From history's scroll the splendour streams, Let in the light! These windowed walls No pikes shall fence a crumbling throne, CHAPTER II. The Place of Public Libraries in our National Life. HERE is no more marked characteristic of our national life than the growing self-dependence of the people, which has been the outcome of municipal corporations. Where these corporations are the strongest and most vigorous, there must we look for the highest sense of the duties of citizenship and the most self-reliant populations. It is again in these municipalities, such as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, and Nottingham, that the most has been done for the education of the people, in the way of Board Schools, Public Libraries, Museums, and Technical Schools. The same municipalities have the best street lighting and street cleansing arrangements, and the police force are under the most perfect control. Surely this fact should dispel the fear that the energies of the poor in the way of self-help may be relaxed, and the rich become apathetic to their higher duties, by the spread of Public Libraries and kindred institutions, supported out of the same funds as are the local police, the street lighting and cleansing. It may be asked, What is a corporation? There are various kinds, but we are here concerned with the corporation as a body politic elected by the people, and responsible to them. The word is used as equivalent to incorporated joint-stock companies, where the whole of the citizens are shareholders and are banded together for a common purpose, that purpose being the common weal of the entire local community. The one vital principle which surrounds corporations is that they are gifted with perpetual life. They may well have been in some laws designated immortal, although in some cases their privileges have run only for a definite number of years, but during the period, when well organized, they cannot die, notwithstanding all the original members are withdrawn, for they are continued by succession. A corporation has, in fact, been compared to a stream which maintains its identity throughout all the continuous changes of its parts. Men come and go, Acts of Parliament are passed and become often a dead letter, to swell the number of much similarly cumbrous stuff already on the statute book, but the corporation lives on. In many of our municipal corporations all the men who were elected representatives when the charter was first granted have gone over to the majority, but the tide of corporate life is not stayed; yea, rather, time has consolidated and added strength. This is the main reason why no private enterprise can possibly do for Public Libraries and education what the corporation can do, and it is on this rests the plea for municipal Public Libraries, Museums, and Technical Schools, which shall be the property of the citizens, administered by their own elected representatives, and forming an integral part of the local life. Lord Salisbury, when speaking a few months ago at a Mansion House banquet, said that while the Executive Government of the country recognises the importance of municipal institutions, so long will this country of ours maintain its prestige, but if the day should ever come when the Government of the country fails to appreciate the value and importance of municipalities then, indeed, our progress would be downward and not upward. The term 66 ratepayer" is a designation altogether cramped and unsuitable: the general use of the name citizen or burgess would be an infinitely better and more appropriate one. There can scarcely be a more pressing matter of importance at the present time than that of infusing into the minds of the people a high sense of the duties and privileges of citizenship. It is a happy and healthy characteristic of public life in this country that in the midst of controversies which go down to the roots of our national existence, our statesmen of all parties are regarded by their countrymen as men of light and leading, whose views on subjects of general and non-political interest are entitled at all times to respectful hearing and attention. This same characteristic is evident in municipal life, and men of opposite politics meet and discuss matters for the general good. Around what institutions could local life better gather than Museums and Public Libraries? There is too much sentimental patriotism, too much lip patter about love of country, and far too little of the real thing itself. National patriotism is an excellent thing, but so also is local patriotism, and no institutions are more likely to cultivate the latter quality than these. The State has not done everything for the people that it is called upon to do when it has provided a gaol, a workhouse, a lunatic asylum, a policeman, and a share in the common hangman. Why, again, should our pauper life be so heavy a tax on the thrifty and rich? Why is it not made more self-supporting either in farm labour or other ways? Not that its being brought into competition with the labour out of its doors is advocated, but surely in the raising of food, and in the making of their own clothing, there is ample scope for such productive labour. Oh ye great British people, with all your wealth and boasted common sense, how long is this national waste of money and force to go on, and the country idly look on, content with an occasional futile protest? The more vigorous grumbling seems to be when educational matters are under discussion, and with the majority the huge leaks in our national expenditure are forgotten or hidden from view. The higher life of the citizen has received too little attention, and the lower and baser life seems to have absorbed all the sympathy and care of the authorities. But we have touched the fringe of better days, and soon no municipality or local governing body will be considered complete unless it has under its administration a library and a museum, as well as a workhouse, a prison, and the preservers of law and order. It is for the provision for this higher national life that this plea is made, and upon municipalities is earnestly urged the need of giving the fullest and best attention to this question. The fact should be emphasized that the municipality can do for the people in the way of libraries and museums what cannot possibly be done by private enterprise. It may be unhesitatingly asserted that in fullest usefulness, economical management, and best value for money invested, the existing rate-supported libraries are far in advance of the private institutions of this nature. It is some forty years since Carlyle asked the question, "Why is there not a Majesty's library in every county town? there is a Majesty's gaol and gallows in every one;" and it is as long since the Public Libraries Act was passed, and yet the lack of libraries is still one of the most startling deficiencies in these islands. We have given the people ever greater and greater political power, but they displayed no marked inclination to benefit themselves by means of books or other means of culture. "We must now educate our masters," said Mr. Lowe when the Reform Bill of 1867 was passed. He was quite right, for the said masters were by no means quick to educate themselves, and the number of Public Libraries which they consented to establish for three years after 1867 was about ten. Then came Mr. Forster's Education Act: that was not permissive, and great things were expected of it. Now that everybody was to be taught his letters, everybody would surely want books to read also. What, indeed, would be the good of teaching people to read at all unless they were also to have a supply of good books? You might as well teach a man the use of his knife and fork and then not give him any meat. Public Libraries would be the natural and legitimate outcome of compulsory education. So it was confidently expected, but the expectations have only been partially fulfilled, as a perusal of the present volume shows. The effect of education upon crime has been a subject much discussed by social reformers. It may be assumed that there is a relation between the two things, although it is not possible to ascertain the precise ratio in which crime diminishes with the spread of education. It may, however, be maintained that the increase of mental power raises the mind of the people above the temptations which lead to crime, and that, as a rule, mental and moral strength are likely to advance together. The case is stronger when we regard education not merely as a process by which knowledge is imparted, but as a system of careful training in which the subject is surrounded by guiding, restraining, and uplifting influences, when the environment of the individual is of a character to bring out its best characteristics, and to check the growth of selfishness and passion. The effect of such a course of what in the best sense must be called education may be expected to be greatest when it is employed towards the children of that class of parents who do not or cannot perform the primary parental duties. It is well known that there exists a degraded residuum from which the criminal class is constantly recruited. The result is seen in the records of the police-courts, where conviction after conviction is recorded against the same person. It is therefore a problem of the greatest social importance to ascertain how far the higher and better influences of education can be brought to bear upon these children, and if it is possible to cut off the entail of misery, to bar the gates of crime, and, as Dickens says, "throw but ajar the portals to a decent life." Such a question as this has long formed an interesting subject for speculative discussion amongst moral and social philosophers. On the one side we are told that the influence of heredity is too great to be overcome, that the criminal is born, and not made, and that, however well intended, such efforts at moral reform are doomed to disappointment. On the other side, the more hopeful spirits maintain that, whatever may be the tendencies derived from parentage, there is sufficient elasticity and adaptability in the moral nature of humanity to enable us to act upon it effectually if care is taken that all the surroundings of the individual are properly and judiciously selected. In another fifteen or twenty years, when some millions more children have passed through the Board Schools, and Public Libraries and other similar institutions have been established all over the kingdom, then we shall become a cultivated people. In these or similar words, half hopeful, half regretful, the grown-up generation summarize their estimate of popular culture. The Board School is the star to steer by; the Board School boy and girl are the hope of civilization. There is humility in the confession. But while Young England is, doubtless, a fine promising fellow, something may surely be also said for his seniors. If the question is considered closely, it is found that what the adult generation of working men-using this last word in its ordinary acceptation-have accomplished in self-instruction for themselves is as promising a feature of modern society as the progress which the young are making, more or less under compulsion. The increased access to the great stores of literature, brought about by the establishment of Public Libraries, is, therefore, one of the indications which help to show us the tendency of the educational movement of the present day. That tendency is strongly towards the equality which means the placing of the same opportunities of knowledge within the reach of all. The University Extension movement, with its gatherings of students at the great shrines of knowledge, is a striking illustration of the tendency. But that extension has rested largely upon voluntary work, and the devotion of the students themselves to the branches of knowledge taught by the university lecturers. The Public Library movement, however, represents the determination of the community to offer special facilities for the cultivation of the mind at the expense of the community itself. The readiness of the people to second and support that determination shows how great has been the growth of the feeling, not only among individuals, but among the public at large. The educational welfare of the multitude has at length become a matter of importance to us all. There has been a revolution in public opinion as to the true functions of Public Libraries. For a time they may be said to have had only a slight relation to the life of the community, but the authorities are now ready to acknowledge that success or failure is to be measured by the extent to which they come in contact with and shape for good the mental life of the nation. The subject of local taxation is inseparably a part of this large question. The present system under which, in England and Wales, the first incidence of local taxation (with some slight exceptions) falls on the occupier and not on the owner of lands and tenements, is unjust; such owners ought in equity to bear at least a moiety of these charges. The system under which country mansions are rated is unfair. The owners of ground rents in towns are liable to no part of those charges the outlay of which is essential in order that the property may possess any marketable value whatever. This is a matter which lies closer to the roots of our national life than the public are generally aware. It is to some large readjustment of the present inequalities of local taxation that we must look in the immediate future for a much larger impetus to be given to the movement for the formation of these libraries than has yet been known. A very interesting study is afforded by comparing the gross rates in the pound per year on the ratable value levied in towns in various parts of the country. A glance at the following list will probably produce a series of surprises to many readers :— |