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

LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST 11, 1855.

other way. There is a love of action, a devotion to busi-
ness, an impatience of abstract pursuits, a dislike to occu-
pations which do not bring come immediate visible return,
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. Take
ell classes through, you find more work, less leisure: That
state of things is not our fault; individuals are not to blame
for it, law cannot alter it. Custom and competition press
us all on 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 exclu-
sively. With the merchant, with the tradesman, with the
artizan, it is the same. Most men—at least, most success-
ful 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 is
trained—l speak of all classes equally—not to be a com-
plete man, but to be a tool in 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 it—one no doubt
imperfect, but still preferable to any other that we can
tind—is to counteract this partial and imperfect teaching
by a large acquaintance with human life and thought in
ill its varieties—a kind of knowledge which, as regards
the mass of men, can be given only through books. There
is yet another reason why I think book-teaching more va-
luable in this country than in any other. We in England
are in the habit of boasting of our freedom of speech ; and
no doubt, so far as legal and political restraints are con-
cerned, that freedom exists; but any one who has com-
pared the social habits of this nation with those of
any other, I care not in what class, must have observed
that whether from temperament or mere custom,
here is a reserve, r. eenetraint, a reluctance, even
among friends, to exchange thoughts freely on ques-
tions of real and deep interest, which causes us to learn
Less from one another than we might. I believe that ideas
are less freely circulated by word of mouth in England than
,n any other free and equally civilised community. If
that be so, the want or the deficiency of that teaching (for
such it is) which really thoughtful human speech supplies,
furnishes another argument for the diffusion of literature
as that channel through which knowledge is most practi-
cally and usefully accessible. There is one single observa-
tion further which I would make before I leave this
part of the subject. The want of educational facilities for
grown poisons, the popular delusion, for it is one, that
education ends in boyhood, affects injuriously our system of
school-teaching. It leads to one of two results, both bad,
and which is worse Ido not pretend to decide. In one
case a boy thinks, or his parents think for him, that he will
have nothing to do with books when he grows up, and why
should he trouble himself about them now? In that case he
learns nothing. Otherwise, and perhaps that is quite as
common a result, the parent's idea is—" Whatever instruc-
tion my son is to get, he must get before he leaves school ;
therefore be ought now to learn a little of everything."
And so, without regard to mental or physical laws, an
attempt is made to force nature—to crowd into half a
dozen years what should be the business of a life—
the child is crammed and stuffed with knowledge- the
man is starved. So far we have regarded only the educa-
tional side of the subject ; but it has also a social aspect.
It will not be affirmed that in this country there is any
want of liberality or of public spirit. Such would be an
unfounded imputation. But it is certain that from what-
ever 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 mate-
rnal development—be the cause what it may, 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 so-
cial 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
1, creates, and the consequent feeling of content which it
causes, but also in the recognition which such an act in-
volves 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
,7 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 pleasure 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
r village but contains some such—they will hold out, I say,
to every such person a practical and conclusive proof that
those who have been more fortunate in the accidents of
life, and who stand on a higher intellectual level, are not
withheld by selfish indifference, or by a still more un-
worthy jealousy, from aiding, so far as they can, his ad-
vance, and saving him from that most painful of all suffer-
I
ings—the sense of undeveloped faculties, and the conscious-
ness of unrecognised talent. I now come to the third and
concluding part of this question, and assuming that which
t- you propose is desirable, let me see whether, under all cir-
s. cumstances of the case, it appears practically possible, and
cl if so, by what means it should be accomplished. Is it in our
power to place virtually within reach of all, rich or poor,
'3'; within the limits of this town and its immediate neighbour-
hood, the principal literary resources of their own language?
I think it is. Est before wining to that conclusion we must
of examine fairly to see what obstacles lie in the way. And when
of
I speak of obstacles believe me that I have no wish to over-
miook or deny their existence. lam not arguing for a cause,
not contending for victory. lam trying to consider, and
ne asking you to consider with me, the means which may be
s ;
of actually at hand for the attainment of a practical object.
And for that investigation the first requisite is accurately
be
to number and measure the difficulties which we have to
a-
, face. I class them under three heads. There is, first, the
rd
difficulty of obtaining funds with which to establish the
an
institution proposed. Next, the difficulty of obtaining
ke
.er for it, when established, a sufficient popular support among
th the class by whom it is to be used. Thirdly, the difficulty
of so selecting the works to be used as to answer the edu-
cational end in view, yet give just cause of offence to no
one. On the first, question of funds, I shall be very brief.
It is a matter on which you are the best judges, and the
decision of which rests with you. I will only state what,
m. so far as my experience has gone, is the cost of founding a
100 free library, on such a scale as to make it worth the pains
Ir-
and labour bestowed on its establishment. When at-
ac-
tempting such an undertaking in a locality which is
µ,snot populous, it is necessary at once to ascertain what is
the the smallest scale and what the minimum amount on which
it can be done. Whatever you can add to that is so much
clear gain; but that minimum ought, in the first instance,
El 7 to be ascertained. And the rule which I would lay down
112 is this—that you ought to be able to include most of the
130 leading authors who have written on any important sub-
-261 ject in the English language. No doubt there is great
200 vagueness in these words ; and the number of volumes
167 which you must assume as necessary, and in the inability
129 to obtain which you will not proceed, is arbitrary also. I
9", assume it at 1,500 volumes. Now, when I mention that
53 number, many persons ask—and, indeed, with some minds
wi it is the chief obstacle to works of this description—" How
ny is it possible, in so narrow a compass, to convey even the
,
most imperfect idea of what the great men of all ages have
sod
pu- done and written 1" They think that if any attempt is
made to place literature before the people, it should be on
sap,
a great scale, and that being impossible, that the thing is
ant,
000 not worth doing. Now, in that view there is something
me exaggerated, if not actually unsound. The great writers
-
ow-
of the world, and the great events of the world, are really
1819
L
very few. We all know that the mass of what is called
ted
rate' literature, ur
ien, pgoiularhetdityf,oratnhd bythatthe
quparenstsi, am
tyis
is
coonsttinizal
lly-
yes. imuiclrleioansinogf.
books
;BtrhiteisNh
of containsrai Paris
s nearlyhalf a
Par-
million. But when youatl‘ifoucnosaemluthe matter
veryaloneye analyse
you will find, that of all that vast mass of books which
iblic come to
the has been heaped together since the world began, a very
;ally small proportion are available for those purposes with
l which alone you have to do--purposes of general instrus.
mwrial
l tion and study. Let us look into this for a moment.
what There is one large class of works whose interest is merely
:cept local ; there is another which relates exclusively to the
ofns
'excluded.
a few exceptions, are Again, there has at 'all
practice of particular professions. Both these classes, with
r few
nsti-
times been, and never more than now, a mass of writings
say
manufactured for the market—put together to meet some
little want or fancy of the moment ; books which are destined,
and and which even their writers know to be destined, to a
arse-
merely ephemeral existence • those you strike out, of
are
L
course. Lastly, there is yet another class, far more numer-
euth,
ous than all of these put together, including I suppose
ewer- - one half of all that has over been written—l mean books
popu- which have been useful, which have done good service in
n the
their time, some of which at the moment when they ap-
peared may even have advanced human knowledge, but
Ifulfil few which being now superseded by more recent ideas, and
It is by a more complete and exact science, have retained no
to all
interest or value except to antiquaries. Exclude all theae
occu- —exclude all that is merely local, merely professional,
II not
that is ephemeral and worthless, or antiquated and obso-
lete, and you will have reduced the total amount, I do
sr a ti iaoun
not say of literature, but of that literature which lives in
- and influences men's minds at the present day within
every For what is it, after all that you
, shall very narrow compass- _
ds of the
ee nations—the personal recor most eminent men
eveds want men to know The annals of the most important
'lnmay that have appeared on the earth—the arguments used in
evade those great controversies which have divided human
real I thought in all ages—the elementary principles, at least, on
sti
iy
onal which scientific and artistic labours are based, and those
me the
studies of life and character which poetry and fiction sup-
g that ply. lam not speaking at random, but from some former
educe- consideration and inquiry into this matter, when I state,
my for that for purposes of general reading, excluding authorship,
sled for professional objects, or antiquarian research, a collection
eke and of 5,000 or 6,000 volumes will contain all that is essential.
w and That is here beyond your reach ; but even one-third or
SS a
one-fourth part of that is a public benefit not to be de-
C
;.S, We apised. Now, hero I must beg you to pardon a few words
that a of rather minute detail, because it is just in minutiee that
rich he a plan is apt to break down. I have assumed the number
d true of books which you will require at 1,500. Of these you
trades-
may reckon the average cost as 4s. per volume, five to
;and
the pound, making an expenditure of 3001. There will be
the (le-
some slight cost in fitting up a room, and it is well to
ach we have in hand a reserve equal to at least one year's subscrip-
to col tion ; and I would therefore suggest that you should
CZ', take 4001., or at the very lowest 3501., as the sum which
le.!fiicult if you fail to obtain within a definite period (say six
ble ex months) it will not be worth while to proceed. If there
disco: really is not interest enough felt in the design to provide so
ation small an amount, it is far better to look that state of
ttainc things in the face, to postpone the undertaking as hopeless
for the time, and by so doing to leave the ground clear for
ft s. Be. those who may be more fortunate hereafter, than to set up
i"
fence a th' ing w ich will have been a failure from the first,
which nobody will be fond of, which nobody will take an
Crio3voeoi
interest in, which on that account is likely to die out for.
A inc want of support, and will be merely a hindrance and an
fore impediment in the way of
more successful operations at some
atest future time. However, of that contingency there can be
th li little risk, if a rumour be true which has reached me, that
n wl
already, with no canvass and but little publicity, the pro-
ace I meters have secured half the amount required. Next we
of
have to deal with a not less material question—" What de-
aeir gree of popular support have you a right to expect ?" Here,
alto of course, I must speak without the confidence of absolute
p a certainty, because (and this it is which gives its chief value.
ou to the experiment on which you aro engaged)—because in
ecu a community wholly or chiefly agricultural the trial has
mix scarcely yet been made. But taking, as before, an
ids limit, I think the income on which you ought

to be able to count should not be less than one-
tenth of the capital subscribed-401. Infixing a rate of pay-
ment you have to steer between two opposite extremes. On
the one hand, the subscriber ought to feel that he is not re-
ceiving a gift, but contributing, in part at least, to main-
tain the institution by which he benefits; on the other
hand, wages are low the labouring class, and even many
above that class, have little to spare, and your object is, as
far as possible, to exclude no one. In towns we have usually
fixed the rate at ls. quarterly, or 4s. yearly. It is quite a
local question, on which I offer no opinion—whether even
lower terms will suit you better, or whether under any cir-
cumstances, and, if so, under what, admissions should be
free ? At 4s. you will require 200 subscribers ; at 2s. 400.
The only principle which one can lay down in suck a matter
is, that the income should cover all current expenses, and
that an far as possible it should be made up, not by wealthy
persons out of charity, but by those who really use the
library. A good deal depends on the extent of area
which you embrace. You have not here a concentrated
population, and you have within a moderate distance at
least two towns, St. Alban's and Hertford, in which I am
Mistaken if the example which you are setting will not be
followed very shortly. You can reckon, therefore, for
this particular enterprise only on such an area as will
contain some 10,000 or 12,0110 persons; that is, from
1-16th to 1-14th the entire population of the county.
Making large allowances for all who will not or cannothelp
—for those who cannot read, for those who have at home all
the books they require, for those who are too busy or too
for those who are too rich to want a public library or
too peer to pay for one, for the very young or the very
old, it is not unreasonable to assume that 1 in 50 of the re-
sident population will even from the first become sub-
scribers—that is, something like 200 in the one ease, 250 in
the other. lain speaking of what you may expect at first,
before people's minds have become familiarised with what
you are doing; later you may count on a large increase,
and I am purposely, out of a caution which is perhaps ex-
treme, adopting a lower estimate than experience else-
where would justify. I will not waste time in citing at
any length the example of what has been done elsewhere,
but just mention the position of three institutions with
which I have been myself connected. Two of them were
set up in Lancashire towns, of no large size, containing a
population chiefly of artisans and small tradesmen, with
but few resident gentry ; in one case party spirit ran
high at the time ; in both cases a large proportion of the
labouring class were Isiah, unable to read or write, and
from whom no help could be expected. , We had this
further disadvantage, that within a few miles cheap
and popular libraries already existed, from which it
was possible, though not convenient, for those who wished
it to supply themselves. In each instance the size of the
undertaking was much the same as it is here ; the rate of
subscription fixed was 4s. At the end of 18 months, neither
undertaking has had a longer trial, the results were as fol-
low one case, the subscribers were to the population
as 1 in 30; in the other, where a larger area was taken in,
as 1 in 35. Again, in Lynn, Norfolk, with a population of
20,000, in the centre of a purely agricultural district,where
no attempt of this kind had ever been made before, we
have, after 8 months opening, 800 subscribers, or 1 in 25.
Now, I think I have allowed enough for the difference be-
tween an urban and a rural population in regard to these
matters, when I set down as an estimate, a sufficient and
satisfactory estimate, just one-half the proportion which
exists in this last instance, and two-thirds that which ex-
ists in the other two. I have given you the data on which
I rest, and I think they justify me in affirming, as I do
with confidence, that so far as it is possible to predict
the future from the past, and so far as you can judge
of one part of the country by that which has taken
place in another, you have in regard of popular
support for your undertaking, not a chance only,
but what amounts to a certainty of success.
One word only as to the third difficulty which I
have named—that which relates to the selection of books.
You have begun here on the principle, the only one that
ever can or will work, of acknowledging no distinction of
political party or religious sect. That is a sound principle,
but the application of it is apt to involve a practical in-
convenience. If you were to declare, by way of guarding
against the risk of quarrels, that you would absolutely
exclude every work that bears on religion or on the science
of government, you would shut out thereby the most im-
portant branches of human thought, and greatly impair
the utility of your work. Nay, even if you lay down that
rule you cannot enforce it in spirit, though to the letter
you may; for the recorded annals of every nation—that
is, all historical works in existence—are, in fact, illustra-
tions of political science, and it is from being such that they
derive their sole value. So again with individuals- -a man's
public life, and still more his religion, are integral parts of
himself ; they. mould his character and influence his career;
and thus into biography, as well as history, the political and
raligious element must to a certain extent enter. But you
cannot shut out history and biography ; that would be
absurd ; and it follows, therefore, that a library meant to
instruct as well as to amuse must contain many works
bearing in some degree on those great controverted topics—
the relations of the individual to the state as a citizen, and
his relations as a man to a Higher Power. The only rule
one can lay down on paper is to have nothing to do with
merely controversial writings on the political or polemical
disputes of our own time, and generally to exclude that
which may be expected to give offence to reasonable and
moderate persons. But, after all, your only security in this
matter lies in the good sense of individual managers, and in
their sincere wish that the work may succeed. Every man
who co-operates with others in any department of human
busineis, frOm the making of a Cabinet downwards, must
sacrifice something of his own wishes ; and though in some
parts of England institutions such as you propose aro nu-
merous, yet the instances are most rare, I cannot now re-
collect one, where an attempt of the kied has failed in con-
sequence of the inability of the managers to agree as to
what they should include or strike out. I think, then,
that from the three obstacles to which I alluded just
now —want of funds, want of popular support, and risk
of disunion—you have no cause to apprehend failure
or even delay. No doubt there are many matters re-
Elting to the working of such institutions—their con-
stitution, management, and the mechanism required to
carry them out—which need and will receive careful con-
sideration. But, though not to be overlooked, these topics
are minute, and it is needless to mention them here. But,
perhaps, before I sit down I may ask you for a moment to
look beyond the details of this local and comparatively
limited enterprise, and to regard it—l cannot help doing
so—as only the first stone of a building destined hereafter
to assume much larger proportions—as the experimental
trial on a small scale of that which is to be carried out on
one more comprehensive. What is the object for which
you are working--for which we all work, each in our re-
spective localities? Why this—that to every man within
this country of England the literature of the nation shall
be made accessible, with the least amount of cost or trouble,
at his own home, Thai, is the end you have in view, or
rather that is in all its completeness the machinery by
which you seek to attain an end more lofty and more re-
mote. Now, take this county of Hertford. What is there
to prevent within a few years from this time such educa-
tional provision being made for the entire county as you
desire and as I describe? Consider your position. You
have great social and material advantages—a compact area;
a population not now scattered, and rapidly increasing ;
vicinity to the greatest city of the world ; all those means
of easy and rapid communication which we owe to
modern science ; above all, you have a wealthy and
resident gentry, enlightened themselves, and accustomed
to co-operate for objects of social utility. You have some-
thing better and worthier still—for of a province, as of an
empire, the great names are the choicest possession—a soil
illustrated by noble memories and adorned by living genius.
A name more illustrious still. I know not whore the plea
of intellectual progress should arouse readier response or
draw forth a warmer sympathy than in that county which
was once the abode of Bacon. Education is the social pro-
blem of our day, and where the wise settlement of a vexed
controversy is called for, I think there are few among
modern public men who will challenge comparison with
the fame of Burleigh. There is one whom we could have
wished to see here to-day ; but though not with us the cause
of popular literature has been championed by the lifelong
advocacy and the rare eloquence of your own Sir E. Lytton.
Well, to come to details, what is it that you require to
supply a complete educational provision for this county ?
Your population falls short of 170,000 ; and we have seen,
by the analogy of what is hero proposed, that from 12 to
15 such libraries would leave no district unsupplied. With
that number there need be no Hertfordshire man who could
not obtain those facilities of reading which at present exist
only in towns. There exists a machinery in Lancashire (I
have left the details of its working in the hands of some
persons here) by which books are sent round in boxes from
village to village, and almost from house to house, so that
there shall not be even the necessity of walking a few
miles to fetch them. Some mechanism of that kind is ne-
cessary, if you are really to circulate literature among the
poorer class. From 12 to 15 libraries like that which is
to be set up here—their collective cost not exceeding
6,oool.—with boxes circulating in the intermediate ham-
lets, will furnish all that is required. In the towns you
will have the assistance of a rate, which may even now be
levied, for the purchase and support of free libraries.
But I am reckoning merely on private voluntary, exer-
tions, and I state my sincere belief that 5,0001. or 6,000/.
invested, in such undertakings as these—not all neces-
sarily forming part of one scheme, but each separate,
and each promoted by those whom it most immediately
and locally concerns—would go further in the stimulus
and encouragement which it would give to education
among the people than twice that sum spent on schools
and schoolmasters. I have said before, but once again I
repeat it, what you want is not so much to supply schools
as to create a demand for schools ; that done, they will
supply themselves. I have laid before you a large project
—large, not so much in the actual amount of expenditure
which it involves, as in the labour, the discussion, the op-
position of various kinds to which its execution must give
rise. No doubt I shall be told there are obstacles in the
way. No doubt it is so, and well it should be. There will
be difficulties enough to discourage the timid, to disgust
the impatient and hasty, and to give all of you that work
to do—work for your neighbours, work for England, work
for the interests of mankind, which is one of the best
privileges and highest purposes of all our lives. It is
well, I say, that such obstacles exist. What is easily
done is seldom worth doing ; and in this matter of educa-
tion we are apt to be particularly impatient of delay,
because in measuring the amount of results which we ex-
pect we think only of our present activity and forget our
past supineness. Recollect how recent the whole move-
ment is. Recollect that its origin dates back only some
thirty years, and that during a part even of that time it
met with at least as mach opposition as support. Look at
these things, and pronounce whether it is more reasonable
to complain that one generation has not yet succeeded
in repairing the errors of all its predecessors, or to con-
gratulate ourselves (though more remains to do) that
so much has already been accomplished. We are apt
in this matter to be somewhat childish. There are
critics of educational operations who complain as un-
reasonably as some critics of military operations have
done lately. Ignorance—brute, dull, dogged ignoraileee
—has an immense power of passive resistance. "W'we
have neglected it for centuries—we have let it alma
°itself
have allowed it to go on arid gain strength, and fortify
then,
before our eyes to an almost impregnable vfe.z:
mons, or tumble down at the first shot firree
u,
seless. That
to despair, and cry out that our label,
hrnmably, respectfully,
is folly. What I would say t' you,;le expect little; work
because this Sebastopol does not surrendePr°adt twnee
:firrestrseuared;
but earnestly, is this—"Do
nearer or more remote than we
it
se
prerosublatbmlea
the world will witness its ftal ac.
no eye now opened 012
with perseverance ; wait"iln);atie:neicnek!':