CHAPTER II.

THE PROPRIETARY AND SUBSCRIPTION. LIBRA-
RIES OF THE UNITED STATES.

A man becomes interested in labour, just. in propor-
tion as the mind works with the hands. ... It is the
man who determines the dignity of the occupation, not the
occupation which measures the dignity of the man....
Let me add, that I see little difference, in point of dignity,
between the various vocations of men. When I see a
clerk spending his days in adding figures, or a teller
of a bank counting money, or a merchant selling hides,
I cannot see in these occupations greater respectable-
ness than in making leather, shoes or furniture. I do
not see in them greater intellectual activity than in se-
veral trades. ..... The labourer, under his dust and
sweat, carries the grand elements of humanity, and he
may put forth its highest powers.-

CHANNING, Self-Culture, c. iii.

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Chapter II.

Libraries of the

THE first establishment of Proprietary Libraries in the Subscription United States connects itself with the illustrious name United States. of Franklin; and to narrate their rise in other words than his own would be impertinent. "At the time," he says, "when I established myself in Pennsylvania, there was not a good bookseller's shop in any of the Colonies to Philadelphia. Southward of Boston Those who loved reading

[1.] Library Company of

.....

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Chapter II. Subscription Libraries of the

were obliged to send for their books from England; the members-THEN CHIEFLY ARTIFICERS,' of 'the Junto' [a sort of half convivial, half literary club, mainly of United States. Franklin's foundation] had each a few. We had left the ale-house where we first met, and had hired a room to hold our club in. I proposed that we should all of us bring our books to that room, ..... and for some time this contented us.... But soon [in 1731] I set on foot my first project of a public nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up the proposals ... and, by the help of my friends, in 'the Junto,' procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin with, and ten shillings a-year for fifty years, the term our company was to continue. We afterwards [in 1742] obtained a charter, the company being increased to one hundred. This was the mother of all the North American Subscription Libraries, now so numerous. It is become a great thing itself, and continually goes on increasing." "These libraries," adds Franklin, "have improved the general conversation of the Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen in other countries, and perhaps have contributed, in some degree, to the stand so generally made throughout the Colonies in defence of their privileges.'

1

It is worth while to remark that, when Franklin took this step, no town in England possessed a Subscription Library. Liverpool appears to have been amongst the earliest towns which took action in this direction, and there no such library was formed until 1756.2

1 Autobiography (Sparks' Edition), p. 97.

2 Brooke, Liverpool as it was in the last century, p. 89.

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Chapter II. Subscription Libraries of the

Bristol did not possess one until 1772.1 Nor is it less to the honour of Franklin, and of Philadelphia, that one United States. of the first regulations which was made for the management of the Library, directed that it should be publicly and gratuitously accessible as a Library of reference. The instructions to the first Librarian, Louis Timothee, expressly empower him to permit "any civil gentleman to peruse the books of the Library in the library-room." The first donor to the infant Library was Peter Collinson, "Mercer, in Gracious Street, London," and the second, William Rawle, of Philadelphia (who gave Spencers works in six volumes). Franklin himself succeeded Timothee as Librarian for three months. In 1738, a piece of ground was granted to the society by John Penn; and, within little more than thirty years of the establishment of the Library, it was stated in a report that "many other libraries, after our example and on our plan, have been erected in this and the neighbouring provinces, whereby useful knowledge has been more generally diffused in these remote corners of the earth.”1

In August, 1774, an order was made that the Librarian should "furnish the gentlemen who are to meet in Congress, in this city, with such books as they may have occasion for during their sitting, taking a receipt for them." A similar privilege was afterwards accorded to the legislature of Pennsylvania. In 1777, the Library was, for a time, converted into a military hospital. During the nine months of the British occupation of Philadelphia, the Library sustained no injury, except

Tovey, The Bristol City Library, p. 22.

2 Address presented to John Penn, 1763, quoted by Jewett, ut supra, p. 116.

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Chapter II. Subscription Libraries of the

(as during the whole period of the war) from the nonimportation of books. The funds which had accumulated in the interval were expended, on the conclusion United States. of peace, in a large accession of English and foreign literature. In instructing their agent as to the purchases they wished to make, the Committee write thus:-"We shall confide entirely in your judgment to procure us such books of modern publication as would be proper for a public library, and though we would wish to mix the utile with the dulce, we should not think it expedient to add to our present stock anything in the novel way."

In 1789, a new building was erected for the reception of the books, and an inscription was placed on the corner-stone, which is worth quotation:—

Be it remembered

in honour of the Philadelphia youth
(then chiefly artificers),

that in 1731, they cheerfully,
(at the instance of Benjamin Franklin,
one of their number),

instituted the PHILADELPHIA LIBRARY,
which, though small at first,

is become highly valuable and extensively useful,
and which the walls of this edifice

are now destined to contain and preserve;
the first stone of whose foundation

was here placed the 31st Aug., 1789.

The collection founded by Franklin had scarcely been arranged in its new habitation when the addition to it of the library of James Logan (the friend of William Penn, and the first President of the Pennsylvania Council) made an enlargement of the building necessary. This "collection of rare and valuable books,

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Chapter II.

Libraries of the
United States.

...

...

principally in the learned languages, and in the existSubscription ing languages of the continent of Europe, which, having formed it at considerable expense, he was anxious should descend to posterity, Mr. Logan had endowed and vested in Trustees, for the use of the public for ever." The Library thus bequeathed was enlarged by the brother and son of the founder. At the time of annexation it contained about 4,000 volumes. Large additions have since been made by purchase (as well from the sale of the original building and site, as from the founder's endowment), and also by donation. In 1828, Mr. William Mackenzie, an eminent collector, bequeathed "all his books printed before the beginning of the eighteenth century, and eight hundred volumes more to be chosen by the Trustees, from his French and Latin books of later date." This valuable bequest amounted to 1,519 volumes "of great rarity and value," and 3,566 volumes were subsequently purchased from the Executors. 500 selected volumes were also left by Mr. Mackenzie to the Philadelphia Library, and its Directors made a purchase of 1,466 additional volumes." The present contents of the Loganian collection exceed 10,000 volumes, and they are thoroughly accessible to the public at large.

The progress of the Philadelphia Library during the present century has been still more considerable. By the bequest of a native of Ireland, Mr. Henry Cox, it received a large number of MSS. relating to Irish his

Catalogue of the Loganian Library, quoted by Jewett, ut supra, p. 121. 2 Catalogue of Books belonging to the Library Company of Philadelhia (1835), Preface, x. seqq.