Free Libraries—In Towns—In Rural Districts—Influences of the best Books.  
It is difficult to point out a direct practical remedy for much that is injurious in our cheapest popular literature; and especially any remedy that could be supplied by the State. We cannot cure folly by enactments, however we may try to repress crime. "These things will be, and must be; but how they shall be least hurtful, how least enticing, herein consists the grave and governing wisdom of a State. To sequester out of the world into Atlantic and Utopian policies, which never can be drawn into use, will not mend our condition, but to ordain wisely as in this world of evil, in the midst whereof God hath placed us unavoidably."
This noble sentence, from Milton's 'Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing,' suggests some remarks which, however painful to utter, no one who thinks honestly upon the subject of popular enlightenment can disguise. There is no "grave and governing wisdom" in the English State—there is no desire "to ordain wisely"—in any matter connected with the educational advancement of the people. The greatest discouragement in the first stage,—the most niggardly support in the second,—have been given to the education of the {304} young. With the exception of Schools of Design, which, however useful, have a very limited object, the education of the adult has been retarded by every possible legislative effort, direct or indirect. In 1849 a select Committee of the House of Commons, to inquire into "the best means of extending the establishment of libraries, freely open to the public, especially in large towns, in Great Britain and Ireland," came to the unanimous resolution that "our present inferior position is unworthy of the power, the liberality, and the literature of the country." An Act had been passed in 1845, by which Town Councils, in Municipal Boroughs having 10,000 inhabitants and upwards, in England and Wales, were empowered to establish Museums at their own discretion. In 1850, seconding the Report of the Committee of 1849, a Bill was brought in "for enabling Town Councils to establish Public Libraries and Museums," in towns of the like large population. The proposal was damaged by the device of requiring that a poll of the burgesses should first have been duly taken on the question, and that a rate of one halfpenny in the pound should be the maximum to be levied by a majority of votes. The consequence was obvious. Those of the rate-payers who had the low shopkeeping jealousy of extending knowledge to those they presumed to call beneath them, rejected the proposition for establishing Free Libraries at Birmingham and at Exeter. In the mean time the difficulties have been surmounted in four great Lancashire {305} towns, Manchester, Liverpool, Salford, Bolton, where 50,000l. have been raised, chiefly by voluntary subscription, for Free Libraries and Museums; and 60,000 volumes have been purchased for the open and unrestricted use, in the libraries and at home, of every member of the community, from the highest to the humblest. The experiment has been completely successful. One of the most satisfactory results has been that, amidst the hardest worked population in the world—those who come from their factories with the honourable stain of labour on their hands and brows—the most exemplary care has been taken of the books borrowed. If Free Libraries are good for the greatest marts of industry, are they not good for the smaller? Mr. Ewart, the unwearied mover in this object, brings in a Bill in the Session of 1854, to extend the Act of 1850 to towns of less population and to the metropolitan boroughs; and, further, to remedy a great defect in the former Bill, that the money raised by the halfpenny rate might be applied to purchase books as well as to provide buildings. On the 5th of April the House of Commons throws out this Bill, under the most frivolous pretexts; the real object being to truckle to the prejudices of those who in all times have systematically opposed the progress of knowledge, when there is a chance of extending it to the people universally.
"Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee."
It is in connexion with all we have said in the {306} preceding pages, about the character and tendency of cheap popular literature, that we have looked forward with hope to the general establishment of Free Libraries in town and country. Mechanics' Institutes, and Literary and Scientific Institutions, valuable as they have been, do not embrace the class for which they were originally intended. According to returns prepared by Dr. Hudson, Secretary of the Manchester Athen?um, in 1851, there were 720 such institutions, with 120,000 members, and they possessed 815,000 volumes of books. But the same zealous person honestly tells us that the majority of Literary Institutions comprise professional men, the higher shopkeepers, and the managers of large firms; that the clerk and the shopman will not go where they have a chance of being looked coldly on by their employers or superiors in service, and resort to Mechanics' Institutes, where their presence effectually drives out the fustian jackets. To remedy this was one of the especial objects of Free Libraries, where books should be liberally provided for all, whether for reference or home reading. A large majority of the borrowers of books from the Manchester Free Library belong to the operative class. Is it not of some importance that the warehousemen, packers, artisans, machinists, mill-hands male and female, assistants in shops male and female, dressmakers,—should have access to the standard works of English literature, and the current books of the modern press? Is there no great beneficial effect {307} to be produced by the 77,232 volumes that in the first year were issued from the same Manchester Free Library, comprising—in theology, 1130; philosophy, 845; history, 22,837; law, politics, and commerce, 839; sciences and arts, 4319; and general literature, including poetry, fiction, essays, and periodicals, 47,262? Is it of no importance that, in the same period, 61,080 volumes have been used in the reference department? How long are those who are apt to think that
"The wealthiest man among us is the best,"
 
to influence the better thoughts, and control the higher impulses, of those who have no vain fears that knowledge, however widely extended, may produce evil to society? The object of the general diffusion of knowledge is not to render men discontented with their lot—to make the peasant yearn to become an artisan, or the artisan dream of the honours and riches of a profession—but to give the means of content to those who, for the most part, must necessarily remain in that station which requires great self-denial and great endurance; but which is capable of becoming not only a condition of comfort, but of enjoyment, through the exercise of these very virtues, in connexion with a desire for that improvement of the understanding which, to a large extent, is independent of rank and riches. It is a most fortunate circumstance, and one which seems especially ordained by Him who wills the happiness of his creatures, {308} that the highest, and the purest, and the most lasting sources of enjoyment are the most accessible to all. The great distinction that has hitherto prevailed in the world is this,—that those who have the command of riches and of leisure have alone been able, in any considerable degree, to cultivate the tastes that open these common sources of enjoyment. The first desire of every man is, no doubt, to secure a sufficiency for the supply of the physical necessities of our nature; but in the equal dispensations of Providence it is not any especial portion of the condition even of the humblest among us who labours with his hands to earn his daily bread, that his mind should be shut out from the gratifications which belong to the exercise of our observing and reflecting faculties. View the agricultural labourer as we have been too long accustomed to see him—a rude untutored hind. His most ordinary occupations place him amongst scenes highly favourable to the cultivation of some of the purest and most peaceful thoughts. The general introduction of agricultural machinery and agricultural chemistry has an inevitable tendency to demand a race of skilled labourers, instead of unintellectual serfs. But how do we deal with the labourer and his family? We educate the boys and girls up to a certain point; we give them the rudiments of knowledge; we are now asked to go further, and to teach them "common things," by which we understand, chiefly, the practical applications of science. But, once off the school-form, the rural {309} boy is to find his evening amusement in the beershop, and............