Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Boards rather than the committee of the Public Library. Or grants must be made by the Board to the committee for this purpose. In any case there must be a working together of the two bodies, and in the immediate future there will be seen far more active co-operation in this direction than prevails at the present time.

T

CHAPTER XXIV.

The Sunday Opening of Public Libraries.

HIS is rapidly becoming one of the pressing questions of the day. Many prominent men who have hitherto hesitated about expressing an opinion on the subject no longer find themselves able to maintain a neutral position. It is well that this should be the case, for the matter is of too great importance for anyone who really takes an interest in national progress to stand aloof and allow things to take their course. It is undeniable that many earnest Christian men have been compelled reluctantly, perhaps, in some cases-to come to the conclusion that it is both wise and politic to give non-church goers a choice between the street or public-house and libraries, museums, and art galleries on the Sunday. The question will be discussed impartially, and the views pro and con upon the matter of a few well-known people will be given.

The opening of Public Libraries, art galleries, and museums on the Sunday is resisted in this country rather from tradition than on principle. Nobody can point to any moral deterioration likely to arise from such a concession. Most of the experiments yet made in the direction of bringing the treasures of literature, art, and antiquity within reach of the people on the day when they have most time available have been crowned with success. Many who resist such a step in modern progress derive their impulse rather from the past than the present. Their ideas are a survival of Puritanism, or so much as is left of it. However, the hands of the clock cannot stand still, and it is impossible to scotch the march of progress, or yet the growing self-reliance of the people.

It may, no doubt, be taken as an axiom that the alienation of the sympathies of the working classes from places of worship is one of the most deplorable signs of the times. Very many Nonconformist ministers and clergymen of all sections recognize this fact as acutely as do any sections of society. Further, they have strained every nerve and adopted every means to stem this tide of abstention from churches and chapels, but without any appreciable success. Many of those who come in close contact with the working classes, and have thus had opportunities of learning some of the causes of this state of things, have come to the conclusion that the abstention from religious services on the

part of the working classes does not arise from any antipathy against the church or yet any anti-religious feeling they may hold. The two primary causes are, first, the need of physical rest after the work and worry of the week are over; and, secondly, the deeply-rooted feeling that the occupants of high-backed and cushioned pews look so much askance at the presence of the sons of toil worshipping side by side with them. It is a pleasant fiction to say that all stand equal in the Church as worshippers of the Almighty, so far, at least, as the estimation of men is concerned. How much irreligion has been caused by pews, pulpits, gowns, and "man millinery" en bloc it is impossible to conceive. It may reasonably be asked, Why is there such an enormous waste of force in the churches? Surely there is a terrible anomaly in the fact that churches and chapels should be open, say, six hours in the week and public-houses open something like 134 hours. The waste, again, of force in not utilizing an intelligent laity to a far greater extent is most lamentable. The evils arising from a oneman ministry, whether applied to the Establishment or Nonconformity, are considerable. It is certain that matters must continue to remain very much out of joint until we readjust these and other anomalies with regard to Church life. In the meantime the appearance of dismally-empty churches must continue to present itself to our gaze, to the sincere regret of all who have the true welfare of the nation at heart.

The position of the nominal Christians on the subject has to be largely taken into account. We are, as a nation, perpetually prating about our Christianity, and there is much in our national life which is as far removed from the true spirit of the Teacher of Nazareth as light from darkness. It may reasonably be asked, by what right do Christians indulge in their own pleasure and deny those same pleasures to others? They have only the right of might, and surely Christians should be the last to exercise such a right! The musical have the melodious songs of the Church, the peals of the organ and the harmony of the string instruments in which to indulge themselves on the Sunday; the literary man has the use of books belonging either to himself or to some of the libraries to which he is able to subscribe, through which to commune with the great of the past and the present; those who love a good dinner on Sunday as well as on the other days of the week do not feel it necessary to give their domestics instructions not to stay at home on that day to cook it while they go to church. The man who loves to commune with nature has the green fields and pleasant woods in which he can take refuge and study on the Sunday. To sketch a flower or tree on Sunday is counted by many a crime; yet those same censors will sometimes pass hours in the criticism of their neighbour's bonnet, or in the circulation of silly and mischievous scandal, or in the verbal planning of a dress, or the arrangement of balls and parties for the ensuing week. There seems to be no clear or definite idea where the sanctity of the Sunday begins or ends among many people; but on one point they all seem firmly agreed, and that

is that the opening of a Public Library, a picture gallery, or a
museum is an offence against the law of the good old English
Sunday. Such should remember the lines of Tom Hood-
"A man may cry Church! Church! at ev'ry word,
With no more piety than other people-

A daw's not reckon'd a religious bird
Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple."

According to the views of many of these good people the admirer of paintings and natural science is not to cast his eye upon these beautiful objects because, through no fault of his own, he is not able to go where they are on any day but the first day of the week. Public Libraries, museums, and picture galleries belong to the people, and not only to a portion of them. Consequently, their convenience as to when their institutions shall be open should be taken into account. Sunday must ever be mainly a day of repose to those who undergo hard intellectual or manual labour. It is obviously a sin against himself, and ultimately against the community, if a man goes on with his work on a Sunday. He utterly ruins his higher powers, and brings himself down as nearly as possible to the level of the brutes. It is the duty of everyone to try and bring his fellowcreatures into such a position that they could have the advantage of studying nature in some way or other, and we have now reached in education a point at which something more on the Sunday than the teaching of churches, chapels, and Sunday-schools has become absolutely necessary. People must be brought under the influence of pictures and other beautiful objects, and books. It is not creditable to our boasted civilization that in this time of the life of the world we should calmly allow so many of our fellow-creatures to live so little above the level of savages, when there are so many things in our civilization which, if only used aright, would tend to raise them high above their present condition. How can all the instruments of civilization be used if they are not to be used on Sunday as well as on other days? To the mass of people Sunday is the only day of leisure, and every opportunity should be given for their getting on that day the best kinds of mental and intellectual recreation. If people are to get the full benefits from the study of books, pictures, and the contents of Public Libraries and museums, such places ought to be opened for certain hours on the Sunday.

There are many good Christians who do not consider themselves called upon by any divine law, nor yet by any consideration of what is best for their own interests, to devote the whole of the day to religious duties. Even among those whose orthodoxy is beyond question there is a great difference of opinion regarding Christian obligations in reference to the Sabbath. Some people consider it sinful even to go for a walk on Sunday, though this strict view of duty is not in accord with what was the practice of the Founder of the Christian faith. What is or what is not allowable in an orthodox Christian becomes purely a question of degree. It is permissible to read in one's own house on Sunday,

and, except on an untenable Sabbatarian view, to read anything that may be profitably or innocently read on a week-day. Does the place make any difference? Is it unlawful from a religious point of view, or socially inexpedient to do in a public institution on the first day of the week what may be done on the other six days, and what may still be done on the first day of the week at home? Few people, as a matter of fact, now oppose Sunday opening on purely religious grounds; but they rather base their opposition on considerations connected with the question of Sunday labour. It is not to be denied that if libraries, museums, and picture galleries were opened on Sunday some amount of Sunday labour would be necessary. But we do not forbid the work that is done in connection with churches, private houses, hotels, clubs, railways, tramways, and numerous other organizations that are "going" on Sundays; and the question is whether the good outweighs the evil. It is well known that, for want of the means of rational enjoyment, large numbers of people literally get into evil courses; and the advocates of the policy of Sunday opening believe that much mischief and much positive sin would be prevented if the masses could go to libraries, picture galleries, and museums to spend their hours of leisure on the day of rest. There are some people who oppose the Sunday opening of libraries, and kindred institutions from considerations wholly irrespective of the religious feelings connected with the Sabbath.

But between devoting the Sunday or any part of it to recreation, and breaking either divine or human commandments, there is a considerable gap. Upon this subject people are under the influence of conventional ideas, which they are not accustomed to analyze. To walk in the country does not shock them, but they draw the line at bicycling. They will open or answer a business letter on Sunday, but they will not work in their gardens; they see nothing unseemly in two or three people riding in a pony carriage, but a dozen people in a waggonette is another matter. The degree in which acts are public and ostentatious materially affects the judgment. These feelings have their root in custom; the distinctions with which they are concerned are not in themselves rational-reason can give no account of them. The wage-earning classes, whose attachment to religious organizations is of the slenderest kind, are under no bondage to Sabbatarian ideas. They spend the Sunday perhaps not very profitably, but there is no sign that they can be got to spend it more and more in churches and chapels. It is the duty of moral and social reformers to appreciate the facts as they are, and to make the best of them. There is no one exclusive way by which the world progresses; on the social side at least the lines of reform are many. A policy of negation-the policy of the "shalt not "will not serve; there must be social reconstruction. We want a rational Sunday-a day not given up to loafing, rowdyism, or intemperance. It will be reached slowly and by many avenues. One of the main reasons why many are so much opposed to the

Sunday opening of museums is that it may be the getting in of the thin end of the wedge to continentalize our Sunday. The statement is very frequently made that if we open libraries, museums, and picture galleries, on the Sunday, as a logical sequence theatres must also be opened. But it does not at all follow that we must fall into the groove which unfortunately characterizes the Continent in the method of spending the Sabbath. The reverential feeling is far more deeply rooted in the minds of the English-speaking peoples than of any other nation on the face of the earth. This is sufficient safeguard for the proper and reasonable extension of the opportunities for a rational spending of Sunday. Again, what Public Libraries, museums and picture galleries, give us are absolute necessaries of mental and moral life. This cannot be said of the theatre, the first article of faith of which is to amuse. Libraries and museums, with other kindred institutions, are national property, and there is no money-making element in the question, but with theatres the question is different. Consequently the opening of these two descriptions of institutions stands on a totally dissimilar footing. With regard to the opening of theatres on Sunday, one of the chief actors of the day has stated that if this were proposed, actors and actresses would be very the first to oppose any such suggestion.

In Paris all the public museums and galleries are open on Sundays, and even in those instances in which they are only open on two or three days a week, Sunday is always one of those days. In Berlin such institutions are open on Sundays, but for somewhat shorter hours than on week-days. In Amsterdam the famous Ryks Gallery, containing the pictures of the great Dutch masters, is open every day, Monday excepted. On Sundays its staff is supplemented with twelve soldiers, in view of the fact of the number of visitors on that day being always greatly augmented. In the Amsterdam Fodor museum, which is the property of the municipality, the charge on week-days is 10d., on Sundays 5d. only. The small cost of superintendence in France is remarkable. The task of watching and keeping order in the four great national museums-the Louvre, the Luxembourg, Versailles, and St. Germains-is confided to a staff of 158 men. The two chiefs receive only £80 a year, while 132 of the number are engaged at salaries varying from £54 to £66.

It will be opportune to call attention to the general position of the question, and to the expressions of opinion of some public men. A few years ago, when the matter was before the House of Lords, the Bishops were conspicuous either by their absence or silence. Out of twenty-six, seven only were present, and these do not seem to have made any exertion to express their opinion upon the matter.

Following this, a Royal Commission declared that the Sunday opening of museums and art galleries has exerted a salutary influence on the moral and intellectual condition of the people. Immediately after the report of this Commission was published

« AnteriorContinuar »