“Well, then, be good enough to select for yourself,” said I; “I’ll follow you.”
We entered one of the buildings. How I was surprised to see the crowd of officers and attendants! some anxious to direct and assist the still greater mass of visitors; others busily engaged in making out tickets and extracts for those scholars who had not time enough to do any such manual work themselves. I felt that this was an admirable school for young students, who were here able not only to gather a valuable knowledge of books, but also to form themselves into independent thinkers and writers.
Nineteenth-Century Books.
As I looked round, I saw one of the junior attendants engaged in gumming the leaves of a musty book on sheets of collodion, so that one side of the leaf remained at least legible. I remembered that this was the way in which the papyrus scrolls of Pompeii and Herculaneum were preserved from utter destruction; but how great was my astonishment to see that the title-page of the musty book bore the year mark 1860, Amsterdam. “So it is with most of the nineteenth-century books,” said Bacon. “Owing to the bleaching properties of chlorine, the paper on which they have been printed got so thin, and mouldy, and worm-eaten, that we have but few works of those days now left; and that is really to be regretted, for many writings of that time were quite worth preserving.”
I must confess that I was sorry to hear this little bit of information, so distressing to an author of that age; but, of course, I was silent, and kept on following my guide through rows and rows of apartments, until we arrived at last at a vast hall, literally crammed with books from top to bottom. There we paused, and Bacon turned round to address me. “Now we are among the literature of the two-winged insects; what work do you wish to see?” But staring at those thousands of volumes of treatises on gnats and flies, I was too much afraid again to betray my ignorance; I felt sure I would hit upon some title or other to convince my guide how little I was au courant of the twenty-first century. I limited myself to expressing my gratification at what I had already seen, and added that I would not trespass any further upon the obliging courtesy of my friend.
And thus we left the National Library, an institution which they might safely have called the bibliopolis, for indeed it was like a city of books.
As we passed once more through the front gate on our return, we came across a crowd of men who were about to enter, and whom I judged by their dress and appearance to belong to the class of artizans. I asked Bacon what business had those people there?
“These are workmen from a neighbouring factory,” answered he; “they come here in turns for an hour every day, in order to read in yonder room, especially set apart for them, such books as the library committee has judged to be adapted to their wants. Such workmen’s libraries exist in all the several quarters of the city, but they are most numerous in the densely populated districts where most factories are to be found.”
“And are they well frequented? And do employers allow their workmen to make use of them? And have they reduced their wages in consequence? Are they not afraid that their men will thus become too clever, too well educated?”