The Press.
London, England, 1855-08-11 00:00:00

THE HATFIELD FREE LIBRARY.

ON Wednesday a public meeting was held in the
riding-school at Hatfield house, the residence of the
Marquis of Salisbury, at which Lord Stanley, M.P.,
delivered a lecture in support of the establishment
of a people's library for the village of Hatfield and
the surrounding districts. A numerous audience
attended on the occasion, including all the principal
gentry of the neighbourhood, amongst whom the
object for which the meeting was convened is uni-
versally approved. The Marquis of Salisbury having
briefly opened the proceedings, Lord Stanley deli-
vered a long and eloquent address, in the course of
which be said :

Though Government may help in the work of educa-
tion, yet that work must in the main be carried out by
private efforts. The Marquis of Salisbury, always mind.
ful of the duties which property owes to society, has for
some time past entertained the design of endeavouring to
supply the educational requirements of this neighbour.
hood on a scale and by an agency more extended and
effective than had hitherto been employed. I mean by
the establislim ent of a free, or nearly free, popular library.
Now, such institutions are comparatively new to the rural
districts of England. In Lancashire, however, and
throughout the manufacturing districts, where the popu-
lation is at once dense, enterpris.ng, and wealthy, they
have grown up and flourished to a great degree within the
last few years. Yet it is, I fear, only too easy to show
that, in regard of public libraries, England is far more
backward than many countries whose state of civilisation
is lower. I take the leading nations of Europe. Of
libraries of the larger class, containing above 10,000
volumes each, and open with more or less freedom to the
public:—

France has 107, with 4,000,000 volumes.
Austria .. 48 2,500,000 "
Prussia .. 44 .... 2,500000 "
Eughtial .. 33 .... 1,750,000 "
of which 500,000 is in the single collection of the Museum.
If I had included smaller collections of from 1,000 to
10,000 volumes, the result would have been much more
unfavorable ; but of these it is almost impossible to obtain
accurate returns. On the whole comparison, with regard
to this particular kind of educational provision, we have
just one eighth the accommodation of Saxony, one sixth
that of Bavaria, one third that of Austria, and two fifths
that of France. In the United States the population is
scattered, distances are great, books are cheap, most per-
sons can afford to purchase on their own account, yet
already there are more than 100 libraries of 0,000 volumes
and upwards, and scarcely a village without something of
the kind on a smaller scale. Some legislative steps have
been taken in England of late years ; but for many years
to come, in small and rural communities at least, the pro-
moters of such designs will have to appeal to voluntary
exertions only. Now, what have those exertions done up
to the present time ? Except as connected with mechanics'
institutes, or institutions of a similar kind under different
names, there are very few public libraries open to all
classes. Of mechanics' institutes, there are in existence
between B'lo and 900; but the existence of many is little
more than nominal. Some do their work well and
prosper; some more or less assume a party character, as
is always likely to happen where lectures are delivered ;
but the majority live from hand to mouth, have no consi-
derable stock of books, nor accumulated capital—are,
therefore, obliged to lay themselves out for popularity, and,
in so doing, though their existence is on the whole better
than nothing, they do not adequately fulfil their functions
of public instruction. That is, in few words, the state of
adult education in Great Britain. It is not a satisfactory
one, and it promises to you, and to all whc are minded to
help in the work of reforming it, occupation for some con-
siderable period. That work will not be complete, the
educational requirements of the nation will not be fully
satisfied, until the literature of our language, the written
thoughts and recorded acts of every great man who in-
fluences opinion at the present day shall have been brought
within easy access—easy both as regards local proximity
and pecuniary cost—of every man and of every woman
who can read and write. I think we put education on a
low and unworthy ground when we treat it, which many
do, as a means of acquiring fortune or advancement in life.
We must all feel, if we reflect upon it ( I am sure I do )
that a man's station in the world, the social position which
he occupies, forms a very small part of his real and true
existence. Society makes one man a peer, another a
tradesman, a third • labourer; but God made us all
men ; and what we mean, or ought to mean, by
education, is the development of those common
human faculties which we possess, and which, pos-
sessing them, we are bound to cultivate in our-
selves, and to help others to do the same. There

763

is no fear of pedantry becoming nationalised in England.
The whole bent of our minds is the other way. There is
a love of action, a devotion to business, an impatience of
abstract pursuits, a dislike to occupations which do not
bring some immediate visible retain, which is perhaps
excessive, and certainly strong enough to counteract any
tendency towards mere bookishness. That we all recognise
and feel. But there is something more. Life, in the
present day, is busier than ever before. 'lake all classes
through, you find more work, less leisure. That state of
things is not our fault ; ind►viduals are not to blame for it,,
law cannot alter it. Custom and competition press on us all
alike. With a very few exceptions we are all absorbed
in our special pursuit. The lawyer who wants to lead his
circuit, the politician who wants to lead the House of
Commons, must be a lawyer or a politician exclusively.
With the merchant, with the tradesman, with the artisan,
it is the same. Most men—at least, most successful
men—live for their work alone, and have few interests or
ideas unconnected with it. The result of that state of
things is—to put it in one sentence—that general develop-
ment is sacrificed to particular aptitude. The man ►s
trained—l speak of all claases equally—not to be a com-
plete man, but to be a tool iu the most perfect state of effi-
ciency for the performance of a particular kind of work.
That is an error ; and the best remedy for ►t—one no
doubt imperfect, but still preferable to any other that we
can find—is to counteract this partial and imperfect teach•
ing by a large acquaintance with human life and thought
in all its varieties—a kind of knowledge which, as regards
the masa of men, can be given only through books.
From whatever cause—partly from reserved and domestic
habits—partly from that devotion to business which
absorbs most of us, and creates an indifference to
other matters—partly also from the great and rapid
increase of population in these islands within the last
half century, so rapid that the appliances of civilisation
have not kept pace with our material development—there
is a want in England of pursuits and pleasures which are
common to all, of institutions open to all, of places which
all may frequent for recreation or amusement. That is
a serious social evil. Every park or garden which you
throw open, every museum or picture-gallery to which you
admit the public, is a clear gain to society, not only in the
pleasure which it creates, and the consequent feeling of
content which it causes, but also in the recognition which
such an act involves of a common citizenship, and in the
pledge which it seems to give on the part of the wealthy to
the poorer sort, that the wealth which these see round
them is used not selfishly, but that they also share in the
conveniences and advantages which it can purchase. And
so with these libraries. Apart from their educational
value—apart from the pleasures which they will confer,
they will hold out to every one who, though poor, aspires
to rise, and, though untaught, desires to learn—and there
is not in England a village but contains some such—they
will hold out, I say, to every each person a practical and
conclusive proof that those who have been more fortunate
in the accidents of life, and who stand on a higher intel-
lectual level, are not withheld by selfish indifference, or
by a still more unworthy jealousy, from aiding so far as
they can his advance, and saving him from that most pain-
ful of all sufferings—the sense of undeveloped faculties,
and the consciousness of unrecognised talent.
In describing the nature of the works which the
popular libraries should contain, Lord Stanley recom-
mended that they should be
well stocked with the annals of the most important
nations—the personal records of the most eminent men
that have appeared upon the earth—the arguments used
in those great controversies which have divided human
thought in all ages—the elementary principles, at least, on
which scientific and artistic labours are based—and those
studies of life and character which poetry and fiction
supply.

The list of subscriptions for the establishment of
such a library at Hatfield includes the Marquis of
Salisbury, WO/. ; Lord Cranbourne, 201., and an
annual subscription of five guineas; Lord Stanley,
251.; Earl Verulam, 10/. ; the Earl of Roseberry, 51. ;
and members of the noble earl's family, 31.

THE Conatitutionnel, quoting a new volume on the
statistics of France, by the Ministry of Agriculture
and Commerce, observes that—" France is, par ex-
cellence, the country of middling and small proper-
ties. The cadastre shows us the soil split into 128,000
parcels, belonging to 11,053,000 proprietors. This
refers to the mean year 1827. It results from the
examination of the roles of the land tax token more
recently. that the number of land portions was
11,511,000 in 1842, and that it has successively
mounted to 13,122,000 in 1854."

AN OFFER FOB CONTRACTS has just been issued by
the Commissariat of St. Petersburg, which is parti-
cularly interesting at the present time, as giving us
a not inaccurate notion of the number of Russian
troops at present under arms. This contract is for
girdles, with one of which every soldier is to be sup-
plied. The number for the Guards collectively is
given at 60,500; for the corps of Grenadiers at
65,700 ; and for the regiments of the line 106,700.
THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA, says the Post Antpt Ga-
zette of Frankfort, has just made a present of two
diamond rings of great value, one to M. Lindenberg,
the editor of the Westp)talia Gazette, and the other
to Dr. Hesekiel, one of the editors of the New Prus-
sian Gazette.
SIXTY PERSONS have been arrested at Naples, for
having joined the funeral procession of the ex-deputy
Innocenzo de Cesare. Among them is the second
sons of the Prince of Torells.

Wittraturt.

Maud, and Other Poems. By Alfred Tennyson,

D.C.L., Poet Laureate. London : Moxon.
11i a. TiNNYSON has bad no reason to complain
of the neglect which so often afflicts living
poets. At the end of this volume we see
advertised a tenth edition of his " Poems," a
sixth edition of, the " Princess," and a sixth
edition of "In Memoriam." His success must
be the more gratifying to him as his works are
not of the character for which one would anti-
cipate popularity. They are so dreamy as at
times t 9 pass out of the range, not of sympathy
only, but of comprehension; and plain readers
are obliged to pore over his lines with painful
labour to pierce the mist which envelops
his meaning. So successful a writer must of
course have his reasons for writing unin-
telligibl3 , more especially as he can be per-
fectly distinct when he chooses. But he is in
this danger at present, that as his worst
peculiarities have found most admirers, he
t4ickens in obscurity as he proceeds, and is
likely to end—like that school of fatiaties of
which Edward Irving, himself a man of
genius, was the head—y speaking a language
as unintelligible to himself as to the rest of
mankind.

The production of " Maud" is a sufficient
proof that there must be people in the world
who admire poetry more as they understand it
less. It is the sign of a sickly age when such
mere vapouring as " Maud " is made up of
meets with favour. Taken at the best, it is a
strain of puling, incoherent sentiment and
disordered fantasy such as mighi flit through
the brain of a love-sick youth in the measles :
the fever of typhus would conjure up more
vivid images. The whining lamentation of
the verse has no resemblance to the vehement
outcry of passionate grief. In all languages
that will appeal to the heart. It speaks an
universal tongue, and will make itself heard
in whatever syllables it shapes itself. Mr.
Tennyson elaborates his agony with great
eon, but there is nothing human about it.
The artifice and affectation ace apparent.
We see him shedding his costive tears one by
one, and carefully hoarding them up in a
bottle to be publicly exhibited.
The poem opens with a hint of the fearful
death of the narrator's father. He had made
an unlucky speculation, and he fell, or threw
himself, from a cliff. Who knows ? Therefore
" the dreadful hollow behind the little wood"
is hated. After this tragic prelude there
follow some stanzas on the vices of the age,
the disclosures of Dr. Hassall's analytical in-
quiry furnishing the poet with a text for his

verse :
♦nd the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruthan's head,
Till the filthy by-lane rings W the yell of the trampled wife,
While chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for
bread,
And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life.
And Sleep must lie down arm'd, for the villainous centre-

bits
Grini on the wakeful ear in the hush of the moonless nights,
While another is cheating the sink of a few last gasps, as
he sits

To pestle a poison'd poison behind his crimson lights.
Mr. Tennyson concludes that peace is the
cause of ourspcial disorders, yid he supposes
that we should be all the better if

an enemy's Beet came yonder round by the hill.
We beg leave to say a word here on Ur.
Tennyson's philosoPhy before we proceed
ihrther. Be has a most comical manner of in
tiOducing into his verse the fag-ends of.all sorts
of gossip of the day. lie casts his net tor the
w,ctifi and strays_ of superficialdiscourse. No-
thing comes arrusS to him. Sometimes,,a,s ii the
above extract, ha seizes hold of the
full of.food and drugs ; then he is full of war-
like ardour, and thanks God that " the large
canker of peace is over and done." By-and-
bye he droops swoop down on the peace party,
and represents Mr. Bright as
4 broad brimmed hawker of holy things,
Whose ear is stuft with his cotton.

And who plays
The game of the despot kings.
Anon, ho treats us to some metaphysical and
geological speculations after this fashion :