etc. was cancelled. The functions theretofore assigned to those Sub-Committees were vested in the 'Standing Committee.' The latter was called into active instead of nominal existence. In place of being an open Committee, it was made to consist of a determinate. uumber of Trustees, annually appointed. The principal Statutes relating to the Trust, as they were thus revised on the 1st of June, 1850, are as follows: "OF THE MEETINGS, FUNCTIONS, AND PRIVILEGES OF THE TRUSTEES. 1. There shall be four General Meetings [consisting by Act of Parliament of not less than seven Trustees] . . at the Museum in every year, namely, upon the second Saturday in February, May, July, and December. BOOK IV. Chapter II. Boards of Management, &c. British Museum Statutes. General Meetings. 2. Special general meetings may be summoned by the Secretary, upon receiving notice to that effect from any two of the Trustees. 3. There shall be a Standing Committee consisting of the three Standing Comprincipal Trustees and of 15 Trustees to be annually appointed, for this year on the present 1st of June, and in subsequent years at the General Meeting held on the second Saturday in May. 4. Vacancies in the said Committee shall be filled up from time to time by the General Board. 5. The said Committee shall conduct, subject to the authority of the General Meeting, all the ordinary business of the Museum, and shall report its orders and proceedings to the next General Meeting. 5. No business shall be transacted by the said Committee, unless three members of the said Committee be present. 7. The said Committee shall have power to affix the seal of the Corporation to any application to Parliament for money, and also to the memorial to the Lords Commissioners of her Majesty's Treasury, requesting payment of the same. 8. They are also to inquire, as often as they shall think fit, into the conduct of all the officers and servants; to receive any scheme or proposal for the better ordering or managing the Museum, or any part of it, as also any complaint of neglect, or of disobedience to the orders of the General Meeting or Committee; and to give such directions therein as shall seem expedient. 9. They are also to give to the officers such leave of absence as they shall think proper; provided that such absence do not extend beyond the space of six weeks in the year, to be taken be mittee. BOOK IV. Chapter II. Management, &c. Visitations. Attendance. tween the 1st of July and the 31st of October inclusive; unless for special reasons the Committee should think it necessary to permit a longer absence; provided also, that the Keeper and Assistant keeper of a department shall not be absent at the same time; and that two at least of the five Keepers having apartments shall at all times be resident in the Museum. The Assistant Keepers are required to have their usual abode within one mile of the Museum, and strictly to reside there during the absence of their respective colleagues. 10. The Committee are also to examine the bills of tradesmen, and all other demands upon the Museum; and if they approve the same, to order payment thereof. 11. All monies, belonging to or at the disposal of the Trustees, shall be kept at the Bank of England; and all drafts, for payments out of the same, shall be signed by three of the Trustees. 12. The said Committee shall have power if they deem it expedient to appoint sub-committees, either standing or special, on any matter appertaining to the affairs of the Museum. Such subcommittees to consist of at least three members of their own body, and two, at least, to form a quorum. 13. At the Meetings of the Standing Committee, of the sub-committees that may be formed, or of the General Board, whosoever among the Trustees may be first called to the chair shall occupy it until the close of the meeting or so long as he remains at it, unless any special cause to the contrary shall appear. 14. There shall be a general visitation of the Museum by the Trustees on the day of the General Meeting, appointed to be holden on the second Saturday of May in each year; the visitation to commence immediately after the conclusion of the business of the General Meeting; but in case there shall not be a sufficient attendance of Trustees to constitute a General Meeting, the said visitation shall nevertheless be made by such Trustees as shall be then present. 15. Besides the said annual visitation, the Trustees, in a General Meeting or Committee, may appoint visitations either of the whole, or any part of the collections, as often and on such days as they shall think fit. 16. Any Trustee elected subsequently to May 13, 1837, who shall not give personal attendance at any of the meetings of the Trustees for a period exceeding 12 months, is expected to resign his Trusteeship, or to assign such reasons for his absence as may be satisfactory to a General Meeting of the Trustees. 17. Every Trustee shall have free access to any part of the Museum, and may take with him any number of persons he shall please to introduce; but only during such hours as the Museum shall be open to view. All Englishmen will agree with me in thinking it memorable that the revision of these Statutes was the last public act of an illustrious Statesman who had long taken an earnest interest in the prosperity of the British Museum. A corrected copy of them was in the pocket of Sir Robert Peel, when he met with the accident which caused his death. BOOK IV. Chapter II. Boards of Manegement, &c. as Managers and Trustees of Public Libraries. When the Public Libraries Act was first introduced Town Councils into Parliament, one of the objections which its Promoters had repeatedly to encounter was the alleged unfitness of average Town Councils for the superintendence of Literary Institutions. Acts of crass ignorance and of astounding narrow-mindedness were instanced, and the question asked, 'Is it to such bodies as these that you would intrust the management of Libraries?' Experience has shewn that there was some force in the objection; but it has also and more strikingly shewn that far too much was made of it. If one Town Council has, in a moment of aberration, placed on its minute Book a Resolution which its future proceedings, it may be hoped, will virtually obliterate, several others have zealously, liberally, and efficiently carried out the provisions of the Act; not, indeed, without opposition and difficulty, yet in a way which may fairly be regarded as heralding wider views to come. The objection, too, overlooked the intimate relation which subsists between Constituencies and Representatives. No man who is a believer in the power of books and of the Schoolmaster can think that a majority of the population of a great town will permanently dis BOOK IV. Chapter II. Boards of Management, &c. Provisions of the Government Inspection. regard a modicum of elementary education, and at least a bare average of mental capacity, as desirable requisites in all its Town Councillors. These requisites secured—at all events, in a better proportion than heretofore, the ultimate certainty of wiser management is also secured. Meanwhile, the Libraries Act contains a clause which may readily be made to turn away some present mischiefs, and to lay a foundation for far-spreading improvement hereafter. It empowers the Council of any Town which adopts the Act to compose its Library Committee, either wholly or in part, of citizens who are not members of the Corporation. It empowers, but does not direct. Such a step, therefore, is within the pleasure of the Council itself. But it may be largely influenced from without. It may, in many cases, be matter of reasonable stipulation between the first Promoters of a Library and those who are to become its official Guardians. Yet another precaution, against any flagrant misuse of the powers thus entrusted, has still to be developed in this country. I mean Systematic Inspection. Elsewhere, it has long been in active operation. And here the systematic inspection of Schools, independently of their local managers, has already given a marvellous impulse to their improvement. Immediately, this School-inspection has been grafted upon pecuniary aid from public funds. In the case of Town Libraries no such basis exists. But we have not far to seek for a precedent, strictly to the point. The funds of Town Libraries are raised by a Parliamentary power. Parliament may as reasonably, and as usefully, institute an inspection of the application of Library Rates as of the application of Poor Rates. The publicity of the Inspectors' Reports; the comparison of methods and of results, in different towns; the diffusion of good arrangements, and the exposure of bad; would be a strong leverage on the side of growth and progress. Such Inspection will one day surely come. In the case of those Libraries which are supported, or partially supported, by Copy-Tax, yet continue to be private institutions, the necessity of Inspection already cries aloud. Other things are tending in the same direction. The admirable steps, for example, recently taken by the Master of the Rolls, for the publication of a worthy series of the materials of British History, place in the hands of Government an easy means of assisting in the formation of Libraries truly public, and of claiming to be kept well informed of their real condition and results. BOOK IV. Chapter II. Boards of Management, &c. Vol. II. 60 |