38.— THE PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEMS OF (iREAT 

 BRITAIN. AMERICA, AND SOUTH AFRICA. 



By Bkktram L. Dvkk, Libk.\ki.\n ok Kimbkklky, .and fokmkkly 

 OF THK Kensington and Toynbf.k Libraries. 



" What a .sad warn 1 am in of libraries, of books to gather facts 

 from. Why is there not a Majesty's Librar}" in every county town? 

 There is a Majesty's gaol and a gallows in every one! " 



When we realise that these words were those of Thomas 

 Carlyle only some seventv years since, we are vividly reminded how 

 yoimg and how recent a thing is the Public Librar) as known in 

 Great Britain, in America, and in South Africa. 



Yet who. in these early days of the Twentieth Cenlur\ . would 

 venture to suggest that Public Libraries do not come within the 

 categorv of things which it is ab.solutely necessary that a wi.se 

 Government should cause to be provided by the collective action 

 of the community it rules over. 



It has been claimed that the modern Public Library movement 

 was started in America — rthat England caught the infection, and 

 that thence it extended over the world. 



But the claim is ver}' largely a fallacious one. and however 

 much may have been done by America to extend and develop the 

 work of libraries, there is no gainsaying the fact that there exist at 

 this moment on the Continent of Europe Public Libraries, main- 

 tained by pul)lic funds and by private benefactions, which have been 

 in existence for centuries; while with (me exception in London, one 

 in Manchester, and possibly two in America, there exist no modem 

 English Public Libraries that can claim an antiquity- of more than 

 one hundred years. 



America claims that when New Hampshire placed on its 

 Statute Book in 1849 "^ provision for the upkeep of its Public 

 Libraries by a tax, that this wa.s the first occasion of the provision 

 of a Public Library from public funds, other than the establishment 

 of Royal Libraries. But so far back as t8i8 Cape Colony had 

 established a Public Librar}'. whose funds were derived from a tax 

 uixin its then principal product. In the words of the Proclamation, 

 the design of the Government of the Cape was " to lay the foundation 

 of a sy.stem which shall place the means f)f knowledge within the 

 reach of the youth of this remote corner of the globe, and bring 

 within their reach what the most ekxjuent of ancient writers has con- 

 sidered to be one of the first blessings of life — Home Education." 



This public-spirited ordinance, made as it was in the first quarter 

 of the Nineteenth Century, is the first instance of a public provision 

 for libraries in any English-speaking dominion, and entitles Cape 

 Colony to rank as the pioneer of State-supported Public Libraries, 



