse and gaol, with their huge machinery for management. How long will thrifty and intelligent citizens continue to be governed by this powerful body, who always range themselves against every movement which has for its object the true interests of citizenship? Is there one town which has adopted the Libraries Acts which would go back to the saving of a penny in its rates and do away with its Public Library? There is not an atom of proof that there is a single one; but there is evidence that the citizens of some towns, who would like to extend their operations and open additional branches, would be willing to pay a higher rate than a penny. It is not by any means a rash assertion to state that in the majority of cases it is the most cheerfully paid item on the rate-paper. A companion argument to the one named is, that they are parochial institutions, and as such will not be used by the "better class" people, and the rich pay for supplying books to the working classes. This is an amusing argument to all who are familiar with the working of Public Libraries. The designation of "Free" Libraries is highly objectionable, and it is greatly to be hoped that librarians and all concerned will discontinue the use of the word, and simply call these institutions Public Libraries. In America no Public Library is allowed to be called "free' unless supported entirely by private munificence. Libraries, |