[13] Macray, Annals, p. 198.
Down to the year 1856 the Bodleian Curators were eight in number, namely, the Vice-Chancellor, the two Proctors, and the Regius Professors of Divinity, Hebrew, Greek, Medicine, and Civil Law. Eight is rather a large number, and the larger any board is the weaker becomes the sense of personal responsibility. No man feels that he is answerable for anything, because he is sunk and extinguished in a majority or a minority; and yet, without a keen sense of personal responsibility, all business is laxly and badly done, even when it is done at all. The artificial privacy of our proceedings is also an evil. In theory all our meetings are public, so far at least as Convocation is concerned; in fact, they are private; yet, if the University always knew not only what is done, but who it is that does it; if our acts were duly published, as they ought to be, in the University Gazette, probably both board and University would be the better for it, and it is certain that the affairs of the Library would be none the worse.
If Bodley argued that men who teach a subject are necessarily acquainted with its literature, and are consequently the fittest guardians and directors of a library, he argued very badly, and in ignorance of facts. Ability to teach a subject is one thing; knowledge of the literature of that subject—such knowledge as is required in the superintendents of a library—is a totally different thing. The two may be indeed united, but very rarely are so. A man, for instance, may be a finished Latin scholar without ever having heard of Coster's Donatus, and without being able to offer an opinion on that or on any of the other editions in which Dutch libraries glory. Probably not one man in fifty who reads the sentence which I have just written will have the very remotest idea of its true meaning; and if he has not, it will not follow that he is a dunce, or that he is a poor Latinist; all that follows is that he has much to learn before he is fit to take any part in the management of a large library. What is wanted, what in fact is necessary, is that sort of knowledge which the Italian government proposes to give to all employed in the libraries under its control. In Rome and in Florence a course of bibliographical instruction and examination has lately been instituted. The syllabus of the course, which is a very good one, lies before me, and in it the subject is divided into six parts: 1. Paleografia, 2. Bibliologia, 3. Bibliografia, 4. Biblioteconomia, 5. Amministrazione, 6. Lingue. The knowledge required is neither recondite nor profound, yet I shudder to think what the result would be were we Curators to submit ourselves to the tender mercies of this Italian board. To speak for myself, I should have faced such an examination without the least trepidation some twenty years ago; but now, though I have been trying to brush up faded knowledge, I would not stake a single sixpence on a favorable issue; and to judge from all I have seen and heard during the last two years, I suspect that, though a few might perhaps scramble through, the great majority of us would emerge from the ordeal more completely plucked than was the unhappy bird, which Diogenes introduced to the astonished disciples with the words 'Here is Plato's man!'
In 1856 the University, probably suspecting that the board as originally constituted was not the best that could be devised, yet timidly shrinking from a radical and salutary reform, endeavoured to improve matters by a measure which, if it remedied one defect, unquestionably increased another. It made a board already too large, still larger by the addition of five members elected by Congregation. In the course of thirty years fourteen different men have been so elected. That all were properly qualified to discharge the duties of their office no one will assert who knows what those qualifications are. Why they were chosen the University best knows. If Congregation would but remember what a unique and priceless treasure it possesses in this noble library, if it only knew how easy it is for rashness and ignorance to damage and to ruin it, how difficult it is even for knowledge to preserve it, ability and willingness to serve it would be the indispensable and the only qualifications demanded, and neither age nor rank, dignity, nor above all party, would be for one moment taken into account. It may be remarked that all the thirteen Curators very rarely attend a meeting: in the course of the last two years such a thing has happened once only; but a board, the members of which attend intermittently, is apt to show signs of discontinuity in its proceedings; and a firm, consistent policy is as necessary in the management of a library as it is in any other affair of life. What is wanted in Curators is common sense, business capacity, and a special knowledge of books. No one would dream of appointing any man an inspector of locomotives on a railway, unless he were thoroughly acquainted with the structure and working of a locomotive, and capable, at a push, of driving it himself: a large library is as complex as a locomotive, and quite as difficult to manage effectively. Experts, who are not so numerous as might be supposed, will back me in this assertion; but Convocation must not be astonished if it is hotly and contemptuously denied.
The minutes of the Curators' Meetings begin on March 20, 1793, and, with a break of some four years when there are none (from Nov. 26, 1849, to May 27, 1854), they continue to the present time.
On Dec. 7, 1803, four printed books were allowed to go out of the Library 'for the use of the Clarendon Press, to be returned when done with,' contrary to statute so far as appears; and there was a somewhat similar transaction on June 2, 1815.
On Nov. 27, 1841, the sum of £500 was paid for the Sanscrit MSS. of Prof. H. H. Wilson, who 'stipulated that the Boden Professor of Sanscrit for the time being should be allowed the privilege of borrowing MSS. (not more than two volumes at one time), giving for them a receipt, and engagement for their safe return.'
In 1850 came the Government Commission. The Commissioners have a good deal to say about the Bodleian, which will be found in their Report made in 1852, p. 115 sqq. I do not quote their remarks for a reason which appears to me valid. There were seven Commissioners all told, and although they were very eminent persons, there was not one amongst them, so far as I can discover, who had any special knowledge of libraries, or of the best way of managing them. Moreover, I myself heard one of those seven Commissioners say, more than once in the course of conversation, that he should think it no particular misfortune if the Bodleian and its contents were totally destroyed. Nor do I feel called upon to incur the expense of reproducing in extenso the evidence on which the Commissioners based their recommendations. It may be sufficient to say that the following witnesses were in favour of the lending system, some with restrictions and some with hardly any:—the Rev. R. W. Browne; the Rev. R. Walker; the Rev. B. Jowett; the Rev. W. H. Cox; E. A. Freeman, Esq.; the Rev. H. Wall; the Rev. R. Congreve; Sir E. Head; N. S. Maskelyne, Esq.; and the Rev. J. Griffiths. It is not very easy to say whether Prof. H. H. Wilson and Dr. Greenhill did or did not belong to the lending party; but if they did, they proposed such restrictions as would materially lessen the evil. Prof. H. H. Vaughan (a most wordy person) wished to confine the right of borrowing to the Professors. Against lending were H. E. Strickland, Esq.; Prof. W. F. Donkin; the Rev. R. Scott; Travers Twiss, Esq.; Dr. Macbride; the Rev. E. S. Ffoulkes; and Dr. Phillimore: and I hope nobody will be offended if I say that knowledge of books and the way to use them is, as might be expected, very much more conspicuous in those who oppose lending than in those who advocate it. The Rev. R. W. Browne observes, that 'probably manuscripts and such books as are unable to be replaced should not be lent, because it would be quite worth the while of those who wished to consult them to visit the Library for that purpose.' It is not often that one meets with so cogent a piece of reasoning, and Mr. Browne's 'because' proves that he had studied Logic with considerable benefit; he also thinks that the system in the Public Library at Cambridge 'works well.' Another witness tells us that 'the experience of the Cambridge University Library, and of many foreign libraries, shews that this [i. e. lending under certain restrictions] can be done without danger, and with small loss compared to the immense benefit obtained by it.' Sir Edmund Head also admires the Göttingen and Cambridge plan, and avers that experience has proved that the risk of loss and damage is groundless. How different are these airy speculations from the hard facts of Mr. Bradshaw the Cambridge Librarian, of the Librarian of the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, and of Mr. Panizzi (see below, p. 50 sqq.); but then these gentlemen had the immense and perhaps unfair advantage of knowing what they were talking about.
In 1853 a Report and Evidence upon the recommendations of H. M.'s Commissioners was presented to the Heads of Houses. "The Committee think that the opportunity at present allowed for lending books in special cases, by permission of Convocation, is sufficient to meet extreme cases; and that it is unnecessary to give power to the Curators to lend books from the Library."
Dr. Pusey's evidence (p. 172) is that of a man who knows something of books, and he points out how very fallacious is Sir E. Head's reference to the Göttingen Library, which is altogether of a different character from the Bodleian. "In 1825 it consisted almost entirely of modern books, and whatever accessions it may since have had, it cannot, like the Bodleian, have any large proportion of books, which, if lost, could not be replaced." Dr. Pusey is strongly against lending Bodleian books; but how little of principle there was in his objection will be seen further on, where we shall find him more than once advocating loans. The Rev. C. Marriott is also, on very sensible grounds, against lending; yet it should in common fairness be known that he borrowed a most valuable manuscript out of Oriel College Library, and died with it in his possession. It was nearly sent to Africa by his executors, and was at last, together with other books, actually given (in all innocence of course) to Bradfield College, from which establishment Oriel at last retrieved it; so that in his case, as in that of Dr. Pusey, excellent principles were joined to very loose practice.