The free library, its history and present condition

Front matter

REFERENCE

DATE DUE

APRO 4

Preface

The aim of this work is sufficiently indicated by the title-page and table of contents. The Library per se is its subject, hence only incidental notice has been taken of library buildings and library administration ; moreover, these subjects are dealt with in other books of the same series. The information as far as possible has been gathered at first hand ; but for the early history Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, the various Returns concerning Public Libraries presented to Parliament, old newspapers and reports have been diligently searched. The publications of the Library Association, and in particular The Library, edited by Mr. J. Y. W. MacAlister, have been of the greatest use for the facts they have furnished. Other sources of information are indicated in the work itself. The most conflicting statements are in print, especially regarding the dates of local adoptions of the Public Libraries Acts. Great care has been taken to ascertain the true dates, and these have been given as precisely as could be ascertained in the limits of time set for the preparation of this work.

My thanks for special assistance in my researches are due, and are hereby tendered, to Mr. Peter

XI

Xll

PREFACE

Cowell, librarian of the Liverpool Free Public Libraries, and to Mr. Thomas Form by, the sub-librarian ; also to Mr. C. W. Sutton, the city librarian of Manchester, and to Mr. W. R. Credland, deputy chief librarian of the same city. To Mr. Charles Madeley of the Warrington Museum I am indebted for access to various monumental documents of the early days of the movement, and for the loan of certain blue-books. Mr. F. T. Barrett, librarian of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, and Mr. W. E. Doubleday, librarian of the Hampstead Public Libraries, have assisted me with information for Chapter XIII.; and I have also to thank Mr. T. W. Lyster, librarian of the National Library of Ireland, for valuable assistance and suggestions during the reading of the proofs. Finally, my hearty thanks are tendered to the librarians and secretaries of libraries who answered my long list of questions, and whose names are recorded in the statistical tables of the Appendix. Without their valued aid this work could not have been wTritten.

In such a work as this, errors of fact are very apt to creep in ; with a view to their amendment in a second edition, the author will be glad to receive any duly authenticated corrections.

JOHN J. OGLE.

Bootle, June 1897.

PAGE

General Introduction v-ix

Preface xi-xii

Chapter I

The Rise of Libraries, and the Origin of Free Libraries in the United Kingdom, with their History up to the Year 1855 . . . 3-32

Medieval libraries — Causes of the formation of libraries — The seventeenth-century city and parish libraries — Norwich, Bristol, Langley Marish, Leicester, the Chetham Library, Boston, Wotton Wawen, Wisbeach, Tong — The eighteenth-century parish libraries — Kirkwood's proposals — Dr. Bray's libraries — Foundation of the British Museum — British Museum influence on free public libraries — Commencement of subscription libraries — Bamburgh Castle Library — Mr. Samuel Brown's itinerating libraries — Itinerating libraries in Scotland, in Yorkshire, in Lancashire, and Cheshire — The rise of Mechanics' Institutions — Their libraries in 1849 — Origin of the free library — The Museums Act of 1845 — Libraries established under the Museums Act at Warrington and Salford — Edward Edwards and William Ewart — The Select Committee on Public Libraries, and the genesis of the Act of 1850 — The debate on Ewart's Bill — Subsequent

XIV legislation to 1855 — Provisions of the 1855 Acts — Adoptions and rejections of the Acts — Local Acts of Liverpool and Brighton — Inauguration of the Manchester Free Library — Speeches by Lord Lytton, Charles Dickens, W. M. Thackeray, Sir James Stephen, Lord Houghton.

Chapter II

The History of the Free Public Library Movement from 1856 to 1877 . . ■ . . . 33-46

The parliamentary return of 1856 — Adoptions and rejections of the Acts up to 1867 — Local powers of Sunderland — The Amending Acts of 1866 — Lord Beaconsfield and the Earl of Shaftesbury on library legislation — The Scotch Amending Act of 1867 — Adoptions and rejections, 1867-70 — The parliamentary return of 1870— Effect of Forster's Elementary Education Act upon the progress of the movement — The new legislation of 1 87 1 — Power to make bye-laws in Scotland — Extension to local boards of power to adopt the Acts in England — Review of progress made up to the end of 1870 — Adoptions and rejections, 1871-77 — The Irish Amending Act of 1877 — English Act of 1877 — Limitation of rate below one penny — The Philadelphia and London International Library Conferences— Formation of the Library Association of the United Kingdom — The parliamentary return of 1876-77.

Chapter III

The History of the Free Public Library Movement from 1878 to 1887 . . . . 47-61

Rejections of the Acts, 1878-82 — Opposition tactics — Adoptions of the Acts, 1878-82— The Library Association — The Metropolitan Free Libraries Association and legislation — Proposal of Education Department inspection of libraries — The re-opening of the Birmingham Central Free Libraries in 1882 — Speeches by John Bright and Joseph Chamberlain — Adoptions

XV and rejections, 1883-86— The Science and Art Department's Bill of 1884— Effect of the Act of 1884 at Worcester— Mr. Hopwood's Bill— The Manx Acts of 1885 and 1886— The year 1887 — The publication of Greenwood's " Public Libraries"— "Queen's jubilee celebration" libraries — Adoptions and rejections — The arousing of London — The 1887 Amendment Bill carried — Sir John Lubbock on the Bill — The Scotch Consolidating Bill carried — Professor W. Stanley Jevons on the free library — Notable generosity to free libraries — The Winnard and Taylor bequests at Wigan, Sir Peter Coats's gifts at Paisley, Mr. Keiller's at Dundee, Mr. Carnegie's at Dunfermline, Sir William Gilstrap's at Newark — The parliamentary return of 1885.

Chapter IV

The History of the Free Public Library Movement from 1888 to 1896 62-95

The rejections during this period — Adoptions — The attack of the " Liberty and Property Defence League " — The support of the Trades Union Congress, 1884 — Review of districts in which adoptions had taken place at end of 1896 — Large urban districts that have not adopted the Acts — Large donations and bequests to free libraries — ^750,000 given in nine years — Comparison of donations, &c, in the United States and in the United Kingdom — Legislation during the period— The Acts of 1888 and 1890— Sir William Harcourt on the free library and the rate limit— The genesis and passing of the Consolidating Act of 1892 — The publication of "Public Library Legislation" in 1S93 — The Amending Bill of 1893 — The Museums and Gymnasiums Act, 1 891 — Effect of the Technical Instruction Acts, 1889 and 1891, and of the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 1890, on free libraries — The Local Government Act, 1894, and parish free libraries — Chief provisions of the English Library Acts — The Irish Bill of 1893, and the Act of 1894 — Public library law in Ireland — The Scotch Amending Act of 1894 — Chief provisions of Scotch library law — Powers of towns under local Acts — Persistent opposition to carrying out

XVI of the Acts at Bermondsey, Mile End, and Clerkenwell — The Bristol case, 1892 — The Manchester appeal against income-tax, 1893-96, and its success — The distribution of parliamentary papers to free libraries — Mr. Gladstone on the question — The Library Association's new Bill — The attitude of the leaders of opinion towards free libraries — Royalty and free public libraries — Passages from memorable speeches by Mr. Alexander Ireland, Mr. R. K. Causton, M.P., Sir John Lubbock, Lord Rosebery, Mr. Hall Caine, Professor Jebb, Mr. Gladstone — The parliamentary return of 1890 — Estimate of the number and extent of free libraries at end of 1896 — Outstanding loans on free libraries — Direction of future growth.

CHAPTER V The Development of the Free Library . 96-103

Libraiy administration — Early text-books — Edwards's " Memoirs of Libraries" — The United States report of 1876 — The American Library Journal — The Library Association of the United Kingdom — Its publications and official journals — Branch libraries — Lending and reference libraries — Local history collections — Music scores — Books for the blind — Libraries for the young — Indicators — The card ledger — Free lectures — Half-hour talks to readers — Electric lighting — Photography in libraries — Maps, prints, and drawings — The summer school of library science — Examination of assistants — Open access — American influence on English methods — The card catalogue — The Dewey "Decimal Classification" — Cutter's "Rules for Cataloguing" — Branch delivery stations — Library Association cataloguing rules — Patent libraries and special collections.

CHAPTER VIII London Libraries under the Public Libraries

Battersea — Chelsea — Clerkenwell — Hampstead — Lambeth — Newington — Poplar — St. George (Hanover Square) — St. Leonard (Shoreditch)— St. Martin - in - the - Fields and St. Paul (Covent Garden) — Wandsworth.

CHAPTER IX Free Libraries under the Acts in Seven First

Class Towns 157-194

Manchester — Liverpool — Birmingham — Leeds — Hull — Edinburgh— Dublin — Belfast.

» b

Chapter X Page

Free Libraries under the Acts in Seventeen

Second-Class Towns 195-241

Bristol— West Ham — Salford — Bradford — Nottingham— Newcastle-on-Tyne — Norwich — Birkenhead — Plymouth — Derby — Wolverhampton — Brighton — Preston — Cardiff — Swansea — Dundee — Aberdeen.

CHAPTER XI Free Libraries under the Acts in Sixteen Third

Class Towns 242-271

South Shields — Southampton — Aston Manor — Wigan — Warrington— Bootle — Cheltenham — Newark-on-Trent — Runcorn — Truro — Wrexham — Paisley — Hawick — Cork — Dundalk — Douglas.

CHAPTER XII Free Libraries under the Acts in Small Towns

(under 10,000 Population) and Villages . 272-284

Buxton — Falmouth — Middle Claydon — Brechin — Thurso — Tarves — Drumoak — Suggestions for circuit libraries in villages, and county library authorities — Existing village library schemes.

XIX

Chapter XIII Page

Endowed and Voluntary Free Libraries . 285-299

Humphrey Chetham's, Library at Manchester — Archbishop Tenison's Library — Dr. Williams's Library — The High Wycombe endowed free library — Libraries at Otley and at Horwich — City Charities' endowed libraries — The Mitchell Library, Glasgow — The Mayer Library, Bebington — Voluntary free libraries at Hull, Bath, Paddington, St. Pancras, Bethnal Green, &c. — The Marylebone Free Public Libraries Association and its voluntary free library.

Epilogue

Appendix (Statistical Tables) Index

• 300 301-325 329-344

BOOK I

GENERAL HISTORY

A

THE

FREE

LIBRARY

Chapter I

THE RISE OF LIBRARIES, AND THE ORIGIN OF FREE . LIBRARIES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM, WITH THEIR HISTORY UP TO THE YEAR 1855.

While books were of necessity written by slow and painful labour large libraries were few, and belonged almost exclusively to rich fraternities and wealthy corporations. The universities, the monastic orders, a rich guild here and there {e.g. the Kalendars of Bristol), and the Corporation of London, seem to have been almost the only owners of libraries in Britain in the fifteenth century. But the invention and rapid spread of the art of printing with movable metal types, the diffusion of classical learning, and the free spirit of inquiry awakened by the Reformation, contributed to the multiplication and cheapening of books, and the enlargement and establishment of libraries. Princes and great nobles began to form collections, in which the romances, the chronicles, the poems printed by Caxton, De Worde, Pynson, Machlinia, and the early British printers, were well represented. Reformers gathered about them the works of Luther, of Zuinglius, of Melanchthon, of Erasmus, besides lesser controversial and expository books in which they were interested. Professional men likewise formed libraries of law and jurisprudence and of medicine. Sometimes the owner of a large library was found at his death to have bequeathed his books to his church or college on the one hand, or, on the other, to his professional brethren, to form the nucleus of one of the medical or legal libraries which have now existed since. the sixteenth century, some few of them from an earlier date.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century a new fashion began ; books were bequeathed to city corporations, and formed the earliest free town libraries in this country. One such was founded at Norwich in the year 1608. The greater part of the original books of this, the oldest city free library with a continuous history to the present day, are now housed in the Norwich Free Public Library. Five years later provision was made by Dr. Toby Matthew, Archbishop of York, and by citizen Robert Redwood, to establish a city library at Bristol. The library was opened in 1615, and is accessible to the reader of to-day in the Central Free Library of that city. Each of these libraries was for a time alienated to the use of a private library society, though it is doubtful whether in either case any authorised seeker after knowledge was ever denied access to the books. A parochial free library was established in 1623 at Langley

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Marish, in Buckinghamshire, by Sir John Kederminster, and the books, which consisted of 300 folio volumes of the Greek and Latin Fathers and the chief works of the Reformation controversy, were reported in 1849 t° be we^ preserved. The ancient town of Leicester also has had its free library since 1632, which, after falling into neglect, has been carefully looked after of late years by the corporation, though as yet not included in the " Free Public Library" system of the town. This ancient library contains the famous Codex Leicestrensis of the Greek New Testament. Of the free libraries of the seventeenth century which have any record continuous with the present time, next in point of date comes the noble bequest of Sir Humphrey Chetham at Manchester, which was long regarded as the oldest free library in England. The Chetham Library, founded in 1653, appears to have an unbroken record of public use, and its store of antiquarian books and valuable original MSS., chiefly English, as well as its literary associations, justly make it the pride of Manchester citizens. Humphrey Chetham also left books to be chained to desks in various Lancashire churches. In 1635 at Boston, and in 1645 at Wotton Wawen (Warwickshire), the churches were furnished with libraries. Archbishop Tenison's library at St. Martin-in-the- Fields, London, was established in 1684. Other libraries were formed in the seventeenth century at Wisbeach by ten "capital burgesses," and at Tong, in Shropshire, by Gervaise, Lord Pierpoint, the latter, and possibly the former, being for the exclusive use of the clergy. Numerous grammarschool libraries, now for the most part shamefully dilapidated, were also founded late in the sixteenth and early in the seventeenth centuries.

The eighteenth century saw the rise and development of a considerable movement for supplying ministers of the gospel with libraries in connection with their churches. In Scotland the Rev. James Kirkwood issued anonymously, in 1699, "An Overture for Founding and Maintaining of Bibliothecks in every Paroch throughout the Kingdom," and three years later, " A Copy of a Letter anent a Project for Erecting a Library in every Presbytery or at least County in the Highlands." These tracts were not without result. The General Assembly of 1704 approved the project, and adopted rules "about the ordering and preserving the libraries in the Highlands and Islands."

In England, Dr. Bray, founder of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, while collecting funds for sending missionaries to America, was met with the objection that the poor clergy at home had more need of libraries than the Americans of missionaries. This led him to collect funds for and establish libraries in various parts of the country while prosecuting his mission work. From 1704 to his death, Dr. Bray established sixty-one so-called parochial libraries, and this work was continued after his death by the "associates of Dr. Bray," who added, up to 1807, seventy-eight parochial and thirty-five lending libraries. Other persons established similar

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY libraries, probably stimulated by Dr. Bray's activity. Dr. Bray induced Chancellor North to obtain the passing of an Act (7 Anne, c. 14) in 1709, entitled "An Act for the Better Preservation of Parochial Libraries in that part of Great Britain called England." In spite of the provisions of this Act, the greater part of these libraries are now neglected or entirely dispersed.

The leading event in the library history of the last century was the foundation of the British Museum in 1753. Into the great national students' free library the collections of the British monarchs from Henry VII. to George III. were ultimately absorbed, so that this great treasury of literature now contains the books from some of the earliest nonecclesiastical libraries established in this country. Popular free libraries in the days of their beginnings were also largelyinfluenced by British Museum methods and helped by officials from the national library. Indeed, the Parliamentary reports of 1835—36 and 1849 on the management of the British Museum had more than an indirect bearing on the work of the Commission on Free Libraries which sat from 1849 t° I^5I- Statistics of foreign libraries, prepared by Mr. Panizzi, were given for the first time in the report of 1835-36.

Subscription libraries began to be formed in the more populous places, as early as 1725 in Edinburgh, and 1740 in London. Under the names of Lyceum and Athenaeum many of these still exist in various towns, one of the oldest extant being the Liverpool (Lyceum) Library, founded in 1758.

Eight years later it is stated in " Proposals for a Publick Library at Aberdeen/' " Public libraries have been established by subscription in most considerable towns where there is a desire of knowledge and improvement." These libraries were for the use of the local gentry, professional men, and the more prosperous tradesmen, but subsequently they formed models for the Mechanics' Institutions, which brought the advantages of public libraries to the smaller tradesmen and the skilled artisans.

A free library for general use was founded in 1778 at Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland, by Nathaniel, Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham, for the use of all respectable housekeepers within twenty miles of the Castle. Many and valuable accessions were afterwards made to this library, including a large part of the library of John Sharpe, Archbishop of York, which accrued in 1792.

A successful experiment in providing libraries for the people was made in 1817 by Mr. Samuel Brown of East Lothian. His project was described by the Rev. William Brown in a pamphlet which, translated into French and German, circulated even as far as St. Petersburg.

The Rev. J. Crombie Brown has since described the system in his evidence before the Select Committee on Public Libraries, 1849. The plan provided that boxes, each containing fifty volumes, should circulate from village to village ; each box was to remain for two years, and at the end of this time it was to be exchanged for another. The

THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY success of the scheme was great, but depended much on the ability and enthusiasm of the local unpaid librarians who undertook the charge of the boxes. In 1849 the system was still in proper working order in East Lothian. The plan had been copied in Peeblesshire by the Free Church of Scotland, and in the Highlands and Islands by the General Assembly. Into Russia and into the United States also the same method was introduced. At first these libraries were quite free, but financial necessities soon compelled subscriptions. A similar plan is in excellent working order to-day in connection with the Yorkshire Union of Mechanics' Institutes, and with the Lancashire and Cheshire Union of Institutes. The first Mechanics' Institute at Haddington and at Dunbar, it is said, grew out of the interest in these circulating libraries.

One of the earliest Mechanics' Institutes was formed by George Birkbeck in London in the year 1824. At first these institutes were establishments for instructing mechanics in the principles underlying their trades, for technical instruction, in fact ; but the original purpose was soon forgotten or overlaid in their expansion into social institutions, including in nearly every case a collection of books. In the twenties, thirties, and forties, Mechanics' Institutes rapidly increased in number, and a return of 1849 shows that there were four hundred in the United Kingdom, possessing from 300,000 to 400,000 volumes, with an annual circulation of more than a million.

But with all this movement for popularising books the popular free library had not yet arrived, though the highroad had been constructed, and the heralds of the new institution were already on the way. Mr. William Ewart, M.P., in 1835, nad served on the Select Committee on the Condition, Management, and Affairs of the British Museum ; and on the School Committee appointed at his instigation ; out of the recommendations of which the Government School of Art, now the Science and Art Department, originated in 1836. " Schools of Design " were extended by this department to the provinces in 1841. In 1844, by the efforts of the secretary (Mr. George Jackson) and the treasurer (Mr. George Wallis) of the Manchester School of Design, a public meeting was held in Manchester to discuss the means of improving popular taste. Richard Cobden presided, and Joseph Brotherton, M.P. for Salford, was present. The proposals then considered were subsequently laid by Mr. Brotherton before Mr. William Ewart, M.P., and led to the introduction of the Act of 1845 "for encouraging the establishment of museums in large towns." This Act allowed any town council of a town with 10,000 inhabitants to erect museums of science and art, but not to buy specimens or books. A rate of a halfpenny in the pound might be levied to defray the cost of land and buildings, and entrance-fees of one penny charged and used for paying salaries and establishment expenses. The bill was introduced on 6th March, and passing through both Houses without a division, received the royal assent on 21st July. The Corporations of Canterbury,

WILLIAM EWART AND EDWARD EDWARDS II

Dover, Leicester, Liverpool, Salford, Sunderland, and Warrington established museums under the powers conferred by this Act ; and at Canterbury, Warrington, and Salford, books were added to the attractions of the museum — in other words, libraries were formed. At Canterbury a penny per volume was charged for each book issued ; but Warrington in 1848 established a library of reference free to the public on certain days and within certain hours, and a lending library, which could be used only by subscribing members. Salford in 1849 followed in the wrake of Warrington. The Warrington Museum, therefore, is the earliest example of a municipally-controlled and rate-supported free popular library in the United Kingdom.

Ever to be associated with the name of Mr. William Ewart as a founder of the free library system of this country is that of Edward Edwards (1812-86). He it was who first collected the facts relating to foreign free libraries which so much assisted the Parliamentary Commission on Public Libraries in coming to a conclusion. His statistics were first published in the Transactions of the Statistical Society of London in 1848, and followed upon an article of his which had appeared a year earlier in the British Quarterly Review, entitled " Public Libraries in London and Paris." Edwards's statistics were brought to the notice of Mr. Ewart, and he obtained in 1849 the appointment of a Select Committee of the House of Commons on the subject of Public Libraries. The work of this committee led to the enactment of the first Public Libraries Act, generally known as Ewart's Act of 1850. The Select Committee examined the librarians of a large number of libraries, British and foreign, large and small, ancient and modern ; but by far the most important witness was Edward Edwards. He established conclusively the almost total absence in England of libraries of general interest, accessible of right, and gratuitously, to the people, and the comparative scarcity of easily accessible students' libraries. Possibly he exaggerated the readiness of access in Continental libraries ; and certain it is that a vigorous attack was made upon the accuracy of his statistics ; yet he vindicated in the report of 1850 their general correctness, and, in fact, proved that perfect accuracy was at that time impossible to be obtained. Further, the information he contributed relative to the history of the formation and management of endowed and subsidised libraries was of the greatest use to the committee by way both of suggestion and of warning. Mr. George Dawson and Mr. Samuel Smiles, with other witnesses, proved the growing intelligence of the working population, and related many instances of the successful efforts of artisans to form libraries for their common use.

The report, which is dated 23rd July 1849, extends to fourteen folio pages, and comments on the success of previous efforts of Parliament to increase the usefulness of galleries of art, museums, and schools of design, and the complaints of authors as to the scarcity of public libraries ; gives the number (some 250 in all) of public libraries

THE COMMISSION OF 1849 I3

easily accessible "to the poor as well as to the rich, to the foreigner as well as to the native," in each of the larger countries of the Continent, and proceeds, "yet it is stated that we have only one free library in Great Britain equally accessible with these numerous libraries abroad, the library founded by Humphrey Chetham in the borough of Manchester." Next the fact is stated that the United States " have already anticipated us in the formation of public libraries," and have already more than one hundred, the greater part entirely open to the public. London is compared to its disadvantage with the other capitals and principal cities of Europe. Further, " it would seem," say the committee, " that our ancestors paid much more attention to the formation of such institutions than ourselves. Almost every library in London and in the country, approaching to the character of a free library, is an old library." One by one the libraries that are entitled to copyright privileges, or that have commuted the privilege for an annual payment, are reviewed, also the cathedral and the parochial libraries, and some others. The efforts of the working-classes to form libraries for themselves, and the rise of farmers' and of rural libraries in Scotland, are set forth ; while the paucity of libraries and of booksellers' shops in Ireland is dwelt upon. The growing demand for public " lectures " and the improving taste of readers is given as a reason for not abandoning the people to "low, enfeebling, and often pestilential literature, instead of enabling them to breathe a more pure, elevated, and congenial atmosphere."

The general want, they say, is, above all, buildings to receive books and objects "secured in some fixed and lasting society or corporation." The materials to fill the buildings they believe will be provided by voluntary effort ; the buildings should be provided by a local rate. " It is evident that there should be in all countries libraries of two sorts : libraries of deposit and of research, and libraries devoted to the general reading and circulation of books." Fruitful suggestions for improving the older libraries are made. " Every witness examined on the subject has given an opinion favourable to the grant of assistance for the formation of public libraries, on certain strict and clear conditions, by the Government." Then follow recommendations which were embodied in Ewart's Act of 1850, and suggestions as to village libraries and workpeople's libraries. On the question of lending libraries they say, " Many men, in order to derive the fullest advantage from books, must have them not only in their hands, but in their homes. A great public library ought above all things to teach the teachers ; to supply with the best implements of education those who educate the people, whether in the pulpit, the school, or the press. The lending out of books, therefore, which is a general characteristic of foreign libraries, should be an essential element in the formation of our own. Nor to such classes as those we have just described and to the labouring classes is the opening of libraries during the evening a point of less importance." The necessity of precautions against

THE COMMISSION OF 1849 15

fire is insisted on, and fire-proof buildings and iron shelves and furniture recommended. Printed catalogues are held to be a necessity for effective use. The committee regret that more has not been done to facilitate the international exchange of books, and discuss the effect of our fiscal regulations on the circulation of books in Europe and America. The report concludes with the following passage : —

"Your committee feel convinced that the people of a country like our own — abounding in capital, in energy, and in an honest desire not only to initiate, but to imitate, whatsoever is good and useful — will not long linger behind the people of other countries in the acquisition of such valuable institutions as freely accessible public libraries. Our present inferior position is unworthy of the power, the liberality, and the literature of our country. Your committee believe that on such a subject as this, inquiry alone will stimulate improvement. Even while they are concluding their report, they observe with pleasure that, in addition to the library formed at Warrington, the creation of a large public library has been planned and accomplished in the public -spirited borough of Salford. It will be a source of sincere satisfaction to your committee if the result of their labours shall be still further to call out, to foster, and to encourage among their countrymen, that love of literature, and reverence for knowledge, of which during the course of their inquiries they have had the gratification to trace the spontaneous development."